Page 525 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

He’s about seventy-four now in my time, and we’re still good friends. I throw the tire in the back, close the trunk.

“Yeah. Sure.”

I dust off my hands. “Then we need to get a list of every coffee shop in the Minneapolis metro area.”

“What are we going to do, stake out every single one?” Burke raises an eyebrow.

“If I have to.”

“That’s some hunch, pal. I hope you’re right.” Burke stalks over to his car.

I slide into the sweet leather of my Camaro, roll down the window, start her up, and the stereo kicks in. My play list, at least, hasn’t changed in years.

I pull out to Boston’s, “More Than a Feeling.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Eight hours on the job and Eve just wanted to go home and climb into her tub, (if she had water) and hide under a mound of bubbles.

Wash the odor of smoke and ash, burned rubber, and soggy cinders from her body.

Feed the beast growling in the pit of her gut, and if she were honest, she could really go for a cup of?—

“Coffee?”

The voice made her look up from the table, where she was sketching a rough diagram of the coffee shop, scene labeling the various areas from where they’d gathered bomb debris and recovered bodies. She’d use it later to possibly create a reproduction of the event. Help detectives like the one standing in front of her figure out who was behind this horrific crime.

Her gaze went to the proffered coffee, then back to Inspector Stone. He wore a look of expectancy on his face.

“I drink tea.”

“No, you don’t. You love coffee. And you’re going to love this. It’s a vanilla mocha with a shot of raspberry. It’s like candy. Trust me on this.”

He raised one dark eyebrow and admittedly, her heart gave a little start.

He was better looking than his book jacket. Especially with his collar unbuttoned, the tiniest grizzle of whiskers across his chin. Those blue eyes skimmed over her, checking her out.

Interesting.

He came back to her gaze with a smirk. Like she should fall at his feet to his offer of coffee.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not showing a hoot of interest in the coffee.

They were working off site from the crime scene lab, in a warehouse they sometimes used to process and catalog all the evidence.

Silas and other crime scene techs were sorting evidence bags—clothing, pieces of the store, items that looked like bomb casings.

His smirk vanished. “I need your help. What can you tell me?”

She raised an eyebrow at his sudden honesty and took the coffee. “We’re just getting started. If we can isolate the bomb casing in the next forty-eight hours, it’ll be a miracle. The best I can do for you is to focus on the makeup of the explosive residue, see if I can get a signature mix. Bomb makers are artists, and they tend to have a signature.”

She took a sip of the coffee. Shoot, thatwasgood—a hint of raspberry? And vanilla? “What’s in this?”

“Mocha. Raspberry. Vanilla. Told you that you’d like it.”

He had a nice smile. It lit up his eyes, added a dangerous charm to them. So there were at least two layers to Mr. Rembrandt Stone—smolder on his book cover, charming in real life. Interesting.

“Listen,” she said. “We’ll find it—but it’ll take time.”

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