Fugitive Filling by Jessica Beck Read Free Book Online Page B

yesterday.”
    “So you said,” Jake replied calmly. If my husband was feeling any sympathy for the young man at all, he was a master of not showing it.
    “Is that why you’re here? Do you think I killed her? You’re both insane. I didn’t do it!” His voice was nearly a squeal as he denied his involvement in the attorney’s death.
    “Bobby, this is important. Did you happen to see her after your, ah, conversation at the grocery store?” I asked him.
    “No, and that’s the truth. I went to the back to cool off a little, and then I got fired almost immediately after that. What else could I do? I came straight back here and played video games until I fell asleep. It had to be three or four in the morning, and you just woke me up.”
    Jake turned and pointed toward the building I owned, which now happened to be a crime scene. I hadn’t realized we could see it from where we stood, but my husband had. “Her office isn’t that far away, is it? Teresa was working late last night; we know that much. What happened? Did you see the light on in her office and decide to go make her pay for humiliating you in public like that and getting you fired? It’s perfectly understandable. Nobody could blame you for wanting to show her that she couldn’t get away with treating you like that.”
    Wow, the way Jake had just laid it out, the entire thing was completely plausible. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said that Jake had witnessed the murder himself, he was so convincing. No wonder so many guilty folks confessed their crimes after spending a little time with my husband.
    “That’s not what happened at all!” Bobby protested, and I could swear that he was on the brink of tears.
    “Talk to us, Bobby. We can’t help you if you don’t come clean with us.” Jake’s voice was eerily soothing as he spoke.
    Was Bobby about to break down and tell us something that we didn’t already know? It turned out that we’d never find out, because the next thing I knew, Chief Grant was hitting his siren and pointing his squad car straight at us.

    “Hi, Chief,” Jake said, doing his best not to look displeased by Chief Grant’s sudden arrival.
    “What’s going on here?” the chief asked.
    “We were just having a friendly little chat with Bobby here,” Jake said.
    “Is that true?” the chief asked the teenager.
    “I wouldn’t call it friendly. They both think I killed Teresa Logan. Does that sound friendly to you?” Bobby asked, his voice on the edge of hysteria. “I didn’t do it, and that’s the honest truth!”
    “How did you even know we were here?” I asked the police chief.
    He pointed toward Teresa Logan’s office, much as Jake had done earlier. “I was over there when I saw you two pull up. Is there a particular reason you’re speaking with young Mr. Wells, if it’s not to accuse him of murder?”
    “He had a confrontation with Teresa Logan yesterday at the market,” I explained. “In fact, he got fired because of her.”
    “What happened, Bobby?” the chief asked the young man.
    “I asked her out, she turned me down, and my boss didn’t like me asking at the store, so he canned me on the spot. I didn’t kill her, though. I swear it!”
    “Give me one second. Why don’t you go inside and wait in there for me,” Chief Grant said as he held up one finger, and then he turned to us. “May I have a word with the two of you?”
    The chief had formed it as a question, but there was nothing optional about his request.
    “What’s going on, Jake?” he asked softly after Bobby was safely back inside.
    “We heard that Bobby and Teresa had an argument at the grocery store yesterday, so we wanted to check it out,” Jake admitted.
    “I thought you were going to call me with any new information you got,” Chief Grant reminded him.
    “We were going to, but we didn’t even know if there was any truth to the story or not. Naturally we wanted to confirm that it was worth your time to