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  Arlo had never seen the girl before. She probably lived over in Walnut and drove to the Cattle Drive Steakhouse, which sat between Sugar Springs and their nearest neighbor.

  “Ladies.” The hostess pulled four menus from the holder and waited for them to acknowledge. “Right this way.”

  As far as tables went in proximity to Daisy, it wasn’t bad, Arlo was just glad the waitstaff hadn’t kicked them out already or called the police on them for suspicious behavior. People were getting more and more cautious these days with so many shootings and sad things in the world.

  Thankfully the hostess sat them three booths away.

  “Helen, you sit on that side,” Fern ordered.

  “I can’t see her from here,” Helen protested.

  “She’ll know you anywhere with that hair.”

  “I told you I should have worn a stocking cap.”

  “No stocking caps. It’s summer.”

  Camille picked up the menu and started perusing it.

  “We didn’t come here to eat,” Fern protested.

  “And if we are made, then how suspicious will it look if we don’t have any food on the table?” Camille returned.

  “We’re not going to be made,” Arlo said. “Where did you even learn that phrase?”

  “I have cable.”

  The waitress came by and took their drink orders, and they all turned to their menus.

  “Someone’s coming,” Fern said in an ominous tone.

  “We’re in a restaurant,” Arlo said. There were people all over.

  Camille gasped. “Oh my goodness.” Her voice was filled with shock and awe.

  “What?” Arlo asked.

  Helen made as if to turn around. Arlo stopped her. “Don’t. They’ll see you.” She shook her head. Now they had her doing it.

  “Kiss a pig,” Fern said.

  “Who is it?” Arlo hissed.

  Camille sadly shook her head. “Our handsome neighbor.”

  “Phil?” Arlo asked. Not that she would call him handsome. She supposed he wasn’t all that bad looking. What was Phil doing with Daisy?

  Then again, it was Phil who told her that he had seen Travis and Wally together at Books & More. But her blooming theory quickly died as Fern pointed one finger toward the sky. Not Phil, she mouthed.

  “Sam?” Arlo couldn’t help herself. She spun around in her seat and stared at the occupants of the booth three down from theirs. Her gaze met the familiar green of Sam Tucker’s sexy eyes.

  “You’ve been made.” Camille ducked down, as if she could be seen from the other booth. She was barely tall enough to see over the top of the one where she was sitting.

  “He saw me,” Arlo said. “But our cover isn’t blown. I say we order to keep pretending like it’s Camille’s birthday and if they come over and say anything, we deal with it then.”

  “Good plan,” Fern said.

  It was a terrible plan, but it was the only one she had at the moment. They weren’t doing anything wrong. They were eating in a restaurant that anyone could eat at if they were so inclined. And since there weren’t a lot of places to eat in Sugar Springs, the Cattle Drive had its share of regular patrons. And that’s exactly what she would tell Mads.

  “Why is he meeting her?” Fern mused as the waitress delivered their appetizers. Arlo had been so busy thinking about Sam and Daisy James-Harrison that she hadn’t been paying attention as the ladies ordered fried pickles and jalapeno cheddar bites.

  “She’s a beautiful woman. He’s a handsome man,” Helen said.

  “She’s a recent widow and he’s…a handsome man,” Fern corrected.

  “You really think they’re on a date?”

  It was the last thing Arlo wanted to think about. She and Sam had had a chance once, if high school love could even be called that. And she hadn’t expected him to pine over her. But now that he was back in town, she didn’t want to be confronted at every turn with the one who got away and who he was fishing with now.

  “He’s a PI,” Arlo reminded them. And then the connection was made in her own brain. Could Daisy have been the one who had hired Sam?

  It was possible, just as it was equally possible that Daisy and Sam were on a date. So much for reconnecting. Not that she and Sam ever would. Despite the little thrill she felt every time he was near.

  As she watched, Daisy pulled a fat envelope from her purse and pushed it across the table to Sam. Arlo expected him to thumb through it, but he cast a quick glance in her direction, then slid it under the table.

  “What was that?” Camille asked.

  “Money,” Fern said with a firm nod. “Has to be.”

  Money for expenses, for services rendered, for whatever job Daisy had hired him to do. No doubt about it—Sam was working for Daisy.

  But why?

  * * *

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to bring Jayden by to see you?” Arlo asked Chloe the following day at breakfast. Arlo only had three more days to prove Chloe’s innocence before she got shipped off to the county jail. The mere thought made her stomach hurt.

  “No.” The word was flat. In fact, everything about Chloe was flat, from her hair to her words to the expression in her eyes.

  “He would love to see you, know that you’re okay.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”

  “Speaking of which. I brought you some clean clothes and some gummy worms. I know you like the bears better, but the Piggly Wiggly was all out and I wanted to get here with your breakfast.”

  Every day that Cloe was locked up, it seemed a little more life seeped out of her. If she stayed there much longer, she would be unrecognizable.

  “And Mads said he would take you down to Dye Me a River and let Charlene wash your hair for you. That’ll be nice, right?”

  “Yeah.” Chloe nodded, but her tone didn’t change. “That would be great. Walking down Main Street in handcuffs. It’ll be someone’s best Instagram post of the year.”

  “Most people who use Instagram will be at school when he takes you down.”

  “Not helping,” Chloe said, then she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know why Mads just doesn’t take me to the county jail.”

  “I asked him not to. You need the support of your friends and family.”

  “No one believes me. It’s gotten to where no one believes me so much that I’m starting to doubt it myself.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Arlo whispered.

  “I do.” Chloe twisted her hands in her lap and stared at her fingers. “I wanted to hurt Wally for so long. I used to dream about it. Not killing him, but hurting him. Running him down with my car, baseball bat to the head, golf club to the groin. I had a whole Stooges routine in my head. But I didn’t mean it. Not really. I just wanted him to feel some of the pain that I felt when he left.”

  Arlo reached between the bars and grabbed Chloe’s knotted fingers. “That’s perfectly normal.”

  “Did you want to do that when Sam left?”

  Arlo had wanted to kick her own butt for being so stupid, but she had no one to blame but herself. “No, but I wanted to do that to Wally when he left you.”

  Chloe smiled. It wasn’t the beaming, light-up-the-world Chloe smile that Arlo knew so well, but it was a start in getting her friend back.

  “And just because you wanted him in pain doesn’t mean everyone is going to think you killed him.”

  “But see, that’s just the thing,” Chloe said. “If I heard my story on the witness stand, I wouldn’t even believe me. How can I expect anyone else to?”

  * * *

  Arlo wanted to climb into the holding cell with Chloe and spend the rest of the day with her, but duty called. A girl had to do what a girl had to do to get her best friend out of jail.

 
“Has Bill asked the judge to reconsider a bond for Chloe?” Arlo asked Mads after leaving her friend in the tiny little holding cell.

  “Judge won’t hear of it. I guess his wife was a big fan of Missing Girl and the judge wants to make sure justice is properly served—his words.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Maybe, but they have all the power.”

  Arlo shook her head. “I’m not sure how much longer she can take this.”

  Mads straightened, took his booted feet from his desk, and pinned Arlo with his steady gaze. “Chloe is stronger than you think.”

  “Maybe, but she’s about to crack. Are you serious about taking her down to wash her hair?”

  “Yeah, she’s in jail, not a POW camp.”

  “It’s just…”

  “What?” he asked.

  “What if I bring Jayden in to get a haircut at the same time?”

  “Okay.”

  “Would you agree not to handcuff her and march her down Main Street?”

  Mads considered the idea. “How do I know she’s not going to run?”

  “Seriously? She’s not and even if she did, you think she can get away from you?”

  “I don’t like having to chase people.” The lazy quality in his voice had a thread of steel inside. He might not like having to chase people, but years of conditioning and weight training meant if he had to run, he would catch whoever was in front of him. And it wouldn’t be pretty when he did.

  “Mads…”

  “Fine. But you owe me.”

  Something in his voice was almost threatening. Or was it a promise? With him it was hard to tell. “Anything.” A shiver slid down her spine as she said the word.

  “I’ll let you know.”

  * * *

  Owing Mads would be completely worth it. Or so Arlo told herself as she drove over to Chloe’s parents’ house to pick up Jayden the following day. What a perfect way to spend a Monday. At least that’s how she was going to view it.

  Chloe’s parents wanted to know how their daughter was doing and Arlo did her best to tell them without alarming them or tipping Jayden off that his mommy was in jail for killing his daddy, even if Chloe hadn’t done it.

  “Is that guy who died really my father?” Jayden asked on the ride over.

  The words took Arlo completely off guard. She bumped the curb but thankfully didn’t hit the light pole as she slid her car into a parking space in front of Dye Me a River.

  “Why would you say that?” She caught his gaze in the rearview mirror.

  Jayden was about as cute as a kid could be. Though he had been a preemie and only four pounds at birth, he had made up whatever he was behind in both size and weight before he started to first grade. Blond curls like his mother’s, brown eyes like his father, and dimples that had belonged to both. Arlo knew when he got older he was going to break hearts, maybe even had a few under his belt already. He was nine after all. And nine-year-olds were old enough to understand things, even if the grown-ups thought they weren’t.

  “Some kids were talking at lunch today. I heard them say that the guy who died, the writer, was my father.”

  Arlo shut off the car and turned in the seat to look at him directly. “I’m not trying to put you off,” she said gently. “But that’s something that you need to talk to your mother about.”

  He sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.” Then he caught sight of where they were. “Why are we here?”

  “Your mom is coming in and I thought you might like to see her.”

  “So she’s out of jail?” His eyes lit up like the night sky on the Fourth of July. So much for keeping that from him. She supposed his mother being in jail was more lunchroom talk.

  “No,” Arlo said slowly. “She’s coming here to get her hair washed, and I thought it would be a good place for the two of you to meet. She misses you.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you ready?” Arlo asked.

  “I guess.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Just…I don’t have to get a haircut, do I?”

  “Do you want a haircut?”

  He pulled on one of his dirty-blond curls. “No way. Tasha Anderson said she liked my hair.”

  “And that’s important?” Arlo asked, hiding her smile.

  “It is if you like Tasha Anderson.”

  * * *

  “Hey, buddy.” Chloe sat in one of the chairs as Thelma Samuels ran a comb through her wet hair.

  Arlo knew she wanted to grab him up and hug him until he had no air to breathe, but she wouldn’t.

  “You want to get a haircut?” Chloe asked.

  He shook his head, those adorable curls bouncing with the movement.

  “Good.” Chloe smiled. “But you can still sit in the chair next to me. So we can talk.”

  “That’s right.” Thelma confirmed.

  Jayden climbed into the chair next to his mom. Chloe reached out and took his hand, squeezing his fingers with a small, wistful smile.

  Arlo had to leave the bookstore in the hands of the book club with Courtney at the helm of the coffee bar in order to make this happen, but it was completely worth it.

  “Hey, Arlo.” Nadine Ayers sidled up beside her, smacking her gum to a rhythm only she could hear. Nadine was the owner of Dye Me a River and personally responsible for most of the current hairstyles in Sugar Springs. Minus Fern’s of course.

  “Hey, Nadine.”

  “It’s a shame, ya know.” She nodded toward the chairs where Chloe and Jayden were sitting.

  “Yeah.” There wasn’t much else she could say.

  “I was here that morning, but I didn’t see anything.”

  Arlo turned to look at her, wondering if she was hearing her right. “You were here that morning? The salon doesn’t open that early.”

  “I’ve been training.” Nadine ran a hand down her flat stomach. Now that she mentioned it, Arlo could tell that she had trimmed up. Not that she was ever overweight. “I’m going to run me a 5K in October.”

  “You were running?”

  “I didn’t see him fall or nothing, but he went up the stairs with Daisy.”

  “His wife?” Arlo’s heart began to thud in her chest. Could this be the information she had been searching for? If Daisy was with Wally, then how did Travis fit into all this?

  Nadine shrugged. “Maybe it was the other one. I can’t tell them apart.”

  And just like that, the bubble burst. Daisy and Inna were about as different as two women could be. “They look nothing alike.”

  “I don’t know which one is which. Plus, she had a scarf on. Or a hood. Or maybe even one of those A-rab coverings.”

  A hijab? “Was she short? Tall?”

  “She had on those tall shoes. With the thick soles and the high heels.”

  The type of shoes they both wore. “But you’re sure that it’s one of them, Daisy or Inna?”

  “Yeah, pretty sure.”

  “And not Travis Coleman.”

  Nadine drew back and gave her a strange look. “Not unless Travis is going around in drag.”

  “I suppose not,”’ Arlo murmured. “But you don’t know which one—Daisy or Inna.”

  “Because her hair was covered. Other than their hair, they look alike from a distance.”

  She supposed that was true.

  “Is that important?” Nadine asked.

  “Yeah,” Arlo replied. “Whoever he was with most probably pushed him out the window.”

  * * *

  Arlo pulled her car into the empty spot in front of the police station and got out. What a day it had been, and it wasn’t over yet.

  Chloe managed not to cry when Mads came and took her back to the police station. After that, Arlo loaded Jayden into the c
ar and drove him back to his grandparents’ house. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Mads until now.

  She pushed inside the station. Frances had already gone home for the day and Arlo made her way past the desk and down the hall to Mads’s office.

  She knocked and entered the open door.

  “I was wondering when you would show up.” Once again he was seated behind the desk with his feet on the blotter and his baseball hat pulled down over his eyes. He looked half asleep but she knew better. The man missed nothing.

  “Nadine said she saw Wally and a woman go up to the third floor. It was either Inna or Daisy.”

  “Do you realize how that sounds?”

  “Mads, this is big. Huge. This means one of them killed Wally.”

  He straightened, his booted feet hit the floor with twin thuds. “It means he was seen with one of the two women he is normally seen with.”

  “Nadine said she saw them go up the stairs.”

  “I’ve already talked to Nadine. She was so far away she couldn’t tell which one of them it was and if she was wearing a hood or a scarf. For all we know it was Sam dressed as a woman.”

  Or Travis.

  “Why would you say that?”

  He shrugged and looked at her appraisingly. “Are you worried Sam might be changing teams?”

  Arlo flushed. “Why would you bring him into this conversation?”

  “First name that popped into my head.” He smirked.

  Arlo shook her head. “You’re just determined to keep Chloe in jail.”

  “That’s not true. But as of right now, the most evidence I have is against her. Why would Daisy or Inna kill Wally? He was their meal ticket.”

  She knew what he was implying. Chloe was the one with motive. Chloe and Travis.

  Mads stood. “If that’s all, I hope you’ll excuse me. I’m late for supper.”

  20

  The First Baptist Church on the corner of Main and Troost had never been as full as it was the day of Wallace J. Harrison’s memorial service. It was standing room only when Arlo made her way into the sanctuary. Even the Presbyterians showed up.

  “I didn’t know this many people lived in Sugar Springs,” Arlo said to Nadine, the owner-stylist from Dye Me a River.