Insidious by Catherine Coulter

have to be a magician, would he not? He’d have to have slipped into two different restaurants unnoticed, and then the third time, into this house, and somehow put arsenic into my food or drink.
    “Yes, I can see from your faces that you’re wondering why I wanted to contact Rob. That’s easy enough—he’s my grandson and I’m getting older, and I wanted to see what sort of man he’d become. Then his email arrived and I decided fate had taken a hand.”
    Alexander shrugged. “Like fate would care about my worthless brother. I’ll bet old Rob leaped at the chance to ingratiate himself to you, didn’t he, Grandmother? He always was bad news, you know that, all of us do. People like that don’t change. Have you forgotten what he did? He should have gone to jail. I hope you won’t encourage him further. I, for one, have no interest in seeing him again. You shouldn’t either, Father.” Guthrie stared down at his Italian loafers. “He’s a criminal and a loser.” Alexander shot a look at Savich. “And he should be your top-running suspect.”
    Venus’s voice was like a soothing oil. “I knew you’d hardly approve, Alexander. But as I said, Rob has made quite a transformation. You’ll be surprised.”
    “I’ve actually heard of his girlfriend,” Hildi said. “Marsia Gay. She works in metals, very modern sculptures, mostly human figures. She’s considered something of a wunderkind, being so young.”
    Venus said, “I haven’t met her yet, but it seems it’s serious. And I haven’t had a granddaughter-in-law since you and Belinda divorced, Alexander.”She smiled over at Hildi. “It might be nice to have another artist in the family.”
    Hildi beamed back at her. “I always liked Rob. Such a vibrant boy, so full of promise. Such a shame what happened.”
    Glynis said, “I can’t wait to see Rob again. Do you know he kissed me once? We were seventeen, I remember, and even though I didn’t want to, I had to tell him to cut it out, we were first cousins, and kissing was against the law, or something. I know better now. Imagine, Rob’s not in jail or dead. That’s wonderful.”
    “You can tell Rob that yourself, Glynis,” Venus said. “I’ve just decided to invite him and his girlfriend to dinner tomorrow night. I expect all of you to be here and to welcome him home.”
    There was steel in her voice again. Savich had no doubt every single Rasmussen would be front and present. As for welcoming Rob home—who knew?

12
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    LOST HILLS SHERIFF’S STATION
    CALABASAS, CALIFORNIA
    TUESDAY MORNING
    Sheriff Dreyfus Murray had been notified by Special Agent Richard—Duke—Morgan, Criminal Division Unit chief, that one of Morgan’s people was coming from Washington to assist in the Serial case. Assist them, now that was a joke. A Fed was coming to take over the case, more like. He hadn’t been told a name. He spotted her the second she walked through the door. He could tell from twenty feet away that she was a looker, tall and fit, striding like she owned the world, and looking like she could outrun him when he’d been twenty. She was wearing dark blue pants, a tucked-in white shirt, a red blazer to cover her Glock, and black banged-up boots with a high shine.
    Then Dreyfus Murray did a double take.
    “Cammie, is that you, girl?”
    A smile bloomed. “Dreyfus! How lovely to see you.”
    He hugged her, then set her back, shaking his head. “Of course I knew you’d gone into the FBI, but—look at you, here you are, the bigfoot Fed sticking your nose in my business. What’s it been, three years since I last saw you?”
    Cam smiled. “Nah, I’m no bigfoot, my feet are princess-size. Well, maybe a nine isn’t all that small, but still, even my toes have nointention of wriggling under your tent. Yeah, about three years, it was Mom’s birthday and you brought her balloons and cupcakes. Speaking of Mom, after I told her I was coming, she laughed, said I should surprise you, and that’s why I