AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fortnum’s is wired and there are cameras. We did it last night.”
“What? Why?”
“Remember the conversation we had in the kitchen yesterday?”
I remembered every encounter I’d had with Lee since I was five. I most vividly remembered those that occurred in the last twenty-four hours, and not just because they were the most recent.
“Yeah.”
“You’re on Terry Wilcox’s radar. That’s not good. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“By bugging my store?”
“That and anything else I can think of.”
I stood staring at Matt, who was beginning to look amused.
“Doyouremember the part of the conversation this morning where you said you’d be at Fortnum’s whenever you were done?” I asked.
I got silence, but I didn’t wait for a response.
“Well, don’t bother.”
* * *
Allyand I walked up to Rosie’s house.
Matt followed us there and was now sitting in his SUV watching us, but we were ignoring him.
Jane had returned, no sign of Duke or Dolores, but she’d taken the opportunity to, what she called, “canvass the neighborhood.” As Duke lived in log cabin surrounded by four acres of evergreen trees, I wondered what neighborhood she was talking about. Nevertheless, she scored some points by learning that the dirt lane to Duke’s cabin had been a hive of activity in the last day or so, including a sighting yesterday morning that could have been Rosie. No sign of Duke’s return before or after Rosie.
This meant that Rosie was looking for Duke, too, or had been yesterday morning. Whether he found him or not was anyone’s guess.
We stood on Rosie’s porch and knocked. Rosie lived alone, in a bungalow that needed serious renovation. I used to wonder how he could afford the bungalow. I didn’t exactly pay him a fortune. It was on the out-out-outskirts of Platte Park, but close enough to the park and to Pearl Street to be a prime piece of real estate.
Now I knew how he could afford it.
No answer on the knock so we looked in the windows. I’d been to Rosie’s dozens of times and it didn’t look any different than normal.
“Be a shame to lose those primo pot plants. Do you think someone’s taking care of those plants?” I asked.
Ally gave a shrug and then turned brightly to me. “I bet I know who’d know!”
“Who?”
“Lee.”
I shoved her shoulder. “Smartass.”
Deciding to take a page out of Jane’s book, we “canvassed the neighborhood,” knocking on doors and asking people if they knew or had seen Rosie.
No luck. Most people were away at work. The ones that were in barely knew him and no one had seen him. He didn’t seem incredibly popular, nor did Ally and I for knocking on their doors.
Somewhere between getting stun-gunned and our current adventure, Ally had business cards made up with her and my names and numbers on them.
When she gave the first one out, I nearly choked.
“Where’d you get those?” I asked her as we walked away from the house.
