"I'll call," Anessa said, grabbing the phone we used as the bakery's land line. "So that way you've had no part of it."

She was the absolute best.

I pretended to dust off the cash register and accidentally hit the button for a cupcake. "Thanks. It gives me better plausible deniability."

"Hello, Mr. Garrett, this is Anessa calling from the bakery to inform you that you're this week's lucky customer of the week winner."

A handful of cookies easily bought any gossip from Mr. Garrett, the mayor's assistant. Double chocolate got us the good stuff every time.

"Yes, again. You're just lucky, I guess. A baker's dozen of double chocolate," Anessa continued on with the call. "You'll need to pick up today, of course. As usual. That sounds great. I'll have them all ready to go."

She wouldn't. The time it took Anessa to box up his cookies gave me time to interrogate him. And best of all, I wouldn't be breaking a single agreement I'd made with Broadrick.

Anderson might bring someone into the station, but I didn't believe it was the shooter. First, more than one gun had to have gone off in that room. Second, the police force wasn't that good.

But an arrest would keep the force busy and give me more time to swoop in and find the second shooter. If they thought their jobs were done, I'd be in the clear to conduct my investigation. Hopefully, the mayor's assistant had more information for us, and we'd get the scoop before anyone else-even Susan.

**

Mr. Garrett turned up twenty-eight minutes later, but he'd been a little less helpful than a common cold. The trench coat wearing Detective Anderson was bringing in a suspect named Todd but they had not confirmed him as the shooter. That's the only thing anyone had so far. The mayor wanted to get what Garrett considered "prime time" coverage and told Anderson he had three hours to obtain a confession.

Didn't sound like great police work to me. What good would a compromised confession be if a judge tossed it out of court?

Of course, no one at the station or the mayor's office asked me my opinion. Pearl walked out with the mayor's assistant, leaving only Anessa and me in the small front half of the bakery.

"Tabitha is covering the evening shift, right?" I asked before Anessa fully made it through the swinging metal doors to the kitchen.

She turned midway through, letting one door hit her in the back. "Yeah, should be here any minute."

"You okay if I duck out a few minutes early? Something just came up."

She'd been with me the last few hours, and nothing had happened at all. But like a good friend and boss, she didn't question my obviously crap excuse.

"Sure, have a great night."

"Oh, I will." I chucked my pink apron in the dirty pile of them under the counter and had my phone from my pocket before I hit the back door of the bakery.

Katy answered my call on the first ring. "You heard about the shooter?"

How did she always learn everything?

"Yes, but that's done with. I need a favor."

Katy clicked keys on the other line like she was typing away at a desk. "I can't borrow Riley's truck 'til later this month. He's watchful, but Cassandra said she'd cover me when we need it."

Cassandra, Riley's girlfriend, was the best. She was always up to help, even if Riley pretended to complain about Katy.

"It's not about that. I'm not ready for the truck yet. Do you still have that plumber costume?"

"It's an authentic uniform."

"Okay, whatever." No plans to ask her how she got her hands on a proper uniform. "Can I borrow it?"

"Sure, meet me at my place and I'll have it ready."

**

Forty minutes later, I shut the door on my Camaro and prepared to walk into Detective Anderson's apartment building. My name badge with Whitney engraved on the front sat crooked on my chest, so I adjusted it against the drab gray plumber's uniform before grabbing the toolbox from my trunk.

I didn't want to hear what Katy had to do to get Whitney's uniform from her, but she'd been right. It matched exactly the uniforms of Maine's largest plumbing service. Right down to the patch on the sleeve. The thing had to be real.

With a deep breath to get into character-I imagined Whitney was a kick ass female plumber-I slammed the trunk of my vehicle. Anderson, or Detective Anderson as he demanded I call him, lived in the new fancy apartments outside the city limits of Pelican Bay. They had brand new appliances and lots of conveniences, but they weren't steps away from the ocean.

The fresh building smell hit me as soon as I walked into the lobby. The carpets were newer without multiple winters of snow being tromped through the halls. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and swung my toolbox acting like I totally belonged in the building.

Half the part of having a good disguise was walking with the swagger the disguise entailed. You had to be the part in your mind, body, and soul. I'd never aspired to be a plumber, but in those few minutes as I climbed the stairs and only slightly ran out of breath when I hit the second floor, I was Whitney, kick ass female plumber. There to save the day.

I hesitated on the top step before entering the second floor to make sure I didn't randomly hear Anderson in the hallway. His Grand Cherokee wasn't in the lot. I'd driven through it twice to make sure. The mayor and chief of police probably had him locked up tightly with their suspect at the station. Hopefully, they'd have him there all night.

The sleeves of the plumber's uniform hung over my hands-Whitney had long arms-but I pushed it back enough to pull my lock pick kit from my back pocket as I stopped in front of Anderson's door. The shiny metal on the numbers 201 glistened when the light hit it from the large windows at the end of each hall.

I scanned the space one last time to check for cameras. No self-respecting PI let herself get caught breaking and entering, especially at a detective's apartment. I wasn't sticking anything into his knob-I stifled a chuckle at the knob bit-until I checked the place.

With no sight of cameras, I shoved the pick in his lock and twisted, listening for the release as I worked. My fingers twisted, but no breath passed my lips as I worked.

A car horn beeped outside the building, and I froze a moment after the lock clicked into place. No one ran at me to put my hands in the air, so I released the breath and grabbed the handle. No more thinking of Anderson's knob. It was too risky of a thought pattern.

My head felt heavy as I twisted the handle, expecting to gain entrance to Anderson's private space. What treasures would I find in his apartment?

"What?"

The door handle didn't move. I twisted it again, giving it more umph the second time.

Nothing.

"Damn it, Anderson."

The door jiggled and acted like it wanted to open, but another lock kept it shut tightly-something he'd set from the inside.

The action reminded me of an inside deadbolt being set, but I didn't see an additional key hole for it outside the door. How did he lock it when he wasn't home?

Shit.

I didn't plan for this setback. I didn't even have a crowbar in the trunk of Rachel.

The outside door to the complex opened and closed as I stared at Anderson's door. I couldn't get in now, so best to get out before someone asked questions about a roaming plumber. The investigation into the Pelican Bay police force would have to wait. Those officers were up to something, and I planned to find out. But I'd have to wait for another day.

Stairs creaked as someone climbed them. I dropped my lock pick into the portable toolbox and turned, doing my best to pretend that I just left the job rather than a failed break-in.

A woman with long auburn hair crested the top of the steps, her breaths coming fast like she'd run up them. She walked past me with her head down, but with a quick, obviously fake smile, barely taking the time to admire the great uniform I'd secured. I hated putting time into disguises when no one noticed how outstanding they were. Such wasted effort.

Another body rounded the top of the stairs and kept after the woman. A man who had at least five inches on her charged right for her. He had short cut hair and angry eyes. No way was I leaving her alone in a hallway with him. Everything about him screamed asshole right down to his expensive loafers.

I hoisted the portable toolbox to use as a possible weapon and repositioned my feet in the middle of the hall, putting myself between the two people. The woman tugged on a backpack she had strapped across her shoulder and stopped at apartment 202. She almost had her key in the lock when the man yelled.

"You can't run from me, McLeod. I've been here now."

I held out the hand not gripping the toolbox. "Whoa, dude, threatening much?"

The woman twisted her head in my direction and nodded once in silent thanks. She tried to unlock the door, but her hands shook until she dropped her bundle of keys.

I couldn't call the police because if they showed up, they'd definitely have questions about why I was in the hallway in front of Anderson's place wearing a plumber's uniform. Nobody at the station would believe I'd changed my name to Whitney and taken up toilet clogs.

The man stopped three feet from me and snarled. I readied the toolbox and then remembered what I had in there.

Not tools.

Something better!

The stun gun Broadrick gave me as a gift last month.

My free hand slipped into the slim metal toolbox and I grabbed the device, pulling it out and holding it in front of me.

In the short time it took me to retrieve an actual weapon, the woman grabbed her keys and turned to address the man. "This is inappropriate, and if you don't leave immediately, I'll call the police."

Shit. I didn't want her doing that. We had to get Mr. Angry Face out of here before the fuzz showed up.

My hand shook as I wielded the stun gun, not from the well-built man in front of me, but the threat of police. He didn't seem to have the same aversion. Probably because he wasn't breaking and entering, only being a real asshole and threatening a woman.

"What are you going to do with that, sweet thing?" he asked, his words sickly sweet and bogus. The cologne he'd doused himself with that morning coated my throat as I took a breath.

I leaned toward him with the stun gun in front of me. "Come a little closer and find out."

He lifted his foot and stepped forward.