by Lena Gregory
“Sure thing,” Captain Hayes answered. “Not like your ex was poisoned.”
Gia swallowed her anger—knowing full well it would burn a hole in her gut all night—and watched him strut toward the back of the café.
“Ignore him, Gia.” Savannah followed her to the row of coffee pots behind the counter, then slid onto a stool while Gia started a fresh pot. “He’s not worth getting your knickers in a twist over.”
Gia just shook her head. “Would you like a cup?”
“Sure, thanks.”
After starting all the coffee pots, Gia busied herself lining up mugs and setting out milk, creamers, and sugar on the counter. When she was done, and the coffee still wasn’t ready, she filled a platter with muffins and set it beside the mugs.
“You okay?” She’d managed to wait longer than Gia had expected.
“I’m fine.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
“Like what? How I murdered Bradley and disposed of him in a dumpster?” She couldn’t help the note of anger in her voice. Not that any of this was Savannah’s fault—if anything, she’d saved her from a worse interrogation by showing up when she did—but Gia had been so sure she’d left Bradley and all his problems behind, and now here she was, saddled with them all over again.
“Shh…” Savannah looked over her shoulder at the police officers still lingering around the shop, then leaned across the counter. “Keep your voice down. You can’t say things like that, joking or not. Especially not with Hayes lurking around.”
Gia wiped the crumbs from her hands onto a dish towel and tossed it into a bin beneath the counter, then clasped her hands together and rested her elbows on the counter while she waited for the coffee. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe any of this happened.” Her voice hitched, and she struggled for control. “I thought it was finally over. All I wanted to do was move on, open my café and be successful, enjoy my little house. I don’t understand what I did to deserve all of this.”
There it was. The sentiment seemed selfish and cold, especially because Bradley was lying dead out back, but what could she say? Most likely, he’d brought that on himself. She wouldn’t lie to Savannah, nor to herself. It wasn’t fair. In life, Bradley had taken almost everything from her, including her dignity, and now in death it seemed he might finish the job. While she could never hate him, or wish anything bad on him, she had finally accepted the need to have him out of her life.
“All you did was trust the wrong person.” Savannah laid a warm hand over Gia’s. “Coffee’s ready, and your hands are like ice. Why don’t you get a cup? Have you eaten anything today?”
Gia stood. “Not really. With Maybelle proving pretty much useless, I was in back all day. Oh, I meant to ask you, what was up with you and Maybelle this morning? It seemed like something was going on when I walked into the kitchen.”
Savannah waved it off. “No big deal. She’s just lazy…” She grinned. “And she didn’t like hearing it.”
“Maybe she’ll get better.” She didn’t really think so, but the thought of hiring someone new didn’t really appeal considering the added stress she’d just been dealt.
Savannah rolled her eyes but refrained from any sarcastic comments.
The chocolate chocolate-chip muffin had been calling to her all day, but her stomach roiled at the thought of food, so she settled for a cup of coffee instead. She set two pots out on trivets on the counter for the officers and left the others warming. “Can you let Hunt know the coffee’s ready if anyone wants some? And there are muffins.”
“Sure.” Savannah crossed the shop and talked to Hunt, then returned. “Come on. As soon as you finish your coffee, I’ll drive you home. I can pick you up in the morning and drive you back.”
Gia had left her cell phone on the table. She’d have to find a store and replace it, or at least see if they could fix the screen. “What time is it?”
Savannah took her cell phone out of her purse and hit the button. “Almost midnight.”
Hunt poured himself a mug of coffee, then lifted it toward her. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She sipped her coffee. “Thanks anyway, Savannah, but there’s not much sense making the twenty-minute drive home only to come back in a few hours. I’ll just crash in the apartment upstairs again.” At this rate, she’d never get to sleep in her own house.
“Nah, it’ll only take ten, maybe fifteen minutes to get there at this time of night with no one on the roads.”
“That’s all right. I’m going to have to go find grits somewhere between now and five o’clock too.”
Savannah laughed. “This isn’t New York, honey.”
“Great, now I’m going to have to start another morning without grits.” Hopefully, Earl wouldn’t come back in until after she could get to the store. Of course, she couldn’t leave the shop to go anywhere with Maybelle running the kitchen. A dull throb started at her temples.
Hunt chose a blueberry muffin and plopped it on a napkin. “I wouldn’t worry too much about getting back in the morning. You won’t be able to open anyway.”
Captain Hayes moved up beside him, turned over a mug, and lifted a coffee pot.
Savannah sat up straighter on her stool.
“What do you mean, I won’t be able to open?” Gia asked.
Hayes tilted his head and stared at her as if she were daft. “We’re in the middle of a murder investigation.”
“So?” All right, so that came out a little snippy. Or maybe even a lot snippy. But she couldn’t help it. She was at the end of her rope.
He raised a brow. “So, we won’t be finished in time for you to open.”
“When will I be able to open again?”
The pot still hovered over the captain’s mug. “That, Ms. Morelli, depends entirely on what we find, but I’d suggest you don’t leave town.”
So much for going home.
Chapter 5
“Thanks for driving me home, Savannah.”
“No problem. Just give a call if you need anything. I’ll come get you and drive you back as soon as they say you can take your car out of the lot.”
Gia pushed the door open and started to climb out.
Savannah grabbed her hand. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“I’ll be fine. All I want right now is a hot bath and my warm bed.” And to find out what the heck Bradley had been doing in Florida, but she’d keep that to herself for the moment. She squeezed Savannah’s hand before turning away.
Who’d have thought she’d be freezing in Florida? But the chill that had gripped her earlier wouldn’t let go. Just like during winter in New York, the cold permeated all the way to her bones.
She ran up the walkway, thankful for Savannah’s headlights lighting her path. She’d left lights burning on the front porch and above the garage, but the little puddles of light they emitted didn’t do much to fight back the intense darkness. Funny, when she’d been there with Savannah during the day—was it only yesterday?—she hadn’t noticed the lack of streetlights in the development.
Of course, she’d been fixated on her house at the time, hadn’t been able to tear her gaze from the Spanish style ranch she couldn’t believe was really hers. The cream-colored stucco and scalloped terra cotta tile roof she’d fallen in love with in the pictures Savannah had sent was even more beautiful in person.
She fit the key into the lock, opened the door, and flipped on the foyer light, then waved to Savannah before closing the door and turning the deadbolt. The light shining into the front windows disappeared as Savannah pulled out of the driveway, leaving the living room bathed mostly in darkness. She stood with her back against the front door, keys still dangling from her hand.
Silence descended.
What in the world was a girl from New York City doing in the middle of the forest?
&nb
sp; A click startled her.
The soft hum of the refrigerator followed, and she sagged against the door.
She needed to get a grip. The police would find out who killed Bradley. Probably. Once they did, she could decide if she should go home and try to put her life back together, or stay in Florida and try to make a new life for herself. If her first day was any indication, maybe Florida wasn’t right for her.
She shoved away from the door and flipped on the light switch in the living room, then skirted a mountain of boxes as she made her way to the kitchen. Savannah had overseen the movers, making sure the bigger furniture was in place, but they’d left piles of boxes everywhere. She’d have to move all of them into the two spare bedrooms until she could sort through them.
After switching on the kitchen light, she simply stood in the doorway, staring at the boxes marked Kitchen scattered throughout the room. No way was she starting a search for her teapot tonight. It would have to wait for tomorrow.
As would the phone calls she needed to make to New York to try to find out what had been important enough to make Bradley leave town while out on bail and travel over a thousand miles to the small town of Boggy Creek. Of course, she could leave that to the police, but if Captain Hayes’s attitude was any indication, they might not try too hard to figure it out. For now, though… She’d had all she could take. Somehow she had to shut her mind down for a few hours at least. She couldn’t do anything before morning anyway.
Leaving all the lights on, she dropped her purse and keys on the counter and headed for the bathroom. Thankfully, only four boxes had been marked Bathroom, and they all sat in one corner. She started the tub, then dug through the boxes in search of bubble bath and towels. Maybe luck was finally with her, since she found them in the first two boxes. She poured some eucalyptus bubble bath into the tub. She’d never tried it before, but the bottle said stress relief, so it certainly couldn’t hurt.
The minty fragrance filled the bathroom, and she inhaled deeply. Hmm… Maybe the bottle was right. She pulled the door shut behind her to keep the steam in, then grabbed pajamas from the suitcase on her bed. They were the same ones she’d slept in last night, but who cared? It was better than searching through boxes for something clean.
A loud crash shattered the silence.
Gia dropped her pajamas. Where was her cell phone? She patted her pockets but came up empty. Her purse. She’d thrown it in her purse before she’d left the shop. And her purse was in the kitchen. Even though the house was small, the kitchen seemed a million miles away. She looked around for something she could use as a makeshift weapon and saw her cordless phone sitting on its base on the nightstand.
Oh, thank you, Savannah!
She grabbed it and punched in 911, then waited in the silence.
Silence. Except for the sound of the bath water running, complete silence enveloped her. Having lived her whole life smack in the middle of New York City, silence was a new concept. One she wasn’t sure she liked.
“911. What is your emergency?”
She jumped, startled by the voice in her ear. What was she doing? This was ridiculous. She couldn’t call 911 every time she heard a noise.
“Hello?”
She was living on the outskirts of a forest. Certainly there were animals that made noise. What had Savannah said? Bears? Bears were big. They probably made a lot of noise. She swallowed the lump clogging her throat and hit the button to end the call.
That was it. Since she couldn’t open the shop anyway, first thing on tomorrow’s to-do list was go to the shelter and pick out a dog. A big dog. She clutched the phone and started down the hallway. She’d just double check everything was locked, then go take her bath.
She could tell from the kitchen doorway the deadbolt on the back door was turned, but she crossed the room and checked it anyway. Maybe she’d dig out the teapot after all. Not like she had to get up early for anything. A warm bath, a pot of tea, and her new book. Sounded like the perfect night.
Three heavy thuds stopped her short. The phone slid out of her sweat-soaked hand and hit the tile floor with a crack. She scrambled to pick it back up.
The thuds came again. “Police! Open the door.”
Oh, boy. As she ran toward the front door, blue and red light bathed the living room. She might have noticed that sooner if she hadn’t left every light in the house blazing. She peeked out the window beside the door—she was going to have to get curtains up—and found Detective Quinn standing on her front porch, his expression hard.
She flung open the front door. “What happened now?”
He frowned. “We got a 911 call from this address. Is something wrong?”
Heat flared in her cheeks. “I…um…” She swallowed hard.
He waited.
Her heart still hammered painfully. “You scared me half to death. Why didn’t you just ring the bell?”
“There isn’t one.”
She peeked around the doorjamb, and sure enough, no doorbell. She ignored his smirk. “Oh, fine. I heard a noise and called the police, then realized how foolish I was acting and hung up.”
He raked a hand through his hair, then propped it on his hip. “For future reference, when you call 911 and hang up, the call has to be investigated anyway.”
“Sorry you had to come all the way out here.” Wait a minute. Detectives didn’t answer 911 calls. At least, in New York they didn’t. Here, who knew? Besides, she’d only called a few minutes ago. “How did you get here so fast?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
She tamped down her annoyance. He obviously wasn’t going to answer her question, and there was no sense standing in the doorway all night. Bugs were getting in. She stepped back and ushered him in, then closed the door behind him. “Do you always hang out all the way out here in the middle of the night?”
“Only when dead bodies turn up in dumpsters behind shops belonging to residents.”
Touché. She led him past the stacks of boxes to the kitchen. Thankfully, the table and chairs had been set up. “Have a seat. Umm…
She looked around at the mess of boxes. “If you give me a minute, I think I can probably find the coffee pot here somewhere.”
He waved her off and gestured to the seat across from him. “Sit down. We have to talk.”
Great. What now?
“Ms. Morelli—”
“Gia.”
A semi-smile finally softened his expression. “Gia. Your garage window’s been broken from the outside. Do you know how that happened?”
Fear returned with a vengeance. “No. Savannah had the movers put boxes and stuff in the garage, so I haven’t even bothered going in there.”
He nodded and wrote something down in his notebook, then leaned back in the chair, tapped the pen against his full lips, and studied her. “It seems you might be a bit wealthier than you let on this afternoon.”
Her insides went numb. “What are you talking about?”
Though still draped casually on her kitchen chair, the intensity in his eyes didn’t lessen. If anything, suspicion darkened them even more. “When we were discussing the possibility of a paid hit on your husband—”
“Ex.”
“Ex-husband,” he conceded. “Savannah implied you had no money left, but you never actually got a chance to answer the question before we were interrupted. So, assuming Savannah might not be fully aware of your financial situation, I’m going to give you a chance to answer for yourself.”
“Look, Detective, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can assure you, I am far from wealthy.” Truth be told, she was swimming in debt. Her divorce agreement and nest egg had allowed her to open the café and buy the house, but it hadn’t been enough to cover flying back and forth on weekends to set things up, nor had it covered her actual moving expenses, which had added up much more quickly than sh
e’d anticipated.
He leaned forward, clasped his hands, and rested his elbows on the table. “You may not have been wealthy before your ex was killed, but since you’re his only heir…”
“Wait.” Heir? Bradley had left her on his life insurance policy? That couldn’t be right. Why would he have done that? Their divorce had been in no way friendly. “You must be mistaken.”
“Nope.”
“First of all, Bradley never would have left me as the beneficiary on his life insurance. His lawyer made it very clear he was taking me off.” Not that she cared. All she wanted at the time was to be done with Bradley Remington for good. She hadn’t asked for a single thing in the divorce settlement. Instead, she’d simply taken what they offered and walked away. “And second, Bradley had nothing left to leave me or anyone else. All of his assets were frozen when he went to trial.”
Hunt pursed his lips and sat back. “I spoke with his lawyer a little while ago. All he said was that you were his only heir. He didn’t say what you’d inherit, just that you would. And he didn’t seem to care much that his client had been found dead in a dumpster.”
“I doubt he cared at all, that snake, unless it hurt him in some way.” But she added Bradley’s lawyer to the mental list of phone calls she’d make first thing in the morning. Maybe he could shed some light on what was going on.
The front door opened, and footsteps came toward them. Since Hunt didn’t seem concerned, she assumed the newcomers were with him.
Officer Dumont stuck his head in the doorway. “That’s all we found, Hunt. We’ll take a quick look around the house, though.”
“Thanks.” He nodded and returned his attention to Gia. “Look, Gia, I don’t know what’s going on here yet, but if you’ll cooperate with me, I’ll figure it out.”
“Thank you, Detective—”
“Hunt.” He reached across the table and patted her hand. His gaze captured hers and held it.
She looked away. “Thank you, Hunt. It’s not that I’m trying to be uncooperative, it’s just, well… Apparently Bradley was living an entire life I knew nothing about. I was just happy to get out of it and move on.” For a while she’d been a nervous wreck she would end up in jail with him. Or worse. No one seemed to believe she’d been blind to his activities.
