Broadrick opened the driver's side door of his truck, about to get out, but I raised my hand to stop him.

"Bad news," Anderson said.

My shoulders fell as I deflated. Before we left on our Florida trip, Broadrick and I found a red smear in the laundry room of Emma's apartment. Anderson had the lab testing it.

"It's not Emma's blood," I guessed as I opened Broadrick's passenger side door and jumped in his truck.

Darn it. If we couldn't match the blood to Emma, not only weren't we solving her case, but we might have found a second victim.

"It's not blood," he blurted. "Techs on the scene said it popped negative for presence of blood, but we had the lab run it again to be conclusive. They identified it as spray paint."

"Damn it." I buckled my seatbelt and motioned for Broadrick to drive. I hated being wrong.

He stared at me a second longer and then started the truck.

"So, we have nothing on Emma's case. Not even a time or place of death?" How was I supposed to solve this case with so little to go on? I needed a big break, but I had nowhere to find one.

Broadrick laid his hand on my knee as he pulled away from my parents' home, going the other direction so no one saw us drive past.

"Sometimes, solving a case takes a while, kid," Anderson said, and I rolled my eyes at the kid comment. "Every case isn't easy."

The killer sewed Emma's lips shut, a clear sign they'd killed her for talking about the drug case with my uncle. But who knew she talked? This case had swung way off course. I had to go back to the beginning.

"Maybe you have a mole at the station. I'd put my money on Bradley." He might have been Anderson's right-hand man on the force, but he always rubbed me weirdly. The man had a straight-up attitude. Sometimes I swore he made it his life's mission to keep me out of crime scenes. Probably because he didn't want me solving more cases before him.

"It's not Bradley," Anderson said, sounding exacerbated. "We don't have a mole at all."

That wasn't a super convincing argument on his side.

Broadrick pulled into our driveway and parked beside a large black Cadillac SUV with tinted windows. He shut off the truck and turned to me with a raised eyebrow like it was somehow my fault we had a suspicious vehicle waiting outside our home.

Okay, fine. It probably was.

Not that I'd admit it, though. I shrugged and shook my head in denial.

"There's something else I need to tell you," Anderson said, but if it wasn't who murdered Emma, I didn't have time for it.

Not with a murderer-looking vehicle just a few feet away. "I've got to go. Tell me later."

"Oh, I'll be seeing you soon."

Weird, but whatever. We hung up, and I gestured with my hand toward the vehicle. "Are you going to go check it out?"

"Hell no." Broadrick shook his head and laid his hands on the steering wheel. "You got us into this mess. Whatever it is."

"You don't know that. This might be your mess." I had no friends with a danger car.

Well, besides Frankie. But our local mob boss didn't count.

"Fine," I said, opening my door. "But the SEALs hang out in tinted-window vehicles."

I skirted around the hood of Broadrick's truck with a frown. If this ended up being someone for him, I'd never let him live it down.

The driver's side door of the SUV opened, and a tall woman wearing a gray pantsuit stepped out. She had a short white haircut and an expression that said she'd eat us all for dinner.

Janet Day.

Shit. This visit was for me. Ugh.

Janet always met me at the Clearwater diner. It had to be something big to get her all the way to Pelican Bay.

"My coffee is cold," she said rather than a greeting.

I jerked my lips upwardly, showing a little teeth. "What do we owe the pleasure?"

And how did Janet Day get my address?

Janet crossed her arms as she finished the walk to the passenger side of the car, where she leaned against the closed door. "Why do you look like your man just left you and you forgot to sign the prenup agreement?"

Broadrick snickered behind me as he closed his truck door and trudged into the house, closing the front door behind him. What if Janet was here to kill me? What kind of boyfriend just left his girlfriend to be murdered in her driveway?

"I ruined my aunt and uncle's life. The only thing she asked me to do was catch my uncle Richard cheating, but instead I put him in jail. Things have been tense." I kicked one of the loose rocks in the driveway. It jumped forward and slammed into Janet's tire. Thankfully, she didn't notice.

Her face turned to one of pity, which I hated more than the annoyed-at-cold-coffee expression. "That would do it."

"Also, my mother isn't speaking to me, and my boyfriend wants me to leave everyone I've ever known here and move to Florida."

Janet clicked her tongue. "My word, you really are a mess."

She didn't have to be so definitive about it.

"But chin up," she said with a fresh new smile. "I have good news."

"You know who killed Emma Richards?" That would really brighten my day. Especially if it came with a signed confession from the killer.

Janet's smile faltered. "Who?"

"Never mind. What's the news?" Someone moved inside the backseat of the vehicle, and I tried to peek around Janet to get a look, but the windows were too dark.

"I come with money and an opportunity." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a white bank envelope. "There's five hundred more in there for walking my client's dogs and getting those videos."

Money was always good news, and I accepted the envelope quickly. "Okay. What's the opportunity?"

Fingers crossed it solved at least one problem on my growing list.

Janet leaned to her side and opened the back door of her car. A huge golden-haired beast jumped from the back and sprinted toward me. I jerked backward, stumbling over the small rocks in the driveway. Without checking her position, Janet's foot dropped on the dog's leash just in time to stop him from colliding with me. Bacon came to a standstill and panted in my direction.

"Why do you have Bacon with you?" I reached out and gave him a pet on the head. I really didn't have time to take him for another walk. And where was his brother?

Janet grabbed Bacon's leash and handed it to me. I accepted from shock alone. "Bacon and Bits need a place to crash for a few days."

Her words entered my ears but didn't make it all the way to my brain. Why was this my problem? "What?"

"They just need to lie low until we get a few things worked out regarding the divorce case." She said it so calmly, like hiding dogs was something Janet did every day.

"Lie how?"

Janet's eyes widened.

"Right."

She stepped around the back door and reached into her car. A bright blue beach towel with a shark on it fell to the ground as she tugged on a leash.

"I'm not sure about this, Janet." We hadn't even talked about money. And how was I going to hide two giant dogs from Broadrick and NB? They were probably both watching from the front door. It's not like I could tell them the dogs were strays I found in the yard.

My chest tightened and my brain screamed, "Heart Attack," but I didn't fall over dead, so I kept going. I'd had at least one fake heart attack every day last week. Was it the stress? How did people destress? Would an iced coffee help?

"You'll do great," she said and gave the leash another hard tug. "Come on, stop scratching my leather seats."

Bacon jerked on the leash in my hand, tugging it to get closer to his brother.

Janet finally succeeded in yanking Bits from the car. He landed on the ground in front of the door on all fours and promptly sat down again.

"It doesn't look like he wants to be here," I said, trying to step away, but Bacon prevented me from getting very far.

She shook her head. "He's just lazy. My client doesn't want the dogs to be with her ex at the hussy's house. They're fighting over custody now, but until it's settled, consider them in witness protection and you work for WITSEC."

I mean, a job at WITSEC would be the bomb, but I didn't see the US Marshals Service accepting dogs into their program. Or me.

"There just really isn't time in my schedule, Janet. I have to solve a murder, get my uncle out of jail, and wash my hair." My next few days were packed.