“Aubrey, this is Emma Harmon.” Kyle stood, taking the bag from Aubrey’s arms.
My cheeks were burning. I could only imagine my face looked about as red as a beet. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, you know…”
Aubrey glared at me. “What? You didn’t mean to what?”
Boy, she was just as friendly now as she’d been on Friday night. Then again, if my husband was currently in jail for murder, I would probably not be the nicest person. “It’s just that had I known you would be here at any point, I wouldn’t intrude.” This was easily the most uncomfortable I’d been all day, which was saying something.
Meanwhile, as I scrambled for an explanation and an apology, about a million voices screamed different things in my head. All of them had to do with the fact that, oh my gosh, Aubrey was having an affair with Kyle. I was looking motive straight in the face. What better motive was there than for a jealous lover to kill his boss’s business partner and frame the boss?
I could just imagine it all in that very instant. Befriending Robbie, earning his trust, getting a job from him as a ploy to spend more time with Aubrey.
Then, framing him for murder.
Suddenly, Aubrey’s hostile expression softened. “Wait a second. Oh, no.” She burst out laughing, covering her mouth with one hand. I didn’t get the joke.
When she had herself under control, she managed to sputter, “He’s my brother! Kyle is my brother. What, did you think? He was my boyfriend?” She giggled helplessly, leaning against the wall next to the door. She hadn’t taken so much as a single step forward since she first came in and found me.
Now that she mentioned it, they did look a lot alike. Their hair, for one, roughly the same shade of red though hers was brighter. The same dark eyes, the same creamy complexion and finely chiseled features.
Though Aubrey had certainly taken better care of herself than her brother had. He was a lot older around the eyes, and he had the slightly yellowed teeth of a smoker. She didn’t. In fact, she looked like she might’ve had her teeth whitened at some point in the recent past. Maybe in preparation for the opening.
“Oh! Okay.” I laughed, too, only mine was the laughter of relief. It was like a release valve, letting out all the tension. “Sorry. I got the wrong idea.”
Aubrey finally sat on the sofa, crossing her slim legs and wedging her purse between herself and the arm. Even in casual clothes, the sort of thing a girl wore when she went to the supermarket, she looked like a million bucks.
Some people were just like that. Raina was another one. Even her so-called lazy clothes were name brand, well-fitted, hand wash only. She tried.
“We weren’t really introduced on Friday,” I pointed out. “Robbie—”
“I know who you are. I know my husband once worked for your mother. He told me all about it after spotting you at the opening.”
If it weren’t for the iciness in her tone, I might have been flattered. Granted, I’d never been married. Maybe a wife didn’t like her husband bringing up an old acquaintance with another woman.
I decided to chalk this up to overwrought nerves. If I were in her position, I would’ve been a mess. Surrounded by balled-up tissues, empty wine bottles and ice cream containers, in the same clothes I’d worn for three days. When I considered this, Aubrey looked even better in comparison. Even her hair was immaculate.
I took another tack, wondering how to get through to her. I might not get another chance like this. “I just want to say I’m so sorry for all this. Honestly, if there’s anything I can do, I’m here.”
She nodded, her lips pressed together in a thin smile. “And exactly why are you here?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “I heard you’re a writer. Do you plan on writing about this?”
Geez, no wonder she was so cold.
“No! No, not at all. It seems like we keep misunderstanding each other. I came to town today to ask the detective how things were going and why he charged Robbie with the killing. It’s obvious to me that he doesn’t have a murderous bone in his body. Of course, he acts like I don’t know what I’m talking about and dismisses maybe three-quarters of what I say.”
She jiggled her foot from side to side the way Raina did when she was annoyed, her thin smile returning. “Yes, he has that way about him, doesn’t he?”
“Please, don’t tell me he gave you an attitude. Of all the people he should be nice to right now, you should be at the top of the list.” This was true, but I had to butter her up a little, too. Get her to like me. Even if I wasn’t writing about the case, she had no reason to trust a word I said. How to get her to open up?
She shrugged thin shoulders which, when she raised her arms to pull back her long hair, flexed with hidden strength. One of those women who actually took the time to care for her body. I appreciated that, even if I never could find the time or willpower to attend regular yoga or Pilates classes.
“I guess when you’re in that position and you see as many violent crimes as he probably has in a place like this, you lose a bit of your humanity. Your sense of empathy.” So she clearly wasn’t a fan of Paradise City. I made a mental note of that.
“How is Rob? Have you seen him?” I tried not to sound too over interested or concerned while making a point of not calling him Robbie. No sense giving her the wrong idea. She seemed the jealous type.
Lines appeared over the bridge of her nose as she winced. “About like you’d expect. Upset, confused. Naturally, he had nothing to do with this. The evidence is circumstantial, at best. Sure, they had their differences. All business partners do. If anything, I would think it’s something like a marriage. Occasionally, there’s a blowup, but things calm down and smooth over and everything is all right. I suppose the detective wouldn’t understand anything about that, so he thinks a few little arguments are enough to drive a person to murder. It’s ridiculous.” She rubbed her arms briskly as if it were cold in the room.
“You said a few little arguments? Kyle said something about that, too. James wasn’t easy to be around, but he had a temper.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, if you only knew. In the last month or so, my husband began questioning whether he’d made the right decision in aligning himself with James Flynn.”
Even as my pulse picked up at hearing something new, my heart sank a little further. It seemed like everything I found out made Robbie’s position more difficult. “How so? If you don’t mind my asking, that is. And like I said, I don’t intend to write about this. I’m here as a concerned friend.”
She shrugged this off. Maybe it just didn’t matter anymore. “He was never very forthcoming with me, you have to understand that. He would hint things here and there. My husband is a very private person when it comes to matters of business. Maybe he thought he could shield me from it or something, I don’t know. You know how men can be sometimes.”
“Yeah, I know that. I know what it’s like when you’re with a man who keeps things from you.”
“Right? Like they think you can’t be trusted with the truth. Frankly, I would very much have liked to know what his problem was with James, since my life is affected by his choices, too. Sure, it’s his business, but it’s our life. Our livelihood. If there was something I needed to know, I wish he would’ve told me.”
I nodded, clicking my tongue in genuine sympathy. “I’m sure that was really hard. Honestly, my dad was like that with my mom. He’s a detective. And he never wanted to tell her what was going on at work because he didn’t want to burden her with it. Except she ended up feeling isolated. And he felt isolated, too, because he was deliberately holding back from her instead of sharing.”
She snorted like she understood all too well. “How did they get past that?”
Maybe this wasn’t the best example. “They didn’t. But that doesn’t mean you guys won’t. I’m sure that once all of this has blown over, you guys will have a second chance to make things right. I’m sure he wants nothing more than to be with you again.”
She chuckled. “I think first, he would open his restaurant. That’s all he’s cared about since he and James decided to go into this together. I mean, literally. He has lived, breathed, existed simply to open this restaurant.”
“It was his dream,” I murmured, heartsick. And somebody had taken it from him. I refused to believe he was the one who killed James, just like I couldn’t believe Kyle would do it. Both of them had way too much to lose.
She raised her hand to her forehead, trembling. Her eyes filled with tears. “I just don’t understand who would do this. After all that work! All the sacrifice. All the time we didn’t spend together, all of it in service of something bigger. His dream. We put our lives on hold for his dream. And somebody took it away. I only wish those stupid detectives would get their heads screwed on straight! I know he couldn’t have done this!”
She then burst into tears, covering her face with both hands, rocking back and forth. I went to her, patting her shoulder.
Kyle joined us a moment later, sitting next to his sister and pulling her into his arms. “It’s gonna be okay. It’s all gonna be okay.”
I wanted to believe it. I wanted everybody to have a happy ending. I only wished it were possible.
This case was more complex than I could’ve imagined at first. If James did business with the sketchy characters Kyle described, it could’ve been anybody. Where to begin when the list of potential suspects was a mile long?
Aubrey continued weeping and it didn’t look like she was about to calm down any time soon. I’d overstayed my welcome.
I patted her shoulder again and gave Kyle a sympathetic look. “I should go. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, I really appreciate it. Please, feel free to give me a call. And please, I beg you, let Robbie know I’m thinking about him. I’m doing everything I can to help him. I won’t let the police steamroll him, even if it means asking my dad for help.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at myself a little. After all, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t even figure out who had a motive strong enough to be worth murdering the man. There just had to be a way, was all.
I left the apartment feeling lower than I had when I left the police station. It seemed like no matter how high I climbed, I ended up slipping right back down to where I started. As soon as something made sense, something else came in and mixed things up again.
“Find anything interesting?”
I jumped out of my skin at the sound, then the sight, of Joe Sullivan waiting for me outside the apartment building. He leaned against the railing leading down to the sidewalk. Hands in his pockets, ankles crossed. The picture of ease on a sunny, spring day.
I knew better. There was tension in every line of his body. He was a coiled spring ready to pop. He would end up popping at me.
“I can explain—"
He held up his hands, and I tried not to fixate on his muscular forearms now that his sleeves were rolled partway up. Not the time, Emma, not the time.
“I don’t remember suggesting I was interested in your explanations.” He removed his sunglasses, his eyes narrowed and fixed on me in a steady, disapproving stare. “You have no business being here, and that’s a fact.”
“He was walking in the park across the street from the police station! What, was I supposed to pretend I didn’t recognize him?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.” He sighed heavily, propping the glasses on top of his head. “Did you know he was Robert Klein’s brother-in-law before you came here?”
“No. I only found out when Mrs. Klein arrived.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it seems like she helps him out. You know, making sure he stays on the straight and narrow.” That would explain the tidy apartment, I guessed. She came around regularly.
“Really, I had no idea. I only wanted to talk to him after I saw him walking through the park.” Then, something occurred to me, and I became the injured party in a flash. “Did you follow me?”
“Me?” He placed a hand over his chest, gasping like he was surprised. “Why would I ever do that?”
“You did. You were following me!”
“If you must know, Miss Harmon, I followed you at first because I wanted to apologize for upsetting you. You ran out before I had a chance. By the time I stepped outside, you were already halfway across the street. I watched you catch up with Kyle.”
“Do you think he did it?”
“You know I won’t answer that question. Why do you bother asking?” He replaced his sunglasses, fixing them over his face. Really, they did him no favors since they covered his eyes. Easily his most striking feature, which was saying something since he was pretty striking all the way around.
I followed him to his car. “Seriously! Do you think he had it in him to do that? What was he in jail for?”
“You’re crossing the line, Emma.”
“Oh, come on. At least tell me I wasn’t totally asking for trouble by going into the apartment of an ex-con.”
He burst out laughing. “Ex-con. There’s that Criminal Justice minor.”
Once again, I had to remind myself that threatening an officer with bodily harm was probably a crime. “Please, just tell me if I should be careful about speaking to him again. You know, whether I should be alone with him or not.”
“That seems fairly simple to me.” He opened the car door, leaning on it before he slid inside. “Just don’t see him again. Problem solved. That way, it won’t matter what he did to land himself in jail.”
I fell back a step, crushed. “Did you ever have one of those dreams where you’re late for school or work or whatever, and it seems like no matter how hard you try there’s no getting out the door? Like everything’s deliberately standing in your way?”
His mouth pursed. “I guess everybody has.”
“That’s how I feel right now. I’m fighting as hard as I can to prove Robbie didn’t do this, that he’s not capable of it. I’ve always had a thing about being able to read people. You probably think it’s dumb, but it’s true. My dad always wanted me to become a cop, to follow in his footsteps, because he said I had excellent instincts. Sure, he’s my dad and he’s supposed to say nice things about me, whatever. And sure, it blindsided me when I walked in on my boyfriend and another woman, but—”
“Huh?”
Maybe he didn’t need to know about that. “Never mind. My point is, except for that, I’m good at reading people. I’ve always been good at it. Robbie is a sweet, kind soul. Genuine. Not fake and plastic like James. I knew that much right off the bat. And he wanted that restaurant so badly. It was his lifelong dream. He never would’ve jeopardized it, and he wouldn’t have committed murder right outside of it, for heaven’s sake!”
He was going to tell me I was spinning fairytales out of thin air, wasn’t he? That I needed to go back to writing about food and keep my nose out of serious matters. I braced myself for it.
“No. You don’t have to be worried about anything from Kyle,” he muttered before sighing like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “He was a dumb kid who got mixed up with the wrong people. That’s it. Okay? You feel better?”
To a degree, especially since Joe didn’t shoot me down.
Though I couldn’t deny that it would’ve been easier to find out Kyle was a violent criminal capable of murder. “I guess?” I shrugged. “Maybe?”
“Unfortunately, Emma Harmon, that’s as good as it gets with a case like this. Very rarely is there a satisfying conclusion. I wish there was, sincerely. With a detective father, you must know how frustrating it is when the case won’t settle itself the way a cop wishes it would.”
“Do you wish it would settle itself one way or another?” I couldn’t help asking.
There was a beat before he chuckled. That beat could’ve held a great many thoughts and wishes. “Stay in Cape Hope, Emma. For your safety, if nothing else.”
“Do you think I’m in danger?” I asked as he got into his car.
“All I’m saying is, you’re running around asking a lot of questions and so sure I arrested the wrong man.” He looked up at me before closing the door. “If you’re right, there’s a killer out here somewhere.”
He left me standing there, speechless, as he drove off.
The jerk didn’t even offer me a ride to the station to pick up my car.