Page 91 of Over Her Dead Body

I am back at the airport. Reid is standing in front of me, though apparently we are calling him Martin now.

I know how Reid first entered this world.

He walked in beside me.

“So remind me,” I say. “How exactly did you get into art?”

CHAPTER 34

EMMA

Reid takes a moment to decide when Martin Hale started collecting.

“I bought my first painting when I was twenty-three.”

“At twenty-three, you were delivering takeout.”

“You’re arguing with a dead man in an airport, Emma. I wouldn’t get precious about the truth.”

“Speaking of the truth—after you left me in your apartment, I saw you come out of another building with blood on your shirt. You put a knife in your waistband.” I lower my voice. “Whose blood was it?”

He laughs.

Not a startled laugh. A real one.

I stare at him. “What is funny?”

“You think I killed someone.”

“I saw the blood. I saw the knife.”

“My friend Tiego owns a butcher shop.”

“That is your explanation?”

“It is context.”

“For the murder?”

“For dinner.”

I wait.

He appears perfectly content to let me.

“Tiego lets me use the back room,” he says.

“To do what?”

“To cut my meat, what else?”

“You spend your mornings butchering animals?”

“Not all of them.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“I wasn’t aware reassurance was the objective.”