By an unspoken agreement that Mia wasn’t the best person to be doing the questioning here, Izzy stood up and stretched, then turned to look at a high-tides poster on the wall. After a few seconds, she sidled toward the coffee table that was loaded down with pictures of fishing boats. Then meandered across the room to check out the art near the door. It was all very casual and restless. Careless. If you didn’t know Izzy.

Dot was barely watching her until Izzy leaned a hip against the woman’s desk.

“You work here full time?” Izzy dropped the question like she was just bored, killing the minutes they had to wait.

Dot’s eyes narrowed behind those thick glasses. “Yes.”

“You like it?”

When Dot glanced over, Mia picked up a Highlights magazine to look busy, smiling at dried and crumbling crayon residue from years past.

“Yes.”

“Kind of slow now, huh? Is it usually like this?”

“Not always.” Dot sounded reluctant to depart from her monosyllabic civility. “Can get busy.”

“Did Robert Twist ever come in with an appointment?”

Dot wasn’t an idiot. There was a beat of silence, and then: “You can direct your questions to the mayor, Detective.”

Shut down. It had been worth the try.

But Izzy wasn’t deterred. “Sorry, sorry.” She held her palms up, all it was an innocent mistake, ma’am. Then she picked up a pen, started fiddling with it. “You’ve been working here long?”

“Nearly a decade.”

“Cash has been mayor all that time?” Izzy asked.

“No, only a few years,” Dot corrected, warming to Izzy again. It was one of Izzy’s gifts, usually. When they weren’t on an island where no one would acknowledge her, she could get anyone chatting, even when they didn’t want to be spilling any information. There was a warmth to her that people couldn’t resist. Even Mia had fallen prey to the charm several times. “Earl Bishop, his father, hired me.”

“Oh man, which one is the harder boss?” There it was again. Nudge, nudge, I’m one of you, tell me everything you know without realizing you’re doing it.

“They’re different,” Dot said slowly. “Cash has his own style, but Earl is—was—a perfectionist.”

“I’m sorry, I thought Earl was still alive,” Izzy said delicately, latching onto the tense change that had caused Mia’s own pulse to catch. Mia gave up the pretense of flipping idly through the children’s magazine and turned her full attention on Dot.

The woman’s mouth parted several times without saying anything. Then, just as she started to speak, the door to Cash’s office swung open.

Cash was shrugging into a thick overcoat as he stepped into the waiting room. Mia’s stomach rolled, a mix of disappointment and anger and sadness churning there.

He wanted to avoid them. He was hiding something.