Free Caffeine & Killers (A Roasted Love Cozy Mystery Book 3) by Cam Larson

not another person trying to get rid of them.
It's not always their fault." I was actually impressed with the
way he listened to my thoughts about the issue.
    "You have some good points, Laila. I’ll
take them into consideration, but no promises this late in the game."
    He was a politician, after all. I decided he felt
it was too late to change course. But maybe I would still get a
chance to convince him that there was another side to the homeless
issue. I still had three weeks to change his mind.
    "As for pressing charges against you – just
promise that if you want to know anything else about me, you'll come
in during office hours."
    A wave of relief came over me and I thanked him as
I walked past him and down the hall.
    Carpenter laughed. "These office hours will
soon be all-nighters anyway, in which case, you won’t have to break
in after dark the next time."

Chapter Eleven
    After the adrenalin rush of my escapade at
Councilman Carpenter’s headquarters, I was left feeling pretty
drained. It was close to midnight when I finally walked into my
living room. After Thor’s enthusiastic welcome, I let him out to
have a short run.
    While the dog was outside, I thought more about
Homeless John. I had to admit that Daniel was right when he told me I
really knew nothing about the man. I'd liked him because he seemed so
normal when he came into Roasted Love for his coffee, even when I
knew he'd been sleeping next to a sidewalk all night.
    But it was true that our conversations only
skimmed the surface of who he really was. He told plenty of stories
that had entertained me, but still hadn't revealed much about his
actual life on the streets.
    Where did he go during the day when the cops
forced him to leave the Piazza? Had he lied when he'd told me he
didn't do drugs?
    I wanted answers, not more questions – but
questions were all I had.
    When I finally got to sleep that night, my dreams
turned out to be what I can only call a "weird hodgepodge."
Not only did Daniel show up in them, but Councilman Calvin Carpenter
was there. I saw him curled up on the ground outside Roasted Love
just like John had done when he was still alive.
    I awoke around five a.m. and turned over to try to
finish my sleep. A short catnap helped clear out the weird dreams and
when my alarm rang, it startled me fully awake. But thoughts of the
bizarre dream still drifted across my mind before I rolled myself out
of bed. Even on my days off from work, I tried to keep the same
schedule for getting up in the morning. It was just easier that way.
    Once I had two cups of delicious dark roasted
coffee in me, I sat down at my computer screen, opened up Google and
typed in Steven Collins Maxfield Correctional Facility. I was sure I
remembered John telling me that that was where his brother was
serving time.
    There was no Steven Collins listed at that place.
I wondered if maybe he'd been released, but I had no idea if two
years was a normal sentence for a drug dealer or not.
    When I did a general search on "Steven
Collins" though, there were many, many hits. It was a common
name, after all. At least three were listed in their eighties and
nineties, and most of the others weren't within the right age range
at all. If John's brother was no longer behind bars, he could be back
out on the streets again and wouldn't show up on an Internet search
    Finding him would be next to impossible.
    No matter what, I would have to go back to the old
downtown area. And I had to convince Chief Donald Hayes he had an
unsolved murder case on his hands, not an accidental drug overdose.
    I pushed Daniel from my mind because if I thought
about him, I'd have to admit that I planned to break my promise to
stay out of the world of drugs and dealers. But I just couldn't let
this go.
    When my cell rang, I hesitated, hoping for once
that it wasn’t Daniel. It wasn't. Councilman Calvin Carpenter was
on the line.
    The night before, when he'd caught me in his
office, I'd left my number with him. I