Under Suspicion

by Hannah Jayne

  Nina blew out her “I can’t eat you, but I could smack you” sigh, and I jumped back a quarter inch. She rubbed her forehead. “Did you forget about tonight already?”

  I fished in the marshmallow pinwheel bag. “Forget what?”

  “Our date!”

  I chewed, relishing the feel of oozing chocolate as it melted over my teeth. “We have a date?”

  “We have dates. Plural. Didn’t you get my message?”

  I crossed my arms and jutted out one hip. “Were you sending me telepathic messages again? I told you that doesn’t work.”

  “I wrote it down here.” Nina picked up the notepad we kept by the phone and waved it at me. “And I left a message on your cell phone and I Facebooked you. I would have sent a carrier pigeon, but I ran out of time.”

  “And you’re scared of birds.”

  “I’m not scared. I just find them winged and disgusting. Apparently”—Nina snatched the last pinwheel out of my hand—“I should have written it in chocolate and marshmallow. Get ready. Harley will be here in twenty minutes.”

  I took the notepad and read: S, We’re going out tonight. Yes, you are. Look cute, six o’clock, Neens.

  “I can’t go out tonight. I’m grieving.”

  “Over your roots or the death of elastic?” Nina snapped my pajama bottoms for effect.

  I crossed my arms, fighting off a growl, and I shook my head. “This whole Underworld violence thing. Aren’t you worried?”

  Nina bared her fangs. “Not really. Besides, nothing more you can do but clear your head. Start with a tabula rasa tomorrow.”

  I frowned. “It’s never good when you speak Latin.”

  “Come out tonight. If you stay here, you’re just going to obsess and cry and mope, and your pity quota is totally up. Clear your head and get a free dinner. Wear that black dress from Wasteland.”

  I groaned. “Why do I have to look cute for your date? I’m going to be like a third wheel. I don’t want to be a third wheel.”

  Nina brushed past me, stomping into my bedroom. “You’re not going to be a third wheel.”

  She was standing in front of my open closet, hands on hips, her fangs working her lower lip as she scrutinized my wardrobe. “Don’t you have anything that’s not from the Talbots ‘Administrative Assistant Collection’?”

  I angled myself between Nina and my offensive wardrobe. “Why?”

  “Because.”

  I fought to hold Nina’s gaze, but her eyes flitted all around me.

  “Do I have a date tonight, too?”

  Nina nodded. “And you don’t even have to thank me.”

  I smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  Nina tossed me a silky green dress that lived at the back of my closet. “Put this on and wear your hair up.”

  I paused. “Am I going out with one of Harley’s writer friends?”

  Again Nina avoided my eyes. “Not exactly. But he’s seriously in the business. I’m borrowing your chandelier earrings, okay?”

  “In the business?”

  Nina dangled the earrings. “Okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Now get dressed. We’ve got”—she checked her watch—“fifteen minutes.”

  I slid into my green dress. Well, slid with a back-and-forth combination of groaning and yanking—and used a bath towel to dab the new round of sweat under my arms. I’m neither a big fan of double dates or Spanx, so I wasn’t about to spend extra time on glossy lips or smoky eyes (which made me look like a prizefighter who lost, anyway). Instead, I did an understated wash of pressed powder, mascara, and ChapStick. When the doorbell rang, I met Nina in the living room, where she gave me an appraising once-over.

  “You’ll love Roland, I promise,” she whispered.

  “Roland?” I hissed back. “As in Harley’s agent, Roland?”

  “I know he’s not much to look at, but give him a chance. Harley says he’s really a great guy and super-loyal to Harley.”

  “Great,” I groaned, crossing my arms. “You get the hot writer and I get Old Yeller.”

  Nina pasted on a gorgeous grin and I tried to turn my scowl into something remotely welcoming when Nina opened the door.

  “You look amazing.” Harley’s voice, slow and rich, floated through the open door.

  I craned my neck to see over Nina’s shoulder and caught Roland’s eye, an unremarkable brown. He smiled at me; then dug into his pocket and pulled out his trusty, yellowed handkerchief. wiping up the beads of sweat that popped up on his balding forehead.

  Nina was going to owe me big-time for this one.

  “Roland Townsend,” he said to me, offering his surprisingly delicate hand. I took it, and he pumped my arm. “Good to meet you.”

  I was about to remind the moist little man that we had met before; but when I opened my mouth, Nina shot me the kind of narrow-eyed, eyebrows-down look that reminded me that behind her MAC Pure Pink pucker was a set of fangs.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I said.

  Harley slapped his hands together. “Shall we go? We’ve got an early reservation at Ruth’s Chris.”

  “The steak house?” I said, eyebrows up.

  Roland rubbed his bulbous belly proudly. “I pulled some strings to get us a last-minute reservation.”

  “Lovely,” I said, shooting Nina a glance that, I hope, said there would be no filet mignon shoved in my purse tonight.

  “That sounds wonderful,” Nina purred, completely avoiding my gaze.

  Harley reached out for Nina’s hand, and hers delicately slipped into his. His eyes darkened. “Oh, sweetie. Your hands are as cold as ice.”

  Nina flashed me a frantic look and I dipped back into the apartment, yanking out two coats. “Our heat has been on the fritz lately,” I said, handing Nina a coat. “The place is an ice box.”

  Harley and Nina shared nauseating sweetheart looks as he helped her slip into her coat.

  “Let me help you with that,” Roland said, taking his cue from Harley.

  “I really think I can—”

  But Roland’s girlish hands were on the neck of my coat, yanking it up to my earlobes.

  I gritted my teeth. “Thanks so much.”

  “Oh, what’s this?”

  Will was in the doorway of his apartment, door flung wide open displaying his impressive lawn furniture couture. He was shirtless, shoeless, and balancing a bowl of what looked like Cocoa Pebbles in one hand and a spoon in the other.

  Ruth’s Chris be damned—I would kill for those Cocoa Pebbles right now.

  Nina wound her arm into Harley’s and batted her big eyes as she said, “Will, you remember Harley Cavanaugh, the writer, and Roland Townsend ...”

  “Agent,” Roland said. Then he offered his hand to Will, a business card tucked expertly into his palm. Will shook tentatively, retrieving the business card with his spoon hand. He glanced at it. “And there it is right there. ‘Roland Townsend, Agent.’” Will looked up at me with a Cocoa Pebbled grin while I implored him—silently—to tell me that Roland was a fallen angel who needed immediate pummeling.

  “Well, you kids have a nice time tonight,” he said, shoving a heaping spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to avoid gaping at Will’s chiseled chest while dodging the beads of sweat Roland mopped up with his yellowing handkerchief. “We were just leaving.”

  I stomped down the hall, pausing only when I heard Roland’s raspy breath as his stumpy little legs worked to keep up.

  The drive to Ruth’s Chris was mercifully silent, or it would have been, if the gods of dating hadn’t forsaken me. As we inched through the Friday-night traffic, I had to hear about Roland’s meteoric rise to literary agent superstardom—from his humble beginnings floundering and ultimately failing out of junior college in Hollis, Queens, to the brilliant business opportunity that brought him and Harley together. Namely, the fifteen-year high-school reunion of the Hudson High Cougars.

  As the maître d’ led us to
our table, I tried to get Nina’s attention, but she was too lovestruck to pay any attention to me. She floated gracefully into the chair that Harley pulled out for her, and Roland landed with a wheezing thud in the chair the maître d’ had pulled out for me. I sat down and inched as close to Nina as I could.

  “This is a disaster,” I hissed to Nina as Roland handed the tuxedoed maître d’ a folded-up bill.

  “So, Sophie,” Roland started, his tongue darting over his bottom lip in a way that made me think of salting slugs. “What makes Sophie Lawson tick?”

  I grabbed Nina’s hand under the table and dug my nails into her palm; then I cursed myself when I remembered that vampires can’t feel pain. She took a second away from batting her eyelashes at Harley to bat her eyelashes at me.

  “Oh, Sophie likes lots of things,” Nina piped in. “Sometimes she just gets shy.” Nina dug a finger into my ribs and commanded me to “be polite.”

  I scanned the menu for any item that might come on a wooden stake.

  “I hope you’re hungry, honey bear,” Harley said with a lovesick drawl that brought bile to my throat.

  “I haven’t eaten a thing all day,” Nina said truthfully. “I called to see if you wanted to have lunch, but you didn’t answer.”

  Harley and Roland exchanged a fleeting look, which anyone not counting the minutes would have missed.

  “We were doing a round of interviews,” Roland said. He snaked his clammy hand around my arm, thumping his chair hard on the floor as he bounced it closer. “It would have been nice to meet you a little earlier.”

  “We’re ready to order,” I said to a passing waiter.

  Roland waggled his bushy brows while I untangled my arm from his. “This one seems to want to get out of here as soon as possible,” he said with an obnoxious grin.

  Oh, if you only knew.

  We had just ordered our dinner—another raw-meat extravaganza for Nina, a petite filet for me (watching my weight, remember?)—when I dragged Nina to the bathroom.

  “Are you having fun?” Nina asked, obviously oblivious to the three shades of purple I turned after a half hour of gritting my teeth.

  “So much. Like Pap smear fun.”

  Nina rolled her eyes and glanced in the mirror—her eyes steady on her lack of reflection while she glossed up her pout. “Give him a chance.”

  “I have given him a chance.”

  “Harley says that Roland just gets nervous, but once he’s over that, he’s really a great guy.”

  “I’ve given him a chance and now I’m climbing out the bathroom window.”

  I spun on my heel and Nina grabbed my wrist, her cold fingers nearly cuting off my circulation. Her eyes were wide and pleading, and her newly glossed frown was real.

  “Please, Sophie. I really, really like Harley, and I think things could go somewhere for us. I’ve never met a man who I’ve got so much in common with.”

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  “I mean, we’re both Tauruses. We both like to dance. We’re both writers.”

  “And one of you is alive, and the other one is—”

  I clamped my mouth shut as the bathroom door swung open and a centerfold blonde walked in, teetering on enormous heels and balancing an enormous chest. She glanced down at Nina’s hand on my wrist, then quickly up at the mirror. I saw the confusion register in her eyes, and Nina and I both stiffened until the blonde teetered past us and locked herself in a stall.

  “Just be nice until dinner is over, and then I’ll never ask you to do anything for me again. I swear.”

  Nina looked earnest, but the last “something” I did for her was still lurking on our living-room couch.

  “Come on. For me? For true love? I’ll even eat anyone you want.”

  “Fine.”

  Dinner passed uneventfully; and although I prayed for everyone to pass up dessert, Roland ordered a conglomeration of everything on the menu, plus a cup of tea for the “little lady.”

  It’s times like these that I wished I had taken up with Steve, the blue cheese–smelling troll.

  “That was torturous,” I said to Nina as I trudged through the apartment vestibule after our date finally ended.

  Nina didn’t answer; she just continued her love-swept twirl and her tonally challenged rendition of “Up Where We Belong.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  My blaring cell phone woke me from a deep sleep, but I managed to catch it on the second ring, mashing it to my ear and upsetting ChaCha.

  “Sophie Lawson,” I answered.

  “Lawson, I need you.” Alex’s voice was tense on the other end of the line.

  Sophie Lawson: Hot Commodity Once Again.

  A delicious chill zapped down my spine and I sat up straight, glancing at the red glowing numbers on my alarm clock. It was three o’clock and Alex needed me. My whole body went on high alert; everything jumping to attention. Maybe this night was looking up, after all.

  “Are you here? Where are you?”

  “Do you have a pen?”

  I fumbled in my desk drawer—my pen poised over the back of a plea to save the whales, or to avoid circuses or something.

  “Take down this address.”

  The little chill in my spine dropped below my belly button and worked itself into a full-on heat.

  An address? Alex didn’t have a home address, so was this ...

  “It’s a crime scene.”

  Everything dropped inside me. “Of course it is.”

  “Romero called me. He said you and he had a little meeting on the dock a few days ago.”

  “How come you haven’t answered any of my calls? Things are exploding—”

  “Look, Lawson, I don’t have much time, and I can’t be on the phone. Romero called this in and I need you to look into it.”

  I felt a lump forming in my throat, felt my eyes start to mist. “I need you.”

  “I know you can handle it. I won’t be away forever. I need you to get down to the Paradise Hotel, 101 Folsom Street.”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t have a car.”

  I could almost see Alex’s eyebrow cocking. “What happened to your car now?”

  I thought of my beat-up car, and the scrawling across the front windshield. “Nothing. I’ll just grab a cab.”

  There was a quick knock on my door. When I opened it, Will was standing there, a big goofy grin on his face. His car keys were pinched between forefinger and thumb.

  “Ready?”

  “I can’t talk now, Will. I’ve got to get to—”

  “One-oh-one Folsom.”

  I blinked. “Were you listening in on my phone call?”

  Will snorted. “Like I don’t have better things to do. Your angel boy told me I’d better help you out with this one.”

  I gaped at Will. “I can handle a lot of things, Will, but you and Alex working together?”

  Will just shrugged and ushered me toward the stairs.

  The Paradise Hotel was a little slice of 1970s Key West, smack-dab in the left ventricle of the Fillmore District. Its thumbprint-sized pool was lagoon blue and surrounded by brightly colored homages to tropical birds and potted banana trees, whose enormous leaves were fraying in the cold ocean air. In its heyday the whole building was painted a cheery yellow and each door to Paradise a pale, tranquil turquoise. Now the yellow paint had hardened into something sallow and showed its age as it warped and peeled around what remained of the turquoise door frames. Some of the numbers were missing on the doors; the once-shiny doorknobs were grubby with black fingerprints and scratches from years of abuse, neglect, and drunken lock picking.

  I saw a trio of uniformed officers staring blankly at a broken pot—its banana tree was severed on the concrete, soil scattered all around. Officer Romero turned finally and beckoned me over.

  “Officer Romero,” I said.

  “Hey, thanks for coming, Sophie. I called Alex, but—”

  I nodded. “He’s on a stakeout.”

  “Right.” Romero look
ed past me. “And you must be the private investigator?”

  Will absolutely beamed. “That I am.”

  “So what’s this all about?” I wanted to know.

  “That’s what I’m hoping you can tell me.”

  Officer Romero led Will and me to room 34, where a naked bulb flickered and buzzed outside.

  “We got a call about forty minutes ago.” He jutted his chin toward the lady with the dog. She was listening to the officer in front of her; her wrinkled lips set in a hard, thin line. “She called in. Said there was a ruckus with her new tenant. Said it sounded like someone was being murdered out here.”

  I shivered, though the early-morning air was unusually warm. “And?”

  “And that’s it. She looked out her window and saw two people struggling. Said she couldn’t be sure it was her new tenant, but from the size of her”—Officer Romero’s eyes flashed—“it looked about right. The lady called the cops, and the first car was on the scene in less than three minutes.”

  I nodded, impressed.

  “And there was nothing here.”

  “Nothing?”

  Romero nodded his head. “Not a thing.”

  “So what made you call Alex?”

  Romero dug into his pocket and produced a business card wrapped in a plastic Baggie. I examined it under the flickering light.

  “It’s yours.”

  I nodded and Officer Romero went on. “It didn’t have a phone number, so I called Alex. He said that your firm was covering this case. I didn’t know that the FBI had an underworld division out here.”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it again, dumbly, as Officer Romero prattled on. “So mobsters, huh? I thought that was, you know, purely a Jersey, Sopranos thing.”

  “Oh. Underworld. Like the mob. Yes”—I straightened—“yes, we’d appreciate it if you kept it quiet.”

  Romero nodded, impressed. “Absolutely. We’ll clear out. You do what you need to do.”

  Once Officer Romero stepped away, Will crossed his arms and grinned at me. “We’re detectives now. Underworld detectives.”

  I rolled my eyes and speed dialed Alex, willing him to answer the phone.

  “Good, Lawson, I’ve been waiting for you to call.”