Page 10 of The Scenic Route
“Then why is he following you if you don’t know where the necklace is?”
“My mom stole it.” Felicity wasn’t sure why she was sharing that information with an almost stranger. In her defense, she was used to everyone and their grandma not only knowing what Jane did but also a good percentage of them breaking into their house in order to search for the necklace themselves.
“Wooow.” Lou pulled out her phone. “You two don’t mind if Callum joins us, do you? He pretends he’s not a nosy gossip queen, but he really hates missing out on any drama.”
“Uhh…” Felicity found herself glancing at Mr. Green and giving him a wide-eyed look before she caught herself.He’s not my partner.She mentally repeated the reminder, but there was just something so solid and reassuring about the man that was completely opposed to the reality of their relationship. He’d skip-blocked her, sat on her, then stalked her. Why couldn’t she seem to remember that?
Shaking off her distraction, she noted that Lou was putting her phone back in her pocket. Apparently, Lou had taken her silence as permission, and the drama-loving Callum had already been summoned. With a sigh, Felicity resigned herself to having an audience, her brain already working on information shecould get out of these Simpsonites. If she was going to be the entertainment for half this small town, she’d at least use them as a resource. She smothered a grin, imagining herself with an army of odd mountain people under her command.
“Who’s this meth dealer?” Mr. Green asked.
Pausing, she considered the PI. Might as well make him into a lieutenant in her bounty-hunting army, she figured. If he was going to be underfoot, he may as well be useful. “Douglas Fletcher. He goes by Dino. He was caught with a whole lot of meth, arrested, paid his bond, and disappeared.”
The door swung open, letting in a chatty crowd of customers that filled the shop. As they formed a somewhat orderly line at the register, Lou made a face that only Felicity and Mr. Green could see. “Thisis what happens when you don’t get right to the good stuff immediately. Now the hordes of parents are here.” She backed toward the register, pointing at Felicity and then Mr. Green. “No talking about interesting things while I’m busy.”
Despite her early mental lecture, Felicity’s gaze found Mr. Green’s again, and this time he quirked an eyebrow, making her want to laugh.
No! No laughing. No camaraderie. He’s my stalker. S-T-A-L-K-E-R. Stalker.
Forcing her gaze back to her sleeping laptop screen, she woke her computer and returned to reading the file. It was a bit slim. Researching Dino Fletcher obviously hadn’t been a priority for Cara or Norah. In their defense, all five of them had been running around like headless chickens ever since Jane had stolenthat necklace.
At the reminder of the object of interest to the big guy sitting silently next to her, Felicity looked up, studying the side of his face until he turned to meet her gaze.
“Why are you still here?” she asked and got the questioning eyebrow quirk again. “I’m obviously not anywhere near my mom or the necklace—at least I’m pretty sure neither is close by—so why are you still lurking? You have no interest in Dino Fletcher, so why aren’t you zooming back down the mountain to Langston?”
One of his burly shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “You’re my best lead.”
“I’m aterriblelead. You need to find a better one.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “We’ll see.”
“Humph.” She turned back to the bare-bones bio on her screen. “Wewillsee. We’ll see that I’m right, Mr. B. Green.”
“Bennett.”
“What?”
“My name. The B,” he clarified. “It’s Bennett.”
She frowned. Knowing his name wouldn’t help keep him at a distance. It would’ve been better to keep calling him Mr. B. Green in her head. Formal and impersonal. Just how things should stay between them. “Oh. Okay.”
Her attention was drawn away from what a really bad idea getting friendly with a lurking PI was when another man settled on the stool at the end of the counter. Even though there was an empty stool between them, Felicity still felt a little overwhelmed with a big man on either side of her. She eyed the newcomer,turning her laptop slightly to hide the screen from the stranger.
“Don’t worry,” Lou called from her spot at the cappuccino machine. “That’s just Callum. You can tell him everything.”
Somehow, that wasn’t as reassuring as Lou probably thought it would be. Felicity eyed the newcomer as she felt Bennett shift slightly closer to her. Callum didn’t seem to fit Lou’s description at all. He had a poker face that even beat out Bennett’s for implacability, and his eyes, shadowed by a worn baseball hat, were serious and piercing.
“Hmm,” Felicity hummed as she studied him. “You don’t look at all like a gossip-loving drama queen.”
She felt a sense of satisfaction when his eyes widened for a fraction of a second. She might not be able to discomfit PI Bennett Green, but she’d at least managed to throw this new stone-faced man off-center.
Callum quickly regained his composure and turned toward his milk-steaming wife. “A gossip-loving drama queen.” His flat delivery made Felicity snort.
“You deny it,” Lou said, pouring the hot milk into a coffee cup. From the heavenly smell, there was vanilla involved. “But I know how happy you are to have the scuttlebutt before the firefighters find out. You love that they think you’re some kind of all-knowing oracle rather than just a gossip fiend.”
Instead of taking offense, his expression softened as he gave her a glare that even Felicity, who’d barely met the guy, knew was an attempt to hide a smile. “Scuttlebutt? Are you channeling the spirit of my great-grandma?”
Lou just made a face at him as she capped the cup and handedit to a bearded man who wasn’t even pretending not to eavesdrop.
