Free Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 09 - Romance & Revenge by Laina Turner

was a good thing Muldoon’s was within walking distance because after another glass of wine I would probably want to fall asleep and driving would be a bad idea. Alcohol did that to me.
    I was distracted , but I didn’t want to unload on him about Cooper. That just didn’t seem right. So I decided to tell him my other problem or rather Jared’s work problems. As Katy and Jared had said when I left, Willie might be able to help.
    “You remember my roommate, Jared, don’t you?”
    “Yea h. In fact, I think we met here once.”
    “I think you’re right. Well, anyway, he works at a design firm called Sleeping Bear Designs that does branding and marketing for businesses. One of his co-workers was murdered a couple nights ago.”
    “Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. It’s horrible.”
    “Yeah. The bookkeeper. Her name was Becky Palmer.”
    He sat there for a second thinking. I didn’t expect him to know the case.  After all, we did live in Chicago and there were unfortunately quite a few homicides a day here.
    “Young lady, downtown apartments, no sign of force d entry?”
    “I want to say yes, but there could be two that fit that description,” I said, but reached for my phone to pull up the news article and showed it to him.
    “Yep. That’s the one I was thinking of. Not my case, but I heard about it.  That was Jared’s co-worker? Is he OK?”
    “Everyone there is pretty broken up about it,” I said, wanting to ask him if he knew anything or if he could find out, but didn’t know how to ask. I didn’t want it to seem like I was taking advantage of him or like the only reason I met with him was for information. However, he could clearly read my mind, because after a few seconds he said, “Is there anything I can help with?”
    “Since you mentioned it … the papers don’t say how she died or if there are any potential suspects. I’ve been trying to see what I can find out, strictly as a favor to Jared and his co-workers, but so far it’s not been very fruitful,” I said and told him the little information I had.
    “I seem to remember you playing detective the last time we had dealings,” he teased.
    I blushed. “I just like to figure things out.”
    “Fair enough.”
    He pulled a small notebook out and made a few notes. “I’ll see what I can find out tomorrow. Confidentially, of course.”
    “Of course,” I said and smiled.
    “Anything else I can help with?”
    “I hate to unload on you but since you asked, Sleeping Bear has another problem right now.”
    “This isn’t their year is it?”
    “No, it’s not. They have lost three clients this year due to a competing firm pitching a design so similar to theirs that they weren’t able to actually pitch it, therefore losing the client,” I said and proceeded to fill him in on what had happened, what Sally and the other co-workers had said and everything I knew about the situation. It really didn’t amount to much but explaining it all to someone who didn’t already know made me realize again just how much this small business was facing and how stressful it would be to be a business owner. “It’s not as big of a problem as the other one, of course, but could really hurt their business.”
    He thought it over for a minute. “If you’re serious about figuring this out , then you need to start at the top then talk to one or more of the competitors this happened with, find out what they know.”
    “What do you mean start at the top?”
    “With the son or the other partner. Whoever is in charge. Someone who is going to know more about the history of the company and if anyone harbored a grudge against them. An employee, unless they are the ones doing it, probably won’t know who might have it in for the business. They would have knowledge on those they directly interact with but not necessarily the company as a whole. The partners who run the firm probably will have a list of people who don’t like them.”
    “Oh , I don’t know about