THE CHILL IN the air grew brisker as the day went on. I hurried across the street, clumsily prying open the door to the police station while holding bags of food. Lara walked through the open door before me, trying to juggle another bag of food and two gallons of sweet tea.

“What’s all that?” Charley asked, standing up behind her desk.

“Bojangles.” Lara grinned and raised her goodwill purchase. “I figured we could use some fried chicken.”

“That’s so nice of y’all, and so much better than the salad I brought for lunch.” Charley came out from behind the counter to help Lara. She took the two gallons of sweet tea and headed toward the break room.

“Charley,” I interrupted her. “Could you take those into the conference room? We need to have a meeting.”

“Sure.” She darted back across the lobby and down the hallway.

“Think that helped me earn any points with Charley?” Lara asked while taking one of the three bags in my hands.

“She’ll come around. She’s had a rough time adjusting since her divorce. I think.”

“I can understand that,” Lara said before heading down the hall. One by one, everyone came out of their offices, their noses on high alert.

“Do I smell chicken?” Jack asked.

“Oh, biscuits…” Evan said, brushing past Jack, following the smell into the conference room.

“What’s all this about?” Caleb asked as he stood outside of his office, his arms crossed over his chest.

“We’ve got nothing. We have to go in a different direction,” I told him before walking into the conference room.

I unpacked the boxes of fried chicken and biscuits from the bags and placed them next to the bags of macaroni and cheese and French fries. Everyone began serving themselves. I made a plate of my own and went over to the whiteboard displaying the taped-up pictures of Erica’s family and friends right below a picture of her.

“As it turns out, Erica not only had a relationship with her uncle, Dakotah Gunter, but it appears she was also extremely close to her father, Eddie Williams.”

“Wait…” Caleb interrupted. “No one in her day to day life had any idea she was close to either of these men?”

“It appears that way.”

“I have a theory,” Lara said. “I think she kept her family a secret from everyone because she’d grown up knowing she had to. In a way, it was natural for her.”

“You think she was trying to protect her family?” Tanner asked. “From who?”

“From each other,” I said.

“But why?” Grayson asked, ripping into a leg of chicken.

“They hated each other,” I explained.

“To be fair,” Lara interjected. “We only know that Dakotah Gunter hated Eddie Williams. We don’t know how Eddie would have felt about Dakotah if given the chance, but Dakotah made no effort to welcome him into the family.”

“So, this has nothing to do with her inheritance?” Charley asked.

“Look at you being all detective-like,” Evan teased.

“I’m a vital part of this investigation.” Charley smiled at her best friend. Evan shot back a smile that lingered on her before he returned to eating his food.

Caleb stood up and flipped the board around, giving us a clean slate. At the top he wrote, December 27th and drew a line below the date. He put the cap on the marker and spun around. “I think we need to question her co-workers next.”

“I agree,” I said. “We need more information about who was at the restaurant that night and how well they were acquainted with the victim. I don’t think it was anyone she personally knew.”

Caleb cocked his head slightly to the side as he pondered what I said.

“You don’t?” Tanner asked.

I shook my head.

“You’re convinced it’s going to happen again.” It wasn’t a question. Maybe he could read it in my facial expressions, or maybe he just knew me a little too well, but somehow he understood the feeling in my gut telling me this would happen again.

“I don’t know why Erica was chosen, but her death was a message,” I said. “I don’t know the reason for the message. I don’t know if Erica was a target or if she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we’re dealing with something much greater than someone going after her inheritance.”

“So, what is the message?” Jack asked.

It was an excellent question, and one I didn’t have an answer for. Luckily for me, Evan had a question of his own.

“Are we really just gonna wait until this happens again?”

“What else can we do?” Grayson asked.

“I’ve worked out the questioning of all the restaurant employees, but with the holidays, it’s been hard to get them all in one place,” Tanner said. “Cooks and I are meeting with them the day after New Year’s.”

“We have to figure out who was in the restaurant that night.” Caleb dominated the conversation. “It had to have been someone who followed her. Heavner, Murphy, y’all were there. Can you recall how many people you saw when you were at dinner?”

Jack dropped his chicken wing and wiped his hands and mouth with a paper napkin. He shrugged his shoulders.

“We’ve been trying to think about that,” Evan said. “But I mean, we were really only paying attention to Erica so we didn’t notice how many people were there. Guess we dropped the ball on that one.”

“I’m sure beer was involved,” Lara chided.

“Naturally,” Jack said. “But we did go kind of late. There weren’t that many people eating dinner, and the place isn’t all that big.”

“So, we’ll have to find out what customers were there that day,” Tanner said, glowing at his own brilliance.

“At least who was there during her shift,” Grayson added.

“It could have been anyone for days or weeks before,” Lara told them. “There’s no way to find every customer. Some of them would have paid with cash.”

“It is a pretty popular restaurant,” Evan conceded. “It’s always packed on the weekends.”

Tanner deflated quickly.

“This is going to be tough.” Jack shook his head and tossed his napkin down onto his plate.

“What else can we do?” I asked. “We have to stop this guy before he does it again.”

“Do you think it could have been an obsessed customer?” Lara tossed out an idea.

“That’s going to have to be a question for the staff.” Caleb pushed away from the table and began writing the names of the employees on the whiteboard, looking down at a sheet of paper. “Something we probably should have looked at initially.”

“So, do we rule out everyone in her personal life?” Grayson asked. “She wasn’t close with that many people.”

“Yeah,” Tanner said, mildly embittered.  “But we were told she wasn’t close to her family and that turned out to be complete bullshit. So who knows what kind of relationships she had.”

“How was Camille Roy’s boyfriend?” Caleb asked. “Did he give off any vibes?”

“Blake Wicker?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. Did you pick up any vibes, Lara?”

“He seemed pretty protective of Camille, but I can understand his position given she was the one who found Erica.” Lara exhaled. “I honestly don’t know. He’s an attorney. They have good poker faces.”

“Maybe y’all should question him again.” Caleb turned back to the whiteboard, continuing to write his list.

“Care to take a ride, partner?” Lara asked as she stood up to throw away her plate of chicken bones.

—

We made the short drive to Hickory and found ourselves in the lobby of an office building where Lara stared at the receptionist for ten minutes while I paced back and forth impatiently.

“Did he say when he would be done with his lunch meeting?” Lara asked the receptionist. She didn’t try to hide her annoyance in the least.

“I said it would be just a minute,” the receptionist shot back with the same amount of attitude.

“Okay, this is ridiculous.” I marched out of the waiting room and headed for the hall behind the receptionist’s desk. Lara’s heels clicked after me, and the receptionist’s heels followed her, coming up on me even faster.

“Sir, you cannot go back there,” she ordered.

“You don’t have the authority to tell us to stop,” Lara said as I marched past a dozen open office doors with attorneys peering out. “We’ve been waiting, but this is unacceptable. You are infringing on the law. I could arrest you for obstructing a murder investigation.”

I came to a closed door with a nameplate that read Blake Wicker. I tried the handle, but it was locked.

“Do his lunch meetings usually require a locked door?”

“Sir, please—”

I raised my hand up for her to quit talking. I leaned against the door and heard a faint rustling followed by shattering glass. I stepped back, drew my gun, and kicked the door. It flew open, revealing Blake Wicker with his pants around his ankles and standing in between the legs of a woman that wasn’t Camille Roy.

“Oh, this just keeps getting better and better,” Lara said, holstering her gun.

“Pull up your pants and come with us, Mr. Wicker,” I ordered as I kicked the broken highball glass out of the way.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” He yanked up his pants while his friend frantically buttoned her blouse.

“I did ask nicely.” I walked over to him and grabbed his arm, twisting it up behind him just before I slammed his face into the desk. “You’re under arrest.”

“On what grounds?” he screamed.

“Obstruction of Justice,” I replied while handcuffing him. “By refusing questioning.”

“This is absurd. I will sue the force for this,” Blake fumed as I yanked him away from the desk and read him his rights.

“It should be a crime to have a dick that small,” Lara joked as I pushed Blake toward the door.

He fought and struggled all the way out of the building, but gave up once we reached the car. He simply remained silent for the entire drive back to the station.

Once at the station, we brought him straight into the interrogation room for questioning. He looked rough sitting in that hard, unforgiving chair with his shirt untucked, his suit rumpled, and his tie hanging loosely about his neck. Despite his disheveled appearance, he sat tall and proud, a smug expression painted on his face.

“You have declined to have an attorney present,” I noted.

“I am an attorney.”

“State your name,” Lara demanded.

“Blake Wicker.”

“What is your relationship with Erica Gunter?” I asked.

“This again?” Blake rolled his eyes. “Like I told you before, my girlfriend was Erica Gunter’s roommate.”

“I’m sure she’ll be your ex-girlfriend after today,” Lara said. “When was the last time you saw Erica Gunter?”

“I don’t know.” Thoughtful, he looked down at the table. “Perhaps during that Christmas party Camille and Erica organized.”

“Perhaps?” I pressured him. “You’re not sure?”

“I don’t recall seeing her on any other day between the party and Christmas.”

“Where were you on the evening of December 26th?” Lara circled him with an air of intimidation.

“At dinner with Camille.”

“And before your dinner with Camille?” I asked.

“I was … at work.”

“Why the hesitation?” Lara asked.

He sighed letting his head fall back. “I was with Vanessa.”

“Who’s Vanessa?”

He threw his hands up. “My secretary.”

“And she can verify this?”

“There are cameras all around the office, inside and out. You’ll see us walking out together.”

“See?” I said. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? We could have skipped all of this ugly arrest business if you had just answered the questions earlier.”

“I can go, right? I cooperated!”

“You did,” I said, giving him the same smug expression he came in wearing. “After we put you under arrest. You should have answered them back at your office. Looks like you’ll be spending the night here, Mr. Wicker.”

Lara pulled him out of his chair and led him down the hall for further processing. I pulled out my phone.

Me: We have a problem.

Grace: What’s wrong?

Me: Camille’s boyfriend is cheating on her.

Grace: OMG! How do you know?

Me: We went to question him about Erica. We caught him in the act.

Grace: Do we tell her?

Me: That’s not for us to deal with. She’ll find out anyway. He’s about to spend the night in a cell.

Grace: You arrested him?!

Me: Yep. Him and his small dick. At least, according to Lara.

Grace: I like her.

Me: Yeah, she’s turning out to be cool. How’s your day going?

Grace: Slow, thankfully. I’m about to head out in an hour.

Me: It feels weird not seeing you today.

Grace: You already saw me today, silly.

Me: That doesn’t count. This morning was a continuation of yesterday.

Grace: Well, when you see me tomorrow, it’ll all be worth it.

Me: I can’t wait for tomorrow, Grace.

Grace: I can’t wait either :-)

“How is Grace?”

I looked up to find Lara walking toward me, still pushing around a handcuffed Blake Wicker. It must have been my smile that gave me away.

“You’re talking about Grace Shuler, aren’t you?” Blake scoffed, pulling out of Lara’s grip. “You judge me as being disgusting for cheating on my girlfriend, but you’re banging your dead partner’s wife!”

I swung my arm back and let my fist fly directly into his face. I didn’t know what came over me, but after seeing the blood ooze from his nose, I had no regrets about it.

“Wyatt!” Lara hollered, forcing her way between Blake and I to prevent any further attack.

The commotion brought Tanner running down the hall, followed by Grayson. I pushed past them and headed for the door. They could deal with him. It felt good to know the little shit, innocent or not, would be stuck in a cell for a night. I was okay with that.