Chapter Six
Chapter
Six
By the time our debriefing session was over, Wyatt still hadn’t responded to Jemma’s text message, so she reluctantly left the Mirage.
She’d finished her work as a hairstylist for the day, but she was attending a family dinner at her parents’ place that evening, and her mom wanted her to arrive early to help with the prep work.
Jemma invited me and Livy to the dinner, but I declined.
Her parents meant well, but I knew they’d ask me about my now nonexistent job, and I didn’t feel up to answering those awkward questions.
Maybe that made me a coward, but I was okay with that.
As for Theo, she zoomed off in her wheelchair as soon as it became apparent that Wyatt wasn’t going to show up anytime soon.
Once I found myself alone, I made a quick stop at my apartment to change back into my jeans and then rode the elevator to the top floor and climbed a flight of stairs to the roof.
I needed to gather my thoughts and get myself into a positive headspace before picking Livy up from school.
While Wyatt’s presence shook him up, I was pretty sure that Hoffman would only return my money if it was pried from his cold, dead fingers.
And even though I’d come close to murdering that sleazeball at the restaurant, now that I was out of the heat of the moment, I knew I didn’t want to end up in jail.
I couldn’t be the parent Livy needed from behind bars.
It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who’d decided to retreat to the peacefulness of the roof.
Zoltán Nagy had beaten me to it. I spotted his balding head, ringed with white hair, as soon as I stepped out into the open air.
There wasn’t much of a patio up there. Just an expanse of concrete with two benches, all surrounded by a four-foot wall.
But the sky was a beautiful shade of blue, and the air felt fresher up there than it did down on the street, where exhaust fumes and the pungent smell of marijuana often battled for dominance.
I hovered next to the bench where Mr. Nagy sat, a teacup and saucer resting on his knee.
“Mind if I join you?” I asked.
The elderly man smiled and patted the bench next to him. “I’d be delighted.”
I sank down onto the wooden seat and let out a sigh as I watched a pigeon take off from the wall and soar across to the neighboring building.
“Troubles?” Mr. Nagy asked.
“Too many to name,” I said with a wry smile. “But hopefully none that are insurmountable.”
“Few problems can’t be solved.” He leaned down and reached beneath the bench. A second later, he produced a bottle of apricot pálinka.
He winked at me. “Especially when you’ve got the right fuel.”
He added a dollop of the liquor to his cup of tea and then passed the bottle to me with an encouraging nod. I took a swig and nearly choked as the fruity liquid burned its way down my throat.
Mr. Nagy tapped the side of his nose as I handed the bottle back to him. “Our secret.” He put the cap back on and returned the bottle to its hiding place beneath the bench.
“Has Freddie been giving you trouble?” I asked.
“Ah. You mean because I chased him.”
I nodded. “Not that I blame you. Freddie’s a jerk.” I had choicer words to describe him, but I didn’t want to use them in Mr. Nagy’s company.
“He threatened to confiscate my croquet mallet!” he said, his ire rising. “I left it in the courtyard once—just once! So I left a hoop behind another time. I’m an old man, and he would rob me of one of my greatest pleasures. Croquet in the courtyard. It makes me happy. What’s wrong with that?”
I patted his shoulder. “Nothing at all.”
His anger seemed to drain out of him. “You are a good woman, Emersyn. You and Livy have a bright future.”
An invisible weight pressed down on my shoulders. “I hope you’re right about that.”
He must have heard the desolation in my voice, because this time he was the one patting my shoulder.
“If there’s something you want in life, or something you want to change, go all out.
Don’t let anyone or anything stand in your way.
” He carefully rose to his feet, holding his saucer and teacup in one hand.
“Now, I must get home before my wife comes looking for me. She’ll be finished having tea with Agnes, and I don’t want her discovering my secret.
” He nodded toward the spot where he’d stashed the bottle of pálinka and winked at me again.
Then he left me alone on the roof. Alone, except for a thousand thoughts, worries, and insecurities. They weren’t great company.
I decided to take Mr. Nagy’s advice and spent much of the following morning applying for jobs online and then hoofing it around the neighborhood, visiting any store with a Help Wanted sign out front.
Well, almost any store. There was one called Sugar Daddy with blacked-out windows. I gave that one a pass.
Unfortunately, that left me with only two other options. Not many people were hiring.
By the time I returned to the Mirage, my feet ached, and my stomach rumbled with hunger.
For a brief moment, I allowed myself to fantasize about getting a panini from Agnes Gao’s bakery.
I should have known better. That made my mouth water and my stomach rumble harder, and all the while I knew I’d have to settle for a tin of orange segments or peanut butter on a slice of dry bread.
I opted for the peanut butter but had to toast the bread to make it go down easier.
Once my stomach had quieted down, I mustered all the courage I could and checked my bank balance. At least Chad had paid me for my last few shifts at the restaurant. That meant I could hit the grocery store and restock the fridge before fetching Livy from school.
When I stepped out of the elevator, on my way to the store, I passed the lobby’s trash can. The swinging lid was half open, with the bottom end of a bouquet of flowers sticking out. Roses, in fact. Some of the flowers were crushed by the lid, and a few petals had fallen on the floor.
Carefully, I extracted the bouquet. Why would anyone throw away such gorgeous flowers? Rejection, probably. Someone’s attempt to woo their sweetheart clearly hadn’t gone well.
I lifted the bouquet to my nose and breathed in the heavenly scent. A couple of the flowers were damaged, but if I removed those ones, I’d still have a beautiful bouquet. One I couldn’t afford to buy for myself. And it wasn’t as if there were hot guys lining up to give me gifts.
I returned to my apartment and put the flowers in water.
That small touch brightened up the room and gave me a spurt of optimism.
I almost had a spring in my step when I set off again for the grocery store.
It felt so good to be out in the fresh air—as fresh as it got in the city, anyway—that I stopped at a small park and sat on a bench to bask in some October sunshine while enjoying my newfound positive attitude.
Unfortunately, my cheery outlook on life didn’t last long. It deserted me once I reached the checkout counter at the grocery store. Sure, I had enough money to pay the rent and buy groceries this month, but what about next month, and the one after that?
On the way home with my two bags full of provisions, I kept an eye out for Help Wanted signs in shop windows. I hadn’t walked this way during my earlier job search, and I spotted one in a clothing store’s window and decided to walk in and apply on the spot. Except the store was closed.
I peered through the windows and knocked on the locked door, hoping someone might be around, but nobody emerged from the back of the shop. I told myself to remember to apply for the job at another time, and then I resumed my homeward trudge.
I’d almost reached the Mirage’s front stairs when I drew to a stop on the sidewalk. A metallic green BMW convertible sat parked by the curb, its top down. It looked like it had just been driven out of the showroom, the car’s paint gleaming in the sunlight.
Usually, Jemma’s red Camaro was the sportiest car to stop on the street. I’d never seen this convertible before.
“Do you like cars as much as you like dinosaurs?” a man’s voice asked from behind me.
I thought my body might short-circuit. The sound of the voice sent a tingling thrill over my skin while simultaneously making my heart stutter and my stomach sink. One-half of my brain screamed, No, no, no! while the other screamed, Oh, hell yes!
Slowly, I turned around.
Wyatt sat on the Mirage’s front steps, looking casual and sexy and way too damn good to be fair. He wore a black T-shirt with his jeans today, and he was grinning at me, but in no way did that make me weak at the knees.
(Sometimes we just need to lie to ourselves, right?)
“What are you doing here?”
He’d caught me so off guard that the question slipped out of me before I could stop it. I knew full well that there was only one reason he was sitting outside my apartment building.
Sure enough, he held up my phone. “Returning this. You did tell me I could stop by.”
I set my groceries on the bottom step and sank down next to him, not because I wanted to extend our meeting, but because my feet were desperate for a rest. (Another lie? Maybe.)
“What else did I tell you?”
One of his eyebrows quirked up in a quizzical way that was absolutely not sexy.
(I was on a roll.)
“My friend wrote the texts, not me,” I explained.
“So you don’t think I’m hotter than a jalapeno and…” He consulted his own phone. “Want to spice things up?”
My jaw dropped, and I made a grab for his phone, ready to kill my best friend the next time I saw her. Wyatt easily held the phone out of my reach.
He laughed. “Just kidding. She didn’t write any of that.”
I groaned. “Not funny.”
“It was a little.” His grin was infuriating and absolutely did not make him hotter than a habanero.
He handed me my phone, and I managed a grudging “Thank you.”
Finally, his smile faded, and the butterflies in my chest—which I’d studiously been ignoring—acted more like normal butterflies rather than ones amped up on amphetamines.
“I hope I didn’t cause any problems by pretending to be the detective you hired,” he said with a hint of regret in his voice. “I heard the way that guy was talking to you, and wanted to wipe the smirk off his face.”
He hadn’t been the only one.
“I might have problems,” I said, “but they weren’t caused by you.
” Unless relentless butterflies qualified as a problem.
Which they might, if they didn’t get a grip and settle down.
They were more than a little distracting.
“If nothing else, I got a kick out of the look on his face when you introduced yourself.”
“Like a deer caught in headlights,” Wyatt said with a nod and a grin.
Agnes Gao interrupted us as she came up the steps. That was probably for the best. I was starting to enjoy our conversation a little too much.
“Hello, Emersyn,” Agnes greeted, her gaze coming to rest on Wyatt. Clearly intrigued, she nudged her glasses higher on her nose. “Who’s your handsome friend?”
My totally-not-a-friend stood up and offered his hand. “Wyatt. Nice to meet you.”
Agnes’s eyes lit up, and a knowing smile appeared on her face. “Of Wyatt Investigations?”
“What?” I blurted out. How could she even know about the fake PI firm?
Agnes ignored me. She was laser-focused on Wyatt. “My daughter and I own a bakery. We’re thinking of getting a security system, but don’t know where to start. Do you think you could help us out?”
“Absolutely.”
I gaped up at him from my seat on the steps.
Agnes, however, beamed at him. “You can find me at Tasty Buns. Two blocks down.” She nodded to the south.
“I’ll be sure to stop by,” Wyatt said, his smile practically oozing charisma.
Still beaming, Agnes gave him a finger wave. As she passed me, she leaned down and said in a giddy whisper, “I bet he’s got some tasty buns!”
My eyes widened as she jogged up the steps with more vim and vigor than I’d ever known her to possess.
Wyatt laughed, so I knew he’d heard Agnes’s parting words. For some reason, heat rushed to my cheeks. Definitely not because I was thinking about his buns.
I shot to my feet, gripping my phone in one hand. It was time to get this guy out of my life.
I was about to thank him again and send him on his way when a woman’s scream tore through the air.
Wyatt and I spun around to look at the front door of the Mirage, which was still drifting shut.
The scream had come from inside.
By the time that thought had sunk into my brain, Wyatt was already running into the building.
I charged after him, leaving my groceries behind.
Another scream sent an arctic chill down my spine.
We ran toward it, Wyatt still ahead of me.
When he reached the open door of Freddie’s office, he stopped so abruptly that I ran into his back. He put out an arm to keep me from passing him, but I leaned over it and peered into the office.
The pungent smell of alcohol hit my nose.
I drew in a sharp breath. The alcohol fumes burned my throat, and my stomach roiled. I was in danger of losing my meager lunch.
Because Freddie Hanover, the Deco Mirage’s superintendent, lay on the floor of his office with his head resting in a pool of blood.