Page 31 of Charmed Forces

“And the police?” I pressed, trying not to think about everything else.

“Eventually, I squeezed it out of them: they thought Daniel could be hiding in the bar after he killed a bunch of people, which we all know is BS. I mean... really? Daniel? Killing people? Please! He grew up with you! He’s no stranger to stress.”

I tried not to take offense at that. Plus, Daniel was several years older than me and we’d hardly hung out as I entered my teenage years and he left them behind. “So why did you close early?” I wondered. “Didn’t the police leave as soon as they finished looking for Daniel?”

Lily groaned. “We had a bachelorette party going on and they were already pretty drunk and rowdy. When they saw the uniformed officers, they went nuts and surrounded them. They ripped the jacket and shirt sleeves off one of them, and stole the hat off the other one. They refused to give it back.”

I couldn’t help it, so I laughed.

“That’s not the worst of it,” said Lily. A horn from her end of the connection sounded loudly. “Will people hurry up and go through the lights already!” She yelled before continuing, “Anyway, one of the officers got scared and pulled out his gun, then the whole bachelorette party got really excited and tried to grab it from him. He shot out one of the lights before he lost his pants and then they called for backup and made me close the bar. I think they might shut me down permanently!”

“Wow.”

“They turned off the music, switched on all the lights and told everyone to settle their bills and leave. Then they searched the whole bar before they left. Ruby stayed behind to supervise the cleanup since I had to hurry home. I didn’t lose too much money, so I’m not going to bill the city for my shot-out lightbulb.”

“But you’re okay?” I asked.

“Oh, absolutely. This night was even better than that time in college when we called the fire department after someone, and I’m not mentioning any names, set the dorm on fire. But, as a responsible business owner, I’m furious! No one wants to come to a bar that gets raided for harboring criminals! Especially not my law enforcement patrons! What if they all decide to go to O’Grady’s?”

“We love O’Grady’s!”

“Their burgers are amazing,” agreed Lily with a sigh. “We should go there soon. I’m home. I have to get to my baby. If they messed up her sleep routine, I’ll be the one paying for this.”

“Okay.”

“If you see Daniel, tell him I don’t blame him one bit for what happened and I totally support him and don’t believe he killed anyone.”

“I haven’t seen Daniel.”

“Okay, sure,” snorted Lily before she hung up.

“I might need to avoid Lily,” I said. “She already thinks I know something.”

“If you avoid her, she’ll definitely smell a rat.”

“So I’m screwed either way.” I slumped in my seat and took a deep breath, forcing myself to concentrate on the biggest problem at hand. “We need to know who the others were in that Sun Street house,” I said. “A male and female couple, and two men. The two men were both wearing badges, but the couple weren’t. Daniel said they were guarding them until the US Marshals came and got them so they have to be witnesses to a big case, but what? We need to know their identities.”

“I’d like to know why they were waiting. Was something supposed to happen in the next couple of days? We also need to know the identities of the police officers and what their schedule was. Were they rotating their shifts? How many were there at any one time? Is anyone missing?”

“They ate pizza and drank takeout coffee. Did someone pick it up? Or was it delivered?” I continued, adding to our ever-growing list of questions. “Who knew about the safe house? Had the couple testified already or were they due to?”

“We should find out what cases are on the docket at the courthouse. We need to know if any other law enforcement was expected. Were the couple going into witness protection? How far were the US Marshals involved?”

“We also need to know whom they were testifying against,” I said. “Surely that person has the biggest motive to want them dead. They must need protection for a good reason.”

“Hmm,” said Solomon as we waited at a stop light.

“What are you thinking?”

He glanced at me. “How can we be sure that the couple were the target? It could have been one of the cops? We need to know what cases they were involved in. Did one of them put someone away recently? Someone who might want one of them dead? Or was it a more personal issue? If so, which one was the target?” The light switched to green and Solomon accelerated, then took the next turn.

“This is a mess,” I said as we pulled up to my parent’s white-and-yellow painted house a few minutes later. All the lights were on but there weren’t any police cars outside. Even though the police were gone, I could see a couple of curtains twitching across the street. That would infuriate my mom, even though I was sure she’d do exactly the same thing if the situation were reversed.

“We’ll check on your parents, do some gentle probing of everyone else, then leave. It’s going to be late night,” warned Solomon.

“I’m good with that.”

“And the high tension?”