Drowning in Amber (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 2) (9 page)

I looked around at the train wreck that Crank and R had left and decided to leave, myself. Maybe this Marie chick
could
see me, but if she was stupid enough to bring Ambrose down on her, she wouldn’t have the time to figure out who killed me. She’d be trying to figure out who killed her.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE
it took that long for the police to let me go.” I straggled morosely along beside James as we finally left the cop shop. It was nearly ten o’clock. We were an hour late for our meeting with Honoria Lowe.

“That wasn’t long,” James said. “You’re lucky they didn’t hold you overnight.”

“Even with Sergeant Worth’s help?”

“Even with.” He pulled out his cell phone to call Honoria and let her know we were on our way. There was no answer, and he frowned.

“Do you think she gave up on us?” I asked.

“I called her before I came to get you. She knew we were going to be late. I wonder where she is?”

He walked quickly, forcing me to occasionally do that awkward skip-step to keep pace with him. Damn men and their long legs!

He’d parked on the street in front of the cop shop, and I was seriously glad to see the car there. My feet were starting to hurt. Terribly. The shoes I’d picked up at the Sally Ann when I was replacing my wardrobe were starting to pinch in all the bad spots, and all I wanted to do was take them off. I minced up to the car, and as soon as I was sitting in the passenger’s seat, I tore them off and rubbed furiously.

“Your feet hurt?” James asked. Talk about stating the obvious.

“I kind of wish I’d picked runners instead of shoes with heels,” I said.

“So, why did you?”

“Why did I what?”

“Pick shoes with heels?” He put the car into gear and pulled into traffic. “I’ve never seen you wear heels before.”

I looked down at the shoes, so I didn’t have to look at him. I’d picked the stupid shoes because I thought they made my legs look nice. But there was no way in the world I was telling him that. I just rubbed out the cramps and ignored the heck out of him.

“Tell me what you found out,” he said, as he turned onto Jasper Avenue and headed west. “You did get to talk to some people before you were arrested. Didn’t you?”

“A couple,” I said. “But they didn’t tell me anything. Wouldn’t even tell me if they knew Eddie.” I sighed. “I did talk to one of Eddie’s friends, but she said she didn’t think Eddie knew anybody named Honoria.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t mean Eddie doesn’t know her. Just means he didn’t tell Noreen.”

“Noreen?” he asked. “Eddie’s friend?”

“Yep.” I shrugged again. “Sorry. I didn’t get much.”

It felt like I got nothing, to be honest, but James just took note, without any comment. I didn’t know what to make of that. He usually had a comment.

We made it to 104
th
in excellent time and parked on the street next to the park. Being that close to the park again made me seriously twitchy and jumpy.

“Can’t we park somewhere else?” I said, as I pulled my stupid shoes back on my feet and tried not to groan in pain. “I don’t want any of them to see me.”

He didn’t argue. Just put the vehicle back into gear, pulled down the street, and around the corner.

“Is this good?” he asked.

I looked around and could see no one I recognized. “I think so,” I said, and we got out of the car and walked back to Honoria’s apartment door.

I kept James between me and the park side, feeling ever so happy that I could use him to hide me from whoever was in the park. It looked pretty empty, but that didn’t mean there was no one there. It just meant I couldn’t see them.

As James studied the bank of names below the intercom, I pulled off the shoe that was pinching the worst and rubbed my poor poor toes, one last time.

“Let’s get you some sneakers tomorrow,” he said. “Heels really aren’t your style, are they?”

“All right,” I replied, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “Fine. But you don’t need to act like that.”

“Like what?” he asked. He pressed a button a third of the way down the list of names.

“Like a smart ass,” I said. I stretched my toes and sighed.

“I’m not,” he said. Then he grinned. “Well, maybe. Just a bit.”

“Yeah, you were,” I said, ramming the shoe back on, and trying to ignore my screeching toes. Then I frowned. “Why isn’t she answering?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you push the right button?”

“Yes!”

He gave me a look that told
me
not to be a smart ass, and I shrugged. Two can play that game. He pressed the right button on the intercom—even I could see he’d chosen the right one—again.

It crackled to life, and a man’s voice answered. It didn’t sound happy. “Yeah?”

“I’m looking for Honoria Lowe,” James said.

“You got Joey,” the man wheezed.

“Is this Honoria Lowe’s apartment?”

“No!” The wheezing voice took on a peeved tone. “I told you, you got Joey.”

James shook his head. “Can you tell me—”

“Screw this,” the guy said, and then surprised us both by unlocking the front door.

“Good enough,” James said, and pulled it open.

I personally didn’t think it was so good. Anybody could get in. Anybody at all.

We walked through the front foyer, and James headed for the stairs. I followed, trying not to groan about my feet.

On the second floor, we found her door, and James knocked. No answer. Knocked again.

“Maybe she’s out,” I said, not very helpfully.

James growled, pulled his cell out, and dialed her number. After a moment, a cell phone rang inside the apartment.

James frowned. “She didn’t take her cell.”

“Nobody leaves their cell,” I replied, and felt a flutter of nerves.

“She said she’d be here,” James muttered, pulling a small ring of something that didn’t quite look like keys from his pocket. He played around with the lock on her door. After a very short time, it clicked open.

“I think we should make sure she’s all right,” he said.

I stared at the door, and then at him. “How did you do that?”

“Just something I picked up,” he muttered, having the good grace to look embarrassed.

“You picked her lock.”

“Yes,” he said. “Can we just go in, please? Make sure she’s really not here?”

“I’m impressed.” I gave him a soft punch on the arm. “You got skills.”

“Thanks,” he said, and looked around the empty hallway as though afraid the police would dive out and arrest us. Again. “Now, get in.”

I stepped inside and James followed, gently shutting the door.

We skittered down the short hallway into the apartment proper. It was a tiny affair, not much bigger than my apartment was before it burned down. The kitchen was nothing more than a short line of appliances set against the far wall, with a sink and teeny cupboards. Dirty dishes mouldered in the sink. The rest of the kitchen looked clean enough, though a small TV took up most of the counter space.

A small table and two chairs sat a few feet away from the line of cupboards. The table was piled high with old mail. A few feet past that was the living area, no couch or arm chairs. Just a motley collection of bookshelves piled high with books and paper. Another television sat in front of them, and in front of it was a desk. On the desk were pens and pencils and stacks of paper. I glanced at the top sheet. It was a pencil sketch of a man’s face.

“Hmm,” I said. “This looks like you.”

James glanced at it and shrugged. “Could be.”

I pointed at two doors in the far wall. “Shall we check?”

“Yeah.” He walked up to the first one, swung it open, and took a quick glance inside. “Bathroom,” he said. “Empty.”

Beyond the other door was a small neat bedroom. On the bureau sat another television. Honoria was not in this room, either.

“Okay, so she’s officially not here,” I said. “What do we do now?”

“I think we should look around,” James replied, walking up to the kitchen table. He began going through the pile of mail. examining every unopened envelope before turning to the next.

“We came in here to snoop on her, didn’t we?” I asked. “You were counting on her not being here, weren’t you?”

“Let’s just say an opportunity presented itself,” James replied. “Shouldn’t let one of those go by.”

“Why?” I turned over a couple more of the sketches on the desk and looked at them. Both were of James, and they were pretty good. I held one up. “I think she has a crush on you.”

James pointedly ignored the sketch. He walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a pile of paper bound with a large elastic band. “We need to know more about her, don’t we?”

“I guess.” I turned over a couple more sketches. More buildings. Or, to be more exact, one building. A two-story house, looked like it was in one of the older rundown areas of Edmonton. The windows looked boarded-up. “But I don’t know why we just didn’t wait until—”

“Until what? She tells us everything? Do you really think she’s going to do that?”

I stopped looking at the pictures and looked at him instead. “You don’t trust her?”

“No.” He shook his head, still going through the papers. Looked like bank statements. “I really don’t. Saying she dreams the murder. I mean, that’s just too strange.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” I set down the sketches. I didn’t feel like digging around in her life anymore. “I don’t feel very good about going through her stuff like this—”

“Why?” he asked. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” I replied, feeling trapped. He was right. I’d gone through my old boss’s office—and from the information I’d gathered, James and I had been able to prove that my boss was truly a bad man and deserved to go to jail.

But this didn’t feel the same. Honoria was—different.

“So what’s the difference?” he asked, and I jumped like he’d read my mind.

“Nothing, I guess. However, she is our client.”

“That decision hasn’t been made yet.”

“Oh come on!” I cried. “We already said yes, mostly! And Noreen said Eddie didn’t know her—”

“And like you said, Eddie might not have told Noreen,” he said. “I still have no reason to trust her.”

“Oh, so you have to trust someone before you take their case for real?” I asked, walking over to a bookshelf as far from him as I could get. I pulled out a book and glanced at it. Some kind of horror thing. Wouldn’t be my cup of tea, if I read. A sheaf of papers that had been tucked in beside it slithered off the shelf in a papery waterfall.

“Crap!” I bent down and tried to pick them up in order.

“I don’t need to trust them,” he replied. “But I have to be able to get a read on them. I can’t with her. There’s something about her that’s—off.”

“Yeah, well, there is the fact that she’s been hospitalized and drugged most of her life,” I said.

I’d managed to get everything that I’d knocked to the floor more or less back in order, and looked at the top page. It had the same title as the book. The only difference was, on the typed pages, Honoria’s name appeared below the title. On the book—a different name.

“There is that,” James replied. “I don’t know if I can trust someone who’s certifiable.”

I glared at him. “You know, there is a possibility she actually has visions or whatever.”

“I doubt that,” James replied, putting back the bank statements and pulling out another pile of papers. “I think her ‘visions’ are a scam.”

“Fine. Whatever.” I looked back down at the sheets and read the first few lines, then looked inside the book. Exactly the same lines.

I looked back at the typewritten sheets and read a bit more. Then back at the book. Same words.

“Hmm,” I said. “Maybe she’s not crazy. Maybe she’s just a writer.”

“You find something?”

“Looks like she wrote a book.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Really, book boy,” I scoffed. “You ever heard of this one? Maybe she’s somebody.”

I held up the book, and his eyebrows raised.

“She wrote that?” He walked over and took it from me. “That was on the
New York Times
bestseller list three years ago.”

“You remember stuff like that?” I asked, and laughed. “Man, you gotta get a life.”

He didn’t answer, because he was looking at the shelf where I’d pulled out the book and the sheaf of paper. There was a line of books, with sheafs of paper tucked in beside each of them.

He pulled out another book, with a different writer’s name on the cover, and frowned. “This guy died last year.”

He looked at the typewritten pages, then opened the book and looked at the date it was published.