Page 72 of Wham Line

“What gun?”Jethro asked.“I didn’t have a gun.I never touched a gun.”

“Your key,” Nalini said.

Jethro said one of those words that would have made Cheri-Ann run for the Old English.“My key!I lost my key that night.Or I thought I lost it.I had to ask Cheri-Ann to make me a new one.”

“Why all the sneaking around?”I asked.“Why not come forward with your alibi?Why try to hide any of this?You’re both adults.Oh my God, Nalini, you’re not married, are you?”

Jethro goggled at me.

Nalini stared daggers.

Bobby cocked his head.

“I don’t know,” I snapped.“I’m brainstorming, and there are no bad ideas in brainstorming.”

“My parents are very strict,” Nalini said.“I’m not allowed to date.That’s why I have to be so reserved in my behavior around men.”

This time, I couldn’t look at Bobby.

I couldn’t look at anyone.

I had to silently count to ten and try not to think about Nalini and Keme, or Nalini and Mal, or Nalini and any warm-bodied adult male who happened to get within range of her tractor beam.

(Please don’t tell Bobby I said that; he knows I’m a nerd, but sometimes, evenIthink it might be too much.)

On the other hand, a detached voice observed in my head, the plus side is that Millie isn’t going to murder her now.

I glanced at Bobby.

“Did Sparkie know you were Mal’s son?”he asked.

Jethro dropped his gaze to the floor.“Um, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”I asked—with a definite tone.

“Maybe?”

“Jethro!”

“I don’t know!I mean, she came to Mal’s office a lot.She liked to talk—not just to me, I mean, but to everybody.After the first few visits, something seemed a little different.I caught her looking at me a couple of times.”

Nalini hissed.She must have done something with her nails because Jethro flinched and patted the hand holding his arm soothingly.

“Not—not like that.Like—I don’t know.I guess like she was actually seeing me, instead of treating me like another assistant who would be gone in a few months.”

It made a certain sense that Sparkie might have recognized the similarities.She had, after all, been married to Mal.And maybe, like Indira, at one point, she had even wondered if there would be a child.

Was that what she had meant when she’d told Larry she knew who the killer was?Had she recognized Jethro and assumed he had done it, for revenge or gain or some other reason?

“She didn’t ever say anything to you about it?”Bobby asked.“She never brought it up?”

Jethro shook his head.

“What about after Mal’s death?”I asked.“Did she talk to you?Check on you?Make sure you were okay?”

Frowning, Jethro gave a slower shake of his head.“Nothing like that.She just sent me that picture.”

“What picture?”