“So, what now, boss?”
Jay gave him an odd look. “Don’t call me that, okay? You’re more like my apprentice than my employee if we get to the heart of it. Just Jay is fine. Or Mr. Roe if you want to get formal around clients.”
Dave nodded solemnly, though laughter still danced in his eyes.
Jay let his gray eyes darken, and the laughter in Dave’s vanished. “We’re going to split up. For now, just move around town listening and asking very careful questions. Under no circumstances do I want the media getting hold of any of this. Do you understand?”
“Don’t worry.”
“You’ll be right back to selling cars if they do.”
Dave winced but nodded again. “I know how to be careful.”
“Okay. We’ll meet back here tonight and share our view of the feel of this town and whether or not Stella ever got here in the first place. Tomorrow, we can move in on Miranda.”
Dave nodded again and gave Jay a smile that held a small hint of challenge. “I’ll take east and north, you take south and west?”
Jay returned the smile, the challenge in his more pronounced. “Sounds good to me.”
***
Jay moved through the unfamiliar streets, chatting with shopkeepers and waiters. After about an hour, he realized that the sort of careful questions one could ask without arousing suspicion or the wrong attention would not work at all within this town. There was a near-constant flow of strangers to this place, visiting the zoo, historical park, and museum. No one would remember one young woman, not unless he became more specific.
Jayden finished his ninth coffee of the morning and left yet another cafe, empty-handed. He turned down a new street and entered the sort of antique store that Stella had always sought out.
Like many places of its kind, it was cluttered with things. Old, but expertly restored pieces of furniture, wooden traveling trunks, old metal milk cans, and rows upon rows of cabinets and display cases, all stuffed with an array of trinkets.
He made his way through the aisle, taking a hidden route toward the counter so as not to disrupt what seemed to be an intense conversation between the owner and a client. Once he was close enough to hear their words clearly, he stopped, his heart quickening.
“That’s right, over at Ms. Williams’ swanky mansion north of the park,” said the customer.
“Are you sure, though? It wasn’t just some other man?” asked the owner, looking unconvinced.
Jay felt his excitement diminish a bit. Idle gossip, while potentially useful for bringing Miranda to heel tomorrow, was not what he had hoped to hear. In the next moment, his heart had missed a beat and then leapt into his throat.
“I’m telling you, Stan, it was Mr. Haraby. I saw him up close. He even had on that chunky heirloom ring or whatever he calls it.”
“Well, what on earth is the Gregory Haraby doing here? It can’t be that his daughter’s actually took on Ms. Williams’ case, can it? I mean, his last public statement made it clear that she knew better than to help the guilty.”
Jay swallowed a rueful chuckle. If Mr. Haraby had indeed said that, then it showed that he didn’t know his daughter at all.
“What if…” the owner, Stan, began and then let his voice trail off.
The woman speaking to him perked up at once. “Are you having the same thought I did?”
Stan frowned, then shook his head. “No way. That’s all just hogwash. People letting their imaginations get the better of them. Miranda did not murder Ms. Haraby.”
Jayden felt his heart leave his throat and fall past its usual place to settle somewhere in his gut, making the unease there wriggle like a living thing.
“Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t,” said the woman, unperturbed by his denial. “All I know is that it is a fact that no one has seen either of them in long enough to make people suspicious. Even the legal company Ms. Haraby works for came around asking questions, but it wasn’t Ms. Williams who answered them, was it? It was her personal assistant.”
“What are you getting at?”
The woman swelled, her excitement clearly visible now that she was able to deliver what was clearly her most juicy bit of gossip. She leaned forward and lowered her voice in a conspiratorial way. “I think that assistant Lisa, or Lucy, or whatever it was, conspired with Ms. Haraby. I think both of them are dead.”
Jay felt his hands snap into fists as anger began to boil within. Her dramatically delivered ending held no hint of sympathy. She clearly didn’t care if her words were true. She only cared about causing a sensation.
“Now, now Sue,” reprimanded Stan, his face becoming severely stern. “You’ll please be keeping that to yourself. You have no facts to back you up and while the tabloids would no doubt have a field day, everyone in this town would cast you out for bringing those damn carrion feeders back with talk of such nonsense.”
There was a lengthy pause, and Jay tried to calm himself. Getting angry would not help his or Stella’s situation any.
Stan spoke again with his voice both dismissive and decisive. “No, no. I think it far more likely that Ms. Haraby is indeed working for Ms. Williams, and they’re avoiding the public eye as some ploy to help win the trial. It’d make sense, then, that Ms. Williams' assistant and Ms. Haraby’s father would have cause to communicate. It also explains why he is here. It’s to visit his daughter, not Ms. Williams at all.”
Jay felt his heart quicken, returning to where it was meant to be, and came out of his hiding place. “I apologize for interrupting,” he said, taking a small amount of vindictive pleasure as Sue jumped a foot in the air. “I couldn’t help
