ss, his sister Cat, and his nephew Joey. No one believed Freddie would deliberately come after anyone, but the murder had freaked us all out. Rumors were flying about Freddie’s connection to the Devlins. We’d all discussed it at Cooper’s. Our favorite theory was that Freddie had done a lot of illegal things for Stu, whom he considered his best friend, and when he’d started getting shifty about Michael’s presence in town, he’d turned to Stu for help. It was possible Stu, the sneaky ass that he had been, had made it clear the Devlins would let Freddie swing in the wind if anything ever came to light about his criminal activities.
But why kill Stu? That was the part that still didn’t make sense.
My Led Zeppelin ringtone blared into the room; I jerked in fright.
Goddamn it.
I was so on edge.
Putting down my tools, I slid off the stool and crossed the room to where I’d left my cell on a cabinet. It was my dad.
“Hey,” I answered. He’d been calling every day since the news of Stu’s murder broke. “Everything okay?”
“I’m okay, Bluebell. I … uh … I wondered if you’d spoken to Mike lately?”
I frowned. “No. He’s out looking for Freddie.”
“Well, I … uh … look, I know things are complicated between the two of you but I just got off the phone with him, and he doesn’t sound so great.”
Surprised, I took a moment to process everything about that sentence. “You talked with Michael?”
“Yeah.”
“How much do you talk to him?”
“Dahlia,” he said, sighing. “We don’t talk about you. Much. And when we do, it’s never about whatever is going on with you two. I just … he doesn’t have a good dad to talk with. I’m here when he needs that.”
Emotion clogged my throat. God, I loved my father. “I’m glad he has you.”
“Yeah, well, I think he needs something a bit closer to home right now.”
Concern filled me. “What’s going on?”
“He’s frustrated, and he’s exhausted. I thought you might want to check on him.”
I chewed my bottom lip, staring at the drawing of me that Levi had sent. I’d framed and hung it on my workshop wall. He’d put me in a superhero costume. Darragh said Levi had recently gotten into comics.
If Michael needed to talk to someone and I ignored that to protect myself, then what kind of a superhero did that make me? “A pretty shitastic one,” I murmured.
“What?”
I blinked out of my thoughts. “Nothing. Sorry, Dad. Of course, I’ll go check on him.”
“Good. Now, how are you doing?”
“We’re all a little tense around here. I guess we didn’t expect things with the Devlins to escalate to murder.”
“It made national news,” Dad said. “Popular tourist town like Hartwell? Murder of one of its wealthy sons is newsworthy.”
“Which can only add pressure on Michael and Jeff.” I glanced at the clock. It was six o’clock and time for me to close up shop anyway. “When you called him, where was he?”
“At the station from what I could tell.”
“Okay. I’ll head over there now. Thanks for calling and giving me a heads-up.”
“No problem, Bluebell. I’ll check in later.”
We said goodbye, and I quickly tidied my tools and locked up. It was early March and the days were still short. The sun had set as I hurried toward my old Mini. The drive to city hall was a short one, but it was long enough to get my heart pounding in anticipation of seeing Michael.