Page 20 of Honeycombs & Homecomings

Cash came over, bumping into her arm as he stopped at her side, and sending the hair at the nape of her neck up. “Have you found anything? Any leads?”

Jo forced herself to concentrate.

Roger shook his head. “We talked to Harold and the guys last night, but none of them arrived out back the store until about eight-thirty.”

Jo nodded. She’d known that. The guys always left between 6 and 8 for dinner, then made their way back sometime after that.

“And we asked some other shop owners, but no one saw a thing,” Ethan added. “But we’re not giving up, a few of the stores have video cameras, so maybe we’ll get lucky there. Regardless, we’ll figure out what happened and get you some peace and justice, all right? We took some fingerprints off the register, back door, and off one of your broken hives, so when you have time, you and anyone else who’s touched those things will need to come down and give us prints so we can rule out people who work here.”

“Okay.”

“Until then,” Roger added, “we’ll be checking in periodically, and it’s best if you don’t go places without someone else accompanying you—that goes for your sister and mother, too.”

“Right.” She held back a groan. They were shorthanded as it was, and now they had to go everywhere in pairs? That was so not likely. She gritted her teeth, but forced a smile. “Absolutely.”

Cash turned his back on her and made his way to the counter. He started messing with some things that were laying there. Ethan and Roger said their goodbyes and went out the doors. She watched them go until the door swung shut, then turned to Cash.

He faced her, hands on his hips. “You need to take this seriously, Jo. You shouldn’t be going anywhere alone.”

Of course he’d know she was lying. It unnerved her he could still tell her apart from her sister, still read her like a book, still know when she was lying. “I have no choice. We have six employees right now and we normally have twelve.” She thought of her sister and Tony and frowned. “Four actually. Allie and her boyfriend decided to run away for the weekend. I’ll make it work, though.”

His brow furrowed as he thought about what she said. She knew that look. It was his pre-scheming look. It was the contemplative one he’d always get when he was deciding what he should do. But the thing was, this wasn’t his problem. They weren’t friends anymore. They weren’t even acquaintances, really. He didn’t live here. He lived miles and miles away, and he was leaving soon.

Before he could say anything, she stepped to his side and looked down at what he’d been messing with. There on the counter was a toolbox and several locks. “What’s all this?”

He turned and lifted them. “If you’re going to be living upstairs, you need something better than the locks you currently have in place.”

That was for sure. The door hadn’t even been busted in last night. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought someone opened it with a key, but Cash had guessed that they had picked it last night before the cops got there and that had made more sense. No one with a key would’ve done this. In fact, she’d been planning on buying new locks from the hardware store when she went to purchase the paint.

He picked up a dead and slip bolt and the toolbox and headed for the back.

She hadn’t seen the office yet. Someone had tidied and the papers had been set in stacks on her desk. Now she could see that they had only broken two of her hives. They’d both need new drawers, but at least that was it.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

He opened the door, dropped to a knee, and grabbed a drill. “You okay if I drill a little hole in the floor for the slip bolt?”

She nodded. “Cash, I’m sure there are other things you’d rather be doing today. You didn’t come back to town to install new locks for me.”

He froze midway through putting the right drill bit in, then glanced up at her. His head nearly came to her shoulder, and they were so close she took a step back.

“I’m exactly where I should be,” he said.

She frowned and turned from him. A moment later the drill started up.

Her phone rang, and she jumped, just barely getting it on the last ring. “Hello? Hello? Allie?” She hadn’t seen the caller ID before answering.

There was a small laugh on the other end. “No, dear, this is Cynthia Warner.”

Jo’s stomach soured. The Investors! She’d almost forgotten them. “Mrs. Warner,” she croaked out. “How are you?”

The drill stopped.

“Good, good. But do call me Cynthia,” she said.

“Cynthia,” Jo said. She waited, but Cynthia said nothing, leaving an uncomfortable silence. Jo swallowed. Then swallowed again. Why was her throat suddenly so dry? “Is everything set for Thursday?”

In her peripheral vision, Jo saw Cash stand and move toward her.

---