Stranded by Alice Sharpe Page B

the lamp. The only other furniture consisted of an old, upholstered chair close to a workbench fronted by a couple of square stools. There were some kind of supplies on the workbench that he couldn’t make out.
    As Lynda Summers seemed totally incapable of keeping a space this uncluttered, this had to be Billy’s hidey-hole. But hadn’t she claimed he used the shed as a place to store engine parts?
    Alex let the ivy close up behind him and walked back toward the house, determined to get a search warrant. Billy had liked written directions—maybe something on those cards would point to his killer.
    Once again he stood on the porch and knocked on the door. Looking through the front window proved fruitless as her junk blocked any view. He took out his cell and phoned her number. Listening closely, he heard a phone ring inside. The woman apparently wasn’t home.
    He hung up and stood there a second. The phone rang in his hand and he saw Dylan’s number flash on the screen.
    “I got them,” Dylan said, his voice excited.
    “Got who?”
    “The Cummings twins. I found a piece of torn clothing on their car. It looks like it could have come from Billy’s jacket. The whole bumper is a mess like they ran into something. They have no alibi. There are some pills in their glove box, too. I’m taking them in. The lab people and the techs are here. The car will be hauled in pretty soon.”
    “Wow,” Alex said, kind of shocked. “Good work. Did they say how or why they killed him?”
    “They say they’re innocent. They gave each other alibis that are worth about as much as a three-dollar bill. Listen, I’ve got to go, partner.” He hung up abruptly and Alex did the same.
    He needed to go downtown, but first he was going to stop by his house and make sure Jessica had set the alarms. He’d do it sneakylike, so she didn’t know he was checking up on her.
    Maybe they really had found out who had killed Billy. But Alex couldn’t shake the feeling that even if they had, there was more going on than met the eye....

Chapter Six
    Alex did his best to check his temper when he found the front-door alarm had not been set. For that matter, the door wasn’t even locked. He knew Jessica was home, because her car was in the driveway. He didn’t want to bark at her because she forgot the alarm, but such carelessness coming on top of a day like this one made his nerves twice as jumpy.
    “Jessica?” he called. Her things had been dumped on the chair and her shoes sat off to one side. He looked around the room, then called upstairs. “Jess?”
    Maybe she was in the kitchen. He started to walk to the dining room when the open patio door caught his eye and he veered that direction.
    He found her standing still as death in the yard, rain falling on her head, bare feet buried in the grass. By the looks of her hair, she’d been standing there a while. But it was what was all around her that shook his soul.
    Someone had ravaged the garden, butchering every plant and flower with what looked like unbridled rage. A million petals lay on the ground, on the paths, on the grass. Crushed, severed stems bent toward the earth, blossoms trampled into the mud. Limbs had been whacked off bushes, leaving raw, jagged edges. From what he could see, even small branches on trees had been bludgeoned. It looked like a giant whirring blade or an ogre with a vendetta had hacked every living thing. The overwhelming scent of devastated flora permeated the air in a sweet, decaying way that reminded him of a funeral.
    Jessica finally registered his presence and turned around to look at him. Her eyes were red, her cheeks tearstained, her lips trembled.
    He stood before her and she melted into his arms. Great, silent, heaving sobs shook her body as she cried against his neck and he tried to comfort her. If the maniac who did this appeared right that moment, Alex would have gladly beaten him to a pulp.
    “Who would do this to Billy’s flowers?” she finally managed