“Grandpa left you 5,000 gold. I should have told you, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit I didn’t have the money. As soon as I have it, I’ll get it to you. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Olive frowned at him, scooping her loose hair out of her face and over her head. “Cassian… I know that, honey. You don’t owe me anything.”
Cassian shot me a look that saidI told you so, but I didn’t know how to shoot him a look that saidshe could be lying.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” I asked.
“I didn’t want Cassian knowing I knew, because I didn’t want him to feel obligated to pay me. I don’t want the money. I want nothing to do with it,” Olive said.
“I knew it!” Cassian said.
“Sorry to bother you, Olive,” I said, sliding my hand around Cassian’s back to lead him into the lobby again. “Cassian,” I said seriously as soon as she was out of earshot, “you can’t be so reckless. That could have been dangerous.”
“Dangerous?! She’s like family!” Cassian said. “I am 100 percent certain she is not to blame.”
“You can’t be 100 percent certain about anyone. For all you know,Icould have cursed your inn,” I said.
“Did you?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then I’m 100 percent certain it wasn’t you.”
I shut my eyes and sighed, squeezing his shoulder gently. Cassian was good with people, but he would have been a terrible investigator. He took everyone at their word. “Let me handle the questioning in the future, okay?” I asked.
“Who are you going to question next? Jasmine? Me?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“Yeah, maybe!”
His jaw dropped. “Sterling!”
“That’s my job. It’s why you contacted me.”
“I didn’t think you’d investigate my family!” Cassian said.
“Who else would I investigate?” I shrugged in a gesture around the nearly empty inn.
“Ezzila!” he said, throwing his hands up as if it were obvious.
“I tried. She won’t let me talk to her, so I have to wait for the Force to send me a writ. Can you wait until then?” I asked.
“How long will that take?” he asked.
“A week at most. In the meantime, I can only speak to the people around us, okay?”
Cassian frowned at me, sighing heavily. “So who’s next? Griffin again? Willorunia?”
I paused. He was getting defensive about the suspects. Maybe it was a mistake to let him help me. “You know, it might be better if you stayed out of the investigation from now on. I think this is harder on you than you realize,” I said.
“It’s not hard on me. I can handle it,” Cassian said.
I placed my hand on his arm, rubbing his shoulder. “Let’s take a break from questioning for a while, then.”
“We can’t take a break. The inn is losing business,” he said.
“You take a break then. I’ll go talk to that Ricky Marshall kid. Where does he live?” I asked.
“Come on, Sterling. It wasn’t Ricky,” Cassian said.
