“Hey,” I said, prodding him in the side. “We’re not all crazy.”
“You’re a little crazy, sweetie. But I think it’s in the water.”
“Then you’re crazy too.”
“You’ve been drinking the water longer.”
“Let’s see,” I said, resting my plate on my lap so I could do some math on my fingers. “When did you move to New York—after college?”
Calvin nodded. “To apply to the police academy.”
“Twenty-one?”
“Yes.”
“I was… oh God, I was only twelve?” Calvin made a face, and I started laughing. “You cradle-robber.”
WHEN Iwoke up the next morning, I was alone. I groaned into my pillow and rolled over more, grabbing Calvin’s and pressing it against my face. It smelled like him, but it was cool to the touch. Cracking an eye open, I looked toward the window to see brightness behind the closed blinds.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken up without an alarm. Even on my one day off a week, I always got up early. Between owning a business and having bills and an assistant to pay, I had family obligations, boyfriend duties, and shitty errands, like, you know, grocery shopping on occasion. I never slept late.
“Ten o’clock?” I asked myself in disbelief after putting on my glasses and checking my phone. I also had five text messages. God, had I slept through a tornado and aliens landing in Central Park too?
One from Max.Hey, boss, did your landlord call you?
One from Pop.Good morning, kiddo. Give me a call today. Love you.
One from Beth.Max visited and told me what happened! If you need anything, call me!
Two from Calvin.Don’t do anything today that involves me finding you at a murder scene.
And lastly:You drooled on me last night. Buy me a beer at O’Neil’s Pub and I won’t tell anyone.
Damn it! I’d been awake for thirty seconds and already I was being threatened and blackmailed.
I chose Max as the best person to respond to first and typed a message while climbing out of bed.No. Ehy?
I walked over to the kitchenette and started a pot of coffee. My phone dinged as the heavenly beverage was bubbling, breaking the quiet of Calvin’s tiny studio. I picked it up, bringing it close to read.
I bumped into him outside the Emporium. He’s kind of a jerk for real.
I snorted. To say the least. Luther was an okay landlord, so long as I never needed anything and paid my rent the first of the month, preferably first thing in the morning or I’d start getting reminder texts. That and his snide, I’m-not-judging-your-gayness-but-I-really-totally-am comments now and then. I typically ignored them. I wasn’t going to waste my breath arguing with someone like Luther. But maybe the next time he had some “but I never understand which one is thewoman,” comment, I’d let him direct that at Calvin and see how well it goes over.
Ignore iit. I wll call hum.
I set the phone aside, poured cream into a mug, and filled it with fresh coffee. I wished Calvin had woken me before he left, but it was typical of him. Maybe it was because he had dated so little before meeting me that it was simply something he wasn’t used to—or perhaps he didn’t realize I wanted to say good-bye? But then again, I liked the way we worked. I know some don’t get it, but I don’t enjoy mushy declarations of love at every corner. Stretching them out into little intimate moments was much more pleasing, and Calvin functioned on the same wavelength.
Except… Valentine’s Day. I think I really did want to try having one super romantic date, with flowers and holding hands and kissing and all the corny stuff. And if I grew a pair and told Calvin to go out with me in a few days, I knew he would, but would he be as into it as me?
I wanted him to genuinely enjoy it, and I wasn’t so sure he would.
But I had more important things to mull over while drinking my first cup of the morning.
Like murder.
I hummed quietly. Calvin had given me a little to work with last night. There didn’t seem to be a reason to suspect the boyfriend who found Meredith’s daughter, and the unanimous yet unspoken agreement appeared to be that Meredith’s boss knew and was covering for her. The physical evidence that would likely be the case-breaker was the missing hammer. But it could be anywhere. A dumpster, the Hudson River—fucking Staten Island, for all I and anyone else knew.
But I wondered if it wasn’t that complex. It didn’t sound premeditated. A hammer was intimate, brutal, and like a crime of sudden and uncontrollable rage. What if Meredith panicked and hid the hammer? What if she didn’t know how to dispose of it?
