“Angie, right?” he asked, returning my giant grin. “Thanks for helping with my case.”
Oops. Of course, he didn’t know me as well as I knew him. I’d spent the better part of an entire week obsessing over his case, whereas he’d only ever seen me for brief periods in the middle of what had to be the most stressful time of his life.
“Hey, any time,” I said with a playful fist bump against his shoulder.
“Well, hopefully never again,” Brock corrected with a laugh. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
He looked good. Real good. His long, dark hair had been cut into a shorter style with just enough length left to it that someone could run her fingers through it.
What? Me? No. My last crush had ended horribly—with him dating someone else. And here dear Brock could scarcely remember my name. I didn’t need to go fantasizing about the romantic possibilities between us.
Then again, his smile came easy and genuine. I couldn’t believe that vile red-headed realtor was his twin sister. Other than their shared last name, they had almost nothing in common. At least not that I could see.
Brock motioned for me to join him in the house, then crouched back down in front of the stairs and returned to work.
Those pants. That shirt. His muscles. And the way he handled that hammer… Gah.
It seemed my crush on Charles Longfellow, III, was all but forgotten. Falsely accused or not, I wondered if Nan would approve of me dating an ex-con. Heck, she’d probably find it even more exciting than I did.
No, no, no. Bad Angie! I didn’t have time to date—or even to really think about dating—when there was a murderer on the loose.
“So they hired you to fix the stairs?” I asked, just so that I had something coherent to say.
His dark, sparkling eyes were so pretty as he turned to study me. “Sure did,” he said. “And I’m grateful for it, too. Even though I was acquitted, a lot of people around here still feel weird about hiring me.”
“Oh, I could think of a few things for you to do.” I grew hypnotized by the swell of his muscles beneath his jeans once more. Wait, had I said that aloud?
“What’s that?” he asked, turning to me and running a forearm across his head.
“Uhh,” I stumbled here, honestly unable to remember what I’d been thinking. Then it hit me. As handsome as I found the man standing before me, this wasn’t about him. It was about my own personal kryptonite—coffee. Suddenly, I remembered that I hadn’t had any caffeine before coming over. No wonder my brain was applesauce. I needed to be way more careful about that going forward.
Pinching the inside of my arm to reinvigorate my senses, I finally smiled and said, “I have some jobs around my new place if you have the time. I live right next door, actually.”
He stood and glanced toward my house as if he could somehow see it through the solid stone walls of Harlow manor. “Yeah, I’d love that.”
Octo-Cat appeared in the doorway with traces of fresh blood on his furry face, but the carcass of his mid-morning snack thankfully nowhere to be seen. “No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend,” he muttered as he set to grooming himself.
Oh my gosh, my game was so bad even my cat could tell. Not a great start to my day. Not at all.
Octo-Cat’s rude arrival reminded me that I had come for a very specific reason, and that did not include flirting with the help. “Actually, I just stopped by to see Matt Harlow. Is he here?”
Brock fished through a container filled with nails until he found the ones he wanted. “Nope, he left almost as soon as I got here. Will reading,” he explained, keeping his focus now on his work. “Want me to tell him you stopped by?”
“Sure, thanks.” With nothing else to do here, I turned back toward the door, shooting Octo-Cat a dirty look as I passed by him. He still claimed that all humans looked the same, but he had about a ninety percent success rate when it came to discerning a person’s gender. I wondered if the Sphynxes had the same shortcomings he did. If they’d seen the killer but wouldn’t be able to identify him.
“Oh, wait. There was something I forgot,” Brock called after me.
I turned around so fast, I practically spun in a full circle. My dress twirled around me like some kind of old-timey movie, and Brock chuckled.
“I just wanted to let you know that we have an official offer on your nan’s house. Looks like your new roomie will be joining you in no time.”
Oh, yeah. He and his sister were the ones in charge of selling Nan’s house. The world did exist outside the two of us and my rude kitty commentator.
“Thanks,” I told him. “That is good news.”
I walked slowly back to my car, careful not to put too much weight on my injured foot. Now that Nan had a buyer for her house, she could join me much sooner than we’d originally anticipated.
I had zero shame in admitting that I was a scared little girl who needed her grandmother to tuck her in at night. At least until Glendale’s newest murderer was caught and reprimanded. Maybe I could invite her over today to celebrate her pending sale and beg her to stay the night.
When she found out I had a mystery right next door, I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.
Chapter Eleven
Sure enough, Nan agreed to stop by later that afternoon to get the goods on our newest investigation—her words, not mine. Maybe I should have called my mom instead, seeing as she was already involved. But Nan had been a ready and willing partner the last time around and I liked her less direct approach when it came to questioning witnesses.
Had Mom not built a career for herself in journalism, I have no doubt that she could have made a fantastic prison guard. Nan, on the other hand, was an actress through and through. Even though her time on Broadway had ended almost fifty years ago, she still liked to don costumes and dive straight into whatever new character we needed to aid our investigations.
Me? I guess I was the brains behind our little operation. Whatever it was. Right now, we were still just impromptu vigilante detectives with a knack for finding both clues and trouble. Of course, if my mom had her way, I’d soon be hanging out my Private Investigator for Hire sign on the front lawn.
Nan was the actress, the good cop. Mom was the dogged reporter, ala bad cop, and I was the one who did all the research and then charged straight into battle without any regard to my own personal safety.
So maybe I wasn’t really the brains, after all.
I unpacked some more boxes as I thought this over—as if any of it mattered, as if I were writing a novel or casting a TV show about our exploits. That would be the day! And it would be one both Mom and Nan loved. For now, I just wanted to get my clothes all hung and organized in my new closet.
I’d chosen the smallest bedroom in the entire manor not just because I loved the idea of living in a tower, but also because it felt more like home. Despite her flair for the dramatic, Nan had raised me to be humble and to find happiness right where I sat, and as such, the whole owning a mansion thing would definitely take some getting used to.
I let out a frustrated sigh when less than half of my wardrobe fit in the tiny tower closet. It may have been comprised mostly of thrift store and charity shop finds, but I loved every single article of clothing I owned and was loathe to part with any of it. They just didn’t make clothes like they used to in the eighties and nineties. True, I’d hardly been alive during those decades, but it didn’t mean that I couldn’t adore the bold pops of color and fun patterns in the here and now.