“Most women think it’s hot that I can pick a lock.”
“You mean most of the ditzy bimbos you date think it’s hot.”
“The woman you saw me with at Vibe is an accountant.”
Snickering, I say, “Riiiight. She didn’t look to me like she could add two and two together. Did you test her?”
“No, that would have been rude.” I hear a click, and Blake effortlessly slides the door open.
My mouth gapes open. “I stand corrected. You do know how to pick a lock.”
Blake is so excited he’s rubbing his hands together in anticipation. We enter Brad’s dark apartment, and Blake carefully closes the shades to the sliding door. He flips one of the light switches.
“Turn that off! Someone will see it,” I whisper loudly.
“I think two flashlight beams bouncing around in here would be more noticeable, don’t you? And more importantly, I forgot the flashlights. Where do you want to start?”
I glance around the room. “I don’t know—you’re the man with the plan. What are we even going to find in here?”
“Oh, probably nothing,” he shrugs.
I wheel around to stare at him. “Wait, what? Then why are we here?”
Blake grins. “I wanted to see the crime scene, and I thought I could test out my new skills.”
“What?” I explode.
“Shh! Keep your voice down.”
“You brought me here so you could satisfy your morbid curiosity and practice picking locks?” I hiss. “This is about to become the crime scene of a double murder, because I’m going to kill you.” I slap him on the arm in disgust.
Blake smirks at me. “Oh, get over it. You’re here, so you might as well have a look around.”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for. I really thought you’d be more helpful,” I wail.
He explains patiently, “You knew Brad, and you’ve been here before. Look for things that are out of place. Look for things that are missing. Look for things that don’t belong here.”
I close my eyes for a moment and try to recollect what Brad’s apartment looked like the last time I was here. I remember Lee drooling over Brad’s electronics. I remember Julia being disgusted at all of the pictures he had displayed of himself and a bunch of random girls. I remember going through his desk and finding his work badge and key ring. I also remember it smelling like nasty men’s cologne, but today it’s got a slightly different stench, which probably has to do with the fact that there was a dead body here for a while. I really don’t like the smell of death.
“Hart, what are you doing?” I nearly jump out of my skin as I hear Blake’s voice in my ear.
“Did I not tell you to knock off the startling me?” I complain.
He grins at me. “Get to snooping, Nancy Drew. We don’t have all night.” He hasn’t called me Nancy Drew in a long, long time. Hearing it again makes my heart ache.
I take a look at Brad’s desk, which is mostly like it was before. Not too cluttered, just housing normal desk stuff, and his Best Buy ID and keys are right on top. I wander over to his living area, and his electronics are as impressive as ever. Nothing of note here, except I think he may have added yet another gaming system. The boy loved his toys. Lastly, I peruse Brad’s impressive photo collection. He has dozens of framed photos of himself, each with a different girl. There’s one of him snowboarding with a blonde, one of him at a concert with a rocker chick, one of him on a Ferris wheel with a girl who frankly looks underage, one of him dressed in a suit and having drinks with a beautiful brunette, and on and on and on. Oh, wow. There’s even one of him with Melinda. I guess someone likes to keep trophies of his conquests. I glance around his kitchen, coming up empty-handed there, too.
Defeated, I turn to tell Blake that I found nothing, but he’s nowhere to be found. He’d better not have left me here. Quietly, I call, “Blake. Blake!”
He pops his head out of Brad’s bedroom. “What? Find anything interesting?”
“What are you doing in…that room?” I ask, appalled. That would be the room where Brad died. I do not want to go in there.
“Just looking around. The cops dusted for prints everywhere in here. They obviously don’t think it’s a straight overdose. Come on in and look.”
“No, I’m good.”
He comes out the door and takes my arm. I try to wrench it free, but he responds by grabbing me around my waist instead and steering me toward the bedroom door. “Quit being such a baby.”
“I’m not being a baby. I just don’t want another gruesome image to add to my dream repertoire.” I’ve seen some bad shit, and my dreams can get a little twisted and scary. I certainly don’t need to add to them by seeing where Brad died.
He stops and looks down at me with concern on his face. “Are you still having nightmares?”
I look away, embarrassed that I must seem so weak. “Yes. Sometimes.” I started my crazy nightmares when I was recovering from being nearly killed by Sarah, and after Sanchez tried to do me in, the dreams intensified. It’s not uncommon for me to wake up screaming, begging for my life. They’ve become less frequent lately, but they’re not gone completely.
Giving me a little squeeze, he says gently, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Suddenly, we hear a rattling sound at the front door of the apartment. Panic seizes me, and I freeze.
Blake whispers, “Someone’s coming. Get in the closet.”
He pushes me into the bedroom (yuck) and into the closet, comes in after me, and shuts the door quietly. No, no, no, no, NO! We are so getting caught! My heart is pounding, and I feel the beginnings of a panic attack. Brad’s closet is ridiculously small, so I’m smushed up against Blake, which in and of itself isn’t horrible, but I’m also surrounded by Brad’s clothes, all of which reek of his nasty man-perfume. If I make it through the next few minutes without vomiting or passing out, I’ll consider it a personal achievement.
We hear footsteps coming closer, and I must be making some kind of noise, because Blake looks down at me exasperatedly and presses a finger against my lips. I raise my eyebrows, my eyes wide, trying to convey my terror, which I’m assuming he understands, because he carefully puts his arms around me and holds me tightly against him.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I bury my head in his chest and try to will whoever’s out there to go the hell away. As the footsteps get even louder, I realize that the person isn’t going the hell away, but coming in the bedroom instead. A fresh wave of panic hits me, and I tense up, causing Blake to gently stroke my back. It’s really an eerie feeling to be both terrified and lustful at the same time.
The person is definitely in the bedroom now, and seems to be walking around the room. We just can’t get caught. Seriously awful things would happen if we were caught. My mind runs through a list of people it could possibly be, and every scenario is a bad one. If it’s the cops, we’re arrested. If it’s Brody specifically, we’re arrested and my relationship with him is over. I’m not sure which one would make him angrier—me breaking into his crime scene or me wrapped up in an embrace with Blake. Either way, it would suck. If it’s the murderer, however, we may just end up dead. I can’t begin to decide which scenario would be worst.
The footsteps seem to be retreating from the bedroom, so I relax slightly. Blake loosens his grip and smiles down at me, putting a finger to his lips to let me know we still need to be quiet. Neither of us moves a muscle for the next few minutes. Finally we hear the wonderful sound of the front door opening and closing, and then silence. Blake holds up his hand for us to wait a little longer, I’m assuming to make certain that whoever was here is definitely gone. Or maybe it’s so he can hold me a little longer, which oddly doesn’t bother me a bit.
My heart rate is slowly approaching a normal range now, and I no longer have the urge to vomit everywhere. Blake whispers, “I think we’re good to go,” and opens the closet door a crack, looking out into the bedroom.
Seeing no one, he swings the door o
pen and leads me out into Brad’s bedroom. I’m so happy to be out of the closet and out of danger that I don’t mind standing in the middle of the crime scene one bit. Bracing my hands against my knees, I bend down and take some long, deep breaths.
Blake pats me on the back and jokes, “You gonna make it, Hart? I thought you were going to stroke out on me in there.”
I have no energy for a comeback. “Me, too.”
“I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night. Let’s get you home.” He’s being a total condescending asshole, but as long as he’s taking me home, I’m not going to complain. “You stay here. I’ll go grab my ladder, and we can go out the front door.”
“Seriously? We’re right on the square. What if someone sees us?” I argue.
“It’s after ten on a weeknight in Liberty. Everyone’s asleep already.”
He has a point. Plus, I really don’t want to have to try to climb back down that ladder. My legs are still a little jelly-ish from being scared and cramped up in the closet with Blake.
I take one more look around Brad’s apartment while I’m waiting. It doesn’t seem like the person who came in a few minutes ago messed with anything in here. Everything is still in its place. Except…I take a step toward the table that housed some of Brad’s conquest photos and find one missing. I distinctly remember seeing a picture of Brad and a young girl riding a Ferris wheel. It revolted me because she looked like complete jailbait. Now, however, it’s gone. I quickly search the apartment for the picture.
Reappearing with his ladder, Blake asks, “Did you lose something?”
“Yeah. One of the photos that was here before the other person came in is now gone. I can’t find it anywhere.”
He furrows his brow. “Which picture was it?”
“It was Brad and a possibly underage girl cuddled up together on a Ferris wheel. It was here, and now it’s not. Do you think whoever came in may have taken it?”
“I’d say the odds are pretty good. I wonder why they’d take that particular photo. Did you recognize the girl?”
“No. I don’t know any of the girls in these photos except Melinda.”
“Is there another photo of this girl?”
“I’ve looked at all of them, and no girl has shown up twice. I guess it’s a dead end.”
Blake thinks for a moment. “We can ask his friend Shane tomorrow if he’s ever been out with some jailbait.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Who’s we? I have to work all day tomorrow. I’ll be at the funeral home until nine.”
“Don’t you get a lunch?”
“Yeah, but aren’t we going to go snoop at Lydia’s office then?”
“Can’t you take an extended lunch?”
“It took Brody bad-copping Sloane to keep me from getting into trouble for today’s extended lunch. Two days in a row would probably get me a hundred push-ups as punishment.” I’ve never seen Sloane actually do that, but I wouldn’t put it past him.
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell him we’re working on a story together. I’m the golden boy. I do what I want.”
I roll my eyes. “Can we get out of here, golden boy? What I want is some sleep.”
Chuckling, Blake heads for the front door. He listens for a moment before he opens it and peeks out into the hallway. He opens the door wide for me, flips the handle lock, and closes the door behind us.
“What about the deadbolt?” I ask.
“Details,” he shrugs.
As we’re walking down the stairs, a thought hits me. “Hey, whoever came in had to have had a key, right?”
“That, or be a good lock-picker, like me.” I swear he puffed his chest out a little as he said that.
“Oh. Well, that doesn’t narrow down who it could have been as much as I’d hoped.”
When we get to the bottom of the stairs, Blake opens the door and again looks outside to see if the coast is clear. We scurry out the door, down the sidewalk, into the Chronicle parking lot, and into Blake’s car. Once inside, both of us exhale sharply at the same time. Looking at each other, we burst out laughing.
I shake my finger at him. “You were worried we’d get caught, too! Don’t you dare try to deny it.”
“Yes, I was worried, but only that you’d have a heart attack, and I’d have to give you mouth-to-mouth. That would have been scary,” he teases.
I make a face at him. “Whatever. And I don’t think you have to do mouth-to-mouth anymore—just the chest compression. They changed it.”
His expression changes, and his gaze zeroes in on my lips. “Well, then I would have had my lips on you for no good reason.”
Trying to make light of a potentially dangerous situation, I laugh, “You always had your lips on me for no good reason.”
He’s leaning toward me, his eyes sparkling and his voice low. “Is that so? I don’t remember you having a problem with it before.”
My heart racing, I find that I’m leaning in as well, like there’s some sort of invisible magnet between us. He brushes a lock of hair back from my face, his light touch causing my breath to catch. When he hears my little gasp, a sweet smile overtakes his handsome face. His smile makes my entire body ache. Just as our lips barely brush, I jolt out of my trance and quickly turn my head.
Pulling back from him, I wave my hand and joke, “I’ve got so many problems…I’ve lost count.” I try to smile, but fear he can clearly see my inner struggle. Clearing my throat, I go on shakily, “And if you don’t get me home soon so I can sleep, getting to work on time tomorrow is going to be one of them.”
Backing off, he nods uncertainly and says, “Yeah…it’s getting late.” Before he looks away from me, I notice an unmistakable sadness in his eyes.
We barely speak to each other on the ride home. Our relationship was strained before, but now it’s downright uncomfortable. Whatever it is that the two of us have going is beyond confusing. Blake drops me at home, and I drag myself inside. I fall into bed, not even bothering to change out of my clothes. I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When I walk into the office the next morning, Bethany spies me and heads straight for me. I stand my ground, steeling myself for our daily altercation. She keeps coming at me, way too far into my personal space. Just when I think she’s going to attack, she throws her gangly arms around me and forces me into a bear hug. Gross. It’s like hugging a bag of bones.
As confused as I am repulsed, I choke out, “Good morning to you, too, Bethany.”
Finally letting me go, she squeals, “I have a date tonight with Todd, and it’s all thanks to you!”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I reply uneasily. If this date between Bethany and Douchebag Todd goes badly (which, duh, it undoubtedly will, knowing the players involved), she’ll probably be blaming me for it tomorrow as enthusiastically as she’s thanking me right now. Trying to cover my butt, I add, “You guys might not hit it off.”
“Are you kidding? Every date I’ve ever had has absolutely adored me.” Mmm-hmm. Right.
“Well, then. I hope you guys have a wonderful time.” I quickly excuse myself and run away before I have to talk or think any more about Bethany and Todd dating each other. Blech.
I drop my stuff off at my desk and make a beeline for the coffee. I did not sleep well last night after my evening of law breaking with Blake. I kept dreaming that Brody caught us at Brad’s apartment and arrested me, then told me he never wanted to see me again. It was terrifyingly real. I pour myself a big, steaming cup of coffee and add several spoons of vanilla-flavored creamer. I think it’s going to be the kind of day where my diet goes out the window in favor of comfort food.
As I’m turning to leave the break room, Blake walks in. “Hi,” he says uncomfortably.
I’m too tired to be all angsty, so I get right to the point. “Please don’t let this get weird again.”
He frowns. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things awkward.”
“It’s fine. Real
ly. Let’s just forget the whole thing. We have work to do today, and we need to be focused or it could end in disaster.”
“You’re right.”
“Duh. Like always.” I smile up at him.
Seeming more back to his old self now, he asks, “Are you and Simmons going to try to get appointments today with your evil chiropractor?”
“I haven’t asked Julia yet. I needed my coffee first. Someone kept me out late last night,” I tease on my way out the door.
I walk over and lean against Julia’s desk. “What’s up, mama?”
She cringes. “Sciatica is what’s up.”
“What’s that?”
“Butt pain,” she laments.
“You have pain? That’s fantastic!” Now she won’t even have to lie at the chiropractor.
Julia glares at me. “What? It’s horrible! You should feel sorry for me.”
I smile at her sympathetically. “I do feel sorry for you. And I also know someone who can help you.”
“Who?”
“My chiropractor. The lovely Dr. Lydia Thomas. You should make an appointment with her today.”
“Are you crazy? Don’t you think she’s a murderer?”
A few of our co-workers turn their attention toward us at the mention of the word “murderer”. I wait for a moment before I respond, whispering, “I do, but we need to get some information out of her office. We thought you’d be a good candidate for the position of decoy.”
“Who’s we? I can’t imagine Brody is on board with this.”
“Not Brody. Blake.”
“Oh, Lizzie…” she groans. “I don’t think I can handle you and Blake getting back together. What about Brody? You’re going to break his heart.”
“Would you relax? Blake and I are not getting back together. We are, however, actually on speaking terms again, and as a result we got to talking about Lydia and all the stuff about her that doesn’t add up. He’s as interested as I am in finding out if she’s behind all of the mysterious deaths lately, possibly including Brad’s.”
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