“You didn’t know him, but Durkavic was the kind of guy who had his own yoga mat and that hard pillow thing and all the gear. Plus, he was in jeans.” Parker shook his head. “He was one hundred percent not going to settle for whatever yoga mat this place would loan him.”
Nick waved his hand. “Okay.”
Approaching the front door, Nick tensed but opened it for Parker, ready for anything. Inside, a class was in the middle of a session, rows of college coeds in snug tank tops and stretchy pants. The instructor at the front glared at them and turned back to the class.
Parker held up his hands like the woman had actually threatened him and then went to the walls to look at pictures. His brows twitched a moment, and Nick looked over his shoulder to see a group of six people with their arms around each other. Durkavic was one of them.
“Hey, is there someone in charge we could talk to?” Parker said loudly. “We have some questions about a murder.”
From the back of the studio, someone pushed aside a curtain and came out. She was older than the instructor, hair pulled out of her face in a long braid, and she glared at Parker, then Nick.
“We are in the middle of class,” she said severely.
“And we’re in the middle of a murder investigation,” Nick said before she could get any more annoyed. “Do you have time to chat?”
Her eyes went wide, and she gestured them back through the curtain. On the other side, Nick feltsomething, and he knew that Parker did, too, because his face twitched, and he turned hishead back and forth like he was sniffing the air for a scent he couldn’t place.
“I’m so sorry. We get a lot of people coming in to look, especially now that they’ve opened thatestablishmenton the other side of the wall.” She threw a disdainful look toward the back door.
“No worries, no worries.” Parker raised both eyebrows. “How long have you been here?”
“Ten years,” the woman said. “I opened with just me, and now we have four instructors. I’m looking to expand.”
“Cayo Durkavic one of them?” Parker asked.
“Cayo?” The woman glanced back and then opened a door, ushering them into her office. The room was strangely spacious, and she gestured to one of the seats on the other side of the desk. “Yes, he worked here for a while.”
“But not now,” Nick said.
“No.” She closed her mouth, lips going tight.
“What happened?” Parker asked. “He get caught giving someextralessons on the side to an attractive coed?”
“Nothing like that.” She waved her hand. “He was always a good teacher, but he wasn’t reliable. He’d miss classes, and then once thatestablishmentmoved in, he was always over there.”
“You don’t like the fae place next door?” Parker asked mildly. “It seems like the two of you would be sharing a wavelength. Peace is for everyone, right?”
“The ‘fae place next door’?” The woman looked at Parker incredulously. “They run a fae escape room! We get people breaking in all the time because they think it’s part of the adventure. Last week, someone spilledsomethingon our floor, and I spent two thousand dollars to have a floor cleaner come out, and we’restillfinding glitter everywhere.”
“Durkavic used to spend all his time over there?” Nick asked. “Doing what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He was friends with one of the men working there. I think they were doing some drugs together, but I could never prove it.” She shook her head.
“But he came back here the other day,” Parker said. “What did he want?”
The woman frowned, her gaze suddenly sharp on Parker. “What did you say this was about again? Is Cayo in some trouble?”
“We’re trying to establish his timeline,” Nick said. “It’s standard operating procedure. We just need to know if he was here when we think he was.”
Her brows drew together, and Nick knew the type. She was all for police if it would keep her floor free of fae glitter, but if she had to align herself politically, she was much closer to putting flowers in the barrels of guns.
“Well…” She looked between them.
“It will really help his case,” Parker said.
It wasn’t even a lie. That was the thing about Parker—he always managed to tell something close enough to the truth that Nick couldn’t quite call him on it.
“He was here the other day, yes,” she confirmed.
