“She has a fashion house in London.”
“Perfect.” Morrie tapped the name into his phone. “We have our first suspect. I’ll dig around in her financials, see if I can’t find anything to connect her to Ashley. Heathcliff, you’re on your own tomorrow. Contact this Marcus Ribald and figure out if he really is in Martha’s Vineyard. Mina and I are going to pay this fashionista a visit. That is,” Morrie turned to me, “if Mina doesn’t mind disobeying a direct police request to remain in the area.”
And miss the chance to clear my name and spend the day in London with Morrie?“As the title of my favorite Pennywise album says,‘Fuck Authority.’I don’t mind at all. Let’s do this.”
Chapter Eighteen
Drizzle pelted me as I walked in from the estate to meet Morrie at the shop. I checked my watch as I rounded the corner of Butcher Street – 6:55 a.m.Good, five minutes early. Morrie seemed the type to appreciate punctuality and besides, we had a train (and then another train, and then another train) to catch.
I smoothed back my hair as I pounded on the shop door. After getting up at five to choose the perfect outfit, I felt happy with my decision of a military-style black jacket with velvet epaulettes, black leggings laced up the sides, and my red patent Docs. The rain may have wet my jacket, but it hadn’t dampened my spirits. My heart raced at the thought of the long train ride with Morrie, our legs touching in the seats, his hand accidentally brushing mine—
Where is he?I knocked again. “Morrie?”
“Tut, tut, Mina Wilde, waking up the neighborhood again!” Mrs. Ellis called down from her window. “Look at you, out at all hours in that getup! Which one are you courting, the tall one or the grumpy one?”
My cheeks burned. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Ellis. I just don’t have a key yet.”
“Make sure you get one. Folk around here take their sleep seriously. I don’t want any more murders in this neighborhood, you hear?” She gave me another wink, which made her round face scrunch up like a prune. “If I were you, I’d have both of them. Imagine being the pickle in the middle of that beef sandwich? Why, I would—”
Morrie threw open the door and yanked me inside. “Good morning, gorgeous.” He kissed my forehead, raising trails of goosepimples across my skin.
“You took your time! Mrs. Ellis was about to lecture me on my sex life.”
Morrie gave me a shove toward the door. “Get back out there. I want to hear this.”
My cheeks flushed. “No time. We’ve got a train to catch. I need my own key.”
“You can tell that to Heathcliff while I finish getting ready. That is, if you can rouse him.”
I followed Morrie up the stairs to the flat. Heathcliff was sound asleep in his chair, Grimalkin curled up in the crook of his arm, purring like a buzzsaw. Quoth preened himself on his perch.
I shook Heathcliff’s shoulder, but he didn’t stir.
“Get me a key,” I growled in his ear. He snorted in reply, but his eyes didn’t open. From the perch, Quoth made ahyuh-hyuhnoise, that sounded suspiciously like a raven laughing.
Morrie emerged from the hall carrying a large black birdcage. “Quoth wants to go with us, so we’ll have to carry this on the train.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Morrie opened the door as Quoth hopped down from his perch and stepped inside. “They won’t let us take that on the train.”
“Sure they will. They let cyclists on the train and they’re way more obnoxious than ravens.”
From inside the cage, Quoth beat his wings and let out an indignant “Croak!”
“Sorry, mate,” Morrie closed the cage door. “We can’t risk you shifting on the train, so this is the safest option. I’ve put some lovely berries in there for you.”
“Croak!”
Inside my head, Quoth let forth a string of expletives.
“Such foul language in front of a lady,” Morrie tutted, picking up the cage in one hand and a sleek leather satchel in the other. “Let us away.”
Morrie didn’t own a car either, hence our train journey. I had to jog to keep up with his long strides as he wound his way through the narrow streets and lanes, down to the station by the river. We arrived just as the train pulled up and, as Morrie predicted, not a single person batted an eye as he lifted Quoth’s cage onboard. We found our reserved table in the first class carriage, and I grabbed a window seat. Morrie settled Quoth into the seat opposite mine, wrapping the seatbelt around the cage to stop it from moving around, then slid in beside me.
I’d made myself a playlist of old school punk tunes and packed two books for the three-hour journey. But Morrie had other plans. He pulled out a magnetic chess set and arranged the pieces, turning the board so white faced toward me. “Ladies first.”
“How magnanimous of you. You won’t be so nice to me after I kick your arse.”
For all my smack talk, I’d barely even got my knight into action before Morrie had me in checkmate. And he wasn’t a gracious winner, smirking and smack-talking as he again won the game in five moves. I could see why Heathcliff wouldn’t play with him. We played a few more rounds. Even though I gave the game all my attention and tried not to get distracted by Morrie’s tattooed forearms or the way the corner of his eye twitched when he had a plan, he beat me every time.
