Probably the same hold she had over Noah. Over me.
I pushed a cup of steaming tea across the island and Avery sat down, then took a sip. “Thank you.”
I nodded. “Can I get you anything else?”
She shook her head. “This is perfect.”
Dane stood next to her like a guard determined not to leave his post. “What were you doing at the library?”
“The library?” Avery’s eyes were clouded, and I knew she was still in shock, her body coming down from the adrenaline that had propelled her home.
“You said you went to Lena’s after the library.”
“Right.” She dug in her bag and removed a manila envelope. “I took the slides from the town meeting to the library to see if they had a projector. Turns out they did.”
“And?” Noah had been mostly quiet, holding Avery’s hand and listening while she told us about the chase through town.
“Hearthstone is planning a marina and golf course next to the gated community,” she said. “And it looks like Harold was working with them.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Harold was anti-Hearthstone.”
“Do we know that for a fact?” Avery said. “Or is that just what he told everyone? Is that just what everyone in townsaidabout him?”
I rubbed my jaw. She had a point. Now that I thought about it, there wasn’t any actual evidence that Harold had been against the Hearthstone project, just the usual slippery political statements about wanting to do what was best for the town and not being sure a large development was in the interest of Blackwell Hollow’s residents.
“Fuck.” I glanced at Avery, who looked scoldingly at me. “Fudge.”
Dane glared at me but all I could do was shrug. I didn’t like making Avery unhappy.
“If Harold was pro-Hearthstone and Sheriff Crowe doesn’t know it, she might be looking at all the wrong people as his possible murderer.”
“Exactly,” Avery said. “Which is why I’m going to confirm the initials are Harold’s, then take everything to her.”
Dane scratched his head, a sign of mounting frustration. “What do you mean you’re going to confirm the initials are Harold’s?”
“Simple,” Avery said. “I’m going to go to the town clerk’s office and pull up other planning documents for projects we know Harold worked on and see if I can find a match to the initials on the slides.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to take everything to Sheriff Crowe now?” I wasn’t big on the idea of Avery continuing to dig around in Harold’s murder when someone had just chased her through town. “Let her handle it from here?”
“No, because if I’m wrong, I’m going to look like an idiot, and I feel like I’ve looked like an idiot enough in the week that I’ve been here.”
Noah reached for her hand again. “You don’t look like an idiot.”
“I stumbled onto a dead body, took a coffee shower at the Common Ground, almost got mowed down during the town meeting, and got caught in a… compromising position by Rosie in one of the courtrooms. And I’ve only been here a week.”
“What kind of compromising position?” Noah and I said at the same time.
We both looked at Dane, realizing at the same time that he didn’t have questions about that particular revelation.
He glared, daring us to ask more questions.
“None of that was your fault,” I said. “I mean the compromising position might have been your fault, but I’m more than willing to blame Dane since it seems like he was an involved party.”
Avery’s cheeks turned pink and I had to resist the urge to kiss her stupid.
“The point is, I’m not going to bring some half-baked accusation to Sheriff Crowe without at least confirming those are Harold’s initials on the slides, especially when all it takes is a visit to the town hall.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Noah said.