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It’s crazy, but I did not expect this evening to be quite so entertaining.
A hissing sound cuts the tense air. “Oh, no!” Hollie spins and dashes for a swinging door. Watching her departure, I notice for the first time the aroma of food. Smells fantastic even if I can’t quite place the dish.
My feet make their way across the shoebox-sized living area. Palm on the door that swallowed my hostess, I’m slowed by the sight of a pair of textbooks, college-level, stacked neat-as-a-pin on a particle board desk. There’s a printed out enrollment form on top of the stack, with Hollie’s name printed on the top. Beside that, a withdrawal slip.
I push through the door. The kitchen is tiny, barely large enough for a small table wedged in between a refrigerator and a—yep, back door. Good. Everyone needs an escape route.
Actual steam rises from a giant pot Hollie stirs at the stove. Since the other pan contains spaghetti sauce, I’m going to assume the one she’s hovering over is pasta.
She grabs a pair of potholders and upends the stainless pot over the kitchen sink. The water and the slimy strands slide into a colander, steam rising around her face like a cloud. No, a halo. No, like a...
No, I’m not doing this. Thinking this. These things. And I’m certainly not moved by the wisps of hair curling up around her face, the rosy cheeks, or even the shimmering aqua irises when she turns, eyeing me through the mist like I’m one of the bad guys. I mean, what’d I do? I’m here to help.
I lean against the fridge, striking my best in-command-of-it-all pose. “Is it just the two of you here?”
She eyes the steam, fanning and dispersing the mist with a pot holder. “Yes.”
“No boyfriends?”
Along with her glare, the steam seems suddenly to crystalize and clunk to the floor.
“Okay. Boyfriend?” Singular.
Only an infinitesimal thaw. “Not that either. Why do you ask?”
Why indeed?
I fold my arms. “Getting the lay of the land is all. Seeing who else might have had access to your son’s vehicle.”
She blinks pretty lashes, then swirls a spoon through the sauce. “Oh. Well, the car is mine, actually. We share it.”
“I see.”
The stainless spoon stills “Don’t knot your brow at me.Imost definitely did not put drugs in that car.”
“Would you lie on your son’s behalf?”
She swells before my eyes, heat waves sloughing off her.
Okay. I’ll go with her story. Don’t get me wrong, in this world, I know anyone is capable of just about anything, but I admit, even I highly doubt she’s the perp in this case.
“For your information, I washed and vacuumed out the car the day before and hadn’t driven it since. Whatever happened happened while Jacob had it.”
She has this way of not helping her case.
She unrolls a teeming drawer, extracting a pasta server, then fumbles it to the floor. I swoop in, scoop up the utensil, and help myself to the sink to run it under hot water.
Close now, our shoulders nearly touching, Hollie eyes me, her teeth digging into her…uh, very full lip.
I hand the utensil back to her.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” My skin burns where our fingers connected.
She spins back to the stove and starts whipping the pasta around the draining colander. I’m not sure if the action has purpose or is merely a more comfortable focal point.
“So. How is this going to go?”
