Chapter 27
My heart beats at an unsteady rhythm as I sprint up to Amelia’s apartment. What is going on? Her ex-fiancé is dead, in her home? The same day a museum gets broken into, most likely by the guy who”s been asking Amelia out? Coincidence? Or connected?
More importantly, is she okay? Did the killer come back after her neighbor left? I called her a hundred and one times but each call rang and rang.
What am I going to find in there?
I reach her door and turn the knob, cursing when the door falls right open.
Well, that explains how the killer got in.
“Amelia?” I yell, desperation clinging to my voice. Where is she?
A vacuum shuts off.
“Caleb!” She runs out of the bathroom, eyes red-rimmed and frantic, and right into my arms. I tuck her against my chest, trying to calm my own frantic heart rate. I breathe her in, the smell of flowers and salty waves soothing my tangled emotions. She’s okay. But what if she hadn’t been?
What’s wrong with me? Eight hours ago I was convinced she was part of Liam’s business, and now I want to hold her, comfort her, save her.
“Are you okay?” I whisper into her hair, pulling back enough to ensure she isn’t hurt. I should check out the situation, but right now this is all that matters. She’s the only thing that matters.
“I’m fine.” She shakes her head and steps out of my embrace.
I miss the feeling of her against me, but my brain jumps back to the present. To the dead guy. There’s a flipping dead guy in her tub and I’m smelling her hair?
I try to take a step around her, but she stops me with a hand to my chest.
“Wait,” she says, biting her bottom lip and looking up at me with those impossibly big but tearful eyes. “I should probably warn you…something happened.”
“Well yeah, there’s a dead guy in your tub.”
“Yeah, um, more than that.” She grimaces. “I screwed up.”
The vacuum.
My shoulders bunch. “Amelia…why were you using the vacuum in the bathroom?”
I take a deep breath, preparing myself for the answer I’m afraid to hear.
She might have killed him.
She plays with her fingers, pinching and squeezing each one. “You know that episode of Psych when Gus finds his boss dead in the office?”
I think for a moment. “No.”
“Well Gus finds his boss dead—”
“Now’s not the time for a Psych recap,” I growl.
“—and he accidentally upends the crime scene,” she finishes.
Then it hits me. I remember that episode. My mom laughed the whole time and I was shaking my head, annoyed by their stupidity. That had been after her first round of chemo when I was convinced she’d make it through—
Oh no.
Amelia must see my eyes widen in fear because she throws her hands up. “It wasn’t that bad.”
That’s not as comforting as she thinks it is. “That’s a mighty low bar.” I groan and slide around her, preparing myself for what I’ll walk into.
“What th— Amelia Quinn! What did you do?”
She’s going to jail.
Amelia rushes in behind me, her eyes halfway hidden behind her hand like she’s afraid something more happened while she was gone and she doesn’t want to find out. “It wasn’t me! Okay, the puke was me. So was the water. But it was a mistake I swear. And then I answered the door and forgot it was on and when I came back his foot was kind of floating out of the tub and then the dogs jumped in and wanted to play with him. It all just sort of happened.”
This is so bad. When she video-called me I could make out the blood on his shirt but that’s all been washed clean. And the white flecks stuck to him make it look like he died in the middle of a hailstorm. The only evidence that remains is the knitting needle. Though any fingerprints are long gone thanks to the postmortem bath he received.
“I need to check the house,” I say, grabbing her hand, and hauling her out of the bathroom with me. “And you need to stay right there where I can see you.”
“Why?” Her eyes widen. “Am I a suspect?”
She doesn’t give me time to answer. “Of course, I’m a suspect. He died in my house. And I tampered with the crime scene. I’m going to get arrested for this, huh?”
Would a guilty person say that? She may be hiding something, but she didn’t do this. I know that with every inch of my stupid gut.
“It’s not ideal,” I say, scanning the small apartment, taking in everything. But Amelia’s lack of cleanliness makes it impossible to determine if anything is out of the ordinary.
“Where’s your grandmother’s jewelry box?”
She looks at the small table. “I, uh, took it somewhere safe.”
To Liam? I press my lips together. I can question her more about it later when there isn’t a dead body in her tub. “Is anything missing?”
“I, uh, don’t think so.” She chews on her bottom lip. “Oh, maybe my laptop. I left it on the table.”
“Sure you didn’t misplace it?”
“Maybe.” She considers it. She moves to the living room, peeking around without touching. I wish she’d shown this much self-restraint in the bathroom.
I join her in the small living room, tiptoeing around dog toys and stray shoes. My shoe gets caught in the pile of clothes on the ground and they might be alive because it seems like they are getting tighter. I twist, trying to free myself, but it only makes matters worse.
The room tilts and then I faceplant on the floor, landing at Amelia’s feet.
“Caleb?” Amelia asks curiously looking down at me.
I got taken down by dirty laundry. Amelia Quinn is chaos.
“I told you it was a hazard,” I say, my voice coming out rougher than I anticipated. “You’re a hazard, Amelia.”
Tears pool in her blue eyes and I immediately regret my choice of words. Yes, she’s a hazard, but she’s also human. And her ex-fiancé just died in her apartment.
“I know.” She crumples to the floor beside me, tears streaming down her face.
My reaction is instinctive. I pull her to me, tucking her into my side as she cries. And there’s nothing I can do except lay there and hold her. I cradle her head, rubbing her back as she sobs. She’s in shock. But most importantly, she’s in danger. And I never want to let her go.
“Police! Hands in the air.”
I guess I’ll be letting her go after all.
“I’m the one who called you.” I bark at the police officer who looks barely older than a teenager as he tightens the cuffs on my wrists.
The detective marches by. “You claim to be with the FBI but carry no ID?”
I flex my hands until the cuffs dig into my wrists. “I told you, I was in a hurry to get here for Amelia and left it in my truck. If you would let me go—”
“We’re not letting you go,” he snaps.
Amelia, who is not being detained by handcuffs but has been relegated to the kitchen table, pipes up. “He didn’t kill Justin. I called him first.”
The detective turns a glare on Amelia. “I’ll get to you, and your assistance with the crime scene in a moment.”
The door bursts open. It’s been doing that a lot in the last five minutes. Police. How helpful they’ve been. EMT’s. Unnecessary. A medical examiner, and crime scene detectives. But this time it’s someone useful.
“Cruz,” I say her name like a song of praise.
“Who are you?” the detective barks.
“FBI.” Cruz holds up her ID. At least someone was thinking. “I can vouch for him. He’s my partner. And the dead guy is connected to an ongoing investigation.”
I never told her my suspicions that Amelia’s ex may somehow be connected to our case. Does she know something I don’t, or is she saving my butt here?
The preteen cop snickers. “Case closed.”
I wish. I have a sinking feeling that this is only the beginning.
“What happened?” Cruz asks.
The detective motions her to the bathroom.
“Hey, kid,” I say to the younger police officer. “Get these off, please.”
He debates for a minute before getting the key and opening them. I rub my wrists as I join the already full bathroom.
“Was he drowned?” Cruz asks.
The detective glares at me before answering. I’m not sure why he hates me so much. Maybe because he found Amelia and I in a semi-compromising position at a crime scene. Surely he’s walked in on worse.
“No,” the detective says. “Of course, we will have to wait for the autopsy to confirm the cause of death, but it appears he was stabbed in the heart with a knitting needle. It has since been…removed.”
Apparently, the latch on Amelia’s bedroom door is broken, and when the police barged in, it spooked the dogs. They got into the bathroom where Gus proceeded to cause havoc with a melted canister of ice cream while Shawn stole the knitting needle from Justin’s chest and ran all over the apartment with it. Amelia puked again. It was quite the ordeal.
Serena leans over the body to get a better look. “Why does he smell like vomit?”
Another evil glance from the detective. “Miss Quinn was so caught off guard when she discovered him, she…” He doesn’t finish.
Cruz turns and looks back at me with a look that says “Seriously, your girlfriend threw up on a dead guy?”
I’ll admit. It doesn’t look good for her. “You can’t tell me you didn’t feel a little queasy when you found your first dead body.” I give her a pointed look.
She grunts and continues to scowl at me. “So, the girl’s our main suspect?” Cruz asks the detective.
“It would appear so.”
I can’t believe they are going down this line of thought. “You do realize Amelia is five foot nothing and Justin here is six two.” That would have been an impressive feat for her to gain enough of an advantage over him to kill him, then stick him in the tub.
I can tell both of them are thinking the same thing when Amelia pipes up from the kitchen. “I’m five one and a quarter!”
Serena cocks her head to the side. “That could make all the difference.”
“No way.” Amelia bursts into the room. “I’d have to stand on the couch or something to kill him and then what, how did I get him in the shower? Unless I lured him into the bathroom under false pretenses and stood on the edge of the tub—”
“Amelia!” I stop her before she can fully sell them on the idea that she did this. “Why don’t you look for your laptop?” And exercise her right to remain silent.
Her eyes go wide and her face pales. “Yeah. I’ll do that.” She backs out of the bathroom.
“Keep an eye on her. I don’t want her destroying more evidence,” the detective calls out to the junior police officer.
“It was an accident!” Amelia calls back.
I massage my neck. As cute as her rambling is, this is the absolute worst time for it.
“We’ll question her,” the detective says.
I don’t think protecting Amelia will ever get easier.