Much Ado About Felines (Whales and Tails Mystery Book 4) by Kathi Daley

find him in any of the places that were open.”
    “He can’t have just vanished.”
    “Apparently he did, despite what common sense would dictate. Where’s Destiny?” I noticed for the first time that the girl wasn’t around.
    “Her mom came by on her lunch hour. They went out to talk, but she said she’d bring Destiny by after. As far as I could tell by the brief exchange I overheard, Destiny doesn’t want to go back to school. I can’t say I blame her. The poor thing is starting to show. I bet she gets teased.”
    “I’m sure that would be hard on her. Maybe her mom can have her homeschooled.”
    “I don’t see how she could possibly take that on. She already has two jobs,” Tara reminded me.
    “True. Maybe you could homeschool her.”
    “Me?” Tara shrieked.
    “Why not? You’re supersmart and you always did well in school. Destiny can work here part-time and do her schoolwork in the office part-time while her mom’s at work. It seems like a good way to keep track of her, and make sure she doesn’t fall too far behind during her pregnancy.”
    I could see Tara was considering it. “Do you think Destiny would go for it?”
    “You won’t know until you ask.”
    Tara went to help a customer who had come in, so I decided to call Finn. It occurred to me that if Roxi had deposited the money Greg had given her into the bank, there had to be a paper trail.
    Finn confirmed that he’d checked into Roxi’s financial records and found an account with over fifty grand in it.
    “Fifty grand? That makes no sense. Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure. She opened the account with a five-thousand-dollar deposit about six weeks ago. There were a series of smaller deposits for a grand or two each, followed by a deposit for fifteen grand. Then she withdrew twenty grand. After that there were a bunch of small deposits as well as two large ones, one for ten grand and, most recently, one for thirty-five grand.”
    “Becky Wood told me Roxi sold Jimmy’s boat. I’m not an expert on the going rates for boats, but thirty-five grand sounds about right. It was a large boat, though I heard the engine was on the way out. Ernie Wall gave Roxi five grand about six weeks ago, after she came to work with a black eye. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the five grand he gave her is what she used to open the account. I also know that Tony Sommers gave Roxi fifteen grand, and although Brianna just found out about it, it seems that fifteen grand most likely came from him. Stacy told me Jimmy was in debt to some thug for twenty grand, so I’m going to assume she used the twenty grand she withdrew to pay the guy off.”
    “Seems like a reasonable theory, which confirms a lot of what I’ve already discovered,” Finn agreed.
    “I spoke to Angie at the library today. She told me that Roxi was late for their church group a couple of weeks ago because she had to stop off at the bank and deposit some money a friend gave her. She thought his name was Greg. I recently heard that Greg Westlake told his mother that he was moving out of her basement and in with Roxi. At first I figured that rumor was just bragging on Greg’s part because Roxi was way out of his league, but what if Greg gave Roxi a large amount of money and she rewarded him the way she seems to have been rewarding everyone else who gave her money?”
    “With sex.”
    “Exactly. It seems it might be worth your time to have a chat with Greg,” I said.
    “I’ll head over to his place now.”

Chapter 9
     
    My phone rang just as I was getting into my car to head back to town. It was Cody.
    “Hey, what’s up?”
    “I’m down at the dock to see if anyone knows what Jimmy might have been in to before he died. I’ve already had two people tell me Danny hasn’t shown up at his boat for two days.”
    “Two days? It rained yesterday, so I suppose it makes sense that he might have spent the day in town, but he had charters on Sunday, and I’m sure he would have