Page 102 of It Runs in the Family

“I’m gonna send Rita a text to make sure it’s okay for us to go over. She’s got a two-month-old, and she’s majorly sleep deprived.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

I pulled out my phone and sent a message.

Hey, Rita. Would it be okay if I come over and look through the things Selena left at your place?

I waited nearly a minute before she sent back:

What in the world do you want to go through that junk for?

Good question. I didn’t want her to think I was actively looking for her sister. I figured it was better to keep it to myself on the off chance she’d tell Garrett.

I loaned her my favorite shirt, and I want to see if she left it behind

You know better to loan Selena anything, and there’s little chance it’s here, but go for it. I boxed everything up and put it in the garage

Thanks, Rita. You’re the best!

Any chance you can take JJ today? I really need a nap

I grimaced when I read her last text. Would she tell me I couldn’t come over if I said no? Better to ignore her and pretend I hadn’t seen it.

“She says we can come over,” I said, setting my phone face down on the seat. “She boxed up Selena’s things and put them in the garage.”

He made a face. “That’s not ideal. We might want to see her room.”

“She doesn’t really have a room,” I said. “Rita used to have a guest room for her, but she made it into a nursery. I’m pretty sure Selena was sleeping on the rec room sofa.”

He was silent for a moment. “I guess we’ll see what we can find and keep our options open.”

I gave him directions to Rita’s house, then spent the rest of the drive going over everything I’d learned at the crime scene. Guilt was gnawing on my conscience. I wondered if I should tell Boone what I’d learned, but what if he wasn’t really a cop? Should I risk showing him my hand? Because I knew in my gut he was keeping things from me.

Still, I kept thinking about the logo on the woman’s shirt. The detective had said they thought she’d worked at Caleb’s Diner, but they hadn’t found any ID. Had they gathered that information from her shirt? I scooped up my phone and opened my photos.

“What are you doin’?” Boone asked nonchalantly.

“Checkin’ to see if Garrett or any of my other cousins texted. Especially since Trinity’s on the war path.”

Angling the phone screen away from him, I opened the photo I’d taken of the woman’s shirt, zooming in on the logo. It was fuzzy, but I could make out part of it, enough for me to recognize it as Caleb’s—only it wasn’t their current logo. They’d retired that logo four years ago. I knew because I’d worked there for a year and a half before I got the job at Stop-n-Go.

The woman could have been working there before they changed the uniforms. But Caleb didn’t hire that many waitresses, and I would have recognized her if she’d been working there with me four years ago.

What did I do with this information? Tell Boone or sit on it? And even if I told him, what could we do about it? If she’d worked there, it had been at least four years ago, but that didn’t tell us diddly squat about her current work situation.

“What’s wrong?” Boone asked, shooting me a sideways glance.

“What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“You got antsy,” he said, studying me for several moments before turning back to the road.

“Cousin drama.”

His silence was like an anvil on my chest. He knew I was lying, but I wasn’t about to acknowledge it.

“What are you hoping to find in Selena’s things?” I asked.

He shifted in the seat, his hand slung over the top of the steering wheel. “I’m not sure. A phone number written on a scrap of paper. An item that she wouldn’t normally have.” He shrugged. “I won’t know until we see it.”