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Tilly remembered again that she needed to plan what to say to Sophie. Her stomach clenched. She only had one shot at this, she was sure.

IT WAS LUNCHTIME on the following day when Max put down his phone with a satisfied look on his face. “We’ve got ‘em,” he announced.

“Got who?” asked Tilly, trying desperately to finish her round of paperwork before she left and still distracted by the thought of what she was going to say to Sophie.

“Who do you think?” Max said. “McKeefe and his cronies. They ran surveillance last night and saw two cars go in the farm gates that were reported stolen. They must be using one of the barns up there to store the vehicles now that they can’t use Farmer’s garage anymore.”

Tilly’s face split into a grin. “Hallelujah,” she said. “You know, that’s my first real case?”

“Which is why you should be there for the arrests,” said Max.

She bit her lip. There was little that she wanted more. Well, there was one thing.

“I know, I know,” Max said. “It’s your concert and you can absolutely go. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to change your mind if you wanted to, that’s all.”

Tilly seriously thought about it. The buzz of making an arrest, the satisfied knowledge that it was her intel that had cracked the case, the implications for her future career. She wanted to see the car thieves arrested so badly she could almost taste it.

In the end, the decision wasn’t that difficult, though. “No,” she said carefully. “Thank you, but no. I’ve got a concert to sing in.” And a woman to persuade to love me, she added in her head. She wasn’t about to make the same mistake again. She wasn’t going to put her career ahead of Sophie.

“That’s fine,” Max said cheerfully. “I don’t like putting on all that gear, anyway. Stab vests itch and those hard helmets ruin my hair.”

“You’re going though, right?” Tilly asked.

Max looked at his watch. “I’ll see. I’ll check in with Mila first and see if she needs me for moral support. I might pop by for a while, but I don’t want to miss your first concert.”

Tilly swore. She was very close to being late. “I’ve got to run,” she said.

“Good luck,” Max called after her as she left.

She was practically running, though she wasn’t that late. She still didn’t know what she was going to say to Sophie. And it was only because she was thinking of Sophie at all that she glanced toward the Farmer garage as she passed it.

She made it four or five steps past the garage gates before she realized what she’d seen.

She stopped. Had she seen what she thought she had?

She glanced at her watch again, swore quietly, then turned around and went back to the garage.

Something was off and she couldn’t put a finger on what. Cautiously, she stepped through the gates, peering into the darkness of the open garage doors.

Only then did she really understand what she saw. Paul Farmer was lying on the concrete floor, his lips blue, completely still.

Chapter Thirty Four

Sophie took a deep breath in and then out again.

“You’ll be fine,” Jules said. “Easy peasy. Just imagine everyone naked.”

“Not sure that’s going to help,” Sophie said, peeking through the curtains to see half the town sitting in the audience.

“You could have a drink?” Jules offered.

Sophie glared at her. “Do you not think that drinking’s got us into enough trouble?”

“I’m not sure whether you can blame the drink for that or Amelia and Cass. I love them both dearly, but they have some kind of magnetic attraction when it comes to trouble.” Jules peeked out of the curtain next to Sophie. “There they are. They’re very supportive, I’ll give them that.”

With a sigh, Sophie let the curtain fall back. “Where is she?”

“Who?” asked Jules, still surveying the audience.