His lips tightened. I would have missed it if I hadn't been staring at him unblinking. If I wanted to sniff out his secrets, I had to do it with my eyes wide open. I couldn't overlook a single detail.

He squinted into the sunlight. "Nope."

"Really?" I tapped the door handle. "There's nothing you want to tell me?"

"Yeah," he said with a head nod. "I'm pretty sure."

"Soooo," I let the word drag out, hoping he'd cut me off with a confession. "There's nothing with these Dalton meetings that you want to discuss."

His lip twitched. I almost shouted and pointed it out, but I didn't want Broadrick to know I'd learned his tell. That would probably come in handy for the next hundred years.

He turned and gave me a brief glance. "Do you trust me?"

"Sure, I do." I had to think about it, but only for appearances. "Exactly as much as a person who catches cheaters for a living can trust anyone."

Broadrick snorted from sucking in a quick breath. "I'd never cheat on you, babe."

He had his hand on my knee, and I covered it with my hand and gave him a squeeze. "Because you know if I found out about it, I'd cut off your dick in your sleep?"

He shivered. "Yeah. That and I love you."

I smiled. "Oh yeah. That too."

"Uh-huh," he said as we passed the pelican into town.

"I trust you," I said as he slowed by the high school. "It's Dalton I don't trust."

Who knew what Dalton did in his free time? He didn't have a bakery girl keeping tabs on him at all times. He might be up to anything.

Broadrick laughed. "Trust me that when the time is right, I will tell you."

My eyes widened, and I stopped breathing for a second. That admission was practically a confession. He'd admitted he had something to tell me, but he didn't want to.

Broadrick stopped in our driveway but didn't make a move to get out of the car, so I didn't either. He unlocked the doors, but didn't shut the car off. "I have to run to the office really quick."

I locked the doors. If he wasn't getting out, I wasn't getting out.

He stared at me.

I stared at him.

"To meet Dalton?" I asked and allowed myself a blink.

He laughed and unlocked the doors. I locked them back. "No, to grab my laptop and do a last check-in for the day. I doubt Dalton is back yet."

"Fine." Damn it. That answer made sense.

He leaned over to give me a kiss, and I let him. "I'll be home for dinner."

I unlocked the doors and stopped with my hand on the handle. "Do you want to get Chinese?"

Since leaving the bar, I'd been thinking about crab rangoons. They had a way of sneaking up on you in the middle of the day.

"No, I thought I'd make us the steaks from the fridge," he said as he ran his hand over my chin.

Hmm. "We have steaks in the fridge?" How did they get there?

He smiled and leaned over to give me one last peck on the lips. "I love you."

"Yeah, yeah. Ditto," I said and got out of the car. He never answered where the steaks came from.

A medium-sized brown box waited for me at the top of the steps. I walked slower so Broadrick had time to back out of the driveway, and he didn't see me reach for it. The last time I received a package on the steps, it had a dead bird in it courtesy of Snowbird.

This one didn't give me pause because I spotted the bright label on the outside. I'd been shopping. If Broadrick saw the box, he'd know exactly what I'd been up to the last few days, and we couldn't have that.

I waved as he turned into the street and then watched as his taillights disappeared before picking up the box and carrying it inside the house.

"NB, we have a package!" I called.

My little brown and white Jack Russell sprang from the couch and met me at the door. I set the box on the floor and stopped to give him ear scratches. Once he realized I didn't have a treat, he returned to his napping spot after taking three laps at high speed around the couch to burn off his excess energy.

I carried the box to the table and went in search of the kitchen scissors my mother said I had to own or my kitchen wouldn't be complete. She had a point. Although I'd never admit it to her face.

As I dug through my junk drawer, I balanced the phone between my ear and called my newest informant.

Lainey McLeod.

Now dating the town's chief of police, she'd been my friend first. I didn't care what Anderson said about it. He only made chief because I'd put the old chief behind bars. Without me, his boss would still run the streets, doing dirty protection deals with Snowbird. I had put the chief where he belonged, and soon, I'd figure out Snowbird's identity and let them share a cell.

Lainey answered on the second ring. "I can't tell you anything about the case."

Well, then. Not even a proper hello. She was turning out to be a horrible informant. She had no information.

I pushed a tape measure to the side of the drawer. How did that get there? "Why not?"

The scissors poked me in the pad of my thumb, and I grabbed them with my other hand, sticking my sore thumb in my mouth for a second.

"Law says you're still a suspect," Lainey said as I sank the end of the scissors into the middle of the tape that sealed the box shut.

I ripped through the tape and then cut through the ends. "He knows I didn't kill Mick."

Not only did I have an airtight alibi-I was on camera at the bakery-but Anderson knew I wasn't stupid enough to kill a man and then leave him in my office. Someone heard he was going to be there, and it wasn't me. Mick never gave me advanced notice of his surprise pop-in visits. It just happened to be his second most annoying trait. Stuffed between clicking his pen and those stupid hats he wore, trying to look like Dick Tracy.

"I told him the same thing," Lainey said. "What if they were there to kill you, but found Mick instead?"

"What?" I paused as my chest tightened. He was found at my office. The place I normally worked. I never considered the killer might have been there for me. Was I the real target?

No. It didn't make any sense.

"Naw. Everyone loves me."

I pulled back the flaps of the box and smiled at the contents. Perfect. Broadrick wouldn't suspect a thing. Since money was tight-I didn't have steak money like B-I had to improvise when I shopped. But they'd get the job done.

The soft fuzz of the teddy bear's ear tickled the pads of my fingers as I pulled the first nanny cam from the box and placed him on the corner of the island. He'd be tucked away, but still have a good angle. "I've got nothing on this case with Mick. Nobody is telling the same story."

"I'd tell you, but he doesn't tell me case stuff, anyway," Lainey said as I grabbed the second teddy bear and headed to the living room. "Law says he wants to keep his home life separate from his work life."

I opened-mouthed gagged, glad she couldn't see me through the phone. "That probably makes him a good guy."

I guessed.

Good for her, but bad for me. I paused by the couch after fixing the bear's position. Hmm. After I finished with these bears here, I wondered if Lainey would let me drop one off at her place. Having the inside scoop on Anderson would break open a ton of cases for me in the future.

My gaze swept the living room and came to a jolt at Mr. Jasper's cage.

His empty cage. He really had a demon in him. An escape demon.

"Um, Lainey," I whispered. "I've got to let you go. Mr. Jasper has escaped."

Again.