I Have a Secret (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Three) by Cheryl Bradshaw Page A

thing about Nate was he didn’t care.  He wore it with a pair of acid-washed jeans and Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and practically started a new trend.  It could have been a shirt made of cellophane wrap—it didn’t matter.  If Nate wore it, everyone assumed it was cool, and the next week at school, a new fad was born, all thanks to The Natemeister.
    Nate lived on a ranch passed down to him by his parents when they retired and left to travel the world in their Winnebago.  Of course, once they moved out, he bulldozed the ranch-style home and replaced it with a shiny new bachelor pad that towered over all the other homes in the valley.  He was a lot of flash and flare all balled up into one giant kid who refused to grow up and face adulthood.
    The gate to the ranch was open when I arrived, but I still took a moment to admire the oversized letter N welded into the center.  A shiny silver BMW sat in the driveway with a dealer plate attached to the back window.  I parked beside it, and when I walked by, I noticed the driver’s side of the car was dented in like it had been in a recent collision.  Interesting.  Since he had the top down, I poked my head in and wasn’t surprised to discover a pair of black Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses on the dash.  Some things never changed.   
    I ascended the twenty-something steps to the second-story front entrance and rang the doorbell.  No answer.   I jiggled the handle.  Locked.  I walked back down the stairs and around the side of the house and spied a sliding glass door leading to the backyard.  It was open.  I peered in and saw no one, but what my eyes couldn’t make out, my nose made up for in the form of an overwhelming stench that smelled like a slaughtered cow. 
    I cupped my hand over my mouth, squeezed my nose with the other and yelled out, “Nate?  You here?”
    Silence.
    I stepped inside, and as I neared the kitchen, I located the cause of the odor.  Several packages of hamburger had been left out on the counter like he was preparing for a party, except it looked like they’d sat there for days.  They were brown, and dried blood had seeped out and was fused to both the packages and the countertop.  Wherever Nate was, it couldn’t have been anywhere near a smell like that. 
    I started to head out the door when something barked.  In the doorway down the hall, a cute little pug dog appeared.  It looked at me, turned around and vanished.  I followed.  When I reached the room the dog was in I was overtaken once again by an odor far worse than anything I’d ever smelled in my life.  I leaned my head inside the room and let out a scream that rivaled Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween .  Flattened on the master bed was the decomposing body of a man I wished was anyone other than Nate.  A knife protruded from his chest.  I took one baby step closer which proved to be a big mistake and then whipped my body around, fled outside and vomited into the hedges. 
    After it seemed everything was out of my system, I dialed 9-1-1.  The operator answered and I said, “There’s been a homicide.”
    I gave her the information and she gave me her usual spiel about how she wanted me to stay on the phone, but I’d done what I needed to, and I wasn’t going anywhere until police got there.  I hung up and dialed again.
    “I know, I know.  You’re mad at me for sending him down there,” a voice said on the other end.  “But before you say anything, you need to understand, I thought it was in your best interest.”
    “Maddie, I’m at a…there’s a dead body, and…”
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Slow down.  You’re with a dead body?  Did you kill someone?”
    “No.  I stopped by to see an old friend and I think he’s the dead guy.  I mean, from the five seconds I was in there I could tell the body had started to decompose, and I haven’t seen him in a long time, but who else could it be?  Once a detective gets here—assuming the town has a homicide