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Yeah, I know it takes two to tango or whatever—but Jack is a nice guy. He probably didn’t want to embarrass me by pulling away when I was so clearly into it.
Oh gosh. What is wrong with me? I bet he’s really regretting marrying me now. He was already crying about it during the ceremony. And Jack doesn’t cry. I guess realizing you’ve thrown your life away to marry a murderous trollop could break anyone.
Although in my defense, throwing yourself at your husband doesn’t typically count as being promiscuous.
But since Jack married me as a favor, I’d say throwing myself at him reeks of desperation.
“Wait!” Mel interrupts my fit of self-retribution. “You two got married? That’s why you’re at the courthouse?” She lets out a long relieved breath. “After Noah told me what happened last night and then I discovered you were at a courthouse, I thought you’d been arrested or something!”
“Arrested?” Jack exclaims far too overdramatically for a guy who is usually so stoic. “Why would she have been arrested?”
“How did you even know where I was?” I ask, earning myself a soft elbow to the side from Jack. “I mean, arrested?” I amend, rearranging my expression into one of shocked horror. “Why would you think that? I am a law-abiding citizen.”
Okay, that last sentence might’ve been overkill. I’m not sure. All I know is that I’m not cut out for all of this lying.
But I am even less cut out for prison.
“You don’t know?” Mel is aghast. But she still takes the time to deliver a little PSA before delving into the dead-body-on-my-front-lawn thing. “Also, how many times do I have to remind you all of the importance of using the Find My function on your phones.” She waves her own phone in the air. “Three top-notch detectives have been looking for you, Nora, but guess who found you? Me! Me and my Find My app.” She points at each of us in the room. “None of you can hide from me. You know, unless you turn off location sharing, but none of you have done that yet.”
I don’t dare look at Jack. Did he ever get rid of his phone? Because if not, his story about losing his phone is about to go right out the window. And then what excuse will he give for ignoring all of his friends’ calls and messages?
The two of us were too caught up in our newly rekindled love to pay attention to our phones?
Ha! Lucy would love that.
“Okay, we all agree that you’re brilliant, Mel,” Jack says smoothly. “But seriously, what's all this about Nora getting arrested?”
“You really don’t know?” Mel repeats the question.
“Know what?” Jack replies. “Seriously, Mel, you’re kind of freaking me out.”
“Me too,” I agree, my general state of anxiety over Ian’s murder lending itself well to my need to appear freaked out.
Mel chews her lower lip, looking worried. She steps closer then stage-whispers, “Nora, they found a dead body on your front lawn last night.”
“What?” I cry, and this time I’m the one going overboard with the drama. That sounded way too contrived. Or perhaps I’m just too nervous about getting caught to be a good judge.
It doesn’t matter much either way, though, because Lucy steals the attention off me by shrieking, “They found a dead body on her front lawn?”
So now the whole building knows my plight.
Great.
“What are you talking about?” Jack steps forward, facing Mel. “A dead body? Whose body?” He’s transitioned to detective mode, and I’m not going to lie—it looks good on him.
“They don’t know yet. He didn’t have any ID on him. All I know is the victim was a middle-aged, Caucasian with brown hair. Oh and,” she grimaces, looking my way, “ that apparently he was stabbed to death with a knitting needle.”
I fight to keep my expression neutral, even as the playback track of my conversation with Lucy and Emily runs through my mind.
“You knit?”
“I do. Just as a hobby, but I love it.”
“Obviously lots of people knit, though,” Mel goes on, shooting me an anxious look, because, duh, I made the woman potholders—she also knows I knit!
Why did I ever pick a hobby that lends itself so well to giving other people things? I should’ve picked a hobby that could easily be kept secret, like power walking or gardening. Although I suppose gardeners do give people the stuff they grow. Still, I’ve never heard of anyone getting stabbed to death by a tomato. A carrot, maybe. Or perhaps you could bludgeon someone with a particularly dense squash. Or pelt them with potatoes.
“Nora was with me last night,” Jack is saying when I finally stop imagining ways vegetables can be used as weapons and tune back into the conversation. “She spent the night in my guest room.”
