Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

I woke up when my cellphone buzzed. I had a weird moment when I thought maybe Max had left for the Trail in the middle of the night, but then I woke up all the way and saw his ruck by the door and Maggs at the foot of the bed, and sanity returned. I got up and picked up my cellphone while I checked the bathroom and came back and noticed his clothes were gone.

I looked at the phone. I recognized Luke's number and brought up the text.

CORAL would you like a hot coffee?" I smiled at her. Cheery Boost.

" Yes, " she said, and I handed it over.

"So you were just coming to see Sid?" I was not going to say "Sidsie." I have my limits.

"Yes," she said. "I can't believe he's dead."

"And your sisters came along because it was the middle of the night? Because it was dangerous?"

"No," Hermione said, feeling superior now. "We're businesswomen. We're couriers. We were going to do business and then I was going to stay with Sidsie and they were going back to Chicago."

"Whoa," I said. "Long drive." I took a chance. "Is the pink convertible yours? I've always wanted a car like that." Actually, I hadn't, but it did look pretty cool out there in the moonlight.

"Yes, it's mine. Sidsie gave it to me," Hermione said, sighing.

She must have been really good in bed; Sid didn't give anybody anything.

Hermione started to sip her coffee, calm now, and I said, "So you and Sid were close."

"We were soulmates," she said.

Soulmates with Sid Quill. Not something I'd brag about.

"Had he changed lately?" I asked. "You'd have noticed, you were so . . . mated."

Hermione thought about it. "He was kinda edgy."

"Was he worried about something?"

Hermione screwed up her face, trying to remember. "Just kinda edgy."

"Do you think it was because he was afraid somebody was going to kill him?" I said, abandoning subtlety.

"Oh." Her eyes went wide. "Oh. Maybe." She looked stricken.

"Hermione, did he say anything like that?"

She looked thoughtful again. "No. Just edgy."

Hermione was obviously not a deep thinker, so I gave up. "I think Coral brought pastries."

"Ooooh," she said, perking right up.

I moved back, Coral brought over a Franzbr?tchen , and I grabbed Max for a second. "Get those other two apart," I said under my breath. "I need Vicious alone."

"That was my pastry," he bitched because, as always, he had his priorities down and could also act like a little kid. But he wasn't looking very well. "Good move separating the prisoners," he said. "One of Rogers' Rules of Rangering. When you take prisoners, keep them separated so they can't concoct a story."

"Oh, that's . . . good." I didn't know who the hell Rogers was, but whatever.

He asked Calculating to come look at something for him. When she said, "No," he said, "Not an option," and dragged her away from Vicious.

Okay, this one was going to be harder. Vicious was glaring at everyone over her gag.

"Men," I said, meeting her eyes. "They think they always have to be such thugs to get their way. Two speeds: sex and smacking somebody. Sometimes both at once." She rolled her eyes, but I saw her relax a little. "Listen, if I take your gag off, can you not scream or yell? It looks really uncomfortable, but they'll get rough if you make a fuss."

She narrowed her eyes at me.

"And we can get you a cup of coffee then," I went on, and she nodded, so I took her gag off.

" These assholes— " she started, and I cut her off.

" Hey . We had a deal. Coffee?"

She set her jaw.

"Yes?" I said. "No?"

" Yes ," she said, and Coral, who had evidently been listening, handed me a coffee after I'd cut one of Vicious's hands free.

"I'm Rose," I said and waited.

"Mal," she said after a long minute.

"Well, Mal," I said. "These guys have overreacted. Hermione tells me you were just here on business and had no idea Sid was dead."

"Hermione talks too much," Mal said.

"I have a bigger problem with the crying," I said, and Mal snickered.

Great, so if I trashed men and her sister, I had my in.

Bleah.

"Listen," Mal said. "I'm not buying the friendly act. You really believe we came here in the middle of the night to do lawful business?"

"Of course not," I said. "I'm assuming you came to pick up the drugs Sid was cutting."

Mal got wary. That wasn't good, I needed to make her feel superior to me, but at this point, I really had to give her something or I'd lose her.

"Look, Mal, we don't give a rat's ass about the drugs. I'm pretty sure if you don't upset the boys, they're going to let you go. What we want to know is, do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill Sid?"

Mal's lip curled. "Everybody?"

I nodded. "Probably, but that's not a help. Anybody on your end of the deal want Sid dead?"

She snorted, so I definitely had made her feel superior. "Why would we? He kept his end of the deal." She stopped. "He wasn't ratting us out, was he?"

"No," I said. "We had no idea he was dealing until we saw the coke."

I was hoping I sounded cool and with it and all the things I'm not.

"Then it's somebody here who did it," Mal said. "The people we work with don't kill the people who cooperate and make them money."

I nodded. "Thank you. I know you don't want to help, but I'm grateful. I really don't want a killer running around my town." I cut her last zip tie to set her free. "Let me talk to your older sister and then I'll tell the guys to let you go."

She nodded and sipped her coffee, still glaring at everybody but a lot more relaxed now.

I moved back to where Max and Luke were talking to the oldest one. The really tough mark.

"Go away," I said to them, and they went.

They'd taken off her gag and untied her hands, and Coral had given her a coffee, and the sugar on her hands said she'd had a Lebkuchen , Coral's insanely good gingerbread, and she was calmly surveying me now.

"So you're the boss," she said.

"Not even close," I said. "But I think they're catching on that you didn't kill Sid, and that's all we really care about. I mean, we can spare Sid, but we need to catch the killer anyway.

She smiled, not a real smile, calculation. "I imagine most people can spare Sid."

"Not Hermione," I said, and her smile faded.

"What is it you want?" she said.

"I want to know who killed Sid," I said. "Look, it's obvious you're the brains of this operation. We don't care about the drugs, we just want the killer caught before he offs somebody we actually care about. You obviously are very watchful, careful. Have you ever seen Sid nervous, afraid of anybody?"

"He was nervous all the time," she said. "But that was the coke. Shouldn't use when you're playing. He had a bad problem and it was getting worse, but he was still delivering on time. Our side did not kill him."

"Yeah, that's the conclusion we came to." I frowned at her. "I'm Rose, by the way."

She nodded. "Oz's girl Friday."

"Wow," I said. "You are good."

She smiled and said, "So are you, honey. I'm just hard to con."

"Damn near impossible, I'd say."

She smiled again, this time a real one.

"So . . . I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

"Dora."

She said that fast, so Max and Luke must already have had it. "Dora, can you give us anything that might help us catch the killer?"

She hesitated, and then she looked away, like she was thinking.

"I think he was coming undone. He was not happy when Hermione bought that damn pink convertible. Too noticeable. It struck me that he was looking over his shoulder a lot more. But again, cocaine."

I nodded. "You think he'd crossed somebody. I mean here, not in your organization."

"Yes," she said. "He was guilty about something."

"Of course, with Sid, that could be damn near anything," I said and watched her reaction.

Yeah, we weren't pals, but she was relaxed now.

"Let me see what I can do about getting you out of here," I told her.

"Thank you," she said, and I walked back to Max and Luke.

"Okay, what do you want from these women? They didn't kill Sid; they're drug couriers, but you said you didn't care about that. Hermione is so far up her own mind that she wouldn't have noticed if the murderer had done it in front of her, Mal doesn't know anything and doesn't care, and Dora would tell us now that she knows we don't care about the drugs."

Luke looked at Max. "Let them go?"

Max looked at me. "If we keep at them, will we get anything?"

"No," I said. "They just walked into this mess. Let them go, tell them if they remember anything to please let us know, and escort them out to that car like the gentlemen I know you can pretend to be."

"That hurts," Luke said, but he turned around and spoke to the room. "We apologize, ladies. We're chasing a killer, but Rose assures us that you all are innocent. Of the murder, anyway. You're free to go."

Dora nodded to me. "Thank you."

"We really are sorry," I said, moving back into making the mark feel superior.

Mal snorted, but it wasn't hostile, which is about as much as I could expect given the short amount of time I'd had.

Hermione sniffed. "I'm staying."

The other two looked at her.

"The hell you are," Mal said.

"I need to mourn my Sidsie," Hermione said, starting to cry again.

"Fine." Dora turned to Luke. "You have rental cars here?"

"No," Luke said. "Bearton does. That's down the road a bit."

"Got Uber so we can get to Bearton?" Dora asked.

"Yes," Luke said. "Even here on the dark side of the moon, we have Ubers."

"Good," Dora said. "And now. Our product."

"Nope," Luke said. "But you can keep the money you brought to pay for it."

"Wait a minute," Mal said, and Dora shushed her.

"Fair enough," she said. "Get us that Uber and the cocaine and we're gone."

Great. Now we were going to have an argument about the damn coke.

I snagged the last of the gingerbread off Coral's tray and settled in for the argument, my work done.