Page 14 of Always Murder

The woman on the floor blanched.Her hand tightened around a clump of paper towels, which she’d apparently been using to try to clean up the spilled Coke.“I don’t—”

“Are you Ms.Hernandez?”But Millie—uh, Jinx St.James—didn’t give her a chance to respond.“Because I’d like to know why you’ve been withholding information about an ongoing investigation.”

The woman finally recovered from the surprise enough to say, “I’m Luz Hernandez, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about PAUL NAUGHT,” Millie said.“And I WANT SOME ANSWERS.”

The woman got to her feet.And then her expression changed.“Jinx St.James, huh?”She jerked a thumb at me.“Who’s he?Captain Underpants?”

For the record, these were mynicejoggers.And it’s not like she was dressed to impress either—for someone who was supposed to be in management, she looked younger than I expected, and she was dressed like she’d be more at home riding a forklift than sitting at a desk.

In a tone of absolute, complete dismissal, Millie said, “That’s our intern, Chaz.”I wanted to squawk.I wanted to object.I wanted to challenge anybody to find a nicer pair of joggers that were officially endorsed by the World E-Sports Confederation.But before I could do any of that, Millie continued, “You’re Luz Hernandez?”

“You bet your butt I am,” the woman said, voice hardening as she seemed to recover her equilibrium.“And you’re not Jinx St.whatever.You’re Paul Naught’s sister.What are you doing here?”

Jinx St.James’s jaw dropped.

“We wanted to talk to you—” I said.

Luz snorted.“You wanted to talk to me, huh?So you broke into a locked office?”

“Your door wasn’t locked—”

“You want to tell me how you got in the building?”

“We’re just trying to help my brother,” Millie said.And then the professional façade crumpled, and she blurted, “He didn’t steal those packages.”

“As a matter of fact, he did,” Luz said.“And if he thinks wearing a stupid Santa suit is going to keep the police from identifying him, he’s out of his mind.”

“Wait, what’s that about a Santa suit?”

“He didn’t tell you?He thought nobody would be able to recognize him.”

A Santa disguise at peak holiday season did actually seem like a Paul Naught idea, but I filed that away for later.“Ms.Hernandez, Paul said it was only his packages that had been stolen.Is that true?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Doesn’t that seem strange?I mean, if Paul were the thief, wouldn’t he have taken somebody else’s deliveries?”

“Nobody said Paul had any brains.”

“But what if itwassomeone else?Someone who knew when Paul was delivering valuable items?”

“Nobody knows when Paul is delivering valuable items,” Luz said.“It doesn’t work that way.It’s not like we’ve got a list of what’s inside every box.”

“What about someone who knew his route?”Millie asked.

It was a surprisingly good question, and one I hadn’t considered.

Luz frowned.She hesitated a little too long before she said, “No.Nobody.”

“Not even you?”I asked.

“The computer plans those routes.”

“But you have access to them.”

It was the wrong thing to say; I knew it as the words were leaving my mouth.Luz’s face snapped shut.“No.As a matter of fact, I don’t.I work in loss prevention, not logistics, and as far as I’m concerned, Paul stole those packages.He has a record here; he tried to walk off with a video game that he took from an open package, and that was a couple of days after he started.He swore up and down it was a misunderstanding—”

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