"Vivi!" I yelled and then remembered I was in the police station parking lot. I closed the car door and drove slowly out of town. If my sister needed rescuing, I had to at least hope she'd been smart enough to leave Pelican Bay. "Where are you?"

"He didn't do it, Vonnie." A poor connection scrambled some of her words, but I put the pieces together. "I promise."

"The police seem to think otherwise. Are you sure?" I had to ask. It's not like I'd leave my sister with a confessed killer. Only one still denying the crime. That was totally different.

"Yes," she said with perfect kid sister annoyance. "I love him."

I rolled my eyes. Ugh. Teenagers. They loved everything. It was like God purposely made the teenage heart to be broken a hundred thousand times, so you ended up jaded and picky by your thirties. Wait? Was that actually his plan for humans?

Either way, I had to decide whether I saved my sister from the clutches of an evil murderer or let her spend a few stolen-literally-moments with the love of her life.

"Where are you?" I asked as I passed the pelican out of town and continued on toward Clearwater.

She stayed silent for a moment. "I can't tell you."

Smart girl. I smiled. She really listened all those times I imparted wisdom to her in the form of helpful advice.

We Vines women were stubborn when we wanted.

"Are you safe?" I asked. My mother would kill me if anything happened to Vivienne. She was the obedient daughter.

"Yes," she answered immediately.

"Good." With that quick of an answer, her safety was not in jeopardy. I had a few ideas of where they might have holed up, but I didn't want to say them in case someone was listening. "Stay there."

Okay, so yes, apparently, I was a sucker for love. Judge me. She deserved a few more minutes of happiness before they carted her man to jail for his life sentence.

There were really only two options-either the police found them or I proved Allen's innocence to Anderson.

Maybe both.

Either way, I could nothing about it now. It was better to keep my deniability than to become an accessory. I didn't believe Anderson would charge Vivi with anything, but he didn't have those same squishy feelings about me. He'd put me in cuffs before, and I didn't expect him to hesitate doing it again.

"Call me if anything in your situation changes. Okay?" I asked, picking up speed outside of town.

"Okay. I can do that," she said, sounding a little more at ease.

"Good. And Vivi, don't call Mom or Dad," I said, just in case she decided to be dumb.

She snorted. "Hell no. They think I'm at school."

I didn't bother correcting her. Vivi had never skipped school before, and I figured I'd let her believe she'd gotten away with it for a while before telling her the truth.

She was so going to end up grounded.

I laughed a little because I'm horrible like that.

"What's so funny?" Vivi asked.

"What? Nothing. Just stay safe and let me know if you need help," I said and hung up.

I had almost an hour until my meeting with Lizzy for her shopping trip. I hoped we'd bond enough on this trip that she'd tell me her ring preference so I could close the case with Conner tonight. One less thing on my plate would really help. Otherwise, I felt a breakdown coming on quickly.

And I just did not have time for a breakdown right now.

I liked to have Broadrick around for those, so he'd bring me Chinese food or other various snacks.

To kill time, I visited the Clearwater Diner and had an iced coffee second breakfast. It was nowhere near as good as the ones we made at Anessa's bakery. They just didn't do things as well in Clearwater.

Forty-five minutes later, I parked in front of the nail salon and waited for Lizzy. She showed up ten minutes later. The woman was lucky I'd had the iced coffee or else I'd have been totally annoyed. As it was, her lateness only annoyed me a medium amount, which was still an amount.

"You made it," I said as we met one another on the sidewalk. "I started to get worried."

Lizzy laughed. She had on a pair of tall high heels that I wouldn't dare wear for fear I'd fall over and die paired with a cute skirt that hit her at the knees and a jean jacket top. It was amazing. I'd never pull off those shoes, and my jean jacket didn't look half that cute on me. We were quickly heading into totally annoyed territory.

"Don't be silly. No one shows up on time. Haven't you heard of being fashionably late?" she said like I'd been stupid.

I held back a groan and sucked in the fresh bread smell, making its way down their Main Street.

"Right. I forgot that part of having an appointment," I said between clenched teeth. It was going to be a long day.

Lizzy stopped beside me and gave me a full once-over. Openly. "This is the outfit choice today?"

Another dig. Another step into totally annoyed. I'd need ten, no...one hundred deep breaths to get on track. I could not blow my only playing card.

"You don't like it?" I pulled on the hem of my red thermal.

She bobbed her head back and forth. "You've worn worse."

I smiled, and then my lips fell. She'd only seen me twice.

Lizzy Ragland had better be thrilled that I needed money. Otherwise, I'd find dirt on her and then talk Conner out of proposing. She was a bad person. We were not friends. She'd never be a bakery girl.

That's what you had to expect from a Clearwater resident.

"Well, come on. Let's get started. I have a feeling this is going to take a while."

I shoved on my best fake smile and followed her down the sidewalk to the first store.

**

Turns out "a while" was a gross understatement.

Shopping took hours, more than four hours of complete and utter torture. Lizzy almost died twice-not by anything happening or an accident but from my hands. I envisioned strangling her at least a dozen times. Everything that came out of her mouth was some kind of passive-aggressive dig. Why did Conner want to marry someone like that?

We'd moved past totally annoyed into "cannot stand her" territory. Conner seemed like a nice, normal guy. What did he see in the vapid woman?

How did Conner not know what she wanted in a ring? Lizzy talked nonstop. All about herself. So much prattle about nothing of importance.

We stopped at her car for her to drop off another round of bags.

The biggest problem I had was trying to get enough of a break to ask her a question about a ring. Lizzy had an opinion about everything, and she made sure you knew it. Sadly, engagement ring opinions hadn't come up even when I stealthily mentioned conflict diamonds.

Fine, it wasn't so much stealthy as me yelling out of a dressing room about them. It didn't work. She continued with her assessments of my figure and dress style-none of them pleasant or pertaining to her thoughts about conflict diamonds. Even when I brought Leonardo DiCaprio into it.

I carefully placed my four bags of clothes in the back of Rachel. I'd have to return ninety-nine percent of the items later. The black tennis shoes with white Nike symbols were definitely staying, though. I'd just have to eat a few more days of Ramen to pay for them. A month tops.

But I wouldn't give up on Lizzy yet. Even if it cost my credit card another hit.

"Oh look, a jewelry store," I said, walking back to her car.

I'd been trying to lead us to that side of the street all afternoon, but she said she had a plan. The place was literally five stores away from where we'd been, but she never even glanced in that direction. What woman didn't like to at least window shop sparkly things?

"We should go in and look really quick. I love to look at rings and decide what I'd want for an engagement ring, so I can tell my boyfriend when he asks. Don't you?"

Please. Please. Please. Please let her launch into one of her Lizzy opinion fests when we got in there. Maybe she'd let me take pictures of her favorites on her hand.

I just had to get us inside the store.

Lizzy didn't follow when I took a step closer. She stared at me with the weirdest expression. She had one eye narrowed and the other wide as if she'd had a spasm at the mention of jewelry shopping.

"No," she finally said.

Fuck me. "Never?"

She kept her place at her car. "No. A good boyfriend should know your ring preferences."

"Not everyone is that in tune with things," I said, staying on the edge of the sidewalk. Men like hers. Would she scream if I carried her into the store? Probably.

She shrugged. "I want a three stone engagement ring with baguette cut stone around the band."

Wow. Someone had given this some thought.

Thankfully, I'd researched diamond rings before coming on this mission. If Broadrick ever checked my browser history, he'd have an aneurysm. After chatting with Lizzy for hours, I could, in confidence, tell Conner she wanted the biggest and best quality he had enough to pay for.

It was the rest of the details I needed.

"Round stones?" I asked, knowing those were the most expensive and sought after.

Lizzy crinkled up her face in that weird shape again. "Eww. No. Emerald cut."

I typed her choices into my phone and clicked on the first image the search returned. "Like this."

Lizzy leaned closer to see my phone screen better and her lips turned up into a smile. "Yeah."

I still needed details, and if I got them while getting a few good rubs in for measure, then more power to me. "Will that type of ring look good on your fingers? You don't want it to be overpowering. What size do you wear?"