The Last Time I Cried Your Name novel Chapter 245

He handed her press pass back without a word, and for a moment, Petty was taken aback. She hadn’t expected it to go so smoothly. So he’d just kept it in his car the entire time.

With her press pass finally in hand, Petty followed the police to the scene. Her crew from the TV station was already on the way, getting ready to shoot coverage for the evening news. The crime scene was tucked away in a bend under a battered awning at the corner of a narrow alley. Yellow tape stretched across the entrance, officers posted inside while people gathered outside, their voices a barely controlled buzz.

The police had locked down the area fast, making sure nothing was touched. Susan's groceries were still scattered on the ground. Petty looked down and saw a tomato beside her shoe, its skin split and leaking juice onto the pavement.

When she saw Susan’s familiar woven basket lying there, her throat closed up and her eyes stung.

“It’s so cruel,” someone whispered from the crowd. “A murder in broad daylight... just how sick do you have to be to pull that off?”

“Wasn’t she the White family’s housekeeper?” another added. “Whoever did this is finished.”

The voices blurred together as Petty knelt by the basket. That’s when she noticed a half-eaten meat pie, green peppers spilling from its torn paper wrapper. She froze. There was a pie cart close by, the same homemade pies Susan always bought.

Suddenly it clicked. Susan had come into town just to bring her this pie.

Petty couldn’t hold it together anymore. Tears slid down her cheeks, her whole chest aching so much she could barely catch her breath.

A few steps away, the police were talking to the man who owned the pie cart.

“Yeah, I was cutting through this alley to get to East Market,” the man was explaining, still a little breathless. “She stopped me for a pie, but I was already desperate for the bathroom. She said she’d pay extra, just wanted me to add green pepper. Not many people ask for that, so it stuck with me. She paid, and I was in such a rush I gave up on the market. Went right to the burger shop across the street. When I came out, everyone was talking—said somebody died.”

The officer nodded sharply. “Go check his story,” he told another cop.

Most of the market’s cameras had been broken for ages, but there were a handful around the nearby shops. Petty and one of the officers finally found a dusty camera perched above the door of a candle and incense shop. The owner was nervous, but let them pull up the surveillance on the tiny screen.

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