15. Jayne

After that giant meatball, several pieces of focaccia, a big plate of risotto, and two desserts (yes, I ordered and ate them both), I was pretty full. Also, very happy. But all I wanted to do was go back to the RV, put on some comfy clothes and vegetate on the couch with my hunk of a husband.

Probably with my phone nearby and my laptop on the couch next to me, because we did still have work to do concerning Charlie, as well as Matt and this blackmail business. But I wasn't going to get crazy this evening.

I planned on keeping my efforts to more online digging. What we really needed were the results of Charlie's autopsy and cause of death and for Birdie to tell us who that partial print belonged to. Until that happened, we were just gathering information without knowing if it was important or not.

I was frustrated we couldn't do more.

We thanked Matt again for dinner, said good night, and headed for the RV. Sin unlocked and opened the door for me. Spider and Sugar were sitting right inside, waiting.

"Mama, Spider needs dinner."

"Yeah, Momlady," Sugar added. "We're hungry."

I gave them both a stern look as I came in. "We put food down for you guys before we left. That was your dinner."

Spider rubbed against my legs. "Spider still hungry."

Sin snorted. "What he wants is?—"

"Don't say it. That'll just make it worse."

"What? Tre?—"

"Don't say the T word!" I shot him a stern look.

"Treats, Mama, treats!" Spider jumped up onto the couch and pawed the air with one foot.

"See?" I said to Sin, laughing.

He grinned. "I'll give them some. You go change."

"Good, because that is all I want to do." I wasn't exactly dressed up, but even the maternity leggings were starting to feel snug. I had no doubt that had more to do with the amount I'd eaten and less to do with Jack Jr. having a growth spurt in the last couple of hours.

I put on my nightgown and picked out a pair of fuzzy socks with grippy dots on the bottom. Sin came in as I was sitting down on the bed.

"Need help with those?"

"I can still put my own socks on, thank you." It took three tries to get my ankle up on my knee.

Smiling, but not too much, he held out his hand. "Give them to me."

I passed the socks over. He kneeled down and slipped them onto my feet. Maybe Jack Jr. had grown. "Thanks."

He kissed my knees and looked up at me adoringly. "Anytime, Princess."

"I love you."

"I love you, too." He pushed up to his feet like it was no big deal, which it wasn't, for him.

Then he offered me a hand. I took it. "What are you going to do with the rest of your evening?"

"Watch some television, maybe? We could look for a movie."

I nodded. "I'm up for that."

I grabbed my laptop and settled on the couch. While he changed, I scrolled through the streaming channels to see what was new and what looked entertaining. "Hey, this looks interesting," I called toward the bedroom. " Book of Secrets with Wesley Snipes and Angelina Jolie. Wesley plays a government agent tasked with bringing down a secret society of ancient druids bent on world destruction. Angelina is the librarian who's been hiding the book that will make it possible."

Sin walked out in pajama pants and a T-shirt, which he made look as good as a tux. "That sounds good."

"Or this one: Silver Lining . Amy Adams is the lead. She decides to break her grandmother out of her nursing home to help her finish her bucket list before dying. Tom Hardy is the irreverent orderly who gives her an unexpected hand. And his heart. Oh! And Sigourney Weaver plays the grandmother!"

Sin raised his brows in obvious skepticism. "Sigourney Weaver is playing grandmothers now?"

"Apparently."

"I don't know. That sounds like a movie that will make you cry."

He had a point. Phone commercials made me cry these days. "I accept that. Book of Secrets it is."

He stood in front of the cabinet where we kept snacks. "Twizzlers or what's left of your chocolate?"

"How about what's left of the chocolates?" I put on my cutest face. "And the Twizzlers. And a Dr Pepper."

"Coming right up."

"You're the best."

He nodded. "I really am."

I laughed. "Humble, too."

He brought my snacks to me, then got his laptop and joined me on the couch. "What did you think of Isla?"

"She's very pretty. And like I said, clearly not over Matt. That dress almost showed her navel."

"Even so, he seems to be over her."

"She's not a cat person. It would have never worked between them." I glanced at his laptop. "What are you working on?"

"I didn't get to finish looking through Charlie's social media, so I'm going to do that. How about you?"

"I want to look through the police report again, then the video and photos I took. I feel like we've missed something."

He sighed. "I've been feeling that way, too. Let's do an hour of digging, then shut down for the night and watch the movie."

"Okay."

He stared at his laptop and sighed. "I wish we could get Charlie's laptop or phone. Something tells me that's where the important stuff is."

"The police should have dug into them by now. Maybe I can ask Birdie if there have been any updates to things on their end?"

"Can't hurt."

I shot Birdie a text about that very thing, then opened up my laptop. Okay, actually, I stuck a Twizzler in my mouth, then I opened up my laptop. I went to the file containing the video I'd taken and started it up. I was nearly through it when Birdie texted back.

I'll check first thing in the morning and if it's been updated, I'll resend.

Thanks , I answered. We're mostly curious about what was on her laptop and phone.

Hopefully we'll know tomorrow. Making any progress?

Not enough . I added a frowny face.

Keep the faith , Princess . She added a heart.

I smiled. Birdie was a gem. "We should send Birdie a present for all her help."

"You're right," Sin said. "We should. What did you have in mind?"

"Beignets, but I don't think they'd ship very well."

He chuckled. "No, they wouldn't. How about pralines?"

"Yeah, okay. Can we do that tomorrow? I saw a place in the French Quarter. Aunt Sally's, I think."

"Yep. We'll get it done."

"And maybe we could get some more beignets?"

"Whatever you want."

I had definitely married the right man.

For a while, we were both quiet, the only sounds the occasional clacking of our keyboards. And the purring of Sugar and Spider, who'd joined us. Sugar lay on the back of the couch behind Sin, her paws against his head, and Spider squished himself next to me so he could make biscuits on my thigh.

I finished the videos and went on to the photographs, namely the ones of Charlie with her friends. Who were these people? If we could find a few and talk to them, we might get more insight into what had been making Charlie jumpy in the last month or so. I tried doing a reverse image search on the blond girl who was in two of the photos and struck out.

I was getting tired of hitting brick wall after brick wall. I wondered if the police were doing any better. I looked at Sin. He was staring pretty intently at his screen. "Did you find something?"

"No. Trying to work my way through her Facebook friends list. The men, anyway. Wondering if one of them is the mysterious boyfriend."

"I was just going through the photos on her bulletin board, trying to work out who some of those people were."

"Maybe you should look through her list of friends with me, see if any of them look familiar."

The Twizzlers were gone, so I moved the empty wrapper, then set the tin from my family and the box of chocolates from Matt on the floor and scooted closer. Close enough to lean against him and smell the remnants of his cologne. I let out a happy sigh. "Go back to the top."

He kissed the top of my head before scrolling. "There you go. Tell me when to go to the next group."

I studied the faces. None of them looked like the ones in the photos. "Next."

We were about a third of the way through when I pointed at one. "Hang on. That girl. Molly. She looks like the one from Charlie's bulletin board." I grabbed my laptop and brought up that picture to show Sin. "What do you think?"

"Might be. Let's go to her page and see what else we can find out."

A few minutes later, we confirmed she was the same woman via a different photograph of her, Charlie, and another woman all in the same outfits as they'd been wearing in Charlie's picture.

Sin dug in. "Molly McAndrews. She works at a local real estate agency here in town."

"We could call her tomorrow. See if she's willing to talk."

"Definitely. Let's do it."

"Now if we could just find the on-again, off-again boyfriend. You're sure Matt can't remember his name?"

"I'll ask him again, but I don't know if he ever knew it."

"Well, someone has to know who he is."

"I know you're frustrated, but we'll figure this out." He nudged me, confidence in his eyes. "We always do."

"I guess I should be more worried about this blackmail nonsense, but I don't know what else to do about that at the moment."

"Neither do I. We just have to hope Birdie comes through with that fingerprint."

I exhaled, frustrated but feeling a little better for knowing that Sin was feeling the same way. "Time is ticking down. I really don't want him to have to pay that money."

"My concern is that he pays it and then the blackmailer demands more."

I nodded. "I thought about that, too." I snuggled in closer. "Let me look at the rest of her friends list."

I didn't find anyone else from the photos, but I did get another idea. "Go back to Molly's profile. Let's look at the photos she's posted and see if there are more with Charlie in them. Maybe Molly tagged some of the people."

"Good thought."

He clicked through to Molly's profile and went straight to her photos. "Hmm. Molly sure is a party girl."

"I'd say so. What do you think she did to get all those beads?"

He snickered. "I can only imagine."

"Hang on." I sat up and looked closer. "Click on that photo."

Sin did, and the photo filled the screen.

"There." I pointed. "The guy in the background. I think I've seen him before. Let me pull up the photos I took."

"I have them." Sin wrangled the photos I'd taken into another window. He pulled up the one of Charlie and a dark-haired man. For a couple of seconds, we went quiet, comparing the two pictures. "He's turned sideways, but I think that's him."

"Is he tagged?" I doubted it. He wasn't the subject of the photo.

"No. Just says, ‘Having a blast at Theresa's birthday, ' with the hashtag ‘lit.' But this Theresa is tagged. Let's have a look at her profile."

Sin clicked through, but Theresa's profile was private, and nothing was visible.

"Great," I grumbled.

"Hey, it's still progress. We'll ask Molly about this guy tomorrow. At least we know they were at the same place at the same time. She has to know who he is or at least know someone who does."

My phone rang. I looked at the number but didn't recognize it. "Hello?"

"Is this Jayne? The pregnant lady with the blue hair?"

I gave a little snort. "It is. Who's this?"

"Nita. From the diner. Sorry, Anita. My friends never use the A ."

I moved the phone away from my face. "It's Anita from the diner." Then I answered her. "Hi, Anita. How are you?"

"I'm just fine. I remembered something I thought you might be able to use. You said you and your husband were looking into Charlie's death, right?"

"That's right." It wasn't exactly what we'd said but close enough.

"Well, I'm pretty sure the guy she came in with that one time, the guy I think was her boyfriend, I'm pretty sure she called him Tony."