Roxy and Sarina walked through the front door of M&J Investigations and the normal buzz of the room disappeared. Roxy was having that effect lately.
Sarina stopped at the edge of her desk and whispered to Roxy, “Why is everyone looking at me?”
“I don’t think they’re looking at you. I think they’re looking at the prime suspect in a murder investigation.” Roxy felt the word prime all the way to the bottom of her gut.
“You’re not the prime suspect.”
True. Like anyone cared.
“Roxy, can you come here for a minute?” One of the owners stood outside his office. He was the J in M&J Investigations. As long as you weren’t married to John Sherwood, he was great. His fourth wife was currently in negotiations to separate their record collection, and he was on the hunt for the next ex-Mrs. Sherwood.
The M left after he’d been caught with his hand in multiple cookie jars. He’d decided to fix things with his wife, which included moving near her family in Utah. John still didn’t have the heart to change the name—even after he brought on additional owners. It probably didn’t hurt that they had brand recognition and billboards all over the city.
“Sure.” She slunk past the gawking staff. Somehow there were more people here then yesterday. She hoped that was a coincidence. She closed his office door and sat in the chair across from his desk.
Maybe if she pretended this was normal, it would be normal. Not that she’d never been called into John’s office before, but this time felt different.
“Are you okay?” John looked concerned. Not mad. Not terminating-like. Good start. His dark skin glowed under the fluorescents. His brown eyes were assessing. They were always assessing. He was a brilliant man who saw everything. Probably why he became a PI and built an empire.
“Yeah. I guess you heard about what happened last night. I tried to serve Mr. Dunne his subpoena, but I got there too late.”
“I’m concerned as to why you were serving this subpoena. You’re on probation. I gave that to Skip.” Yeah, Skip was a PI who did skip tracing. Unfortunate.
“Skip took Melody to the Knights game in San Jose for their anniversary. I was just helping out. It’s not a problem for the firm, is it?”
John sighed. “Don’t worry about that. Let’s talk about you. How you’re doing. The whole ordeal must have been scary.”
Scary—not really. Just disturbing. Not that she’d tell anyone that. It was bad enough she became a blubbering mess in front of Rafe. Okay, she didn’t blubber, but she’d held on to him like a koala. “It was a long night, but I’m fine.”
“It’s okay if you want to talk, with the murder and then being the primary suspect.”
Primary. There was that word again. “I didn’t do anything. I swear.”
“Oh, we know.” John steepled his hands in front of him. “It must be so hard for you with all this going on. You should take some time and relax. I see you have vacation time available.”
“I do, but I think getting back to work would help keep my mind off things.”
“I’m sorry. The paper mentioned your name. It’s only a matter of time before they mention where you work. Our clients trust us. We need to maintain that trust.” He actually looked upset as he said the words. Didn’t change the awfulness of the message. “So, while the police investigate, we want you to take some time off.”
Time off. “Like paid time off?” Sitting around watching soap operas and eating bonbons sounded pretty good, if she was still getting paid.
His wince told her “paid” wasn’t in her future. Which meant food and shelter were on the fence, too. “You have some vacation you can use.”
“I only have six days left.”
“I’m sure they’ll figure out who did it before then.” He attempted a smile, but it fell flat. “We’re putting you on a leave of absence.”
Leave of absence. She’d read somewhere that forty percent of cases never got solved. She wasn’t getting fired, but it was pretty darn close. It didn’t matter how she wasn’t getting paid. All that mattered was she wouldn’t have the money to pay her rent.
“Is there anything I can do to change your mind? I can keep a low profile. Work skip-tracing.” The thought of sitting behind a desk gave her hives. She actually scratched at the back of her neck, but it didn’t seem to reach the itch.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have any open positions at the desks. I’m sure they’ll figure out it wasn’t you, and you can come back to work.” He stood up.
“All I need to do is prove it wasn’t me?”
“All the police need to do is prove it wasn’t you.” He shook his head, and his eyebrows drew together. Pity was written in the curl of his lips, or that could just be her interpretation. “This is a murder investigation. Let the police handle it.”
“Sure.” She was totally lying. She didn’t know if he knew or not, but she didn’t care. She had one week to prove her innocence. One week to put all this behind her before she had to rethink her career choices.
“Please come to us if you need any help.” If he meant help with the investigation or paying her rent, she had no idea.
Either way, she had a feeling he was totally lying, too. She was on her own.