Maybe if I made another pound cake or two—

“I take it things didn’t end with the good detective in your bed last night?” Finn asked in a sly tone.

In addition to treating me like a sister, Finnegan Lane also had an annoying tendency to analyze my sex life—along with everyone else’s.

“No,” I snapped. “The detective didn’t spend the night, although I invited him to.”

Finn shook his head. “Idiot. The man’s an idiot. But don’t feel bad. I didn’t have any luck myself last night.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean the evening didn’t end with you having a threesome with Violet Fox and Eva Grayson?”

“Touché.”

Finn took another sip of his coffee. He examined the various treats I’d baked and grabbed two orange-cranberry muffins to start off with.

“I hope you did something last night other than hit on those two girls,” I said, dishing up a generous portion of blackberry cobbler into a large bowl.

“If you consider sifting through reams of information on Tobias Dawson, then yes, I did do something useful last night, although it was a thoroughly eye-glazing experience. The man doesn’t have nearly enough vices to make things interesting. All he does is mine coal and buy equipment to mine coal and look for more places to mine coal. Did I mention he mines coal?”

“Once or twice.” My lips twitched up. No matter how bad I felt, Finn could always make me smile. I loved him for that.

I used my Ice magic to frost a mug and create some small Ice cubes, then poured myself a glass of milk and dug into the cobbler. I didn’t bother with ice cream this time. I just wanted warm sugar, and a lot of it.

“But you were right about the diamonds,” Finn said.

“According to the cell phone photos the detective took in Dawson’s office, the dwarf is planning a major expansion of his current mining operation. And guess where the new primary shaft leads to?”

I didn’t even have to guess. “Warren T. Fox’s country store.”

Finn nodded. “Actually, our good friend Tobias Dawson has already started shoring up the mine, and he’s even crossed over into Warren’s land.”

“Explains all the rumblings and mini earthquakes they’ve heard and felt.” I took another bite of cobbler. The oat topping provided a crunchy, chewy contrast to the syrupy sweetness of the blackberry filling. Mmm. Perfect.

“But wait, there’s more,” Finn said. “Dawson might be mining his brains out, but he’s not making a lot of money doing it anymore.”

“Why not?”