Page 123 of Dead Man's List

“I’ll have another helping,” Navarro said, almost pouting.

Betsy laughed. “I was getting to you.” She dished out another helping onto Navarro’s waiting plate. “And don’t worry. There’s still enough for all of you to take some home for breakfast tomorrow.”

Kit gave her own cleaned plate to her mother with a kiss on Betsy’s cheek. “Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”

Betsy leaned into Kit, her shoulders relaxing on a sigh. “You all are doing your best not to give that Drummond an opportunity to go free. I would cook for all of you for a million years.”

Kit snorted. “Don’t tell them that. They’ll take you up on it. We should probably take a plate to Joel. He’s been wheeling and dealing with that lawyer for two hours now. Not about Drummond, Mom,” Kit added when her mother frowned. “Someone else. I promise.”

Betsy smiled, relaxing once again. “Well then, I’ll be going. Have a productive evening.”

All the men stood, and Connor reached for the bags in which Betsy had brought the food. “Let me walk you to your car, Betsy. It’s dark outside.”

Kit knew that Connor would be able to get her to accept the envelope of cash the detectives had filled to defray the cost of the food. And if Betsy wouldn’t take it for the food, Connor planned to tell her it was a donation to McKittrick House, to help care for Rita, Emma, and Tiffany, since the state’s foster stipend was meager, at best. Either way, Betsy would be recompensed for her generosity.

When Connor and Betsy had departed through Homicide’s double doors, Navarro dug into his third helping. “I hope you never leave Homicide, Kit. We’ll miss your mother’s cooking. Has Joel contacted you yet?”

“Not yet, and I’ve been watching my phone.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to work a kink out of her back. She’d been thinking about the conversation she’d had the night before with Harlan. “If Munro’s murder was a group effort, how did the participants communicate with each other? We need to get Daly’s cell phone records.”

“He could have used a burner,” Marshall said.

“Maybe,” Kit agreed. “But he wasn’t clever enough to fly beneath Munro and Grossman’s radar. They must have had an inkling that Daly had done something they could blackmail himfor. I’m hoping that means Daly wasn’t clever enough to use a burner.”

“Ever the optimist,” Navarro said, using his last bite of waffle to clean his plate before popping it into his mouth. “Don’t lose that, Kit.”

“Doing my best, sir. But back to the group effort. They had to have communicated with each other somehow—either cell texts, emails, or calls. And either on their own phones or burners. But I’m still surprised they’d get their hands dirty. Daly is a wealthy man. I’m assuming the others on that blackmail list are also wealthy.” She turned to Sam. “Do you think Daly would have killed Munro with his own hands?”

“Hard to say. My gut says no, though.”

“Mine too.” Kit bit her lip, thinking. “I keep thinking about the Ferrari. If a group stabbed Munro, did they share the car, too?”

“Maybe Neckbeard got the Ferrari,” Ashton said, “because he took the risks. He was the face—albeit bearded—of the group.”

“Maybe,” Kit murmured.

“But your gut says otherwise?” Sam asked.

She nodded. “But it doesn’t mean a thing without proof.” Her phone buzzed with an incoming text from Joel. “Which maybe we’ll get soon. I’ll text Connor to meet us in the observation room.”

They found Joel standing on the observation side of the glass, watching Daly and his attorney. He turned when they filed in, his eyes lighting up at the covered plate in Kit’s hands.

“For me?”

Kit gave him the dinner. “Compliments of my mother. So where are we?”

“Starving,” Joel muttered. He took the plate to one of the chairs and began to eat. After a few mouthfuls, he blew out abreath. “I missed lunch. Thank you. We’re going to put Daly and his wife into a safe house until we have Neckbeard in custody or until the threat is diminished.”

“That could be a long time,” Navarro said.

Kit frowned. “You said we were unstoppable.”

Navarro winced. “And you are. I’m just saying these things sometimes take time. Sometimes years. We don’t have the personnel to guard him for years, Joel.”

Joel sighed. “Then I hope Kit’s righter than you are. You can’t ask Daly about what he did. You can ask him about the blackmail plot and the plot to assassinate Munro.”

“It was a multiperson effort, then?” Connor asked warily.

“I don’t know. That’s all I got.”

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