Jun reached out and gave one of my gauged ears a light tug. “Let’s go shopping today,” he answered, like I hadn’t just been fast asleep a second prior.
My cell rang from the kitchen.
“Crap.” I stood, stubbed my toe against the foot of the coffee table, and hobbled into the other room. I looked at the ID and groaned before accepting the call from the board’s office. “Good morning,” I said as pleasantly as possible. I turned and wandered back into the living room.
“Aubrey, what the hell is going on down there?” Bob Ricci thundered.
The real reason the nonprofit board left me alone so much to run the house was because, while I was in Key West, they were up in Marathon, and none of them wanted to drive an hour each way and chance bad traffic on Seven Mile Bridge just to be a warm body as I dealt with the boring, day-to-day transactions. I mean really, they were only concerned with whether I was making money and wanting to spend money.
I pulled the phone away from my ear at Bob’s shout. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific,” I answered. Bob and I had this ongoing thing of, how did I put this…hating each other. So for all I knew, he could have been really angry about the conch-blowing contest that happened the other week. How should I know?
“I received a call from Detective Burt Tillman this morning.”
“Uh-huh,” I responded.
Jun watched me from the couch.
“Did you have any intention of notifying the board about a homicide investigation, or were you hoping to sweep that under the welcome mat?”
I felt myself bristle. “I certainly did intend to tell you. But the fact was, it was after eleven when I’d left the Smith Home, and I don’t have any of the board’s home phone numbers. And waking you in the middle of the night wouldn’t have helped the situation,” I continued. “I was about to call in a matter of moments. You see, I typically get the best results when your office is open and someone is actually there to pick up the phone.”
“How did this all start?”
“Er—I suppose when Lou Cassidy had it in his mind to break in?”
“Tillman mentioned a second body.”
“Oh. The skeleton.”
“What skeleton?”
“Tillman didn’t pursue my claim because when I called the police and he came to investigate, there was nothing there.”
“He said you were hysterical.”
“I doubt he said that,” I replied calmly. I took a deep breath and mentally reminded myself over and over that Bobalwaystried to get a rise out of me. Anything as an excuse to go to Price and get me fired.
“Explain to me why you failed to report this… thisskeletonto the board,” Bob demanded.
“Because I had nothing to say about it. It was gone. Like, up and vanished. I can’t explain it.”
“Are you on drugs?”
“Only legal ones.” I sat on the couch, ignoring the look Jun was giving me now. “I was stripping wallpaper in the third-floor closet—”
“Who gave you the authority to do that?”
“Uhm… you guys. As part of the ongoing restoration I’m doing on the walls. The home wasn’t originally wallpapered, so I was removing it.”
“You have to get approval from the board to make any drastic alterations to the house, Aubrey!” Bob was all but shouting again. “This is totally unacceptable!”
“Are you serious?” I asked, not noticing at what point I’d stood again. “I practically handed you guys a bible of everything I was doing to the walls. Do you want me to call every time I sweep the floors too? How about when I have the outside windows washed? God forbid, because some of the dirt might be old!”
“Now you’re pissing me off!” he exclaimed, totally losing his cool.
“Feeling’s mutual!”
“You are not allowed to touch that closet,” Bob said. “And I forbid you from entering that home for the foreseeable future. I’ll be speaking to Price about your termination.”
