Page 92 of Lethal Danger

The Logboat Adventure ride was around that corner.

Jazz lengthened her stride to keep up.

They rounded the corner where the tree had blocked their view.

A shadow moved in a doorway. The staff entrance of the Logboat ride.

“Hold it.” Phoenix’s cold voice would’ve stopped Jazz in her tracks. Especially accompanied as it was by two K-9s’ warning growls. “Step out, slowly. Hands where I can see them.”

The shadowy figure shifted, coming into the light cast from the lampposts along the main path.

“Freddie?” The word popped from Jazz’s mouth as the food vendor stepped into view, his hands lifted in front of him.

“Fred Blain.” How Phoenix knew who he was, Jazz couldn’t guess. But like Nevaeh always said, the boss seemed to know everything. “Step over here.” Phoenix angled her head toward the main path as she kept her hand on her hip. Close to her holstered Glock.

Freddie’s eyes were wide as he stared at Phoenix and slowly followed the narrow offshoot that led away from the staff entrance. He stopped on the main path, about six feet from the women and their K-9s.

“Are you carrying any weapons?”

“Weapons?” Genuine shock overtook his features at Phoenix’s question. “Oh, my goodness. No. I don’t own any weapons.” He started lowering his hands, probably involuntarily. Poor guy looked scared to death.

He’d been so friendly with Hawthorne and Jazz. She knew anyone could be guilty of anything, but it didn’t seem likely Freddie was violent or the killer she and Hawthorne were looking for. “What were you doing here, Freddie?”

His gaze jerked to her face as his hands lowered completely. “Molly visited Christy here tonight, and she thought she dropped her reading glasses somewhere on the path.”

“From the staff entrance?”

He nodded. “She and Christy left together that way at closing.”

Jazz fought to keep from narrowing her eyes at him. Better to keep an open and non-judgmental expression. Especially to compensate for Phoenix’s stony silence. “It’s well past closing now, Freddie. Why are you still here?”

“One of the kids royally messed up the count for the night, so I had to redo it twice myself. But I’d promised Molly I would look for her glasses before I left. She said she had to get home to watch Murder She Wrote.”

Sounded exactly like Molly. Jazz glanced at Phoenix. Would the boss think it was a false alarm, too?

“You’re free to go.” Phoenix’s deep voice projected command through her sheer lack of emotion. “Be sure you leave the grounds immediately.”

“Of course.” Freddie glanced at the boss with widened eyes as he turned and hurried off in the right direction to reach the fair’s main entrance. Poor guy probably wouldn’t sleep a wink tonight.

“Not sure you had to spook him so much.” Jazz wanted to snap the criticism back as soon as it escaped her mouth. Irritation must’ve given her the courage. To be stupid. Phoenix could fire her in a second.

The cap turned in Jazz’s direction, bringing the stare that was probably impossible to read if Jazz could see it in the shadow the bill cast over the woman’s eyes. She suddenly flicked on a flashlight Jazz didn’t know she had and shined the blinding beam on the closed staff access door. “Do you know where he was?”

“The Logboat Adventure ride.” Don’t tell her Phoenix thought Jazz didn’t know her way around the fair.

“Where Sam Ackerman’s body was found.”

“You okay?” Hawthorne glanced at Jazz as he walked with her out the main entrance of the fair at the end of their shift. He gave Barry a wave over his shoulder as the guard swung the gate closed behind them, then returned his attention to the redheaded beauty.

She was awfully quiet tonight. Not full of her usual spunk and smiles. “I guess I should’ve asked you for more details about Sam’s death. I didn’t realize he was found at the Logboat Adventure until Phoenix told me. I don’t even know how she knew.” Jazz muttered the last words as if to herself.

“Yeah, sorry. I guess everything’s been going so fast, I didn’t share all the information with you. He was found there, but Rebekah and Sam’s dad don’t think he died there. They think he was killed somewhere else and moved.”

Jazz turned her big eyes on him, and something thumped in his chest.

Couldn’t be his heart. He wasn’t emotionally involved with Jazz. He couldn’t be.

“What do you think?”

---