Tender Is The Night by Barbara Freethy

Author:Barbara Freethy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance
Published: 2016-04-03T22:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Devin thought about that peace sign all the way back to his apartment. It was quite a departure from what he'd been thinking about before, which was whether or not to answer Kate's very tempting demand to kiss her already.

The large lit peace sign in the window of the bookstore had definitely provided an unexpected distraction. Was it just a reminder to get back to work? Or was it a clue?

They'd been in Haight-Ashbury, the place where peace-loving hippies and flower children had gathered in the sixties to share love and protest war. It wasn't unusual to find a peace sign in that neighborhood. There were probably dozens of them within a few blocks.

But there was something about that particular sign that made his nerves tingle. He'd always trusted his gut, and his gut was telling him to pay attention.

Kate was quiet, her gaze on the streets, as if she were seeking another clue or trying to find a way to connect that bookstore to the fires.

"We need to find out who owns the store, the building and the land," he said, breaking through the silence.

She turned her head. "That would be a good place to start. The peace sign caught my eye from across the street. Perhaps it inspired our arsonist. They could live in the area, or they could have visited that bookstore."

"Or we just found a peace sign in the middle of a neighborhood that is probably full of them."

"That's looking at the glass half-full."

"Just being realistic."

She frowned. "It feels like fate, like we were meant to see that sign. It was a good thing we went to warn Sean and Jessica. And even that we danced. We might not have seen the sign if we'd left the studio in the daylight. It jumped out at me in the dark night."

He wanted to be as optimistic as she was, but he just couldn't quite get there—not yet anyway. He was, however, willing to invest some time and energy into researching the owner of the bookstore.

When they got back to his apartment, Kate immediately jumped on her computer, and he did the same.

Within five minutes, they both had the information they'd been looking for. "You want to go first?" he asked, as she gave him an expectant look. "And don't boast because you beat me. You have access to FBI resources; I don't."

She gave him a smile. "I didn't have to use the resources, just the county records. Haviland Real Estate owns the building. They own a dozen commercial buildings all over town."

He nodded, her information matching his. "The bookstore owner is Mitch Conroy. He's a sixty-four-year-old retired English professor from Stanford. He and his wife Beth opened the bookstore six years ago. They also own a house in the Richmond neighborhood." He thought for a moment, something niggling at his brain. "Do you have the bookstore website open?"

"I do. Why?"

"Do they do signings? Has Dillingsworth signed his books there?"

"Oh, my God, Devin, you're brilliant. Ron Dillingsworth signed at the store four months ago when his new book, Captured by Fire, was released.

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