Page 19 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

Roman remains at the kitchen table, one arm resting loosely over the chair back, his posture softening the edges of the moment by sheer force of temperament. He has placed himself between me and the deputies without announcing it. My nerves settle a notch before my pride can object.

Tom’s eyes move between the three of us. “You didn’t mention company.”

“You didn’t ask.”

He reaches into his jacket and unfolds paperwork onto the table. “Judge signed the warrant thirty minutes ago. We’re searching the property in connection with the theft of the Love Stone.”

I look at the papers without touching them. “Efficient.”

“Your name was on the visitor log.”

“My name is on the visitor log every other week.”

“You were there this morning.”

“So were thirty tourists and Myrtle Vane.”

Tom’s mouth tightens. “Myrtle’s accounted for.”

The implication lands exactly where he intended it to.

One deputy starts toward the hallway while the other lingers near the bookshelves. The old floorboards complain under the deputy’s boots in places they never creak for me. They move through the space with the careless authority of people who have been given permission to touch things that are not theirs, and the violation of it prickles beneath my skin. Their unfamiliar scents will cling to my grandmother’s quilts folded over the old chairs and settle into the pages of my research stacked in careful towers beside the sofa. A deputy moves the little carved owl Honey made me when we were twelve, still sitting in the window above my herb rack. They comb through all of it with official hands and impersonal eyes, and my scent sharpens before I can fully suppress it.

Wes’s head turns slightly toward me, his attention narrowing with the focus of an alpha cueing into a distressed omega.

I look away before he can act on his instincts.

“Sheriff, Wes Osprey,” Wes says when Tom’s gaze finally moves to him. “We didn’t get to officially meet, with all the trouble coming in at the station.”

Recognition crosses Tom’s face. “The investigators, correct?”

“That’s right.”

Tom looks toward Roman. “Both of you with the task force?”

“Unfortunately for everyone involved,” Roman says pleasantly.

One of the deputies makes a sound that may be a laugh before quickly becoming professional again.

Tom ignores him. “Then you know how this works.”

“I do,” Wes says. “The theft is yours unless the evidence ties it to GatorX. Which is why I know you moved quickly on a circumstantial lead.”

Tom’s eyes narrow enough to tense the room.

Wes’s alpha keeps pulling toward me while his professional judgment digs in behind it, and the friction between the two has been sitting in his posture since he walked through my door. He apparently dislikes sloppy investigation more than he dislikes uncertainty, and right now, Tom’s certainty is the sloppiest thing in the room.

Tom turns back toward me. “Multiple people reported you near the fountain this morning.”

“Because I walked through town.”

“You caused a scene.”

“I leaned against architecture, Tom.”

“Mrs. Delaney said you looked upset.”

“She also thinks oat milk is the causes for all of society’s problems.”