The Cold Breakfast Bride novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Who Took It
I didn't wake Hatty.
I woke everybody else.
By one in the morning the whole crew was in the diner with the lights on and the blinds down.
The night cook.
The waitress, in pajama pants and a parka.
Both packless brothers.
The reefer trucker, who'd been asleep in his cab on the lot.
The doctor came down the stairs in Hatty's bathrobe.
Abel came up the pass in record time.
"It was in there at four," I said. "Hatty opened the safe before the party. She'd have seen if it was gone."
"So it went during the party," the night cook said.
"With sixty people in here."
We searched anyway.
The doctor knelt on the floor of the register nook with her nose an inch off the tile.
She came up slowly.
"There's a lot of scent back here," she said. "Jess. Hatty. Truckers."
She hesitated.
"And him."
She looked at the younger brother.
He was standing by the walk-in with his split lip and his hands jammed in his hoodie.
"I told her," he said. "I told her I shut it."
"You did," I said.
The reefer trucker cleared his throat.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Cold Breakfast Bride are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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