I shuffled through the papers on my desk just to be sure. The rest of my drawers were untouched, but I'd left the report in the original manilla folder right on top of my desk. It covered up the scorch marks from when I'd tried out my new stun gun on the wood.

At least I'd gotten the useful information from the report already. Not much was there except the bullet wound to the head and the address of the vacant place on the same street as my aunt and uncle's home.

"Why would someone break into my place for an undetailed autopsy report?"

Broadrick shrugged. "It's possible they just grabbed the first thing they saw to make it look like a robbery."

I shuffled a few more pieces of paper and swore under my breath.

"What?"

"I had my shopping list on that folder." I'd written it on the back so I wouldn't lose it. "How will I know what groceries I need to grab on Friday?"

"That's what you're worried about?" Broadrick asked. He tapped his finger on the room's corner. "You should let me install a few cameras in here for safety."

I tipped my head to the side and shook it slowly. "Absolutely not." I'd heard that line before. It's how all the women in Pelican Bay who ended up with a dude at Ridge's security firm set themselves up for constant surveillance. The men called it a safety measure, but really it just cut down on our fun. Or at least made it so we had to be sneaky about our shit and then the guys were always complaining about our sneaking endeavors, but they started it.

"If you had a camera in here, we'd already know who stole the file," he said.

I didn't like his logic. It was too sound. "Maybe I'll grab one from Amazon."

"I'm sure Ridge would set something up for you. Top of the line."

"No," I said and started to emphasize a drawn out "ohh" sound, but then my eye caught on something more interesting. "Did you see the rock?"

"Don't change the topic," Broadrick said, stepping into my path as I walked around the desk.

"No, seriously. Look." I slipped past him and grabbed the rock from the floor, flipping it over to see the full image. "Someone painted it."

"A snowflake?" Broadrick ran his finger over the lines of white paint someone used to create a six-pointed snowflake image on the flat side of the rock.

I took the rock from him and needed both of my hands to hold it. Whoever threw it through my window definitely went for overkill. "What does it mean?"

Broadrick shrugged. "Someone enjoys painting rocks?"

"You think snowflake matches up with snowbird?" The person who gave me a dead bird would definitely be horrible enough to send a snowflake rock through my window.

B narrowed his eyes in thought. "I'll show it to Ridge and see if he's got anything similar in his records. Until then, we should at least close off the window and sweep up the glass. Do you have a vacuum?"

Fate definitely missed the memo on my great day. "I have one outlet in this entire place. No, I don't have a vacuum."

He deposited the rock on my desk and folded over a chunk of the big cardboard box from my lamp package. I hadn't had time to take out the cardboard remnants yet and, in this case, procrastination benefited me. "I think there's one in the janitor's closet at the end of the hall."

"There's a janitor's closet with a vacuum? How did you know that?" I asked as he cut a section of the box out with a pocket knife he'd swapped out with the gun.

"I cased the place once I saw you had an office here." The piece he'd been cutting ripped free and Broadrick stood. "Grab me the roll of duct tape from in there too, please."

I had so many questions but needed to be sneaky about asking them. "We're going to talk about all this later."

"Sure, babe." He'd moved on from my suspicions and was dry fitting the piece of cardboard to the broken window.

We worked together. Me vacuuming and Broadrick taping a cover over the broken door window a six. When he finished the job and I'd returned the vacuum, which had to be older than me, my office was gloomier than normal. Apparently, I'd gotten more light from the hallway than I realized.

Broadrick blinked as he closed the door and put the far reaches of the room in darkness. "I should have gotten you the lamp with six lights."

"It's fine." I sat at the desk and flipped open papers, having to squint to see in the dim lighting. It was still better than my original setup. With no proper windows and only one light socket, there just wasn't much light to be had in the space. My eyes had to learn to adjust.

"Is the spot on your ceiling bigger? We should have someone check that out." He pointed to the area directly above my head.

I didn't need the directions because there was only one growing spot on my office ceiling. Schooling my face so I didn't react to anything I saw-King Kong could climb out, and I'd still have on my not shocked face-I leaned back to check out the spot.

It was definitely bigger.

Holy shit. So much bigger.

The thing had to be the size of four Spencers. Like the cat, this had trouble written all over it.

I tipped my head back to normal. "Looks the same to me."

"If you say so," he said, staring at it as it probably spread right in front of our eyes. "It seems empty now. Whoever did this is probably long gone. Will you be okay here if I take the rock to Ridge?"

I waved him away. "Yeah, I want to review some files. Let me know what he says."

Not that I trusted Ridge to keep me clued in.

Broadrick left, and I opened up the files from Katy. I didn't have the autopsy report, but the thief missed these in the bottom drawer of my desk. Something in them still didn't seem right. Chunks were missing, and I swore if I just found the last few clues, I'd solve my murder case.

I scanned the list of names, stopping on Trish's, and tapped the paper with a random pen. One name was missing from this list of suspects.

The chief.

His name wasn't anywhere in the bed-and-breakfast ledger, but I knew he was there because he responded to the scene before any on-duty officers. Was he so close that he heard the gunfire? Did he get the call and come quickly? Where would he have been at that time of night?

I flipped over a ledger paper from January and drew a map of the town on the bottom edge. It just made no sense for the chief to be anywhere in the bed-and-breakfast.

Everyone knew the chief lived in a McMansion in Clearwater, a neighboring town just a short drive from Pelican Bay.

Sometimes people ate meals at the old hotel, but it was way past dinnertime when the guy found himself with a bullet between his eyes.

I was missing something, but what?

"Ugh." I pushed the paper with the sketch of downtown away and leaned back in my chair.

The whole thing was so annoying. I had to solve the case before the police and make a name for myself, but how could I do that when no one was confessing to the crime?

Having two murder cases solved would definitely give me enough clout to take on bigger cases and bring in good money. Money enough to make rent and buy the name-brand box of Oreos.

I just needed a few more hours in my day to give each case on my plate enough time to simmer. Between keeping Spencer alive, solving this murder, and... shit, what was my third case?

I tapped the pen on the desk in frustration. How did I forget an entire case? This happened when I didn't write stuff down. Although, hadn't I written it on a piece of paper? What did I do with the paper?

Oh right! I remembered.

I had to finish my investigation into spying on the cops in this town and figure out what Anderson was up to. It was definitely something and probably nothing good.

Once I settled that I had to focus on the most important case. The murder.

I reviewed the files for hours, even drawing anther map to make connections, but none of the pieces fit together. I had to find a time to talk to Trish alone and see if she had more to add to the night's events. Sometimes people thought they saw nothing, but they just didn't realize what was important to the case. And everything was important. I also wanted to hear this "budding author" story with my own ears. Katy played it off as no big deal when she told me, but it just didn't sound right.

My office door opened and Broadrick popped his head in. I tapped the stun gun in my pocket before recognizing his face and quickly schooled myself so he didn't think I was worried about an attacker.

"Why do you look so angry?" he asked as he finished pushing open the door.

I tried to smile, but it didn't work. "I'm thinking."

"About what?" he asked, stopping at the edge of my desk.

"Killing someone." Or more properly, how someone else killed someone, but those were unimportant details right then.

He lifted an eyebrow and bent over, I thought to wrap me in a hug, but instead he pulled me from the chair and covered me in his embrace.

I needed it.

How did he know?

Broadrick let me snuggle into his neck and pretended he didn't notice when I sniffed at him. If time let us, I'd stay in his arms forever.

His phone beeped three times, and he froze, making me aware that he'd been gently rocking me back and forth. I hadn't noticed until the movement stopped.

Oh no.

Everyone in Pelican Bay who was close to someone working for Ridge knew what three beeps on a cell phone meant.