Nice Buns (Cheap Thrills 7)

When people nodded, she added, “Okay, so coffee absorbs things like that, and the gasses used in fridges and freezers go into the bean and ruin it. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

Evie looked over at me and narrowed her eyes. I’d tried explaining this to her when she’d asked me why I didn’t put the coffee in the freezer at my house, and she’d said it wasn’t true.

“Shit, she’s right,” Tabby sighed as she looked at her phone. “You ruin the flavor of the coffee, and it also dries it out even more.”

Cody leaned into my side with his shoulders shaking as he laughed silently.

“How smug do you feel right now?” he gasped, laughing harder when he saw his mom glaring at me.

“Pretty damn smug,” I admitted. “But that’s what relationships are all about. I’m also a smart man, so I won’t be rubbing this in.”

When Cody looked up at me, I whispered, “A smart man holds onto a win like this and uses it when he’s losing the next time.”

Just as he went to reply, I heard a clucking above us and looked up to see El Chapo in the tree.

“You any good at climbing trees, bud?”

He followed where I was looking and sighed. “Never had a reason to.”

The fact his dad hadn’t even taught him that on a small tree pissed me off, but I’d encountered quite a few of these with Cody so far.

And, as always, I was here to rectify the issue.

“Let’s start teaching you how to do that.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Evie

Four months later…

The shockwave from the results of Alex’s cold case was felt in both towns.

Terry Bailey wasn’t Judd’s father—this we’d found out after Judd had paid for a private DNA test. I’d been in Alex’s office having lunch with him and Carter, when Judd had walked into it, waving a piece of paper in his hand and wearing a smile.

Alex hadn’t been able to discuss the case with me, so I hadn’t known the details, but as more and more results had come in, I’d managed to piece it all together. It also helped that we’d gone for our bi-monthly visit to the retirement home to do some of the residents’ hair, and they’d been discussing what they knew about it all from Mrs. Bane.

Judd had also gotten a fingerprint of his dad’s after his dad had come to his house. It’d matched one of the partials found on a letter, giving them enough to bring Terry in for questioning.

Unfortunately, the swab that’d been taken of the blood on the door had been useless because of its age and the way it’d been stored. Even if it had, it wouldn’t have been much good in court because there was no seal on the envelope it was in. It’d been noted down in the case file as ‘I went back and took a sample of the blood on the door.’ No officer name, no date, nothing, and the handwriting had been different from the rest of the notes.

Terry Bailey had been brought into P.V.P.D. by a smiling Judd, and again I knew that because I’d been there dropping off something for Alex.

Alex had come home with a headache after it, so I’d taken it that things hadn’t gone smoothly during the questioning. Cody had been great with him, bringing him Tylenol and ibuprofen and showing him Bernice’s new buttons. What had started as a challenge had turned into a thing between them, and Cody loved learning how to train the dog and spending time with Alex.

That’d been two weeks ago, and at this precise moment, I felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest as we watched the S.W.A.T. team jump off the BearCat and start up some sort of command center outside of the P.V.P.D. building.

And I’d been the one to call it in.

I had no idea where Alex’s case was at or what was going on with it, I just knew snippets, so when I walked past Terry as I left the station, I hadn’t thought much of it. I did note that he had a heavy jacket on for September weather, but older people felt the cold more than younger ones did, so I’d put it down to that.

That was until I’d heard the shots coming from inside the building as I went to walk back down to Delicious Divas.

If Cody hadn’t been back at school, he’d likely have been inside there, hanging out with Dave or helping one of the guys with stuff. While he’d been on summer vacation, his days at the station were Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and half of Friday.

He didn’t do any official jobs—at eleven, what could he do?—but he got to quiz the guys on how they did stuff, help them with the jobs he was allowed to do, and things like that. And he’d loved every second.