Death by Coffee (12 page)

The next thing I said was probably the worst thing I could have asked of him, yet I couldn’t stop myself. I had to know. The idea just sort of formed and lodged itself in my mouth. There was no way I could part my lips without it sneaking out.

“Do you think you could take me to Brendon’s office?”

Paul stopped eating. He swallowed and took a long sip of Coke, studying me the entire time. The silence started to get to me so I began babbling.

“It’s nothing, really,” I said. “My dad is a writer and he wrote mysteries, so I sort of grew up interested in this sort of thing. I just want to go in and look around, see if I can figure out what happened, like all those great detectives you read about do. We don’t have to touch anything, and I promise not to mess up the scene. I just want to see it.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

I hated myself, but I didn’t want to lose this chance. I batted my eyes at him and leaned forward suggestively. I didn’t run a finger over his cheek, or make “do me” eyes at him exactly, but it was a near thing.

“Please,” I asked in my sweetest voice. “It would make me very, very happy if you would do this for me.”

Paul sucked in a breath and a bead of sweat formed on his brow. He looked around the room, cleared his throat, and then smiled at me.

“Okay,” he said, voice conspiratorially low. “Once we’re done eating and it gets darker out, I’ll take you.”

“Thank you,” I said. Deep down, I knew I’d have to make this up to him. In fact, I was probably going to have to say the Hail Mary a few hundred times. I could already feel the heat tickling at the soles of my feet.

Paul wiped the sweat from his brow and started eating. “I hope this doesn’t come back to bite me on the ass.” He said it with a smile, but I could tell he was nervous.

Not that I blamed him. I was thinking the same thing.

12

It’s hard to walk quietly in high-heeled shoes.

I didn’t want to walk in my bare feet, so I clacked along as quietly as I could. We weren’t exactly sneaking, per se, but we didn’t want anyone to notice us, either. There were a few other pedestrians walking the street, though most of them paid little attention to us. Pine Hills had a tendency to close down by seven o’clock precisely every night, meaning there wasn’t much else to do but break in somewhere you aren’t supposed to go.

The wait had been nearly unbearable. We’d finished our meals, sat around for a little while, nervously talking about nothing, before getting into his car and driving around for another hour. I think both of us were waiting for the other one to change his or her mind so we wouldn’t actually have to go through with this. In the end neither he nor I was willing to voice these doubts out loud.

For a date it wasn’t very fulfilling. We hardly talked and we didn’t look at each other much at all. There was a nervous tension to the air that did all of our talking for us. We both knew that if someone saw us breaking in, our gooses would be cooked.

Of course, we weren’t exactly breaking into the place. Paul had a key. The department had requested one from Raymond Lawyer, who had complied, though he did it loudly with a lot of yelling, if Paul was to be believed. Why he had the key on him was beyond me, but I was just thankful he did. I doubted Chief Dalton would have handed it over if we’d been forced to ask.

And you know what? I truly believe that Paul Dalton would have asked for it. He would have gone right up to his mom, his boss, and asked for something that would get us both into some serious trouble if anyone discovered what we were up to. What other guy would risk not only his job, but the wrath of his mother,
and
spending time in jail, all because a girl asked him?

What I really wanted to do was take his hand. It would look natural enough, though it would definitely start rumors. I was pretty sure any rumors that did get started would end up in Patricia Dalton’s ear in about five minutes flat. With what we were about to do, I was hoping we’d fly completely under the radar, meaning I had to be on my best behavior.

We reached Lawyer’s Insurance without anyone stopping us or asking us what we were up to. Across the street Death by Coffee was dark and empty. In fact, most of the buildings were dark by now. There were a few lights on in the rare apartments above some of the shops, and there were a few cars that coasted down the street. While no one appeared to be watching us, I knew appearances could be deceiving. Anyone could be sitting inside one of those dark buildings, watching and waiting. I didn’t believe for a second that Eleanor Winthrow was the only nosy gossip in town.

Paul moved to the door while I kept watch. It was kind of exciting in a way. It was like we were in a movie, sneaking around in the dark while a killer was on the loose, more than likely watching us through the lens of a high-powered rifle.... Okay, maybe that wasn’t
exciting
as much as it was
terrifying.

The door clicked open. Paul ushered me inside before entering behind me. He closed the door and flicked on a flashlight he’d taken from his car. He shone it around before we headed for the door to Brendon Lawyer’s office. It was closed and there was no yellow tape, further reminding me the police weren’t actually considering his death anything more than an accident. Why bother preserving the scene if there was nothing to investigate?

Even if they had put up tape, I doubted Raymond Lawyer would have left it strung up all over his office building. He hadn’t taken any time off after his son’s death, so anything that interrupted his business would surely be unwelcome.

My hands were balled into fists as we approached the door. I really wished I had a flashlight of my own, but Paul had only had the one. I wanted something I could hold and maybe use as a weapon if the killer was lurking around the small office for some reason. I knew it was unlikely, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were walking into a trap of some kind.

The urge to reach over and grab Paul’s hand was stronger than ever. From the way the light shook, I could tell he could use the support as well.

Paul was wearing black gloves, further increasing the feeling we were doing something terribly wrong. He turned the knob and pushed the door open. The blinds were closed, leaving the room pitch-black. Paul shone the light around inside before stepping through the doorway.

I followed him in, wishing I had gloves of my own. They might have hidden the sweat glistening on my palms and kept me from digging my fingernails in too deep. To say I was nervous was a serious understatement.

The office looked as if no one had bothered cleaning the place up after the body had been removed. The office chair was pushed away from the desk, more than likely by the paramedics who had rushed in to save Brendon’s life. The light played over a stain on the floor I instantly took for blood, but quickly realized was spilled coffee.

“I’m not sure there is much else to see.” Paul spoke at a whisper as he shone the light around the room. “We took the coffee cup and his lunch from the room, but everything else should still be here.”

I walked farther into the room, strengthened by his voice. Paul kept the light in my general direction as I moved through the office. I probably would have bounced off every table in the room without it.

“Do you think we should turn on the light?” I asked. The gloom was really getting to me, despite his flashlight. It felt like every shadow hid something horrible. Whether it was a murderer or a feral rat, I didn’t know. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know.

“I don’t think so,” Paul said. “Someone would notice.”

I didn’t say that I thought people were just as likely to notice a flashlight beam passing over the windows of the office. In fact, they’d probably be more alarmed by that than they would if we’d simply turned on the overhead light.

But I wasn’t the cop. I trusted Paul to know what he was doing.

“I want to take a look at his desk,” I said, moving that way.

“Don’t touch anything.” Paul swung the light around to illuminate the large oak desk, which dominated the room.

I nodded absently as I approached. A stack of files sat on the corner of the desk beside a tray that held a few papers. I glanced at them, but the words meant nothing to me. Legalese was like another language to my eyes.

I moved around the side of the desk to stand where Brendon would have been sitting when he’d suffered the attack. The chair was pushed against the wall and had turned so that it faced the windows. A few crumbs lay on the floor from whatever he’d eaten. I was assuming toast.

My gaze moved from the floor to his desk. There, front and center, was a picture of Heidi Lawyer. She was smiling in the photo, which was something I had yet to see from her. The tired lines of her face vanished when she smiled, leaving her beautiful and young. I wondered if life with her husband had been what had washed most of her good looks away, or if it was something else, something that might have gotten Brendon killed.

“Hmm,” I said, stepping a little closer. It seemed strange for him to have a picture on his desk of the woman he was about to divorce. I suppose he could have had it there for appearances. He wanted people to trust him, so having a picture of his family sitting in plain view might help ease their minds.

Then again, the picture faced Brendon fully. There was no way anyone sitting across from the desk would have been able to see it. Had he really left it there? Or perhaps the killer had placed it there so that the last thing he saw before he died was his wife’s smiling face?

I was about to turn away when I noticed the faint dusting on the desk. It was almost invisible and I wouldn’t have seen it at all if it hadn’t been for a chance turn of the light. I wanted to run my finger through it like you’d see in the movies, but I didn’t have gloves on and Paul had told me not to touch anything.

“What’s this?” I asked, motioning to the dust.

He shrugged. “The room has sat empty for a few days now. It’s not surprising there’d be dust.”

I frowned. Dust accumulated, sure, but this seemed to be more than a normal amount. From what little I knew of Brendon Lawyer, he seemed like a man who would have had his office dusted every single day, meaning an awful lot would have had to build up in the short time since his death.

I turned and found myself looking at a filing cabinet beneath an air vent. There was something sitting on the cabinet. I walked over to it to find an open pack of Splenda sitting beside what looked like a ring a coffee cup might make. The entire cabinet top was covered in dust. Only the ring itself wasn’t coated in it.

“Looks like Raymond didn’t clean up here at all,” I said, putting my hands behind my back so I wouldn’t touch anything.

“Not surprising,” Paul said. “No one would bother looking there when they came in.”

Still, it looked like an awful lot of dust. With Brendon’s job, he was probably in and out of this cabinet all of the time. And while there was dust in the ring, where he’d obviously set his coffee cup, it wasn’t as thick as it was elsewhere on the cabinet top.

The click of the front door opening shattered my thoughts. I hissed in a breath and turned frightened eyes to Paul, who instantly turned off the flashlight, nearly leaving us in pitch-black darkness. There was the faintest trace of moonlight sifting in through one of the blinds behind me, so I moved away from them as not to give myself away.

The door to Brendon’s office still hung open. Both Paul and I were too far away to close it without notice. Even if we’d been standing right there, it probably would have been a bad idea to push it closed. We had to hope that whoever had come in wasn’t interested in Brendon’s office.

A flashlight clicked on. Paul backed up against the wall so that he wouldn’t be able to be seen from the doorway. I ducked down behind Brendon’s desk, very nearly atop the coffee stain on the carpet.

My heart was pounding. Footsteps approached slowly. Light from the flashlight bobbed in time with the coming steps.

Had Raymond Lawyer come back to work? Had he planned on working from home and had forgotten something important? Could it be a Good Samaritan, checking to see who had entered the office so late at night?

Or perhaps it was the killer. He could have been watching the place, waiting for someone just like me to come along and interfere. I’d been asking questions. Maybe the killer knew I’d do something stupid like this and was going to put an end to my inquisitive ways for good.

God, I was as good as dead.

The flashlight lit up the room. I sucked in a breath and held it. I was trembling so much, I knew everyone in the room could hear my bones rattling. I could just make Paul out where he’d eased back behind the open door so that he’d be invisible unless the person with the light stepped into the room and turned around.

“I can see you.” It was a strong male voice that had spoken. The light settled on the desk. “Stand up so I can get a better look at you.”

Was this a trick? Could he actually see me, or was he trying to draw me out? I hunched my shoulders and ducked my head even more. Though if he could see me already, I didn’t know what moving would accomplish, other than verify I was there.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to find out. Paul cried out and leapt out from behind the door. He knocked the flashlight out of the man’s hand. As he grabbed for the man’s arms, Paul shouted, “Police!” I shot to my feet and tried to watch it all in the spiraling light of the fallen flashlight. “Stay where you are.”

“No,” the man with the deep voice said. “You stay where
you
are.”

There was a moment of silence when no one moved.

“John?” Paul asked. The flashlight stopped spinning and illuminated the two men where they stood.

“Dalton?” the man—John—said. He was wearing a police uniform.

The two men stared at each other.

“Are you kidding me?” Officer John said with a disbelieving chuckle.

“Let me explain.” Paul looked pale.

“No.” A smile broke out over John’s face. “I don’t think so.” He reached into a pocket and removed a pair of zip strips. “I’m placing both of you under arrest for breaking and entering.”

Paul’s shoulders sagged. He didn’t fight back as his hands were zipped together. Then John turned on me.

“Please turn around,” he said as he approached.

With little choice I did as he said. Our first date and I managed to get us both arrested. What were the chances?

Officer John jerked my hands behind my back. I could feel the satisfaction radiating off him.

“Hot damn,” he said. “This is going to be fun.”