Page 40 of Always Murder

“Maybe Paul gave someone a reason to target him,” I said.“He did that stupid livestream of himself with that copy ofSuper Smash Bros.Ultimate.”

“That idiot livestreams everything,” Sissy said.

I opened my mouth—and then I stopped.

Please, Paul, I thought.Please don’t be that stupid.

But I took out my phone and started to search.

He probably streamed other places, but I found him on YouTube first.His username was naught_paul_blart.I wasn’t sure if it was because he loved the Paul Blart movies or if it was—well, honestly, I had no idea why anyone would have chosen that name.But the videos were there.A quick look told me he’d been streaming regularly, multiple times per day: at home, at work.One was titledI COULDN’T FIND MY SOCKand then a bunch of emojis I couldn’t parse.

And alotof the videos he’d streamed while he was working.

I played one of the work recordings.Paul’s face filled the screen.From what little I could see of the background, he appeared to be in the back of a delivery truck.

“Merry Christmas,” Paul said with a grin, and the expression made the resemblance to Millie even stronger.Then the angle of the camera shifted, and he held up a large brown box.The delivery label was visible and legible—name, address, everything.And then Paul gave the box a shake and said, “Best Buy.I’ve delivered, like, ten of these.Someone is totally getting an Xbox.”

Chapter 13

“How stupid is he?”I asked as we drove back to town.

“It wasn’t a good choice,” Bobby said.

“A good choice?You can say, ‘That wasn’t a good choice’ when someone orders an oatmeal raisin cookie, Bobby.This is a different order of magnitude.”

“I like oatmeal raisin cookies.”

“Bobby, they haveraisins.They’re practically a fruit.And fruits are practically vegetables.Why would anyone do that to their cookie?”I could hear my volume rising, so I drew a deep breath.“I’m just saying chocolate chip never let anybody down.”

Bobby was wise enough not to respond to that—yet another sign that he was the man for me.

The road back into town wasn’t the smoothest, and Bobby’s cruiser lacked the Pilot’s gentler suspension.After bouncing around in my seat for a while, I said, “I mean, I knew Paul wasn’t the smartest—”

Then I stalled out.

“You want to say cookie, don’t you?”Bobby asked.

I glared, but it rolled right off him.Finally, I gave up and said, “I mean, what was he thinking?”

“He wasn’t thinking.His prefrontal cortex isn’t entirely developed.”

“That’s not the only thing that’s not developed.”

A quicksilver smile darted across Bobby’s face.“Did you know one time, I got a call-out to the boardwalk?He and Ryan were fighting about who got to drive a dune buggy.”

That got a reluctant laugh out of me.

“We learned something useful,” Bobby said.“That’s good.”

“Yeah, we learned that literallyeveryoneknew Paul’s route,” I said sourly.“He live-streamed it for the entire world.”

Bobby laughed.“Who is his target audience, anyway?Other delivery drivers?”

“It’s like one step above the people who love unboxing videos: people who love boxes.Likelovethem.”I glanced over at—yes, I’m going to say it—my man.He was resting one elbow on the car door and driving with one hand again.And I’ll just say God knew what he was doing the day he invented khaki polyester.“Hey, you were really good with Sissy, by the way.”

“Hmm?Oh.Yeah, that’s kind of the job.Community relations are important.”

“Yeah, but you’regoodat it, Bobby.And you didn’t interrogate her.You built trust with her.You used that trust to get her on our side.She wouldn’t have helped us if you hadn’t gotten on her good side.Oh my God, I’d love to use that in a book.”

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