“He probably just chugs antacids now,” I said. “That’s crying in adult form.”
“It’s your stomach crying,” he said, and we both chuckled.
I liked that Officer Hopkins shared my sense of humor, and there was something so easy about the way we laughed together, but I didn’t want to be lured away from the subject at hand. I steered the conversation back on track.
“No, but seriously. You saw the scene. That was no natural death. What am I missing here?”
He scooted a little closer, tented his hands between his knees, and thought it over. “Are we off the record?”
I didn’t want to be, but… “Sure.”
“You have to understand Parkwood.”
I waited for more, but he only sat there nodding at his own statement, as if it had been some sort of wise advice. “That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
I sensed my temperature rise, making my ears hot. He was toying with me. This was a joke to him. My job was a joke. It felt like I was being mocked, and my mouth did the thing it always did when I was embarrassed or irritated—started moving ninety miles a minute. “You’re saying I don’t know what a murder looks like because I’m from somewhere else?”
“No, I’m just saying—”
“But aren’t you new to Parkwood, too? Newer than I am, actually?”
“It doesn’t matter how new you—”
“Which actually makes you less qualified to say you know Parkwood, right? It would stand to reason that someone who’s been here a year would know the town better than someone who’s been here a month.”
“You’re getting upset,” he said.
“No, I’m not.” But I was definitely getting frustrated. Especially after I’d pointed out—aloud—that I’d been here a year. I’d always sort of considered this a temporary assignment, and that I would be back in Chicago before I knew it. But I would be re-signing my lease soon, and that meant I would be locked in for another year. And I wasn’t even conflicted about it. I had obviously become used to the idea, and when the heck did that happen? I’d never felt more homesick in my life than I did right then and there, sitting outside Vacuumulate with an adorable, single police officer who got my jokes and smelled amazing, but was not Trace. “But you’re being condescending about what I do and don’t know about this town.”
He separated his hands and lifted them, palms up. “Parkwood isn’t Chicago.” He knew where I was from. Weird. What else did he know?
“I know that Parkwood isn’t Chicago.” I stood. “But surprisingly enough, murder looks the same no matter what state you’re living in. Unless, of course, the state you’re living in is denial. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other interviews to do.”
I hurried back to my car.
I would get the housewares story later.
Right now, River Fork seemed like the best place to find the truth. The truth I was willing to find, anyway.
Chapter 7
“You must have seen my smoke signals. Thanks for the S.O.S.” Daisy extracted Willow from her legs, expertly shoving a Popsicle into one tiny hand and a sticky teddy bear into the other while ushering the little girl toward her grandmother. Mike was at a rare meeting in the office, so Daisy’s mom had been called in as second string. She looked more than a little terrified. I didn’t blame her.
“Let’s go. Be back in a couple hours, Ma,” Daisy said as we hustled to the front door before any of the other kids noticed she was leaving. Willow began to wail, and we crouch-ran to my car and dove in like we were under fire. “Where we headed?”
“River Fork.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You got the assignment? What changed? I thought you said Mary Jean shut you down and gave it to Ernie.” On the phone, I’d given her a quick run-down on Mary Jean’s refusal to let me follow up on the case.
“I gave the assignment to myself.”
“And she’s not going to notice that you’re missing?”
“She’s letting me work from home today. I’ll do it tonight.”
She nodded, chewing her lip, thinking. “And in River Fork we’re going to do what exactly?”
“Interview whoever we can interview and see if we can get into Farley’s office. How are you with River Fork gossip?”
Her phone rang. “Hang on. Hello? Lucas, honey, that’s why Grandma is there. Well, tell him I said to stop licking you.” She held the phone away from her ear as kid-noise amplified loud enough for me to hear across the front seat. There was the faraway sound of a crash. “Mommy’s gotta go,” Daisy yelled into the phone, and hung up. “My mother is a saint. What were we talking about?”
“River Fork gossip,” I reminded her.
“Oh. Yeah. That. I’ve got nothing. Except I know that the high school football coach recently suffered a mysterious death.”
“Thanks, I’d gathered that much myself.”
She grinned and half-turned in her seat so she was facing me. “But I did hear some Parkwood gossip.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Spill. About what?”
“About you and that cute new police officer,” she said. “The one with the blue eyes and the muscles for days.”
I felt a jolt that I wasn’t expecting—something similar to the charge I felt when I was around him, only now it was tinged with irritation over our conversation outside Vacuumulate. Great. Now I was going to get all swoony when he wasn’t even around? “What about him?” I asked, trying to play it cool. “What have you heard?”
“I heard that you two were flirting on the bench outside Vacuumulate this morning.”
How could that have gotten around so quickly? I hadn’t seen anyone watching us. “What? People think we were flirting? There was no flirting. I do not flirt. I was reporting. And he was being condescending. And I don’t flirt.”
“You said that already.” Her grin spread wider. “You’re rambling. Are you nervous? You seem nervous.”
“I am not. I’m also not flirting with Officer Blue Eyes.” Ugh,
