Page 42 of Conrad

Apparently that was the theme of the day. Still.

Conrad

Did you not listen to anything I said?

Penelope

I was in a sugar coma. I’m fine. Working.

His thoughts went to her comment about forgetting to eat.

Conrad

The Ironclad has takeout. Want me to pick you up a cookie?

What? Oh, delete, delete—shoot.

Penelope

Sweet. No. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Right.But the spark died. He sighed.

Jack had come over. “Everything okay?”

“I’m not sure . . .”

Jack clamped him on the shoulder. “Stop the obsessing. Let’s go eat cake.”

He pocketed the phone.

“Don’t believe her about not falling for you.”

Challenge accepted.

* * *

She supposed this was how the dating game was played.

Penelope sat in her car, the heat on, waiting for Conrad to pull up outside the entrance of the Ice Gear Depot, a warehouse set in a neighborhood of Bloomington, just off 494, in a tangle of industrial buildings.

Apparently, this was the Blue Ox supplier as well as a wholesaler of hockey gear. She was listening to callers’ voicemail messages responding to her previous podcast, sorting through them to find any juicy theories.

“Hello, Penny. Love the show. Could it be a case of mistaken identity? Maybe the real target was someone close to Sarah, someone who looked similar or was connected in some way. The murderer could’ve gotten the wrong person by mistake.”

She hit pause, her brain travelling back to the words she couldn’t seem to dislodge from her brain—“You, Penelope Pepper, are the connection.”

How? Why?

The next caller didn’t help. “Hey, Penny. My thought is about silencing. Maybe the victim saw something she wasn’t supposed to and was about to talk to the police. Killing her would keep her quiet permanently.”

Except the murder hadn’t kept Beckett from sending Penelope the file, hopefully revealing whatever was on Sarah’s computer. It hadn’t come in until after she’d arrived home—but then again, she never checked her phone while driving, so . . .

Unfortunately, the file had been encrypted, and she’d spent way too many hours yesterday trying to open it until she’d finally reached out to Harper’s friend Coco, the wife of one of the Blue Ox players.

She checked her email, just to make sure that Coco hadn’t sent her a message, but nothing so far.

A car drove into the lot but continued through to a different warehouse. She pushed Play on the next caller. “Penny. This one is a bit out there, but what if this is all about a hidden treasure? Maybe the victim stumbled upon some clues to a valuable secret, and someone wanted Sarah out of the picture to claim it for themselves.”

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