Page 123 of Conrad

A beat. Then a sigh. “Not a clue.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe a few weeks after Edward’s death. She was pretty upset—said she thought he’d been murdered.” He glanced in the mirror. “But you already know that.”

She frowned. “Do you listen to my podcasts?”

He smiled. “Of course.”

Oh. “Ever called in?”

“I’ll never tell.” He laughed then, low, deep.

And it nudged something inside her.Wait.“You can run, but you can’t hide.”One of her crazy podcast callers.

She swallowed, looked up, nearly met his eyes in the rearview mirror, glanced away, her heart hammering.

No.

That wasn’t right?—

Her phone buzzed, a text coming in.Conrad?She opened it.

Janet Foster.

Janet Foster

I found him.

Found . . . Wait—the man fleeing from Edward’s apartment?

Then a picture came through, a grainy shot of a television screen, with fuzzy lines across the picture. Janet had clearly taken the shot of Penelope in front of the sheriff’s office on her phone, then edited it, drawing a circle around a face in the background.

The face of Franco Bernatelli.

Oh . . .

“Aw,” he said then with a sigh.

She looked up to see his gaze on her through the rearview mirror. “By the look on your face, I think this just keeps getting messier.”

Then he shook his head.

And engaged the child locks.

THIRTEEN

He needed a hot shower,maybe a cold plunge and a massage.

Thanks to criminal lawyer West Winter’s appearance before the judge, all the charges had been dropped. And West had suggested that the entire thing might have been Steve Bouchard’s fault.

The half dozen video clips of the altercation helped. And not a few fan sites that suggested Conrad had been baited into the fight.

Whichwasn’ta fight, as West had pointed out to the local judge in the cleared courtroom this morning. Hence the court clerk handing Conrad a manila envelope containing his wallet, belt, sunglasses, cell phone, and keys, courtesy of Penelope.

Who hadn’t shown up yet.

Not that he expected her. After all, he had told her to leave. And with a woman with her history, that could feel like a betrayal.

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