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Sue gasped when Heath hammered his knuckles against her patio door. Had she awakened a killer? She probably shouldn’t have hugged him, but what else was she supposed to do when he’d been so upset?
Had he killed his roommate?
Mike had always had a quick temper, liked to trash talk about how he would beat up anyone who acted like an idiot around him. His toxic masculinity was all talk. Except when it came to her. She’d fallen victim to his bad temper too many times. Guess that made her the idiot.
Five floors was a long way to jump or climb down without being seen, and Heath had been out of town. The police had cleared him. He didn’t represent a threat except to her darn, soft heart.
She opened the door.
“What did the article say?” he asked.
Sue took him by the wrist and tugged him to a seat at her kitchen table, poured him a glass of water and sat across from him. She relayed what little she’d learned. Surely, he knew more about the situation than she did.
“The police. They tried to wear me down. To get me to confess, but I wasn’t anywhere near Illinois at the time. I was in L.A.” He pressed his hands to the sides of his head. “They kept coming after me. I couldn’t process all the questions at the time. All I could hear were the accusations. Sometimes bits and pieces of the interrogation come back to me. What if someone killed Derek and they got away with it? They kept asking me about a girlfriend. What if he hooked up with a random woman and she killed him?”
She reminded herself the article said Derek Snyder’s death had been ruled a suicide. Unless the murder was staged. Weren’t voiceover artists actors? If he’d flown home to kill his roommate and returned to L.A. to preserve his alibi, the crime would have been premeditated. Just her luck to be attracted to men with hidden violent tendencies.
No. Her imagination was getting the best of her again. Flying back and forth between California and Illinois would be traceable. The police would have checked that. She had to stop reading murder mysteries before bed. How could Heath be violent when he told such stupid jokes?
Except she’d heard him talking to someone on his iPad.
“They ruled his death a suicide,” she said, as much for her sake as his. “They wouldn’t have done so if there was any question.”
“There had to be a question. They accused me of murder.”
“They had to eliminate any doubt.” She pushed the water closer to him, nerves jumping on her skin. “Drink this. Take a deep breath.”
He did as she asked, then set the glass on the table. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I believe you.” She spoke with conviction and realized she meant it.
“Then why did you ask me about Derek?”
“Because they questioned you, according to the article. Didn’t seem like a cut and dried case.” And the book she’d been reading had her imagining all sorts of scenarios.
Heath rose to his feet, running his hands through his hair. He stared out the patio door. “I keep wondering if I missed something. Something in the apartment that didn’t belong there. A clue Derek was unhappy enough to do something like that. Could I have done something to stop him? I was at the end of my lease. I’d bought this place.” He motioned to his side of the duplex. “I never even asked him if he had somewhere else to go. What if his death was my fault? And then I hear the police in my head. What did they see that I didn’t?” He turned to face her. “I remembered them asking me if he had a girlfriend. They had a photo of his bedroom and his sheets were all rumpled, like he’d recently gotten up, or—you know.” He squeezed his eyes closed. “When I saw him—that night—he wasn’t wearing any clothes.”
Sue drew a sharp intake of breath. Why did thinking about rumpled sheets make her want to invite Heath upstairs? She swallowed the impulse. She hadn’t been with anyone other than Mike. Ever. He’d been her first. Her one. Her only. She hadn’t thought about being with anyone else until now. Why Heath? “Did he? Have a girlfriend?”
“No. Not that I was aware of, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t hook up with someone. He had the place to himself. Best time for inviting someone over.”
Sue’s eyebrows rose. Something Heath had done, given the opportunity? An understanding between roommates?
“He was the lead singer in the band. He got a lot of attention,” he went on.
She glanced at the door. Heath had been playing guitar on the patio. “Lead singers and lead guitarists.”
He scoffed and waved a dismissive hand through the air. “We were a bar band. Who wants a drunk skank hanging on you? I sure didn’t.”
Why did that make her feel better? Make her like him a little more? “I imagine the police checked into all that,” she said.
“They asked me something else. Like who he’d rumpled the sheets with—if it was a woman or a man.”
Sue folded her arms. Of course, she’d be attracted to a gay guy. Her man barometer was way out of whack. She hadn’t jumped to any conclusions when she’d found out he’d had a roommate, but were Heath and Derek more than roommates?
Heath shook a finger at her. “You’re thinking the same thing they did, I can tell. The answer is no. I like women.”
Did he like her? Heath was younger than her. He was better looking than she was. He was in an industry where women probably pursued him. He could have any woman he wanted. She wasn’t the kind of woman a hot, younger man wanted. Not that she wanted him.
She rolled her eyes. Who was she kidding?
She didn’t know how to be with anyone but Mike. And yet, when she dared to glance at Heath again, he was watching her with that look in his eyes.
Nope. Not turning into a groupie. Not now. Not ever. No matter how tempting he might be.
~ ~ ~
“YOU SEEM TO KNOW HOW the police think,” Heath said. “What if they missed something? Or I didn’t understand everything they were asking me? What if I saw something but I didn’t know whether or not it was important? The questions they asked me didn’t make any sense, but now that I’m remembering them, I’m wondering if I missed something.” He heaved a sigh. “I don’t want what happened to Derek to happen to you.”
Sue backed away with a frightened look in her eyes. Absolutely the wrong thing to say, judging by her reaction. No one took him seriously. How could she believe he’d hurt anyone? “I mean, I don’t want you to hurt yourself. In case you were considering it.” What was wrong with him?
Heath threw his hands in the air. Before he had a chance to stop himself, a joke escaped. “Why do cows wear bells? Because their horns don’t work.”
Sue blinked. Then laughed.
Heath the dork strikes again. He hung his head. “I should go.”
She grabbed one of his arms, took a step closer, and pressed her lips to his. Gasped, then took a step back.
He’d wanted to kiss her ever since he’d found her in the grocery store, when he’d first noticed her beautiful eyes. Heath cradled her head. His turn to kiss her. She responded with a whimper before she melted into him, her tongue stroking his. He couldn’t remember being this turned on, or if he had been, it had been a long time ago. Her fingers slipped into his hair and he pulled her closer, his hands settling on her low back, pressing into her.
With another gasp, she stepped away.
Too much? Had he frightened her again? No. She’d kissed him first.
“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered.
Right. She wasn’t interested. He must have read the signals wrong, except her cheeks were flushed.
How do you misread someone kissing you?
Was she embarrassed? Changed her mind? She hadn’t enjoyed the kiss as much as he had?
“Sorry,” he said. “That is, I’m sorry if I overstepped. We can just be neighbors. Friends.” He had to fix this. “Why don’t pirates take a bath before they walk the plank? They just wash up on shore.” Of all the jokes he could have told her, now he had visions of her in his bathtub—with him.
She laughed, hard enough for tears to well in her eyes. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.” Her voice was breathless, the kind of breathless that increased his physical response to her.
“Listen,” he said, struggling to find a way not to suggest the bathtub thing. “I’d love to bounce ideas around with you about what happened to Derek. That night, in the interrogation room, I was too scared to think. The questions didn’t sink in, and now they seem to be stuck in my head. I can’t believe I wouldn’t have noticed if Derek was that depressed. The police obviously thought something else had happened.”
She blinked again. “Wow. That’s the fastest backtracking I’ve ever seen.”
“Backtracking?” Did she mean she wanted to kiss him again? He reached for her but she took a step away.
“Look. I’m not interested in being another notch in your belt,” she said.
“Notch? In my...?” Her meaning took a minute to sink in. “You think I have a string of conquests at my beck and call? On my dance card, in a manner of speaking?”
She crossed her arms, but she had a half-smile on her face. “Dance card?”
Heath laughed. “I’m a dork, remember? And I tell stupid dad jokes. The women who can get past those fatal flaws are pretty easy to read. Some of them are looking for instant gratification. The others have the mistaken idea I have a lot of money. Sure, I’ve had girlfriends before, but they don’t stick around for long once they find out I’m not who they want me to be. The jokes get old, you know? Even for me.”
Her arms dropped to her sides again. “At least you had girlfriends. Plural. I dated one man in high school and ended up married to him.” Her eyes watered and her lips trembled.
Right. The dead guy. The one she was so broken up about. Being the rebound guy wasn’t any better than being the tool women wanted for instant gratification. “Maybe now isn’t the right time to talk about this,” he said.
She bowed her head, wringing her hands. “Maybe after we’ve both had a chance to clear our heads.”
“Right.” Heath started for the door, and she grabbed his hand.
“We could go to dinner. Sort out those things you want another opinion on.”
Someplace public, where this wasn’t likely to happen again. “How about pizza? Tomorrow night?”
She hesitated. “I’m going out with friends tomorrow. How about Saturday night?”
He gave her a thumbs up and let himself out.