Death of a Mad Hatter (A Hat Shop Mystery) (20 page)

He watched me as I left the kitchen and began to prowl the room, looking for a distraction. A stack of
Financial Times
was on the coffee table, and I sifted through it, not really reading the headlines, just sort of skimming them.

“Scarlett, do I make you nervous?” he asked.

“No!” I jumped. Yeah, not exactly selling my answer, there, was I? “I’m just worried that you might black out again.”

“I won’t,” he said. “It just rocked me a bit. I’ve been hit harder than that on the rugby pitch. It’ll just take a while for the dizzies to pass.”

“You play rugby?” I asked. I knew this. Viv had told me before, but it was hard for me to reconcile the buttoned-down Harrison Wentworth with a sport that I had always considered to be for knuckle draggers.

“You sound surprised,” he said.

“I just thought of you as more of a cricket player,” I said. “Or maybe chess.”

He rolled his eyes and then closed them. “You’re doing wonders for my manhood.”

“Are you all right?” I asked as I hurried to him. “Are you dizzy? Faint? About to vomit? Where do you keep your bags?”

He cracked one eye open and looked at me. Our faces were just inches apart. I was struck by how long his eyelashes were and by the fullness of his lips. Definitely too pretty of a face for a rugby player.

“Ginger, you exhaust me,” he said.

I gathered this was not a compliment, and I really couldn’t blame him.

He closed his eye. In moments, he was snoring. So here I was alone with a sleeping man in his apartment. Hmm. I have to admit the possibilities were intriguing.

Despite the temptation, I decided I would not snoop. Disappointing, I know.

The doctor had said to wake him up every two hours. I settled in on the floor in front of the couch and began my vigil. Thankfully, there was a
Doctor Who
marathon running, which helped to pass the time.

After my cursory sweep of his kitchen I realized I had nothing to feed him, and I didn’t want to leave him on the off chance he took a bad turn. I called Viv and had her bring over soup and sandwiches.

Together we woke him. I checked his eyes and had Viv double-check them. She insisted on feeling the knot on his head, which was pretty impressive and made him wince when she touched it.

“I can design a hat to cover that if it doesn’t go away,” she offered.

“Thanks, I’ll keep you posted,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or not. I suspected not.

Viv stayed and hunkered in to eat and watch television with us.

“So, who do you think attacked you?” she asked as we finished up the soup and I tossed the cartons in the garbage.

Harrison and I exchanged a look. We hadn’t spoken of it, but I knew he was thinking the same thing I was: that it was too coincidental to have been a random robbery.

“I think it has something to do with the Grisbys,” I said. I kept my gaze on Harrison’s face. I wanted to see if he agreed with me.

Viv glanced at him and he gave a small nod. “It makes the most sense.”

“Do you think it was the murderer?” she asked.

Harrison and I exchanged another glance. We both nodded. The realization made a shiver run down my spine. What if Harrison had been killed? Again I felt the sinking sensation in my chest. Guilt really is a heavy load, isn’t it?

As if by mutual agreement, we didn’t speak of it again. After a few hours, Harrison started to fade. Viv and I checked his pupils just as he was beginning to snore. They were okay.

“Are you going to stay the night?” Viv asked me. Her voice had a bit of innuendo in it, which I chose to ignore.

“I think I have to,” I said. “The doctor said to wake him up every two hours for the first twenty-four. I’d feel awful if anything happened to him. Speaking of which, you’re not walking home alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“No, if Harrison and I were followed from the funeral home and attacked, then they could be outside, lurking, waiting to strike again,” I said.

Viv frowned at me. “Have you been watching the horror channel again?”

“No!” I lied.

I had watched it a few weeks ago by accident when I was flipping through channels, therefore it was unintentional and not my fault, so I wasn’t going to cop to it. Besides I only watched the second half of Richard Kelly’s
Donnie Darko.
Let’s just say, giant creepy bunny and lesson learned.

Viv looked at me with a dubious expression so like Mim’s, I almost confessed. Almost.

The doorbell rang, and I was relieved to lead her out. “There’s your escort.”

“What? You didn’t call a cab, did you?” she asked. “That would be ridiculous.”

She followed me down the stairs and I glanced out the window on the side of the door to be sure it was who I expected. It was. I opened the door and greeted Nick and Andre with hugs.

“Sweetie, what is happening?” Nick asked as he released me.

“Chaos,” I said. “Viv will explain on the walk home.”

I pushed Viv out the door. She glanced over her shoulder at me and I saw a frown crease her forehead.

“Lock up behind us. Call me immediately if you hear any weird noises. Scratch that—call the police and then call me.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Scarlett?” Andre asked. He shouldered the umbrella I had insisted that he bring.

“No time to explain,” I said. I made shooing motions with my hands. “Go quickly. Be careful. Call me when you get home.”

The three of them hurried off the stoop and I locked the door behind them. I raced up the stairs to Harrison’s apartment, which I also locked up tight and then hurried to the window to watch the three of them walk down the street until the trees obscured them from view.

Yes, we were probably all being a touch paranoid, but when I thought about Harrison’s cement cabbage being whacked, I figured it was better to be defensive than dead.

Harrison stirred on the couch but didn’t wake up. It was after eleven and finally fully dark outside. I flipped through a few channels, but I was televisioned out. My eyes were feeling heavy, so I decided to walk about the apartment and get the blood flowing. I did not intend to snoop. No, I didn’t!

I’d already used his bathroom, so I knew the layout of that beige-tiled room and other than a towel dropped on the floor, it was pretty tidy for a bachelor pad. No spit stains on the faucet or anything. I wondered if he had a cleaning service.

The other two doors led to an office and a bedroom. The bedroom was neat, with bed made, dresser drawers pushed in, no clothes on the floor. I opened the closet door—don’t judge, I was bored.

Suit jackets and shirts and slacks and ties all hung neatly on hangers. Shoes were lined up along the floor below. A wicker hamper sat at one end. A pair of undershorts—he was a boxer man—were on the floor beside it, obviously a missed shot into the basket.

I closed the closet door and surveyed the room. The one thing that struck me was that there were no pictures anywhere. No group shots of friends, no framed photo of his parents, no artwork, nothing. I glanced back out into the living room and noted there were no pictures there either.

Now I was curious. I thought about my own bedroom at Mim’s. Granted it was trapped in adolescence with electric-pink walls and a Spice Girls poster, but I had also unpacked a picture of my folks and had photos of Mim and Viv sitting on the top of my bureau. I glanced at Harrison’s large dresser. Nothing. Not even a comb.

This compelled me to look in the last room of the apartment, the office. A dark wood desk-bookshelf combination dominated the room and faced the windows. A closed laptop sat on a blotter. A crystal clock, which looked like something someone was given for ten years of service, sat on the right corner. The bookshelves were stuffed with titles like
Principles of Macroeconometric Modeling
. Yawn. But again, there was no indicator that a person actually lived here, no knickknacks, tchotchkes, sports team posters, nothing.

“Find anything of interest?” a voice asked from behind me.

I whirled around to see Harrison leaning against the doorjamb, watching me.

My heart was thumping hard in my chest, but I forced a laugh that came out as more of a squeak. “Sorry, looking for some reading material.”

I gestured to the shelf behind me. “You seem to have cornered the market on the cure for insomnia, and I have to say your décor brings the word ‘barren’ to mind. I’ve seen cheap motel rooms that have more ambiance.”

To my relief a smile tipped the corner of his mouth. “Sorry, when my girlfriend moved out, she took all of the good stuff with her.”

He pushed off of the door frame and left the room. I was pretty sure my jaw had hit the floor with an audible smack. Harrison had lived with someone! When? Why didn’t I know about this? Why hadn’t he or Viv mentioned it? When did she leave? And most important, was she pretty? How pretty?

He disappeared into the bathroom and I waited in the hallway, pacing while trying to process this news. I was an idiot. He was twenty-nine years old. He was a handsome, successful economist who was gainfully employed and had an amazing flat. Of course he’d had a girlfriend.

The door opened and he came out smelling of mint toothpaste and wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a gray T-shirt.

“Let me check your eyes,” I said. I pushed him under an overhead light.

“I’m fine, Scarlett,” he said. “Really.”

His pupils looked normal, but I followed him into his bedroom just to make sure he didn’t keel over while climbing into the bed.

Naturally, I ignored him. “I’m going to crash on your couch. I’ll be in to check on you every two hours just like the doc said. I’ve got the alarm on my phone set and everything.”

He shook his head as he sank onto the mattress. “Look at you mothering me. Who’d have thought?”

“I have layers,” I said.

I watched as he relaxed against his pillows. He gave a heavy sigh as his eyes shut. When he was halfway asleep, I leaned in close and whispered, “Why did you and your girlfriend break up?”

His eyes fluttered half open and he gestured me closer by crooking his finger at me. I leaned in, assuming it was a really good secret, since it had never been mentioned before.

He caught a hank of my hair in his hand and tugged me even closer. Our noses were practically touching when he said, “She didn’t have big blue eyes or red hair. She didn’t smell like sunshine and she didn’t make me crazy.”

Then he kissed me right on the mouth. It was swift and sweet, but it came with an electrical surge that I was pretty sure was going to leave scorch marks on the tips of my fingers. Holy wow!

I pulled back and so did he and then he gave me a slow smile and said, “I knew it.”

Knew what? I stood gaping at him like a big idiot and what did he do? He fell asleep!

I backed out of the room as if he were a lion and I expected he might spring at me, which, judging by that kiss, if he touched me again, could cause a neighborhood blackout. Quietly, I closed the door and took his spot on the couch. The TV was off, but I stared at it anyway. Sleep seemed a very far way off, indeed.

I refused to dwell on what had just happened. He was loopy from taking a shot to the head. Surely, he couldn’t be held accountable for his actions, and I had been caught by surprise, so I wasn’t accountable either. These things happen and there was no reason to examine it further. Right? With any luck, we’d both forget all about it in the light of day.

To keep my mind off the sounds of the house settling, which bore an unnerving resemblance to the heavy tread of footsteps on stairs, and also to keep from scrutinizing the meaning behind accidental lip-locks, I forced myself to think about the Grisbys.

There was just no denying that the one with the most to gain from Geoffrey’s death was Liam. If Tina was pregnant with a new heir, that would be a game changer for him. But would he actually try to murder a pregnant woman? The thought horrified.

When two hours had passed, and I’d begun to doze sitting up, I went back into the bedroom and roused Harrison. I don’t think he was fully awake, but the nightstand light gave me enough illumination to see that his pupils were fine. It was now after one o’clock in the morning and I was pretty sure he was in the clear.

I scrounged a blanket and pillow from the closet in the office and made a nest for myself on his big squashy couch. I put my phone on the table so I would hear the alarm go off in two hours. I figured I only needed to check Harrison one more time and then I could go. Truth be told, I dreaded facing him in the light of day and planned to avoid it for as long as possible.

It took me a while to hear my alarm going off. I had to fight the blanket off of me and when I sat up, I had no idea where I was. The citrusy bay rum man smell that was distinctly Harrison tickled my nose, and then it all came rushing back and I rested my head in my hand. I was officially exhausted.

I dragged myself off of the couch and went into the bedroom. Harrison was asleep on his side. I switched on the lamp and leaned over him.

“Harrison, wake up,” I whispered.

He bolted awake with a gruff cry and before I could move he grabbed me by the arms and yanked me over him and onto the bed. I sank into the soft downy comforter with him looming over me.

“Hey!” I cried. “It’s me, Scarlett. I’m just checking you for a concussion.”

He frowned at me and then let out a sigh and rolled away. The bed was so soft, I was sure I could have melted right into it, becoming just another soft feather in the duvet. Sheer force of will made me drag myself upright.

“I was having the weirdest dream,” he said and ran a hand through his hair. “Or was it?”

“Let me see your eyes,” I said. I turned his head toward the light and leaned over him. “They look normal. How does your noggin feel?”