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“Any luck?”
If I wasn’t so frustrated, I might have laughed. “I wish,” I told him. “I’ve done some digging, and Jax has been helping out, too. But with the exception of how both men were killed, they couldn’t be more different.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve got one guy who’s not even originally from this area, and we’ve got a guy who was born to a drug-addicted mother,” I explained. “There seems to be no record of him in the foster care system, nor can I find any records of him being officially adopted. And Jimmy, the guy who came here from Alabama, is a bit of mystery, because aside from getting married, it doesn’t seem like he has any real connections here.”
“He got married,” Kane noted. “Isn’t that a connection? How long ago was it?”
“The record shows it was twenty-two years ago,” I answered.
Kane cocked an eyebrow and stared at me for a long time without saying a word. I couldn’t say I didn’t understand his bewilderment. This made no sense.
Eventually, he said, “Look, this is not my area of expertise, but in that amount of time, the guy had to have made some kind of connection here. Have you talked to the wife?”
Kane worked in the self-defense and tactical training unit here at Harper Security Ops, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t offer good advice or have a decent idea on a private investigation case that might help. His suggestion now made sense, and it was likely what I would have done in any other scenario. It just wasn’t likely to work in this case.
Shaking my head, I explained, “I reviewed what I got from the police department, and I think that might be a lost cause. It seems like she spends most of her time dabbling in alcohol and drugs. She was too far gone when they talked to her.”
Understanding washed over him. “That sucks.”
“Yeah, it does, but I’m not giving up just yet,” I told him. “What’s going on with you? I thought you’d be out of here by now. Don’t you and Ellery have any plans?”
“No, I just got done with a tactical training lesson, and she’s got game night, anyway,” he shared.
My brows shot up in surprise. “Game night?” I repeated.
Letting out a laugh, Kane explained, “Yeah, ever since she came to Steel Ridge, she’s been participating in game night at Short and Sweet once a week. Or, at least, she does it most weeks.”
Short and Sweet.
That was the place where Ellery had gone to stay when she first came to town. It was no surprise she still felt compelled to go to the place that had been crucial to her escape.
“She just goes and joins in for game night with whoever else is actually a guest there?” I asked, finding that whole part of it to be strange.
Kane laughed. “No. It’s usually just her and Hanna. I guess Hanna has always hosted the game nights there, but up until Ellery stayed, nobody usually joined. So, the two of them have sort of made it their thing.”
“Hanna hosts them?”
He nodded. “She’s the owner, so yeah.”
More surprise moved through me. “I didn’t know that. I don’t know why, but I assumed she just worked there.”
“Well, she does,” he assured me. “It’s just that she’s the only one, and she owns the place.”
“I had no idea.”
Tipping his head to the side, his lips twitched. “Does that matter?”
Fuck.
I hadn’t intended to have the conversation go here. But my shock at learning something else about Hanna, a woman whose face had been popping into my head every now and then since I’d seen her at the coffee shop, had clearly led us in this direction.
“Why would it matter?” I asked, attempting to play it off.
Kane didn’t buy it. “I’m surprised you remember her. It was how long ago when you met her.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember her,” I argued. “Besides, I saw her recently at The Early Bird.”
