Chapter Nine2:23AM
Day 2 A.L.
“Okay,” Ziya said slowly. “Okay, so … okay.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Amie murmured, reading the message for the seventh time.
Behind them, David shifted. “So someone …” He paused, as if collecting his thoughts. “Someone wasblackmailingBenny.”
“With a photo of him and the woman he was cheating on his girlfriend with,” Amie finished. “But what was he being blackmailed to do? Was that why he was in Savannah’s apartment?”
“What do you mean?” Ziya asked.
“Maybe whatever he was being blackmailed to do involved Savannah.” Amie pointed to David. “Benny said that he felt like Savannah was haunting him. What if that was stemming from guilt about something he did to her? Like … murder?”
A bolt of adrenaline raced through Amie. She might’ve just broken into the apartment of a murderer. Sure, the pursuit of this discovery was the main reason she’d broken into the apartment inthe first place, but now that Benny was confirmed as a very possible murder suspect, the reality of the situation was finally hitting her.
“Another option,” David mused, “is thatSavannahwas the one blackmailing him with the photos.”
Amie sat up, grabbing Ziya’s arm with excitement. “Couldthathave been why he was in her apartment?”
“He was looking for the photos to get rid of them.” David circled back to the front of the couch and picked up the paper.
“But why?” Ziya asked, looking back and forth between them. “If he’d already been broken up with, why did it matter if he got the photos back or not?”
Amie deflated, then noticed she was still holding on to Ziya’s arm. She retracted her hand. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Ziya said quickly.
“Okay.” David set the letter back down and returned to his chair. “Let’s say Savannah was blackmailing Benny for something.”
“That gives Benny a motive for killing her,” Amie said.
“So even if he didn’t necessarilyneedthe photos back,” David continued, “their mere existence in Savannah’s store or home is enough evidence to draw attention to him as a murder suspect.”
“Just to play devil’s advocate,” Ziya said, rubbing her arm thoughtfully as David stood to attend to the squealing tea kettle, “what if it was Savannah’s husband who was blackmailing Benny?”
“For what reason, though?” Amie asked.
“Well, we don’t know the reason Savannah would have been blackmailing him, either,” Ziya pointed out, seeming determined to continue her pursuit of satanic litigation. “But it would still explain why Benny was searching their apartment.”
Amie frowned, sorting through her very thin mental file on Andrew Harlow. Her strongest memory of the man was seeing him at Eons the afternoon of the time loop. She recalled the barista he spoke to going to the back, returning empty-handed with an apologetic expression. Unlike his wife, who would have absolutelymade a fuss over whatever she’d asked for not being available, Andrew had quietly left.
“It’s possible, I guess,” she said, unconvinced. “Andrew always seemed like a pretty nice guy. Nice enough to make someone question why he was married to a person like Savannah.”
“Tea, anyone?” David called from the kitchen.
“No, thanks,” Amie and Ziya replied in unison.
“I’m just saying, we know the bookstore was struggling,” Ziya continued. “Savannah wouldn’t sell, so maybe Andrew was blackmailing Benny for money.”
“Youreallywant it to be the husband, don’t you?” Amie asked wryly.
A smile split Ziya’s face. “Well, I called it pretty early,” she admitted. “It’d be very impressive of me if I ended up being right.”
“Unfortunately,” David said, returning to his chair with a steaming mug of tea, “really wanting a person to be the culprit isn’t enough to determine their guilt.Plus—” He raised his voice, and only then did Amie realize she and Ziya were still chuckling with each other and paying very little attention to what he had been saying. She turned her focus back to David, feeling her face warm.
“—it doesn’t really matter which Harlow was doing the blackmail,” David continued, having regained his audience. “If Benny believed it was Savannah, that’s enough motive for him to have killed her.” He took a sip of tea to punctuate his point, then hissed with pain. “Ah, that’s hot. Forgot I just poured that.”
