“Hmm,” I said. “I always wondered if that was true. I guess it is.”
“No! No! Nooooooo!”
Her head slipped out sight as the back door burst open. Sheriff Kency Blount barged in, shining a light.
“Don’t move. Police!”
TWENTY-FOUR
Isat on the front steps of the bed-and-breakfast, sipping a warm cup of coffee.
Roan sat beside me. “You okay?”
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve had a helluva of night.”
I shot him a tired look. “If it hadn’t been for you, it would’ve been a lot worse.”
Roan sipped from his own mug. He gazed out into the autumn morning. “It was lucky I had been out walking.”
I nudged his knee. “Yeah, I guess your stalking paid off.”
He grinned. “Seems like.”
Apparently Roan had been the one walking by Slick’s house the night before. He’d heard a commotion and shone his flashlight through the window. It hadn’t been the cops. At the same time, Kency Blount and her team had matched a set of fingerprints from Xavier’s body to Meredith. When they started digging, they realized the previous owner of Soul Food and Spirits had disappeared, never to be found.
Kency put two and two together and, well, came up with four. Four being that Meredith killed Nancy and Xavier.
I handed Roan the coffee and rose, stretching my arms over my head.
“Where are you off to?”
I glanced around the sleepy hamlet. “Oh, I don’t know.”
That was true. I didn’t. I didn’t have Lucky; I didn’t have an e-mail to prove Anita had always planned on kicking me off the team. I was pretty much lost.
I had the house I’d inherited from my father, but there was a lot of figuring out I had to do. Who was my dad? Was what Lucky Strike told me true? So much to think about.
I glanced down at Roan. “You know, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
He rose. “Well, if you decide to stay around here, maybe we could spend some time together.”
“Doing what? Kneading bread?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of baking cookies.”
I barked a laugh. “Sounds awesome.”
He pointed down the road. “There’s a house for rent up the street. Word is that it’s haunted.”
I nodded. “Maybe.”
“But seriously, this is a great town, though it is rather podunk.” He nudged me with his elbow.
A trail of fire snaked up my arm. “It’s not that podunk.”
We were standing close. So close. His gravitational pull sucked me in. “But seriously, if you stayed, I’d like to take you out.”
