MYSTERY: BRITISH MYSTERY: Missing Hearts (Amateur Sleuth Suspense Thriller) (Cozy Crime Detective Short Stories)

by S. Y. Robins

  “So tell me how it went with Gina,” he said finally.

  “Oh, you know…awkward as hell.” Today had been Emma’s last day at Totally Nails. In the three weeks since she had announced her resignation to start her own salon, she had not seen her boss, Gina, even once. It had taken all of those three weeks for her mother and Rob to persuade her to ask Gina for a meeting so that Emma could ask for her client list to go with her to the new salon.

  “Well, what did she say?” Rob had been Emma’s staunchest proponent when she first floated the idea of opening her own nail salon, and for two years he had helped her research real estate and business laws. With Perfection opening next week, he was beginning to stress out just as much as Emma was.

  “She said it was okay.” Emma hunched her shoulders. “She gave me the list. She wasn’t, uh…very happy about it.”

  “Well, I would think not. One of her best artists is leaving.”

  “Rob…”

  “You know you were the best one there.”

  “That’s not why she was upset.” Even to Emma, it felt uncomfortably like betrayal: going to her former boss for her client list, when she was going to set up a rival business. But she’d wanted her own salon for so long…

  “You know it is completely okay to start your own salon. And she didn’t make all of you sign a non-compete or anything.”

  “I’m pretty sure people are going to have to after this.”

  “Emma…” His voice was gentle. “People start their own businesses all the time. Gina started her own salon, too. She must know how much it means to you to do this.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  Still, Gina hadn’t seemed all that happy—or happy at all, really. Her perfect nails had tapped out a staccato beat on the desk, and she answered Emma’s questions curtly, her smile absolutely fake, red lips curved but her eyes looking pained.

  “If she gave you the list, then it’s on her,” Rob said decisively. “And how did the meeting with Matthew go?”

  Matthew was Emma’s new landlord for Perfection, a nervous-looking man who always wore button-down shirts and khakis, and tended to clear his throat a lot. He’d called Emma three times the night before while she was taking a bath, and texted again when she was already in bed.

  “Oh, he wanted to know if I’d consider moving the salon.” Emma tried to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

  “What? It opens in three days.”

  “I know! That’s what I told him. He said he’d heard about some other place, but it’s on the other side of town, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s been sitting empty for about a year. The windows are broken.”

  “Emma.” Her voice had been rising. “You have a lease, you absolutely don’t have to move.”

  “I know.” Emma rubbed at her head. “You’d have been really proud of me, I just told him calm as you please that I was going to stay here. But you should have seen him, Rob, he kept behaving like I was being completely unreasonable. Like I should want to move to this other place, and was I sure this was a good place for the salon.”

  In retrospect, it had been utterly bizarre. Perfection would be right on Main Street, only a few storefronts down from both the post office and all of the amazing coffee shops, and Emma had already shelled out the money to decorate it in what she called cozy-spa-chic, the sort of place a woman might go if she preferred wearing jeans and flannel shirts, but still wanted to be pampered.

  “Anyway, between that and Gina, I’m wiped.” Emma sipped at her tea and shrugged.

  “I’ll bet.” She heard Rob settle into his office chair. With two of the security guards at his firm having quit the week before, Rob and his coworkers were pulling extra shifts until the new hires passed their background checks. “Hey, what’s all that noise in the background?”

  “Sirens.” Emma looked over at the window, where red and blue lights flickered through the blinds. She could hear Rob’s voice faintly. “Wait a sec until they go, I can’t hear you with all this noise.”

  But the sirens did not die down. In fact, they were only getting louder as more and more vehicles approached. Emma pressed her hand over her ear so she could hear Rob.

  “One second, I’m going to go look outside.”

  “Car crash?” he asked.

  “It must have been, but I didn’t hear anything.” Frowning, Emma set her phone down on the couch and went to peek out the window.

  When she saw what lay outside, she screamed.

  “Emma?” She could hear Rob’s panicked voice from the phone. “Emma!”

  “Oh my God,” Emma whispered. “Oh my God. Oh God.”

  “Emma!” A yell.

  She couldn’t remember how to walk. Emma stumbled on her way back to the phone, tripping and landing on the ground with a little cry. She rocked back and forth, shaking, and managed to crawl for the phone.

  “Oh, my God.” Her fingers were fumbling on the smooth casing.

  “Emma, what is it? Do I need to call the police?”

  “There’s…there’s a body on the pavement.” Emma pressed one palm over her mouth. “There’s a woman on the pavement. She’s dead. There’s a sheet but I can see her. There’s police everywhere. Oh, my God, Rob, I didn’t hear anything and what if the murderer’s here in the building, and—”

  “I’m coming to get you.” Rob’s voice was instant. “Emma, listen to me. Put on your coat. Keep your phone with you and stay on the line, okay? Get some shoes. I want you to go downstairs where all the police are, all right?”

  “But…” But the body was there and she could not bear to see it. It filled her with revulsion.

  “I know you don’t want to see it, but that’s where the police are, and that’s where it’s safest. Stay by the building and I’ll come to get you, okay?”

  “Okay.” She was starting to cry. She slipped shoes on over her bare feet and put the phone down so she could pull on her coat. She could not stop shaking. “Okay, I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  “Just stay on the phone with me,” Rob told her. She could hear him speaking urgently to someone on the other end, and then he was back. “We’ll go to my place tonight.” She could hear him trying to smile. “It’s not that messy, after all, right?”

  “Uh-huh.” It was all she could do to force herself toward the door, and she came out into a blaze of light and sirens. For a moment, it was so overwhelming that all she wanted to do was turn around and run back into the building.

  And the next moment, she wished she had. Because between the police, hurrying this way and that, Emma caught a glimpse of the woman. A red winter coat stood out vividly against the pavement, and the woman’s blonde hair fell loose around a heart-shaped face with a small mouth and a little snub nose.

  A face that looked eerily like Emma’s own.

  2

  “Stop looking so worried!” Rob was laughing. “It looks perfect, baby.”

  “Not yet, it doesn’t,” Emma said grimly. One of the strands of lights was still out of place, and she clambered back up the ladder to wrap it slightly differently around the branch. “Okay, what about that?”

  “What did you change?” Rob asked plaintively.

  “I…nothing.” Emma poked at the chandelier a few more times and then clambered back down, running to the door to look at it from a distance. “That looks okay, right?”

  “It looks wonderful,” Rob assured her. “I think even some of the guys from the guard crew want to come in here.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for.” Emma grinned, and at Rob’s questioning look, she waved her hands at the side wall. “Okay, picture it. You’ve got woman getting their nails done over there, but I put a couple of mirrors here and men can come in for a proper shave and a haircut.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Rob said instantly. “I saw Sweeney Todd. You aren’t fooling me, missy.”

  “Oh, stop it.” Emma laughed and let him pull her down into his lap. “But it does look good. Doesn’t it? Do you think I
should change the floor?”

  “No,” Rob said. “I think you should sit down and rest. Once the salon is open, you’re not going to have any time.”

  “It won’t be that bad.” Emma kissed him and looked around herself, contented.

  When she’d started the salon, she knew she hadn’t wanted to go with either of the classic looks: gleaming black and chrome, or very girly and pink. She’d toyed with the look of a Japanese mountain resort, all dark woods and paper screens, but had eventually given that up in favor of something that looked a little more like a Montana lodge…minus the mounted hunting trophies, of course.

  Gleaming hardwood floors were covered in rugs with autumn colors, red walls showed pictures of forests and mountains, and the chairs were exquisitely comfortable brown leather. The chandelier was a circle of woven sticks wrapped in strands of lights, and wooden shelves held locally made beauty products. A few screens in the back gave enough privacy for facials and foot soaks, and Emma could easily see some men dropping in for a shave, or sticking around as their girlfriends got their nails done.

  “I should—” Emma tried to stand up, and gave a laugh when Rob’s arms stayed firmly locked around her waist. “Hey!”

  “Nope, you’re only going to get up and fuss with something that doesn’t need to be fussed with.” He held her close. “Em, you’ve been working so hard. I’m…a little worried. I know you want this all to be perfect, but it will be. I promise. It even says so on that big sign out there: Perfection.”

  “I know, I just, uh…” Emma shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “What is it?” Rob craned to look into her face. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  “I, um…” She swallowed. “Promise not to think I’m crazy?”

  “Promise,” he said at once.

  “It’s…well, here’s the thing. I can’t stop thinking about that woman.” Emma looked down at where her hands were twisting in her lap. Rob’s arms were solid around her, but she was suddenly shivering.

  “I can understand that. You don’t see things like that a lot. I can see why you’d be upset.”

  “But it’s more than that,” Emma whispered. “She looked so much like me.”

  “But you didn’t know her, right?” Rob reminded her. “I know it’s eerie. I can’t even imagine, Em. But she wasn’t family or anything, right?”

  “No, but I can’t help but think—” Emma shut her mouth on the words. This was the crazy part. When Rob looked at her, she took a deep breath and gathered her courage. “I know—I know—this sounds crazy, but I just can’t shake the feeling that it had something to do with me. She was right outside my apartment building and she looked like me, and it’s not that I just didn’t know her, Rob—no one knows who she is. She’s not even from around here.”

  “Are you saying…?” Rob’s brow furrowed.

  “I’m not saying anything! I promise. I don’t know what I’m saying.” Tears started in her eyes. “I guess it just feels…close. It feels like it has to be more than a coincidence. Rob, I’m scared.”

  “Em…” He pulled her close and rocked her back and forth.

  “You must think I’m nuts.”

  “Not at all,” he assured her. “Hey. Look at me. Listen: you’re not crazy. You just saw someone who looked a lot like you. It’d freak me out if I saw someone who looked like me, too. Your brain is trying to protect you, honey. You just have to keep telling yourself that this is a coincidence, okay? It’s a really scary coincidence. It sucks like crazy. But it’s just chance. Just random chance.”

  Emma drew in a breath, shuddering and wiping her eyes. She felt Rob’s lips on her cheek and tried to smile.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Rob said again.

  “You’re the best, you know that?” Emma smiled, and jumped as a knock sounded on the door. She craned to look. “Oh, great.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Matt again. Three guesses what he wants.” She rolled her eyes and pushed herself up from Rob’s lap, crossing to the door and unlocking it. “Hey, Matt.”

  “Can I come in?” As usual, Matt looked nervous and twitchy.

  “Sure.” She needed to at least try to be nice. He was her landlord, after all. “Matt, this is Rob, my boyfriend. Rob, this is my landlord Matt.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Rob said easily. He gave no sign that he’d heard at least ten rants about Matt in the past week, for which Emma was profoundly grateful.

  “You, too. Miss Thomas, could we speak in private?”

  “Oh, there’s really no need.” Emma perched on the arm of one of the leather chairs. “What’s going on?”

  “I just, er…” Matt looked around himself nervously, swallowing convulsively as he often did. “Well, I wanted to make sure you were okay after that terrible business a few nights ago.”

  “How did you know about that?” Emma asked immediately. Suspicion flared.

  “Well, I know where you live,” Matt said. “And I saw that it was right outside your building and, ah…anyway, you look like you’re doing well.”

  “I am. Thank you. Whatever happened, it was…” Quiet. Emma swallowed. She had not heard a thing. What if she’d gone to the window and looked out in time to warn the woman? Guilt had been eating her alive for days.

  “Very unfortunate,” Matt said. He paused, as if trying to come up with something to say. “Miss Thomas, I wondered if you’d given any thought to my proposal.”

  “What?” Lost in thought, Emma had not been paying attention.

  “I wanted to ask if you had considered my proposal to abandon your lease,” Matt said again.

  “No.” The word, heavily laced with incredulity, was out of Emma’s mouth before she had time to think of a nicer way to say it. “I’m not moving.”

  “But the shop on the other side of town—”

  “Is in terrible condition,” Emma said emphatically. “It would require weeks’ worth of repairs, and that’s just assuming that the pipes haven’t frozen or anything—”

  “I’ve checked with the landlord, actually and—”

  “Matt? I’m not moving.” Emma tried to make her face some cross between nice and serious. “This a perfect location.” And the perfect price, but she didn’t say that. She was fairly sure that Matt had received another offer for the space, one more in line with the costs on the rest of Main Street, and he was regretting giving her that five-year lease. But that wasn’t her problem.

  “Miss Thomas, I really think you should consider a cheaper venue. What with your former employer’s business troubles…” Matt’s voice died when he saw the identical expressions on Emma and Rob’s faces. He sighed. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

  “What an odd man,” Rob said, when the door had closed behind Matt.

  “Greedy man,” Emma corrected him. “He saw how nice I could make this place look, and he’s regretting that he didn’t think to rent it for more.” She went to pick up her coat, rolling her eyes. “I’m not going to feel sorry for him. It had been empty for months before I got it. And…”

  “What?” Rob asked her.

  “Did he say Gina was having business trouble?” Emma asked Rob.

  “I…well, okay, I guess he did.”

  “That’s funny, don’t you think?” Emma asked him. She gave one last look around the salon before shutting off the lights and locking the door behind them. As they strolled along the street, she looked up at Rob’s face. “Don’t you think?” she asked again.

  “Well, not super funny.” He gave a groan when she nudged him with her elbow. “Ow, ow. Sorry. You mean, is it weird that you didn’t know Gina was having trouble? She might not be. How would Matt know?”

  “I don’t…wait.” Emma jabbed her finger at him. “Maybe she’s the one that offered to buy out my lease! Maybe…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Maybe what?” Rob looked over at her, and his face changed. “Emma.”

  “No, no, hear me out. She was super angry I was going, s
he’s having business trouble, she’s trying to get Matt to go back on the lease—”

  “And you seriously think Gina would kill someone over that?” Rob took Emma by the shoulders. “Honey, listen to me. Gina is probably angry right now, and if she’s having some trouble, that sucks. But she isn’t the type to kill someone who looked kind of like you because of that. Come on. That seems like a bit of an overreaction.”

  “I…you’re right.” Emma hunched her shoulders and walked beside him, scuffing some early snow with her boots.

  She just wished she felt nearly as convinced as Rob did.

  3

  This was crazy. She was crazy. Emma stopped, halfway between her car and the back entrance to Totally Nails. She shouldn’t be here. After all, Rob was right. Gina might be really, really angry with Emma…but was that something she’d commit murder over? It couldn’t be. Emma should just go home and take a bath. After all, once Perfection opened tomorrow, she wasn’t going to have any free time. She’d been looking forward to this day of self-pampering for weeks.

  She’d had the good sense not to tell Rob where she was going. He would have told her to snap out of it, after all, and Rob knew a lot about this sort of thing. And she had to admit, after all, that his theory of random chance made a lot more sense than Gina killing someone who looked like Emma. After all, Gina would have been able to tell that the woman she was killing wasn’t Emma.

  Shaking her head, Emma turned around and headed back to her car.

  And stopped, her hand on the door. She could still see the woman’s face in her mind. That poor woman who’d done nothing wrong, who Emma was sure had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. This wasn’t about whether or not people thought Emma was crazy. It was about the fact that the police had no leads. It was about the fact that a woman who looked almost exactly like Emma had died, and no one knew who her killer was.

  She slung her purse over her shoulder and marched back to Totally Nails, coming into the dim hallway full of coats and winter boots. Sarah, one of the other manicurists, gave Emma an awkward little wave.