Chapter Nine. The Body in The Alcove
CHAPTER NINE
THE BODY IN THE ALCOVE
My clever plan for evading the problem people in the building is to spend the next few days rereading my grandmother’s collection of gothic romances indoors instead of venturing out to the pool.
Luckily this fits right in with Mrs. A’s decree that we should lie low and give Bernie a little breathing room to adjust to her new surroundings.
Grandma Lainey and I exchanged skeptical looks at the suggestion that forty-eight hours of calm would be enough to mellow out Claude’s sister, but neither of us wants to rain on Mrs. A’s parade.
I’m having a decent time in sloth mode until a fierce craving for microwave popcorn hits, and I realize Grandma Lainey doesn’t have any in the cupboard.
It only takes me a few seconds to rationalize running downstairs to the main kitchen in what are basically pajamas.
I’ll be super quick! No one else will be around!
These almost look like normal shorts! Popcorn sounds so good right now!
Powerless to resist the siren call of artificial butter, I play the odds—and lose.
The second the stairwell door closes behind me on the ground floor, I hear voices. And not just any voices, but the worst-case scenario: Bernie and Bradley, the gruesome twosome.
Luckily for me, Castle Claude is full of random hiding spots like the alcove ahead, a shadowy niche occupied by one of three fake suits of armor.
This one wears a hot-pink knitted scarf.
I slip behind Alfie (as he’s known in these parts) and squeeze my limbs to my sides.
I’m so laser-focused on figuring out whether Claude’s sister and her skeevy nephew are heading in this direction, I fail to register the flap of the kitchen door until it’s too late.
“Are you avoiding me or is this an ambush?” Felix asks, stopping in front of my hiding place. He’s holding a bag of cashews in one hand, like I caught him mid-snack.
I press a finger to my lips, glaring at him.
“For a jump scare to be effective,” he stage-whispers, “you need to actually get the jump on someone.”
“Thank you, Dr. Pedantic.” I realize he’s lured me into sarcasm and lower my voice. “I wasn’t trying to scare you.”
He drops a handful of cashews into his mouth. “What are we playing?”
I draw breath to set him straight, only to hear Claude’s sister loudly leaving herself a voice memo about changing the “hideous” paneling in the elevator. She sounds closer than before. Grabbing Felix by the elbow, I yank him into the alcove.
It turns out this space was not designed for two.
“This is cozy,” he says.
“Relax,” I hiss at him.
His brows shoot up. “Because I’m definitely the one acting strange.”
I tune him out, concentrating on what’s happening beyond this undersized architectural feature. It sounds like Bernie and Wannabe Cradle Robber have detoured to the mail room.
“Cashew?” Felix asks.
I shake my head with the smallest possible side-to-side motion. After a beat, my stomach gets the better of me. “What kind?”
He glances at the front of the bag. “Sweet Brown Butter. Pretty tasty.”
“I’m in a salty mood.”
“What else is new?” He grins like I should be amused by his wordplay. “So are we spying on her or what?”
“We aren’t doing anything.” I make a shooing motion, which he ignores.
“Probably a good idea,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken. “I don’t trust her. Have you noticed how she walks around this place like she’s getting ready to hold a yard sale?” He holds his hand in front of his face like he’s talking at his phone. “These drapes need to go. Check price on shutters.”
I frown at him. Why does Bernie think she can redecorate the common areas? And what other developments have I missed during my readathon?
“You feel it too?” he whispers, and my heart stops because his face is inches away. It takes a few seconds to process that he’s still talking about Claude’s sister. “Like if this was Among Us, she’d for sure be the impostor.”
“You still play Among Us?”
Whatever weak defense he’s about to offer will have to wait, because the door to the mail room opens again, and this time we hear Bradley monologuing about video games and the specs for some equipment he’s planning to buy, until his aunt cuts him off.
“A craft room,” she says. “That’s what I meant by hobbies.”
Felix nudges me with his arm, doing weird facial gymnastics as soon as I turn my head to look at him.
“What?” I mouth.
“Them,” he mouths back unhelpfully.
My shoulders go up in a silent And?
“Hey, have you seen that girl around?” Bradley asks his aunt.
I hold my breath.
“You mean the one who can’t be bothered to fix her hair? A handsome young man like you could do a lot better than that, Bradley.”
“Not around here.” He laughs at his own joke.
Maybe I should set up a dating profile on one of the apps: Looking for someone under 65? I’m your gal!
Felix points at me and then in the direction of the approaching footsteps. I shake my head, not getting it. Now he’s pointing at himself. What are we, commandos? I roll my eyes.
He holds up three fingers, as if this is the ideal time for charades. No, wait— He’s counting down, finger by finger. Three, two, one … I squeeze my eyes shut, convinced he’s about to pull the old “someone’s coming, let’s pretend we’re kissing” trick.
When nothing happens, I open one eye to see Felix stepping out from behind the suit of armor.
What the hell? I reach for him, but it’s too late.
Bradley and his aunt are rounding the corner.
I shrink farther back, until I can barely see Felix leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
Just a dude, chilling in an empty corridor with his bag of cashews. As one does.
He cups a hand over his ear like he’s in the secret service—or hiding the fact that he’s not wearing AirPods—and pretends to laugh at whatever his imaginary caller said.
“Yeah. No. I know.” He laughs again. “For real.”
My mouth is hanging open. I can’t help admiring the boldness.
“Hey there,” Felix greets Claude’s sister. “Nice weather we’re having, eh?”
Apparently, the character he’s chosen to play is Canadian Tourist Dad.
“The weather is the same every day,” Bradley grunts, stopping a few paces short of my hiding place. “Let’s go out,” he says to his aunt. “You can buy me lunch.”
And people say chivalry is dead!
“Have fun,” Felix calls after them, when neither bothers to say goodbye. I count to thirty before joining him.
“So,” he says.
“So,” I echo, thinking maybe he’s going to shake me down for some quick cash now that I owe him.
“That’s why I haven’t seen you around.”
It doesn’t escape me that Felix noticed my absence. Then again, as Bradley so graciously pointed out, I am the only youngish female in the vicinity. “That’s one reason.”
“Among many?” he guesses.
“I’m complex like that.” I’m not sure this is true, much less something to brag about, but talking to Felix is like table tennis. I have to hit something back across the net.
He frowns in the general direction of the lobby. “I guess he’ll keep coming around, huh? Since she’s going to be here for a while.”
“Seems that way.” Someone must have told him about the terms of Claude’s will. This place is like a funnel when it comes to gossip; you can slow the flow, but it trickles out eventually.
“Maybe we should teach him a lesson.”
I pivot to face him. “Like … manners? Or were you picturing more of a karate smackdown?”
Felix looks intrigued. “You do martial arts?”
“The sticks, mostly.”
“To use the technical term.”
I give him the slow nod I imagine an actual martial artist would do at this point, like I’m too secure in my own skills to posture.
“That should make tomorrow interesting.”
I wage an internal battle over whether to give him the satisfaction of asking or pretend I already know what he’s talking about. He can probably hear my teeth grinding when I force out a reluctant, “Why?”
“Because it’s game time, baby.” Felix grimaces. “Sorry. Can we strike that ‘baby’ from the record? I didn’t mean to sound like you-know-who. It was an all-purpose baby. Gender neutral.”
“You should probably stop there.”
“Yeah. Good call.” He glances at me, and I’m struck by the unfairness of a guy having such thick lashes.
“I was trying to say that we’re playing Killing Me Softly.
” For some reason, he frowns like that’s bad news.
Is he over it? Too cool to play murder and mayhem with a bunch of retirees (and me)?
I hope Felix isn’t going to ruin the game by going all sulky teenage cliché.
He needs to save that energy for his home life.
“What is this thing you’re doing with your face?” I circle a finger at him.
“I’m worried. What if they manage to change this place? The mean lady and Bad Penny. Because he keeps turning up,” Felix adds, mistaking my silence for confusion.
“I got that.” Of course I know the expression, because I too hang out with a lot of old people.
Nobody else our age is out there saying, “You can’t get blood from a turnip” or “Cheese it, the cops!” much less “That and a buck twenty-five will buy you a cup of coffee,” which hasn’t been true in my lifetime.
I guess that’s one thing Felix and I have in common. Two if you count wanting to keep Castle Claude exactly the way it is.