Page 22 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

Good or bad news. “Who?”

“Pastor Osmond and his wife. I recognise the decals in the side window. They’re for his church.”

Well, at least we’d ruled one suspect out.

Nine fifty-seven was another SUV, black or maybe dark blue as it drove under the streetlights. A definite possible. Same for ten oh-two, a big black sedan. Both had the right clothes and the right skin and hair colours.

But if I were a betting man, I’d pick ten oh-two. Something about the girl’s posture was off. She’d slumped to the side while nine fifty-seven was sitting straighter.

“Can you make me copies of both of those? I have a memory stick.”

“No problem.”

“Play them back one more time?”

I almost missed it. At nine fifty-eight, a group of people gathered around the glowing Luigi’s sign on the left-hand side of the parking lot, right in the corner of the screen. At ten oh-two, they were still there, and it looked an awful lot like one of them had a camera. What were they doing? Taking pictures of themselves for Instagram?

“Do you know who that group was?”

Mario nodded enthusiastically. “Si, si. They were here for a birthday party. Hundreds of dollars, they spent, and we made a giant tiramisu with candles that spelled out the name Britt.”

“I need to contact them. See the camera?”

He squinted at the screen. “A clue?”

“A clue.”

“They booked the table in advance. I have a phone number in the booking system. Would you like a pizza?”

“A pizza?”

“For lunch. It’s lunchtime now. Twelve o’clock?”

And by the sounds of the clinking cutlery and soft chatter outside, they had more staff who were already serving diners. I didn’t want to offend the dude, and pizza was my favourite food, so I figured taking twenty minutes to eat wouldn’t hurt.

“Not gonna say no to that.”

CHAPTER 8 - REED

“BRITT” TURNED OUT to be Brittney Lightfoot, according to a reverse lookup of her phone number, a twenty-one-year-old student at DeVry University. I figured I’d try phoning her because I didn’t want to freak her out by turning up on her doorstep and risk getting arrested by Wyatt. He’d probably love that.

“My name’s Reed Cullen, and—”

“The pool guy?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Rachel’s pool guy? Reed?”

“No, I’m not a pool guy. I’m a private investigator.”

Her squeal hurt my ears. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Ooh, that’s so— Wait! Why are you calling me? If it’s about the weed, I swear I thought it was tobacco and I didn’t have a clue until I smelled the smoke, and—”

“I’m not calling about weed.”

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