“Actually, he’s—”
“Please,” Mrs. Nagy implored.
I made the mistake of looking at her. Those kind blue eyes of hers shimmered with tears.
“Please help my Zoltán,” she begged. “Please, Emersyn.”
That request coming from a kind, elderly lady would have been difficult to deny. But Zita Nagy was a kind, elderly lady who also happily provided me with free babysitting for Livy, who kept my niece supplied with homemade cookies, and who’d welcomed us into the Mirage community with open arms when we’d moved in last year.
That made her request impossible to turn down.
Which is why, despite my grave misgivings, I heard myself saying, “Of course I’ll help you, Mrs. Nagy.”
Chapter
Thirteen
Dread filled my veins like slow-setting cement. I numbly accepted Mrs. Nagy’s effusive thanks and listened to Agnes’s assurances to her that Zoltán’s legal problems were practically already solved now that I was on the case.
I returned to my apartment in a daze, not realizing until I stood in the middle of the kitchen that I was clutching the slightly damp blush-pink towel to my chest like it could somehow save me from the ridiculous promise I’d made to my sweet neighbor.
“What the blankety bleep have you done, Emersyn?” I asked myself out loud.
“Sounds to me like you secured our first case.”
I whirled around to see Wyatt standing in the open doorway.
What was it with this guy and doorways? If there was an open one, he seemed to be in it. Filling it with his tall, sculpted frame.
“Ourcase?” Had I really heard right?
“My name is on the business cards,” he pointed out.
“They’re fake business cards! It’s all fake!” I was getting dangerously close to shrieking.
“I’m not fake,” Wyatt said, the picture of cool composure. “I’m pretty sure you’re not. And you did tell Mrs. Nagy we’d help her husband. Are you going to break that promise?”
I’d reached my limit for the day. Maybe for the week. I needed time to think, to sort out…everything.
Still clutching the towel, I said, “I need time. And space.”
Wyatt didn’t budge. “Meaning?”
“It’s not you. It’s me.” That was probably true.
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“We’re not together,” I pointed out.
“Exactly.”
This conversation was not helping my muddled and overwhelmed state.
He must have caught on to that, because he finally vacated the doorway.
Once out in the hall, he turned around. “I’ll let you know if I come up with any leads.”
“Sure. Okay. Thanks,” I said on the off chance that my agreement would send him on his way.
