Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) by Janice Kay Johnson

coming or going.
    Well, of course they had, Sophie thought practically. 
They’d probably recognized everyone they saw on the video.  This really wasn’t
a very big town.
    Was Daniel competent to conduct a murder investigation?  She
hadn’t thought to ask.  His easy air of command had made her assume he hadn’t
only been a patrol officer before he took the job of police chief, but he might
have been risen through the ranks without ever being a detective.  Or if he was
one, he could have been investigating fraud or something like that.
    She worried at that for a few minutes, but finally concluded
that he acted like someone who knew what he was doing.  She would ask,
though.  She didn’t think she could bear it if no arrest was ever made.  If she
had to be haunted by another person she loved dying violently for no reason she
could ever understand.
    Afraid that she would have nightmares, she pictured Daniel
Colburn as sleep began to blur her thoughts.  That strong face, eyes such a
dark blue she had tried to peer closely over the dinner table to see if really
they were muddied by brown only to determine that no, they weren’t.  Those
lines carved in his forehead that spoke of weariness or pain.  The sharp
delight she felt when he smiled.
    His was the face she carried with her into sleep.
     
    *****
     
    Reluctantly, Daniel met Kurt Gillespie, mayor and therefore
his boss, for breakfast at The Waves, a restaurant attached to the town’s
largest hotel, the Surfside.  The menu was pretty conventional, which was fine
for breakfast.  Kurt seemed to like the food, or maybe just the well-padded
booths.  Daniel had eaten here more often than he’d like, because it was almost
always Kurt’s choice.
    Daniel thought wistfully of the thick slabs of delicately
spiced French toast at the Sea Watch Café, Naomi Kendrick’s place.  Maybe next
time he’d dig in his heels and demand they eat there instead.
    Gillespie was okay, but aside from the one open-and-shut
killing that had been followed by a quick arrest, this was the first really
significant crime that had happened in Cape Trouble since Daniel took the job
here.  There’d been the usual loud domestic disturbances, a brawl or two, a few
locals charged with driving under the influence, a runaway teenager, car
accidents including a couple of ugly ones out on Highway 101.  Mostly, though,
complainants were tourists, and tourists were arrested, too.  This was
different.  Daniel tried to brace himself for an elected official determined to
stick his nose into an investigation.
    Predictably, Kurt had no sooner heaved his bulk onto the
padded bench on his side of the booth when he said, “Well?  You getting
anywhere on this thing?”
    Thing?   Mildly offended, Daniel couldn’t help
wondering how Kurt Gillespie and Doreen Stedmann had felt about each other. 
Plus, he was in the right age range to conceivably be the mysterious lover. 
Married, too, to a wispy nonentity.  Could be Gillespie occasionally craved a
little spunk in a woman.
    Yeah, but he hadn’t been springing over any fences, that was
for sure.
    He explained to the mayor why closing this investigation
wasn’t going to be easy.  Whoever committed the crime had likely taken out the
camera that would have given investigators the best view of anyone coming or
going at the storage facility.  The sheer quantity of fingerprints on every
surface in the unit where Doreen was killed.
    “There’s hardly a citizen in town who hasn’t stepped foot in
there, donated something, handled something a neighbor or acquaintance
donated.”  He shrugged.
    Kurt grunted.  “Wife donated a few things.  Me, I’m a
believer in economic expansion.  We’d all be more prosperous if some major
development arrived.”
    Daniel had considered exactly that as a motivation for the
murder, but had trouble believing in it.  The Campaign to Save Misty Beach had,
from what he’d learned, brought in some substantial