“A treasure hunt for young Detective Birdie,” Daniel said, smiling. “A mystery hunt.”
I smiled back. “Exactly. And I loved every second. And at the end of the hunt was Mr. Flops and a crapload of candy. I felt like I’d won the lottery.”
“I love that,” he said, then told the bunny, “Sorry I called you a creep, Mr. Flops. You’re a fine bunny.”
I smiled, and then said, “Hey, Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“I just realized. We don’t have to work tonight.”
“Nope.”
“And we have the house to ourselves. Maybe you should just stay here.”
“All night?”
“You could just text your mom and tell her you’ll be home in the morning.”
“Oh, she’d love that.”
“Really?”
“That was sarcasm, Birdie.”
“But you’ll stay anyway, right? I’ll let you sleep on Columbo or Mr. Flops. Gentleman’s choice.”
“Well, then. How can I say no?”
I closed my eyes, completely blissed out.
“Hey, Birdie? Truth or Lie. Do you believe in second chances now?”
I ran my fingers through his hair. “I believe in us.”
“I do too,” he whispered back.
“Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.”
—Agatha Christie, “The Witness for the Prosecution” (1933)
27
“The video of Darke in the hotel!” I said as the tub drained, tightening a damp towel around my chest.
“Oh, shit.” He paused in the middle of a vigorous hair-drying. “I knew we forgot something.”
It was well past midnight. Over the past few hours, we’d napped—for real, this time—used up the rest of the condoms, listened to old jazz records, set off the kitchen’s fire alarm when we accidentally burned grilled cheese sandwiches, and now bathed. That two people could comfortably fit in our old claw-foot tub was news to me and possibly the best idea we’d had all night.
Honestly, it was a miracle I even remembered Raymond Darke.
“The woman who was with Darke in the hotel,” I said. “Can’t we grab a still from the video and run some kind of reverse-photo-scan thingy on it? See if we can search for her online?”
Daniel’s head popped out from a floral-print towel that had seen too many years. His dark hair was a chaotic mess. “Do you even know how to do any of that?”
“N-o-o-o,” I drawled, giving him a guilty grin. “But it sounds easy.”
It wasn’t.
