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Just finished. Annisa and I will head to Fratelli’s. He ended the message with a heart emoji.
Sounds good, I typed out and finished with a heart emoji as well.
“What are you smiling about?” Julia spared a quick glance in my direction before eyeing the road again.
“This.” I held up my phone so she could read the message. I knew that she wouldn’t be able to read everything clearly in the short time that she had to look at the phone, but she would be able to see the heart symbol that Aiden used.
“See, I told you,” Julia said in a sing-song voice. “He likes you!”
I didn’t respond, but she saw me smile sheepishly. “You know I’m right,” Julia pressed.
“Okay. You’re right.” I gave in.
Julia made a fist pump in the air. “You’re such a dork!” I teased her, but at the same time, I was beginning to believe that things might work out between Aiden and me after all.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
We had finished ordering our clam chowder bread bowls when Annisa started to detail her time in custody.
“It was awful. Just awful!” Annisa cried out.
“I’m sure it was.” Julia made some sympathetic sounds while I desperately tried not to roll my eyes.
Awful? Yeah right! Granted, it probably wasn’t considered to be the best experience being locked up, but Aiden said that she had a private cell to herself. Plus, she had multiple visits from Officer Shin, who I was sure stayed longer than he had to during his check-ins.
“So, what made the police decide that you had nothing to do with Trevor’s death?” I asked.
Annisa let out a dramatic sigh. “After I confessed that I went on a date with Trevor, and that’s why my contact information was on his phone, the police let me go.”
“Whoa…wait a minute. I feel like you’re leaving some things out.” I looked at Aiden to confirm my suspicion.
He nodded. “Officer Shin checked on Annisa’s story that Trevor signed off on Annisa’s dives if she went out with him.”
“Really? Who did Officer Shin talk to?”
“He verified the information with Sully.”
“With Sully? Are you kidding me?” I asked.
“We were at Sully’s earlier, and he said that he didn’t know Trevor had done that. In fact, he was outraged Trevor had done something that could jeopardize the business.” Things were not adding up for me, and my earlier enthusiasm for eating clam chowder had abated. Now, I wanted to leave and go to Sully’s to confront him about what I had learned, but it was too late for that. The waitress was heading our way with the food.
“Alright, who’s ready to eat the best chowder in the Bay Area?” the waitress, Danny, asked cheerily, unaware of our conversation. She set down the first bread bowl when she noticed our somber expressions.
“Is everything okay?” Danny’s voice rose in alarm. “I hope I didn’t offend anyone by saying that this was the best clam chowder. It’s only my opinion. Of course, I’m biased.”
“No, you didn’t do or say anything offensive,” Julia soothed our waitress. “We’re just thinking about something.”
“About what? Maybe I can help?” Danny set down the rest of the bread bowls in front of us and placed her hands on her hips.
I doubted that Danny could help, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I said, “We were talking about the Bay Area Divers.”
“Oh yeah, I heard about Trevor’s death!” Danny placed a hand over her heart.
“You knew Trevor?” Annisa asked with her eyes widening in surprise.
“Sure. He and the owner of the dive shop, Sully, come—or used to come—here often. Like I said, we have the best clam chowder.” Danny smiled proudly.
“You said that they came here often. When they came here to eat, did they seem like they knew each other well?” Aiden asked.
