Mint Chip & Murder

by Erin Huss

  I clasped my hands and pleaded with God or whomever would listen to please, please let Kevin be OK. But as the fire died down and the first responders emerged empty-handed, my hope dwindled. There was no way anyone could have survived. The house was charred.

  With nothing better to do, I shouted for help. I shouted until a police officer approached to ask me if I was all right.

  I was covered in soot, my voice was hoarse, and my friend was in the house. Of course I was not all right!

  Which was exactly what I told the officer.

  "How many people were in there?" she asked.

  "Three! The McMillses and Kevin. You have to find Kevin!"

  The police officer—a woman with a bun of dark hair—spoke into the radio on her shoulder and told me to please see the paramedic.

  I'm not sure what happened next. Somehow, I ended up sitting in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask on. I should have taken Kevin to get his tacos right away. But no, I had to press, and press, and press, and press. Forcing him to care more than he did. All for what? Some stupid job? I didn't even want the job anymore!

  Chase pushed his way through the crowd with Hampton hot on his tail. "Cambria!" He wrapped me in a hug, and I buried my head in his chest.

  "Kevin," I rasped out. "Kevin was in the house."

  Chase struggled to understand, and I removed the oxygen mask.

  "Kevin was in the house," I repeated.

  Chase lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut. We stayed like that for a while, and held each other without uttering a word. I couldn't believe Kevin was gone.

  When I'd first met him, he was high and naked and skinny-dipping. He called me names, slammed doors in my face, and promised to get me fired. Slowly, our relationship shifted. He'd come over for breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and dessert, and midnight snacks. We'd stay up late watching If Only, our favorite crime show. We'd become friends. Best friends, even.

  Then there was Vegas…oh, Vegas.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Balances family relations

  I was transported to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with a sprained wrist and smoke inhalation, a diagnosis I could have given myself, considering it hurt to breathe and my wrist felt like it was about to fall off. It would have saved me the thousand-dollar hospital bill.

  Chase rode with me. He dared not utter a word. I knew he wasn't happy that I'd—yet again—inserted myself into a dangerous situation. I also knew he wasn't going to say anything, not now, not with Kevin…

  I lay there in a hospital bed with the oxygen mask strapped over my mouth and nose. It was a busy night in the ER. I could hear the labored breathing of the patient on the other side of the curtain that was pulled around my bed, the whispering of the nurses, the tapping of someone's long nails on their phone screen, and a symphony of coughing. Chase sat at the foot of the bed, silently studying his hands. I stared down at the ACE bandage wrapped around my wrist and moved my fingers, welcoming the pain that took my mind off Kevin for even a second.

  The curtain flung open. It was Hampton with his hair on and pants hiked. He nodded to Chase, and Chase nodded back then rose to his feet and stepped into the hallway. I put my head back on the pillow and stared up at the tiled ceiling. Counting the little specs to keep my mind from circling around what had just transpired.

  Chase touched my shoulder. "He's alive," he said.

  He's alive!

  I would have leapt from the bed if it weren't for the oxygen mask keeping me tethered.

  "His mother pushed him out the window before the house went up," Chase said. "He's banged up, but he's going to be OK."

  I had serious doubt that Kevin would be OK. Physically, maybe. Not emotionally. Not after all that had been revealed.

  How could he be? There was no way.

  * * *

  OK, maybe I was wrong.

  Once I was released, I went to Kevin, who was four beds down, right next to the ambulance entrance. His left arm hung in a sling, and there was a gauze bandage covering a burn on his shoulder. He had the goofiest grin on his face. I knew it wasn't the drugs. He'd told the nurse he was a recovering addict, and all they gave him was high doses of Motrin.

  "I brought you tacos," I said and closed the curtain behind me. I'd had Chase run to Jack in the Box before I was released. "Two tacos and curly fries."

  "Where's the shake?" His voice sounded as if he'd swallowed sandpaper.

  "I forgot the shake. I'm sorry."

  "Come on, Clyne. You had one job." He tried to sit up, and I stopped him.

  "Rest."

  "When do I get out of here?"

  "The nurse said an hour or two. They're pretty busy. Your injuries aren't too bad, considering."

  "Considering I fell from a burning building."

  I took a seat on the foot of his bed. "I'm so sorry about your parents."

  "I'm not. They were terrible, awful, dreadful, appalling people who died in a terrible fire in a terrible house, and they'll live terribly ever after."

  "At least you have answers, right?"

  "And tacos."

  "And tacos."

  "And Barbara Streisand." His mouth curved into a weak smile. "It's my one stereotypical gay man obsession."

  "I can't believe you ran into a burning building to save the records."

  "They're first editions. I'd been contemplating breaking into the house to grab them for years, but I didn't want to risk dealing with my parents," he said. "I finally got them back. Do you know how much money I could get for them? Should cover rent for a few months."

  I couldn't help but laugh. "I'm glad you're not dead."

  "Yeah, me too…ugh." He scowled.

  "What's wrong? Do you need more medicine?"

  "No, I'm just thinking about what Trevor will say when he finds out." He shoved his finger down his throat. "He is the most annoying human on the planet."

  Right. That. I wondered how Trevor would take the news. Not well, I suspected.

  * * *

  So I was wrong again.

  An hour later, Trevor arrived. I could smell him walking down the hall. He had a sage-lavender aroma. "Cousin!" He flung open the curtain.

  Kevin tried to escape from the bed, but the IVs in his arm kept him from moving.

  "And my favorite manager." Trevor kissed me on each cheek. "Come. Come." He pulled me closer to Kevin and placed his thumbs on our foreheads.

  Kevin and I exchanged a look, unsure of what was happening. Trevor's eyes were closed, and he appeared to be concentrating really hard.

  "There," he finally said. "I have healed you."

  I didn't feel any better. If anything, I felt worse. Probably because Kevin could not have looked more miserable, and I could tell Trevor had been crying. How could he not? He'd found out that his aunt was a murderer, his uncle a playboy, and they both died in a big house fire his aunt had started. It was like an episode of If Only.

  Except…if this were If Only, Mr. and Mrs. McMills would have miraculously emerged from the flames in a dramatic slow-motion shot and made amends with Kevin.

  "I have spoken to the police," Trevor said. "They've filled me in on everything, and it all makes perfect sense. I knew there was a disturbance at the Burbank building. Now I know why I felt it so strongly." I was surprised how well Trevor was taking all this in. A little too well. I leaned in closer and took a whiff.

  Well, that explained it. He was high as a kite. I could smell the pot on his breath. Not that I blamed him. There were worse coping mechanisms out there.

  Speaking of which, I could have really gone for a gallon of ice cream and a seventy-two-hour nap.

  Of course, the death of the McMillses made Trevor a multimillionaire. Not that money was everything. But nine figures in the bank could help soften the blow.

  Trevor had Kevin's hand. "I'd always considered you ungrateful, neurotic, impulsive, crude—a black sheep with a negative aura—until I attended my energy workshop. After a seventy-two-hour fa
st, it came to me in a vision. You and I have to make amends."

  "Oh, hell," Kevin mumbled under his breath.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Can make good decisions in high-pressure situations

  Kevin was released from the hospital around sunrise. Trevor wanted to bring him back to his house, but Kevin said he'd rather "Die. Decease. Depart. Expire. Perish. Drink my own urine." So Chase and I brought him to my apartment.

  Amy was up and sober and in the kitchen dropping two Alka-Seltzer into a cup of water when we walked in. She still had on last night's clothes, and makeup, and her hair resembled mine.

  "Where have you been…" Amy's voice trailed off when she looked up. "Sheesh, what happened to you?"

  "Rough night." Kevin walked past her and rummaged through the fridge until he found the last of the leftover pizza.

  "Seriously, Kevin." Amy covered her nose. "You smell terrible, and why is your arm in a sling?"

  "Cambria beat me," he said while attempting to remove a slice of pepperoni from the Ziploc with only one hand.

  "No, I did not." I came around the counter and helped him with the pizza. Between the two of us, we had a pair of working hands. "How many slices?"

  "Three."

  "How are you even hungry?"

  "Are you seriously questioning me about my stress-eating choices?"

  True. I went ahead and warmed up four slices. Three for him. One for me.

  "Can someone please tell me what is going on!" Amy winced at her own voice and sipped her Alka-Seltzer. "You two smell awful and look like crap. And what happened to the elephant? I woke up to find it ripped apart in the living room."

  Chase walked into the kitchen and dropped my purse on the counter. "I can't believe you paid fifty bucks for that thing."

  "Yes. I thought it was cute." Amy shuffled to the living room and slowly lowered herself onto the couch, tucking her leg under her bony little butt. "I feel like I missed something here."

  I sat at the kitchen table with my pizza. I did not feel like recounting the night's events to Amy, but I knew I had to. I sucked in a breath, ready to tell the long tale. "We thought the woman in the—"

  Kevin cut me off. "My dad had an affair with some woman named Lola Marissa something. They had a kid. It's me. My parents paid her to disappear. Lola Marissa Something came back. My mom killed her, shoved her into a barrel. When she found out that I knew, she burned the house down. The end."

  I guess it wasn't as long of a tale as I thought.

  Except, "The woman's name was Larissa Lopez."

  "Tomayto. Tomahto."

  "It's really not."

  "Nothing has been confirmed," Chase said from the kitchen, helping himself to the last pizza slice.

  "You don't think it was Zola?" Kevin asked.

  "Honestly," I grunted. "It's Lola—I mean, Larissa."

  "It's Jane Doe," Chase corrected. "We have not confirmed anyone's identify yet."

  Amy joined us at the kitchen table. "Wouldn't that be funny if it were someone totally different?"

  "No!" Kevin, Chase, and I all said in unison.

  "Fine then." Amy sipped her drink.

  Chase sat across from me at the table, shaking his head. "I still can't believe you confronted the McMillses."

  "It was his idea." I pointed to Kevin. "I only came to make sure he didn't do anything illegal. I never thought they'd burn the house down and Kevin would run in to save Barbara Streisand."

  Amy almost spit out her drink. "Barbara Streisand was there?"

  "Hell, no," Kevin said. "Babs is too good for the McMillses."

  Amy sighed. "That is so true."

  I stared down at my pizza, regretting my decision to consume greasy carbs before seven a.m. Ugh. "Where did you and Hampton go after you left my apartment?" I asked Chase.

  "We made contact with Maria. She confirmed that Larissa had been having an affair with a married man. Larissa wouldn't tell Maria the name of the man, but she had her suspicions."

  "That doesn't make sense," Kevin said. "We talked to Maria, and Cambria told her there was a dead chick in a barrel. Why didn't she mention her missing friend, Larissa?"

  "It's Lar—" I started to correct then realized he'd said it right.

  "Maria thought that Larissa got pregnant and took off," Chase said. "She didn't tell Larissa's aunt because she didn't want to bring shame to her family. Not sure how allowing her aunt to think that her niece had been kidnapped was any better. But this was a different era. Still, we don't know anything for sure. Not until it's been confirmed."

  "How long will it take to confirm?" I asked.

  Chase shrugged. I wasn't sure if he shrugged because he didn't know or because he didn't want to answer. He'd already given us more details than he probably should have.

  "And we did get ahold of Patrick," Chase said. "He came down to the station with his lawyer. He did confirm that a woman named Larissa had come by looking for Sherman. She'd asked Patrick if he could contact the McMillses for her. Patrick called Dolores McMills, and she told Patrick to make Larissa go away. Patrick told Larissa to leave. Then Larissa launched into a story about how she'd gotten pregnant with Ernest's kid, Dolores found out, and paid her to disappear. Larissa was young and naïve, took the money, moved to Texas, got her act together, and returned when the child was eighteen. Patrick sent her away. Then, when Cambria found the woman in the barrel—"

  "Fox found him," I interjected.

  "When Fox found a woman in the barrel and she matched the description of Larissa, Patrick got nervous. He put two and two together, and worried he'd be a prime suspect since Dolores had specifically asked him to get rid of Larissa. Which is why he'd been reluctant to talk to us. His lawyer was out of town, and he returned late last night."

  "Ha! He had nothing to do with her death," I said, sounding a little smug. I'd known Patrick's hands were clean. I mean…I'd basically known. Mostly. I may have had my doubts. Which was perfectly reasonable, given how strange he'd been acting since we found the barrel. Now I knew why. Except…

  Ugh.

  I'd forgotten about the whole job debacle.

  "Hampton was in the interview when I received word that your car was at the McMills's house," Chase said.

  "You tracked my car?" I asked.

  "No, I should from now on. But we had the McMills's house under surveillance."

  Oh. Made sense.

  "Enough of all that." Amy brushed her hair over her shoulder. "Now that the murder nonsense is all taken care of, let's get back to the important stuff. I want proposal details."

  Chase choked on his pizza. "You told…told…her?" He pounded on his chest with his fist to help the chunk of dough work its way down his esophagus.

  "Of course she told me. She tells me everything," Amy said. "Also, I found the ring in her bag."

  "Which one?" Kevin asked, and I kicked him under the table.

  "Ouch! What did you do that for? I'm already banged up enough…oh." His face lit up with realization. "I mean which…suitcase…did…you…oh, hell. I'm too tired to think."

  Amy turned to Chase. "Did you give her two rings? I personally love the one-carat, white gold, vintage, halo-style, channel-set, round diamond."

  Chase scrunched his brows together. "Two?"

  I was up on my feet taking my plate to the sink. Also, it seemed a good time to reorganize my condiment drawer. I had about fifty packs of Taco Bell sauces stashed in there.

  "Are you talking about the ring Tom gave her?" Chase asked Amy.

  Amy slapped a hand over her mouth then winced in pain and took a sip of her Alka-Seltzer. "Tom proposed, too."

  "You didn't tell her?" Chase asked me.

  "You told Chase?" Kevin asked me.

  "Why didn't you tell me Tom proposed?" Amy asked me.

  That was just a whole lot of questions for someone who was on mild painkillers with a sprained wrist, smoke in her lungs, and Taco Bell sauces to organize.

  Kevin raised his uninjured hand. "Uh,
I thought we were keeping Tom's proposal a secret from Chase?"

  "Why would she keep that a secret from me?" Chase asked.

  "Because we don't tell you everything about Tom, obviously."

  Oh, hell. If looks could kill, Kevin would have been facedown in his pizza. Honestly!

  "What is he talking about?" Chase asked me.

  "Nothing. I told you about the proposal, and I told you about the kiss in the bathroom on my birthday."

  Amy gasped. "Why did you tell him about the kiss?"

  Chase moved his hands around helplessly, as if he were juggling imaginary balls. "We're dating. Of course she told me. Why do you want her to lie to me?"

  "It's not a lie," Amy said. "It's an omission."

  "I'm super confused as to what we're talking about," Kevin said, staring up at the ceiling. "I think I have a secondary high from Trevor."

  That makes two of us.

  Kevin snorted. "You know what would make this situation super awkward?"

  "What?" Amy asked.

  "If Tom and Lilly were to show up." Kevin pointed to the window.

  Oh, no. I dropped my Taco Bell sauces on the floor and checked to see if Kevin was being hypothetical. Sure enough, there was Tom, strolling down the walkway in a gray fitted suit, white collared shirt, and black tie, hand-in-hand with Lilly, who was wearing an Iron Man costume. She was holding Munch's leash. Munch was Tom's dog. He was a scruffy little mutt who was as wide as he was long, and Tom treated him as if he were his second child. He currently had on a red harness, a UCLA bandana, and…shoes?

  Kevin clapped. "This should be fun."

  "Loads." Chase swigged the rest of Amy's Alka-Seltzer.

  There was a knock on the door, and everyone stood up simultaneously, as if they'd been rehearsing their timing. I grabbed Kevin by the arm and yanked him into the kitchen. "Chase doesn't know about Vegas yet," I muttered.