Page 53 of Tangled Up In You

He could see she desperately wanted to believe that. "There was another break-in a few days ago."

"I didn't know."

"What is he searching for, Nina?"

"He didn't tell me."

"What did this guy look like?"

"He was tall, white, with brown hair and eyes, and a beard. He was probably in his forties."

"Did he have any tattoos? Did he give you a name? Was he driving a particular car?"

"I didn't see any tattoos, and he didn't tell me his name. He was driving a white SUV."

He sat up straight at that piece of information. The white SUV didn't match the vehicle Ethan had been driving Saturday night, but it was a white SUV that had almost run him and a little girl down about a block away from Phoebe's store.Was it the same car? Were the two incidents related? Had Ethan been driving a different car that day? Had he panicked when he got into the store and found Phoebe dead on the floor? Or had they had a confrontation?

"What's going to happen to me?" Nina asked, drawing his attention back to her. "How much trouble am I in, Detective?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"You said you'd help me if I talked to you."

"I will do what I can. I'm going to ask you one more time. Do you have any idea what the guy wanted from Caroline's possessions?"

"No. He just said it didn't belong to Phoebe. It belonged to her family, and he had to get it back."

"Her family? What family?"

"He didn't say."

"All right. Don't disappear again, Nina. It won't go well for you, and we will find you."

"I really didn't mean for anything bad to happen. It wasn't like he was robbing Phoebe; he was just taking something back. I have to go. I have a client waiting."

"I'll be in touch." As he set down the phone, he thought about what Nina had told him. She had let Ethan Mercer into the store. It had to have been him. Her description matched the photo ID he'd seen of Ethan. Ethan had been driving a sedan on Saturday night, but it had been rented. The white SUV they'd traced to an elderly man on the north shore, who hadn't realized his car had been stolen. That had to have been Ethan, too.

He drummed his fingers restlessly on the desk, his mind trying to put the puzzle pieces together, but they weren't fitting.

He'd never considered that the speeding driver had been connected to Phoebe's death. But it made sense. He just didn't know if Phoebe's heart attack had been triggered by Mercer's arrival, or if she had died before he got there. Obviously, Mercer had not gotten what he wanted that day or the next time or the time after that. But he was determined to reclaim something that belonged to the family.

Which brought him back to Caroline's three husbands and their assorted children.

Or…maybe he needed to dig into Caroline's first family, her mom and dad. He knew the mother had died, because he'd seen photos of Caroline at her mother's funeral, but he hadn't researched the father yet.

He looked up as Brodie came into his office with two coffees.

"I stopped by Java Blast," Brodie said. "Thought you might need an afternoon caffeine hit."

"Definitely." He accepted the cup with an eager hand. "Thanks."

"What are you working on?"

"It appears that two of my cases are now connected."

Brodie raised a brow. "Which ones?"

"The car that almost ran me over was driven by the same man who broke into Phoebe's store—Ethan Mercer. Mercer was probably at her store either before or after she died. It's possible he might have caused Phoebe's heart attack."

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