Since the crime scene techs had already gone over the café kitchen, Hunt sat at the island while Gia started on the omelet he hadn’t had time for earlier, and the techs processed the storage closet.
Leo and Savannah sat across from him, fingers laced casually together.
“What did Cole say when you guys picked him up?” With one eye on the clock, since she had to open in a little more than an hour and still hadn’t dropped Thor off at Zoe’s doggie daycare, Gia tossed already diced ham, pepper, and onions onto the grill. Leaving Thor home with Klondike was one thing; leaving him alone all day was something else. Klondike, on the other hand, reveled in being alone. Gia had no doubt she was probably swinging from the curtains at the moment.
“About the same as he said yesterday.” Hunt refilled his coffee mug for the third time since arriving. “Nothing. He didn’t kill Rusty. He doesn’t know who did. And he was with Cybil all morning.”
Gia whirled on him, spatula raised.
He held up a hand before she could speak. “Before you ask, yes, Chief, Cybil corroborated his alibi.”
“Okay, okay, sorry.”
“Nah.” He waved it off. “Don’t be. Cole’s a friend, and that’s one of the things I love most about you, your sense of loyalty and willingness to go out on a limb for a friend. Even if it does occasionally drive me up a wall.”
She grinned and poured the egg mixture over the ham and vegetables. “If I ever decide to give up the café, maybe I’ll come to work for you.”
“Over my dead body.”
“I promise you I’ll find your killer and bring him to justice.” She shot Savannah a conspiratorial grin. “Unless it was Savannah, then I’ll figure it was justifiable homicide.”
Savannah hooted and slapped the counter. “You had that one coming, Hunt.”
“Yeah, yeah.” But the good humor faded too quickly from his eyes. “But back to Cole. He’s not cooperating, and I can’t figure out why.”
“Do you want me to try to talk to him?” Not that she hadn’t already planned to anyway.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes. “Maybe you can get him to open up a little more.”
Gia stared at him for a moment. He must be concerned if he was willing to have Gia try to intervene. Hunt rarely, or possibly never, invited her into one of his investigations. “Is there anything I should know?”
He shook his head. “So far, we’ve found the receipt with Cole’s name, number, and a date and time that appears to coincidentally coincide with the time of Rusty’s murder, which the ME ruled was around eight a.m.”
Gia latched on to coincidentally. Everyone knew Hunt didn’t believe in coincidences any more than Gia or Savannah did.
“Then we have Rusty’s business card conveniently dropped right where Cole always parks his car. And now . . .” He blew out a breath and shoved a hand through dark hair that curled past his collar and always seemed in need of a trim. “Now you just happened to stumble across a weapon taped to the bottom of a shelf Cole had access to on a regular basis on the very same morning someone broke into the café and didn’t steal anything. A weapon that’s been wiped, so there are no fingerprints, though I have no doubt the ballistics will match the bullet they’ll pull out of Rusty when they do the autopsy later this morning. A weapon we’re supposed to believe Cole hid in his place of employment after murdering someone with it.”
“Not to mention the fact that Cole hasn’t been back here since Rusty was found.”
Hunt sat up straighter. “That’s right.”
Leo held up a finger. “Or a good prosecutor could argue Cole had been the one to break in, didn’t want to use his key so no one would suspect he’d been here.”
Savannah unlaced her fingers from his and turned a scowl on him. “You can’t possibly believe that.”
He shrugged. “Actually, I don’t. I think someone is trying way too hard to frame him, but we still have to consider every possibility.”
Savannah lowered her gaze to her coffee, her expression somber, a rare occurrence for such a happy, usually optimistic person.
Gia struggled to shut off the rapid-fire thoughts ricocheting through her head for even a few minutes as she plated omelets and home fries. The chaos in her head, along with the lack of sleep, was beginning to give her a headache. Maybe she should just call Cole and ask him if he was coming in. If so, she’d be able to talk to him, question why he was being so tight-lipped, and then take a break to get some much-needed sleep, even an hour. So much for shutting her thoughts down.
Savannah, obviously unable to sit still, jumped up to butter toast and pour orange juice.
With a quick scan of the kitchen to be sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, Gia dropped onto a stool at the counter next to Hunt. “What about Caleb Ryan, the real estate guy? Were you able to get any more information on him?”
Hunt stopped with a forkful of western omelet halfway to his mouth, then lowered it to his plate. “He’s a local investor, spends a lot of time and money buying up local real estate, usually renovating and then selling. We do know he was trying to get Hank’s shop on Main Street, the one Rusty allegedly stole out from under him. Apparently, he’s been trying to get an office open on Main Street for quite a while, but since most of the businesses along the road are owned by locals in a community that fully supports mom-and-pop shops, who pass their businesses down from one generation to the next, shops don’t often come available.”
“And when one did, Rusty, who doesn’t even live in Boggy Creek, finagled a way to get it,” Leo finished.
“But is that reason enough to kill someone?” Be annoyed with them—yes. Boycott the business—for sure. Even bad-mouth them around the neighborhood. But kill?
“People have killed for less.” After a quick look at his watch, Hunt finally lifted his fork and took a bite, chewed, and swallowed, then aimed a pointed look at Gia. “And before you ask, Brynleigh Colton, the woman on the zoning commission he allegedly bribed, appears to be missing in action.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we haven’t been able to locate her. Nobody’s seen her since Friday afternoon when she left work for the weekend.”
“Huh. What do you think that means?”
He shrugged. “Could be anything. She’s not married, lives alone, is known to travel on a whim. Although she doesn’t usually miss work without calling out, her hours are flexible, and she often works from home.”
“Are you concerned?”
“Let’s just say I’d like to find her and have a conversation.”
“Have you been able to access her bank accounts? See if she’s made any large withdrawals recently?” Because if they hadn’t, maybe she should reconsider Alfie’s offer. Or, better yet, maybe Hunt could deputize him. At least then he wouldn’t get into any trouble for hacking. She forked up home fries, took a bite while she considered her options, then realized everyone had gone silent. When she turned her attention to Hunt, she found him grinning at her. “What?”
He laughed and shook his head. “I might have to reconsider hiring you after all.”
“Oh, right.” Heat flamed in her cheeks. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s good to know if I ever forget anything, you’ve got my back.”
She held his gaze. “Always.”
His gaze lingered, and he reached out to brush a strand of hair that had come free from her ponytail behind her ear. “That goes both ways, you know.”
She swallowed the lump clogging her throat and nodded. It had been a long time since she’d been able to trust anyone other than Savannah, but somewhere along the line, she’d come to trust Hunt, come to realize how much he loved her and that he’d never hurt her. At least, not intentionally. That kind of trust didn’t come easy. It was the kind you had to earn. The kind Cole had had in Rusty all those years ago, when he’d never even considered Rusty would have put the drugs into his locker. She straightened. “What about Jim Kirkman? Have you tried to find him?”
“Who?” Hunt frowned as he pulled out his notebook and shoved his nearly empty plate aside. He flipped through a few pages. “Who’s Jim Kirkman? No one’s mentioned him.”
Gia ran through the story Cole had shared at the crime scene. “We found his wife Rhonda, who lives in Orlando and was friends with Rusty Bragge on Myspace.”
Hunt paused his note-taking long enough to look up at her. “Myspace?”
“It was Alfie’s idea.”
He held up a finger. “Now, him I might hire.”
“Ha ha.” Gia stood and started to clear the island. If she didn’t get moving, she’d never get open on time. Then she remembered what else Alfie had unearthed. “Alfie also said Rusty was arrested at one time for attempted murder.”
Hunt’s gaze flickered toward Leo for an instant, then back to Gia. “That was a sealed juvenile record.”
“He didn’t access it.” The last thing she wanted to do was get Alfie into any kind of trouble. “He just said there was one.”
“All kidding aside, I might really have to get that guy on the payroll. We’re still cutting through wads of red tape trying to find out if the record even still exists or if it was expunged when he turned twenty-one.” Hunt chewed on his lip, considering the pages of notes he flipped through, then stood and kissed her temple. “We’ve gotta go. Thank you for breakfast, and the boatload of coffee. And the tip.”
She grinned at him. “Any time.”
He started out of the café, then turned back to her. “Let me know if you talk to Cole.”
Which she had every intention of doing before she opened. “Sure thing.”
Once they were alone, Savannah started to load the dishwasher. “Why don’t you go ahead and run Thor down to Zoe’s while I get this cleaned up.”
“You sure?”
“Yup. Everything else is done and ready to open, right?”
“Yeah.” It should be, considering she’d been there all night. “I’m going to call Cole while I’m walking back.”
“Let me know what he says.”
“I will.” Though the café would most likely be open by the time she got back, making it less likely they’d have a chance to chat until later. She grabbed her phone from the counter just as it rang and checked the caller ID, then frowned at the unfamiliar number. “Hello?”
“Hey there,” the deep gravelly voice of a two-pack-a-day smoker greeted her. “This is Harvey.”
“Harvey?”
“Yup, I’m out at your place. Just wanted to let you know your car’s clear, and I closed the door so nothing can get back in.”
The guy who’d come to relocate her raccoon. Six hundred dollars still rankled, but at least she could go home and get her car now. “Oh, that’s great, thank you. You were able to catch the raccoon?”
“We-ell.” His hesitation had Gia’s heart sinking. “He’s a smart little bugger, but I’ve left a trap for him, and I’ll swing by a few times a day to check in.”
“Is that included in the price?” Because she’d basically just paid six hundred dollars to have her car door closed. No way was she paying extra for him to keep coming back.
“Yes, ma’am. And you might want to consider keeping the garbage pails in the garage.”
“Okay.” There was no sense being disappointed, but she was going to have to do something to keep the raccoons, and apparently bears, away. No way could she afford to throw away six hundred dollars every time a critter got into the garbage. But the thought of smelling garbage that baked in the Florida heat all day long every time she walked into the garage wasn’t exactly appealing. And what if the odor seeped into the kitchen? There had to be another way. It might be less expensive to air-condition the garage than to keep calling Harvey out. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“You bet.”
She considered calling Cole, then decided to wait until after she’d gotten Thor to daycare. It was the only few minutes of the day she’d get to be with him, and she didn’t want to spend that time on the phone, no matter how important the subject.
When she opened the front door, Earl was waiting outside. “Hey, Earl.”
“Good morning.”
She held the door open for him to enter. “I’m just running Thor down to daycare, then I’ll be back.”
“Sure thing. I just . . .” He looked up and down the road, then over his shoulder, before leaning closer to her. “Have you heard from Cole?”
“No, why?”
He shrugged and shook his head. “I’ve tried to call him a few times, but he’s not picking up.”
Gia glanced at the clock over the cutout in the dining room, then gave him an abbreviated version of the night’s events.
He nodded, clutched his fisherman’s cap against his chest. “Oh, well, that’s a relief then.”
“A relief?”
“If Hunt and Leo took him into the station, that would explain why he’s not answering his door either.”
Gia stilled, the urgency of getting Thor to daycare and back in time to open the café suddenly less important. “Hunt and Leo stopped by his house to question him. As far as I know, they didn’t ask him to go to the station.”
“Oh.” Earl paled.
“When did you go by his house?”
“On my way here.” He checked the time on his cell phone. “About twenty minutes ago.”
“Okay. All right. Let me get Thor taken care of, and we’ll figure out what’s going on.” Where would he have gone? She really hoped he hadn’t decided to skip town, but if he did, she had to find him before anyone else realized he was missing. And she’d better find him quickly, in case something had happened to him and he actually did need the police.