had things she was working out. And that you needed to stop dating women who were bound to leave.”
Dev really didn’t like that Delilah had been right, but he didn’t want to think about it now. What he wanted was to make an arrest and figure out how to stop the development deal. It scared him that the two weren’t mutually exclusive. They might successfully arrest—and convict—the vandals, but that alone had no bearing on the future of how the property would be used.
“I wanted it to work out, you know…” Delilah confessed softly. “At first, I thought it was doomed, but I started rooting for you somewhere along the way.”
“Yeah, well…sometimes things just don’t work out.”
Delilah looked sad. “Except you guys make each other sickeningly happy. And she’s really warmed up to this place. Couldn’t you picture her staying here?”
Dev had pictured a lot of things that now felt faraway. He’d pictured taking her to California—hiking with her in redwood forests and taking her for weekends in Half Moon Bay; he’d pictured going to Yosemite with her to see the firefalls; he’d pictured turning the strange room at the end of the hallway in his cabin into a writing loft for her; and remodeling two of his upstairs bedrooms into play rooms and nurseries.
“I can’t think about her right now,” Dev said out loud what he kept repeating in his mind. “I need to get back. And I need you to show up tonight. We got a credible tip on a suspect.”
Delilah’s eyes widened. “Who?”
“We’re not sure which one, or whether we can charge all of them. But I need you to think back to everything you’ve ever seen from Don Jr. and the Packard boys.”
“You can’t bring your bird in here,” Dev said to Dallas Eaton as he walked up to the door of The Big Spoon.
“Pet-friendly restaurant,” Dallas protested lightly.
“You got a leash for him or something?” Dev looked speculatively at Dallas’s macaw. Once you got over its sheer size, it was a beautiful bird. Dev still didn’t know how Dallas perched him like that. The man must have shoulders made of leather.
“You don’t leash a macaw,” Dallas said a bit impatiently, like it wasn’t weird to bring a tropical bird to a restaurant.
Dev pointed around the side, indicating that Dallas should use that entrance. “Then I hope he doesn’t fly away. You’ve gotta leave him on the porch.”
Dallas scowled a bit and mumbled something about discrimination as he made his way around to comply. Good thing he did, because Dev wasn’t in the mood.
“Sorry. Private party,” Dev explained to the party who was hot on Dallas’s heels. They were the fifteenth set of people Dev had turned away. Closing on short notice was why Dev stood like a bouncer at the door.
The “private” part of the party had mostly to do with who wasn’t allowed inside, though the guest list had been a hodge podge of residents. You had to be known and trusted. Business owners had all been invited, but there were plenty who didn’t own businesses who had a role to play in helping the case.
It was an active criminal investigation so they couldn’t say much about the case—what they could do was ask for information. Knowing what they knew was one thing, but Shea’s recording wasn’t admissible in court. Don Jr. hadn’t known he was being recorded and Shea was a weak witness. Her dubious identity made her risky to have on their side. What they needed were people who had heard things that corroborated the story told on the recording.
“What we need from you,” Duff was saying after Dev decided he’d stood outside long enough. He’d simply locked the door behind him when he’d come in. “…is any information you have on what they’ve been doing. It could be information on some place you’ve seen them, what they were doing there, anything they might have said to you, or anything you might have overheard.”
“He likes to drink,” Hank Bowen announced testily. Ironic, considering that Hank liked to drink, too. “He’s gotten rowdy a couple of times. I’ve seen Trudy cut him off myself.”
When Dev darted his eyes to Trudy, she was slow to realize someone had mentioned her name and she looked a little sick. Dev would bet she’d put two-and-two together based on what they hadn’t said about what all of this meant for the town.
“He nearly had the law called on his ass last week at Gator’s,” Betty said. “I