Page 49 of Always Murder

To be fair, a part of me knew this was classic displacement.I wasn’tactuallyangry with Paul.I was angry at myself.Millie had asked me to help him, and what had I managed to do?Stumble around, talk to a few people, and—I was beginning to suspect—alert the real thief to the fact that someone was looking for answers.It wasn’t much of a stretch to figure that my bumbling investigation had led directly to Paul being attacked.And as much as I wanted to blame Paul for lying to me and then disappearing, I was fairly sure nobody would have gone looking for him if I hadn’t kicked over so many anthills.

It also didn’t help that, with Christinestillhogging Paul, the rest of us were stuck in one of the hospital’s waiting rooms.It wasn’t bad as far as waiting rooms go.The hospital must have undergone a facelift recently, because everything was Scandi-chic, with lots of pale birch and white pine and so much creamy beige.The minimalist chairs were surprisingly comfortable.A TV mounted in the corner was showing golf—I didn’t think it was live, since it was almost ten o’clock at night, but the guys on the green looked like they were playing in clear, sunny weather.Was it on the other side of the planet?Was it a rerun?Did they show golf reruns?And if they did, who would watch them?

A more pressing question was: what was with all the gnomes?They seemed to be the hospital’s answer to a perennial holiday problem: how do you put up cute stuff without it all being vaguely Christian?Gnomes had never registered on my radar, but here they were.Gnomes on the windowsills, gnomes on the little magazine tables, even a gnome on the mounting arm for the TV.They were all pleasantly plump and had big white beards and there was something about their eyes that made me very muchnotwant to get trapped in this hospital overnight, or on any Fridays that also happened to be, you know, the thirteenth, or during any full moons or new moons or lunar eclipses.Or solar eclipses, for that matter.David and Elliott, clearly bored with playing the parts of Supportive Boyfriend 1 and Supportive Boyfriend 2, were tossing one of the gnomes back and forth.Nobody in the Naught family seemed to have noticed, but Keme was giving them his level nine-point-five glare, which had been scientifically proven to be hotter than the sun.

To be fair, I didn’t entirely blame David and Elliott.Millie had been sobbing the whole time, and Angeline and Kassandra had been on their phones, and Ryan had shambled around the room kicking things (no gnomes were hurt in the making of this waiting room), and Matthew had immediately hidden behind a copy ofPopular Science.It was from February 2014, and one of the cover lines asked,Could we finally have a cure for cancer?Hopefully this wasn’t a spoiler for Matthew, but I was pretty sure the answer had turned out to beno.

When the first visitor arrived, the rest of us didn’t openly sigh with relief.But it was a close thing.JaDonna Powers did clerical work for the county and had the most remarkable church hair I’d ever seen.She looked at Millie, who was still sobbing, and she might have taken a step toward her, except Keme actually, literally bristled—I swear to God, his hackles stood up.JaDonna changed course for Angeline and Kassandra.

And I realized I had my opportunity.

Ignoring Keme’s glare—level nine-point-seven-five, we’re talking past the point of nuclear fusion—I dropped into the seat next to Millie.She had her face in her hands, and her whole body quivered every time a sob rolled through her.

“Millie,” I whispered.

Millie kept crying.

Keme did something with his eyes that made it extremely clear what would happen if I kept pressing my luck.

JaDonna was saying something to Angeline about her hair.Kassandra perked right up and started telling JaDonna—and everyone else in the room—aboutherhair.

“Millie!”It was still a whisper, but only barely.

Keme kicked my ankle.

“Oh God—” But Millie looked up, and I swallowed the rest of my agony.“Millie, I know you’re upset, but I need you to talk to me.”

“It’s my fault,” Millie said, the words threatening to tip over into a wail.

“It’s not your fault,” Keme said.And then, to me, he added, “You can talk to her later.”

“I’m talking to her now because this is important,” I said.“Millie, take a deep breath.You’re doing this for Paul, right?You want to help him.You did such a good job at the storage unit.You stayed calm.You called for an ambulance.That’s what I need from you right now, so you can keep helping Paul.”

She sniffled a few more times, but when I expected the next sob, it didn’t come.Finally, her voice scratchy, she asked, “But I don’t know what happened to him.I just found him like that.”

“But you know why he was there, don’t you?You know what Paul was doing at that storage unit.”

Millie dabbed at her eyes with a wad of tissues.Her gaze was unexpectedly sharp when she asked, “What were you doing there?”

“I followed you.”

She seemed to consider that before asking, “Why?”

With Ryan and the rest of the Naught family—my current crop of suspects—in the room, I settled for saying, “I can’t tell you right now, but I promise I’ll tell you later.”

“I didn’t steal those packages.”

“I know.”

“Paul didn’t steal those packages.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t, Dash.He wouldn’t do that.I don’t care what anybody says—”

“Millie, I said I know.”

For some reason, that earned me a fresh glare from Keme, even as he rubbed Millie’s arm.

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