“Excellent work, gorgeous.” Morrie swept me up into his arms and honored me with a kiss that left me breathless. The tension in the room shifted, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
I drew away from Morrie and grabbed my purse. “I’d better go, It’s late and my mum still wants me to set up a Facebook page for her wobbling business.”
“You’re not walking, are you?”
“Nah, I’ll take a rideshare. It won’t be cheap, so it would be nice if someone paid me,” I said with a glare at Heathcliff.
He grunted in reply. I called up the rideshare on my phone. It would take a few minutes to arrive. I sucked in a breath –now or never.
After hugging Quoth goodbye, I picked up my bag. “Wait with me outside?” I asked Heathcliff.
“I’m busy.”
“Please.”
Heathcliff sighed, but he got up and followed me out into Butcher Street.
“Listen,” I said as we stopped under the streetlamp, before I lost my nerve. “I know you’re mad at me about yesterday, but you can’t treat me like this. As much as I love the bookshop, I can’t work in a place where the boss is ignoring me and avoiding me. So you need to either talk to me about it, or I won’t be in at work tomorrow.”
“I’m not angry with you, Mina.” Heathcliff stared past me, into the gloomy night.
“Then why did you yell at me?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Itdoesmatter. You’re my boss. Don’t you get that the kiss and these mind games aren’t appropriate?”
“Is that the only reason you’re upset with me, because I’m your employer?”
“No. You kiss me and then you yell like that? I assume I’ve upset you or hurt you in some way. Against my better judgement, I care about you, okay? As… as more than a boss. And that’s bad, too.”
Heathcliff sighed, his huge frame heaving. He stared at the moon, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Morrie and Quoth, they didn’t leave anyone behind. But I lefther,and every time I look at you, I feel as though I’m betraying her.”
Here it comes.“Cathy.”
“I read my book,” Heathcliff growled. “I know what happens to her, and what it does to me. I know the monster I become. I promised myself that I’d never make that mistake. If I never loved in this world, I would starve the monster of the fire he needs to rage. But then you came along and I… and I…”
His fists clenched and unclenched.
“You what?” I whispered, my chest tightening.
The door banged open, and the shop bell tinkled.
“I’ve never been so happy to have a customer,” Heathcliff cried out, turning away from me and snapping the spell that wove between us. He rushed back toward the safety of the shop. “Come in, come in. Make yourself at home. We’re open late tonight! Pull out your mobile phone and selfie as you please. Books are this way! Come distract me with your inane questions!”
He stepped into the hall and stopped short. My heart pounded. Something was wrong.
Inspector Hayes shoved past Heathcliff and strode toward me, pinning me with a fierce gaze. “Wilhelmina Wilde, we’re arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Ashley Greer.”
Chapter Thirty
“Idon’t know what else to tell you.” I dug my nails into my palm to stop myself reaching across the table and throttling Inspector Hayes. “I didn’t kill Ashley.”
After the inspector read me my rights, he escorted me out of the bookshop. Every person in the village still awake at eight wandered out of the pub or stopped on the street to gawk at me being escorted into a police car. The back of the vehicle smelled of urine. For the first time in my entire life, I wished my mother was with me.
At the station I submitted to fingerprint tests, and gave them some strands of hair they could test for DNA and trace evidence. I hoped somehow Jo would be able to prove my innocence, but judging by the way she’d fled the bakery, I guessed she’d seen enough to damn me.
“You were upset with Ashley over losing your internship. You discovered she was back in town, and you threatened her.” Inspector Hayes pushed a sheet of paper across the table. On it was a list of comments I’d made on Ashley’s Instagram account after she blabbed about me. Looking at them out of context, all those “I hate you,” and “I hope you choke on a radish” weren’t such a good idea. (The radish thing was a private joke between us that I wanted to throw back in her face, but now… yeah, it looked like a threat).
