Ginny Gold - Early Bird Café 05 - Smashed Potatoes and Gravy by Ginny Gold Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe just because they think I can find clues better than the police?”
    “Yeah maybe . You did find the murderers to both the dead bodies that showed up on my farm,” Nora agreed, but Kori could tell from her voice that she wasn’t completely convinced. “I’ll keep Ibis for you. Stop by after you’re done.”
    Kori thanked her and waved goodbye, then let herself out the front door. Ibis tried to follow but was easily persuaded to stay and play with Milo and Otis some more. Kori couldn’t be sure but she suspected that their age was finally catching up with them and that was why they were sleeping when she’d arrived.
    Kori drove away from Nora’s farm and toward the police station, a knot only tightening in her stomach.

CHAPTER 8
     
    Kori parked and let herself sit in her car alone for a few moments. She tried to understand why Jenna wanted her here. Was it only because she and Kyle had caught Nora’s kidnapper in August?
    She sure hoped so.
    Once she was inside, Zach quickly found her—there must have been surveillance cameras everywhere, had he even watched her sit in her car?—and brought her to the room where Jenna was sitting alone.
    There had been only one other time that Kori had been in this same room. When she’d been accused of killing her ex-rival from her previous life in New York City, Tessa Doyle. And Zach hadn’t been the policeman to question her. Detective Gunn, Lani Silver’s predecessor, had. And he’d tried to frame her for that murder.
    Now Kori took one look at Jenna and rushed to her side. She embraced her very pregnant friend and whispered in her ear, “It’ll be okay.”
    But her words seemed to do nothing to reassure Jenna. Her already red and swollen eyes somehow managed to produce more tears and they quickly soaked through Kori’s shirt.
    “How am I supposed to stay in her e overnight? I can’t do this to my baby,” she sobbed. “And with my entire family in town for the week? What are they going to think?”
    Kori didn’t have the answers to her questions but was spared from having to try to come up with something because Zach—Lieutenant Gulch, she thought, given the setting—entered and interrupted Jenna’s cryfest.
    Kori sat in the chair next to Jenna and Zach sat across from them. The room felt cold and airless with only the table and three chairs.
    “Kori, thanks for coming in,” Zach said. He opened the folder he’d carried in and set on the table between them. “Jenna asked that you join us for this .” Kori still wasn’t sure what this was. “We recovered this folder from Mr. McKay’s house today.”
    Zach slid a paper toward Jenna and Kori could feel her body tighten. What was on that paper that had Jenna worrying?
    Before she could learn what was happening, Jenna said, “I want a lawyer.”
    Zach nodded. “I thought that time might come.” He got up and left without a word. Kori knew that he couldn’t talk to Jenna until her lawyer was present. This could be her chance to get information from Jenna, even if there was a microphone allowing everyone outside the room to hear them. She knew whatever Jenna said couldn’t be used after requesting a lawyer.
    “What is this, Jenna?” Kori asked quietly.
    Jenna hung her head before answering, looking completely dejected. “Years ago, before I had bought out my sister, she had created some kind of deal with Lou. That’s why it’s been so hard for us to get the land into a conservation trust. I hadn’t told the police about this contract that I still haven’t been able to get out of—even though I bought the land so long ago—so now it’s going to look like the only way I could get out of it was to kill Lou.”
    Kori had to agree that this did look bad, hopeless almost. But she had some other questions for Jenna that she needed answers to before leaving, so she pressed on. “What shoes were you wearing yesterday when you went out to your property?” Kori