EMMIE
“Well, that’s a suspect crossed off our list.”
“Too bad he was my number-one pick,” Marius said as he unloaded three of the massive candles in the back of his trunk along with a pack of light bulbs to replace the broken one in the alley behind my café.
I hadn’t even asked him—he’d just picked them up.
Brooks would never have done that.
To be fair, any man looked great compared to Brooks.
Especially since Brooks is dead,I thought hysterically.
“I don’t believe him about breaking into your shop, though. Both you and I saw him in your alley.”
“We saw someone,” I said uncertainly. “Maybe Charles is telling the truth.”
“If he is,” Marius said as he started the car, “who was breaking into your shop, and who murdered Brooks?”
“You don’t haveto keep spending time with me, you know,” I told Marius. “You already rescued me from a jail cell and bought me a candle.”
My new giant candle had been overtaken by cats, several of which were napping in it.
Marius’s Bengal cat was hissing at a big white one.
“I thought you were giving some of these away for adoption.” Marius frowned and handed me a plastic bag.
“You don’t have to keep giving me gifts. I know I’m not your girlfriend, just your charity case. You probably have lots of women falling all over you in the city.”
He gave me a slightly pained smile. “Not exactly. They all want hedge fund managers or big-time lawyers. I’m a corporate lawyer with in-house legal. That’s seen as, like, the mommy track because I work normal hours. I like to have a life. I don’t want to be a slave to my job. I like having time to be able to help people. Not cupcake murderers”—he nudged me—“but like an underemployed single mom who can’t afford a lawyer for her kid who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I want time to spend with my family and friends. That’s seen as being not committed among the type-A lawyers in the city who pull one-hundred-hour weeks.”
“Yikes.” I grimaced. “I’m sure that works for some people, but I like to be home at a reasonable hour.”
“Exactly. I’ve worked for a ton of big shot lawyers. With them, it’s all work all the time, then they wake up in their forties and fifties, and their kids don’t talk to them, they’re on wife number three, and their pets act like they’re strangers.”
“Well, thank you anyway.” I held up the bag. “It means a lot to me—not just the gifts but all of it. Your time—”
“This isn’t a gift—it’s Brooks’s personal effects. As his wife, you’re entitled to them. The police released them to you. They kept his phone,” Marius told me. “For evidence.”
I slowly emptied the bag onto the counter. His watch. A pack of gum. A small blue box…
“He was going to propose to Oakley.” I bit back the tears. “Because she’s the mother of his child.”
Marius took the box out of my hands, set it on the counter, and cupped my face. “Trust me. You dodged a bullet. You’re better off not being that monster’s brood mare. There are a number of sane men out there who would love to call you their wife and give you the family and children you always dreamed of.”
Is it crazy that, for a moment, I was hoping he’d say, “And one of those men is me”?
“Are you sure you still want to attend the town hall meeting?” Marius asked, buttoning up his long wool overcoat.
“I always go to the town halls,” I said firmly, “and I won’t have the murderer driving me off.”
I wonderedif maybe I should have skipped this one when I walked into the crowded historic city hall building. The interior had been decorated for Christmas. Along one side, Zoe had set up the catering and was yelling at the townspeople to back off, only one cup of punch per person.
“Be careful,” I warned Marius when he was handed a glass. “It’s spiked.”
“You’re such a good friend,” Gran was saying to Beatrice, “to fetch Oakley a snack. Her baby’s due soon, and I remember how hard it was to get around at her size.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, anger flashed on Beatrice’s face when Gran said that.
