Free The Shop by J. Carson Black Page A

up on the Haddox compound, love or no love.
    “When did the cops come?” Zoe asked.
    “Later that day. Put up yellow tape for everyone to see, which sure hasn’t helped me get a new tenant. Stuff like that gets around. They took out a bunch of stuff then, came back later that day to get the rest.”
    “Everything?” Riley’s voice was bleak.
    “It’s all evidence now, I reckon.”
    Riley went to the dresser, pulled open the top drawer.
    “Hey! I didn’t say you could do that.”
    Riley ignored her. She opened another drawer, went to the kitchen and opened cabinets. Crashed around the apartment, looking more and more scared—scared and desperate. Zoe just stood on the stoop, wishing they could get out of here.
    Mrs. Frawley looked at Zoe. “You look like a sensible girl. Not so caught up in your looks you can’t listen to reason. If she’s your friend, you ought to tell her she pushed Luke away with both hands.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Chasing after him like that, once he’d had enough. One thing I’ve learned, chasing never makes it better. It only makes a man so desperate he’ll chew his foot off to get away.”
    “She loved him.”
    “She’ll get over it.”
    Riley came out of the bathroom. “The police have everything? ”
    “Yup,” Mrs. Frawley said. “Impounded his car, too. That’s what happens when you take a woman hostage and get yourself shot up in a cheap motel.”

    Back in the car, Riley slumped against the wheel. “Oh, God. I am so screwed.”
    She looked shaken. Scared. Nothing like the Riley Zoe knew. It scared her. Zoe wanted to say something comforting, but the words stuck in her throat.
    Riley started to cry.
    Then Zoe had an idea. “Maybe Aunt Jolie can help us.”
    “Aunt Jolie? You mean the cop?”
    “She’s a detective. Jolie’s a good friend of Mom’s. Maybe she could find out who has the phone and see if she can get it back.”
    Riley wiped her nose and looked over at Zoe. “You think she could do that?”
    “I bet she could pull some strings.” Although suddenly, she wasn’t so sure.
    “Call her,” Riley said.

18
    Jim Akers wasn’t the family man Jolie assumed him to be.
    Nobody at the Gardenia PD was surprised that Maddy Akers had killed her husband.
    “Did you ever know him to threaten anybody?” Jolie asked Acting Chief McClelland.
    McClelland sighed. “I saw him threaten a confidential informant once, back when he was a deputy. Going on fifteen years ago. Said if the guy didn’t stop torquing him around, he’d kill him.”
    “ Kill him?”
    “A lot of people say that. Like, if you do that again, I’m gonna kill you. Hell, I’ve said it. But he meant it.”
    He was clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. “Couple of weeks later, the CI went missing. Found him in a canal not far from here. His head bashed in.”
    “You think it was Chief Akers?”
    “Well, that’s open to conjecture. But I do think Jim was capable.”
    “Would he ever threaten his wife?”
    “Now, that I don’t know. He never talked about her. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but Jim acted like he wasn’t married. Once in a while he’d bring her to a cookout. I’m sure she talked to the ladies, but I don’t recall ever having a conversation with her. Whether that was her fault or his, I don’t know. But it kind of felt like he was hiding her.”
    Jolie had bought it—Akers as the quintessential small-town police chief.
    Maybe Maddy, manipulative as she was, really believed her husband planned to kill her.

    Jolie went looking for Davy Crockett. She had a number of questions about the motel standoff, and she could trust Davy to be straight with her. They’d worked together many times over the past few years on cases that required interagency cooperation.
    And Zoe’s call earlier today was on her mind—Davy was the only guy at the Gardenia PD who might help her.
    Davy Crockett was a giant black man with a bullet-shaped head he shaved every morning. In