by Emily James
Scott gave a shrug-head shake combo. “Only me. He left everything to me.”
Given Scott had worked here undercover because he suspected we’d killed his father, he wasn’t a good suspect. The plans he’d had for his future were upended when they’d barely started.
Maybe that was it. “Did a lot of people know that you planned to come back after school and work in your dad’s business so that you could carry on even once he retired?”
“Only my parents and a few of my friends from school. Why?”
That meant that whoever killed Bob Jenner probably thought that the family would sell off his properties rather than continuing to maintain them. Mr. Jenner might have been appreciated and loved by the people he helped, but he likely wasn’t as popular among those who would have liked to take advantage of the people he helped. Someone also might have seen the prime real estate Mr. Jenner controlled—like our bakery—going to “waste” when it could have been earning so much more.
“What if someone killed your dad because they wanted to buy this property, and he wouldn’t sell it to them? It would explain the vandalism too. Making the neighborhood seem unsafe would motivate whoever inherited to sell more quickly and cheaply.”
Scott pulled out his cell phone. “The property isn’t listed with a Realtor. I didn’t plan to sell. If anyone wanted it, they probably spoke to Dad’s lawyer, and he turned them away.”
He tapped the button for speakerphone and set his phone on the table.
I recognized the receptionist’s voice and the hold music from when I’d tried to speak to Bob Jenner’s lawyer about contacting next of kin.
“Did you tell your lawyer not to give us your contact information?”
Scott dropped his gaze. “I called him right after I heard you and Claire talking about it. I didn’t want you knowing who I was.”
We’d been lucky that Scott was on our side. We’d taken him in without enough questions or enough care because he seemed honest and young and in need of a job. Had he been a mole for Edgar Serranno or someone else unethical, we would have been in trouble.
I’d always thought I was suspicious and paranoid and careful. Turned out I had a blind spot like everyone else. When I saw someone who seemed lost, I wanted to take them in.
The lawyer answered, and Scott explained what we were looking for.
“There was one inquiry,” the lawyer said. “Let me look it up for you in my notes.”
The sound of computer keys clicking filled the air. “Here it is. Edwardo Sharp. He’s called three times.”
“Did you write down the dates of those calls?”
More clicking. “They were all after your father passed. He wanted to know if the heir had decided what to do with the property yet. I told him you intended to keep it. As per your instructions, I didn’t give him your information.”
Scott and I exchanged a glance over the phone. Scott trying to hide from us might have saved his life if we were right. For all we knew, the man who wanted to buy the property was also the one who’d killed his father. Scott might have been next if he refused to sell too.
I mimed for Scott to mute his cell phone so that his lawyer couldn’t hear for a moment. “I think you should set up a meeting with Edwardo Sharp to talk about selling the property. It would give us a chance to meet him and see if he might be behind all this.”
Scott unmuted the phone without any hesitation. “I’ll need whatever phone number he left.”
17
I plated two cupcakes and handed them across to the woman who’d finished paying Scott at the register. “Are you sure you don’t mind staying to help Claire? I feel bad because we’re not paying you.”
“Send me home with another box of leftovers at the end of the day, and we’ll call it even.” He cast a smile in my direction. “I have a second date tonight, so I was going to buy a sampler anyway. I think an outdoor picnic with cupcakes and coffee is the perfect thing. It’s warm today.”
Based on the way he was grinning and trying not to, he had it bad. Hopefully the second date led to a third one. Not that I wasn’t grateful for his help. I was. But a young man like him needed friends his own age.
I turned for my office. “I shouldn’t be gone more than a few hours anyway.”
At least, that’s what Dan had said. He’d be picking me up any minute to drive me to a restaurant where he’d reserved a private room for me to meet with the prosecutor in the case against Janie’s former teacher, Ms. Glover. As hard as the prosecution had tried to build a solid case without my testimony, they hadn’t been able to.
So, for two hours today, I had to be Amy Miller. And because Amy Miller had an abusive husband who wanted to see her dead, Dan had decided it’d be safer to meet the prosecutor at a neutral location. If Jarrod were watching the prosecutor’s office, he wouldn’t see me enter. He also wouldn’t see her go someplace where a meeting of this kind would normally take place. The prosecutor would go to a restaurant, where Dan and I would already be waiting. That way, if Jarrod decided to wait and see if I showed up to meet with her, he’d never know I was there.
I slid into my desk chair and spread out the supply orders that I wanted to approve before I had to leave.
Two sharp raps came on my door frame. Dan was early. Time to face whatever the prosecutor had in store for me. Since she’d be prepping me to withstand cross-examination, it likely wouldn’t be a fun experience.
I forced the smile I always thought of as my soldier-going-to-war-smile, the smile of someone proud to be doing their duty, while simultaneously being scared and not wanting to let on to the people they cared about how scared they were.
I looked up. Flynn stood in the door where I’d expected to find Dan.
Flynn gestured behind him at the main part of the store. “The kid at the counter said I could come in.”
The “kid” at the counter wouldn’t have said that if he’d known who Flynn was.
I stood. “Didn’t you get my voicemail?”
“I got it.” Flynn came into the office and took the only other chair. “I still think it’s worth the risk if we can catch who did this, don’t you?”
On one hand, yes. We’d all be safer in the long-term once the police were able to arrest the person behind the murder and vandalism.
On the other hand, even if Flynn was able to identify someone, it didn’t guarantee an arrest. The police couldn’t charge a person for walking this street or even coming into my shop. Yes, it would confirm who was likely behind all this, but Scott didn’t think that was worth the risk. As the owner of this shop and my soon-to-be-landlord, I had to respect that even if he did look like a teenager.
I went back to my chair but stayed standing. Hopefully Flynn would see that my words and my body language matched. “I’m not the sole decision-maker here. It was a good idea, but we’re going to have to hope the video footage caught something.”
Flynn rubbed his hands slowly up and down the arm rests of the chair, a move that echoed what his father did when upset. “The thing is I was actually hoping this might turn into you hiring me.” He glanced back at the open door as if he was embarrassed to have anyone else hear him. “I tried to get a job in my field. No one will hire me because of my history. Now I just need a job, any job.”
That plea would have been hard enough to turn down if I hadn’t met and liked his father. How could I face Mr. Wendt again if I refused to help his son when I could?
And yet, now wasn’t the time, for more reasons than that we couldn’t have Flynn seen around the shop.
“We don’t have the money or shifts for another employee right now, but you’ll be the first person I’ll call when we do.”
Flynn’s eyebrows moved into a straight line, and his eyes hardened around the edges. He clearly thought it was a brush-off.
“I mean it,” I said. “Scott at the counter is only temporary, and we’ll need extra hands for the holiday rush, okay?”
Flynn’s smile returned, but it d
idn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, sure.”
I couldn’t really blame him for not believing me. Many of the people he’d interviewed with had probably made him similar promises just to get rid of him. A criminal record was never something employers went looking for. For many of them, the risk was too great. Even in a case like Flynn’s, where it’d been a drug possession charge rather than theft or a violent crime, employers probably worried about him being unreliable. He wouldn’t reach the point in the consideration process where potential employers checked his references and found out he was reliable even while on drugs. Many people had heard of functional alcoholics. I’d never heard of a functional drug addict, so it wasn’t surprising that Flynn was struggling for work.
I knew the challenges of trying to rebuild your life after you’d done something you regretted. Maybe there was something we could do to help in the future, but we couldn’t right now. I couldn’t let my blind spot allow me to make another potentially foolish decision.
I moved to the doorway. Hopefully he’d get the hint. Dan would be here any minute now.
Flynn swiveled in his chair but didn’t relinquish it. “What if I came in after hours and did janitorial work? No one would see me then.”
That was definitely a place where we could use help. Having someone come in and take care of the day’s mess would mean we could both get more sleep and focus on baking.
Dan appeared in the doorway. “Ready to go?”
I went back to my chair and grabbed my jacket. I turned to Flynn. He still wasn’t showing any signs of getting up. “I’ll talk to my business partner and see what we can do.”
Flynn glanced at Dan. I couldn’t see if Dan gave him a firm look or if Dan’s bearing said I’m a cop regardless of his plain clothes attire, but Flynn got to his feet.
“I appreciate you considering it,” Flynn said to me.
He ducked past us both and left. Hopefully Edgar Serranno didn’t have someone stationed to watch the shop 24/7. If he did, Flynn’s innocent drop by could cause us a lot more trouble.
The slight hold-up with Flynn meant that Dan and I didn’t have to wait long until the prosecuting attorney showed up at the restaurant. Watching her walk into the room felt like a force of nature had entered in a human body. She was probably fifteen years my senior with close-cropped silver hair and a look that could have been put together by a professional stylist.
Claire had chosen my clothes that morning. She’d put me in one of the outfits she’d bought for me when I’d had to suddenly move into her home to avoid a health code violation for living in my truck. I planned to let her pick out my outfit for the trial as well. Claire had a much better sense of what would give the right impression than I did. I definitely wanted the jury to see me as a reliable witness rather than as a woman who’d been essentially homeless and broke at the time when I’d stopped Janie’s teacher from killing her.
The prosecutor shook Dan’s hand first. “Always a pleasure, Detective Holmes.”
Her voice had more gravel in it than I was used to hearing from a woman.
She turned icy blue eyes on me. “I’m Anna Hall, and you must be Mrs. Miller.”
The name hit me like I shove. I flinched. It was like someone had stripped away everything I’d become in the past two years and sent me back to the shell of a person I’d been. I could almost hear Jarrod laughing at me, asking me why I thought I could ever get away.
“Well,” Anna tilted her head to one side, reminding me of an eagle surveying a rabbit, “there’s your first bit of homework. You can’t recoil every time the defense uses your name.”
I nodded. My voice had temporarily fled.
Anna gestured for us to take a seat. Dan pulled out my chair for me like some old-school gentleman. He settled his chair slightly closer to mine than was technically necessary. Not close enough to make anyone suspicious, but close enough that I felt like I had an ally. Technically, Anna Hall was my ally too, but today’s meeting was about preparing me. By the end, she’d likely feel like an enemy.
Anna’s penetrating gaze fell on me again. “That actually brings up the biggest challenge we’re going to face. You’re the key witness against Ms. Glover, and so the defense will try to discredit you in any way they can.”
My teeth clenched against my will. I had to do this. I had to do it for Janie and for every other child that Ms. Glover had hurt. As long as I stayed focused on my reason for doing this, I could make it through.
Anna pulled a small laptop out of her bag. “I need to make sure you’ve told me everything that could be used against you, so I can help you be ready for it when the defense drags it out to use as a weapon.”
She didn’t sound like she thought highly of defense attorneys. Based on what Nicole had told me about why she almost left her profession and why she only represents people she believes are innocent, Anna wasn’t far off the mark.
She was looking at me as if she expected me to start my list. What kinds of things did most people talk about? Not every crappy thing people did could be used to discredit them in court.
“I used to live in my truck,” I said. My words came out soft and choppy.
“What was that?”
I cleared my throat. “I used to live in my truck. I was homeless.”
She typed that into her laptop. “That shouldn’t cause us too much trouble. The fact that you now live at a permanent address and run a business suggests you have a hardworking, forthright character. You turned your life around. Besides, I assume they’d have trouble proving that?”
Dan shifted beside me. “It’d be next to impossible. I didn’t even realize at the time. Mrs. Miller didn’t share that information, for obvious reasons.”
Hearing Dan call me Mrs. Miller made my stomach feel queasy. Did the words taste as bad on his lips coming out?
“Next?” Anna prompted.
I hadn’t done anything else wrong. I even paid taxes, albeit through my incorporated business. I shook my head and shrugged.
She moved her laptop to the side so that there wasn’t a barrier between us anymore. “There’s no point in avoiding this. As I see it, our biggest potential problem is your husband. Detective Holmes has filled me in on the basics, but I need to know how vindictive he might be.”
How vindictive? How was I even supposed to answer that? I’d had to sneak out of the house with only what I could carry, and then I had to disappear. I’d become someone else. “He tried to kill me the first time he found me. He will kill me if he gets the opportunity.”
“That I already knew.” She looked at Dan and did this thing with her face where her entire expression seemed to lift in question. “I believe the police department is working on protection for you.”
“That’s correct,” Dan said.
She shifted back to face me. “So what I’m really asking is would your husband derive any personal benefit from perjuring himself to call into question your character?”
My mouth went so dry that I wished this had actually been a lunch date. At least then I would have had a glass of water.
Jarrod would have no problem getting on the stand and telling everyone that I was a liar. That I was unstable. Doing so would align with his purposes perfectly. If I ever tried to speak out about what he’d done to me, he’d have already testified in court, under oath, that I was a liar.
My lungs felt like they collapsed. I couldn’t get enough air. “The defense might call Jarrod as a character witness against me?”
Anna looked like she wanted to pat my hand but that she also knew coddling me now would only harm me later. “It’s a possibility we need to be ready for.”
18
“I have a problem.”
Claire stood just inside my office door. We weren’t technically closed for another twenty minutes, but we hadn’t had a customer for over half an hour. I’d taken the opportunity to brainstorm some new cupcake flavor ideas.
My mind was not in the right space for problems. At least, not for t
he kind that usually found us.
Claire’s face was pinched and her hands were on her hips, both sure signs that she was frustrated. “I forgot to pick up the antibiotic drops for my ear. If I don’t go right now, I won’t make it before they close.”
I felt like I should blink and shake my head to clear the cobwebs. That didn’t seem like a problem. A problem would be she’d found a stash of illegal weapons at the back of the freezer or rats in the pantry.
“I’m just so angry at myself for forgetting,” Claire said.
I got to my feet. “Go now.”
Claire’s gaze flickered between me and the door. “Dan doesn’t want us here alone after dark.”
Hence the problem. I should have seen that from the start.
But someone would have to be watching the shop constantly for this to be a problem. It wasn’t a pattern. One of us wasn’t routinely here alone.
“I’ll lock the doors as soon as you’re gone. You won’t be gone long, and I can start the clean-up.”
“I just don’t want to leave it another night.” Claire cringed and pressed a hand to her ear. “It’s getting worse.”
I’d known it was worse than she was letting on when she’d taken two hours off today to go to a last-minute doctor’s appointment.
“Go. You don’t want your eardrum to burst.”
Claire gave me a look that clearly said can that happen? I wasn’t sure, but I motioned for her to leave anyway.
I turned the lock the instant the door swished shut behind her. This time of night, with very little traffic on the roads, the pharmacy was only ten minutes away. Claire would easily make it, and she’d be back in less than half an hour. I could get the floors done by then.
I grabbed the broom and set to work.
A cold draft hit my legs, and I stopped. Even if the central heating had died, it shouldn’t be kicking out cold air. The draft seemed to be coming from the kitchen. Maybe we’d left the freezer open or one of us had accidentally bumped the thermostat from hot to cold?