I frowned. She wasn’t sounding like the Tabitha I’d grown so quickly to know and love. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”

“Sick?” Hal asked. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed with a cup of hot coffee,” she said. “Which is more than I can say about you.”

“What?” Ash asked. “Hal, are you getting sick?”

“This is a very odd conversation,” Detective Inwood said. “And I feel sure that health issues aren’t why you two ladies came in this morning.”

“Thank you for making a few minutes for us.” I smiled across the table at the now-seated law enforcement officials. “Sorry for contacting you so late last night, and again, thanks for making time.”

Hal looked, as per usual, as if he’d never had an emotion in his life. Ash, however, was eyeing me with a “What is she up to?” expression.

“What we didn’t have time to tell you the last time we were here,” I said, indicating myself and Tabitha, “is that Emily Acosta grew up in Chilson. Her maiden name was Worman, and she went by Emmy Sue back then.”

Ash nodded. “We’re aware.”

Huh. Well, score one for the detectives. “Were you also aware that, right out of high school, she worked for the city of Chilson?”

The two men exchanged glances. They had not known.

“Before,” Tabitha said, “we assumed the link between Brown and Emily was bicycling, most likely through the bike club. But no other member of the bike club has been killed, wounded, or even threatened. This would lead you to think they had something else in common, something else that connects their murders.”

“That’s assuming,” Hal said, inspecting his fingernails, “the two murders were committed by the same party or parties.”

“Any other assumption,” Tabitha snapped, “is so far beyond the realm of the reasonableness standard it’s preposterous to spend any time considering it as an option.”

Hal started to open his mouth but paused and nodded for us to continue.

“So if bicycling wasn’t the connection point,” I said, “the only other commonality is that they both worked for the city.” I said it triumphantly, hoping for applause and accolades, but trying to be understanding if all we got were slow nods of approval.

“Did they ever work together?” Ash asked.

I tried to simultaneously subtract in my head to calculate Emily’s high school graduation date and remember if Brown had worked anywhere other than the city. “Not sure. But it would be easy enough to find out.”

“Lots of people work for the city,” Hal said. “Why on earth would anyone start killing off city employees? Especially one who’d worked there decades ago and had hardly set foot in the town since then?”

“But it’s—”