He studied her with a wariness that felt…heavier than it should, she thought. But he inclined his head in ago aheadmove.
“It’s just, I…noticed something. About the questions you guys asked and the questions the FBI asked. Where they…differed.”
That wariness turned to contemplation, and then an intense concentration that did more of that heart-fluttery thing inside her chest. “Oh, yeah? How’d they differ?”
“Maybe it’s because they already knew I didn’t know Albennie that well, but I heard them talking to other people and they didn’t ask those people either.”
“Ask what?”
“About who might want to hurt her. Ex-boyfriends or known enemies, customers who’d given a weird vibe.Youasked people about that. Copeland too. But the Feds didn’t.”
He studied her, those blue eyes serious. Focused. “You sure?”
She nodded. “I started paying attention because it was just so…clear. They had a different angle. They were interested in the timing. The security cameras. More the…hows than the whys. It just made me think…” She trailed off realizing howridiculous this was. “I’m sorry. You’re aprofessional. I’m just a…bystander. You don’t want to hear what I think.”
“Actually I do.” He leaned forward, watching her very carefully. “What did it make you think, Franny?”
Nerves danced in her chest—and they were nerves over sounding stupid and having him make fun of her, but there were also these sort ofawarenessnerves that she really didn’t do well handling.
But she focused on her theory. “Well, if they weren’t asking who might want to hurt her…they might already knowwho.”
Royal keptstaringat her. If she was a criminal, she was pretty sure she’d confess. Maybe even to things she hadn’t done.
“They do have the description you gave, the license plate. So maybe they do know. Maybe they knew before they even got there.”
Franny nodded. “Has anyone identified him yet? Found the car? Anything?”
Royal didn’t answer right away. But his gaze was sharp, attentive. She imagined he was working through a couple different problems all at the same time. Or maybe he was deciding how nice to be to the crazy writer, like he’d seenMiseryone too many times.
“No, they haven’t found anything that I know of,” he finally said.
Hope folded in on itself, and she just felt unaccountably…depressed. “Maybe it never mattered I got all that information then.”Maybe you should have done something in the moment.
“It mattered,” Royal said, seriously enough she looked up from her little pity party. His gaze was blue and intense. “It will matter,” he said forcefully.
And it actually made her feel a little better that he thought so.
IF THERE WASone thing Royal hated about police work, it was reports. He’d never gone to school in any traditional sense of the word. A semester with this foster family, some homeschooling lessons with that one. Nothing in the gang,obviously. Well, Brooke had tried when he’d been really little. The fact he could read at all was probably thanks to her.
He’d gotten his GED. He’d passed the POST test. He’dlearned, but writing things out was just never going to be his strong suit.
He pushed away from the table where he’d been working. If he didn’t take a break, he was going to be way too tempted to hurl the computer against the wall, and since it was county issued, that probably wasn’t in his best interest.
He paced the apartment for a little bit, trying to get some of the pent-up energy out of his system. He’d joined a gym in Fairmont, and he was technically off duty since it was after seven, but he didn’t like the idea of being gone a couple hours even if there was a deputy on call for night shift.
Maybe he could go for a run. There wasn’t a great path in Hope Town, but maybe he could carve one out. Though probably not in the dark.
He walked over to the window. Hope Town was dark and quiet below. There were a few streetlights, but beyond this Main Street everything around him out there would be pitch-black nothingness.
Royal blew out an irritated breath. Along the street on the opposite side, most of the lights in the buildings were off except for security lights in the shops on the first floor. He knew most of the apartments on the second floors were rented by the women who owned or worked in the stores.
Were there any men in this town? He’d asked Lia about the man Franny had seen at the bakery this morning and had beentold Ellis Sutton was on the up and up, though he’d looked into what Lia had said just to verify.
Nothing out of the ordinary, just one of the few men with a Hope Town address.
But wasn’t that in it of itself weird? Why did Zach Simmons only lease businesses to women? Was it some kind of…feminist outreach?
Or something more sinister.
