Remote Consequences by Kerri Nelson

mayor's wife. She swung back and forth on the porch swing and she didn't look happy. In fact, if I could use one word to describe her expression it was: murderous.
     
    *  *  *
     
    Twenty minutes later, we were home, and Paget was awake and alert in her room, singing along with the music on her iPod. Dr. C. had given it to her for Christmas last year, and she kept the earbuds in almost all the time now. Of course, she didn't always have them hooked up to the unit itself, but she liked the way the ear buds blocked out the yelling. Or so she said.
    I couldn't stop thinking about the police search ongoing over at Sugar Pines. I wondered what had happened when Ty found the body.
    I wondered if it was a murder? Murder? This was the first time the word had really sunk into my mind. Sure, it didn't look good that a body was in the mayor's house. But what if it had truly been some kind of accident? What if there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for a body…in a freezer…in the attic? Ms. Lanier had been right. This was a job for a real man. If we couldn't get one of the guys from CSI , maybe Colin Brooks would be the answer.
    Where to begin? I searched my brain for possible suspects as I started a load of laundry. Getting myself into a domesticated state of mind wasn't easy for me. I'd spent so many hours at work back at school that I rarely did laundry anymore. How odd was that? Living in scrubs day in and day out, there'd been little need for a civilian wardrobe. I needed to go shopping.
    But the thought of shopping pained me. I hated shopping. I hated the hustle and the bustle and the whole shopping atmosphere. Maybe I could just do some shopping online. The thought appealed to me immensely.
    So after I had the laundry sorted and chugging away in the laundry room off the kitchen, I peeked in on Paget for the tenth time in less than an hour. Still in her room. Still singing.
    I padded down the hallway to the living room. Pickles eyed me from the sofa.
    "Fine. You can have the sofa. I'll sit at the desk."
    That dog ran the house. If only he paid the bills. I gave him a quick ear rub as I slid my laptop off the coffee table and settled in the desk chair nearby. I used my toes to push the rolling chair to the window and looked out on the yard. Small tufts of grass protruded from the cracks in the sidewalk. A sea of dandelions covered the lion's share of the lawn. I'd always liked them. They were cute and soft and delicate. But they were weeds. And they spread like wildfire.
    Yep, the grass needed cutting. Something else to add to my growing list of things to be done.
    One, do the laundry. Two, find some clothes to buy online so that I didn't have to wear jeans and tank tops every single day. Three, hire someone to cut the grass. Four, try to keep sister in the house for the rest of the night. Five, get ready for Colin to drop by at eight. A small flicker of some emotion I couldn't define hit my belly at the thought of the new mystery man in my life. Was it fear? Was it excitement? Maybe just the thought of embarking on some sort of wayward adventure with him had me feeling giddy. God knows I needed some sort of distraction in my life. I didn't know if becoming a sleuth was what I needed, but somewhere between wearing a cocktail on my head and facing off with my first love today, I'd decided to give it a go.
    At least Colin didn't have a past with me. He didn't insist on bringing up old grudges and ridiculously petty arguments that had absolutely no place in the current moment. He was someone new with a past all his own. The only question was, what was his past? Was he really a spy?
    He hadn't said the word, but he'd alluded to it.
    Could my life be any stranger right now?
    I fired up the laptop and waited for it to boot up.
     
    *  *  *
     
    Two hours later and I'd not purchased any new clothes. Instead, I'd been researching the Brooks family. I'd found no mention of Colin. In fact, the only possible mention of him was in