Death by Devotion (Book #9 in the Caribbean Murder Series) by Jaden Skye

pointing the finger at me?” Mattheus asked in a hollow tone.
    “Andrea’s
pointing the finger at you?” Cindy was outraged.
    “Yeah,
she said I came down here, gave her false hope and encouraged her. She said I
told her we’d definitely do something to get her and her mother out of this,”
Mattheus repeated.
    Cindy
felt her head swimming. “Did you, Mattheus? What did you say?”
    “I
didn’t mean it that way,” Mattheus suddenly wailed. “Yeah, I told her not to
give up hope and that there was definitely something we could do to help her.”
    “Did
she take it as encouragement to kill the guy?” Cindy was aghast. “She could
have. You don’t know who she is, or how she thinks, really.”
    “No,
I don’t, I don’t,” Mattheus was quickly becoming more and more devastated.
    Cindy
went over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, calm down,” she
said quietly. “We’ll find out more about her. I’ll get Sean to give me the
names of her friends.”
    Mattheus’s
neck snapped up. “Sean give them to you? Why him?”
    “Because
he’s our connection with the police,” said Cindy, matter of factly. “They have
to have that information.”
    Mattheus
jumped up from the sofa then. “Sean is your connection with the police,
not
    mine.
 He wouldn’t give me even one piece of information. I saw Petra walking into
see Andrea with a strange guy at her side.  I wanted to know who the guy was
and Sean wouldn’t tell me.”
    “Because
you could be a suspect, Mattheus,” Cindy said slowly. “Maybe the police think
you pushed Andrea to get rid of her stepfather; that she was doing your
bidding.”
    “Ridiculous,”
Mattheus yelped.
    “It
could look that way from a certain angle,” said Cindy.
    “Anything
could look anyway at all,” Mattheus retorted. “But what would be in it for me?
It doesn’t make sense.”
    “What
do you imagine they think could be in it for you, Mattheus?” Cindy kept after
it.
    Mattheus
took a long, slow breath, paused and considered. “Sean asked me if I’d had
fantasies about reuniting with Petra,” he said after a few moments.
    Cindy
bristled.  “Did you?”
    Mattheus
looked at her askance. “Absolutely not, never, not once.”
    “Do
they believe that?”
    “They’re
fishing for something to close the case fast,” Mattheus uttered.
    “Could
be true,” Cindy quickly agreed, letting her apprehension about Petra subside.  “When
I spoke with Sean about it, he told me that Cain was intimately connected with
the underworld here. He did a lot of their bidding, even from jail.  Plenty of
people could have wanted him out of the picture. The underworld could want a
lid on this case.”
    Mattheus
stood up swiftly. “When did Sean tell you that?”
    “I
had a meeting with him this morning,” said Cindy, “while you were at the jail.”
    “And
you never told me a thing about it? You set it up behind my back?” Mattheus’s
face flushed.
    “Hold
on a minute,” Cindy held her hand up. “I’m not exactly the enemy here.”
    “Why
didn’t you tell me about the meeting with Sean before you had it?” Mattheus
shot back.
    “I’m
telling you now,” said Cindy, “and besides, so what? I’m down here doing a job
the best way I know how. I have a right to meet with anyone I care to.”
    That
quieted Mattheus for a moment. “There’s something between the two of you,” he
muttered then.
    “Jesus
Christ, Mattheus,” Cindy turned on her heel. “This isn’t a time for you to get
crazy and jealous. It won’t work. It’s gonna get in the way.  Number one, we’re
not together anymore, remember? Number two, I’m working with the police here,
you’re not. Number three you have bigger things to worry about than whether or
not Sean and I are getting along. Much bigger. Not only is Andrea in trouble,
you are too!”
    Mattheus
fell back down on the couch then, as if the wind had been knocked out of him.
    “You’re
right, I’m sorry,” he