Dial Em for Murder (6 page)

I flipped it over and in the left hand corner it gave the address and contact information of a Manhattan law firm where he must have one of the senior partners on retainer. For a boy who got his kicks using lock picks to steal whiskey from his own home, the ability to hand over his lawyer's number had probably gotten him out of more than a few tight spots.

Detective O'Brian poked his head into the waiting room and said, “Still breathing? That's good. Try to keep that up, will ya?” before returning to his desk in the inner sanctum. Leaving me to sit there, twirling the business card in clumsy circles as I tried to distract myself by creating a best-case scenario. My mom would be thrilled to learn that I'd been accepted as a student in an elite private school. She'd break things off with Viktor and decide to learn how to be happy on her own. We'd go home and she might attempt some ridiculously complicated recipe from Hungary or Romania or some other Eastern European country, blasting Latin music from our crappy speakers until Mrs. Sampson in apartment 36 yelled at us to quiet down.

I wouldn't miss that old lady. Not in the slightest. She was the kind of woman you expect to end up splashed across the news as the Trick or Treat Killer who slips razor blades into homemade Halloween cookies. The first time she saw Ben walking toward the apartment with me she had said disdainfully, “Like mother, like daughter, I suppose. Try not to get knocked up. You'll only regret it.”

Ben had draped an arm across my shoulder and leered at me with mock interest.

“I dunno, I think we would make great parents. I'm thinking Victory Cabbage if it's a girl, but I'm open to other suggestions.” He had grinned down at me, waiting for my speechlessness to give way to laughter, as if he'd known that arguing with him over ridiculous baby names would soon drive away Mrs. Sampson's vicious words. Transform it into one big joke.

The memory hit my stomach so painfully that it cramped. Ben could find a way to make me smile through just about anything. Without him, without
Audrey
, I wouldn't have enjoyed a single day at our public high school. Starting over at a new high school without them? It felt as unthinkable as chopping off my own limb to survive. Part of me couldn't believe that the situation could really be this dire. That Sebastian's offer could truly be my best option. Even if I transferred to Emptor Academy, I'd still be the only student eating lunch by herself. It wouldn't exactly be hard for an assassin to pick me out of the crowd.

I was so royally screwed.

My phone chirped at me to signal that I had incoming texts.

I fought the urge to reexamine the Slate that had landed me in this mess. The last thing I wanted was for Detective O'Brian to have any more questionable video footage of me. I didn't know what to believe, but staring at a battery-dead tablet wasn't going to solve anything. And after being informed that someone was out to kill me, texting anything about the Slate seemed like a particularly bad idea. So instead I sent a quick message back and tried not to flinch every time the door to the precinct opened.

I should've been prepared to see my mom striding toward me, but somehow I wasn't. Maybe it was the panic glazing her brown eyes that had me rattled. She looked sweaty and scared and absolutely panic-stricken. An unwanted pang of guilt tugged at me as she swept me into a fiercely protective hug. I'd done that to her. I'd scared her speechless.

Someone at the front desk must have paged Detective O'Brian because he sauntered into the waiting room like he owned the place. Judging by the appraising gleam in Detective O'Brian eyes after giving my mom a prolonged once-over, he didn't see anything wrong with her looks. My already queasy stomach twisted in disgust. Detective Luke O'Brian had no moral qualms preventing him from scaring the living daylights out of a sixteen-year-old girl, which meant he was a complete jerk.

In other words, he was exactly her type.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Danvers,” he said smoothly.

“It's Ms. Danvers, actually, but you can call me Vera.” She released me from the tight clasp of her arms, but couldn't seem to resist resting a hand on my shoulder blade. I must not have inherited my shaking hands from my mom, because her grip remained steady as she focused her attention on the jackass in front of us.

“Well, Vera
,
I'm
Homicide
Detective Luke O'Brian.” His chest puffed out as he lingered on the
homicide
part as if it were possible my mom might fail to understand the gravity of the job unless he spelled it out for her.

My mom blanched as she pulled me closer. “Is it Viktor?” she demanded. “Did he do something?”

Oh god.

I didn't know how to feel. Part of me was pissed off that she even had to ask if her boyfriend was involved in something deadly. Furious that she would invite someone into our lives if some small part of her wondered if he might be dangerous. Another part of me was already sick of being forced to explain the events of yesterday,
again
, knowing full well that none of it would make any more sense now than it did when I'd spoken to Officer McHaffrey.

Except this time I'd also have to put up with Detective Dumbass checking himself out in every reflective surface as he continued hitting on my mom. He'd also be waiting for me to slip up. To reveal some discrepancy between this explanation and what I said in the interrogation room.

So I decided to keep the whole thing as straightforward as possible.

“Remember how I told you I was going to be writing in Starbucks yesterday?” My mom nodded so I pressed on. “Well, Detective O'Brian here—” I forced myself to spit out the title, “believes that someone in a baseball cap tried to kill me.”

My mom's immediate hug was so tight that she effectively cut off any further explanation. There was no way I could speak when I could barely manage a tight wheeze.

“Listen Vera—”

But whatever Detective Dumbass said next fell on deaf ears, because my mom was running her hands over me, as if searching for invisible bullet holes or battle wounds. It was like she thought that the press of her hands would magically heal whatever pain might linger beneath the surface of my skin.

“Emmy?” My name on her lips sounded so fragile. It felt wrong, like I had broken something soft inside her. She stared at me with her heart in her eyes, fear dilating her pupils until the amber brown of her irises were a thin ring of color around a bottomless pool of black.

“Yeah, Mom. I'm okay.” I raised my arms skyward to show that there wasn't even a scratch on me. “No harm, no foul.”

Okay, so
that
was the biggest lie I'd ever told.

Detective Dumbass snorted behind me. “Ms. Danvers, your daughter isn't being entirely truthful with you.”

My mom clenched her hand tightly into the fabric at the back of my shirt, but otherwise appeared totally calm. She was in her acting mode, which meant that she would control every single facial tic until we were home and she could decompress. It was like watching a master gambler put on a poker face after being dealt a particularly crappy hand.

“I thought we agreed you'd call me Vera.”

I wanted to puke.
This
was the reason I preferred the dialogue in my romance novels to the real world. Nothing that my mom said mattered; it was all about the way she leaned toward the detective, effortlessly displaying a teasing hint of cleavage, as she widened her eyes.

Put my mom within five feet of an asshole and suddenly there was hair twirling and slow, sly smiles. I wasn't sure if she even realized how much of her time she spent acting without a paycheck.

“We believe that Emmy is withholding valuable information about the killer,” the detective's voice dropped an octave to make it sound conspiratorial. “Information that is essential for her continued safety.”

“Emmy?” My mom's grip tightened and I tried not to wince as her fingers clamped down and pinched some skin. “Is this true?”

“I don't know why anyone would've wanted to hurt me, Mom.” At least that much I could say honestly. I skipped over the whole I-was-handed-a-valuable-piece-of-technology thing. It wasn't like I'd entered the coffee shop with the intention of walking off with someone else's personal property.

“I did some thinking in the lobby, though, and—”

“Oh, this should be good,” Detective Dumbass interrupted, crossing his arms and giving my mom a look that was a cross between arrogant self-satisfaction and sympathy that she had to put up with me on a regular basis. “I'm glad the precinct waiting room knocked some sense into you. Are you ready to tell us what really happened in that Starbucks?”

I refused to acknowledge his question. Instead, I kept my eyes trained on my mom's face. “I'm going to Emptor Academy.”

My mom looked surprised, but I wasn't entirely sure if it was because of what I'd said or because Detective Dumbass decided to punctuate that announcement with a whole string of profanity that ended on the worst curse of them all: “Sebastian St. James.”

Apparently I wasn't the only teenager on Detective Luke O'Brian's shit list.

Detective Dumbass clammed up right after that, maybe because swearing in front of a minor and her mother was generally frowned upon in law enforcement circles. Then again, maybe he was afraid that he'd accidentally let something slip. Something even bigger than his own mysterious connection to Sebastian St. James.

Given that I had known within seconds of my first encounter with Sebastian that he was a rich entitled punk, it wasn't surprising that he'd also rubbed the detective the wrong way.

What
did
surprise me was how quickly the defective detective made the connection between Emptor Academy and the wolf in saint's clothing.

“You know Sebastian?” I asked, mentally picturing Sebastian handing the detective one of his business cards before strolling out of the precinct. Free and clear of any charges.

Detective Dumbass grimaced. “Just met him today. He's one very creepy kid. I told him that his grandpa was dead and he
smiled
at me. I've never had that reaction before. Not from a kid, at any rate.” He turned to me and his own expression darkened. “You sure that's who you want to go to school with, Miss Danvers? I wouldn't pick him to watch my back unless I was
trying
to get stabbed.”

My mom audibly sucked in a breath at the same time I said, “Sebastian's grandfather died?”

He hadn't seemed broken up over anything in the waiting room. He'd been irritable and impatient, as if I were holding him up from something far more interesting, but not as if he'd recently learned of a death in the family. I wracked my brain as I tried to remember if Audrey had told me anything about Sebastian right before we had gone to his stupid party six weeks ago. Mostly she'd emphasized that he was Nasir's best friend, making it painfully obvious that I had been invited in case all of his friends inexplicably decided to hate her. Sebastian's penchant for lock picking I had discovered all on my own.

Detective Luke O'Brian folded his arms. “No need to pretend to be so surprised. After all, you were the one to provide a blow-by-blow account of his grandpa's death.”

My stomach dropped and I struggled to process all of it. Sebastian St. James's grandfather was the man I met in Starbucks. Sebastian's
grandfather
was
my
Coffee Thief.

He was the man who had risked his life to save mine.

In this case, I was willing to say that the apple fell far from the tree, then rolled down a hill, plopped into a river and floated for a few miles, before bobbing off into a freaking ocean. No way would Sebastian ever consider doing something that selfless for anyone.

The only similarity I could see between them were those stormy light blue eyes that seemed to look right through a person. Well, that and the way they both radiated a sense of assurance that the rest of the world (like oh, I dunno,
me
) would just fall in line at the snap of their fingers.

I kept all of that to myself.

“Sebastian's not a killer,” I said, the silence that settled between my mom and the detective unnerving me.

“Who is this, Emmy?” My mom's voice held a note of frustration. “And why is this the first time I'm hearing of him?”

Well, gee, Mom. I've only met him once when he was breaking into the liquor cabinet at his own party. So I know for sure that he's a thief, but the jury is still out on the whole murder thing.

Not exactly the best way to reassure her.

“He's a friend of Audrey's.” I tried to meet her gaze and not look past her toward the police precinct waiting room, but my eyes still flitted to the exit. A clear sign that I was lying. Ben said it wasn't fair to play poker against me, considering that the more innocent I tried to look the more obvious my bluff. Even Ben's little brother Cameron had been thoroughly disgusted with me during our rounds of Go Fish. I just hoped that even if my mom realized something was amiss she wouldn't bust me in front of a cop.

“Audrey told me a bit about his school,” I said, racing onward to reach more truthful ground. “It's got state-of-the-art everything, Mom. Oil sheiks send their kids there. If it's safe enough for
them
, then it's probably a good place for me to wait for this misunderstanding to blow over.”

My mom turned her big warm brown eyes on the detective in a way that was heartbreakingly fragile. That hint of vulnerability in her trembling lower lip had probably gotten her out of more than a few speeding tickets.

“What do you think, Luke?” My mom asked, as if his opinion was the only one that mattered.