“It’s our slow period,” Heathcliff growled.
“Really? It seems that every day is your slow period lately.” Grey planted his feet on the floor and leaned forward. “Listen, between you and me, businessman to businessman, I think your new manager might be the root of your problem. Wherever she goes, murder seems to follow her. Not to mention the fact that she doesn’t know the first thing about business. Women always think they can run things like a man, but they just lack that ruthless streak—”
That’s enough of that.I stepped into the room, my back straight, my hands on my hips. “Get out.”
Behind the desk, Heathcliff smirked. Grey whirled around, his eyebrows rising. “Ms. Wilde, what a pleasure to see you again. My wife would love to see you for dinner at Baddesley Hall—”
“I’ll stop you there before you drag Cynthia into this.” I folded my arms. “We’re not interested. Please leave. Before my feeble female brain explodes and I do something stupid, like call the police or shove a copy ofThe Handmaid’s Taleup your arse.”
Grey’s smile remained plastered on his face, but a flicker of anger flashed in his eyes. He expected us to roll over and thank him for his generosity.That’s not happening.
“Yes, of course.” Grey dropped his card onto Heathcliff’s desk. “I’ll leave you to think about it. You know where to find me.”
“Die in a fire!” Heathcliff yelled at his back. He slumped down behind his desk and picked up Grey’s card, crushing it between his fingers and tossing it into the rubbish bin.
“Why did you let him in here?” I demanded. My fingers touched the edge of my father’s note.
“He doesn’t exactly take no for an answer.” Heathcliff rubbed at the scuff marks Grey’s shoes had left on the desk. “I was just about to eviscerate him and string his intestines onto the world’s tiniest violin when you showed up. Your method was much less messy.”
“The world’s tiniest violin? Where did you come up with that?”
Heathcliff held up the cover of the book he was reading.The Somerset Strangler,of course. “Morrie was right. This is quite good. Those gangsters really have a way with language.”
I rubbed my forehead, where a headache was starting to bloom. I got them often now, as my eyesight deteriorated and my eyes strained to focus. This one, I was sure, was more stress-induced. “So how did Grey Lachlan know about our financial situation?”
Heathcliff made a pointed glance around the room. I followed him, taking in the dusty shelves and lack of customers. “A lucky guess?”
“Either that, or he’s hacking into our accounts. And what did he mean about Morrie’s money being tied up?”
Heathcliff shrugged. “Dunno. He’s right about one thing – Morrie hasn’t offered up any funds to bail us out. You know how he loves to throw his dirty money at every problem. Well, he hasn’t so much as proposed a high-interest loan. I assumed he was just being a greedy prick, but maybe our real estate friend knows more than we do.”
Hmmmm. Is that why Morrie’s gone down to London? Has something gone wrong with one of his criminal enterprises?I knew very little about the criminal network Morrie claimed to still operate. That was deliberate – I didn’t feel good about dating a criminal, and I was hoping one day I could convince Morrie to go straight. I appreciated that he was still respecting my request not to be involved, but I wish he’d told me if he was in trouble.
I picked up a bottle of air freshener I’d left on the corner of the desk and spritzed the chair before collapsing into it. “That horrid man better not ever sit in my chair again, or he’ll learn just how ruthless a woman can be.”
“I’d like to see that.” Heathcliff pulled a bottle of wine from the bottom of his desk and set out two glasses.
“You’ve been holding out on me,” I grinned, accepting a glass.
“You should know by now this desk is a treasure trove of culinary delights.” Heathcliff slammed a drawer and held up a crumpled packet. “Jaffa cake? They’re only a couple of weeks expired.”
“No, thanks.” At least wine got better with age. As I sipped my drink, I told Heathcliff about my visit to the station and the horrible story of Beverly’s daughter’s murder. “Knowing everything that happened, I just can’t see her going into that meeting, yelling at Danny, then coming back first thing in the morning and garroting him with that scarf. It would help if we knew for a fact whether Brian picked up her scarf or not.”
“Maybe she’s just stupid?” Heathcliff leaned over the desk. “Many people are. Or maybe she didn’t care if she got caught?”
“I don’t think that’s it.” I flicked through my phone images, scrolling through snapshots from the event. Maybe someone got a shot of Beverly leaving… I squinted at one of the images of Jim, asking his question. I noticed he had the collar of his shirt pulled up over his face. With Jim’s purple hair and Morrie’s spotlights shining on the lectern, it was definitely possible Danny had never recognized Jim in the crowd. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Danny’s ex-gang mate come along to the reading. But if Jim killed Danny, why would he show up for the workshop the next day? Did he want to gloat over the murder?
“What’s that?” Heathcliff jabbed his finger at my phone screen as I scrolled through images.
“Oh.” I blushed. “Um… well, I was going to tell you at lunch, but I guess we got distracted. Remember this morning when I was chasing Grimalkin? We happened to end up in the Occult room…”
Heathcliff’s eyebrow shot up. “The Occult room with the locked door.”
“Yes, that room. Well, the door just unlocked itself again. And Grimalkin jumped up on the pedestal and was walking around on that book. I happened to flick through the pages—”
“Of course you did.” The corner of Heathcliff’s mouth twitched. Whether it was from anger or amusement, I couldn’t yet discern.
“—and one of the pages had that writing on it. I thought I’d get Morrie to translate it. I texted him, but he hasn’t replied. He must have been busy in London because he hasn’t texted me since he left.”
