Page 5 of An Unexpected Home

Chapter 2

Brandon’s day had started pretty damn well. With images of a certain brown-haired, green-eyed pixie consuming his thoughts, he didn’t think his day could go south.

Boy was he wrong.

Immediately after he left Carly’s place, a call had come through his walkie talkie that there had been a burglary at The Rinky Dinky down in the center of town.

As acting police chief of Cedarville, he was required to be on the scene of all crimes.

He hadn't asked to be acting chief but when Chief Dodd had a heart attack earlier in the winter, he was next in line until the town could hold an election.

And he knew from living there all his life, that this town didn’t do anything fast.

Foregoing changing his clothes, he drove directly to the center of town. There were more people than normal milling around which told him that everyone wanted to know what had happened.

He made his way to The Rinky Dinky and met up with one of his deputies. “What the hell happened, Tim?”

“Don’t really know, sir.”

Brandon gave the deputy – and his friend of almost twenty years – a dirty look. “What the hell have I told you about calling me that?” Brandon hated being called sir, especially by his friends. It made him feel older than his already thirty-three years of age.

“Sorry,” Tim said.

“Tell me what you know?” They walked side-by-side toward the store.

“From what we can figure, someone hit the place after midnight but before four.”

“Was someone here until midnight?”

“Not here, but Mike and Sally were both at the diner until just after midnight and the store was still intact.”

Brandon looked at the front of The Rinky Dinky and saw what Tim was talking about. The window had been broken and there was glass everywhere. Mike and Sally would absolutely have noticed that when they’d left the diner since the diner was right next door and they always walked by The Rinky Dinky to get to their cars in the lot at the end of the block.

“And at four?” Brandon asked.

“Betty was opening the bakery for the day and she happened to look over and see the broken window.”

Betty was the owner of For the Love of Sugar, the town’s one and only bakery and, in Brandon’s opinion, the best bakery this side of the Mississippi.

“So we have four hours where no one saw what happened?”

“That’s not completely true si–Brandon.” Tim corrected himself quickly.

“For the love of God, just tell me who saw what.” Brandon loved Tim like a brother but damn if he didn’t take forever to get to the point.

“Mr. Clarkson was out with his dog around three and saw a silver midsize car drive by with New York plates.”

Brandon froze in place. “A silver car?” he asked. Wasn’t the car that Leah drove silver? It for sure had New York plates since Carly had told him that she had driven in from New York.

---