by K. J. Emrick
“Seriously? Maybe I should introduce myself. Hi, my name’s Sidney Stone and I’ve been friends with you for years and never once have I ever kept anything like that from you.”
He gives me a look, his lips pursed and his one eyebrow cocked up.
“Well, okay,” I clarify, “maybe I’ve hidden a few things from you over the years—”
Now the other eyebrow pops up.
“Fine! I’ve kept a lot of things from you in the past, but never anything like that. You know me, Chris. I’m not secret friends with a murderer. I only found out Amelia was in town yesterday! I don’t even know what all this is about!”
He blinks at me, and his face goes from being doubtful to thoughtful—a really fine distinction where a guy like him is concerned. “She said she ran into you yesterday. That was the first time you saw her in Detroit?”
“Yes. More than that, it’s the first time I’ve seen her since high school.”
“Huh.”
I was honestly expecting more of a reaction than that. At least he’s not shouting anymore. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just think it’s curious, don’t you?”
“What? What’s curious? You want to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?”
He sits down on the corner of the interview table, one foot dangling off the floor. “I think it’s curious, that someone you haven’t seen since the twelfth grade just happened to show up in Detroit. She just happens to run into you the day before she gets charged with murder. Then, once she’s arrested, it’s you she calls to come help her. Don’t you find that all just a little too coincidental?”
When he says it like that… yeah, I kind of do. I mean, I remember thinking the Shake Shack wasn’t any place I would have expected to see Amelia Falconi in that fancy red dress of hers. Was it just a coincidence that she happened to walk in there at the exact same moment I was ordering shakes for me and Harry?
Maybe, but it sure wasn’t likely.
“So,” I ask him, “you think she set this whole thing up?”
“Yeah, I do. I’ve seen that sort of thing before. People try to set up alibis for themselves, sometimes, when they know they’re going to commit a crime. How much time did you spend with Amelia yesterday?”
“Just a few minutes. Not any longer than that. Enough to say hi, exchange a few words, and then leave.”
“Leave? Where were you?”
“The Shake Shack. You know the one over by my apartment?”
“Yeah, I know it. What was she doing there?”
I shrug and lean back against the wall. “She said she was there to get a taste of Detroit, or something like that. I kind of got the impression she was slumming to be seen with her fans, maybe hoping that someone would put it up on the internet and she’d get a bunch of free publicity when the videos went viral. She’s in town to shoot a new movie, she said.”
“Hmm. And she just happens to run into you. Sidney Stone, private investigator. Exactly the kind of person she would turn to when she needed help to prove her innocence.”
Yeah. I see his point now. Take a step back and look at the whole thing objectively, and it becomes pretty obvious that she was just using me. Maybe she left some evidence planted to implicate someone else in this murder, and she was going to hire me to ‘find’ it and clear her name. Someone from her past who would be ‘on her side.’
She could have easily found out that I was a private investigator here in Detroit. That’s a matter of public record. She might have seen my name and been thinking, jackpot. I can manipulate her to help me. I’m wonderful. I’m a movie star. I’m adored by millions. She’ll do anything for someone like me. Blah blah, yadda yadda.
Yeah. That sounds exactly like the Amelia Falconi I remember.
Well. I might not be the Sidney Stone she remembers. I’m damned good at what I do, and I’m too confident in my abilities to fall for something like that.
Chris has been watching me this whole time, waiting for me to come around to the same conclusion he’s already drawn. “All right, fine. I get it. You want me to say you were right?”
“That would be nice.”
“Well, I’m not going to, buster. You know you were just yelling at me a minute ago, right?”
“Yeah, I guess I was. Sorry. I was… I just wanted to make sure you know how serious this is.”
Worried about you, is what he was about to say. I was worried about you. I heard it clear as day with my future-sense before he changed his mind and said something else. Well, well. Christian Caine was worried about me. That’s actually kind of sweet. “I know,” I tell him, both for what he did say and what he didn’t. “Guess it’s a good thing that I turned her down, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t look good, a high-profile murderer asking personally for your help.”
“She hasn’t been convicted yet, Chris. Right now, she’s just an alleged murderer.”
“And that makes it better?”
No, it actually doesn’t.
“Fine. I see your point. I’m going back to my apartment. I’ll let you guys take care of Miss Amelia Falconi, and I’ll get started on my preparations for that surveillance.”
“Uh, no you won’t. Sorry, Sid.”
I push away from the wall, ready to start shouting now myself. “What do you mean, no? Chris, we just talked about this upstairs. I need this job, and you know I’ve always done good for the department with these kinds of cases. Detailed notes, photographs, everything you need to close your cases!”
“I know, Sid, but—”
“Don’t you give me any of your but!” I yell at him, realizing how that sounds the instant it leaves my mouth. Being able to see what’s coming next doesn’t always mean you can keep yourself from tripping over your own tongue. “You know what I mean. Chris, you promised!”
With a nod, he shrugs his shoulders. He’s one of the few guys I know who can face me without flinching when I’m angry. It’s annoying. “I know what I said upstairs, Sid. But things have changed now.”
“Changed? Are you serious? Just because I know a murder suspect?”
“No. Because now you’ll be called as a witness.”
Oh, crap. I hadn’t even considered that.
“You saw her yesterday,” he says, “and if Lieutenant Baker doesn’t have that piece of information yet he’s going to have it soon and when he does, he’ll be knocking on your door to take a statement. You’ll get called in front of the grand jury and then at the trial. You’re a witness in this case like it or not, and because of that I can’t hire you to do any work for the department. It will be viewed as you being an agent of the police and anything you know will be impeached at court by any defense attorney worth his salt.”
“But I don’t know anything!”
His lip curled up in a smirk. “I’ve been trying to tell people that for years.”
Oh, this was so not the time for him to make a joke. I didn’t want to laugh. I wanted to cry and scream and kick something. Like the nearest garbage can. Or his shin.
As satisfying as that would be, I knew he was right.
I’d been desperate for work, and I thought I’d gotten lucky when Chris offered to hire me to do surveillance for him. That job would have held me over good until the start of the month when my next pension check came in. Chris had been doing me a real solid.
And Amelia Falconi just screwed me out of it.
So I was back to square one on the job front. Worse than that, actually, because now I couldn’t depend on work from the Detroit Police Department for the foreseeable future. Which was going to be a whole lot longer than the three seconds of it I could see.
“Well,” I tell him sarcastically, “thanks for nothing, I guess.”
I was still mad, and I was still directing it all at Chris, even though I knew it wasn’t his fault. He was right. The whole department had to be hands-off with me until this thing with Amelia cleared up. Whatever it was she did, whoever s
he was supposed to have killed, I hope she rotted away in prison for it.
Right now, there’s nothing else for me to do except leave. I thought about saying something witty, like maybe don’t expect me to bring you donuts for this one, but I let it go. I try not to say too much when I’m upset. Sometimes you can’t take back the things you say. Or do. If I ever want to work with the police in this city again—which I do—then I have to play by their rules. I’ll just wait for this whole thing to blow over and then I’ll be back to working cases with them again at my standard rate.
Man, this blows.
“Hey Sid?”
I stop when he says my name.
“When were you going to tell me you knew a famous actress?”
“It’s not like me and her are friends,” I explain to him again. “I don’t know anything about her, really. Not anymore. Just what I read on the internet like everyone else. I don’t even know who she’s supposed to have killed.”
“Her bodyguard,” he tells me. “Some guy named Donnie Sterling.”
I can feel my mouth drop open.
Donnie? The bodyguard that Amelia had been trading whispers with? That Donnie? That’s just…
Wow.
Chapter Three
Hours later, after a completely disappointing day, I dropped into bed. I should be sleeping. I should not be staring at my ceiling with my thoughts running ahead of me like crazy.
But, yeah. That’s exactly what I’m doing.
Why would Amelia kill Donnie? Granted I only saw them for a few minutes but I was getting a definite vibe from the two of them. No, ‘vibe’ isn’t a technical private investigations term. It’s a term us females use when we see a man and a woman and there’s obviously something going on between them. A vibe. Like Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves in The Lakehouse. That sort of chemistry.
Romance isn’t dead, it’s just hiding in plain sight. PDA is taboo for a lot of people, especially when you’re a famous actress having a relationship with her bodyguard. The gossip mongers would have a field day with that.
How sure was I that there was something going on between Amelia and Donnie? Call it eighty-five percent. Woman’s intuition, based on the vibe I felt.
So let’s stick with that idea for a minute. Amelia and Donnie are in some kind of relationship. It’s intimate. Second base, third base… maybe they’ve even rounded home a few times. Yes, I use sports metaphors to describe sex sometimes. Baseball is a game of sticks and balls and men in tight pants. How can I not use that as an example of intercourse? I mean, sliding into home…
Ahem.
Anyway. Something was going on between Amelia and Donnie and now he’s dead, and she’s being accused of killing him.
Did that track?
No. I don’t think it does.
Although I have to admit, lots of murders happen between intimate partners. There’s dozens of reasons why lovers kill each other. Maybe there’s an argument, one person gets mad enough to swing a frying pan and then the next thing you know somebody’s got a crushed skull and a closed casket. It happens.
But in this instance? No. I don’t get that. I remember the look in Amelia’s eyes. I remember the look in Donnie’s, too.
So if I’m right about all that, she didn’t kill him. That’s what my instincts are telling me.
Which means Amelia Falconi is innocent.
Rolling over on my side, I toss the blankets away. My bedroom is stuffy, even with the window open. There’s no breeze in the city tonight. Even stripped down to my panties, I’m uncomfortable. I can’t sleep, and all I can think about is this case that I’m not even working.
I’m not working any case, actually. Chris had to fire me. I got a call back from William LaFleur, Attorney at Law, and he’s got no work for me at the moment. I haven’t heard back from Michelle Garrow at all so that’s a bust too. Looks like it’s going to be Ramen for supper for the next few weeks.
Stop thinking about it, I tell myself. Go to sleep.
The minutes roll past, and I’m still awake.
The silence in the room is so complete that I can hear Spot moving around in his fishbowl. Goldfish sleep, believe it or not, and I’ll bet he’s having a dream about exploring the Pacific Ocean right now. Lucky fish.
I like the silence of my bedroom at night. When I’m by myself, in the quiet of an empty room, there’s nothing for my future-sense to bug me about. Nothing’s going to happen in the next three seconds. The dark, and the quiet, that’s all there is. Nobody’s talking. Nobody’s doing anything. Just Spot in his bowl, and the curtains on the windows, and my own heartbeat. That’s all stuff I can ignore. I’ve learned to tune out the flashes of the future I see when I want to. I mean, imagine walking through a crowded grocery store and hearing everything everyone is going to say three seconds before they say it, all at once. That’d be like having a movie soundtrack played over itself, three seconds out of sync.
In other words, enough to drive you insane.
So, I learned to tune it out at a pretty early age. Puberty would’ve been hell otherwise. It’s the same thing ordinary people do at a party when they only want to hear their date talking, rather than the whole room. Selective hearing. Same thing with me and the future-sense.
But here in my bedroom, all by myself, I don’t have to do that. I can just relax and go to sleep.
Only I’m not asleep. I’ve got a puzzle on my mind and I just can’t shake it. This thing with Amelia Falconi is keeping me awake, and now I can add that to the list of things I’m mad at her for.
There’s only one thing to do about it.
I roll over onto my back, trying to get more comfortable—
And find myself face to face with Harry.
I did not scream. I know I didn’t scream, because I never scream. Not even when big, muscular men just appear in my bedroom, in the dark, leaning over my bed. That sound was definitely something else.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I snap at him, wriggling over to the far side of the bed and grabbing up the sheet to drape it over my naked chest. “We’ve talked about this! No genies in the bedroom. Scoot. Shoo!”
“My lady, I would not intrude were it not important.”
My hand slaps out blindly to the nightstand by the bed until it finds the switch on the lamp. Light floods the room suddenly, making me blink.
Harry is standing there, right at the edge of my bed, shirtless but still wearing his khakis, thankfully. I sleep in my underwear. I have no idea what he sleeps in but anything less than his pants at this point would have made this… um… awkward. Dear God, he has nice abs.
I’m about to shout at him again, but then I stop, and squint until my eyes adjust to the bright light.
That’s when I finally realize, he’s got one hand up over his face, his thick fingers covering his eyes.
“Have you… have you had your eyes closed this whole time?”
“Of course,” he says, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. “It is bad enough that I have intruded on the sanctity of your bedroom without asking your permission. I would not allow myself to see you in whatever state of undress you might be in now. A lady must have her secrets, don’t you agree?”
“Uh, sure, I guess. So why didn’t you just knock?”
“I thought, perhaps, you might be sleeping. I did not wish to disturb you.”
“And you didn’t think that maybe you just appearing at my bedside might not disturb me? I can’t see you coming, remember. Don’t make me revisit the idea of making you wear a bell.” It’s hard to stay mad at him, with him being so honorable and old-fashioned about the whole thing. Plus the mental image of him shirtless, and wearing a bell… well, it’s not altogether unpleasant. “I swear to God, Harry, I’m going to figure out why my future-sense doesn’t work with you if it’s the last thing I do.”
He grins broadly. “Magic, my lady. Magic is the answer.”
“The answer to what?”
“Why, to everything, of course
.”
“Oh,” I mutter, “I so do not have time for a philosophical discussion on the nature of life, the universe and everything. Harry, just tell me what’s so important that you came in here with your hand over your eyes?”
“You have a phone call.”
I wait for him to say something else, something that will actually sound important enough to explain him being in here, but that’s it. I have a phone call. That’s all it is.
Careful to hold the sheet tight against my breasts with one hand, I pick up one of my pillows and chuck it at him just as hard as I can. It bounces off his torso and falls to the floor.
“You came in here and scared me half to death because someone called me in the middle of the night? Harry, that’s why I have voicemail!”
“I understand that. You have explained to me the magical science behind your phone device many times. They are a wonder never dreamed of in the time before I was made a genie, but I have gotten used to them.”
He’s proud of himself for figuring out the magic little box that transmits voices and pictures from place to place—otherwise known as a cellphone. He still calls it “magical science” but I guess I can understand that, because like he said, back in his day the most advanced thing around was a sundial. He’s had masters in modern times so he’s familiar with things like cars and television, but the concept of a cellphone was brand new to him before he met me. You tend to forget how much technology changes just in your own lifetime. Cell phones connected to the internet 24/7 weren’t a thing when I was a kid. Neither was the internet for that matter or VR goggles or big screen TV’s. Yay science.
I usually keep my cellphone in the bedroom with me, in case someone does call. Some nights, though, I just want to sleep. Tonight was supposed to be one of those nights. Seven solid hours of uninterrupted nap time. I’m not working any cases, and if the police had called me it was just going to be to set up a time when I can give them a statement about meeting Amelia Falconi at the Shake Shack. Chris might have called, maybe, to see how I was doing but I didn’t want to talk to him. I was still mad at him for yelling at me. There just wouldn’t have been any calls important enough for me to worry about. So I left it in the kitchen. Harry must have heard it ringing from inside his rug.
