Ana pressed her lips together. Emily took that for a no.

“But they were here, weren’t they? And they asked about me and that man?”

“I don’t talk to police. Never. I have family. You understand? If they send me back, what will they do?”

“I promise I won’t tell the police I talked to you. But I need to know what you saw. I was so upset at the time and not thinking clearly. And the man was so nasty. When he drove off, he hit my car. And then”—Emily paused until Ana met her gaze—“he was killed.”

Ana’s eyes widened and her arms dropped to her sides. “Killed?”

It was a small opening, and Emily rushed into it. “Maybe you heard about it in the news? He was found in a storage unit near the town wharf? But you saw him. He must have gotten here right before I did.”

Ana gave her head a tiny shake.

“No?” Emily said.

“No right before. He waited.”

“You mean he’d been here awhile?”

“No drinking. No many other customers, so I noticed. He’s making me uncomfortable, him, just sitting there.”

That explained why the coffee that splashed all over Emily hadn’t been hot. “Watching you?”

“No watching me. Watching out the window.”

Emily shivered, folding her arms across her chest. “Like he was waiting for someone?”

Ana nodded.

“How long?”

“Twenty minutes. Maybe more, even.”

Emily didn’t like where this was going, but there was no turning back. “But he was at the counter when I came in.”

“I’m cleaning up. Ready to close the accounts. He come back up to me and ask, how much for coffee beans. Then, what kind do we have. I show him the shelf. Next thing, he’s shouting at you.”

“And you helped me. That was so kind of you. You told me that he wasn’t a regular customer.”

“No.” A whisper. “I never seen him before.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Emily said.

So the man who’d spilled his coffee all over Emily hadn’t simply run into her. He’d been waiting for Emily to get there. Which meant he’d been tipped off that she’d be stopping there on the way home—tipped off in time to get there twenty minutes before she did.

“So who was he?” Emily murmured the words to herself. Trying to control the tremor of emotion in her voice, she asked Ana, “You said you closed the accounts that night. Could you look up whether he paid with a credit card?”

Anna pursed her lips and shook her head. “I’m not supposed to—”

“But you could. Right?” Emily paused.

Ana flinched.