Page 28 of So Bleak

“Don’t give up hope,” Faith said. “He was our first real lead. We never strike gold the first time.”

“Sure would be nice if we did once in a while.”

“Your mouth to God’s ears.”

Michael chuckled. “I don’t think God wants to hear what I have to say.”

“Then keep your mouth shut. Now is not the time to be making enemies.”

Michael chuckled and said, “All right. I’ll call about the camera footage. In the meantime, why don’t you get PD to process this guy. I’d rather not look at him unless it’s to say, ‘Ha, got you,’ if his alibi doesn’t pan out.”

“Will do. Then go get us some coffee. I think we both need it after this.”

“You got that right.”

She left Michael to tell the desk to send someone to pick up their prisoner. Despite her encouraging words to Michael, Faith was very let down by the dead end. She hoped she was wrong, but unless a miracle occurred, they were holding the wrong man, and their killer was still out there, poised like a viper and ready to strike.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lila tossed her hair and smiled pertly at the camera. Henri held up two fingers, then one. When his hand closed into a fist, Lila said, “Welcome, Foodgurlz. Today, your Foodgurl is sampling a croque monsieur from this lovely little café, Café Too-louse, right here in my hometown of Philly. You may rem—”

“Toulouse,” Henri interrupted.

Lila blinked. “What did I say?”

“You said too louse, like the bug. It’s too loose, like not tight enough.”

Lila scoffed irritably. “It’s whatever I say it is. Honestly, if they’re going to charge me to review their restaurant, I’m gonna call it whatever I want.”

“So… should we just keep going?”

Lila sighed. “No, we’ll retake it. I don’t want to deal with the comments. One more time.”

She took a deep breath and smiled again at the camera. Henri counted her down again, and she said, “Welcome, Foodgurlz! Today, your Foodgurlis sampling a croque monsieur from this lovely little café, Café Toulouse, right here in my hometown of Philly. You may remember a review I did recently of A Taste of Versailles, where I said that it was too bad that all French food is made to look pretty and taste lame. Well, you guys suggested this place in the comments, so here I am giving French food another try, and I have to say, I am really excited to see what this cute little diner has to offer!" Her smile vanished. "Okay, you can cut there."

Henri turned the video off and checked something on the camera. “What do you think?” Lila asked. “Too long for TikTok?”

"We can make it work. We only need a shot of you receiving the food, a shot of you eating, and a sentence or two of review. If we get crunched for time, I'll bump the speed up to one and a quarter."

“Good. Whatever you need to do is fine with me. I just can't keep getting killed by these perky-tit college kids.”

“You are so much more beautiful than any of those kids,” Henri replied.

She frowned at him. “He says while staring at his camera.”

"Well, she is. She's a Sony ZV-1. She's the best compact camera for bloggers you can buy. You look fine, too."

She made a face. "It's gross that you talk to your camera like it's a girl."

“It’s gross that you care what some pimple-faced boys who only watch these videos to jack off think about you.”

“Yeah, those boys are seventy percent of my subscribers, and as soon as Maybelline stops covering my wrinkles, they’re going to drop me, so I need a new base. That means girls, and that means TikTok. Hold on, here comes the food.”

Henri lifted the camera, and as soon as the server got out of the way, Leah held the sandwich up and said, “Oh my God, girls. This looks—”

“Hold on.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh my God. Now?”

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