Sleeping Dogs Lie by Samantha Downing

Author:Samantha Downing [Downing, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

• • •

The first time it happened, I think it surprised me as much as the suspect. Back then, I was working mostly robberies. The most common ones around here are nonviolent, a lot of shoplifting and car break-ins.

I was investigating a rash of store thefts where a group of people entered together to grab as much as they could before running out the door. It had happened all over Vintage Oaks Shopping Center, where stores had a policy about this kind of shoplifting: don’t try to stop them on your own. Let them go and tell a manager.

A number of stores did have cameras, which led us to a kid named Kyle. He was the kind who wore ripped-up designer jeans with a thrift-store T-shirt. He thought he was clever.

Kyle denied everything right from the jump. Denied he had stolen anything, denied even being in the store. Any store. At all.

“I shop online,” he told me.

His first slip: telling a story about his girlfriend, unrelated to the case, and mentioning being in a store. Not proof of anything except that he was a liar, and it didn’t take long for him to tell another one.

But so far, Shelby hasn’t slipped at all. Not that I’ve caught, anyway.

“Let me get your opinion on something.”

She nods, taking another sip of coffee. “Sure.”

“Do you think Megan and Todd were involved? If you had to guess?”

“Oh, wow, good question. That’s one thing Regina never asked me; she didn’t seem to care about it one way or another.” She thinks for a minute, glancing back—again—at the dog. “One of the times we met, she had a picture on her phone of her and a guy. It wasn’t Todd, he was younger and had spiky hair. Kind of like that cop, but it wasn’t him. Maybe it was her boyfriend, maybe a brother, I don’t know. Just something I noticed because she never mentioned a partner or anything. Didn’t wear a wedding ring, either.”

Not many people have a picture of a sibling as the wallpaper on their phone, but it could’ve been a friend. Impossible to know. “Did she ever mention Todd?”

“Oh yeah. The first time we met, she told me all about how he started the company because he was frustrated with his doctors and modern medicine. He looked into homeopathic remedies and it kind of went from there. Todd was the guru of the whole thing, or at least that’s how she explained it. The brains behind the whole company.” Shelby stops and looks up, like she’s remembered something. “There was this one time he called Megan. I think it was the third time I saw her? We were talking about my order when her phone buzzed. She smiled and said it was Todd.

“I didn’t hear much of the conversation, though. She stepped away to talk to him, but she did look happy. And she never suggested not taking the call.”

Another layer, though not conclusive. Megan could be everything or nothing.

My phone buzzes and it’s Briggs.

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