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I liked the brownstone situated on a rather quiet street, on the fringes of Downtown L.A., nestled between a law firm and a coffee shop. Maybe I liked the proximity and ease of procuring coffee number three, but it was working for me. Plus, there was parking close, which meant my shoes that were not strictly made for walking only had to travel a short journey.
I reasoned that if I was going to commit to traipsing around L.A. in order to get this story, I might have to make some footwear sacrifices.
The thought alone upset me. Then again, dying at the hands of someone I may or may not uncover as the murderer before the police did was a little scarier than flats.
By a small margin.
The frosted glass door had simple, masculine script with the name of the company on it, along with Keltan’s and Duke’s names.
Duke rang a bell, from one of Keltan’s e-mails. I may have had them committed to memory. Which was good, considering I did the Internet version of burning all memories of an ex after we’d broken up. Deleted every piece of evidence. Though it was rather depressing thinking that all reminders of what we had were so easily disposed of with one click. The weight of it wasn’t enough to even fill a trash can, figurative on the screen or real. It taunted me with the lack of time and “real” moments we had together, telling me a heart couldn’t be that broken with such a lack of collateral.
My heart didn’t exactly listen.
I fastened my hand around the polished bronze handle, chasing away thoughts of broken hearts and emotionlessly flipping through the memorized e-mails.
Duke, he was deployed with him. Keltan mentioned punching him for something called Marmite.
I hoped Marmite wasn’t a stripper name.
Cool air that smelled like fresh linen in a pleasing and crisp way met me as I stepped onto dusky gray carpet in the foyer of the building.
The walls were painted a dark slate gray, the decorating simple and masculine like I’d expected. Two black couches sat on either side of the foyer, expensive but not ostentatious. Ditto with the framed art on the walls and the sleek black desk embossed with the same logo from the door.
An older woman with black hair peppered with gray piled atop her head smiled at me. Her eyes were kind and framed with what I knew immediately were laugh lines. You could tell that on older women, whether their life had been full of smiles or sadness. Those lines weren’t etched quite as deep when they were from smiles.
I knew that because the ones surrounding my own mother’s violet eyes were both deep and shallow. Thankfully, after Dad, life gave her enough smiles to outweigh the sadness. But the evidence was there on her face. In those ghosts, both living and dead.
“Let me guess. Polly?” she asked warmly.
I smiled warmly back, although I didn’t usually do that so genuinely with strangers. It just wasn’t me. With my family back in Amber, I did, but mostly I kept those smiles to myself. However, it was instinct to do it when someone smiled so easily, without reservation and malice.
Not enough women smiled at each other like that.
I hadn’t felt the urge to smile like that in six months. Not just because of Keltan, but also because I was missing my friends. And my family.
And Rosie.
Maybe I could hire the services of Greenstone Security to find my AWOL best friend.
Rosie could wait. I hoped she wasn’t in the middle of the ocean surrounded by Columbians again. Or at least I hoped they were a little friendlier.
I shelved that for later. For now, I had a story to crack.
“Yes, that’s me,” I lied. I was not getting any awards for being a good person. But I was getting the story, and very rarely did the two go together.
It wasn’t exactly lying. My sister’s name was Polly. Close enough. Plus, my name possibly would have alerted some badass silent alarm, the same one that had Keltan knowing I’d gone to the office the day before after the murder scene. I made a mental note to check my purse for bugs, or tracking devices.
“I knew it. You sounded pretty as a bell on the phone, and was I right? Yes. I’m always right.” She gave me a warm smile as her eyes sparkled with mischief that was a lot younger than the lines around her eyes. “Heath will be a lot happier with me once he sees you. In fact, I might even get a smile from him, and that’s something I can store away for later, if you know what I mean.”
I blinked at the woman who was at least fifty and dressed in a cable-knit sweater in the middle of California summer saying a thing like that.
