Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Guess it’s not a tape.” He turned on the monitor and poked at the black box. “Like I said, my brother-in-law set it up for me. Just give me a sec to remember.” He poked a few buttons. Nothing happened. “Uh, hold on.” He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, tapped the screen a few times. “Hey Dan, listen, I’m trying to get into the camera on the barn to see what happened yesterday. I can’t remember how to pull it up on the screen.”
I listened as his brother-in-law walked him through the steps on speakerphone, half afraid he was going to hit the wrong button and delete the footage before I got a chance to check it. That luck I’d been hoping for came through, and he pulled up the footage I was looking for.
“Any way you can zoom in on that corner?” I reached out to trace the section that caught Wild Haven’s parking lot and front door.
The voice from the phone answered, “It doesn’t really do that. You’d have to download the footage. If you find something you’re looking for, I can tell you how.”
“All right, good to know,” I said, and waited, watching the events of the day before unfold on the screen.
The camera system didn’t run nonstop. Instead, it took five-second clips every minute. Clip after clip, the lot remained empty. At 4:37 p.m., a car appeared. Not Matthew’s truck. This was a compact two-door I didn’t recognize. It parked in the far corner of the lot. A tall male figure appeared beside it. In the next clip, his back was to the camera, but height, frame, and hair color were all a fit for Matthew Holt. The next five-second chunk of footage showed that figure at the front door. In the next, the figure was gone. The car remained.
The next person I saw was Avery. Her car was parked next to the door as she pushed the front door open and disappeared inside. In the next short clip, the gas cans appeared beside her car, and the vehicle in the corner of the lot was gone. Then, a harrowing five-second clip of Avery pounding at the glass door with a metal chair as smoke poured from the north side of the building. At this distance, I couldn’t see the fear on her face, but I didn’t need to see it to feel her terror.
Clearing my throat, I asked, “How do I download a copy of this? All right with you if I do?”
“Ah, sure, Chief. Whatever you need.”
The brother-in-law carefully explained how to export the file and email it to me. I thanked him and the scruffy guy for their help and headed back into town, my teeth grinding at the desire to drive back to Bear Run Brewing and beat the ever-loving shit out of Matthew Holt.
That fucking smug bastard. It wasn’t enough that he’d tried to ruin Avery’s reputation. The spiteful little shit couldn’t leave it at that. No, he’d tried to get her arrested and almost ended up killing her, destroying another brewer’s business in the process. I didn’t have enough to arrest him, not without a clear view of his face on the security camera, which I didn’t have, not if I wanted to make it stick. But I would. Because one thing I knew—Matthew was not getting away with this. When I had what I needed, he was going down, and Avery wouldn’t have to worry about him ever again.
The business of being police chief got in the way of my investigation for the rest of the day. We were nearing the end of leaf season, but the town was still overrun with tourists, keeping my people hopping. I made it back to Heartstone just in time for dinner, sliding into my seat beside Avery with a nod for Griffen at the other end of the table.
“You going stir-crazy yet?” I asked.
Her dark eyes sparkled with humor. “Not yet, but I may be making Finn crazy. I invaded his kitchens to talk about our project and ended up bullying him into letting me help cook.”
“Did you make this?” I nodded to the meal Savannah and April were serving. It looked like something with pasta.
Avery rolled her eyes. “Cooking might be a stretch. I sliced some things.” She leaned forward and snagged a piece of garlic bread from the platter at our end of the table. “You know, I never think about brewing like cooking, but not being able to go into the brewery, not knowing how long this is going to take... I don’t know. It left me wanting to make something. Finn let me get in his way to shut me up.”
“I don’t think it’ll be too long until you can get back to your beer,” I said, wishing I could give her a guarantee.