Page 54 of Hold Your Breath
After stacking the filled take-away boxes into plastic bags, she carried them to the counter. Instead of Deedee, she saw the sheriff waiting for her.
“Rob!” she said in surprise, putting the bags on the counter. “I’m glad you stopped by. You’ll save me a phone call. Coffee?”
“Sure. A large, please.” When she turned to grab a cup, he asked, “What phone call is that?”
“To your office,” she explained as she poured the coffee. “Room for cream?” When Rob shook his head, she topped it off and placed it on the counter so she could put a lid on the cup. “I had a chat with Smelly Jim earlier.”
Rob didn’t say anything, but he cocked his head. She took that as a signal for her to continue.
“As I’m sure you know, it’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s…um…imagination with Jim.” Lou propped her elbows on the counter. “He was talking about people watching him, and then he mentioned seeing a guy following me, too. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get some details, although Jim was pretty vague. He said it was a white guy, average height, no facial hair, kind of a pretty boy—soft-looking, he said—and that he wasn’t from around here. When I started asking what the guy had been wearing, Jim kind of shut down and then left.”
Halfway through her recitation, the sheriff had pulled out a small notebook and a pen and started scribbling. When she mentioned the part about the man not being local, Rob’s head came up, and he looked at her. “Not from around here? That’s interesting.”
“I thought so, too.” Not able to stand still, she started wiping down the counter. “And Smelly Jim seems to know everyone in the area.”
“Thanks, Lou.” He tucked away his notebook and pen in his shirt pocket. “I’ll add this to the report and pass it along to Chris. He’s starting to view your case as a personal challenge.”
“Well, I’ll be glad when it’s over.” Even though that was mostly true, she felt a pang at the thought of losing Callum as her personal bodyguard and bed-warmer. She cleared her throat, dragging her thoughts away from the memory of a rumpled and sleepy Callum waking her that morning. “Anyway, I kind of hijacked our conversation. Did you just come in for coffee, or did you need to talk to me about something?”
“Right.” His hard-eyed cop look was back. “I—”
The bells jangled as Deedee pushed open the door and stepped inside the shop. The sheriff went silent.
“Hi, Deedee,” Lou greeted her, hurrying to grab the bags of sandwiches she’d prepared. “How are you?”
“Eh, so-so.” Deedee looked as if she’d been left in a dehydrator a few years too long. Her tanned skin was heavily wrinkled and loose over her wiry frame. Lou had no idea how old the woman was—she could’ve been anywhere from sixty to ninety. “I think our warm spell is over for a while. Snow tonight. Hey, Sheriff.”
“Deedee,” Rob said politely.
“Ugh.” Making a face, Lou rang up the total and accepted Deedee’s money. “I wouldn’t mind skipping over the next three months of winter and heading right into spring. I’ve had enough of snow for a while.”
“Yeah,” Deedee agreed, taking her change and hoisting the bags of sandwiches off the counter. “Wish the snow would skip over us and land on the ski resorts where they’re happy to have it.”
“Amen, sister.” Lou waved as the woman stepped out the door. She turned back to Rob.
“I discovered,” he said when she gave him an expectant look, “that one of my deputies shared some confidential information with you.”
It took a second for the connection to click into place. “What information was that?” she asked slowly. He hadn’t mentioned Lawrence by name, and, as unappealing as the deputy was, she’d rather not throw him under the bus if she could avoid it.
He gave her a pointed look, as if he could read her thoughts. “The evidence found in the reservoir that links the murder to a certain local organization?”
She nodded silently.
“Are you planning on sharing this information with anyone?”
“No,” she said, since she’d already shared it with Callum, and they’d agreed to wait before potentially sharing it with Ian—so technically, she wasn’t planning on sharing the information with anyone…at least yet.
“It would be best if you kept this knowledge to yourself,” he said, leaning a little closer. “I would hate if you were on the radar of that particular club. With them, it’s best if they don’t know you exist.”
“Right,” she said as she repressed a shiver. She definitely did not want the MC after her.
Rob watched her as he took another sip of his coffee. “Have you been doing some investigating on your own?”
Lou shrugged, not sure how much she should share. Was poking her nose where it didn’t belong a crime? Jessica Fletcher hadn’t seemed to run into any legal trouble when she’d done it in every single episode ofMurder, She Wrote. But then, maybe it was a bad idea to be taking cues from an ancient television show. “Nothing serious. I just feel somewhat…invested, I guess, after finding him. It seems so sad that no one knows who he is.”
“Be careful. Like I said, it’s better to remain anonymous sometimes. There are some groups that make their own laws.” He tapped a finger against the counter, eyeing her thoughtfully. “I wonder if this has something to do with your case. Maybe someone is trying to warn you away from asking questions.”
She jolted at the idea that her stalker might also be a murderer, but then common sense intervened. “I don’t think they’re related. My tire was slashed for the first time before the body was discovered.”
