He crouched down at the edge of the table. “Princess Lily, your mama and I and Deputy Cooper are taking very good care of you. We talk about all kinds of grown-up stuff so you don’t have to worry about any of it. Your job is to be four and to take care of Cinnabun and Lord Baxter, and the seals. Can you do that?”
She considered him gravely. “Yes.”
“Excellent. Now, would you like to take your seals to the bedroom for a private tea party while we have ours?”
“With my coloring book?”
“Of course,” he replied jauntily. “No tea party is complete without some coloring.”
She gathered her menagerie with great ceremony and carried them down the hall.
Grace watched her go, then said softly, “You’re good at that.”
He looked at her. She was leaning against the counter with her hair loose around her shoulders, looking more angelic than ever. She held his gaze for a beat longer than was comfortable, and then she turned to put the kettle on.
Cooper stepped onto the porch ten minutes later with a manila folder under his arm and the wind-bitten look of a man who’d been outside all day.
“Grace. Reno.” He took off his hat. “Sorry to drop in on your evening.”
“You’re always welcome, Cooper,” Grace said. “Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee, if it’s not a bother.”
“I just made a fresh pot. Why don’t we sit on the back porch? It’s a nice evening.”
Reno led Cooper outside and Grace followed with two mugs of tea and one of coffee on a tray. She set them on the coffee table between them. Cooper sat in a wicker chair facing the sofa Reno and Grace sat on. The screen rattled as a breeze came up off the lake. The frogs were starting their evening chorus in the cattails at the bottom of the lawn.
Cooper said briskly, “A few updates. None alarming, some good. I’d rather you hear all of it from me at one time.”
Grace nodded. Reno noticed that her hand gripped the edge of the rolled sofa arm, as if it needed something to hold onto.
“First thing. Reno’s tip about the Apple Pie Creek bakery panned out further than I thought it would. The owner is a woman named Tara Marchand. Tara Krug, before she married. She’s a Cobbler Cove native, actually. Went to high school here before she moved to Seattle and didn’t come back for thirty years. Owns the fancy bakery as a hobby as far as I can tell. She’s got money from her late husband’s tech company and she likes to be seen as a tastemaker. Word from her own staff and a couple people who know her socially is she doesn’t take what she perceives as defeats of any kind well.”
Grace frowned. “I don’t recognize the name.”
“She would’ve been six or seven years ahead of you in school. There’s no reason you should remember her.”
Reno asked, “What’s the connection to our person of interest?”
“She has a son. Age thirty-eight, lives with her in Apple Pie Creek. Name’s Curtis Marchand. Did a stretch in prison a few years back for residential burglary and unlawful entry. Got out two years ago, went home to wealthy mommy. I found no record of employment since.
Per his booking sheet, he’s left-handed. Hurt his right knee in a motorcycle wreck during a police chase after fleeing the scene of a robbery. The home had hidden cameras and silent alarms. Cops got there while he was still inside.”
Reno felt the cold satisfaction of pieces moving into place. He let it show in a single small nod.
“So we have a possible name for the man on the camera?” Grace said carefully.
“We have a strong candidate. We don’t have probable cause to bring him in for questioning or arrest him, yet. But I’m building that evidence as we speak.”
“What do you have so far?” Reno asked.
The boot print in your daughter’s flower bed is consistent with a size eleven Vibram sole, which Curtis happens to wear, but so do about three thousand other men in the valley. I sent your security video out for enhance analysis, and we learned the lock picks in the footage are Russian-made, which is unusual but not unique. I’m not going to ask a judge for a warrant until I have something a defense attorney can’t laugh out of the room.”
“So what does that mean for us?” Grace asked.
“It means I called the Apple Pie Creek PD this afternoon, and they agreed to put discreet eyes on the Marchand house. If our friend Curtis leaves, particularly late at night, Clint and I will get a call, and we’ll be waiting for him if he heads for Cobbler Cove. For now, your bakery, home, and daughter’s school are all going to keep their surveillance details. But the good news is they’ll be acting more as traps waiting to spring that protection waiting to react.”
Reno saw Grace’s grip on the sofa ease.
