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“Sorry to be a pest, man,” Wallace said, “but anything could be a lead at this stage.”
“I know.” Bart picked up his coffee, noticed his trembling hand and decided he’d surpassed his caffeine limit for now. He set the tall mug back on the counter. “As good as the flashing lights are for business, can you give me an ETA on the coroner?”
Wallace settled onto a stool. “Soon is all they’re telling me.”
“Great. Want something to eat while we wait?” Bart would feed him anything and everything just to put the repetitive questions on hold.
“Sure.”
Bart served the deputy a hefty portion of Tim’s popular casserole.
“I’ll need to talk with your staff,” Wallace said a few minutes later when he’d polished off the last bite.
“They’ll cooperate with you. No one here has anything to hide.” Bart believed it, despite the tragic nature of Tim’s death.
“Have you considered this might be a message?”
Of course he had, but he hadn’t turned anyone in, hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary in the past few weeks. Which was, in itself, out of the ordinary now that he thought about it.
“What? You think there’s a rival truck stop looking to put my place out of business?”
Wallace held up a hand. “I’m wide open to anything that gives me a working theory.”
Bart wished the deputy would start looking outside of the truck stop for his theory. Based on what Bart had seen, their best leads would come from the coroner and whatever the evidence team gathered. No one here knew anything beyond the time Tim left the truck stop yesterday afternoon and the time Bart found the body this morning.
According to Wallace, none of the drivers who’d slept over heard or saw any kind of disturbance. It was frustrating. Hisgut told him this wasn’t a random act of violence, but so far he hadn’t found a clue or link to substantiate that instinct.
Wallace’s radio crackled and a moment later, Bart saw the coroner’s wagon come into view from the service road.
Exchanging a look with Wallace, he followed the deputy through the kitchen and out to the crime scene.
Chapter 4
Hannah’s breath stuttered inher chest as she took the exit toward Bart’s truck stop. With so many law enforcement and emergency vehicles clustered in the area she fought the worst possible scenarios racing through her mind.
After giving up on the pregnancy discussion openers, she spent the remaining road time trying to brainstorm reasons for a wiretap order on Bart’s Patriot Plaza. Maybe he’d suggested it himself because he suspected someone on his staff had picked up the wrong kind of friends. And maybe pigs had started flying in recent days.
Parking the rental car in a space recently vacated by a produce delivery truck, she cut the engine and took a moment to gather herself. Bart didn’t need her showing up sporting a panic attack on top of whatever problem was going on here. Wanting to take full advantage of what was probably a minimal head start, she hadn’t stopped to replace her cell phone. She’d only been out of touch for a couple of hours, but suddenly she worried they had been the wrong hours.
Thinking about the wiretap order, she decided to avoid the convenience store. It wasn’t a big leap to think the DEA might have planted other listening devices if they suspected an employee working with the cartel. She wasn’t ready to advertise her presence to an agent listening in, even if her boss knew this was her most likely destination.
She had to keep moving forward, to use the small window she’d created. There wasn’t time to waste if she wanted to help Bart out of this mess, or even tell him the whole truth before the DEA insisted on her relocation. Getting out of the car, she clipped her badge to her waistband and pulled her hair back into a low ponytail at her nape before she followed the crowd around the side of the building. She scanned the faces and uniforms along the way, looking for the one man she’d come to see.
A dreadful anxiety swamped her when she saw the boxy vehicle marked with the county coroner’s seal. “Please don’t let it be Bart,” she prayed in a low murmur.
But she didn’t see him anywhere and he wasn’t a man who could blend in. At six-foot-five and built as broad as a bear, she should have spotted his dark head or caught the sound of his booming voice by now.
Knees shaking, she forced her feet forward, closer to the edge of the yellow crime scene tape, her heart hammering against her ribs. It seemed the collective attention was focused on the garbage dumpster near the back door that served the kitchen.
Several people were pulling a body out of the dumpster. Panicked, she ducked under the tape and held her badge when a young officer in a deputy’s khaki shirt tried to stop her.
“DEA?”
“Yes,” she replied with a curt nod. She preempted any questions that might reveal her ignorance of the agents currently assigned to this area by asking her own. “Is there a definite ID on the victim?”Please not Bart, she chanted in her head.
“That would be Tim Jensen, ma’am. He was Bart’s cook.”
The tension drained out of her system so quickly she had to smother the automatic smile of relief. “Got it.”
