by James, Emily
You’re an idiot, Fear hissed in my head. A gullible idiot.
“There you are!” a woman shouted before I could decide whether Fear was right this time or not.
I turned around. Big Glasses Woman stood behind me.
“Ooo!” she squealed and grabbed a cupcake in each hand. “Yummy!”
* * *
I sank down onto Dan’s couch, and he took the arm chair beside me, kicking the footrest out and lacing his hands behind his head. “I need to do more cardio. My feet feel like I ran a marathon.”
We’d dropped Claire off at her house, and Dan had invited me back to his place for a cup of my homemade hot chocolate. Janie wouldn’t be home yet for another couple hours from her play date with her cousins.
Dan smothered a yawn, and it brought a grin to my face.
Something about catering such a big event left me feeling light, as if my body wasn’t tethered to the ground. Light and happy. “Maybe you need better shoes,” I said deadpan, even though I couldn’t keep the laugh out of my voice.
Maybe it was having worked together today or maybe the giddiness of successfully pulling this event off had all gone to my head, but it suddenly felt safe to tease him.
He sat up slightly. “What’s wrong with my shoes?”
He’d been wearing loafers. They were the kind of shoes that looked good with a tie but weren’t meant for walking around all day. “Nothing if you’re sitting at a desk.”
He gave me a mock glare. “I might not be doing undercover work anymore, but I hardly spend my days behind a desk.”
I gave him an uh huh, sure look, but spoiled it with a smile. My lips just wanted to go up. Despite everything else that was going on, it felt good to have something with my business go so very right. For something in my life to go right.
The memory of the woman in the sundress flirting with Dan flitted across my mind. My smile withered, and the couch suddenly felt hard underneath me. As well as things seemed to be going, I shouldn’t get comfortable here. Dan was currently single, but that woman’s attention—drunk or not—proved that there were probably plenty of woman who’d like to change his status. When that happened, I wouldn’t find the same welcome here.
My Sunday night family dinners would be over. My evenings making us hot chocolate and popcorn and watching movies on the couch with Janie would be over. Him calling me just to chat would be over. Even a very secure woman wouldn’t want a quasi-homeless woman with a fake name hanging around as if she were family when she wasn’t.
A funny gaping feeling opened up in my chest. It felt like a smaller version of what I felt when I sat by my dad’s bed, watching him die. Which was silly of me. Dan would still be my friend, even if the dynamics of that friendship had to change. And I’d never want to stand in the way of Janie having a mother again.
I just didn’t want to think about it ahead of time was all. Joking with him brought what I stood to lose to the forefront. We’d come here to compare notes about the day, and we should stick to that. Anything else was like continuing to poke at a bruise and then wondering why it was taking so long to heal.
“Did you learn anything that might help figure out who killed Anthony Rigman?” I asked.
Dan leaned back again, his expression sobering in a mirror to mine. “No one seemed to like him, but the worst I heard was from a very drunk receptionist who wanted to tell me all about how Rigman used to stare down her shirt and make inappropriate comments. Someone might quit over that, but most people wouldn’t kill over it.” He straightened up completely and met my gaze. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think Strobel’s on the right track with Eve Tudor. I overheard a lot of people talking about how they didn’t blame her for killing him.”
I’d been hoping Dan hadn’t heard the same whisperings I had. Eve had already been tried in the court of public opinion even though she hadn’t been arrested yet. “She wants to find the truth as much as I do.”
His eyes softened at the edges in a way that made him look tired beyond physical exhaustion. “Unfortunately, helping with an investigation is common for guilty people. They use it as a way to try to keep track of the investigation and direct it away from themselves. It’s why I suspected you when I found out you were poking around into Grandpa’s death.”
Jarrod had said the same thing about people who tried to insert themselves into an investigation. Which could explain why I wanted to deny it. I hated to think that Jarrod had been right about anything.
If Dan were right, if that was Eve’s true motivation, then her friendship with me was also a lie. As selfish as it might be, I’d rather accept that she killed someone than that she’d been playing me. Coming back from that…I wasn’t sure I could come back from that. It’d been so hard to find friends.
My first friend since I ran away from Jarrod, Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes-Cavanaugh, was miles away and I couldn’t contact her often for fear that I’d accidentally make her a target for Jarrod. Dan had been my second friend, and he’d convinced me I was safer with friends than without them.
I didn’t know how to reconcile that with the risk that people would pretend to be my friends to serve their our purposes. I’d proven I wasn’t a good enough judge of character to figure out when someone was genuine and when they weren’t.
So perhaps I was lying to myself about Eve. Perhaps I only wanted her to be innocent and wanted her to be my friend because I didn’t have very many of those.
Regardless it gave me even more motivation to prove her innocent. If she were innocent, our new friendship was a real one. “I think there’s an option other than Eve. Do you know if Detective Strobel has looked into the caterer who was supposed to be working the barbecue?”
I explained my theory to him based on what I knew about the food industry.
Dan rubbed a hand around the back of his neck, something he tended to do when he was facing a dilemma that he didn’t know how to solve. “Strobel’s a bit territorial about his cases, and I’ve already nosed in once. I can try to casually drop the caterer’s name and see what he says. Who was supposed to be catering the event?”
I texted Eve, and she replied almost immediately. “Kaylani Mitchell. Her business is Casa Bella Catering.” I turned my phone around so Dan could see my screen. “She even sent me the phone number.”
Dan’s look said And you’re saying she’s not overeager about the investigation? But he didn’t actually speak the words, so I couldn’t argue with him.
* * *
Dan called me the next day as I was outside my truck, setting up at my usual lunch location. I checked the message he left as soon as I got back inside.
“Strobel wasn’t happy that a potential source keeps sharing information with me rather than going to him,” Dan’s message said. “He wants a name. I told him my source prefers to remain anonymous. He seemed to think I was lying to him because I thought he wasn’t competent. Unless we have concrete evidence in the future, we won’t be able to pass leads along to him anymore. He’s unlikely to even consider them without something solid, and he’s threatened to report me for interfering in investigations that I’m not assigned to.”
That was the last thing I wanted to have happen. Dan shouldn’t face a reprimand because I insisted we try to solve the case ourselves.
I called him back.
“I’m sorry for causing trouble,” I said in lieu of a hello. “I guess I thought he’d be more interested in solving the case than in protecting his pride.”
Dan sighed. “I think he will be in time.”
I leaned a shoulder against my truck. “So we have no way of knowing if he’s already looked into the caterer?”
“Not exactly. During his rant, he did let slip that Kaylani Mitchell has an alibi for time of death. She couldn’t have done it. I think we’re out of options. We’ll have to leave it up to Strobel from here on out.”
I stuffed my disappointment down, but it wouldn’t stay there.
Not only was Kaylani Mitchell
not a viable person of interest, but it suddenly felt like the only two people who didn’t have an alibi for Anthony Rigman’s murder were Eve and me. With Strobel now on the warpath and no other suspects, that didn’t bode well for either of us.
13
The first big drops of rain pinged off the metal of my truck, sounding like a marriage between wind chimes and a kettle drum, and cutting off any further business for the day.
For once, it didn’t stress me out. I’d pick up the second half of my payment from Rigman & Associates soon. I had a birthday party to supply cupcakes with tomorrow. In fact, stopping early today would give me the time I needed to prep for tomorrow without feeling rushed.
I drove to one of my favorite out-of-the-way spaces. The rain picked up, turning from a few drops to a downpour. With the noise of the rain on the metal, I wouldn’t be able to hear anyone approaching. Even though Dan had thrown Jarrod off my trail when he’d figured out I was in Lakeshore a few months ago, I still didn’t want to be blind.
I slipped out into the rain and popped open the front flap. The rain was coming from the other direction, so opening it allowed me to see out and cut down on the heat inside without getting everything wet.
Since I couldn’t hear anything but the rain anyway, I pulled out my phone and cued up some music. It’d been so long since I’d allowed myself music while I worked. Listening to it, I could almost forget that I was still a suspect in a murder and still on the run from a man who wanted to hurt me.
I could be a teenager again. Before my dad died and everything else went wrong. The rain always made me think of him. Florida got so hot in the summer that we rarely went outside. Whenever it would rain, we’d run out and spin around, arms wide in our own crazy version of a rain dance.
When Jarrod and I were first married, I used to beg him to go out and dance with me in the rain. He told me to grow up. I didn’t have the courage to defy the look he gave me when he said it.
Years had passed since I’d enjoyed the rain. I wasn’t with Jarrod anymore. He controlled so much of my life simply by virtue of the fact that I had to be afraid of him finding me, but he couldn’t control this anymore. If I didn’t know when he might find me, I might as well enjoy every moment and make it all count.
I cranked up the volume on my phone as loud as it would go, threw open the door to my truck, and stepped out into the rain.
Just like when I was a kid, I stuck out my arms and spun around, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
A blur moved at the edge of my vision. I tripped and caught myself on the bumper, my heart beat louder in my ears than the rain on the roof of my truck. I backed up a step and wiped the rain out of my eyes.
Dan stood ten feet away, the collar of his jacket popped up against the rain.
I couldn’t read the expression on his face. Heat burned up my neck. As if I didn’t seem weird enough to him already, he had to catch me at this.
I expected him to ask what I was doing. Or to laugh at me.
Instead, he stuck out his hand. “May I have the rest of this dance?” he asked, his voice raised over the noise of the rain.
Before I could overthink it, I slid my hand into his. His palm was warm compared to the rain raising goosebumps on my skin.
He spun me out, then back in, following the beat of the song. We broke apart and danced alone, then came back together to spin again. At first, all I could think about was how silly I must look, but Dan didn’t seem to care. By the end of the song, we were both laughing, and I could barely catch my breath.
I motioned him inside my truck and turned the music off. We stood in the small space, dripping all over my floor.
I tossed him a hand towel. It was the best I had to offer unless I wanted to open my small storage space to get him one of the two full-sized towels I owned. I couldn’t do that without him catching sight of the sleeping bag and pillow I also stored in there.
He dried off his face and ruffled his hair. It stood up slightly when he was done, giving me a glimpse of what he must have looked like in his early twenties. He looked even more attractive than he did in his suit or his pink How Sweet It Is t-shirt.
I was suddenly aware my clothes were sticking to me in a way that was uncomfortable—and not because of the dampness. My shirt clung to my less-than-perfect body. At least I hadn’t been wearing a white shirt like Helen Hunt’s character in that scene in As Good As It Gets.
I pulled my shirt away from my skin slightly, trying not to make it obvious.
“Looks like Claire and I were worried about nothing,” Dan said. His tone was light, but it felt a bit forced.
My throat clamped tight. “Is Detective Strobel coming to arrest me?”
For the briefest second Dan looked like he was going to ask me if there was a reason Strobel should arrest me. It passed quickly enough that I recognized it for what it was—his cop’s tendency to be suspicious. As soon as his logical brain took back over, whatever instinctive reaction he’d seemed to have vanished.
“Nothing to do with the case.” Dan glanced down to the growing puddle at his feet and the already damp towel in his hand as if realizing there wasn’t much point in trying to dry himself off further. He looked as uncertain as I’d ever seen him. “Claire tried to call you to ask if you wanted her to keep that second freezer in case you needed it to freeze cupcakes again in the future. When all her calls went to voicemail, she called me. I thought…”
The tightness in his voice wrapped around my chest. He’d thought Jarrod found me. “My ringer must have gotten turned off accidentally. I’ll text Claire right away.”
Dan nodded and cleared his throat. I sent Claire a quick message telling her I was alright and that I’d call her in a few minutes. Then I checked my ringer. At some point, I’d accidentally flipped the button that silenced my phone. I had almost ten missed calls from Claire and Dan. They’d been trying to reach me for hours.
I hit send on the text. Dan’s concern might not be unwarranted if he’d been able to locate me. I’d never told him about this spot. If he could spot me, so could Jarrod if he decided to look here again. “How did you find me?”
Dan glanced away, avoiding my gaze. “I called in a favor and had a friend of mine in the department ping your cell phone. Once he narrowed down the location for me, I drove around until I spotted your truck.”
A shiver ran over my spine, but I couldn’t figure out if it was because locating me that way was possible or because I finally had someone who cared enough about what happened to me to call in favors. The fact that Fear wasn’t screaming in my brain made me think it was the latter.
“Thank you,” my words came out a little more strangled than I’d intended.
Dan nodded again, and his undercover cop mask slid back on his face. He rubbed his hand around the back of his neck as if he were still trying to shake off the fear that must have dogged his steps the whole way here. “Why do you need to freeze cupcakes anyway?”
At least he hadn’t asked me why I needed to use Claire’s freezer rather than using one in my own place. Hopefully Claire had told him that my apartment was too small for a full-sized freezer, and I wouldn’t have to outright lie to Dan as well.
“So they stay fresh. If I have to prepare ahead for a bigger event.” I reached into my fridge and pulled out a couple of cupcakes that I’d baked a few days ago and hadn’t managed to sell as day-olds. Even storing them in the fridge, they’d started to dry out. I ate any leftovers anyway rather than letting them go to waste, but most people wouldn’t pay for something this shriveled. I handed him one of the older cupcakes. “This is what happens otherwise.”
Dan bit into the cupcake. “It is a little dry.” He frowned. “Why do the cupcakes you can buy in the store stay good for weeks?”
I considered quibbling that the cupcakes you could buy individually packaged in the store were never good. Then I remembered that Dan had come to me rather than going to a grocery store to buy cupcakes when Janie needed them for sch
ool. He’d also come out in the rain to find me when he thought I might be in trouble. I didn’t need to get touchy over nothing. He knew my cupcakes were better than the prepackaged ones at the store. He wasn’t comparing quality. He was simply asking why those ones lasted three or four times longer than mine.
“Preservatives,” I said, speaking extra loudly so he could hear me over the pounding of the rain.
I bit into my own aged cupcake. It stuck in my throat.
Preservatives.
Could that be why everyone with a motive to murder Anthony Rigman had an alibi during the time-of-death window?
Dan had paused with the rest of his cupcake halfway to his mouth. “You look like you’re trying not to choke. They’re not that bad. Promise.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that. Could Anthony Rigman have been given something that would make it look like he’d been dead less time than he had?”
Dan’s eyes narrowed as if he were concentrating on something I couldn’t see. “Arsenic could have done it, but that’s part of the regular toxicology panel. If he’d been poisoned with arsenic, then the medical examiner would have already adjusted the suspected time of death. Any other poisons that might act as a preservative are ones I haven’t encountered.”
The rain had stopped outside. I no longer felt like I had to shout to be heard, but the ringing sound seemed to linger in my ears. “Could you ask the medical examiner?”
He smoothed back his hair, but it popped upright again, already half dry. “Technically, no. It’s not my case. Strobel would be the one to ask for an additional work-up, and he won’t do it if I come to him with a vague hunch again. There’s no way I can go to the medical examiner without it getting back to him.”
Dan had said that before. We had to have something concrete before he could take it to Strobel. Dan had worn out his professional courtesy.
