“I do understand,” he said, “but you’re making things worse.”
“By trying to find who did this? No,” she said, “I’m not making things worse at all. It’s what I do, Mack. I have no choice.”
“No choice, my foo—”
“And besides,” she interrupted, “I’ve got the bag.”
“Don’t you move,” he growled. “I’m already in the truck on my way.”
“Oh, good,” she said. “Are you trying to get here before I have a chance to open it up?”
“Don’t you dare,” he said, his voice soft.
She winced, as she recognized how serious he was. “Fine,” she said. “I won’t look inside.” She slammed her phone down, but then her gaze caught sight of the Chinese food in the take-out bag, and she grinned.
“Food,” she crowed. She grabbed a plate and served herself half of it. She was just hungry enough to eat the whole thing but didn’t want to scarf it all in one shot, only to feel bad afterward. But she was really hungry. Maybe that was a good sign because, as the day wore on, she was coming out of the dumps. As she sat outside with her food at the new table and chairs set, Mugs was parked right beside her, his gaze on every forkful, just in case. Goliath was on the footstool of the nearby rocker, not caring, and Thaddeus was intently studying a piece of celery on the side of her plate, as she heard Mack’s truck drive up. She groaned and looked down at her plate.
“Why is it that I didn’t connect the fact that he was coming now to the reality that I left him half of the food? He’s just going to eat it, and I won’t have leftovers.”
He came through the kitchen superfast, took one look at her, and nodded in approval. “You actually bought yourself some food?”
“I felt bad,” she said. “The woman gave me the blue bag and told me about the lawyer, so I felt like I should at least put in an order to give her something back for her trouble.”
“Well, that’s not a bad thing,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you’d give me that consideration, like maybe give me the information before you picked up the bag?”
“Well, I didn’t know about the bag until I spoke with her. And I couldn’t leave it with her,” she said. “That would be foolish.”
“That is true, but you could have pursued other avenues. However,” he said, “at least you’re here, and you have it now.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I do want to see what’s in there, you know?”
He groaned, realizing why she’d left it for him to pick up directly from her. “You know that I can’t do that. As evidence goes, it’s already tainted enough, thank you.”
“You can too,” she said, ignoring the scolding. “Just open it and pull it out the contents, and let’s take a look to see if anything of importance is in there.”
“If it’s of importance, it won’t be for here. It will be for my office.” But he was already back in the kitchen, rummaging through things.
She smiled, as she watched him. “See? It can’t be that bad,” she said.
“Sure, it is,” he muttered. “Right here, in the appointment book, it says that she was meeting you.”
“And she did. She came here, but then she was meeting somebody else at the Chinese restaurant, and I don’t know who that was.”
“Well, maybe it was you,” he said.
“After she barged in and blasted me so rudely? No way. Besides, it’s not like she invited me. So it was someone else.”
“Maybe,” he muttered. “Some initials are here.”
“See? There’s always something.” She watched, standing up with her plate and coming around into the kitchen, so she could take a look at what he found: a stack of loose papers, a notepad, and a laptop. But he still studied her little diary. “It doesn’t say anything else?”
He shook his head. “No. It doesn’t. Just that she had a meeting for dinner.”
“I wonder who?” She frowned at that. “I really wonder.”
“Who do you think it would be?” he asked curiously.
She shook her head. “I have no idea. It obviously wasn’t me. She never invited me, though I have no proof of that,” she muttered. “What are the initials?”
“It’s just an S.”
She threw up her hand. “That’s not helpful,” she said. “That could be anybody then.”
He laughed. “Or it could denote the place like the Starbucks close to where her car was. However, when people are murdered, rarely do the victims have a chance to set up the evidence, linking their murderer ahead of time, so that it’s obvious who did it.”
“Yeah, we should all have a little bit of warning,” she muttered. “But that stabbing …” She shook her head. “Was she killed in the vehicle?”
“We don’t think so,” he said. Then he stopped, glared at her, and said, “Stop asking me questions.”
“Well, I can hardly stop asking questions when it relates to me.”
“Well, it doesn’t,” he said. “Remember that.”
“I hope it doesn’t relate to me,” she muttered. She kept trying to see what he was up to but could see nothing, as he flipped through the paperwork. She sighed. “I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t look like anything interesting is there.”
“No,” he said. “I’m just not sure what’s going on. Well, I’ll take this in,” he said. “Forensics wants the laptop, and we’ll take a look at the rest of this.” He glanced at her and asked, “And you didn’t look at it, did you?”
“No, for Pete’s sake!” And she meant that. “And, other than her barging in here, I didn’t meet with her.”
“I know,” he said. “We’ll check the security cameras at the restaurant.”
“The waitress said nobody showed up.”
“So Robin probably went to meet them somewhere else then,” he said. “We’ll check the cameras anyway.”
“Good,” she said. “It still wasn’t me.”
“Good,” he said. “Make sure it isn’t you.” And, on that cryptic note, he turned and left.
She frowned. He obviously was in a mood because he hadn’t even tried to take some of her food. She grabbed the rest of it and dumped it onto her plate. She might as well enjoy a solid meal. It would be the first one she’d had in several days. She dug in.
Chapter 4
Sunday Morning …
The next day, Doreen woke up early in the morning with a heavy heart. Something was so weird about being involved in a case like this, where she was a suspect. Mack was studiously keeping away from her. Mostly because she kept asking questions, and then he ended up giving away information he wasn’t supposed to. But they always talked daily, and, although she’d seen him last night, it seemed like he did not want any contact. She knew he wouldn’t have been here at all if it weren’t for the fact that she had Robin’s briefcase in her possession.