Free Unbinding Love: An Angela Panther Mystery Novella (The Angela Panther Mystery Series) by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson Page B

the dead guy.”
    “You need a medic?” Aaron asked.
    “No, it’ll be fine. I’ll wrap it when I get home. I wanna figure this out.”
    “Jake’s never gonna let you help me again,” he said.
    “Jake isn’t the boss of me, at least not all of the time. Mel, where’s your notebook?”
    “Right here,” she said, whipping it out of her bag.
    “Okay, so Bill Marx works for bad guys and testifies against them. He gets killed. Family is in WITSEC. Emma Marx gets killed. Before that happens, Justin Marx disappears but doesn’t really, because Emma sends him off after fearing for his life. We get a bunch of clues, well, not a bunch but some and they lead us to this lock box. My spidey sense told me Bill knew about the lock box already and knew where it was but was just leading us on a wild goose chase.”
    “Why?” Mel asked.
    “Why was he leading us on a wild goose chase?”
    “That and why did your spidey sense tell you he knew about it?”
    “The dog. He wasn’t happy to see Bill at all. I trust dogs and how they feel about people more than I trust people. As for the lock box, it’s not that I knew he knew about it as much as he knew she’d hid the money somewhere, so it had to be in something and it was just a matter of what, and he likely assumed it was the lock box. Juan Garcia confirmed that for me. He said Bill told him about the lock box and he tried to get in it, but didn’t have the right combination. When he couldn’t get in, Bill killed him.”
    “So he needed us to help him get the combination?” Mel asked.
    “Exactly.”
    “But what does he need the money for?” Juan asked.
    I’d completely forgotten I’d asked him to stick around. “Does he owe you money?”
    Mel and Aaron gave me the curious dog head tilt.
    “Talking to Juan,” I said.
    “He owes a lot of people money,” he said. “And if he doesn’t pay them back, they’re going to kill his son.”
    Just then a ridiculously attractive, tall man in a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat sauntered up. Next to him was a short woman with gorgeous dark hair, the kind of movie stars. I knew immediately she was a reporter, probably because she had a recorder in her hand.
    Aaron shook hands with the good-looking guy. I snuck a peek at Mel, who I swore was drooling. “Reeder, how good to see you.”
    “You too, Detective. What’ve you got?”
    He introduced Mel and I to Reeder Cullen of the Mullins Crossing Police Department and Kelly Monroe, a reporter for the Mullins Crossing Herald. Mullins Crossing was two towns over and I wasn’t sure what they were doing in our neck of the woods, but I didn’t like the fact that a reporter was there with a recorder in her hand.
    “Nice to meet you, “ I said, eyeing the recorder and then Aaron.
    “Reeder and I went through the Academy together. I asked him to stop by and see if he had any thoughts on the case.”
    I nodded, trying hard not to show my obvious concern about the reporter.
    Apparently it didn’t work.
    “Ms. Monroe was with me on another case, so she came along for the ride,” Detective Cullen said. “She’s not here to report on anything.”
    “Unless of course there’s something worth reporting,” she said.
    “I don’t think so,” I said. I ran my good hand through my hair. I felt tiny pieces of dirt on my scalp and shuddered but I wasn’t sure if it was because of that or because of the idea of Justin Marx possibly dying as we sat and wasted our time on small talk.
    “Aaron, can I talk to you for a minute? In private?”
    His eyes darted to Reeder. “Give me a sec?”
    Reeder nodded. “No problem.”
    Kelly smiled at me. “I really need to get back to work. I’ve got an update due on a story about a teacher killed this week.”
    I’d read about that. “Oh, yeah, the teacher of the year. That’s right, that was in MC. You’re covering that? It sounded horrible.”
    “It is. She was a nice woman. I’d just interviewed her about her teacher of the year