MY MIND WAS JUMBLED WITH POSSIBILITIES when we parked in front of Eliot’s shop. Sabrina had been quiet the entire ride back. I could tell she was conflicted. Part of me wondered if I should try to ease whatever worried her. The other part simply wanted to encourage the silence.
“What now?” she asked at the sidewalk. “Are we giving up?”
“True journalists never give up.”
“You heard Sheriff Farrell.” Her voice ratcheted up a notch. “He said it wasn’t safe.”
“Believe it or not, he’s warned me about imminent death a time or two.”
“Yes, well, you’re not the only one involved in this case.”
I rolled my neck and stared at the sky, considering. “Do you still want to be a member of the team?”
“You can’t just abandon me. We had a deal. I gave you Ruth Shepperly. In exchange, you’re supposed to keep me with you all day.”
“Yes, but that was before I knew how things would go.” I opted to approach her honestly, hoping against hope that she would recognize the truth in my eyes. “I need to go in there and have a talk with Eliot. It’s going to involve private matters, so you can’t be present.”
Her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “What sort of private matters?”
“The sort that has nothing to do with this case and everything to do with emotions and other torturous things that I would rather not deal with.”
“Oh.” She solemnly nodded. “You think he’s going to be angry you didn’t call.”
“Among other things.”
“Well, I guess I can wait out here. Your relationship is obviously important.”
“Yeah, and I’m not even sure how it happened.” I was talking to myself more than her. “One minute I was perfectly happy being the only person of consequence in my universe. Now I have him ... and a cat ... and I actually talk about feelings and stuff. It’s absurd.”
“Sounds normal to me.”
“Yeah, well ....” I drew in a breath to center myself. “You’re you and I’m me. As for what I’m going to do, I need to talk to Eliot ... and there’s likely an argument coming. You can either sit out here and freeze to death or try another solo assignment.”
Sabrina was back to being suspicious. “You’re going to dump me.”
“I’m going to trust you to track down information on your own.”
“What sort of information?”
“I need you to go to the county building and request information on their community service details. I need both county and state lists.”
“Why is that important?”
“Because Ray had community service boots. So did Ruth.”
Sabrina’s eyes widened to comic proportions. “What do you mean?”
“I saw the boots next to the door when she let us into her house. I didn’t think much of them — they’re just rubber boots — but they seemed off. I don’t know a woman who would buy those boots. There’s no color to them.
“Then I saw the same boots in Ray’s garage,” I continued. “I want to know why Ruth had those boots.”
Sabrina was suddenly all for the assignment. “Do you think she’s part of this?”
“I don’t know. I think she was holding back. It’s possible she was holding back about Cal. Maybe those weren’t her boots at all. Maybe they were his boots and she’s seen him more recently than she said.”
“Oh.” Realization dawned on my sidekick. “You think she’s embarrassed, that the reason she never divorced Cal is because she’s still in love with him.”
“Stranger things have happened,” I admitted. “Sometimes people crawl into your heart and refuse to leave. Ruth fell in love with a weak man who turned into a bad man. Maybe she couldn’t get over that love no matter how hard she tried.”
“What if Cal isn’t on the community service sheets?” Sabrina asked. “What if Ruth was serving the community?”
“Then we’ll be dealing with a whole other problem, which is one of the things I need to talk to Eliot about. Can you handle your assignment?”
“Absolutely. This is the sort of stuff I live for.”
I almost laughed at her earnest response. “See what you can dig up. I’ll be available by phone. Once I’m done with this, we’ll see where we land.”
I froze when she threw her arms around me for a tight hug. “We really are a team, aren’t we?”
“Not for long if you keep doing that.”
“Oh, right.” She was solemn when she pulled away, but she couldn’t hide her smile for long. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
26 Twenty-Six
Mario was the first one I saw when I walked through the door. He looked downtrodden.
“Where’s your friend?”
“Looking up some information.” I slid my eyes to Eliot’s office door, which was open, but he didn’t come through it to greet me, which was his normal way. “How angry is he?”
Mario shrugged. “I think he’s more worried than mad. He’ll probably forgive you if you strip naked and dance to the piña colada song.”
I shot him a dirty look. “That’s really gross. I’m your cousin.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to see you naked. I just think that would be a sexy way to make him forgive you.”
I could take only so much. “Just ... do whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.” I trudged toward the office. “If you hear us arguing, don’t interrupt. I think this one is going to be a doozy.”
“And I think you tend to overreact. It will be fine.”
If he believed that, he clearly didn’t know Eliot.
I didn’t bother knocking. Really, what was the point? I slipped through the door, quietly shut it, and waited for Eliot to look up. In addition to being strong and silent when he wanted to, he was also unbelievably stubborn. He kept his eyes on his computer.
“I saw Jake,” I announced.
He merely grunted in response.
“I know you saw him too.”
Still nothing. He refused to look at me.
“Did he tell you why he wanted to see me?”
“He did.” Eliot’s tone was clipped.
“What do you think of the news?”
“I think it makes
