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“Yes. I definitely remember that.”
Gabi smiled and got to her feet. “Thank you, Mr. Charles. That’s all the questions I have for you today.”
“Oh, that’s—you’re done? Good, good, happy to be of service.”
Gabi drank in every detail of his house and him before she left. Definitely no dog, and he didn’t strike her as an early morning jogger, either. He was scared, that much was obvious, and Gabi didn’t want to jump to conclusions—that was a surefire way to kill her career—but she couldn’t dodge the hunch that he was scared of his head witch. Paulina was too involved in this shit.
Abram Charles had just added what might seem like killer testimony against Joy—out of nowhere. This fur coat detail was miraculous—and new. He hadn’t mentioned it in his first statement, which meant either time was doing its usual warp on a person’s memory,orhe’d been fed that particular detail.
Funny how that had come outafterPaulina saw Joy curled up in a fur coat in the cell she’d shoved her into.
She needed to verify Abram’s story, find his sister and this imaginary dog, and then put pressure on him to tell the truth. But she couldn’t ignore the urge to tail Paulina for the rest of the morning.
Gabi climbed back into her car, slammed the door behind her, and realised she was smiling. She shouldn’t have been—but she was.
* * *
The afternoon was a write-off.After watching Paulina for hours and witnessing nothing suspicious, Gabi headed back along Beach Road into town, and staked a table in the bakery that possessed a godsend of a coffee machine. Gabi downed a double-shot americano and went over the post mortem on her tablet, typing up her thoughts on Abram Charles while she had the time.
Maybe she’d have a few hours tofinallyget started on moulding Freya’s last days in a linear order instead of the patchy timeline she had now. It’d help if the businesses in Agedale had CCTV, but thanks to boundary spells, they didn’t need them to catch thieves, so Gabi was left with the accounts of friends and family to figure out how Freya had come into contact with the woman who killed her.
She ordered another coffee and a trio of shortbread biscuits shaped like Santa when a shadow fell over her and the chair opposite squeaked back. Gabi raised an eyebrow, not in the mood to be bothered, but she removed the ire from her expression when she saw it was her dad.
In his mid-forties with thick black hair, rich amber skin, and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, Bo Pride was still as handsome as he’d been as a young man. As Gabi wasconstantlyreminded by the appreciative eyes that slid over him. His injury and retirement had not diminished his ability to charm a woman with a single look. Gabi rolled her eyes and ignored him, returning her attention to the tablet until Lilian, her favourite baker-barista, brought over her americano and biscuits. One was promptly snatched up, her dad crunching through it.
Still typing, Gabi said, “I know you were taught manners, but you seem to have forgotten them.”
She watched her dad brush crumbs off his coat from the corner of her eye. “Pot,” he said. “Kettle. Black.”
Gabi pursed her mouth, but he was always able to draw a smile out of her. “What are you doing out, anyway?”
With a flourish, Bo produced an envelope from his breast pocket.
Her full name inked in elegant green on gold paper, a flourish on the ends of each letter. Gabi scrunched up her face, ignoring it even as her stomach turned over.
She didn’t want to read it, didn’t want to hear the newest apology, the latest plea for her to talk to him, to let him explain. Gabi was too hurt to even entertain it, and she’d inherited the fierce grudge-holding of her mother’s side. She wasn’t forgiving and forgetting any time in the next five years.
“You’ll have to reply to him at some point,” her dad said with a knowing look. “Give him a break, Gabi, it’s been years. And I know you miss him.”
She said nothing, just glared at the report on her tablet.
Bo sighed, shitting in the wooden café chair. “Should I put this with the others?”
“Put it in the fire,” Gabi hissed under her breath.
Her dad sighed but he let the subject drop, nodding at her tablet. “What’ve you got?”
“What I’ve got is confidential and not accessible to the general public.” Gabi gave him the same cool look he’d given her all those years he’d had her job.
She tried not to grin with the satisfaction of it.
Bo shook his dark head, his smiling eyes curved into crescents. “Sometimes I think you turned out too much like me.”
“That’s why you like me so much,” Gabi pointed out, claiming a biscuit before he could snatch another.
Bo crossed his arms on the table and leaned closer, lowering his voice. “How did it go last night?Andthe night before? Are you still refusing to tell me if you talked to Joy?”
Gabi took a long drink to figure out how to respond, the ice coffee sliding smooth over her tongue. She’d become addicted to iced americano in Liverpool and drank gallons of it even in winter.
