The Murder That Never Was (Forensic Instincts 5)

“Doesn’t anyone work?” Marc muttered.

“Not on Saturdays, they don’t. Saturday is sleep-in day for the nine-to-fivers.”

“That sure as hell doesn’t include us,” Marc replied.

“Nope.”

Next, they viewed the insides of the stores. Most of the stores were geared toward and occupied by women. The coffee shop was a maze of people, sitting down at the tables or waiting for takeout.

“When it comes to the coffee shop, we’ll have to go in and check the place out by foot,” Ryan murmured. “It’s a zoo.” He continued to view the footage.

Next came the gym, which had a scripted sign outside, labeled Excalibur.

Ryan intently studied the gym’s interior, moving from machine to machine, person to person. Abruptly, he stopped, his spine going rigid. “That’s him,” he said, pointing to a guy in his late-twenties with a mop of light brown hair, who was sitting at a wide steel desk, working on a computer that was catty-cornered in the gym’s rear area.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.” Ryan gave Marc a high five.

“Let’s get moving.” Marc was already opening the van’s rear door. “After all this, we’re interrogating the hell out of this guy.”

> Excalibur was hopping when Ryan and Marc walked in. Cycling, weight lifting, cardio work—it was all in full swing.

“Wow, look at this place.” Ryan’s gym-rat eye was roving the room. “High tech. Great stuff.” His gaze found the lanky, rumpled-haired guy who was leaning forward, his stare fixed on the computer. His brows were knit in an expression that Ryan recognized all too well. Something was stumping him. And he wasn’t going to walk away until he figured it out.

“I hope Miles Parker’s not a killer,” Ryan murmured to Marc. “He’s pretty talented on that baby.”

“Coming from the master, that’s quite a compliment.” Marc ambled along beside Ryan, simultaneously looking around as if he were a potential customer. No point in going all military and scaring off their suspect.

They reached the back of the gym and walked up to the steel desk.

“Hey,” Marc greeted Miles as they reached the desk. “I don’t see anyone up front. Are you in charge?”

Milo tore his gaze away from the screen and looked up at them, his eyes faraway in techno-land. “What?”

“Do you run this place?”

“Oh.” Miles finally caught on and snapped into regular-person mode. “No. That would be Julie, the owner. She just ran out to the coffee shop to get me a caffeine fix. She’ll be back in a minute.”

As always, Marc kept his game face on. But that wasn’t Ryan’s forte.

He did a double take. “Who did you say owns this place?”

“Julie. Julie Forman.” Miles sounded cautious. “Why?”

“We’ve heard her name from friends who said she’s an amazing trainer.” Marc jumped in to lie—and to give his teammate time to compose himself. “We knew she worked somewhere in New Jersey. We just didn’t know it was here.”

Time for a question to shift things in a different direction—one that would take Miles out of guard-dog status.

“So she not only works here, she owns the place?” Marc asked.

“Yeah.” Relief flooded Miles’ face. “And your friends were right. Julie’s the best.” He gestured around the room. “Help yourself to a tour. She’ll explain the machines, the membership, everything, to you when she gets back. It’s an awesome gym.”

“It looks that way.” By now, Ryan had gotten himself in check. Not to mention he’d spotted the TRX suspension systems in the small turf room. Very cool. And the gym had tons of space, plus all the machines were state-of-the-art. Maybe they should have Marc’s bachelor party here. There were plenty of cool clubs in Montclair—which was an essential, since Ryan was determined for Marc to get that lap dance, like it or not—and they could hire a limo for the night, since they’d all be wasted on the way home.

By now, Miles was shifting impatiently in his chair. “Is there anything else? Because I really need to get this backup server working, or Julie’s going to be in deep shit.”

“I hear you.” Ryan snapped back to the matter at hand. He was about to make Miles’ server problem look like a walk in the park compared to his exposed identity problem.