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When Sue walked outside Sunday morning, Heath held out his keys and announced, “I’ll drive,” with a scratchy, morning voice.
She’d managed to avoid being alone in a car with him last night. A silly thought. Heath hadn’t demonstrated any inconsistent behavior. Hadn’t been aggressive.
Which wasn’t the reason she was nervous about getting into his car. Her hormones had taken a liking to him—hormones she wasn’t sure got the message that she needed to stop hugging and kissing him. As she slid into the passenger seat, she crossed her arms to make sure she kept them to herself.
On the drive into Schaumburg, he proclaimed the benefits of owning an SUV. Apparently, he’d considered a van in order to haul the band’s equipment, but the drummer had it covered. An SUV was big enough for his stuff, or for the construction materials he might need for his house.
Babbling? Then he was nervous, too.
“SUVs are nice. I have one, too.” She winced, aware she sounded like a lunatic.
Heath laughed, seeming to take her lame response in stride. The roughness in his voice lingered, and he cleared his throat several times before they arrived at the coffee shop almost fifteen minutes later.
He held the shop door open for her and they walked to the counter. A bakery case displayed a variety of pastries. The wall behind the registers held trays of bagels and fresh-baked loaves of designer breads.
“My treat today,” Sue said. “What’re you going to get?”
Heath cleared his throat once more and smiled at the cashier. The woman’s perfect skin—probably a thick layer of foundation—reminded Sue of a porcelain doll, her maroon hair done in two knots on the top of her head, long bangs hanging down the sides of her face. She wore light pink lipstick on full lips. Her long black eyelashes and eye liner gave her the cat’s eye look, and her eyes—they were an unnatural shade of turquoise, as if she wore contact lenses to enhance the color.
Her name badge read Zelda.
“Egg sandwich,” he told Zelda. “And a cup of coffee.”
Zelda raised penciled eyebrows. “You sound like you need throat-soothing tea. You singing with another band?”
“No. And I’ll have tea, instead. Thanks.”
Discomfort skittered over Sue’s skin. Zelda was probably a couple years younger than Heath.
He cleared his throat once more and invited Sue to place her order.
Sue managed a smile. “I’ll have a cinnamon raisin bagel and a cup of coffee.”
Zelda glanced at Sue, then back at Heath. She rang up their order and handed them each a cup to fill at the coffee station behind them. “I’ll bring your food to your table.”
While Sue paid, Heath leaned closer to Zelda. “Do you have a break coming up?”
She studied him a moment. “As soon as the after-church crowd clears. Why?”
“Wondering if you could join us for a few minutes.”
“You know that invitation wasn’t my idea, right?” she said. “The one with me and Derek.”
Color flooded Heath’s face. “My friend and I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
Zelda’s lips twisted with sarcasm. “Friend, huh?”
Sue stuck out her hand. “Sue Sheffield.” Zelda stared at the outstretched hand, apparently, not interested in making new friends. Sue lowered her hand.
“Go find a table. I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Zelda said.
Heath took his cup and filled it with hot water, then flipped through the teabags until he found the one he wanted. Sue opened the coffee spigot, filled her cup and added cinnamon-vanilla cream. They continued to the dining room and found an empty booth.
Sue stirred her coffee, wondering what Heath thought of Zelda. “She’s pretty.”
“Yeah,” Heath replied.
She snuck a peek at him, and found him staring into his cup of tea. “Throat soothing tea?” she asked.
He cleared his throat and met her gaze. “Read a few more chapters last night than I should have.”
“You worked last night?”
“Too wound up to sleep and overdid it.”
Too wound up? Because of her? No. More likely because he was going to see Zelda. Or reliving the whole situation with Derek. “You okay?”
Zelda appeared beside their table with Heath’s sandwich and Sue’s bagel. Her legs were painted into pink and blue ombre leggings beneath her work apron. She slid onto the bench seat beside Heath. “What kind of questions?”
Heath nodded to Sue. “You seem better at this sort of stuff than me, not to mention my voice is giving out.”
Why did Zelda make Sue feel old and ugly? Might have something to do with the mom jeans and camp shirt Sue had decided to wear for her coffee date.
This wasn’t about her.
“When was the last time you saw Derek?” Sue asked.
Zelda’s eyes widened. “At his funeral.”
“And before that?”
“What are you, a cop?” Zelda asked.
“No. Trying to help Heath sort through a few loose ends.”
Zelda turned to Heath. “What’s this about?”
“Trying to understand why I didn’t see he might have been depressed,” Heath said.
Zelda relaxed, a scowl on her face. “He dumped me, you know.”
“That never feels good.” Sue kept her voice low.
“No, it doesn’t,” Zelda replied. “Especially when I broke up with Jojo to give Derek a shot, you know what I mean? Things were going good with me and Jojo, but Derek had a way about him, you know?”
“Why did Derek break up with you?” Sue asked.
Zelda shot another glance at Heath. “He said he wasn’t the monogamous type, and he had his eye on someone else. Told me I could stick around if I was interested in an open relationship while making it clear he might not have time for me.”
Heath’s shoulders hunched as his hands cupped his tea.
“You want a reason he might have been depressed?” Zelda asked. “How about if that someone else turned him down.”
Heath’s ears turned red. “So you’re saying it’s my fault?”
“Not you.” Zelda laughed. “I’m saying Derek was an asshole. How does that song go? You can’t always get what you want, and for him, I think not getting things made them more desirable, you know? Like when he wanted another guy’s girlfriend, but when he got her, he didn’t want her anymore.”
Heath met Zelda’s gaze, and the two of them seemed to have a silent conversation, one Sue was decidedly not part of.
Heath’s voice crackled. “You buy that he killed himself?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think,” she said. “Matters what the police think.”
“You don’t sound like you were too mad he broke up with you,” Sue said.
Zelda circled her gaze to Sue’s. “Like I said. He was an asshole. He was pretty to look at, and the man could sing, but his personality erased all of that. We had a good time together, but he was stoned half the time, and he was never really invested in anything other than the time we spent in bed, if you know what I mean.”
A man in a blue button-down shirt with a coffee shop logo approached the booth. “Need you on your register,” he told Zelda.
She got up from her seat, then turned to Heath one last time. “Call me sometime.”
~ ~ ~
“GUESS WE CAN CROSS her off the list,” Heath croaked. His voice seemed to be getting worse instead of better.
“Yeah, she didn’t seem too angry when you asked her about Derek. Then again, if it was a crime of passion, she’s had time to cool off.” Sue looked at him with those pretty sapphire eyes and his insides did funny flips. “Going one step further, you said they’d already broken up when he died. She doesn’t seem the type to beg for another chance.”
“No,” he said. “If she were to want a reconciliation, my guess is she’d go back to Jojo. He treated her better.”
Sue’s lips quirked. “‘Better’ is subjective.”
She ought to know, based on what she’d told him. “You said your husband hurt you. How long were you married?” he asked before he could catch himself.
“Eight years.” Sue drew a shaky breath. “Can we not talk about this?”
Heath took a sip of his tea. “Sure. I just thought...if you stuck around even when...” He huffed. “Never mind.”
Sue pushed her bagel away and took a drink of her coffee. “He wasn’t always like that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure Derek could be charming, too.”
Sue laughed. “He sounds pretty narcissistic. Women will pick up on that fairly quickly. Unless the drugs made him that way. Mike was a nice guy until he started drinking.” She took another sip of her coffee. “He was a mean drunk.”
Heath touched her arm. “I’m sorry.”
She managed a smile. “Some people don’t know how to cope when life gets hard. In any event, I agree Zelda probably didn’t kill Derek.” She glanced toward the counter, to where Zelda was taking orders. “She certainly calls attention to herself.”
He followed Sue’s gaze. “Yeah.” Zelda liked to be displayed when she was out with the guys she’d dated. When he’d turned down the proposition to join her and Derek, she’d sniffed at him as if he didn’t know what he was missing. At the time, she’d made him feel stupid for saying no. Recreational sex wasn’t his style, especially when it included more than two people.
Sue spread cream cheese on her bagel and took a bite. Her tongue darted out to clear a spot from her lips and all Heath’s blood rushed south. Something about Sue fascinated him.
She caught him staring at her.
“What? Did I miss a spot?” She wiped her mouth.
He shook his head, momentarily unable to form a coherent sentence. He had to say something. Ask her out on a real date. “We should go out next weekend,” he said. “Go over everything.”
She laughed. “It isn’t as if you won’t see me between now and then. We live right next door to each other.”
“Then we should just go out. On a date.” He waited for her response with bated breath.
Her expression shifted. Her pupils dilated and she licked her lips again. She shot a glance toward Zelda again. Zelda, who had told him to call her. Sue couldn’t think...
“I don’t want to call her,” he said. “I prefer more normal women.” He rolled his eyes. What a dumb thing to say. How did other guys manage to be so smooth? A stupid joke waited on the tip of his tongue, but he pressed his lips closed to hold it back. He picked up his egg sandwich and took a big bite to make sure he didn’t say anything else stupid.
Sue fiddled with her coffee cup. “Gina’s having the Memorial Day picnic on Saturday. I’ll see you at that, won’t I?”
“I was thinking just the two of us.”
She met his gaze, sending fire through his belly. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he said with a mouthful of food. Nice manners, idiot. His eyes seemed to roll of their own accord once more. He held a napkin to his face. “Sorry.”
“I’ll go on a date with you,” she said.
He squirmed in his seat to avoid high-fiving himself and swallowed. “Great. Dinner? A movie? Bowling?”
“Concert in the park,” she said. “Saturday night. After the picnic.”
He leaned on the table. “The community band. They’re playing Handel’s Water Music Saturday. You like classical music?”
“You know who Handel is?” she asked.
He laughed. “Music is music. I love it all. That’s why I learned to play the piano. I wanted to be able to play everything. Handel and Mozart are my favorite classical composers. Who’s your favorite contemporary band?”
“I like what they call classic rock. I guess that makes me old-fashioned.”
“Fleetwood Mac? How about the Beatles? Or Yes?”
She nodded. “All of it.”
“Concert in the park then. Picnic dinner?”
“Sounds good.”
He took another big bite of his sandwich, tried to swallow, and choked instead.
“You okay?” Sue asked.
He couldn’t breathe.