“Is this the young lady the entire force is talking about?” the chief asked, studying me with great curiosity.
“I’m afraid so,” Wyatt said. “Chief, this is my fiancee, Blair Mallory. Blair, this is William Gray, chief of police.”
I resisted the urge to kick him-Wyatt, not the chief-and instead shook hands. Well, I would have shaken hands, but instead Chief Gray just sort of gently held my hand as if he were afraid of hurting me.
“It was a terrible thing that happened this morning,” the chief said solemnly. “We don’t have a lot of homicide in this town and we want to keep it that way. We’ll get this solved, Miss Mallory; I promise you.”
“Thank you,” I said. What else could I say? Hurry up? The detectives knew what they were doing, and I trusted they were good at it-just as I was good at certain things. I said, “Your hair is a really great color. I bet it looks fantastic when you wear a blue shirt, doesn’t it?”
He looked startled, and Wyatt surreptitiously pinched my waist. I ignored him.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Chief Gray said, giving the laugh that men do when they’re both flattered and a little uncomfortable.
“I do,” I assured him. “French blue. You probably have ten shirts that color, don’t you, because it looks so good on you?”
“French blue?” he murmured. “I don’t-”
“I know.” I laughed. “To a man, blue is blue is blue, and don’t bother you with all those fancy names, right?”
“Right,” he agreed. He cleared his throat and took a step back. “J. W., keep me up-to-date on how the investigation is going. The mayor is asking about it.”
“Will do,” Wyatt said, and hurriedly turned me toward his car while the chief continued on into the building. Wyatt hissed, “Were you actually giving the chief of police
“Someone needed to,” I said in self-defense. “The poor man.”
“Wait until news of this gets around,” he said under his breath as he opened the passenger door and helped me ease into the seat. I was becoming more stiff and sore by the minute.
“Why’s that?”
He shook his head. “You’re practically all everyone in the department has talked about since last Thursday night. They either think I’m getting my comeuppance, or that I’m the bravest man walking.”
Well. I didn’t know what to think about that.
I closed my eyes when we got to the intersection where the wreck had taken place. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to stop at that stop sign again without reliving everything. Wyatt turned onto the street that led to my condo and said, “You can open your eyes now.”
I shook away the memory of screaming tires and opened my eyes. With the intersection behind me, everything looked normal and familiar and safe. My building loomed on the right, and Wyatt pulled under the portico. I looked around, remembering that my fence gate had been unlocked when the officer brought my car home. Had whoever tampered with my brakes-I still thought Dwayne Bailey was the most likely suspect-been lurking around then? Had he seen my car being delivered and figured if he couldn’t get to me in one way, he would in another?
“I think I’m going to move,” I said vaguely. “I don’t feel safe here anymore.”
Wyatt got out and came around to open the door for me, and helped me out. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “While you’re recuperating, we’ll get your stuff packed up and moved out to my house. What do you want to do with your furniture?”
I looked at him as if he were an alien. “What do you mean, what do I want to do with my furniture? I need my furniture for wherever I move to.”
“I already have furniture at my house. We don’t need more.”
Ah. I was a little slow on the uptake, because I just then realized what he was saying. “I didn’t mean move in with you. I just meant… move. Sell the condo and buy another one. I’m not ready for a house, I don’t think, because I don’t have time to take care of yards and flower beds and things.”
“Why make two moves when one will do?”
Now that I knew what track he was on, I could easily follow him. “Just because you told Chief Gray I’m your fiancee doesn’t make it so. You not only have the cart before the horse, you forgot to get the poor thing out of the stable. We haven’t even gone on a date yet, remember?”
“We’ve barely been apart for five days. We bypassed the dating thing.”
“You wish.” I stopped in front of the door and in that moment, like a blow, realized that I couldn’t get in my own house. I didn’t have my bag, didn’t have my keys, didn’t have control of my life. I gave him an appalled look, then sat down on the stoop and burst into tears.
“Blair… honey,” he said, but didn’t ask what was wrong. I think I would have hit him if he had. Instead he sat down beside me and put his arm around me, cradling me close to him.
“I can’t get in,” I sobbed. “I don’t have my keys.”
“Siana has a set, doesn’t she? I’ll call her.”
“I want my own keys. I want my bag.” After everything that had happened that day, not having my bag was the crowning blow, the one that sent me over the edge. Evidently realizing I wasn’t capable of being reasonable, he simply held me, rocking me back and forth while I cried.
While he rocked, he unclipped his cell phone and called Siana. Because of the investigation none of my family had yet been told what happened that morning, and Wyatt kept the explanation brief: I’d been in a car accident that morning, the air bag had deployed and I wasn’t hurt, hadn’t even gone to the hospital, but my bag hadn’t yet been retrieved from my car and I couldn’t get in my house. Could she come unlock the door for me? If she couldn’t, Wyatt said he would have a patrolman stop by to get the keys.
I could hear Siana’s voice, the tone of alarm, but I couldn’t make out exactly what she was saying. Wyatt’s calm responses reassured her, though, and when he disconnected the call, he said, “She’ll be here in about twenty minutes. Do you want to get back in the car in the air-conditioning?”
I did. I wiped my face-very gingerly-and asked him if he had a tissue. He didn’t. Men are so unprepared.
“I have a roll of toilet paper in the trunk, though, if that will do.”
Okay, I didn’t want to know why he had the toilet paper, but I changed my mind about him being unprepared. Diverted from my tears, I went to stand beside him as he popped the trunk, to see what else he had back there.
The main thing was a large cardboard box, which contained the toilet paper, a pretty extensive first aid kit, a box of plastic gloves, several rolls of duct tape, folded sheets of plastic, a magnifying glass, measuring tape, paper bags, plastic bags, tweezers, scissors, and a bunch of other stuff. There was also a shovel, a pickax, and a saw. “What’s with the tweezers?” I asked. “You just keep them handy in case someone’s eyebrows need plucking?”
“Evidence collection,” he replied as he unrolled some toilet paper and gave it to me. “I had to have it when I was a detective.”
“But you aren’t a detective now,” I pointed out. I folded the toilet paper, then wiped my eyes and blew my nose.
“Habits die hard. I keep thinking I might need some of this.”
“And the shovel?”
“You never know when you’ll need to dig a hole.”
“Uh-huh.” I understood that, at least. “I always carry a brick in my trunk,” I confided, then felt a twinge as I remembered what shape my car was in.
