She frowned. “No,” she said. “Why?”
I looked at Mimi. She seemed trustworthy enough. But then again, we’d just met. And I made it my business not to reveal important information to witnesses before getting to know them. “Just a potential lead,” I said. “No big deal.” Mimi offered me a seat on the plastic wrap. I noticed two baby monitors on the coffee table, one pink and one blue. The kids’ show piped out of the blue one.
“Nice place,” I said.
“It isn’t mine,” she said. As if on cue, an elderly woman’s voice rasped out of the pink monitor. “Mimi!”
“Yes, Mrs. Dorsey!”
“I need my bed changed.”
“Excuse me for a minute,” Mimi Donnelly said.
She stood up. A little boy came galloping into the room and started tugging furiously on Mimi’s arm. “Who’s here?” he said. “Who’s this?”
“A visitor for Grandma,” she said. “Tommy, would you like to keep Grandma’s visitor company while I go help Mrs. Dorsey?”
I smiled at the little boy. He had dark, serious eyes and fine features—a ringer for his grandmother, and his mother, too. Mimi ruffled his hair and I noticed the flower tattoo on her arm, identical to Leila’s.
“Hi, Tommy,” I said. “I’m Sunny.”
Tommy’s eyes widened in terror. He wrapped both arms around Mimi’s leg and hid behind her.
I wondered if he recognized my voice from when I’d told off his mother. I felt a tinge of guilt.
Mimi sighed. “Don’t take it personally. Tommy’s just a little shy, aren’t you, buddy?”
“I go with Grandma!Grandma!” he shouted.
“Please, keep that child quiet!” said the pink monitor.
“Yes, ma’am!” Mimi called out. “Tommy, you settle down now,” she said quietly.
He did, almost immediately. This was a kid who listened to his grandma, if not his mother.
“You work here,” I said.
Mimi nodded. “Mrs. Dorsey has late-stage emphysema and limited mobility due to severe osteoporosis,” she said. “She needs twenty-four-hour care, and I’m a skilled nurse who needs a place to live, so we’re a match made in heaven.” She gave me a weak smile, then turned to Tommy. “You want to go back to Grandma’s room and watch TV?”
He nodded, his dark eyes fixed on my face. Slowly, he disengaged himself from Mimi’s leg and backed away from me, as though I were a dangerous animal.
“That’s a good boy,” Mimi said. “You want ice cream later?”
He nodded more vigorously, then retreated down the hall.
“I assumed this place was yours,” I said. “And that Leila bought it for you.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t take Leila’s money,” she said.
“Why not?” I said. “She makes a lot.”
“Yeah,” Mimi said. “But I don’t know how much she owes or who she owes it to. It scares me. And I don’t want Tommy involved with that kind of money.”
My eyes widened. “What?” I said.
The pink monitor called out her name again. “I’ll be right back,” Mimi said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Talk about an impossible request.
