Page 46 of Dead Man's Alibi

“Sit,” he ordered.

She didn’t think he should be the one ordering her around under the circumstances, but it was his apartment, and he knew where everything was.Besides, if he actually ate, she supposed she could accept being ordered around.

She took a seat on the stool on the other side of the counter while he moved around the kitchen.He put the bread in the toaster, fooled around with his giant coffee machine until it began to sputter.

When the toast popped, he didn’t ask her what she wanted on it.Just slathered one piece in peanut butter, and the other in regular butter.He handed her the one with butter, then took one of the now-filled mugs of coffee and put it in front of her.Before she could even say thank you, he returned to the fridge and pulled out some milk.“I don’t have cream,” he said.

For a moment, she didn’t have anything to say.He knew how she preferred her toast and coffee?How?Why?

She didn’t voice those questions, but they must have been obvious because he answered them anyway.

“I’ve been at the diner with you when you’ve eaten breakfast or ordered coffee more than once.”

Right.Sure.After all, she knew next to nothing about his food preferences except that he wasn’t currently drinking alcohol; she was pretty sure, anyway.

Which was neither here northere.

“So, why were you coming by today?”he asked.He didn’t do anything to doctor his own coffee.Just drank it black.

“Well, I talked to a bunch of different people at the Livingston and Bozeman police departments.I don’t think I found anything of help, or anything you don’t know.Basically, they told me that if someone called with the information I gave them, they would transfer them to a detective.But it wouldn’t be a high priority without a specific, criminal event.I compiled a list of all the detectives at both departments, but I don’t really know what to do with it.”

Cal raked a hand through his hair, making it even more unruly.Which might have been distractingly cute if this weren’t such an awful situation.

“Sam made contact with Jules’s friend yesterday.Maybe we can get the list to her, see if she remembers Jules talking about any of them.”

“That’d be a step.”

“I’m so fucking tired ofsteps,” he muttered.

She wished she could ease his frustration somehow, but she didn’t know what else to do except keep taking steps.“Well, if this were a book, I’d have better ideas.Sadly, real life sucks.”

“Boy does it,” he muttered, but then his gaze kind of sharpened.He stared at her from across the counter.He wasn’t touching his toast, but he took a big sip of the coffee.“If you were writing this, who would have done it?”

“Oh.Cal.That’s… so silly.”

“Maybe.Tell me.”

He looked so serious, so intent.It made her nervous and, well, worried.That he wasn’t handling this well.Not that there was any waytohandle this well, but maybe humoring him would help in some way.

So she did what he asked and sipped the coffee—amazing, really, even with lower octane dairy than she preferred—and considered the problem at hand like a story, rather than this real life with real people who she knew and liked.Characters.How would she write it?“The husband is too obvious.”

“Yeah,” Cal agreed.

“But in real life, the obvious is usually—”

“Jill, humor me.Plot it out like it’s a book.Don’t worry about real life.”

She blew out a breath.It feltridiculous, but if he wanted to be humored, she supposed she should oblige.He was clearly a wreck, and this wouldn’t help anything, but if it soothedhimin some way, maybe… maybe that was help enough.

She really did want to help.“Well, the husband would be the prime suspect.I’d have the husband’s girlfriend be sketchy, but it wouldn’t be her.If Nate’s a character in this book, I’d certainly make him look like a main suspect, but I’d want a few options so readers would wonder.”She thought about her current book.

She was hoping to make it a series, so what if FBI Agent Gage Hewitt and small-town sheriff’s deputy Leah Clark were investigating this case?How would she write it?

“First, I’d probably give the deceased some kind of secret lover.Suspect number one.”Though with Jules Hyatt’s case, they probably would have already found someone like that by now.

And if she were writing it, Nate would probably be the secret lover, but she’d hardly tell Cal that right now.

So what else?