Claire whipped out her phone.
“What are you doing?” Ozzie asked.
“Your job. I’m looking up missing persons from this area.”
He groaned. “Will you let me do this my way?”
“No. My way is faster.”
Luke chuckled and met my gaze. I understood his amusement. Claire could be a wrecking ball.
“How long do you think that body’s been in there?” Claire asked, staring at her phone.
“I don’t know.” Ozzie pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s why we need to wait for forensics to get it out of the wall.”
She let out a soft grunt. “We’ll just do a general search for missing persons.” Her fingers flew over the phone keyboard. She paused as the search results came up, then lifted one eyebrow. “That’s a lot more people than I thought it would be.” She tipped the phone toward Ozzie.
He plucked it from her hand and scrolled. “Yeah.” Running his palm over his jaw, he read a few of the article descriptions, then handed it back. “We just need to wait on forensics. I can’t narrow it down until I get at least the gender. An approximate time of death would be even better.”
Claire huffed and laid the phone face down before resting her chin in her hand. “Fine.”
Ozzie put a hand on her back and rubbed small circles. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. You just have to give me a chance.”
“What else can we do to help?” Luke asked.
“Not much, honestly,” Ozzie said to him, then turned to me. “And I’m afraid work will have to stop on the café until we get all we can from the building.”
I grimaced but knew he was right. “I figured. You should know, the basement is full of junk. I don’t know if any of it is important.”
“Claire told me about it. We’ll probably haul it all out and to a secure facility for processing.” He rolled his neck. “The chief is going to love this.”
“I’ll bring you all the things I took from the building. It’s not much. Some art, a couple of decorative knick-knacks, and some planters.” I scooted away from the table. “In fact, some of it’s here.”
“We have that stuff at home, too, don’t forget,” Claire said, waving a finger at him.
Luke stood. “I’ll help you gather things.”
I glanced up, surprised at the gesture. “Oh. Thank you.”
A lopsided smile appeared on his face, bringing out a dimple. “You’re welcome.”
CHAPTER 6
Luke
Iwasn’t totally sure what possessed me to offer to help Mina gather stuff. There was a certain element of needing to move around involved. Sitting idle while my mind spun in a million directions about who was in the wall and why wasn’t working. I’ve always been the type who puzzled things out better while I did something mundane. Moving a few things fit that bill. I also knew I would probably end up taking a run later.
Not that any of it would help. I hadn’t the slightest clue who we’d uncovered.
But, at the very least, it would help me sort out my feelings about the situation.
“There really isn’t much.” Mina glanced over her shoulder at me as she flipped on the light in the coffeeshop’s storage room. “Just that.” She gestured to the artwork propped against the wall.
“I’ll take one, you take the other.”
“I have that box, there, too.” She pointed to a small box on a shelf beside the art. “It’s just some stuff I thought might fit the new café’s theme.”
I moved past her to pick up both paintings. “You take the box. I have these.”
