Free Bingo Barge Murder by Jessie Chandler.

looked at my watch, “any minute.”
    “You tell her why you wanted to see her?”
    “No. I just said I wanted to talk.”
    “Then you’re going to go talk to her,” Coop said reasonably. “Get rid of her fast and then come back so we can make that call.”
    “But what am I going to say I wanted to see her for? I can’t tell her what’s going on. I can’t give her the tape. They wrote right on the note ‘no cops’ …” I blinked hard and swallowed.
    “Shay, I know.” Coop’s voice was remarkably calm. “Make a move on her or something. Tell her you’re hot for her. Tell her—”
    “Shay! Hey, Shay, you’ve got company!” Kate’s shout from the entrance of Eddy’s living room interrupted Coop mid-sentence.
    As the milk I’d snitched from Eddy’s fridge curdled in my stomach, I wished I’d been in the drama club in high school.
    Coop sat immobile, his eyes wide and locked on mine.
    “Shay!” Kate hollered again.
    “I’m coming,” I yelled back, unable to break Coop’s gaze.
    Coop jerked his head toward the door. “Go. You can do this.”
    I shut my eyes, breathed deep, and headed for my sixty seconds of fame.
    Detective Bordeaux sat in the chair I’d lounged in the day before, steam curling from the cup she held. I approached her, a forced smile on my lips, no clue about what to say. She caught my gaze as I sat down across from her and returned my smile, faint laugh lines crinkling at the corners of her eyes.
    “Thanks for swinging by, Detective.” My voice was steadier than I thought it would be.
    “My, we’re formal this morning,” she said, the tone of her voice teasing. “So what can I do for you?”
    Oh, I don’t know, maybe forget I called you this morning and go away? “I wanted to see if you’d heard anything about Coop or had any updates on the murder.”
    Her smile slackened, and the hard cop returned. She studied me silently for a moment. “Nothing on Coop. But someone did stir up some excitement at the Pig’s Eye Bingo Barge last night.”
    Air in. Air out. “Really?” I forced my eyebrows up.
    “The barge was broken into.”
    I couldn’t pull my gaze from hers. She had me mesmerized and it seemed as if she could see through each lie I uttered. JT brought the cup to her lips, her eyes still laser-locked on mine.
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Not sure. Nothing was taken that we can tell. But someone was looking for something. What exactly, I don’t know. A few interesting pieces of equipment were left behind. And there had to be multiple people involved because three points of entry and/or exit were established. In fact,” JT’s eyes drilled me, “Mr. Cooper’s security code was used to disable the alarm.”
    I sat petrified, unable to move, breathe, or think.
    “The panic alarm was set off by someone leaving through an emergency door.”
    The temptation to confess almost overwhelmed me. I wanted to explain to her that we were trying to help Coop. Explain that a big fat man named Pudge killed Kinky, and that Eddy was missing—no—kidnapped, and I was terrified … until the words on that scrappy piece of paper replayed on the screen in my head. PS NO COPS OR SHE’S DEAD!!!!
    I couldn’t take that chance.
    “I don’t know anything about it.” I looked away, guilt spreading like fire through me. I looked down at my hands clasped tight in my lap, then back up to JT, the guilt receding in the face of what I felt I needed to do.
    JT shrugged and her face relaxed. When she wasn’t the woman of ice, she was hot as hell. For a very brief, crazy, improper moment, I imagined melting that ice away, until JT jolted me back to reality. “Something is stirring out there. Rumors we’re picking up, that the Bingo Barge is more than it seems.”
    I was dying to ask what rumors they’d been hearing, but I didn’t want to raise any more suspicions. I wondered if she knew about the nuts. Or about what kind of nuts the nuts were. Peanuts? Walnuts? Macadamia nuts? Who cared