Page 93 of Guilty as Sin
“Human curiosity, I’d say, not obsessive interest. Refills my coffee cup and goes on her way. If she’d wanted to chat me up, she’s had her chance.”
“All right. Where else do you go? The call you got? It was from the pay phone outside the Gas & Go. The guy who owns it cares about me selling, by the way. If he’s your stalker, though, he sure has his murderous nature hidden under a cloak of normality. But is there an attendant there who might have a thing for you?” She realized she’d never told him the specifics about that call. Or asked him about the gas station. How had she not followed this up? Her head was pounding, and her body was trying to shake. Adrenaline, like they’d said. The lingering effects of that concussion. Everything.
He was pulling her down to sit on the ripped mattress. “Hang on,” he said. “I’m going to make you a cup of tea.”
“I don’t need a cup of tea. I need to figure this out.”
“Over a cup of tea,” he said. “Hang on.”
“You are an incredibly bossy man. You’re the one with a destroyed house and a maniac after him.”
“And you’re the one who got hit in the head. I know which is worse. And it’s been mentioned. I like to call it ‘decisive.’ Or ‘commanding,’ maybe. Sounds sexier. Hang on. Cup of tea. With sugar, if I still have any.”
“I don’t use sugar.”
“Shock,” he said. “Aussie. Cup of tea. Hang on.”
By the time he came back holding two mugs, the weak moment had passed. “Last two cups on the shelf,” he said, handing her one. “The rest were broken. I’m going to have to go shopping again. I just went shopping.”
“I thought you’d been here six months.”
“Like I said. I just did it.”
She didn’t address that, since she basically felt the same way. “So,” she said, “where else do you go besides the Red Rooster? Itcouldbe a man. We should consider that.”
“The gym,” he said. “Yeah, the gas station, but nobody I really remember there other than the owner. Nobody chatting me up.”
“That trainer,” she said. “She was at the meeting. What’s her name?”
“Kelli. There’s the owner, Jennifer, as well, though she’s never seemed to care about much more than my subscription. On the other hand, she doesn’t seem all that balanced to me. If she has a secret passion for my body and wants to get shot of Lily for financial reasons as well? That would be a double dose of hate.”
“Let me think about that.” She took another sip of her tea and said, “I want to stay here and help you clean up. I want to get you out of here. But I need to get back to the shop, too. And we were going to stay here together, draw attention away from Lily, like the mother bird dragging her wing.” She set the mug down and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, feeling too much likeshewas dragging her wing. “I told Hailey that I’d be staying with you, like we planned. And you haven’t mentioned the cops or what they said. I should…”
“You don’t have to get me out of here,” he said. “That’s my job. And so is cleaning up. It was Sergeant Worthless who came by. He took it more seriously this time. Tied it to the meeting last night, to somebody wanting to chase you out. And took the opportunity to mention that he’d warned me not to put myself out there like that. All but said I’d put a target on my back. And yours. He mentioned that as well, in case it had escaped me.”
She considered that. “Would he wreck your house for his sister? That would be averytwisted relationship. Or would he look the other way if his sister did it? Much more likely.”
“Possible,” he agreed. “He was calm. If he knew, he hid it well.”
She finished off her tea, stood up, and said, “Right. I’m leaving, and I hope you’re leaving soon, too. I hate you being here. I’m making a call to a professor I know. And I guess we should stay at Lily’s. I don’t like it, though. I don’t like drawing them back to her.”
He stood with her. “I know you don’t. Which is why we aren’t doing it.”
“What are we doing? Wait. That came out wrong.”
“Not sure. I have a mad idea, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to ask Lily.”
Paige drove back into town, still feeling uncharacteristically shaken. She needed to get back to the shop. She needed to get back under control. But first, she needed to do this. She parked down the street from Sinful Desires and took her phone out of her purse.
It took some research, since she still had Lily’s phone and Lily’s contacts rather than her own, but in ten minutes, she heard the voice at the other end say, “Miranda St. John.”
“Hi, Dr. St. John. This is Paige Hollander of the SFPD.” Well, not exactly, but there were times to follow the rules, and times when you had to drive off the edge of the map. “You worked with us on the North Beach Killer case last year.”
“I remember. I remember you, too. What can I do for you?”
