“Who’s Nell?” Margie asks.
“His virtual assistant,” Lucky replies. “She keeps his life running. She wouldn’t have let this happen.”
“Donotping Nell,” Decker repeats.
Lucky shakes his head. “Dude. Until you can read a calendar, you can’t lend out the cabin without checking in with Nell.”
“This is agoodaccident,” Decker says. “Margie apparently needs a security system. Rhysisa security system. Problem solved. Everyone’s happy.”
Margie eyes me.
I eye her right back.
She’s wearing that expression again. The one that sayssomeone please love me.
I don’t like what it’s doing to my chest. Not when I’m supposed to be suspicious of her.
“Are you sure he’d be happy?” she stage-whispers to Lucky.
“He always looks like that,” Decker says. “I mean, not the leftover dye streaks, but the scowly thing. It’s why he’s good at his job.”
“Hey, you two could even carpool since you’re both working at the retreat center,” Lucky says. “Margie, didn’t you say your car was making a weird noise?”
“It hasn’t since I got here.”
“Have you driven it since you got here?”
“Well, no, but I’m sure rebooting it solved the problem.”
Why am I suddenly picturing her with blond hair? Dark blond. The kind that’s dark enough that it could be brown but that people still call blond. Full. Straight.
Am I losing my shit, or am I onto something here?
“You don’t reboot cars,” Decker says.
Margie flicks her wrist. “Reboot. Restart. Same thing. I didn’t get enough sleep last night.”
“Dude, lighten up,” Lucky says to Decker. “Cars are half computers anyway these days.”
“Not the parts that make weird noises.”
“What kind of car is it?” I interrupt.
I didn’t look in the garage, but I’d bet that’s where it was when I pulled up last night.
“It’s an old Toyota minivan,” Margie tells me.
“Wait, it’s a minivan?” Lucky says. “Do you have kids?”
She dips her tea bag a few times. “My mom’s friend sold it to me cheap when my last car died. Her kids had grown up, and she’d already been thinking of upgrading to a Lexus.”
She’s lying.
She’s lying through her teeth.
It’s a feeling. A sixth sense.
There’s something too rehearsed in her answer.
