Because there was always Rhea where there was Tanner in my mind.
And somehow that didn’t scare me anymore with his acceptance.
Late last night,I got a text from Goldie, asking if I would come over to her place for dinner tonight after my shift.
And the stupid little pitter-patter of excitement that lit up in my chest would have disgusted me in any other situation. But not this one, not with Goldie.
I had butterflies. Something I hadn’t had in years, maybe ever, really. Yet as I watched the clock for the rest of my shift, I felt the excitement build in my chest. Only six hours left.
Before I could go spend the evening with Goldie in her cute little sunshine bubble, there was something else I needed to get to the bottom of though.
The flood at Honey & Hearth.
It hadn’t sat right with me since I cut the water to the pipes the night they malfunctioned. And then, when I was helping repair the bakery, I opened up the ceiling panel where the pipes had malfunctioned first.
The sprinkler line wasn’t just old. It was tampered with. The damage was subtle, intentional, but no fire suppression line would spontaneously burst like that unless someone helped it.
So, I called in a man who studied scenes like hers for a living. He was also a really good friend.
Fire Investigator Elliot Hayes.
He pulled into the firehouse lot in his flashy red pickup with his logo on the side, looking like he stepped out of a department calendar—clean uniform, calm face, and a thermos in hand.
I met him in the empty bay where we kept a large table and chairs for meetings like this one.
“You don’t call unless you’re onto something,” he said, dropping into a chair as I unrolled blueprints of Honey & Hearth that I had borrowed from the town zoning office. They were the ones that were submitted when Goldie opened the bakery a year ago and had undergone new construction to upgrade the plumbing and electrical in the old historic building. “But this seems like it’s going to make me late for dinner.”
I grinned, “You live for this excitement.”
“I tolerate it,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows, studying the prints.
I pointed to the break in the line, then handed him a bag with the blown cap and piece of pipe I’d salvaged.
He squinted, turning the metal over in his hand, and then let out a long breath through his nose. “Someone weakened it.”
I nodded. “Scored it from the inside.” I pointed out the tool marks inside the pipe where the cap attached to it. “Delayed fail, meant to look like age.”
He whistled under his breath. “That’s not some bored teenager. That’s professional.”
“Which is why I’m talking to you,” I said. “Because now it’s not just water damage. It’s criminal.”
Elliot stared at the pipe again, fingers drumming. “These were replaced when she renovated the building. So, we need to find the contractors and go from there.”
“I’ll ask her who did the work, but I think there’s something deeper here. Something darker.”
He glanced over at me speculatively, “You think this is part of something bigger?”
“I didn’t like the way it felt from the jump,” I replied. “And the longer I sit on it, the more I start thinking about those developers that bought up all of Main Street in Duncan Mills a few years ago.”
Duncan Mills was a town about thirty minutes away that felt a lot like Cedar Bluff. It was old family businesses, small-town honor systems, and easy-going camaraderie. Or at least it had been until corporate developers bought up the entire main drag.
“What exactly are you alleging here, Dalton?” He asked, leaning back in his chair with those wise eyes.
“That town had a small-town family name above every business five years ago. And now there are chain restaurants with drive-thru lanes and shopping centers on every corner. I think someone might be trying to sabotage the businesses here and do the same thing with Cedar Bluff.”
“And how does one jump from one flooded bakery to a conspiracy that big, that fast?” He asked. He wasn’t being rude, Eli never was, but he was smart. He wanted me to prove it to him, to defend my case. If I couldn’t defend it to him, then I would have no business bringing it up to anyone else.
“Maybe the bakery was just the first part of the plan,” I shrugged. “I don’t know, but my gut tells me that this wasn’t a coincidence. And the correlations are too damn close. Duncan Mills had weird accidents that happened so quickly that the townspeople joked that the town was cursed. The small businesses couldn’t rebuild, they didn’t have the capital in today’s world to start over, not when those shops had been in families for generations. And I think if we sit back and do nothing, we’re going to see more of that happening around here.”