“Are we going to search this morning?”
“Can you bear to forgo shopping?” I teased her.
“I’m kind of done with shopping for right now.”
I glanced at my partner. She looked a little down, which wasn’t like her. The tragedy wore heavily on her. Tinkie was a society girl, but at the heart of it all, she was tender and kind. “I’m sorry this happened. Sorry for Kathleen and Darla, and sorry for you, Tinkie.”
“I just hate tragedy. I wish I could make all tragedy disappear.”
“I wish you could, too.” I put an arm around her shoulders and gave a good squeeze.
Just then a voice sounded behind us. “You two abandoned the rest of us, but we tracked you down.”
I whirled around to find Coleman, Oscar, Jaytee, Cece, Harold, and Millie standing behind us. “We were kind and let you sleep,” I corrected. “Tinkie was all for dumping a bucket of ice cubes on you in the bed, but I wouldn’t let her.”
“Like I would believe that,” Coleman said. “Tell me, girls, what’s on the agenda for this morning?”
Before anyone could answer, a Lexus SUV pulled to a halt and Clarissa Olson, dressed in a wet suit and dragging scuba tanks out of the back of her car, came down the dock. The suit left little to the imagination, and I had to admit, she had a terrific body. She stopped at our group. “I have another set of tanks and a wet suit that would fit you perfectly,” she said to Coleman. “Care to join me in a dive? There’s a deep pit just off this dock where the body may be trapped. I thought I’d check it out.”
“We have plans,” Tinkie said, stepping between the two of them.
“Too bad.” Clarissa ignored Tinkie and spoke to Coleman. “No one else around here knows how to dive. You look the type who enjoys an underwater … adventure.”
Oh, it was clear exactly what she was inviting Coleman to do. My hands curled into fists. I wasn’t normally a brawler, but this heifer needed a smack in the snout.
“Not interested, Clarissa. Not interested in any kind of adventure with you. Look elsewhere for your entertainment.” Coleman turned on his heel and slipped my hand through his arm, and we all began to stroll away. My heart was doing a little fluttery dance of joy.
“You get an A plus on the boyfriend score sheet,” Millie said, taking Coleman’s other arm. “Ah, the satisfaction of seeing someone put right in their place. Sarah Booth, you’d better give Coleman an extra special Christmas gift, if you catch my drift.”
It felt good to laugh with my friends. The sun broke free of the clouds, and the whole day took on a different color. I couldn’t stop tragedy from happening, not even to those I loved so desperately, but I could enjoy each moment I was lucky enough to share with them. I sighed. Duty called, though.
“We should go back and search,” I said reluctantly.
“I don’t think they need us,” Millie said. “Look.”
There were at least fifty volunteers already walking grids and examining every square inch of ground. In my heart of hearts, though, I didn’t believe that Kathleen had come up on the bank. “Do you think they’ll find her body in the river?”
“Only if they go farther downstream,” Harold said. “I regret this. I liked Kathleen. She had a sweet temperament.”
Harold had taken a shine to both Kathleen and Darla, and I’d seen potential for a wonderful friendship, if not more. Another regrettable factor in this whole mess.
“We have a little final work to do on our surprise,” Coleman said. All the men nodded.
“Will the surprise be ready before we finish our holiday?” Cece asked. There was a glint in her eye.
“Absolutely.”
“Is it bigger than a bread box?” Millie asked.
“Considerably,” Jaytee said, “but no more questions. You’ll get the surprise when it’s finished. But we have to go.”
Rex pulled up with the limo and I realized this was a coordinated abandonment of us females. “Coleman, you’re stacking up a bill that’s going to come due.”
“Promises, promises,” he said, waving cheerily as they loaded into the limo and took off.
“What are they up to?” Tinkie asked.
“Cece, why don’t you and Millie follow. I can call a great Uber driver. You can get loads of gossip for your Sunday column.”
“Perfect,” they said.
I called Dallas Sweeney, and within five minutes she was there. Unfortunately, the limo was long gone.
“No worries,” Dallas said, “a limo is going to be really easy to track down. I have my sources.”
Cece and Millie hopped in and they were gone. Tinkie and I looked at each other.
“How are we going to find out who really hired Colton?” Tinkie asked.
“Let’s check to see if anyone nearby has security cameras. You would think Colton would have some with all that expensive equipment around.”
“We didn’t ask him,” Tinkie pointed out, biting her bottom lip. “We should have.”
“Yes, we should have,” I agreed. “So let’s do that.”
18
We called another Uber and headed back to the heavy equipment business. Sure enough, there were cameras focused on the front door, the supply shed, and the mechanic shop. It crossed my mind that Colton had deliberately not mentioned the security footage, but I reminded myself that neither Tinkie nor I had thought to ask. It could be innocent.
Colton was out on a job, but the office manager showed us where the camera feed was stored—after I convinced her we were working on Colton’s behalf.
“Colton is supposed to review the footage and delete it every day, but he doesn’t,” she said. “He forgets it until I think of it and remind him. How far back do you need to go?”
I didn’t recall a specific date that Colton said he was hired, but it could have been only a day or so before it happened. Otherwise he would surely have come to his senses and
