Grave Homecoming (A Maddie Graves Mystery Book 1) by Lily Harper Hart Page B

mean they had a future. That’s what Nick had to keep reminding himself. Maddie had never once insinuated that she had feelings for him. Oh, sure, she loved him – but it was just as a friend. Now, Nick had a question to ask himself: Was friendship enough?
    The truth was, he had no idea. He couldn’t focus on that right now. He had other things to ponder. First off? How had Maddie known Sarah Alden’s name?
    She claimed she’d heard it whispered in town, but when Nick questioned from where, she’d clammed up. Her answers had been vague, her memory suddenly faulty. From the woman who remembered the last turtle they’d snared together, Nick had his doubts. She was hiding something. He just didn’t know what.
    Nick stilled, his fingers poised over his computer keyboard. What he was about to do was a gross invasion of privacy. He was an ethical man, and yet he couldn’t stop himself. He typed her name into the search engine.
    He pressed his eyes together briefly when the information popped up on the screen, and then he tamped down his reservations. He had to know what she was hiding. If it was something they could overcome … .
    Nick sighed and focused on the screen. There was a lot to search through. Why would she have so much activity in a police database?
    Nick clicked on the oldest file and read the report from Officer Dwight Kincaid. He was with the Detroit Police Department, and had since been promoted to detective. His notes were terse, and hard to decipher, but he mentioned solving a hit-and-run with the help of a nurse at a local hospital. The report didn’t go into detail, and Nick was more lost when he was done reading than he had been when he started.
    Nick clicked on the next file, and then the next, and then the next. He wasted three hours going through the files. Maddie was listed as a consultant in each and every one.
    “Maddie,” Nick muttered. “How?”
    Nick rolled his neck, an audible “crack” filling the room. There wasn’t enough in the files to give him something to go on. He had to dig further. He had to … know. Nick reached for the phone on his desk and punched in the number in the files. He waited for someone to pick up.
    “Detective Kincaid.”
    Nick sucked in a breath. Part of him hadn’t expected the man to answer. “Um, hi. My name is Nick Winters. I’m a detective with the Blackstone Bay Police Department.”
    “Isn’t that up by Traverse City?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s a beautiful area,” Kincaid said. “What can I do to help you?’
    “I … um … this is going to sound weird,” Nick said, unsure.
    “I live in Detroit,” Kincaid said. “Everything in this city is weird.”
    Nick hadn’t really thought about how he was going to broach the subject of Maddie’s appearance in the files before he made the call. Now he had no choice but to make up a lie on the fly. “We had a homicide here the other day,” he said. “A local woman found the body. Well, she used to be a local woman, and she just moved back to the area, so I guess she’s local again … .”
    “I have a lot of files on my desk to clear before I leave for the day,” Kincaid said. “Can you get to the point?”
    Nick pursed his lips. “We’re just doing some routine checks,” he said. “When I ran the woman who found the body through our search engines, I found her in a lot of your files.”
    “Who are we talking about?”
    “Maddie … Madeline … Graves.”
    Nick heard the detective suck in a breath. “Is she in trouble?”
    “So, you do know her?”
    “I know her,” Kincaid said. “Is she in trouble?”
    “Are you asking if she’s a suspect in the murder?”
    “I’m asking if she’s in trouble,” Kincaid said. “I can be up there in … two days … if she is. You can’t question her without an attorney.”
    Nick was floored. Since when does a cop tell another cop not to question a suspect? “She’s not a suspect,” Nick said. “I just want to know why she’s in so