Leo nods to Jasper. “Sounds like they cleaned the guy out, all right. Let’s check the register.”
We come upon Killer Books and Jasper unlocks the door. “We need to find the ground safe. I might need to get a locksmith out here and forensics will want in on this.”
“You don’t need a locksmith.” Leo smacks his lips. “You got me. I can pick the lock without destroying an ounce of evidence.”
Jasper frowns. “Do I want to know where you picked this up?”
“From you.” Leo lifts his brows.
“Good,” Jasper says. “That means you learned from the best.”
I bend over and give Sherlock and Gatsby a quick pat. “Stay here, boys. Signal to us if you think trouble is coming, would you?”
Gatsby barks. You bet, Bizzy. I hope this leads to the killer. Wyatt deserves justice even if he’s not here to see it.
“Believe me, we’ll make sure he gets it.”
Sherlock sits at attention. Don’t worry, Bizzy. If I see so much as a mouse run across the street, I’ll let you know.
“Good.” I give a scratch under his chin. “There will be bacon in it for the both of you.”
Fish yowls as I head into the bookshop just as Jasper flicks on the lights.
She pokes her head out from the papoose strapped to my chest. So this is the bookstore. I like it in here. It looks dark and spooky. And the ceiling looks as if it’s covered with stars.
I swallow hard as I look to the dark brown stain still on the carpet.
“It is spooky in here. You nailed it.” Leo and Jasper are already behind the counter and I head on over. “You know, Dax said that Wyatt’s nutty girlfriend, Molly Shay, saw Wyatt making a pass at Stormy. He said he was furious. I asked if Stormy filed a police report and he said no—that they took matters into their own hands.”
Fish twitches her head my way. They killed him!
I shrug. “Maybe they did kill him.”
Leo dances his gloved fingers across the register and it glides open to reveal an empty cash drawer.
“They robbed him.” He looks to Jasper.
“The store was supposed to be open for another three hours when Wyatt was killed.” He gives a quick look around. “We have surveillance in and out of this building. I’ll run the tapes and see if anyone came after the sheriff’s department left. Where do you think the ground safe is?”
Leo lifts his chin as he scours the room. “The office.”
They take off and I step as far into the center of the room as I feel comfortable. The book tables look untouched. The folding chairs that were set up for the audience are still in place, half of them wonky or tipped over due to the melee that followed the murder. I can still hear the screams of the women sitting out there, and a chill rides up my spine as the memory enlivens within me.
I land my hand over Fish’s head. “His girlfriend, Stormy, she’s sort of Georgie’s protégée, a hippie if ever there was one. She’s nice enough. But she said some odd things.”
Said? Fish gives me that knowing look.
“Thought,” I clarify. “After she asked if I had really killed Wyatt, she said to herself that she knew better but thought it was prudent to ask.
If that doesn’t sound suspicious, I don’t know what does.
I nod. “She also thought to herself that she should amp up the bubble-headed teenager act because she didn’t want me to know what she was capable of.”
Sounds like she was capable of murder.
“It does, doesn’t it? And Stormy did know about that valuable book that was kept in the glass case. She mentioned that Wyatt and Thomas were fighting over it. Oh! And when she saw Camila the night of the murder, she thought to herself, Who knew Ms. Ryder would be the one to throw a monkey wrench into my plan? Then she said something about hoping the judge would go easy on me—that Wyatt wasn’t worth going to prison over.”
She did it! Fish’s left ear twitches. The girl is a killer.
“There were other suspicious people, though. Like Brooklynn Knight. An investor in the bookstore. She was recently disbarred for who knows what. The night Wyatt was killed, I distinctly remember her with blood on her arms. She thought to herself she didn’t know how she was going to get out of this one.”
Fish shivers. Sounds ominous.
“I thought so, too. And while she was looking at his body, she thought, There are some things we simply bring upon ourselves—and that it looked as if he suffered. She then added, He made so many other people suffer. It must be true what they say—what comes around goes around. She ended up implying that I should look into Thomas. Something about the creepy cult-like secret society he was a part of in college. She said they had a way of making people keep secrets and then inferred death had something to do with it.”
Fish shivers. I don’t like this, Bizzy.
“Me either.”
Jasper and Leo head back this way.
“What did you find?” I carefully make my way around the caution tape still lying on the floor as I head over to them.
Jasper pulls me in. “Nothing. Leo was able to open it and we saw zilch. Not a nickel rolling around in it.”
I glance in the direction they came from. “Maybe one of the investors came in and took the
