* Late April *

"I know I left it in here somewhere," I said as Broadrick handed me a box from the pile between us.

Whoever stacked the moving boxes in my spare room had to be tall because they were higher than my head. How did anyone expect me to unpack when I couldn't reach the boxes?

Broadrick opened the top of an unlabeled box. "Where did you see it last?"

"My spring jacket? Last spring! In my old apartment." In the spot where spring jackets belonged-the closet. "This is why my moving method was better."

"Babe, you'd still be moving," Broadrick said.

Maybe, but three boxes at a time gave me the chance to unpack as I brought stuff in. Then the jacket would be in the closet.

Where. It. Belonged.

"Did you check the closet?" he asked.

I stuck my hands on my hips. "Of course I did."

Didn't I?

I zigzagged through the stacks of boxes to the main room. The weather had warmed in Pelican Bay, turning the entire place into a mud pit. The weather was also in a constant argument with itself. Sixty-one-degrees one day and twenty the next with a chance of snow. I needed my fleece North Face jacket if I wanted to survive. It was a Maine staple.

Someone had stacked three boxes in front of the closet, and I pushed them to the side. Broadrick opened the bifold doors before I cleared them, and hanging between three other coats for different seasons was my black North Face.

"Did you put this here?" I asked Broadrick and grabbed it from the closet.

He put the hanger back on the rail. "If you unpacked these boxes, you'd find your stuff."

"Who has time?" I had murders to solve. Dogs to walk. Cupcakes to eat.

Broadrick closed the closet. "No one has died in months, and with the chief confessing, things are quiet now."

"Don't say that." I covered his mouth. That always meant we needed to expect something bad. He kissed my palm, and I moved it. "Do you really think the chief confessed to save Trish from testifying against him?"

Did he have a heart? Or was it some master plan we hadn't seen coming yet? Trish seemed to believe he loved her. I figured if he loved her, he wouldn't have tried to frame her for murder in the first place. But what did I know?

Broadrick pushed a box back with his foot. The same one I'd struggled to move with my hands. "Love does weird things to people. Look at us."

"What's that mean?" I grabbed NB's leash from the hook by the door and he came running.

Broadrick clipped it on and opened the door.

"Seriously, what's that mean? We're relationship goals." People should aim for us.

A light rain hit us as we made it to my car. Hence, why I needed the jacket. You never knew in this town. "After the baseball game, we should swing by and see what Officer Bradley is up to."

"No," Broadrick said.

He was not supportive of my newest plan to bring Bradley's new girlfriend into the fold. Having an FBI agent on the team would kick ass. Turned out that Bradley lied about where he got the FBI coat. He didn't win it at a poker game, but his girlfriend left it in his car after a night of... well, I didn't ask. She was on the task force for the chief.

Broadrick scowled up at the raining sky and unlocked the car. He let NB in first and then settled in to drive. Somehow, he'd become the primary driver even though it was my car. "We should take a vacation and go someplace warm."

"Florida," I said, sounding dreamy. "But what if someone dies? I wouldn't be here to solve the crime."

Broadrick drove down Main Street and turned toward the high school. "Vonnie, no one else is going to die."

"You have not lived here long enough, B."

END OF BOOK TWO: Second Shooter