Chapter Fourteen
Chapter
Fourteen
Theo wheeled halfway onto the elevator, which was just far enough to reach the bakery box held in Wyatt’s hands. She flipped it open and took a mini cheesecake, unfazed by the closing elevator doors, which bumped the wheels of her chair before opening again.
“Thanks,” she said to Wyatt as she set the dessert on her lap. Then she backed up and inclined her head toward the hall. “Come on.”
I followed her off the elevator and waved at Wyatt as the doors closed fully, with him still on board.
“Who’s the hot guy?” Theo asked as we made our way down the hall.
“Nobody.” The word came out mumbled since I’d just taken another bite of cheesecake. Which immediately took me back to that heated moment I’d shared with said nobody on the elevator. I took another bite, hoping the explosion of cherry flavor would distract me from those thoughts.
No such luck.
Theo stopped outside my door.
“Why were you waiting for me?” I asked, holding the remains of my cheesecake in one hand and digging through my purse for my keys with the other.
“Because we’ve got a murder to solve?”
“We?” What was it with everyone thinking this was a team sport?
I opened the apartment door and let Theo zip through ahead of me since she seemed determined to invite herself in.
“The whole building is talking about how Mrs. Nagy hired you to get her husband out of jail.”
“She didn’t hire me,” I said. “She asked for a favor, and I agreed, no compensation involved.”
“Well, nobody else is going to hire us if we don’t solve our first case successfully.”
“Our case?”
Theo glanced around the apartment as if looking for something. “Where’s the murder board?”
“Um…I don’t have one.”
Theo rolled her eyes and nudged her glasses up.
“Every murder investigation needs a murder board. Have you not watched any mysteries?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
“We’ll take care of the board later. For now, let’s start with the victim.
We need to search Freddie’s apartment.” She punctuated that statement by taking a big bite out of her cheesecake.
“Oh, no,” I objected. “We’re not breaking into anyone’s apartment.”
Theo inhaled the rest of the cheesecake and licked the last bit of pink filling off her thumb before reaching into the pocket of her jeans. She pulled out a small rectangle of thick paper. “I’ll call your boss and get him to help.”
As she produced a cell phone in a purple case from a bag hanging on the back of her wheelchair, I stepped closer and got a good look at the business card in her hand.
“Where did you get that?” I asked as soon as I saw the words Wyatt Investigations written in glossy black ink. “And what do you mean by my ‘boss’? I’m the one in charge, okay?”
“Everyone says you’re working with Wyatt from Wyatt Investigations. If you’re in charge, why is his name on the card and not yours? Hey, was Wyatt the guy on the elevator?”
“Yes, but it’s not really his name on the card.”
She scrunched up her nose in a way that was utterly adorable, although I suspected she wouldn’t want me saying so. “His name’s not Wyatt?”
“Okay, it is,” I conceded, “but the agency wasn’t named for him specifically. Just…Wyatts in general.”
Fictional hot cowboy Wyatts, anyway, but I didn’t deem it necessary to share that detail.
“So he’s not working the case?” Theo asked.
“Definitely not.”
She heaved out a long-suffering sigh.
“And neither are you,” I pointed out.
She leveled a stare at me that sent ice creeping through my veins.
A jumble of words bubbled out of me. “I mean…technically…it’s…um…just me on the case.”
She didn’t let up on the stare. “Do you even have a job? Like, a real one?”
“Not at this exact moment,” I hedged.
“Would you honestly say that you have your shit together?”
“That question requires a complicated answer. You see—”
Theo was already wheeling her way to the door. “I’ll start with Freddie’s apartment. Someone’s got to keep this PI agency from going under.”
I dropped my purse on the couch and took two steps to follow Theo. Then I dashed back and grabbed my phone and keys before chasing after her.
“You know the agency isn’t real, right?” I had to jog to keep pace with her.
“It is now.”
She zoomed off down the hall, leaving me in the dust.
“I’m really not sure this is a good idea.” I hovered next to Theo, my gaze darting up and down the hallway like an erratic Ping-Pong ball.
She kept her focus on the lock she was currently trying to pick with the help of a set of slender metal tools. “No risk, no reward.”
“When the risk is five to ten in the slammer, I’m not sure any potential reward is worth it.
” I wiped a bead of sweat from my hairline.
The hallway I was keeping an eye on seemed to waver and tilt.
Was I about to faint? I clutched one of the handles on Theo’s wheelchair.
“I think I’m having heart palpitations.”
“Get a grip. We’re investigating, not carrying out a jewel heist.”
I suspected that masterminding jewel heists would be right up her alley.
I swallowed hard and reminded myself of my promise to Mrs. Nagy. That helped me to gather some courage. Or maybe it was recklessness. Either way, at least I no longer felt like I was about to pass out.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I whispered as time ticked along and Theo kept wiggling tools inside the lock.
“I spent my lunch hour watching online videos about how to pick locks.”
“Couldn’t you, like, join the library club or something?”
The withering glance she shot my way made me clamp my lips together. Although, after a few more nerve-racking seconds of expecting to get caught, the need to chatter took over again.
“Where did you get those tools, anyway?” I asked. “Isn’t it illegal to have them?”
She shrugged and kept working, leaning in closer to the lock for a better view. “I bought them at a flea market last year. I figured they’d come in handy eventually.”
“Isn’t that a bit of an odd thing for a fifteen-year-old to buy at a flea market?” How many kids even went to flea markets these days? I thought it wise to keep that second question to myself.
“I was sixteen last year,” she said with a distinctly frosty edge to her voice. “I’m seventeen now.”
I winced. “Sorry.”
“I suppose it’s hard to guess a young person’s age when you get old.”
“I’m twenty-eight!” I protested.
“Exactly.”
I planted my hands on my hips, ready to defend my status as a totally-not-old person, but she looked up at me with a self-satisfied smile and turned the knob. The door swung open.
“Never underestimate Theo Harris,” she advised before wheeling into Freddie’s apartment.