Chapter 7

San Luis Obispo Chief of Police Rex Foley leaned back in his office chair and laced his fingers behind his head, cocking his head to the side as he said, “So, let me get this straight. You were hired this morning to investigate a cold case, and you decided you’d drop by today to inform me just so I’m aware of it.”

“Right,” I said. “This case is twenty years old, which is long before the time you came to work for the department.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you want, Georgiana?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe for a second that you drove over here to tell me you’re working a cold case. You could have spared yourself the visit and given me a call. And yet, here you are.”

“I figured you’d hear about the case sooner rather than later, since my mother is aware of it. We both know it’s impossible for her to keep anything to herself.”

Foley snorted a laugh and said, “Would it surprise you if I said I already know about this new case of yours?”

It would not.

Foley was engaged to my sister, Phoebe, and given she and my mother spoke on the phone most days, I should have expected it wouldn’t be long before news reached him. Still, it had been a mere two hours since I’d left my mother’s house. She’d managed to spill the tea in record time. I didn’t know what I felt more?—

irritated or impressed. I supposed it was a bit of both.

“All right, fine,” I said. “I stopped by because I’d like to see what was taken into evidence during the investigation.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I thought as much. If you still worked as a detective for the department, I wouldn’t have any problem with your request. You don’t.”

“Oh, come on. It’s a cold case. What’s the big deal? I have a copy of the case file.”

Foley raised a brow. “How?”

“Harvey made a copy before he retired. And before you say anything, I’m coming clean about where I got it because you know what it feels like to have a case you can’t solve. This one’s haunted him for years. If I can solve it, it would be a win for everyone, the department and the families alike.”

“If we could solve it, you mean.”

I crossed my arms, glaring at him. “I don’t follow.”

Foley lifted a finger and then picked up the phone. He made a call and asked the person on the other end of the line to come to his office. Less than a minute later, Detective Amos Whitlock stepped into the room. He noticed me sitting across from Foley and a wide grin crossed his face.

Whitlock looked me up and down over his black, thick-rimmed glasses and said, “Well, hello, Georgiana. Wonderful to see you. Fine day we’re having today, isn’t it? Love the outfit. It’s ’40s era, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You’re right, it is ’40s inspired.”

Today I was dressed in a fitted, black, A-line skirt and a white blouse. Whitlock, who’d just turned seventy-one, was dressed just as sharp in a pair of black pants, a black turtleneck, a brown corduroy jacket, and shiny pointed black shoes.

Whitlock had come out of retirement about a year ago, when he learned the department was struggling to find a detective to replace Foley, who’d been promoted to chief of police. Whitlock had a long history of police work and had even worked alongside Harvey and my father. Since his return, we’d crossed paths on a couple of cases, and I’d come to enjoy the time we spent together.

Whitlock took a seat next to me and exchanged glances with Foley.

I wasn’t sure why, but I was starting to feel uncomfortable.

“By the way you two are acting, I feel as though I’ve been left out of something,” I said. “Would one of you care to fill me in?”

“I can explain,” Foley began.

Whitlock raised a finger. “If you don’t mind, allow me.”

Foley muttered a few words under his breath, which I couldn’t make out, but it was clear he did mind. Even so, he gave Whitlock the nod to go ahead.

Whitlock turned and faced me. “When I came out of retirement to work for the department again, I must admit my reasons were twofold. I knew you’d started your own detective agency, Georgiana, and I thought it might give us a chance to rub elbows every so often. You remind me a lot of your father, as you know, and I’ve missed him these many years since he passed away.”

Whitlock was building up to something, his second reason for returning. And even though he hadn’t admitted it yet, I’d figured it out—it was the reason the three of us were now gathered in his office.

“You worked with Harvey on the murder investigation all those years ago, didn’t you—the one where Cora Callahan was the sole survivor?”

“That’s right.”

“And I’m guessing you’ve reopened the case.”

“Right again. I never told you this, but it was one of the conditions I set before I became a detective again. We agreed when I wasn’t busy working on another case, I could take another crack at this one to see if I could find anything new.”

“Does Harvey know?”

Whitlock shook his head. “I’m not trying to keep it from him. I didn’t want to say a word until I found a new lead. No sense getting his hopes up without a fresh angle, after all, something to crack the case wide open. And right now, I have nothing.”

I sat in silence for a moment, taking it all in.

“Are you aware that Cora hired me this morning?” I asked.

“I’m just learning about it now.”

“Does she know you’re looking into the murders again?”

“Yes, she does.”

I wondered why she hadn’t mentioned it to me.

“What about the victims’ families?” I asked. “Do they know?”

“Some do, some don’t. I haven’t been back on it for long.”

I shook my head, looking at Foley as I said, “We have an interesting predicament, don’t we? I’ve already accepted her case. What happens now?”

“Depends. How do you feel about it now that you know Whitlock is already working the case?”

I didn’t know.

I hadn’t had time to process it.

“I need to talk to Cora, to find out why she hired me when she knows the case has been reopened by the police department.”

Whitlock placed a hand on my arm. “Way I see it, two heads are better than one, as they say. You and I … we work well together, don’t we? I have no problem with us both investigating the case on our respective ends and seeing what we can come up with this time around.”

“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t abide by the same set of rules that you do. It’s one reason I quit this job and opened the detective agency. More loopholes. Less red tape.”

“You do you,” Whitlock said. “I’ll do me. I don’t see why it needs to change things. Do you?”

But it did change things.

It changed everything.