Page 38 of Puzzle for Two

“Oh my God,” Brooke greeted Zach when he pushed through the glass doors of Davies Detective Agency thirty minutes later. “I can’t believe it!”

That wasn’t Brooke’s latent sleuthing skills surfacing; that was one sibling recognizing the reason for the shock and distress on the face of another. Brooke herself was looking a little green around the gills.

Zach said gruffly. “Me neither.”

“The news really didn’t say anything. Could it have been an accident?”

“I don’t know. That would be pretty coincidental.”

“Coincidencesdohappen.”

Zach said tersely, “I don’t buy it.”

“It’s soawful.”

Understatement of the century.

“I’m supposed to meet with Flint. Can you…” He met Brooke’s stricken gaze. What? Hold his calls? What calls? Their best and only client was dead. They would probably never have a call—or client—again. Which was not nearly as bad as what had happened to poor Alton.

God. He couldn’t stand to think about it.

You had one fucking job…

Brooke nodded. Zach opened the door again—he was just fumbling through the motions, in honesty—and Brooke said quickly, “Zee, it’s not your fault.”

He turned to face her. “Really? Whose fault is it? Alton hired us—me—to prevent this. I’ve had nearly a week to figure out who was behind those threats, and I haven’t figured out a damn thing. And now he’s dead!”

“It wasn’t a week! It’s been barely…not even really five full days!”

Zach closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose hard.

“Zee.You always do this. You always take the blame for other people’s bad choices.”

He shook his head. Opened his eyes. “I blew it. It’s that simple.” He appreciated Brooke’s loyalty, but come on. He’d madezeroprogress in finding out who had wanted Alton dead. In fact, he’d gone so far off the rails, he’d started imagining Alton was the real bad guy!

He stepped outside, letting the door fall shut on Brooke’s protests.

Arlisse Smith, Flint’s smartly dressed, sixtysomething office manager, was briskly typing away at her desktop when Zach pushed through the glass door, and the mood in the tiny office was so utterly calm, so utterlynormal, he felt as if he’d accidentally wandered into another dimension.

“Good morning, Zach.” Arlisse’s smile seemed eerily untroubled, but once upon a time she’d worked as the administrative assistant to Portola Elementary School’s principal, so the transition to PI’s Girl Friday was probably a cakewalk.

Zach resisted the temptation to offer a bitterIs it? and instead mumbled a subdued, “Good morning.”

“You can go straight through,” Arlisse informed him as she had informed generations of six graders.

Zach stepped past the desk—Flint’s front office was even tinier than theirs—and knocked once on the closed door.

The door swung open. Flint, wearing jeans and a dark hoodie—perhaps forgoing his usual Hawaiian shirt out of respect for the departed—seemed to be blocking the doorway. For a second Zach thought it was standing room only in the closet, but no. It turned out Flint was throwing darts at the dartboard behind his desk.

“Hey.” Flint was even more laconic than usual, his expression bleak and uncharacteristically weary. He leaned past Zach, their chests brushing in a way Zach found startlingly distracting, and requested, “Coffee, Arlisse?”

Surely Arlisse’s cheery, “You got it, Chief!” was ironic?

“Sit.” Flint backed up, pointed to the room’s second chair, which had been pushed to the far—far, being relative—wall.

Zach dropped into the small club style chair—had Arlisse liberated kindergarten furniture from Portola Elementary School when she departed?—and Flint took the chair behind his cluttered desk.

He folded his arms across his broad chest and brooded at Zach for a long moment. “I hate to cut short the all-expenses-paid guilt trip, but we’ve got work to do.”

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