While I was busy pondering all this, Jim told us to start stripping romaine leaves off the bunch, and I did, setting them in a colander so that I could rinse them.
“Maybe the note wasn’t meant for me at all,” I suggested to Eve. “Maybe it has nothing to do with any of us. Or maybe someone left it there for Beyla.”
“Yeah.” Eve sniffed. “That’s why you saw her putting a pen back in her purse.”
“I didn’t say anything about a pen. I said I saw her with her purse.”
“I’ll bet there’s a pen in it.”
“I’ll bet there’s one in yours.”
“OK. Fine. If that’s how you want to be.” Eve tossed the last of her romaine into the colander and turned on the water. “Maybe she didn’t write it. But if that’s true, why-”
Eve’s words stopped as if they’d been snipped in half by scissors. Her colander was still under the spigot, and water was still running over her romaine. But Eve was frozen in place. All it took was one look at the doorway to know why.
A man had just stepped into the room.
Tyler Cooper.
“My hair looks like hell.” Still staring toward where her ex-fiancé was introducing himself to Jim, Eve ran one shaking hand over her ponytail. She blinked rapidly, her eyes moist with emotion. “Kaitlin must have mentioned to him that she saw me. That’s got to be why he’s here. He didn’t know where to find me before now.”
It didn’t seem likely, at least not to me, but there was no use pointing it out. As her theories about Beyla proved all too clearly, once Eve got something into her head, it was nearly impossible to dislodge it.
That’s why I didn’t bother to mention that Tyler was a cop, and that cops can find anyone anytime they want. And that Eve hadn’t moved since the days when she and Tyler were a couple, that her phone number hadn’t changed, and that he’d bought her cell phone at the same time he bought his own. Her number was only one digit different from his.
“Ladies and gentlemen…” Jim tapped a spoon on the side of his metal colander to get our attention. He wore a serious expression, and a thread of uneasiness knotted in my stomach.
Why was Tyler Cooper at Très Bonne Cuisine?
“We’ve got a visitor, and I’m going to let him explain what he’s doing here.” Jim turned to Tyler. “This is Lieutenant Tyler Cooper of the Arlington Police Department. He’s-”
“Here to see me,” Eve said under her breath, standing a little straighter.
“Here to tell us some rather disturbing news,” Jim finished.
Eve’s shoulders drooped. She looked at me, confusion clouding an expression that only moments before was wavering between hope and disbelief. Before she could say a word, Tyler cleared his throat and stepped to the center of the room.
I have to admit, I was never quite sure what Eve saw in Tyler. Just like I couldn’t quite remember what it was about him that I didn’t like.
Oh, he was good-looking enough. He was a smidgen under six feet tall, with broad shoulders, sandy hair, and eyes that, in the right light, looked like they were lit with blue neon. But with Tyler… well, his physical appearance wasn’t nearly as important as his attitude. And Tyler had attitude to spare. I suppose it was one of the things that made him a good cop. Tyler was tough, and every move he made was designed to make sure no one would ever forget it.
We knew it now, just by the way he stood there with his shoulders squared and pulled back slightly, his chin raised, his jaw tensed. He sized up each of us in turn, and I swear, he didn’t even flinch when his gaze landed on Eve.
Now I remembered what I didn’t like about Tyler.
He had a cold, cold heart.
“Most of you have probably heard by now that a man died in the parking lot behind the store two nights ago,” Tyler said. Apparently, not everyone did know. There was a buzz around the room and I automatically looked Beyla’s way.
She didn’t even blink an eye.
Tyler silenced the class with a look. “His name was Drago Kravic. Did any of you know him?”
My hand twitched. Twelve years of Catholic schooling had taught me nothing if not how to be honest. Eve slapped her hand over mine to keep it in place.
Beyla didn’t move a muscle.
“It doesn’t matter if you did or didn’t know him,” Tyler went on. “What does matter…” Again he glanced around the room. It wasn’t like I had anything to feel guilty about-well, except for fibbing to Kaitlin Sands-but just the touch of Tyler’s icy blue gaze made me shift from foot to foot.
“We were sure he had a heart attack,” Tyler said. “Now…” He shrugged. “Well, let’s just put it this way. This morning, an autopsy was performed on Mr. Kravic. And now we know that he was murdered.”
Murder?
The single word shivered through me, turning my blood to ice water. If Drago was the victim of a killer,you are next took on a whole new meaning.
I clutched the countertop to steady my suddenly wobbly legs as Tyler finished up. “Maybe you saw something,” he said. “Maybe you heard something. That’s what I’m here to find out. You just go about your business and do your cooking. I’ll come around and talk to each of you in turn.”
“Ladies room,” Eve said. She turned off the water, grabbed her purse, and ducked out. I wanted nothing more than to go with her, but I knew it would be suspicious if I did, so I stayed put. While I waited, I forced myself to keep busy. I rinsed my romaine and broke it into bits, just the way Jim recommended. My bits were too bitty, and when I added what was supposed to be a drizzle of olive oil, it turned into more of a rainstorm. The salt and fresh ground pepper I sprinkled on sort of clumped in the oil and sank to the bottom of the bowl. I crumbled some blue cheese just like Jim showed us and got more on the floor than in the salad.
All the while, I was watching out of the corner of my eye as Tyler walked around the room.
Eve was back in a flash, a fresh coat of lipstick on her mouth, a little more mascara on her lashes. “Has he been by yet?” she asked, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes followed Tyler as he made his way from station to station, talking to my fellow students and writing in a leather-covered notebook.
When he got around to Beyla, I stopped to see what was going to happen. I couldn’t hear more than the low rumble of Tyler’s voice and Beyla’s higher-pitched, murmured replies, but I knew he was asking questions, and she was answering them. She nodded now and then. She shook her head.
I’m no mind reader, but my guess is that she told Tyler exactly what she’d told us the night before: Drago? Drago who?
And then it was our turn.
I wasn’t imagining it: there was a bit more swagger in Tyler’s walk when he sauntered over. I could feel the tension that tingled through Eve’s body like electricity.
“Why, if it isn’t Eve DeCateur.” Tyler grinned at Eve and acknowledged me with a tip of his head. “And Annie Capshaw. I might have known I’d find you two together.”
“Do I know you?” Eve stepped back, her head cocked, and studied Tyler for a moment. I had to hand it to her, she could look as poised facing down an ex-fiancé as she had onstage back in her beauty pageant days. If I hadn’t just spent how many hours listening to her go on and on about Kaitlin Sands, even I would have been convinced that Eve didn’t care one iota about Tyler.
He was cold, but she was cooler.
I shivered.
“Why yes, I think we have met.” Eve’s Southern accent had never been more pronounced. Her eyes wide, she pointed one perfectly manicured finger in Tyler’s direction. “Didn’t you write me a ticket once on the George Washington Parkway?”
“Never worked traffic, ma’am.” Tyler turned to a clean notebook page, a signal that the pleasantries, such as they were, were over. He was all business now. “I understand you two were with Drago Kravic when he died.”