Free Sex, Lies, and Online Dating by Rachel Gibson

have waited for him to go out of town to kill herself and her children. He had a receipt from a Holiday Inn in Salt Lake for the night of the fire, but as Quinn had discovered, there was also a debit card transaction at 2:35 a.m. for five gallons of gas purchased at the Shell station a few minutes from the Deluca house off Maple Grove. A half hour later, a neighbor had smelled smoke and called 911.
    The prosecution would present a new woman and an insurance policy as motive for the crime. Raymond Deluca’s attorney would try and disprove the motive as he worked to shred Quinn’s time line. Quinn needed to reread his notes before he entered the courtroom Wednesday.
    Quinn spent the rest of the morning chasing down leads and searching for information about Lucy on the Internet. He visited her website again to see if it had been updated in the past few days. It hadn’t. At noon, he and Kurt jumped in an unmarked car and headed to Barnes and Noble. They met with the two employees in a room filled with boxes of books.
    Jan Bright was short with long, kinky eighties hair. She wore some kind of plaid dress that she’d buttoned around her throat. Cynthia Pool’s platinum blonde hair was cut close to her head, and her white blouse had an embroidered Mickey Mouse climbing out of the pocket. Both women were very thin and in their mid to late forties.
    Quinn pulled a piece of paper out of his notebook. On it were the photos of Charles Wilson, Dave Anderson, and Lawrence Craig. He handed it to Jan Bright. “Do you recall seeing any of these men?”
    She shook her head and passed the paper to Cynthia Pool.
    “Yeah, they look familiar. Especially him,” Cynthia said and pointed to the second murder victim, Dave Anderson. “I think he used to come in quite a bit on Friday nights.” She looked back up, and her nose scrunched. “He was one of those.”
    “One of those?”
    “Those single guys who come in looking for single women,” Cynthia explained. “Bookstores are the new singles bars. Men and women come in here on Friday and Saturday nights to hook up.”
    Quinn and Kurt glanced at each other. They’d known each other long enough, worked enough cases together, to know what the other was thinking. Men and women hooking up in bookstores was not only news to both of them but it was also a valuable piece of information.
    Kurt asked, “Did you ever see any of these men meet with women or leave with anyone?”
    “I don’t recall. Do you remember, Jan?”
    “No. I really don’t pay attention to who’s hooking up with whom in the aisles.” She folded her arms across her chest and looked at a point somewhere above Quinn’s left shoulder. “I think it’s disturbing.”
    Cynthia shrugged her shoulders and handed over the paper. “So, those are the men who were murdered?”
    “Yes.” Quinn slid the photographs into his leather notebook. He and Kurt pulled out their business cards. “If either of you ladies remember anything else, give one of us a call.” Cynthia took the cards, while they practically had to slap them in Jan’s hand.
    As the two detectives passed the café on their way out, they spotted a poster with Lucy’s name on it. The green-and-beige sign sat on an easel beside a table stacked with her books. The sign advertised a meeting of the Women of Mystery, with guest speaker, mystery writer Lucy Rothschild.
    Kurt pointed at the poster. “That’s this Saturday.”
    “Wonder what goes on in a Women of Mystery meeting?”
    “Maybe we should check it out.”
    “Maybe.” Quinn picked up one of Lucy’s books and thumbed through it. “Right now, I’m more interested in what Cynthia Pool and Jan Bright had to say about people hooking up in the aisles of bookstores.”
    “You think Breathless picks up men in bookstores?”
    “Could be.” Quinn set the book down and glanced at the café to his right. A couple sat at one of the small square tables, while a man with a laptop sat at another. Quinn imagined