by Jeff Shelby
I bit my lip. “Um, sure.”
“I was thinking I wished I could control the time/space continuum,” he said. “If there is such a thing.”
I just stared at him.
He chuckled. “Because if I could, I would have had us find a way to meet sooner. To not meet here, where we work together, but somewhere else. To have me not be your temporary boss.”
My cheeks flooded with warmth. It felt as if I were standing right next to a raging inferno. I was speechless.
“But those things are all outside of my control,” Bryce said with a shrug. “You know? They’re things I just can’t change.”
I nodded weakly.
“I was thinking, though, since we do have that obstacle, maybe we could just go to lunch sometime?”
“What?”
He laughed again and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m not very good at this, am I? I sound like a rambling idiot.” He let out a breath. “I’d love to go out on a date with you, Sunny. If you want to, I mean.”
My eyes bulged, and I was sure they were the size of dinner plates.
“But since that isn’t possible because of our whole work relationship thing, I’m hoping I can just take you out to lunch. As friends. Because even if we can’t date, I’d still like to get to know you better. As a friend.”
I was too stunned to answer.
Not just because of what Bryce had just said, but because I caught someone out of the corner of my eye. Someone who was walking towards us, and who I wasn’t sure if they’d overheard Bryce’s little soliloquy.
Aidan.
“Um, sure,” I stammered, looking for a quick way to end the conversation.
Bryce’s features brightened. “Yeah? We can do lunch?”
Aidan turned and headed down the short hallway that led to more resident apartments.
“Yes, of course,” I said.
“Today? Or is that too soon?”
“I have to go talk to someone,” I said quickly. I needed time to process, to think. “Let me get back to you, okay?”
“Oh, of course. Okay.” His smile widened a fraction. “I’ll look forward to getting it on the calendar.”
“Yeah, okay,” I murmured as I turned away.
I didn’t know what had just happened with Bryce.
I was pretty sure I’d just agreed to go on a non-date with him.
Whatever that was.
But I was thinking about something else.
Aidan was at work today, which meant I could talk to him about Anne’s car.
And he also might have just overheard what had happened between me and Bryce.
Something in my stomach twisted and turned.
Because I didn’t know how to feel about that.
SEVENTEEN
I caught up with Aidan right away.
“Hey.” I was panting a little.
“Hey.” He looked surprised to see me, which I thought was odd. He’d just seen me talking to Bryce not five minutes earlier.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Working.”
His answer felt clipped and I wondered if he really had overheard parts of my conversation with Bryce.
And just what that might mean.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Why are you being so short?”
“Am I?” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m not answering questions any differently than you did yesterday.”
I flashed back to the conversation we’d had right before Anne had called. He’d known something was wrong with me but I’d avoided answering.
“Oh, jeez. I’m sorry,” I said. “Yesterday was sort of a bad day.”
His eyes reflected sympathy. “Does this have to do with Anne?”
I looked at him in surprise.
“Or Denise? She seemed pretty upset when I saw her in your office yesterday.”
“What do you mean, does this have to do with Anne?”
He shrugged. “I just figured she must be giving you grief. You clammed up when I asked how she was doing, and I know that out of all the staff here, you’re the one she’s probably turning to while she’s gone.”
“Bryce is the acting director,” I reminded him.
“Well, yeah, but he’s only been here a short time. For as much as she rides you, we all know you’re basically second in command here.”
I didn’t know if I agreed with that or not, but I didn’t want to get into it then.
I had other things I needed to ask him about.
A small knot formed in my stomach as I thought about the damaged brakes on Anne’s car.
How in the world was I supposed to bring that up casually in conversation?
And then I thought about the other thing I wanted to ask him about…if he’d overheard any part of my conversation with Bryce.
Nothing in his body language or expression told me anything; his clipped responses had been the only thing potentially pointing to that, but he’d already offered an explanation for that.
“I saw you in the hallway,” I said. “When I was talking to Bryce.”
His brow furrowed. “Is that who that was? Why was he dressed like that?”
So he didn’t even know who I’d been talking to. The relief that coursed through me was in and of itself a bit unsettling.
“He was going to do the morning yoga class with the residents.”
He nodded. “That’s a good idea. And something Anne would never do.”
I shifted on my feet. He’d just given me a window.
“Especially not now, after the accident,” I said.
“Was she hurt badly?” Aidan asked. “I don’t know that I’ve gotten the specifics of her injuries. Lindsay said she’d been released from the hospital so I guess I assumed she was doing okay.”
“She is,” I said. “Just has a mild concussion and a sprained wrist.”
His shoulders slumped a little. “So she’ll probably be back soon then.”
It wasn’t a question, more a statement laced with defeat.
I inhaled and hoped the extra oxygen would bolster my nerves for the change in subject I was about to embark upon.
“You know, I meant to tell you how nice it was of you to change her tire the other day,” I said.
“Nice?”
“Well, yeah. You did her a favor.”
He winced. “I just hope I didn’t have anything to do with her accident.”
I froze. “What?”
He offered an impish smile. “I’ve never changed a tire before in my life. When I heard about the accident, the first thing I thought was the tire flew off because maybe I didn’t do it right.”
“Wait,” I said slowly, trying to process what he just said. “If you’ve never changed a tire, why did you offer to do it?”
“Offer?” He laughed. “I didn’t. She asked me to do it. Demanded, actually. What choice did I have? She practically dragged me outside.”
I had to think about that for a moment, but he was right. He'd never offered. She'd grabbed him and forced him outside.
“So you know nothing about cars?”
“Define nothing.”
“How to fix them.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Why would I know anything about cars? My wheelhouse is plants.”
I tried not to stare at him as I mulled over what he’d just told me.
Aidan wasn’t an expert on cars, not by a long shot. How would he have known how to sabotage Anne’s brakes? He probably didn’t even know where to look for them.
At least that’s what he was telling me.
I stole a quick glance at him.
Big mistake.
He was eyeing me with overt curiosity. “What?” he asked.
I forced my gaze to the floor. “Nothing,” I mumbled.
“I should probably get going,” he said. “Luther needs help getting down to the pool for his water therapy session.”
“Oh, of course,” I sai
d. I forced a smile. “We can finish catching up later.”
“Catch up?” He smiled, too. “I would like that.”
He offered a wave before continuing down the hallway and I was left standing there staring after him.
Aidan didn’t know cars. That’s what he’d said.
A small voice inside my head said he could be lying. Maybe it was a calculated move on his part to throw me off the trail. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, especially if he thought I’d been in contact with Anne and had information about the accident.
I shook my head, trying to clear those thoughts.
This was Aidan I was talking about.
Fixing cars—or sabotaging them, as the case may be—was not a skillset he’d ever mentioned, nor one I had ever seen.
And, besides, it didn’t fit who he was, who I knew him to be.
No, I thought firmly.
There was no way he could be responsible for the intentional damage caused to Anne’s car.
I could safely remove him from the suspect list; I was absolutely convinced of this.
I swiveled on my heel and headed back toward the stairs that would lead down to the main floor and my office. The yoga class had already started, and even though the door was mostly closed, I could hear Jackie calmly guiding residents—and Bryce—through a series of warm, gentle stretches.
Part of me wanted to pop in there and drop to the floor on a yoga mat. Maybe it would help me relax, since my stomach was suddenly in knots again.
Because I’d just realized something.
If Aidan was no longer a suspect—and he wasn’t, as far as I was concerned—then I didn’t know who was.
Because I had no one else to investigate.
EIGHTEEN
Denise and I walked around on eggshells with each other.
It was Wednesday, two days after she’d confessed to slipping the sleeping pills into Anne’s pillbox, and nothing had happened.
I hadn’t turned her in, and she hadn’t admitted guilt to anyone but me.
But I knew she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For me to decide just how I was going to go forward with what I knew.
The problem was, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
I had Denise’s confession about the sleeping pills, but that still didn’t explain who had tampered with Anne’s brakes. And despite the fact that Denise might bear some responsibility for what had happened, I still didn’t think that was the deciding factor in the accident.
Not that I knew for sure, of course. I wasn’t a crime scene investigator by any stretch of the imagination. If I looked at her car, there was probably no way I’d know that something had been done to it, and I certainly couldn’t examine the scene of the accident and cull anything other than the fact that she’d crashed her car.
But what I did know what that someone had sabotaged her vehicle, and that it probably did play a role in what had happened.
I glanced at the time displayed on my computer. It was almost two o’clock and there was a speaker coming to share a presentation with the residents. It was National “Talk About Your Medicines” Month, and I’d convinced Anne that it would be a good idea to bring someone in to talk about prescriptions. It was one of the few “extra” activities she’d approved for the month of October.
I got off up from my desk. I needed to head upstairs and make sure the activity room was ready for our speaker. It meant setting out chairs and brewing some coffee, but I knew residents would arrive early, as they did to every scheduled event.
Sure enough, Connie was already in the room with Dina, one of our memory-impaired residents. Connie had pulled out a chair for her and was standing next to the elderly woman. Her dour expression was only partially hidden by her long curtain of hair.
“I didn’t expect anyone to be here just yet,” I said. “Sorry the chairs aren’t set up.”
I grabbed a couple of chairs that were stacked along the side of the room and began setting them up. Connie left Dina’s side and hauled a couple more into the row I was creating.
“Thanks,” I said.
She just grunted.
I gave her a curious glance. “Is everything okay?”
Connie muttered something under her breath.
“What?”
She huffed out a breath. “Nothing,” she said.
“Something is bothering you.” I got two more chairs. “Anything you want to talk about?”
“Nope. Just Bryce being Bryce.”
I was a little taken aback. Bryce being Bryce? What did she mean by that?
“What happened?”
She flicked a long strand of hair away from her face. “Oh, he just got on me for being on the phone.”
“He did?”
She nodded. “Said I shouldn’t be making personal calls while I was on the clock.”
I didn’t disagree. That was company policy; everyone knew that. And if Anne had caught her, it would have resulted in an instant written warning.
“We actually aren’t supposed to be on our phones,” I said, as tactfully as I could.
“I know.” Connie twisted her mouth back and forth. “But it was an emergency with my boyfriend and I was only texting him for a couple of minutes. It was no big deal.”
I nodded. “I guess maybe next time just do it on your break or something?”
Something resembling a scowl appeared. “I can’t control when emergencies happen,” she said.
It was a valid point. “You're right. I'm sorry.”
“Bryce was just trying to be in charge,” she said, rolling her eyes.
The way she talked about him was a little odd, almost as if she knew him.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He just wanted to assert his authority. I mean, I was texting for maybe ninety seconds, max. And I told him who it was with. He knows my boyfriend; he could literally check with him and make sure I was telling the truth, you know?”
Well, there was the explanation for the way she talked about him. And it also helped explain her reaction. If she knew him, however much or little, outside of work, it probably did impact how she reacted to him being in an authority position.
“I guess it’s a good thing it happened when he was here and not Anne,” I said lightly, trying to make a joke out of it. “Who knows how she would have reacted?”
Connie shuddered. “No joke. She knows how to pick a fight with anyone. Even Bryce.”
“What?” I was reaching for another stack of chairs but my arms stilled. “She’s fought with Bryce?”
Connie nodded. “Uh huh. Big time.”
I frowned.
This was news to me.
NINETEEN
I had twenty minutes before the speaker arrived. And probably less than two before more residents started streaming in.
Which meant I needed to ask questions fast.
“Anne and Bryce were arguing?”
Connie offered another slight nod.
“About what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. I just heard them arguing when I walked by Anne’s office.”
“When was this?”
“Sometime last week,” she said. “Maybe Tuesday? I don’t remember.”
“And you didn’t hear any of their conversation?”
“It wasn’t a conversation,” she said with a snort. “It was an argument.”
“Okay, so you didn’t hear any of their argument?”
“Not really. Just something about a job.”
“A job? What job?”
Connie’s brow furrowed. “I think they were talking about Anne’s? I don’t really know.”
I was trying not to get too frustrated. “Can you try to remember?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Why do you care?”
I didn’t answer immediately. It wasn’t like I could just say, ‘Oh, I’m trying to figure out who might have caused Anne’s car to crash and I’d run out of suspects but you’ve just
potentially given me a new one.’
“I just…I’d like to know if everything is okay between them,” I said. “Especially with Anne out of the office now and Bryce working in her place.”
Her expression cleared. “Oh. I guess that makes sense.” Her brow wrinkled again and she stared off into space, presumably trying to bring up the memory. “I think he said something about how if she wasn’t careful, she’d be out of a job. And he’d be taking it over.”
I stared at her. “He said that?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Well, she was being really mean to him. I heard her raise her voice before he raised his. And you know how…how difficult she can be.”
I nodded. I absolutely knew this.
And it was a good point to remember.
Anne tended to bring out the worst in everyone, myself included.
The beeper on Connie’s hip sounded and we both startled.
She looked at it with a grimace. “Looks like Dexter needs help getting up here.” She glanced at Dina and then back at me. “She should be fine waiting for the speaker on her own.”
I nodded. “I’m not going anywhere. I can keep an eye on her.”
Connie smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried out the door and I was left alone with my thoughts.
Had Bryce really threatened Anne about her job? The Bryce I knew was easygoing, friendly to everyone. What could she have possibly said that would have made him react like that?
“You all set up in here?”
I whirled to face the door.
Bryce was standing in the doorway, one hand on each side of the doorframe. His smile was warm, his eyes twinkling. “Need some help?”
I swallowed. “I think I’m good.”
He let go of the frame and strolled into the room. “Everything okay?”
No, everything wasn’t okay. I had questions I wanted to ask him but I knew now wasn’t the time to do it. Especially since Billie was walking in with June and Ruth. She glanced my way, a knowing look on her face as she noticed who I was talking to. I frowned and shook my head slightly. The last thing I needed was for her to jump to even more conclusions about me and Bryce.
She’d already done that once.
