Talk Nerdy to Me (32 page)

"Wait. Lock your
car."

"Whoops."
She aimed her automatic key at the car and the parking lights flashed as the
doors locked. "Now, see? I almost forgot that, again." She paused and
looked at him. "If only I could believe I forgot to lock the front door
and that we imagined the click of the door closing, we'd have no evidence of
any wrongdoing."

"Except
for the fact that someone took a crowbar to your back door. That falls in the
category of blatant wrongdoing, if you ask me."

"Well,
yeah. There's that. I keep conveniently forgetting about the back door, maybe
because I don't want to remember." Her breath hissed out between her teeth
and formed a little cloud in the air. "I really hate this."

"I
know. Me, too." He let his glance rove the interior of the garage, hoping
something—anything—would look obviously out of place. Instead it all looked
normal, or as normal as any garage that contained a purple hovercraft.

"Well,
it's getting cold out here," Eve said, picking up the cooking oil. "I
vote we go in and put down the door so we can thoroughly check out my work
area. Maybe we'll find some sort of clue as to what happened."

"Wouldn't
that be nice?" Charlie would love to have at least one of these problems
solved. If he couldn't figure out what to do about his relationship with Eve,
at least he'd like to solve the mystery of the breakin.

Twenty
minutes later the garage was warm and cozy thanks to the space heater. They'd
both taken off their coats and laid them over his bike, and they'd scoured
every inch of the garage for clues.

Eve gazed at him, her
expression bewildered. "I don't see anything different from the way we
left it," she said.

"Maybe
we came home before they could do whatever it was they'd planned."

"That
would eliminate Manny and Kyle," she said. "No way did they beat us
here." She made a face. "Shoot. I don't want to eliminate Manny and
Kyle."

"I
know." He leaned against the workbench. "I'm only trying out
theories. But say someone was here ahead of us."

"Which
means whoever it was didn't use the garage door opener. They had a key."
She started pacing again. Apparently she liked to move while she thought things
through.

"Yeah,
they had a key." Eunice was still his prime suspect, and he would stick
with that until proven wrong. "So if they were here and about to do
something, and we came home, they'd have to run into the house and hide
somewhere until it was safe to leave."

"Hold
on." She stopped in mid-pace and swung to face him. "If what you say
is true, then they would have had to open the dead bolt to get out. I didn't
think of that before, but the dead bolt makes just as much noise being opened
as being locked."

Charlie
had an answer for that one, too. "They opened the dead bolt earlier, in
case they got caught and had to make a run for it. They might have thought they
could get all the way out the door, but decided at the last minute it was too
risky."

"But
where in the world would they hide? My closets are staffed to the gills. Even
the bathtub has all my dry cleaning piled in it."

If
the situation hadn't been so dire, Charlie would have laughed. One advantage of
so much clutter might be that intruders had precious few hiding places. But
there was still one. "She could have ducked into that little alcove where
the back door is."

Eve's gaze sharpened.
"You just said
she"

"That's because I
think I know who it might be."

She
began nervously drumming her fingers against her thigh. "But we have no
proof."

"No."
He realized he was treading on thin ice. "Except that we only know of two
people who have a key. And I'll bet you'd rather pin this on Eunice."

"I
don't want to pin it on either of them." She resumed her pacing. Charlie
could almost hear her thinking, trying to come up with a way that wouldn't
implicate either her neighbor or her sister.

Finally
she turned back to him, her eyes alight with a new idea. "What if it's
someone who knows how to pick a lock? I mean, what do we really know about
Manny and Kyle? They could have those skills. They could have criminal records,
even! Rick might have no idea what kind of men he's dealing with."

Charlie
blew out a breath. "I understand that you want it to be Manny or Kyle, or
both of them working together. But everything points to Eunice. She can't be
making a lot of money working at the insurance office."

"No."

"So
she has motive." Charlie held up a finger. "And if money wasn't
enough motive, she also envies you."

"I guess." Eve didn't look happy about
admitting that.

Charlie held up a second
finger. "She has opportunity. She lives right next door and she has access
with the key you gave her."

"I
just don't see her as the kind of person to take what isn't hers. I know she
envies me, but she's fairly open about it, and she's already supplementing her
income with the—" Eve stopped abruptly and looked away. "Anyway, I
can't believe she'd try to steal the concept for the hovercraft. It doesn't
fit."

"How's she supplementing her income?"

She
sent him a pleading glance. "I've promised not to say."

"You
don't have to say if you don't want to. But it seems like we need all the info
we can get if we're ever going to solve this." Hearing that Eunice had a
secret source of income only increased his suspicion.

'This has to stay between us."

He
was insulted that she'd even feel the need to say so, but maybe she was used to
another kind of guy. "We already have several things that have to stay
between us. Me naked except for a pair of chaps would be one of them."

"Good
point." Her eyes sparkled. He hoped that expression meant she was
remembering those moments with lust and not hilarity. The experience had been
intense, but looked at from a certain perspective, it could be funny, too.
Maybe someday he'd be able to laugh at what he'd done, but right now it was too
sensitive a subject for that.

"Eunice takes 900
calls," Eve said.

"After
the paint and the muscle stimulator, I'm not surprised." He wondered if
Rick had gotten wind of the 900 calling thing. Rick was intrigued as it was,
without adding another element to rope him in. Oh, well. Rick's life. If Eunice
turned out to be the person who'd been breaking into Eve's house, Charlie
didn't have to worry. Eunice would end up in jail.

In
the meantime, though, Charlie thought he should warn Rick that he might be
getting mixed up with the wrong woman. "Look, I won't tell Rick about the
900 calls." And it might be just as well if he never found out. "But
I think he should know about our suspicions."

"I
really hate to accuse her, Charlie. I mean, what if she's innocent and she and
Rick have a future together?"

"What
if she's guilty and somehow manages to swindle my cousin out of a bunch of
money? You throw sex into the mix and his judgment isn't all that clear."

"How would she get
money out of him?"

"I
don't know." But he had a potential suspect and he wanted to be right.
"Maybe blackmail. She could have taken pictures of him while they were
doing weird things with green paint."

Eve started to laugh.

"It's a decent
theory."

"No
it's not." She grinned at him. "You obviously don't know much about
the L.A. lifestyle."

No,
he didn't. And his lack of big-city experience was a sensitive topic. "I'm
not particularly worldly, if that's what you mean."

Her
smile disappeared. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to poke fun. It's just that a
bachelor like Rick couldn't be blackmailed with pictures of him involved in
kinky sex. Heck, he might want to show them around."

"Then
maybe she'd get him to buy her expensive presents."

"Maybe."
Her expression softened, as if she didn't want to be confrontational. "But
there's nothing criminal about that, Charlie. Lots of men buy women
presents."

"I
suppose." He wouldn't mind shopping for Eve, now that he thought about it.
He could find a bunch of cool stuff she'd like at the hardware store. For the
first time in his life he'd have fun picking out a gift for a woman,

"I
have to go with my gut on this one," she said. "I don't think it's
Eunice."

"And I don't think
we're going to solve it tonight."

She
gave him a long look. "So . . . wanna work on the hovercraft?"

Just
like that, he lost all interest in the mystery
and
her invention, two things that ordinarily would have kept him
occupied for hours. He couldn't believe how quickly his libido short-circuited
his brain and turned him into a heat-seeking missile with one goal in mind.

Her
smile returned, but this time there was a seductive tilt to her mouth.
"Your breathing just changed."

"If
you think that's something, you should see what's happening to the rest of
me."

She
lifted her eyebrows. "I take it that's a
no
on
the hovercraft project?"

"Let's say I'd like a
rain check." He stepped toward her.

She
backed toward the kitchen door. "Can I interest you in an alternative,
then?"

"You
already have." The remembered taste of her was still on his tongue, and he
hadn't been given a real chance to explore. He wanted that chance, now.

"Just
one thing." She turned and unlocked the kitchen door. "I don't relish
having someone observing us again."

"Neither
do I." Although he had very little blood going to his brain, he was able
to focus what little intelligence he had left on the problem and come up with a
solution. "Pots and pans."

She paused. "Excuse
me?"

"Do
you
have any?"

"A few. Are we going
to use them as weapons?"

"Nope. Early warning
system."

Moments
later, Eve had arranged several pans in front of the kitchen door, so that
anyone opening it would trip over them and make noise. But that exhausted her
supply, which left them with nothing to arrange across the front door. Charlie
was aching to get into that bedroom, but he forced himself to think of a
solution for the other door. They wouldn't have much fun in her round bed if
they were both worried about somebody sneaking in the front door.

"Maybe
we should pile all your discarded hobby supplies across the front door,"
he said as they stood in front of it.

"That's
mostly soft stuff. I don't know if it'll make enough noise."

Charlie
dredged up some memories from his college days. "What we really need is
marbles."

"Marbles?"

"If
you
scatter marbles over the
floor, then if someone walks in they step on them, lose their footing, and fall
down. At least that's the way it's supposed to work. I've never actually tried
that one."

Eve snapped her fingers.
"I have beads! Be right back."

While
she was going after the beads, Charlie stood with his hands on his hips, gazing
at that front door. It had to be Eunice. Nothing else made sense. But Eve
wasn't buying it, so he'd have to hope more proof came along, and soon.

He
wanted Eve to ask for the key back, but he didn't think she'd agree to do that.
She was still holding on to the hope that her view of Middlesex wouldn't have
to change. Besides, it might not matter whether she retrieved the key or not.
Eve had had plenty of time to get a second one made.

Eve came back holding a
plastic bag with beads in every color of the rainbow. "Will that
work?"

"Absolutely."
He took the beads and opened the package. "We'll just sprinkle them all
along here by the threshold." He crouched down and started pouring the
beads out. They clattered and bounced on the hardwood floor like the Mexican
jumping beans Rick had brought him once from Tijuana.