The bell over the front door jangled, and Karen turned away with a grin. "You got it." She was almost out of the kitchen when she turned back. "If you need something to do, why don't you run over to Walgreens and pick up the stuff on that list?" she said with a nod toward a sheet of paper she'd tacked to the bulletin board. "It'll save us time later."

I knew she was just trying to get rid of me, but maybe she was right. My mood wasn't doing anyone any good. I pulled the list from the bulletin board and scanned it quickly. Apparently, we were out of almost everything from paper towels to ibuprofen. I grabbed my keys and the company checkbook from the office and drove the half block to the drugstore so I wouldn't have to haul the supplies back to Divinity on foot.

Inside the store, I managed to get the cart with the wobbly wheel, and my mood dropped even lower. I could have traded it for another cart, but I was so consumed by self-pity at that point, I couldn't even make myself do that. Battling the cart's determined efforts to circle to the right, I loaded the basket with the items on Karen's list and added a few of my own. By the time I'd gone around the store a couple of times looking for everything, my head had begun to pound to the rhythmic whap-whap-whap of the wheel as it hit the metal casing surrounding it.

Finally, I turned toward the cash register, where a young blonde of about eighteen popped her gum and waited for something to do. Britnee, according to her name tag, barely acknowledged my presence, which was fine with me. I wasn't in the mood for idle chitchat anyway. Behind her, a young man worked a feather duster across a row of film with as much enthusiasm as Britnee showed over helping me.

When Britnee was almost finished ringing up my purchases, the young man turned his head and said, "Hey, Brit. Do you know if the schedule for next week is up yet?"

Britnee popped her gum and shook her head. "I don't think so, Chase. She said she might not even do it today."

The young man muttered something under his breath, and Britnee rolled her eyes in response. "I know. I know. But don't tell me. Talk to her." She hit the Total b.u.t.ton and flashed a bored glance at me. "Comes to ninety-five ninety-eight."

I said a silent prayer of thanks for Liberty's enthusiastic att.i.tude and pulled out the checkbook. As I began to fill out the check, the fog that had been hovering around my head all day lifted, and I realized I was standing in the middle of a potential gold mine of information.

Tossing off a friendly smile, I asked, "Do you mind if I ask the two of you a couple of questions?"

Britnee flicked another couldn't-care-less look in my direction. "About what?"

"About last Monday night. Were you working that night?"

A veil of thin blonde hair fell when Britnee moved her head. She hooked a finger through it and tucked it behind her ear in a movement so automatic, I'm sure she didn't even know she'd done it. "I can't talk to you. My boss has a fit if we stop working to talk to anybody."

Which might explain her stellar people skills. I glanced around quickly, saw no one standing in line behind me, and pulled handful of items from the nearby bargain bin. Still trying to look friendly, I dropped them onto her conveyer belt. "There, now you have to talk to me. Just ring them up slowly, and tell me if you were working last Monday night."

Chase looked up from his dusting. "The night they found the dead guy in the parking lot? We were both here."

Britnee scanned a rubber ball with colorful spikes sticking out all over it and shuddered at the memory. The lock of hair escaped from behind her ear and fell down in front of her face again. "Was that not the freakiest thing ever?" she asked, hooking and tucking without missing a beat.

For the sake of argument, I agreed that it was, indeed, the freakiest thing ever. "You know, I'm the one who found the body. At least, my dog did. Did either of you see it happen?"

"The murder?" Britnee looked almost impressed by my claim to fame as she scanned a closeout can of Pringles and slid it into a bag. "I didn't see a thing, thank G.o.d. Did you?" She glanced longingly at Chase, as if she could feel a protective aura emanating from his scrawny body.

Chase ran his feather duster across a rack of magazines and puffed up a bit, no doubt trying to look tough. "I didn't actually see it happen, but I came close. I took a bunch of boxes out to the Dumpster about five minutes before they found the guy's body."

Britnee scanned the last item on her belt, but I still had questions. I held up a finger in a signal for her to wait and went back to the bargain bin. I loaded up again, checking price tags quickly to make sure I wasn't going to empty the bank account for a chance to hear what these two had to say.

"Did you see anything unusual?" I asked as I unloaded two decks of cards, a canister of tennis b.a.l.l.s with one missing, a couple of kitchen towels, and a bubble pack of flavored lip gloss.

I could tell that Chase wanted to say yes, but he shook his head reluctantly. "No. I mean, there were cars coming and going, you know? And there were people outside. But I didn't see the dead guy at all."

"That's because he was in here," Britnee said, startling us both.

"He came inside?" I asked.

She nodded solemnly and went through the motions of tucking and looping that errant lock of hair behind her ear once more. "I ought to know. I'm the one who rang him up."

Chase gazed at her with new admiration, as if she'd survived a brush with death in the last twenty seconds, and he'd been there to witness the miracle. "What did he buy?"

"A pack of gum, I think. I don't think he actually wanted it. He was just trying to get away from the guy who was bugging him."

I was finding Britnee more fascinating by the moment. "What guy?"

"The guy he was trying to get away from." Her tone suggested that I needed to pay better attention.

"Right. This is the first I've heard of that," I said. "Do the police know?"

Britnee shrugged lazily. "I guess so."

"You don't know? Does that mean you haven't told them?"

She lifted her gaze to mine. "I didn't talk to them, Sissy did. I don't know what she told them."

"Who's Sissy?"

"The night manager," Chase explained. "If you ask me, she's gone a little nuts since she got her promotion."

I knew the type. There's one in nearly every workplace. "So you didn't actually talk to the police yourself?" I asked Britnee.

"No, Sissy said she had to do it because she's the manager. I told her that was stupid. I mean, she didn't see anything, but she didn't care. She wanted to look important."

I sincerely hoped Sissy was about twelve; otherwise, I'd be frightened by the stupidity of that decision. "Did you contact the police later and tell them what you knew?"

Britnee shook her head. "No. I don't want to lose my job."

"And Sissy would fire her," Chase said. "She's like that."

They were so young, it was almost painful. "She can't fire you for talking to the police," I a.s.sured them. "There are laws."

Chase laughed through his nose. "Yeah? Well, tell Sissy that. But don't expect it to do any good. She'll just do whatever she wants."

I could have enlightened them on a few facts about employment law, but we were losing focus. "Did you see the other man's face? What did he look like?"

Britnee swiped the three-pack of fruity lip gloss across the scanner and pulled a flyer from a stack at the end of the counter. She pushed the flyer toward me. I picked it up and found Quentin Ingersol beaming up at me from a grainy photograph. My head shot up, and my breath caught. "He looked like this guy?"

"No, he was that guy."

My heart thumped with excitement. "Are you sure?"

Britnee secured the wayward lock of hair behind her ear again and nodded. "Sure I'm sure. That guy's in the store at least twice a week. I know who he is."

"But you haven't told the police that he was talking to the dead guy right before the murder?"

"No." Duh! Britnee shook her head and frowned as if she was losing patience with me. "It's not like he killed the guy. I mean, he's one of our regulars. He's in here all the time." She glanced at the empty conveyer belt and glanced back at me. "Is that it?"

She wasn't the only one losing patience, but I tried to hang on to mine with both hands. I pulled two magazines and a container of breath mints from the rack. "Did you happen to hear anything they said?"

"Who?"

"This guy and the dead guy. You said they were arguing ..."

Britnee scowled at me. "No I didn't. I said that the dead guy was trying to get away from the other guy."

"Do you know why?"

"This guy-" she tapped Quentin's face with her fingertip, "-kept telling the other guy to back off."

"What did the dead guy say?"

"He laughed. Like it was some kind of joke."

"Do you know what this guy wanted him to back off from?"

"No." Britnee stopped working again and c.o.c.ked an eyebrow, waiting for me to toss a few more purchases onto the belt.

I decided I'd spent enough on worthless junk and held up both hands. "You didn't hear anything else?"

"I didn't hear anything except that," Britnee said. "The guy in the picture told the dead guy to back off, and the dead guy laughed." She hit the total b.u.t.ton and rattled off a new amount, sliding a glance past me to something behind me. "You'd better go anyway," she said softly. "Sissy's back there watching."

Chase, in a self-protective measure, had already moved away. I wrote out the check and tossed it onto the conveyer belt along with two business cards. "Do me a favor, okay? If either of you think of anything else, will you let me know? You can find me at the candy shop on Prospector Street."

Chapter 29.

I left Divinity earlier than usual that afternoon for basketball practice. I hadn't seen Kerry since our run-in at the convenience store, and now that Wyatt and Elizabeth had taken Brody and Caleb off the team, I had no idea what his mood would be. If he was going to cop an att.i.tude with me, I wanted him to do it before the boys arrived.

I'd called Elizabeth earlier to see how Brody and Caleb were feeling about being sidelined. Neither of the boys wanted to speak to me, but Elizabeth a.s.sured me they'd get over their disappointment soon. Kids were resilient, she a.s.sured me. I hoped she was right.

The parking lot was nearly empty when I pulled in, so it wasn't hard to make sure there were no dark-colored SUVs lurking in the shadows. Even though lights spilled out of the windows and illuminated the sidewalks, I didn't see another soul until I let myself through the front door and into the reception area.

There, a young woman with curly dark hair sat at the front desk, the phone wedged between ear and shoulder. She smiled vaguely in my direction as I walked past her, but she was so deep in conversation, I wasn't sure she actually saw me. The windows of the administrative offices were already dark, indicating that the office staff had already gone home, but the faint sound of exercise equipment floated up the stairs from the work-out room in the bas.e.m.e.nt. At least one hearty soul was in the center that evening.

I checked the gym to make sure Kerry wasn't already there, then stepped into the ladies' room. I had a few minutes to kill and nothing to do, so I spent a little while pretending to make myself presentable: a quick sweep of a brush through my hair, a swipe at the lips with the remnants dug out of an old pot of Carmex I found in the bottom of my bag, a quick adjustment to the shoulders of my sweater, and a tug at the hem. I'm not sure I made any real difference to my appearance, but at least I'd tried.

After washing my hands, I reached for the door handle, but the sound of raised voices somewhere nearby made me stop with the door only partway open. Two men, from the sound of it. Two very angry men speaking in hushed, heated tones.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of . . . something, I let the door inch shut again. Almost. Curiosity trumps discretion any day. Maybe I was eavesdropping, but how else would I know when I could leave the bathroom without interrupting?

I couldn't make out what the men were saying at first, but it didn't take long before my ears adjusted to the ebb and flow of background noise and I began to pick up snippets of their argument.

". . . if anybody finds out, I'm through. You know that don't you?"

"Quit being so d.a.m.n melodramatic. Who's going to . . . ?"

Intrigued, I leaned a bit closer to the narrow opening I'd left myself. The men couldn't be far from where I stood. I could make out shadows moving on the wall across from me as they talked.

". . . proof somewhere. You know she's got it."

"And she'll be taken care of. Don't worry about that."

That sent a chill through me, and suddenly eavesdropping on their argument stopped being only a mildly entertaining diversion. Who was "she"? And what did he mean by "taken care of"?

"That's good," the first man said, his voice suddenly crystal clear and so close I caught my breath, "because if you screw this up, I'll lose everything. I'm already d.a.m.n close to losing it now. This is not what we agreed on."

"Relax, would you?" His companion must have moved closer, too, and I suddenly recognized one of the speakers. "You know why she's come back," Quentin Ingersol said. "You know what we need from her. Once we have that, it'll be over."

My breath caught, and my heart thudded in my chest. Two women had recently returned to Paradise: Liberty and Ginger. Which one were they talking about?

"It had better be," the second man growled. "Because if it's not . . ." His voice sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. It didn't sound like Kerry, but I was pretty sure that whoever it was, I'd talked to him recently.

The voices faded away, and the shadows on the wall moved toward the front of the building, too far for me to hear what the men were saying. I leaned my head against the cool tile wall and concentrated on breathing while I replayed the bits of conversation I'd heard in my mind. Who were they talking about? What did they need? And who was the second man?

I stood there shaking, running through the list of men I'd spoken with in the past week or so. Dwayne, Marshall. Kerry. Who else? Richie, Dylan. Gavin. I racked my brain, not daring to step out of the ladies' room until I knew I wasn't alone in the hallway with a couple of killers.

When I heard the first of the boys arrive for practice, I sucked it up and let myself out of my tile-walled sanctuary.

Kerry was already in the gym with the kids, and his posture stiffened noticeably when he saw me. "About time you joined us, Shaw. I need you to gather up the permission slips for the away game the boys took home last time. And the equipment's in my truck." He lobbed his keys across the court toward me. "Go get it."

It took a lot of nerve to treat a fellow volunteer with such scorn, and I was in no mood for Kerry's att.i.tude. I caught the keys and lobbed them back at him. "I don't think so. Considering the accusations you've made against me, I think it would be better if I kept my distance from your truck."

Color rushed into his face, and his eyes grew cold. A muscle in his jaw twitched repeatedly. Very slowly, he dragged his gaze away from mine and tossed the keys to Jason Pacheco, one of the older boys on the team. "Take someone with you, Jason."

Jason bobbed his head once, jerked his head at Ryan G.o.ddard, and jogged toward the rear doors. Coach and I stood for a long moment staring each other down until a bored voice sounded in the doorway behind me. "Coach Hendrix? Phone call for you on line one," and broke the tension. At least for the moment.

I had enough time after practice that evening to run home, change into clean black slacks and a sweater, and run a brush through my hair before meeting Jawarski for dinner. Brody and Caleb might not be on the team at the moment, but I'd made a promise to all the members of the team, and I felt an obligation to their parents to make sure they were safe.

On a whim, I replaced the old Carmex with a layer of the strawberry-kiwi lip gloss I'd picked up at Walgreens and brushed a hint of blush on my cheeks. A couple of minutes after eight, I pushed through the gla.s.s door to the restaurant and stepped into a crowd of people waiting to be seated. I knew Jawarski was already there, because I'd seen his truck in the parking lot when I cruised through.

Inside, soft Asian music played on a PA system, and the host, a young man of about twenty, spoke rapid Thai into the house phone. The door shut behind me, setting off the oddly discordant yet soothing sounds of bamboo wind chimes. I glanced into the dining room, peering between bamboo plants strategically placed to give the illusion of privacy.

Jawarski had already been seated, and he waved me over to our table. I was starving and more than ready for dinner, but seeing Jawarski sitting there in a crisp white shirt under his good black jacket wiped all thoughts of food out of my head for a full thirty seconds.

He stood as I approached the table, a gentleman of the old school, and his eyes lit with an appreciative gleam. I thought that was only fair, since I'm sure mine were pretty well lit also. He pulled out a chair for me, held it the way boys used to be taught in school, and then resumed his seat across from mine.

"You're looking terrific tonight," he said. "Basketball must agree with you."

I laughed, so relieved that we were going to start off on a pleasant note I probably sounded giddy. "I'm not so sure about that. It may just be the death of me."

Jawarski signaled the waiter, and a moment later a gla.s.s of Thai tea appeared on the table. I'm a pushover for touches like that, and he knows it. I took that as a sign that he'd calmed down enough to realize that I hadn't exactly tripped Marshall and then beat him to the floor to get that kiss.

"Trouble on the team?" he asked.