Home Sweet Homicide: A Cozy Mystery (A Gemma Stone Murder Mystery Book 5) Read Online Free

didn’t appear to be but then Ross was a cop all the way to the bone.
    Gemma’s first instinct was to comfort him but she held back. She caught a whiff of his scent, rich like coffee and slightly woodsy. It reminded her of the times they had been together.
    “I won’t be able to work this case,” Ross finally said. “I was...close...to the victim.”
    The way he said it made Gemma think that he wasn’t that close at all, but she had seen him leave her house with Katie Mack on Valentine’s Day. More than one person had told her they’d seen them together around town, out to dinner or at the movies. Knowing Katie, she wouldn’t have let Ross go until she was finished with him.
    “Someone from Harrisonburg PD is coming, then?” Mitch asked.
    Ross nodded. “Probably. I don’t like handing over my cases to someone else, but I don’t have any choice. I’ve already contacted the Chief. They’ll send someone down within the hour.”
    Over Ross’s shoulder, Gemma saw the gurney being rolled across the porch and carefully moved down the steps to the coroner’s van. The body bag was no longer folded up. At the same time, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw Nick Leonard dodging through traffic and around the every growing crowd of people as he headed in their direction.
    This was the first time she’d seen him since he’d broken up with her on Valentine’s Day as well.  Gemma had been dreading the moment when she ran into one of them or saw them with someone else. Now here she was, face to face with both of them at the same time under almost unbearable circumstances.
    Nick bounded up onto the porch and headed in their direction, his boyishly handsome face filled with concern. His gaze flicked from Gemma to Ross and then to Holly and Mitch.
    “Gemma, are you okay?” he asked, only a little breathless.
    His dark brown hair was windblown and he wore his usual outfit of khakis and a dress shirt.  He reached out as if to touch her, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he grabbed his trusty pen and notepad out of his back pocket.
    Gemma nodded. “I’m okay.”
    But she wasn’t okay. She had no idea whether Nick was dating someone or not but the tension between the three of them was so thick, she could almost see it. Both men she cared about were within arm’s length and she couldn’t bring herself to touch either one of them.
    “I heard it on the scanner at the office,” he explained. “What happened?”
    “Gemma and Holly had an appointment with Katie Mack to look at houses today. They found Katie hanging in the master bedroom closet,” Mitch told him.
    “Suicide?”
    Ross shook his head slowly back and forth. “We’ll have to wait for the full coroner’s report, but he saw bruising that wasn’t consistent with suicide.”
    “Any thoughts?” Nick asked.
    Gemma knew he already had a headline and the first paragraph of his newspaper story in his head.
    “I can’t say anything else. I won’t be handling the case,” Ross told him.
    Nick gave him a quizzical look but said nothing.
    “And you might want to sit on that story until tomorrow,” Ross added.
    “I will,” Nick promised. “I’ll definitely wait until after Biggs does the autopsy.”
    “Excuse me, sir.”
    Both Ross and Nick turned to look at young Officer Milken standing behind them.
    “Sirs,” he amended and Gemma saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed quickly. “I need to get a statement from the ladies.”
    Ross simply turned and walked away. Nick followed.
    “I need to question you separately,” he said, leading Gemma toward the front door. “If you’ll just come with me.”
    “Not in there,” she said, glancing at the horrified look on Holly’s face. “Can we go somewhere else?”
    “Sure,” he said with a little smile. “Let’s just go out by the cruiser.”
    Once they were out in the yard and a bit further away from the house, some of the heaviness eased out of Gemma’s shoulders.