Chapter Six
Franny wasn’t so much surprised to find the bakery open as she was a little concerned for Lia not resting and taking time to worry about her friend. But as Franny stepped inside, the scents of pastry being made and coffee being brewed filled the air.
“Morning, Franny,” Lia greeted her from where she was filling a pastry display with a tray of brownies. “How are you holding up?”
Franny slid her laptop bag off her shoulder and set it on one of the tables before crossing to the counter Lia stood behind.
She was a tall woman with hair a little too dark for her fair complexion.
It was always pulled back, and Franny had never seen her without a hairband fastened into her hair with bobby pins.
“That’s my question for you this morning.”
Lia smiled thinly. She wore a very simple gold chain around her neck and moved a hand up to fiddle with the little pressed flower pendant attached to it.
“I’m worried, but a lot of people are looking for her.
And you gave the police a ton to go on. We’d be lost if it wasn’t for you, Franny. Really. There’d just be no hope.”
The idea of no hope had a knot forming in Franny’s throat, but she swallowed past it. “Well, it was just…luck, I guess. If you can call anything about this situation luck.”
“We’ll take whatever we can get. So, you want the usual this morning, or something a little higher octane?”
“Are you sure you want to be waiting on people today, Lia?”
“Working keeps me from freaking out. So work it is. Besides, Zach asked me to stay open. Said there will be cops and Feds coming and going for a while yet. Good for business. And good for keeping me busy.”
Zach. What made Lia on a first-name basis with Mr. Simmons? Just time? Something deeper?
“Yeah, I’ll take my usual.”
Franny waited while Lia plated up a cinnamon roll and poured her latte. Franny paid for both, but before she took them to a table and pretended to work, she couldn’t help but ask…
“Lia… Did you know that Mr. Simmons was—”
The bell above the door tinkled and Lia’s eyes flicked to the door, narrowed. But she smiled. “Excuse me, Franny,” she said, moving back to the cash register. “Help you, Deputy?”
Franny looked over her shoulder to find the police officer from yesterday. She didn’t remember his name. What had Copeland called him? It was lost in the blur of yesterday.
Franny moved to the table she’d left her laptop at and watched as Lia waited on the cop.
“I’ve been put on permanent Hope Town duty, so I wanted to go around to the businesses and introduce myself. Deputy Campbell.” He held out a hand for Lia to shake.
She did so. And Franny watched with interest as Lia skirted a very fine line where she somehow seemed nothing but polite, but also made it abundantly clear she didn’t like his profession. “Nice to meet you.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be open this morning. I’m living across the way for a bit, thanks to Mr. Simmons. He said you guys have a killer coffee cake.”
“Sure do. Want some coffee to go with it?”
“A large, please.”
Franny watched with open curiosity. She didn’t even bother to look away when the deputy flicked a glance at her while Lia got his order ready. Why shouldn’t she observe?
“Here you go, Deputy. On the house.”
“Oh, don’t do that. I’ll pay.”
“It’s on the house,” Lia repeated firmly. Then turned away and walked into the back room, not giving him a chance to argue.
Franny heard the deputy sigh, then he turned and glanced at her. He gestured at her with his coffee cup. “Guessing you had a long night.”
Franny smiled thinly. “It was certainly long.”
“You were still at the station when I left.” He moved over to her table, set his coffee down on it. “Royal Campbell,” he offered, holding out a hand for her to shake.
Franny didn’t know what to make of the fact he’d introduced himself to Lia as deputy, and to her he’d given his first name. A first name she immediately wanted to put in a book.
But she didn’t say that, though it was on the tip of her tongue.
She shook his outstretched hand and noted the tiniest hint of something dark at his uniform shirt cuff.
A tattoo? Well, maybe that explained the long sleeves in this heat.
He had big rough hands, a tall rangy build.
Even though she didn’t associate tattoos with cops, it fit something about him.
That edginess she’d noted yesterday. He didn’t hold himself like Copeland or any of the other cops she knew—though she supposed she was more familiar with detectives. Maybe that was the difference.
“Franny Perkins,” she returned. Then wrinkled her nose. “I guess you knew that.”
“I guess I did. You always work from the coffee shop?” he asked casually before taking a bite of the coffee cake.
“Uh, no. It’s usually too distracting to write here. But I’m pretty sure if I stayed in my apartment today, I’d rot in bed all day.”
“You probably earned it. Yesterday was a lot.”
“Maybe, but if I let myself bed rot too much, I don’t surface for weeks. And I can’t even blame work. I won’t write. I’ll watch one-minute videos on how to make elaborate cakes that I, myself, will never make.”
His mouth curved. He had very blue eyes, and his nose was just a shade crooked. There was a faint scar that ran down his jaw on the left side. And she should not be cataloguing the features of a deputy no matter how attractive he was.
“You mind?” he asked, pointing at the chair across from her.
She didn’t think he was flirting, but she couldn’t quite decide what this was.
Still, she gestured at the chair as a sort of have at, and he settled himself in it.
Every once in a while she could hear the faint sound of someone talking from his radio, or a crackle of static, but he didn’t pay it any mind.
He ate his coffee cake and drank his coffee.
“So, you’re a writer,” he said, eyeing her computer.
She nodded, dreading the next question.
“What do you write?”
It was an understandable question, and if it could just be that easy, she wouldn’t mind it. But it was never just that.
“Mysteries,” she answered, bracing herself for the next comments.
Like so and so? Have I heard of you? I don’t like books with xyz in them. You can’t make a living off of that, can you?
“That’s cool. I guess Bent County has a lot of inspiration.”
She stared at him for a full beat. Because…he didn’t even say it sarcastically. “It does,” she said, probably with a little too much earnest fervor, but so many people—her parents included—didn’t understand why she found living here so inspiring.
“Plus you’ve got Beckett at your disposal, right? Probably pretty nice having a direct line to a detective.”
Franny nodded. “I’m not sure if he’s at my disposal,” she said, biting back a laugh at the thought. “But he’d probably jump off a cliff if Audra told him to, so it is helpful.”
“Audra is your…cousin?”
“Yes. You know Rosalie Kirk, right? The private investigator. Audra and Rosalie are my cousins. I lived with them for a while before I moved into Hope Town. Then their cousin who lived with us too is married to another detective, Thomas Hart. Do you know him?”
“Of him. I don’t have much connection to the detective’s bureau yet. I just started at Bent County three months ago.”
That made sense. She didn’t think she’d ever heard of a Royal Campbell before.
“I’ve been in Bent County for three years now.
It’s kind of funny all the connections you’ll make the longer you’re here.
But it’s a great inspiration. Small towns and isolated ranches are a great setting for murder.
Well, fictional murder, the real stuff is a lot less fun. I guess you’d know that.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute. Almost like he was uncomfortable. And of course he was. She was sitting here talking about murder from a writer’s perspective, and he saw it from a real life perspective. This was the problem with talking to people. She always put her foot in her mouth.
“Have you lived in Bent County long or did you come for the job?” she asked, trying to change the subject. She would have gone back to pretending to be writing, but he was just…sitting there.
“Ah… Well, I came here about two years ago. My sister…lives here. She liked it. We’d been…out of touch for a while. She’s got all sorts of friends at the Sunrise Sheriff’s Department and they convinced me to go to the police academy. She’s done some work for Bent County, so it was an in.”
“She’s a police officer too?”
“No. Forensic anthropologist.”
Since Franny didn’t think there could be two of those hanging around Bent County, she leaned forward. “Brooke Daniels is your sister?”
He blinked once. “You know…Brooke?”
“Well, sort of. Let’s see if I can get this right: Audra’s friend’s husband’s brother is married to this woman whose brother is married to Brooke, and through that long line of small-town connections, I got introduced to Brooke so I could ask her some research questions. She’s very nice.”
“Yeah.”
“And she was really helpful. She inspired a great twist for that book.” More at ease with a connection to people he knew, she grinned at him. “I still owe her one.”
He looked a little more uncomfortable than he had, but only for a second before he smiled. A smile she would categorize as…rakish, rather than polite.
Maybe he didn’t mean it to be. Maybe that was just what happened when he smiled, but it sure did something fluttery to her chest. Which was so utterly ridiculous in this situation. What was wrong with her?
“Well, if you ever have any questions about being a rookie deputy in small-town Wyoming, you just let me know.”
She nodded. Lamely. Really, really lamely.
He got up. “See you around, Franny.”
“Sure.”
She didn’t mean to watch him go. It just seemed the natural thing for her eyes to follow him out of the bakery. Watch that confident stroll. She might have watched him through the storefront window until he disappeared, but Lia spoke, startling her.
“I think hot cop has a crush.”
Franny bobbled, looking back at Lia—who she definitely hadn’t known was paying any attention since she’d been out of sight. Now she stood at the cash register.
Hot cop. Yeah, well. “I think he’s just doing his job, and I was polite,” Franny said, a little stiffly. “Friendly.”
Lia snorted. “If you say so.”
ROYAL WASN’T SURE what had possessed him to answer so many of Franny’s questions with the truth instead of easy evasions.
She knew his sister. Maybe it was as simple as that had thrown him for a loop. It shouldn’t surprise him. Brooke and Zeke were part of the community. People knew them.
But he still wasn’t used to how everyone in this huge county seemed to have some connection to each other.
He’d mostly kept to himself and Sunrise up until he went to the police academy. He knew the Hudsons and the Danielses and that was enough for any man.
His time with Bent County had opened up a new world of people, but he still kept himself a little separate.
He didn’t know who knew what about who he was or what he’d done.
The sheriff knew, but Royal wasn’t about to advertise he’d been to jail.
That he’d been framed for murder trying to save some young girls from their terrible life in the Sons of the Badlands gang.
No matter how much of a setup the murder charge had been, he had been a criminal, a gang member. Maybe he’d known it was wrong, but the only way he’d known how to help was from within, which meant bending some rules.
Okay, breaking a lot of rules.
And now he was on the outside, not just following rules but enforcing them.
Which meant he couldn’t let an interesting woman with dreamy green eyes and an engaging smile distract him from his purpose.
Like this job. He couldn’t take it for granted that it had taken a lot to get him here. He had to make sure the sheriff was pleased with his performance. Which meant, he had to find something to put in his report today.
So, he went into any businesses that were open, introduced himself. Down one side of the street, then up the other. Popping into the ones he’d missed once they flipped their signs to Open, chatting with any passerby.
They were not a talkative lot in Hope Town. Not that his experience with people around here meant he expected any level of gregariousness, except Franny. She was a chatter.
He smiled in spite of himself. Based on how the day was going, that had been the most positive interaction he’d had all day.
Near lunchtime, he headed for the bookstore now that it was finally open. He was almost all the way on the other end of the street, but he kept it in his sights. Noting the comings and goings.
Like the woman who walked out of the bookstore with no bags. Her outfit wasn’t distinct. Just athletic pants and a T-shirt and a green baseball hat. The T-shirt was a little baggy—not out of place considering the athletic pants, but Royal studied her figure for signs of a gun.
Because she had a brisk stride. Her hair was pulled back in a tight braid. Her eyes were careful and assessing.
Fed.
Royal didn’t follow her right away, but he didn’t go into the bookstore to make his introductions like he’d originally planned. Instead, he kept walking down the street, glancing backward once or twice to determine where the woman was going.
When she ducked into the antique store, he took a circuitous route there himself. Luckily he hadn’t introduced himself there yet, so he could step in without it seeming off or like he knew who the woman was. Or what she was anyway.
His target was talking to a woman at the cash register. It was casual, but Royal knew just from the way the woman stood that it was an interrogation—whether the lady behind the counter knew it or not.
They both glanced his way when he stepped inside. He offered a charming smile, walked right over to them. “Morning, ladies,” he said cheerfully. “Sorry to interrupt. I’m just making the Hope Town rounds today.”
He held his hand out to the woman behind the counter, not giving the Fed much attention, but he saw out of the corner of his eye how she edged away from the counter and headed for the door.
“Deputy Royal Campbell,” he said to the woman behind the counter. “I’m going around today and introducing myself to all the business owners.”
He glanced behind him as the Fed slipped out of the front door.
Later he’d look at his body cam footage and figure out just who she was.
And what part of Albennie Ward’s disappearance connected to an FBI case.