Three
By the time Felicity passed the Welcome to Simpson sign, the sun was just starting to peek over the mountains to the east. She rolled slowly into town, eyeing the quirky homes and businesses that made the place look like an Old West film set on acid. The low-slung buildings—many made of logs and the others painted in unexpected bright pastels—balanced on the line between adorable and unsettling. It was equally possible to imagine a cheery lumberjack or a suspicious doomsday prepper emerging from one of the doorways. Since she was in such a good mood, Felicity decided to go with cheery lumberjack. Sharp, rocky peaks loomed over the hamlet on all sides, somehow managing to create a feeling that was both cozy and claustrophobic.
The extra-early start to her drive hadn’t fazed Felicity, especially since she was in her nice, normal dark blue compact car, and Charlie had to borrow Molly’s Prius so she could remain incognito on her way out of town. After all their planning, they didn’t want Charlie to catch the PI’s attention, so Felicity got her usual ride, while Charlie was in the “Weed on Wheels” car.
The town was quiet, with no one around to disturb the early-morning peace, and Felicity slowed even more as she thought about what her plan of attack should be. She hadn’t worked out any details yet—just lure Mr. B. Green out of Langston and away from Charlie’s brightly painted weedmobile. It was much too early to check in at the motel, too early for anything really, except for…
Felicity smiled when she spotted the coffee shop with its prominent Open sign in the window. She turned into the small lot adjoining The Coffee Spot and parked next to the other two vehicles—both dusty, older pickups. As she got out, she immediately shivered and reached back in the car for her fleece jacket. The air felt thin and a lot colder than Langston, which had an elevation about three thousand feet lower than Simpson.
She grabbed her laptop bag too, since she couldn’t imagine a coffee shop existing that didn’t have Wi-Fi available. This was perfect—she’d have breakfast and plan out her research into Dino’s old militia at the same time.
Closing her car door, she turned to look around, only to have her view blocked by a black SUV that pulled into the spot right next to hers. Her stomach sank even before she got a good look at the driver.
Mr. PI himself. Great. He’s not even trying to be sneaky anymore.
With a sigh, Felicity gave him a flat stare before heading toward the coffee shop entrance. There was no reason to bemoan B. Green’s presence. After all, he was the main reason she was in Simpson at all. She was the bait, and he was the goose. Or was she the goose and he the goose chaser? She frowned, trying to figure out her metaphor as she walked inside.
The smell was universal of all coffee shops—roasted beans and sweet pastries and steamed milk. Her good mood returned. Charlie was probably grabbing a gas station fake cappuccino from a machine right now. Felicity really had gotten the best part of this assignment. A couple of people were seated at the small tables scattered around the shop. They glanced up when she came in and then returned to their phones and drinks.
“Welcome!”
Felicity turned her attention to the pretty blond barista and headed to the counter. “Hello…” Her gaze flicked to the woman’s shirt, checking vainly for a name tag.
“It’s Lou.” Her smile was quick and easy. “If you were looking for my name, that is. If you were just checking me out, then thank you, I’m flattered. What can I get you?”
“Hi Lou. I’m Felicity.” She had to smile at the barista’s chatter as she slid onto one of the stools at the counter. Lou reminded her a little bit of Charlie—the two tended toward the same unfiltered brain-to-mouth monologue. “A probiotic smoothie would be great.” Her gaze snagged on the pastry case, and she had a seldom-felt urge to indulge. “And one of those white-chocolate raspberry scones.”
“Excellent choice,” Lou said approvingly, plating the scone before ringing up the order. “Baked them myself, so you know they’re good.”
As Felicity paid in cash and stuffed a few bills into the tip jar, she glanced toward the door as casually as possible. It seemed as though Mr. B. Green was just going to wait for her in the parking lot. She mentally shrugged. No amazing-smelling scone for him then. His loss.
“You’re just gorgeous, by the way.”
The out-of-the-blue compliment made Felicity pause before saying, “Thank you.”
“I’m not hitting on you or anything,” the barista chattered on as she made the smoothie. “I’m just saying it as a completely platonic and objective fact. I get the same people in here every day, so it’s nice to see someone new for a change.”
Felicity accepted her drink and thanked Lou again. She took a bite of her scone, and her eyes half closed in sugary bliss. “You make a mean pastry, Lou.”
“Why, thank you.” Lou sketched a curtsy. “So what brings you to our weird little town?”
“I needed a few days of peace,” Felicity said, fairly honestly. “Plus I’m doing a little research.”
“Research?” That one word seemed to grab all Lou’s attention. “What type of research?”
Felicity paused, considering her options. Just from the short conversation she’d had with the barista, Felicity had a feeling that Lou could be a good resource. “I’m investigating someone who used to be in the militia group outside town, the Free—”
“Freedom Survivors,” Lou said with her. “Isn’t that the stupidest name?”
“It really is.” Felicity’d had the same thought. “It sounds like they’re survivors of freedom.”
“Exactly!” Lou smacked the counter with her open hand. “It doesn’t make any sense. They should’ve called themselves Freedom Upholders or something.”
“That sounds a little stiff. Freedom Promoters?”
“Eh,” Lou scrunched her nose. “That sounds like a country music agent.”
“You’re right.” Felicity accepted the constructive criticism good-naturedly. “Freedom Builders?”
“Super PAC.”
Felicity winced. “Uncomfortably accurate. Freedom Growers?”
“Pot producer.”
“Freedom Winners.”
Lou clapped her hands. “That’s the one.”
Felicity put her hands up in victory, reveling in the moment of being in complete sync with a stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger.
“We’re going to be best friends, aren’t we?” Lou echoed her thoughts.
“Yep.”
“Better buckle up.” Lou’s smile was positively devilish. “Being my friend is a wild ride.”
***
It wasn’t until Lou had a run of customers and Felicity was knee-deep in research on her laptop that Mr. B. Green made his way into the shop.
“Hey,” Felicity greeted him without looking away from her laptop screen. “Finally got sick of sitting in your car?”
He didn’t respond as he took the seat on the stool next to hers. He was close enough for Felicity to feel the heat radiating from his flannel-clad shoulder. She was tempted to lean away, since his proximity made her stomach feel fizzy in a way she didn’t want to analyze too closely, but that felt like letting him win. Instead, she held her ground and kept her gaze fixed firmly on her laptop, even though the words that had made perfect sense before he’d taken up all the space in the room were now a meaningless jumble.
“Who’s this?” Lou asked, eyeing the newcomer.
“My stalker,” Felicity answered matter-of-factly.
“Oh.” Lou looked back and forth between the two of them. “Is that a pet name or a cry for help? Because I can call the sheriff as easily as I can make this guy a coffee. You just say the word.”
Felicity finally looked at the mountain of a man on the neighboring stool. “You going to cause me any trouble, Mr. B. Green?”
“Nope.”
She’d forgotten what a nice bass voice he had. The memory of it just didn’t hold the full impact of hearing it in the moment.
“No trouble. I can even help,” he promised.
After another long pause, Felicity turned to Lou with a small shrug. “Let’s go the coffee route for now, but keep the sheriff option in our back pocket, just in case we need it later.”
“Got it.” Turning to the PI, Lou put on a big customer-service smile, as if she hadn’t just been discussing the possibility of calling the cops on him. “So what can I get you?”
“Large coffee, cream and sugar, please.”
Lou poured the coffee and set it in front of B. Green along with containers of cream and sugar. “I’ll let you doctor it up to your liking.”
Felicity could feel both Lou and the PI staring at her, but she refused to look up. She hadn’t decided how much to share with either of them, but she had a strong feeling that neither was going to quit looming until she told them something.
Lou was the first to break. “C’mon, Felicity, my new friend, my buddy, my sister from another mister. You need to satisfy my curiosity before the parents get done dropping their kids off at school.”
That caught Felicity’s attention. “Why is that the deadline?”
“This is their next stop after Simpson Elementary. I’ll be slammed for a good hour, and my curiosity will kill me within ten minutes. Spill, for the love of Pete!”
Felicity’s gaze slid to the big silent man next to her. He sipped his coffee while watching her closely, and she rolled her eyes back to Lou.
“You don’t understand,” Lou continued. “It’s been months— months , I tell you—since something exciting has happened here. Not even a hint of a mystery, no dead guys, headless or otherwise, just…nothing except making coffee for the boringly normal locals. My murder-solving whiteboard is covered in a layer of dust.” She grimaced a little. “Okay, fine. It’d be covered in dust if I wasn’t married to Mr. Clean-Freak Callum.”
This time, when Felicity glanced at B. Green, their gazes met in a look of confusion and an odd sense of solidarity. She looked away quickly, uncomfortable with any sort of bonding with this stranger, and met Lou’s begging eyes.
“My research here is boring.” Felicity didn’t want to raise Lou’s hopes just for her to be disappointed. “Just a run-of-the-mill meth dealer who skipped out on his bond. Everyone has their heads attached, and everyone will keep their heads—and all other critically important body parts—attached during the course of my investigation.” It felt a little like a vow.
Despite Felicity’s attempt to keep Lou’s expectations low, the barista’s eyes lit up. “Ohh, you’re a bounty hunter?” At Felicity’s nod, Lou looked at B. Green. “How about you? Are you a bounty hunter too? Maybe a rival one who’s stalking Felicity so you can steal her rightful bounty out from underneath her?”
As amused as Felicity was by the accusatory frown Lou was directing at Mr. Green, her sense of fairness couldn’t let that go uncorrected. “He’s a PI, not a bounty hunter.” Felicity had to snicker a little at Lou’s disappointed expression. “What you just described did happen to my sister though. Except he wasn’t trying to steal her skips. He just had a crush on her.”
At this, Lou was positively dancing in place. “Really? Are they together now? Please don’t tell me she didn’t feel the same way and had to let him down easy, and now he’s nursing a broken heart.”
Felicity was glad she could give Lou good news. “They’re together.”
Lou cheered before focusing on B. Green and returning to her initial line of questioning. “So, Mr. PI, are you after the same meth dealer as my new bestie then?”
With a short shake of his head, he took a sip of coffee, obviously using it as an excuse not to talk.
“He’s following me because he’s looking for a stolen necklace, and he thinks I can lead him to it.”
Cocking her head to the side, Lou looked back and forth between them. “And can you?”
“No.”
B. Green gave a quiet, disbelieving grunt that made Felicity want to smack him.
“Then why is he following you if you don’t know where the necklace is?”
“My mom stole it.” Felicity wasn’t sure why she was sharing that information with an almost stranger. In her defense, she was used to everyone and their grandma not only knowing what Jane did but also a good percentage of them breaking into their house in order to search for the necklace themselves.
“Wooow.” Lou pulled out her phone. “You two don’t mind if Callum joins us, do you? He pretends he’s not a nosy gossip queen, but he really hates missing out on any drama.”
“Uhh…” Felicity found herself glancing at Mr. Green and giving him a wide-eyed look before she caught herself. He’s not my partner. She mentally repeated the reminder, but there was just something so solid and reassuring about the man that was completely opposed to the reality of their relationship. He’d skip-blocked her, sat on her, then stalked her. Why couldn’t she seem to remember that?
Shaking off her distraction, she noted that Lou was putting her phone back in her pocket. Apparently, Lou had taken her silence as permission, and the drama-loving Callum had already been summoned. With a sigh, Felicity resigned herself to having an audience, her brain already working on information she could get out of these Simpsonites. If she was going to be the entertainment for half this small town, she’d at least use them as a resource. She smothered a grin, imagining herself with an army of odd mountain people under her command.
“Who’s this meth dealer?” Mr. Green asked.
Pausing, she considered the PI. Might as well make him into a lieutenant in her bounty-hunting army, she figured. If he was going to be underfoot, he may as well be useful. “Douglas Fletcher. He goes by Dino. He was caught with a whole lot of meth, arrested, paid his bond, and disappeared.”
The door swung open, letting in a chatty crowd of customers that filled the shop. As they formed a somewhat orderly line at the register, Lou made a face that only Felicity and Mr. Green could see. “ This is what happens when you don’t get right to the good stuff immediately. Now the hordes of parents are here.” She backed toward the register, pointing at Felicity and then Mr. Green. “No talking about interesting things while I’m busy.”
Despite her early mental lecture, Felicity’s gaze found Mr. Green’s again, and this time he quirked an eyebrow, making her want to laugh.
No! No laughing. No camaraderie. He’s my stalker. S-T-A-L-K-E-R. Stalker.
Forcing her gaze back to her sleeping laptop screen, she woke her computer and returned to reading the file. It was a bit slim. Researching Dino Fletcher obviously hadn’t been a priority for Cara or Norah. In their defense, all five of them had been running around like headless chickens ever since Jane had stolen that necklace.
At the reminder of the object of interest to the big guy sitting silently next to her, Felicity looked up, studying the side of his face until he turned to meet her gaze.
“Why are you still here?” she asked and got the questioning eyebrow quirk again. “I’m obviously not anywhere near my mom or the necklace—at least I’m pretty sure neither is close by—so why are you still lurking? You have no interest in Dino Fletcher, so why aren’t you zooming back down the mountain to Langston?”
One of his burly shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “You’re my best lead.”
“I’m a terrible lead. You need to find a better one.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “We’ll see.”
“Humph.” She turned back to the bare-bones bio on her screen. “We will see. We’ll see that I’m right, Mr. B. Green.”
“Bennett.”
“What?”
“My name. The B,” he clarified. “It’s Bennett.”
She frowned. Knowing his name wouldn’t help keep him at a distance. It would’ve been better to keep calling him Mr. B. Green in her head. Formal and impersonal. Just how things should stay between them. “Oh. Okay.”
Her attention was drawn away from what a really bad idea getting friendly with a lurking PI was when another man settled on the stool at the end of the counter. Even though there was an empty stool between them, Felicity still felt a little overwhelmed with a big man on either side of her. She eyed the newcomer, turning her laptop slightly to hide the screen from the stranger.
“Don’t worry,” Lou called from her spot at the cappuccino machine. “That’s just Callum. You can tell him everything.”
Somehow, that wasn’t as reassuring as Lou probably thought it would be. Felicity eyed the newcomer as she felt Bennett shift slightly closer to her. Callum didn’t seem to fit Lou’s description at all. He had a poker face that even beat out Bennett’s for implacability, and his eyes, shadowed by a worn baseball hat, were serious and piercing.
“Hmm,” Felicity hummed as she studied him. “You don’t look at all like a gossip-loving drama queen.”
She felt a sense of satisfaction when his eyes widened for a fraction of a second. She might not be able to discomfit PI Bennett Green, but she’d at least managed to throw this new stone-faced man off-center.
Callum quickly regained his composure and turned toward his milk-steaming wife. “A gossip-loving drama queen.” His flat delivery made Felicity snort.
“You deny it,” Lou said, pouring the hot milk into a coffee cup. From the heavenly smell, there was vanilla involved. “But I know how happy you are to have the scuttlebutt before the firefighters find out. You love that they think you’re some kind of all-knowing oracle rather than just a gossip fiend.”
Instead of taking offense, his expression softened as he gave her a glare that even Felicity, who’d barely met the guy, knew was an attempt to hide a smile. “Scuttlebutt? Are you channeling the spirit of my great-grandma?”
Lou just made a face at him as she capped the cup and handed it to a bearded man who wasn’t even pretending not to eavesdrop.
Callum refocused on Felicity and Bennett, the soft expression disappearing in an instant, replaced by the sharp lines of suspicion. “What’s going on?”
Rather than answer immediately, Felicity studied him. Despite Lou’s description of her husband, he really didn’t seem like someone who’d spread gossip all over town, but Charlie was always telling her that she gave people the benefit of the doubt, even when there was very little doubt that they were shady—including their mom, who’d proven herself morally bankrupt over and over again. If word got around and Dino heard she was looking for him, he’d disappear, and she might never find him.
“I don’t spread gossip,” Callum said, as if he could read her mind.
“He doesn’t,” Lou chimed in, leaning on the counter in front of them while her current customer studied the whiteboard menu, ignoring the impatient grumbly noises the people in line behind her were making. “He loves hearing things before everyone else, but he doesn’t spread it around, just packs it away so he can make smug, knowing faces when the firefighters find out and try to shock him.”
“Thank you for that compliment.” The man really was the king of deadpan.
Felicity glanced over at the silent man on her other side and mentally awarded him the commendation. Bennett was the king of deadpan, and Callum was runner-up. Prince? Vice king? She shook off the distracting thought as Callum focused on her.
Felicity paused for only another few seconds before giving in. After all, she didn’t even know where the militia’s compound was located. It’s not like they sent out an email newsletter with their address printed on the bottom. “I’m a bounty hunter, researching one of my bail jumpers.”
“I know what I want to order,” the woman at the counter announced, and Lou silently sighed. She moved to the register with a smile that was only slightly strained.
Callum’s expression didn’t change. “Go on.”
“Douglas ‘Dino’ Fletcher. He is—or was—a member of the Freedom Survivors.”
The corner of his mouth twisted down in the slightest frown of distaste.
“I know,” Felicity said. “It’s a terrible name.”
“Most of the members aren’t great either.”
“Figured.” With a small shrug, she said, “It’s a militia. They’re not known for being…great.”
“What was he arrested for?” Callum asked.
“Dealing meth.”
That slight frown came again. “You want Sparks’s help?”
“Sparks?”
“Lou.”
“Oh.” Pushing aside the urge to ask if that was a nickname or a last name, she focused on the initial question. “Sort of. I mean, I won’t drag her out to the compound, shouting Fletcher’s name. Just basic information, if you two have it. An address would be handy.”
His expression had turned glacial about the time she mentioned dragging Lou into a militia compound. It didn’t really warm up any as she continued.
“They can use my whiteboard,” Lou offered eagerly, using the excuse of pulling out a new package of cups to lean into their low-voiced discussion. “And I can call up the other murder club ladies.”
Once again, Felicity found herself meeting Bennett’s gaze for a what? moment before she forced herself to look away. “Um…murder ladies?”
“Murder club ladies. friends of mine. We’re strictly amateurs in the investigation business, of course, but we’ve solved every murder we’ve looked into.” Lou turned back toward her line of customers, leaving Felicity no choice but to give Callum a questioning look.
He glanced briefly at the ceiling in what was almost an eye roll. “Give me your number.”
Felicity’s eyebrows drew together at the unexpected request.
“This isn’t the place.” Callum glanced meaningfully around the shop, crowded by customers who looked much too interested in what they were talking about. “We’ll meet up after Lou’s shift is over.”
With a shrug, Felicity rattled off her cell number. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bennett tapping at the screen of his phone. It probably wasn’t the best idea to give her phone number to her stalker, but he was turning into more of a…helper, maybe? At least a neutral party. So it would probably turn out okay in the end.
She hoped.