The Truth About Comfort Cove

Ramsey had met the woman the month before. And Amelia was right, it was worse when you watched them hurt. Much worse.

“If Jack, or any of his girlfriends, had brought a child to visit that day, you might have missed them, then, if you were sewing.” Stick with the case. The investigation. The search for facts.

“Nope.” Amelia let him keep the book as she took her seat on the couch. “My sewing room—what used to be the spare bedroom when this was Hank’s and my home—is directly beneath the unit where Jack lived. If he’d had a child up there, I’d have known.”

Unless the child had been unconscious.

“Does that room have a window?” Ramsey asked.

“Yes, sir, looking directly out at the street. That’s why I chose that room to sew in. So I can see what’s going on.”

“You keep pretty good track, then, of who comes and goes around here?”

“Not like I used to, but yes, a girl living alone has to always be aware of her surroundings to keep herself safe.”

True. Wrong that it should be that way, but true.

“Did you ever notice any other visitors to Jack’s place?”

“No. Nothing that stood out. The boy worked so many hours it would have been hard for him to do much entertaining. Besides, Jack was a quiet boy. He liked to read. Watch TV. And work. He was always concerned about saving his money. Didn’t waste it on eating at restaurants. That boy would paint a room in exchange for some of my stew. I’d give him soup and two days later the bowl would be outside my door empty and clean. I started leaving him a list of things on sale at the grocery store every week and the next thing I knew, he was insisting I leave my trash just outside my door, and it would always disappear.”

So Jack needed money, too. Motive.

“Did you ever know him to drink?”

“Alcoholic beverages? Jack? Never. He didn’t use tobacco, either. He lived right above me, Detective, and he never gave me one bit of trouble.”

Amelia nodded toward his mostly full cup. “You aren’t drinking your cocoa, Detective Miller.”

Ramsey wasn’t real fond of hot drinks. And after a full day of investigating chocolate in relation to two missing little girls, he didn’t relish it, either. But the obviously lonely woman had taken the time to prepare it for him so he picked up the cup.

“Is there anything else you can remember?”

She watched him sip. “Mmm, good,” he said, winning him another one of her smiles.

“Jack liked my cocoa, too,” she told Ramsey. “He helped me out in exchange for my homemade cooking, but he made extra money doing odd jobs around here for the landlord and was called upon to change my furnace filters a time or two. And to fix the leak in my kitchen drain. He put new flooring in the bathroom, too, a real nice tile instead of linoleum. You want to see?”

He had to get going. Ramsey drained the now-cooled cocoa and stood. “Sure,” he said, slipping Jack’s picture back into the inside pocket of his suit coat.

Slowly leading the way down a narrow hall with gleaming hardwood floors covered with peach throw rugs, Amelia turned left at the first door and flipped on a light switch.

“There, see?” She pointed toward the floor.

Ramsey glanced, and did a double take. The flooring was clean, but the edges were sharp in places where the mortar had worn away. The tub was claw-footed. In pristine condition. Probably worth some money.

The bottom of the toilet was missing mortar or caulk, and the crevice in between the porcelain and the tile was an ugly brown.

The bathroom floor was as clean as the rest of the house; the peach and white swirled tiles sparkled. All the room needed was a little TLC—a little time.

Looking at the floor, he tried to picture Jack Colton there, down on his haunches, helping an old woman in exchange for cocoa and the probable pittance his landlord would have paid him. The image fit.

Ramsey should help her caulk her floor. She’d given him cocoa. And information.

No. He had work to do.

She was lonely.

He was a loner.