Page 24 of Only You

Eileen glanced over and found a young Asian man with dark brown eyes dressed in white. One of the kitchen workers.

“Come on in,” Eddie said with a smile.

She didn’t have time to think about Declan or anything else. She had a murder to solve, and Eileen had a bad feeling about this one.

By the timeEileen and her partner finished their interviews, it was close to noon. Declan waited for them in the dining room.

Charlie came out, his expression telling Declan that he was gutted. They all were. Irene had been an odd manager, where almost everyone loved her, and it had nothing to do with her being a lax boss. She expected one hundred percent from everyone, but it was because she gave one hundred and ten percent. They respected her.

“You’re working Tuesday, right?”

Charlie nodded.

“Don’t worry. You will get your hourly rate for the two days.”

“I’m not worried about that. Okay, yeah, that would be hard to lose, but it’s just…Irene was the sweetest person I knew. Hard to think someone killed her.”

Declan nodded. Everyone had said basically the same thing. “Get on home and be careful out there. See you Tuesday.”

He locked the door behind Charlie just as Eileen and Francisco walked out from the back of the restaurant.

“I have a list of other employees if you want to talk to them. Most of them worked last night.”

“Hey, why don’t you text that to Detective O’Reilly?” her partner suggested.

Declan looked at Eileen. “I don’t have the detective’s number.”

He had wanted to ask for it about a thousand times but had realized it just was never the right time.

“Oh,” Francisco said. “No problem.”

Then he rattled off the number.

“Okay. I’ll get that to you as soon as I can.”

“Thanks,” Eileen said, her husky voice slinking down his spine. The woman got to him no matter what she did. Whether she was in one of her suits or that slinky dress. Declan could say that he would want her no matter how she was dressed.

“If you think of anything else, let us know,” she said, heading to the door.

“I will.”

“Thanks again, Declan. Sorry about Irene.”

He nodded. Here, he was fantasizing about Eileen, and poor Irene had been killed.

After they left, he locked up and looked around the area. Thankfully, they served mainly cooked-to-order meals for brunch, so he would just take the cakes to the station house where his brothers worked. It took him about an hour to get everything taken care of and get to their station house. Both Emmett and Connal were working today.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Emmett asked, and then his gaze landed on the box. “Cakes?”

Declan nodded. “Had to close up for today and tomorrow.”

He set the box on the table in the break room. Declan might not have ever worked for the department, but his father and countless other relatives had actually worked in this station house. He knew it well and always felt nostalgic when he stopped by.

“Oh, are those cakes?” BeeBee said as she stepped into the break room. Emmett’s best friend since about the age of five, BeeBee, real name Beatrice but she refused to acknowledge that name, Walters had spent most of her childhood at their house. At five foot seven, she was all leg and always moving. Blonde hairand brown eyes, she looked like the girl next door, which, for the Fitzpatricks, was true.

“Yeah,” Emmett said. “Declan closed up for today. Why?”

He sighed and took a seat. “Irene’s dead.”

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