Free Trunk Show Murder (A Seagrove Cozy Mystery Book 2) by Leona Fox Page A

straight in the air and quivering.
     
    When she got to town hall, Sadie took a right and walked down to the station. She was buzzed in, they locked the door after five and went straight to the chief’s office. He wasn’t there.
     
    Sadie sat in his chair for a few moments, thinking of a course of action, and left the chief a note. Then she called and left a message on his cell. If she was going to be accused of anything, it would be oversharing. She tried Lois’s number on the off chance that she was at home and not out framing someone else for the crime she’d committed. That done, she grabbed Mr. B.’s leash and headed back out into the evening.

Chapter Six
     
    She didn’t know where to look for Lois. She thought the Chief might know, but as he was MIA she was going to have to figure this one out by herself. She headed back up to town hall to see if anything was happening there. The big front doors were locked so Sadie and Mr. B. took a left and walked down the access ramp. There was a door at the bottom and that was locked too.
     
    They were all the way around the back of the building when they found a door with a rock holding it cracked open. Sadie assumed that it was cracked open so that whoever had gone in could come back out without tripping the alarm. She pulled out her cell and left another message for the Chief. Where in the world was he?
     
    She slid through the door first, Mr. Bradshaw following a step behind. She looked around. This was a hallway she’d never been in before. The best bet would be to make her way to the front lobby and proceed from there. Her plan, as far as she had a plan, was to find out what was going on without being seen and get the hell out.
     
    The back of town hall was a rabbit’s warren and she kept ending up in corridors that either led to stairwells or outside exits. She didn’t want either of those. She came across the elevators but didn’t dare use them. But where there was an elevator there had to be a stair that led to the lobby. At least it seemed logical.
     
    Finally, she found a stairway marked with a sign that said Lobby and an arrow pointing up. They went up as quietly as they could, Mr. Bradshaw’s nails making the faintest of clicking noises on the tile. The door to the lobby was closed. Sadie held her breath and pushed as gently as she could. Unfortunately, the door was heavy and gently wasn’t going to cut it. She pushed in the bar as quietly as she could and then put her weight into it. The door opened and she ushered Mr. B. through before sliding through herself.
     
    The door swung back into place with a loud click. They stood absolutely still, barely breathing, but no one came. Sadie let her breath out and looked around the lobby. There was no point in going up to the Mayor’s office. That had already been trashed. The clerk’s office? She headed across the lobby but when she reached the door to the clerk’s office, she heard a noise further down the hall, past the conference room where she’d studied the meeting agendas.
     
    Her heart was beating so hard it was roaring in her ears. Mr. Bradshaw pressed up against her leg and she took a breath. Before heading down that tiger trap of a hall, she stepped back out of sight and dialed the Chief. She whispered her location and what she was planning to do next.
     
    She mutters several choice swear words under her breath and started down the hall. She glanced in and then entered the conference room. The file drawers were open and binders and papers were littered across the room. It would take someone a lot of time to clean that up. She wondered if they would just print new agendas and recycle the mess or if they would try and reconstruct the binders with the existing paper.
     
    Mr. Bradshaw whined. It was the tiniest of noises, but it brought Sadie back to the task at hand. She stuck her head out of the room and glanced down the hall. A drawer slammed. Whoever was down there was still at it. She