“Well, if there’s nothing else we can do…” Her shirt went flying, followed by her bra.

“I’m a handyman and you’re a nurse. We’re not the police.” His shorts joined her shirt on the floor, and then they tumbled to her bed. “Now, if they needed something repaired…or if someone needed a vaccine…”

“Then we’d be there for them. But they don’t. And…”

“And we’ve got to pass the time somehow.”

“Right!” She pulled the covers up over both of them and gasped with delight as he suckled her breasts.

“Or the minutes will just drag by…”

“And we can’t have that!”

“Damn, you’ve got the best rack I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s so romantic,” she sighed. “Ooooh, don’t stop. That’s wonderful.”

“And your ass isn’t bad, either.”

“Turner, maybe you shouldn’t talk while we do this.”

He laughed, then abruptly sobered, which was startling. “Do you think we should be enjoying this? I mean…someone’s dead.”

“Yeah, but what can we do? I think we just established that we’re mere observers.”

“Good point.” His hand slipped between her legs, and she wriggled against him. “Oh, God, you feel so sweet…”

“Just wait,” she promised him. “I’ll—”

There was an abrupt knock at the door, and they both froze.

“Hey in there!” Corinne called. “Let us in!”

“Fuck,” Turner swore.

“No, we’d better not,” Caro said, then called, “Just a minute!”

“Where’d you put my shorts?”

“Where’d you put my bra?”

Twenty seconds later, she was pulling the door open. “What?”

“Ha!” Corinne crowed, instantly analyzing their flushed faces.

“Shut up and come in already. What is it?”

“Terribly sorry to interrupt,” Grant said, looking embarrassed. “But Corinne had some thoughts…”

“So?” Caro asked rudely.

“Well, there’s a couple of things,” Corinne said, kicking Caro’s bra out of her way, marching across the room, and sitting on the bed. “Anna said she was stuck in town, right? And she said her cell phone doesn’t work?”

“Right. So…?”

“But ours does. We just called the locals, like five minutes ago.”

“Well, maybe she’s got a different service than we do…,” Turner said doubtfully.

“Right, anything’s possible, but that did get me thinking. If she lied about her cell, maybe she lied about being stuck in town. And if she hasn’t been stuck in town, what’s she been doing?”

Caro’s mouth popped open. She had just flashed back to seeing Anna standing outside her door, with wet hair and bare feet. And…there was something else, wasn’t there? Something…

“She’s tall,” Caro said slowly. “But Dana’s short. I remember being surprised when I saw Anna, because I hardly ever meet women as tall as me. But Turner got hit in a bad place…low, almost on the back of the neck. Dana would have had to swing up…but Anna’s a big girl. She wouldn’t have had any trouble conking him a good one.”

Comprehension dawned on Turner’s face. “So Anna went down to the boathouse, to prevent us from getting the body. And she probably took the bloody candlestick, too. But that means Dana…”

“Dana’s been in her room the whole time,” Caro said, feeling a definite chill race down her back. Bad enough the killer was in the house with them, but knowing Anna was scuttling around, covering things up for the killer and lying herself black in the face…that was fucking creepy. “Anna never went to town. She’s been here all along, covering up for her…protecting her…”

“Because she didn’t know Dana had confessed!” Corinne finished triumphantly. “That’s why she looked so totally poleaxed earlier. Not because she was shocked about the murder…she was shocked that Dana had told us she was the killer! It made all the crap she’s been doing totally unnecessary. No wonder she looked sick!”

“But…why?” Grant asked.

“Well,” Corinne said, “let’s go ask her.”