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“I ran to the house,” Lara continued. “And when I heard somebody on the back deck, I panicked and called you.”
“Who was it? Did you recognize him?” Josh asked, as he added another arm to hold me up.
“I hid until I heard him go back down the steps. Then I dumped the phone and went out the front. I never looked out the window. I’m not stupid. If he’d known I was in the house, I’d probably be dead now.”
Joshed lifted me up onto one of the barstools, but kept a protective arm around my back, steadying me.
“The cops think you did it,” I told her weakly. She needed to know.
She was silent for a moment. “That figures. I bet it’s that asshole detective from last time. He still thinks I killed Vern.”
We didn’t have to answer that one; she’d hit it on the nose.
She sighed. “I get it. I know how it looks—me skipping out and all—but I know how the system works. That detective has already decided to pin it on me.”
I looked up to gauge Josh’s reaction.
The straight arrow didn’t look happy with the way this conversation was going.
“Staying away isn’t going to help,” he told her. “The longer it is before they hear your side of it, the longer it is before they look for the real killer.”
Josh’s phone rang with a train whistle sound as another call came in, drowning out Lara’s words. The screen said Dad. He hit ignore. “I’ll call him back later. Sorry, Lara. We had another call coming in. Go ahead.”
“You haven’t seen how the cops operate from my side of the street,” she said. “I gotta go and figure out what to do next.”
From my side of the street—she viewed herself as separate from me. She’d seen my desire to avoid a conflict with Ernst as taking his side over hers. I was really only trying to hang on until my thirtieth birthday when the dynamic would change.
Josh shook his head at her reply. “I’ll see if I can get some help from this end. How do we get in touch with you?”
“You don’t. Change the price of bananas in the discount flyer to end in a zero, and I’ll call in.”
That was an idea she’d pointed out years ago when we were watching a cop show on TV, and a slick one. Our prices always ended in an eight or a nine, and the flyers went out all over the area. “Gotta go,” she added.
“Love you,” I said.
“Let us help,” Josh suggested.
“Bye,” was all she said before she ended the call.
The conversation had drained me. “I don’t know what to do to help her.”
I’d wanted to hear from her, and I’d expected it to make me feel better, but all I felt inside was the cold emptiness of frustration.
I shivered. “I’m scared for her,” I admitted.
She was out there, alone, hunted by the police, and the killer.
Josh squeezed my hand.
Chapter 28
Nicole
We were late gettingready for work after Lara’s call.
Josh insisted on driving me in.
I resisted at first, but I’d almost been ready to leave Casa di Rossi with him last night when he’d given in to me. It seemed fitting this morning to not fight him on this.
