“I’m not talking about me, you goof. I mean Betsy. She keeps gabbing on and on about what a thrill it was to meet you. I’ve got to be honest with you. If I didn’t love you already, I’d be sick of the sound of your name.” I could hear the smile in her voice as she said it.
“What can I say? I may have just three fans, but they’re all very vocal about it.”
“You’ve got more than that, and you know it.”
I pulled into the police station parking lot and shut off the engine. “Is that why you were calling, or was there something else on your mind?”
“I don’t know what your schedule’s like, but could you swing by the house tomorrow after the kids go to school? They only have four more days, and then they’re with me all summer.”
“You love it, and you know it.”
“I do,” she admitted, “but when my free time is winding down, I try to jam as much living into it as I can. What do you say? Will you throw your old friend a life preserver?”
“Absolutely. Hey, if you’d like, we could have breakfast in the hotel restaurant. You can order anything on the menu.”
I was about to tell her about my open tab when she interrupted. “I was thinking more along the lines of eggs and toast at my kitchen table. That’s not too mundane for you these days, is it?”
“Are you kidding? It sounds like paradise.”
“Great. I’ll see you around eight.”
“Let me guess. The kids are gone by seven fifty-five.”
She laughed, and I enjoyed the warmth of it for a moment. “You got me. See you tomorrow.”
“Till then.”
I got out of the car and headed toward the front entrance. I suddenly realized that I needed to call Lorna and cancel our breakfast date tomorrow. I was just punching her phone number in when I ran into Davis on the steps outside.
“Hey, Chief,” I said as I killed the phone call.
“I still can’t get used to being called that,” he admitted.
“Don’t worry; you’ll get used to it. Is Zach upstairs?”
Davis shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve been barred from the task force room, if you can believe that. In my own building!”
“It shouldn’t come as some kind of big surprise. You know how Zach works.”
“I realize that the man likes his privacy, but Steve Sanders comes and goes as he pleases.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” I said as I tucked my phone back into my purse. “Zach’s the only one with a key. If he’s not there, Steve has to wait outside the door in the hallway like everyone else.”
That made Davis smile, so I had to ask, “What’s so amusing about that?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the police chief said, “You know he was expecting to get my job, don’t you?”
“I heard he was being considered for it,” I admitted.
“Well, he jumped the gun and started making promises he couldn’t keep. When he lost out to me, he made a lot of people mad at him around here. To be honest with you, I was kind of surprised when Zach chose him to help out on this case.”
“That’s not the way it happened at all. Steve volunteered, and I think Zach didn’t have the heart to say no.”
Davis nodded. “That makes more sense.” He paused a moment, and then asked, “So, tell me. What exactly is going on up there? You’ve got more access to the investigation than I do.”
“He’s still collecting information,” I said.
“I heard he’s left the building a few times. Any idea about exactly where he went?”
What was going on here? Even if I knew, I wasn’t about to tell anyone what my husband was doing in his investigation, even if it was his boss asking the questions. “You’d need to ask him that. I’m just a simple puzzle maker.”
“We both know better than that, Savannah.” His phone went off as he was getting ready to tell me something else, and after a moment of whispering, he said, “Sorry, I’ve got to take this. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“See you,” I said.
I walked upstairs and found my husband still in his corner, with his feet propped up and a blank stare on his face. I tried to back out of the door silently, but my elbow hit it and rattled it in its frame.
That brought him out of his thought process.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. I was just about finished anyway.”
“I hope that’s true, and that I didn’t wreck anything for you.” I looked around the room. “Where’s your minion?”
“I didn’t need him today, so I sent him back to the squad room.”
“I bet he wasn’t too happy about that.”
