I parked down the street and sent my coordinates to my contact. It was safer for us to meet away from her home. For me anyway.

The street stayed clear of pedestrians, but two white cars drove by slowly. Why were the white cars always suspicious? I saw my contact's black hair first as she turned the corner, and the wind blew it across her face.

She'd escaped unharmed.

I lowered the window and listened. There weren't any sounds besides the typical street noise. Not a motorcycle in sight, either.

Perfect.

I loved it when a plan came together.

Especially when I created the plan.

Gina stopped at my car, and I waved her over to open the passenger door. She slipped inside as I scanned the road in front of and behind us. I sniffed the air as she closed the door. She really smelled good. The powerful scent of coconuts followed her.

"You got out okay?" I asked and popped a piece of gum in my mouth.

She buckled her seat belt with a weird, tight expression. "I'm not a prisoner."

We pulled away from the curb, and I started the directions on my GPS. Our destination wasn't within the city limits, and it wasn't good practice to get lost on a stakeout.

"Are you sure?"

The gum stuck between my teeth, and I had to use my tongue to get it under control. I sped through downtown, headed out of town as the GPS gave me directions through the places I'd known my entire life. They really needed an option to pick up directions after you left your hometown.

Gina laughed at my question. "Yeah, I'm sure I'm not a prisoner."

I picked up speed past the high school after seeing the car in question, not in the lot. "Then why did you sneak out?"

She whipped her head in my direction and plastered her hands on her dark-washed jeans. "You told me to!"

I nodded. Facts were facts. "I'm just saying."

Gina laughed again.

She sounded casual, but I was pretty sure Dominick had her locked up in his house. More than likely, she had to climb out a window to meet me.

"If you're not a prisoner, why won't he let you go to the bakery without drama?" I asked and then popped a bubble. The grape flavor had already faded. I didn't even like grape. I stole it from Broadrick. He had horrible taste in gum. Thankfully, he had better decision-making skills with women.

Gina stole a piece of gum from my container. She made a weird face with her first bite. Ha! I knew it was a weird flavor. Grape just didn't taste right if it wasn't in cough medicine.

"So, the bakery?" I asked again when she didn't answer.

She shrugged. "I told you. Dominick doesn't like me to go there because he thinks you guys are troublemakers."

I snorted. How funny coming from the main troublemaker in town. He literally ran a motorcycle club.

"What's Dominick like?" I asked before deciding whether I really wanted to learn about our town's club leader.

If Gina told me he played the violin and got manicures or something, I'd lose all respect for The Impaler. I still hadn't learned where the horrible nickname came from, but I imagined enough scenarios to fill a book. Tracking that down was on the list, but it kept being preempted by more pressing issues. Like murder.

Gine shrugged again as we chomped our gum in unison. "I don't know. He's nice. Normal. I like that about him."

What home life did someone have to consider Dominick normal? "Rough childhood?"

"You have no idea."

She was wrong. I had a million ideas of what her story might contain, but I wouldn't press. Something told me Gina and I were going to be great friends. She'd tell me, eventually. On her own time, and I'd respect that.

I slowed by a house as the GPS ended the route. I'd seen him at a different location earlier in the week, but that had been a girlfriend's home. After a little searching I came across my suspect's personal address and decided I needed to investigate. A lanky man in a pair of shorts-even though it wasn't warm enough for them yet-and a light jacket walked out of the house and got into an old model van. The same he'd been driving at the apartment complex. We waited, and I stopped at the corner and left my blinker on, waiting to turn.

Gina stared out the window. "I can't explain it. He just makes me happy."

I shook my head. Dominick called the bakery girls weird?

No, the women dating these men were the odd ones. We had Lainey falling in love with Anderson-a cop. And now Gina was head over heels in love with Dominick The Impaler. What happened to my nice normal town? None of it made sense. The only answer I ever came up with was Dominick and Anderson had to dupe the women somehow.

"You and Lainey are the crazies. I'm totally the normal one here."

Gina laughed harder as the van drove past us and I waited before following behind it. The important part of a chase was maintaining a distance to not give yourself away. "Sure, says the woman dating the SEAL."

I hit the gas a little harder and stopped mid chew. What did that mean? "Why did you say it like that?"

"Like what?" Gina asked.

"You know, all the SEAL. He's just Broadrick." A lot of SEALs lived in Pelican Bay. Well, former SEALs. We couldn't judge mine just because he was still active.

The van turned into the small shopping area outside of town, so I parked on the opposite side of the parking lot and grabbed my binoculars from the middle console.

"I've heard the stories," Gina said.

Stories. What stories? I hadn't heard any stories. I was supposed to know all Broadrick's stories. Those were the girlfriend rules. He couldn't break the rules.

Not without telling me first.

Chad, the school janitor, left his vehicle and headed into the home goods store. It was a weird shopping choice for a man. Right along with his style choices.

Gina had her hand on the door handle, but I locked the doors. "What are we doing?"

"We're sitting." I wanted her to have plausibility deniability.

She popped a bubble with her gum. "In a parking lot?"

"Yup," I said and stuck my tongue through my gum.

"And it has nothing to do with the dude in the van we followed here?"

Man, she was good. Definitely had to be something from her childhood.

"Fine, we're staking out the janitor, Chad Jinx, from the high school. He seems fishy, and he probably killed the baseball coach."

Gina crinkled her face and tilted it slightly. "The janitor?"

"Yup," I said and popped another bubble. The gum was getting less stretchy, but at least the flavor wasn't as strong. It was a blessing and a curse when it came to grape gum.

We sat in silence for a minute while Chad shopped.

My stomach growled. "I should have brought cookies." Or cupcakes. Maybe a damn muffin.

"Yeah, cookies would help," she said.

The door to the store opened, and I watched with my binoculars.

"Oh, here we go," I said as he walked out into the parking lot. "We're on the move."

He got in the car and turned back toward home. Since he had a big plastic shopping bag and didn't run from the store in search of his getaway vehicle, I assumed he hadn't robbed the place. You never knew with janitors.

"This guy is boring," Gina said as we passed the pelican back into town. I had to agree. He didn't even speed.

I thumped the wheel and chewed my gun. "Yeah, I thought for sure it was the janitor."

If not him, did Allen really kill his baseball coach? He disliked the coach and had a teenager attitude. I just didn't believe it. Something about him didn't scream killer. Not like it did for janitors. Every janitor screamed murderer. It seeped from their pores.

Except this one.

He'd been domesticated. And was wasting my time. There weren't even cookies.

"Really? The janitor?" Gina asked as we pulled up outside the janitor's home on the outskirts of town again. "He doesn't look scary."

He parked and walked into his home as I circled the block, trying to seem inconspicuous.

"Yeah, they're pure evil."

"The janitor?" Gina asked again, still disbelieving.

I nodded and popped a bubble. "I think it's all the puke they have to clean up." It messed with their brain DNA. Or something.

She tapped the front of my dashboard and leaned back in her seat, getting comfortable.

"We'll stay a few more minutes and head out if he doesn't leave," I said.

"And if he leaves?"

I popped a bubble and hurt my tongue in the process. The gum turned super hard, making me work harder to blow another. "I'll pop in and have a quick look around his place."

"You're going to break in?" Gina asked with eyes the size of saucers. "Like a robbery?"

"I'm not going to steal anything. Just look. Take a picture." If he'd left any actual evidence behind, I'd definitely call Anderson after I snuck out again.

We sat quietly, and nothing moved outside the car. So boring.

"Can I tell you something?" Gina asked, breaking up the stretch of no noise.