Read Strawberry Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 13 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) for Free Online Page B

her head. “No, he threatened me, but he didn’t do anything other than
grab my arm and throw me around a little bit before he taped me up,” she
explained, shuddering.
    “Did
you know your attacker?” the officer asked, finally freeing her hands after
carefully cutting through the tape with a knife.
    “Yes,
although quite obviously not as well as I thought I did,” she said sadly. “His
name is Frank Capetti.”
    The
officer replaced the knife he had used in the holster on his belt and stared at
her for a moment, then turned away again, walking a short distance away and
speaking into the microphone. “Frank Capetti?”
    Echo
nodded.
    “What
was the nature of your relationship with Mr. Capetti?” he asked, searching her
eyes.
    “I
thought he was my boyfriend, but now it really seems like he was just using
me,” she admitted, embarrassed.
    The
officer looked at her with sympathy, then snapped a set of handcuffs on the
delicate hands that he had just freed, telling her that she was under arrest
for assisting a fugitive and reading her rights.
     

Chapter 14
    Chas
Beckett breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Frank Capetti had been
captured in Florida, and made arrangements to travel down personally to
extradite him. He was sad to hear that Echo was also in custody, and alarmed
that Missy was nowhere to be found. It had been his hope all along that when
Capetti was located, his trail would lead the authorities to Echo and Missy as
well. Something didn’t feel right about this whole thing, and Chas Beckett was
determined to get to the bottom of it.
    “Where
is she?” the typically cool-as-a-cucumber detective growled, getting in Frank
Capetti’s face.
    “I
told you, the last time I saw that chick was when she was nagging at me for
being late, even though I wasn’t,” the prisoner shrugged, unmoved.
    Beckett
slammed his hands down on the table in front of the seemingly unflappable
Capetti and snarled, “You need me to refresh your memory, tough guy?”
    Detective
Bernard Cortland of the Key West PD had been standing silently by, watching the
interaction, but felt that it was time to intervene. Clearly Beckett had a
personal interest in the missing woman, but Cortland wasn’t about to let him
get out of hand. A loser like the one sitting in chains and orange garb in
front of them wasn’t worth trashing the career of a good cop.
    “Alright,
buddy, let’s take it down a notch,” he said in a low voice, placing a hand on
Chas’s arm. The subtle reminder was all that the seasoned detective needed to
return to his professional demeanor. Swallowing his fear and frustration, he
sat back down, his sharp, cobalt-blue eyes narrowed as he regarded Capetti.
    “Get
him out of my sight,” Beckett growled, never breaking eye contact with the
professional criminal. Detective Cortland nodded to a uniformed officer who
grabbed Capetti by the bicep and led him from the room.
    “What
do you think?” Cortland asked Chas after the door closed behind the prisoner.
    He
sighed deeply before responding. “I think he’s telling the truth. I think he
actually has no idea where Missy is, which means I’ve been chasing him all this
time when I should have been looking for someone else,” he shook his head,
worried and drained.
    “What
about the murder charges?” Bernard persisted.
    Chas
shrugged. “I really don’t know. The evidence at the scene doesn’t match. If he
did it, he was beyond careful, and I don’t know if we have enough to make a murder
charge stick,” he admitted.
    “Isn’t
there a witness?” the Florida detective asked.
    Nodding,
Chas replied, “Yeah, there’s a witness, but all he saw was the perp in the
vicinity of the scene around the time of the killing, he didn’t witness any
actual interaction between the victim and the perp, other than an argument that
they’d had earlier in the day, so even that’s weak,” he dropped his pen down on
the notepad in front of him, frustrated, and