Page 37 of Ruthless Cross

"Go ahead."

She followed him down the short hallway into the bedroom and attached bath. She hadn't made her bed, and her robe had been tossed haphazardly across the bottom of the bed, but she hadn't been expecting company.

Flynn stuck his head in the bathroom and then said, "Looks fine."

"I wish I'd made my bed now."

He smiled. "Mine isn't made, either. Sometimes I don't see the point."

"Right? You're just going to get back into bed at the end of the day."

"Exactly. And I would really love to know what it is with women and pillows." He tipped his head toward the pile of blue and white throw pillows on the floor next to the bed. "That's where they always end up—on the floor."

"But they look great when the bed is made. I'm just a little lazy. We don't have to stay in here," she added, thinking that getting Flynn out of her bedroom was probably a good idea.

As they walked down the hall, he said, "I like your place. You're lucky to be beachfront."

"I am lucky. A friend of my mother's owns this building; she gave me a break on the rent." When they reached the living room, she said, "Do you want some coffee?"

"That would be great."

As she started the coffeemaker, Flynn wandered around the apartment, stopping in front of her floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, which were not only stuffed with books but also with record albums.

"What is all this?" he asked in surprise. "You have the Beatles' White Album? My mother must have played that a million times."

"My dad did, too. That's my father's collection. He was a huge Beatles fan. All their records are there."

"And you can still play them. Amazing." He moved over to the record player on the adjacent table. "I haven't seen one of these in fifteen years."

"It was also my dad's, but it still works. You can play something if you want."

He took a record out of its sleeve and put it on the player. After fiddling around with the buttons, the songRevolutionblared across the small speakers attached to the player.

"It sounds great," Flynn said, as he came over to the island. "Old school."

She smiled. "Yes. It's a different experience to play a record than to stream music over headphones, which is usually how I listen. But the records always take me back to the past, to the music of my parents, and it's nice. Sometimes, it's a little sad, too, but not in a bad way. That probably doesn't make sense."

"It makes perfect sense. This takes me back, too, and not in a bad way." He paused. "It actually surprises me to say that, but this song makes me remember my mom dancing around the house as she picked up clutter and dusted off the furniture. She made cleaning look fun. I'm sure it was a ruse to get me to help, and it worked."

"My father used to play his records when he was making dinner. It was a happy time for us. We were usually cooking together. Sometimes, in between taking something in and out of the oven, he'd grab my hands and spin me around like we were dancing." A wave of sadness followed her words. "It's funny how some moments in our lives stand out forever, while others disappear so quickly."

Flynn nodded in agreement. "You never know what will stick."

"Do you have a favorite memory with one or both of your parents?"

"My mom was a puzzle fiend. She liked the gigantic 2,000-piece puzzles. She always said it wasn't fun if it wasn't a challenge. My father would say get something easier, something you can finish faster. But she liked the battle."

"I have a suspicion that you might take after her."

"I do like a good puzzle. Mine just aren't jigsaws anymore. The stakes are much higher."

"Like Arthur's puzzling death."

"Yes. I wish there was a box with a picture on it so I would know where I'm heading. Right now, all I see are random pieces that don't go together."

"Speaking of random pieces…how long do you think it will take to figure out whether those pictures of paintings we found in Olivia's room are important?"

"Probably not long. I can check the FBI database of stolen art. In fact, I can get that going now." He pulled out his phone and spread the pictures across the island counter, then snapped a photo of each one of them. "I'll upload these to the database when I get back to my computer."

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