Chapter Thirty
Chapter
Thirty
I’d never been so happy to come home to the Deco Mirage.
For a while there, I thought I’d be spending the night—or maybe the rest of my life—behind bars, wearing an orange jumpsuit.
So to be in my own apartment, even if it did have crumbling plaster and cracks in the walls, was as good as staying at the Ritz-Carlton.
Yet despite my relief at being home and away from Callahan’s piercing gaze, I wasn’t free of worries.
The detective hadn’t arrested me, but I had no doubt that I was on his suspect list. I wished I could, in retaliation, put his name on my suspect list, but of course that was ridiculous.
I had absolutely no foundation for suspecting him of killing Freddie. Just of barking up the wrong tree.
At least I didn’t have to put Wyatt’s name on Theo’s murder board. Just my own instead. I probably should have set up the board and decided what to do next investigation-wise now that I seemed to be in hot water right along with Mr. Nagy.
Mr. Nagy!
My brain finally made a connection that it might have identified earlier if I weren’t so frazzled and distracted by all the things going on in my life.
The cops had arrested my neighbor, so why would they look at me as a suspect?
I dashed out into the hall, knocking on the door to the next apartment. Mrs. Nagy answered, her face breaking into a smile when she saw me.
“Emersyn, dear, come in.” She ushered me into the apartment.
I was about to ask about her husband, but then I spotted him sitting in his worn and faded armchair.
“Mr. Nagy!” I exclaimed. “You’re home!”
“And it’s so good to be here,” he said with a smile.
“So the police finally realized that you’re innocent?” I asked.
His smile faded. “No. Not yet.”
“He’s out on bail,” his wife explained. “Because of his age and his health problems.”
“My bad heart is finally good for something.” Mr. Nagy tried to inject his words with humor, but fell short.
“He’s on house arrest,” Mrs. Nagy added.
Her husband tugged up one pant leg to reveal an ankle monitor.
“I had to pledge all of our savings,” she continued. “And my cousin had to help out by putting her house on the line.”
They exchanged a worried glance, and my excitement fizzled away. I sank down onto the sofa while Mrs. Nagy brought me a cup of tea. Her husband already had one, and hers sat on the coffee table, half empty.
“The detective was questioning me like I’m a suspect, so when I saw you here, I thought surely…” I trailed off, confused as to what Detective Callahan might be thinking.
“You’re a suspect?” Mrs. Nagy asked, shocked. She perched on the sofa next to me.
“An imbecile, that’s what the detective must be,” Mr. Nagy declared. “You’re such a nice young lady. You’d never harm anyone.”
I thanked him, not bothering to mention that I’d nearly clobbered a diner with a cocktail glass on my last day on the job at the restaurant.
“Maybe he has his doubts about you though,” I said to Mr. Nagy. “Otherwise, why treat me like a suspect?”
“There is some doubt,” he said.
“That’s what our lawyer tells us,” Mrs. Nagy added.
Their words gave me a double dose of relief. “I’m glad you’ve got a lawyer.”
Mr. Nagy took a sip of his tea. “A public defender. We can’t afford anything else.”
“Leona gave us the contact information for a friend of hers,” Mrs. Nagy said. “But we never called him.”
“He’s a lawyer?” I asked, wondering if I might need to retain his services.
Mrs. Nagy was only partially successful at stifling a smile. “No, but years ago he played one on television.”
That got a smile out of me too.
“Do you know why the police now have doubts about your guilt, Mr. Nagy?” I asked after sampling my tea. Creamy and sweet, just the way I liked it.
“They determined that Freddie was struck by a right-handed assailant,” he replied.
“And you’re left-handed?”
“Right-handed,” he said, causing me some confusion.
“But Zoltán’s had weakness on his right side ever since he had a stroke three years ago,” Mrs. Nagy explained. “The police are no longer so sure he had the strength to inflict Freddie’s head wound.”
“That’s good news,” I said, though that was likely why Detective Callahan was now looking at another suspect—me.
“It is, although the charges haven’t been dropped.” Mrs. Nagy patted my knee. “If you’re a suspect, you should get a lawyer.”
My stomach shriveled at the thought. I couldn’t afford a lawyer. Probably not even a fake one like Leona’s actor friend.
“Zita tells me you’re a private investigator now and working on the case,” Mr. Nagy said, saving me from responding to his wife’s advice.
“I’m not exactly a private investigator, but I am trying to figure out who really killed Freddie.”
“With the help of a very handsome young man,” Mrs. Nagy added, a twinkle in her eyes.
I busied myself with drinking my tea so I wouldn’t need to comment on that detail.
Mrs. Nagy turned the conversation to the subject of Livy, and I stayed and chatted for a few more minutes before returning to my own apartment. I’d been back for only a minute or two when someone knocked on my door.
When I opened it, my heart did a little cheerleading dance in my chest.
I stared at Wyatt, suddenly not sure what to do or say. “How did you get in the building?” I asked in an effort to prevent a potentially awkward silence from stretching between us.
“Agnes buzzed me in. I wanted to check in and see how the new security system was working at the bakery.”
My brain froze. What was I supposed to do? Or say? Did he regret our kiss? Want another one? He wasn’t giving me any hints, but he did seem to be waiting for me to speak, so I scrambled to think of something to say.
“I’ve been thinking about our…” I tried to keep a grasp on my vague train of thought, but Wyatt was so darn distracting, standing there looking absurdly good in his faded jeans and dark blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“About our kiss?” he guessed, his slow grin heating me from the inside out.
“Yes. Wait—what? No!” I desperately backpedaled. “Our investigation! Not our…”
überhot, super steamy, totally unforgettable kiss? my brain supplied.
Wyatt’s grin widened, and panic shot through me.
“Did I say that out loud?” I didn’t think I had, but my brain was crazy distracted, and the amusement with a dash of heat in his eyes had me worried.
“Whatever it was, I wish you had,” he said, “but I think I have an idea of what you were thinking, anyway.”
I really, really hoped not.
“You’re a mind reader now?” I grumbled, feeling snippy for some unknown reason. Maybe because I didn’t like the thought of being transparent to him when he was still mostly a mystery to me.
“Just observant. Especially when it comes to you.”
Some of my frostiness melted away. “What did you observe?” I couldn’t keep the question to myself, even though I sensed I was straying into dangerous territory. But it was a hot and magnetic kind of danger. Irresistible, like the man standing before me.
His eyes traveled down to my lips, and any ice left inside of me melted away, replaced by hot sparks ready to ignite into a full-fledged fire at any moment.
He met my gaze again before speaking. “I observed that you—”
“Beep beep!”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when Theo spoke from behind him. I hadn’t even noticed her arrive.
Wyatt stepped into the apartment to make room for Theo. His hand brushed mine as he moved past me, and he took hold of my fingers for a fleeting moment, giving them the gentlest of squeezes before letting them slip out of his hand.
The sweetness of the gesture took my breath away.
I wanted to send a text to Jemma saying, I’m done for! Completely done for! Help! But it didn’t seem like the time to rush off to send a message in private, and I didn’t need Theo—who’d just sailed into my apartment like she owned the place—catching on to my thoughts.
Suddenly worried I was late to meet Livy, I checked the time on my phone. School wouldn’t let out for a while yet. Relieved, I set my phone back on the kitchen counter.
“Shouldn’t you be doing schoolwork?” I asked Theo.
“It’s already done,” she replied. “Schoolwork’s a breeze.”
I wished I could have said the same when I was in school.
“It’s good you’re both here,” Theo continued. “If you’re not too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other, we can get down to business.”
“We’re not making goo-goo eyes at each other!” I shot back.
“Sure.” She drew out the word. “Where’s the murder board?”
“I’ll go get it,” I said in a rush.
I darted into my bedroom and hauled the whiteboard out from under my bed, along with the packages of magnets and pens.
“We should hang it on the wall,” Theo said when I returned to the living area.
Wyatt immediately relieved me of the cumbersome board.
“We can’t leave it out in the open,” I said. “I don’t want Livy to see it.”
“Fine. Set it on that desk then.” Theo nodded toward the small desk pushed up against one wall.
It hardly got used except for storage, since Livy usually did her homework at the kitchen table and I mostly used my laptop on the couch.
Wyatt did as Theo had directed, and I ripped open the packages and dumped the pens and magnets onto the surface of the desk.
“Maybe we should do this another time,” I said, tossing the empty packaging into the recycling bin by the door. “I’m not sure I’m up to investigating right now. It’s been a rough day.”
I gave them a condensed version of what had transpired at the police station.
“All the more reason for us to solve this murder,” Theo declared. “The police obviously don’t know what they’re doing.”
“And we need to clear Emersyn’s name,” Wyatt added, earning him a grateful smile from me.
“That too,” Theo conceded, though not, I thought, with sufficient fervor.
I sank down onto the couch. “I can’t believe the police think I might have killed Freddie. Can my life seriously get any worse?”
I really should have known better than to taunt the universe like that.