St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

reproduction.”
    “What was his secret?”
    “Rape and murder. Murder the men and boys, impregnate the women and girls, and move on. If the accounts passed down can be believed, he was, um, tireless on more than the battlefield.”
    Dan’s eyebrows lifted. “The things I learn hanging around with a naïve genealogist.”
    “Naïve?”
    “Beautiful. Did I mention beautiful?”
    “Now I know that bullet caused brain damage.”
    Before Dan could retort, he felt the brush of her lips against his temple. Distracting. Very distracting.
    “Candidates,” he said out loud. “What other requirements would they need beyond dying or disappearing or—honey, if you keep breathing in my ear, you’re going to be in my lap real quick, and I’m going to be in yours real deep.”
    Carly straightened and stepped back from temptation. “Candidates. Um, age, death. Got that.” She blew out a breath. “What about height, eye color, that sort of thing?”
    “Give me a minute.”
    She went to her own computer, booted up the family pictures and descriptions, and brooded over them. A.J. IV had black hair like the Senator and dark eyes like his mother. Josh had black hair and blue eyes, a complete senatorial copy. Liza had blond hair and dark eyes. The sister who had died of polio at nine had brown hair and blue eyes. Diana Duran had black hair and dark eyes. Dan had dark hair and the most amazing green eyes…
    Don’t even start.
    Carly jerked her mind back to phenotypes. There certainly was a variety to choose from. Everything from black hair and dark eyes to blond and blue-eyed. No help at all.
    So she began thinking about why Pete and Melissa had to die. Who benefited?
    Their children, probably, but they were grown and living out of state.
    Carly’s mind returned to the intriguing idea of an identity switch. Certainly the Senator must have known. Did he do it willingly, just to have his own genetic son inherit the land and the power, or did the impostor have something to hold over the Senator?
    Something like incest?
    Murder?
    Not that Sylvia had died, but she certainly had been a victim of assault.
    Carly pulled over a yellow pad and began thinking on paper. Who certainly knew about the incest. Who might have known. Who was still alive in the present that might threaten the governor—if indeed he was an impostor.
    The Senator and Liza certainly knew. Given Liza’s instability, she might have told or hinted to her best friend that her father had raped her. Probably more than one rape. She started going wild at thirteen but didn’t have Diana until she was sixteen. Of course, it could have been one of Liza’s boyfriends or tricks that impregnated her. As soon as Genedyne finished the test series, they would know if Diana had the Senator’s Y-DNA. Until then, it was an assumption that fit the circumstances and memories of the living.
    Carly circled the Senator’s and Liza’s names. Obviously Liza could have been blackmailing the Senator—probably was, one way or another—but Liza died a long time ago and Pete and Melissa had just died, so to connect them through blackmail was a stretch.
    Susan.
    Susan Mullins, grandmother of Melissa Moore. She’d died a long time ago, too.
    With Liza.
    Carly felt the sizzle of energy that came when she was working a promising genealogical trail.
    If Susan knew, she could have told her daughter or her son—or even the Sneads, who might or might not be the Senator’s grandsons.
    Wonder if they would agree to sending cheek swabs to Genedyne.
    If the daughter—what was her name, Letty, Kitty, Betty? That was it, Betty. If Betty knew, she could have told her own daughter, Melissa.
    Carly drew lines of genetic connection and lines of circumstantial and geographic connection. Nothing impossible so far. Everything could have happened. That didn’t prove everything did happen. That was why courts were iffy on the subject of circumstantial evidence.
    She looked up and saw Dan watching her. “What?” she asked.
    “Just enjoying watching another analytical mind at work.”
    “Fanciful is more like it, at least on my end.” She wound a strand of hair around her finger and made a sound of disgust. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”
    “What was?”
    “It’s too convoluted and loopy to explain.”
    “Trust me. I have a very convoluted and loopy mind.”
    Carly hesitated. “You’re going to laugh.”
    “No. At this stage in the investigation, nothing is so far-fetched that