Page 41 of Fiona and the Fixer

He was right. I sounded like a moron.

“Are you here in Coal Springs on a case?” he asked.

I frowned. “What? No. I’m on vacation.”

He gave me a bland look. “You spend your vacation watching a pickle store at five-thirty in the morning? Haven’t you heard of a beach and margaritas?”

“Why are they bringing pickles in at this hour?” I asked him, ignoring his dig at what I considered vacation fun.

“Because they sell pickles.”

I raised my hand and waved it back and forth. “No other store is restocking. The openers at the coffee shop down the block only just arrived.”

“Maybe they have a route and have to get here early.”

“The Pickle Holeis nota chain.”

He shrugged. “Early risers? Maybe they like to get out of bed super early in the morning and tiptoe out of the house.”

He was on point with his passive aggressiveness. “I wouldn’t tiptoe if you weren’t so nosy.”

“I wouldn’t be so nosy if you didn’t keep sneaking out on me.”

“I left my own place!”

He sat there quiet, wiggling his fingers on his nose some more.

I sighed, not used to having to explain myself. “After I left you at the bookstore yesterday, I started to head back to Denver. I came to meet Hannah and found out she was on vacation. So, I left.”

“Then you missed me and had to turn around?” he asked.

He wished.

“Then I saw that van on the side of the road halfway down a mountain dumping pickles out of the buckets right over the edge.”

His eyes widened. He seemed alarmed more than surprised.

“Where was this? Which mountain?”

I shrugged. “Some pull-out.”

“Maybe they were bad and couldn’t be sold. They weren’t littering since pickles are compostable.”

“You seem to be an expert in what’s biodegradable.”

“I like to garden,” he muttered. “I even have lucky shears.”

I gave him a fake smile. “That’s nice. Why would a business deliver goods in the morning then dump them over a cliff in the afternoon?”

His eyebrow went up, but didn’t seem to have an easy answer. “You’re the FBI agent. What do you think?”

“I think this store is a front.”

He laughed. “In Coal Springs?”

“I know, right?”

“A front for what? Embezzlement?”

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