Chapter Three
Considering its age and lack of maintenance on the part of its owner, it was no surprise when Nina’s car wouldn’t start on Tuesday morning.
The obliging Sam drove her to work, the head-shaking Larry towed it into his shop.
She came home complaining about a scratchy throat and Larry’s bad news on repairs.
“New battery a must, something about fan belts, and something-something and the transmission. Larry estimates five hundred.” She flicked her hands in the air. “Poof, that’s gone.”
“Sorry. Really sorry.” And because she was, Morgan added a hard hug. “You need some tea and honey. I’ll fix it.”
“Thanks.” Eyes heavy, pretty skin pale, Nina plopped down. “I hate spring colds, and that’s what this feels like’s coming on. Between that and the five hundred, I feel crappy.”
“How about some soup?” Morgan opened a cupboard, took out a can. “Chicken and stars. It ain’t your mama’s chicken soup, but.”
“That’d be good. I think I’ll take a hot shower, then snuggle into bed with chicken and stars, some toast and tea and stream a happy movie. Then sleep off this poopy day.”
“You go get the shower and snuggle in. I’ll make you poopy-day food and bring it in.”
“Best landlord ever. I’d hug you again, amiga mia, but I don’t want to give you whatever I might have coming on.”
When Morgan carried the tray in, Nina was propped up in bed with her laptop and a box of tissues.
“Thanks. Big, giant thanks. I already feel better.”
“Maybe you should take a sloth-in-bed day tomorrow.” After she set the tray, Morgan laid a hand on Nina’s forehead. “Doesn’t feel like you have a fever.”
“Just a stupid April cold, and we’re really busy at work.”
“You can take my car if you go in.”
“I’ve got a ride in and back, but thanks. More big, giant thanks.”
She lifted the tea, blew on it, sipped. “Oh, this is just the thing. I owe you.”
“When that stomach bug hit me last fall, who took care of me?”
“I did, because girlfriends. I’ll conk early, sleep this off.”
“Text me if you need anything. I won’t text you in case you’re sleeping, but I’ll look in, make sure you’re conked when I get home.”
“Got all I need, and I’m going to chug some NyQuil. That’ll conk me for sure.” She spooned up some soup. “It’s not Mama’s, but chicken and stars always work. Have a good one.”
When she got home after her shift, she found Nina fast asleep. And when she woke to an empty house, assumed Nina had turned the corner.
Around midmorning, Luke sent a text that he’d likely be an extra day on-site in Baltimore. Morgan read it between generating an invoice for a finalized bathroom remodel and taking a phone call to set up an estimate on a deck addition.
She sat in her combination office/reception area with her view of the parking lot. She didn’t mind the view; it provided a heads-up on who came and went.
A snake plant thrived in the corner—one placed, according to her information, by the big boss’s wife some twenty years earlier. It now stood nearly six feet tall in a red pot she couldn’t have gotten her arms around.
Bill Greenwald—second-generation boss—told her his mother insisted it served as the business’s good luck charm. As long as it thrived, so would the business.
Bill’s wife, Ava, still donned a hard hat and tool belt to work with the crew. On-site, everyone knew Ava was the job boss and not to be messed with.
Bill’s brother, Bob, a local lawyer, handled that end of things. Bill and Ava’s two children, Jack and Ella, worked alongside their parents.
She often thought, when the day came to open her own place, she’d miss working for the Greenwalds, and their tight, squabbling family.
As she read the text, Bill walked through in his usual uniform of carpenter jeans, T-shirt with a flannel shirt open over it.
He had salt-and-pepper hair under a Greenwald’s Builders cap, kind eyes behind square-framed metal glasses, and arms roped with muscles.
“I see that face. Got a message from your new fella?”
“He’s new, but I wouldn’t call him my fella.”
He shot a finger at her. “When you know, you know. My dad hired Ava, and I worked with her for a month or more. Thought nothing more than she knew how to swing a hammer and takes no shit. Then one day, she lets out this laugh. You know that laugh.”
Big and bawdy. “Yes, I do.”
“The laugh sunk me. ‘That’s the one, Bill,’ I told myself. ‘No two ways. You might as well get used to it.’ Twenty-seven years later come September, I’m pretty well used to it. So you’ll know when you know.
“Anyways, I’m heading out to meet the inspector on the Moreni job. Gonna swing by the Langston demo after, see if I can hear that laugh. Things go as they go, I should be back by three. Or I’ll let you know.”
“I’ll hold the fort.”
“You always do.”
And she liked it, Morgan thought as Bill left and she cleared up a little more work.
She filled her water bottle from the bubbler, then, sitting back at her desk, sent Luke a reply.
Hope that means it’s going well. If you’re back, and free on Sunday, would you like to join us for dinner at Nina’s parents’?
It took a few minutes, but he responded.
Sounds great! It’s going really well, and I’ll be back.
Glad to hear it. Sunday dinner’s on the early side. We usually go over about four, eat around five. Warning: Lots of people, lots of noise, lots of food.
I’m all in. Can I pick you up at four?
Sure.
Hope to see you Friday night, but absolutely on Sunday. Have to go.
He added a flower emoji.
When her smiley face emoji popped on his screen, he used his solenoid card to open the pathetic lock on her back door.
People, especially women, were so damn stupid.
He glanced around a house that rated dump on his scale. Still, the good bones, the location made it worthwhile.
In and out, he reminded himself, and moved straight to her home office. He’d uninstall the software he’d installed during his “bathroom break” the previous Monday night.
No bread crumbs left behind there.
Then he’d finish a very profitable few weeks in a matter of hours. Top it all off his way.
She’d see him before she expected to.
He imagined killing her in the parking lot of the bar, beside her car. But if she wasn’t—as she usually was—the last one out, he’d be in the car, tucked in the back.
Then, surprise! And then the finale. Dump her body, drive the car to an associate in Baltimore. Make an exchange for the I’m-woke Prius, and be on his merry, merry way.
At least he hadn’t had to fuck her first. Then again, he was a man who knew his marks, and had known straight off Morgan Albright wouldn’t be an easy lay. Saved time, effort, and bullshit.
But boy, she’d been easy in every other way.
With hands covered in surgical gloves, he opened her laptop.
He booted it up, and honestly wondered why the woman didn’t—or hadn’t—spent any of her hard-earned money on newer equipment.
He’d already started the uninstall when he heard the pad of footsteps behind him.
He turned, innocent smile in place, as Nina—definitely not looking her best—stepped up to the doorway.
“Luke?” Voice hoarse, she coughed on the name. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey! I talked Morgan into letting me add some software to her laptop. I came in the back. Didn’t want to wake you.” No question she was sick, he decided, so time to improvise.
And put on his best sympathetic face.
“She said you weren’t feeling well, probably sleeping. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“Spring cold. Lousy. My boss sent me home, drove me home. I was just … How did Morgan know I was home sick? Did Angie call her?”
Too complicated, he decided. And she must’ve seen something in his eyes, because he saw something in hers. It said: Run.
Before she could, he grabbed the laptop, swung it hard. It cracked against the side of her head, and the other side of her head cracked against the doorframe.
She barely made a sound.
As she went down, he swung the laptop again—piece of shit anyway—and hit her again.
She’d fucked it up for him, and there’d be no capping it off his way with Morgan now.
So substitution.
“Wrong place,” he said as he knelt down, dragged her onto her back so he could put his hands around her throat. “Wrong time for a sick day, bitch. Wrong girl, but you’ll have to do.”
It gave him a rush, always gave him a rush, to squeeze death out of life.
Though her eyes wheeled, her heels drummed, she never came fully around.
He left her and the broken laptop on the floor.
Adjusting, he hunted through the kitchen, found a trash bag. He loaded it with Nina’s laptop, her phone, some jewelry he didn’t judge as worth the pawning, found a hundred and fifty-eight dollars between her purse and her underwear drawer.
He went through Morgan’s room. She actually owned a couple decent pieces of jewelry. Diamond studs—small, but good color and cut—a gold locket—looked old, probably a family piece. He tossed in some of the crap jewelry with it.
He thought waste not, want not as he loaded up.
Marks always squirreled some cash in the house. He found Morgan’s—five twenties—rolled in a pair of athletic socks.
He grabbed her keys from the bowl by the front door, then went out the way he’d come in.
He used his elbow to break one of the panes of glass on the back door.
Daylight B and E gone bad, gone tragic—that’s how it would look.
Too bad, so sad.
He unlocked the car with the fob, tossed the goodie bag in the back.
He backed out of the drive and drove in the opposite direction of the city center. Humming along with Billie Eilish’s cover of “Yesterday,” he drove toward Baltimore.
A shower hit just as Morgan started to leave work. She checked the radar on her phone. A quick one, heading west.
She opted to wait it out and texted Nina to say so and ask if she wanted in on some Chinese takeout.
The lack of response made her frown.
“Lingering cold, maybe,” she murmured as she watched the rain. “Post-work nap.” She ordered some extra noodles and sweet and sour shrimp just in case.
Fifteen minutes later, she headed out in the damp air under sunny skies. She stopped for the takeout, secured it and her purse in the basket.
She expected a fairly quiet night at the Round, as Wednesday tended to be slower. They hadn’t opened the outdoor seating area yet, but soon would.
When she got her place, she wanted a full patio area with a pergola, and she’d have heaters so customers could use it except in the coldest or rainiest of weather.
More seating, more sales, more profit.
When she didn’t see her car in the driveway, her heart jumped. Then she realized Nina must have needed to go somewhere. Maybe more NyQuil.
Still, she always asked.
She went inside, nodded when she saw the empty key bowl. She hung up her jacket, stowed her purse, then detoured to Nina’s room.
Definitely came home and went out again, she decided. The tissue box was back on the bed.
More tea and honey, she thought, and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on and stow the takeout.
She froze, simply froze when she saw the broken pane in the door, the shards of glass on the floor.
She backed up, breath already catching as she fumbled out the phone in her pocket. Her brain wouldn’t function beyond nine-one-one.
“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“A break-in, a break-in. The kitchen door.”
She looked toward the bedrooms, then toward her office.
And saw the hand, the forearm, the blood in the hallway.
“Oh God! Oh God. It’s Nina!” She sprinted to the office, dropped to the floor. “Hurry, please hurry—229 Newberry Street. She’s hurt. There’s blood. She’s not moving.”
“Help’s on the way. Can you give me your name?”
“Morgan. Nina’s hurt, there’s blood. I think—I think she’s dead. No. No. No. What can I do? What should I do?”
“Morgan, is there an intruder in your house?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. She’s not breathing. I can’t find a pulse. Help me.”
“Help’s coming. Can you hear the sirens? You should go outside now, Morgan, wait for the ambulance, the police.”
“I’m not leaving her here. Should I do CPR? I—I took a class. She’s cold. God, she’s so cold. I should get a blanket.”
“Nina’s cold?”
“I’ll get a blanket.”
“Morgan, the ambulance is pulling up now. Do you hear the sirens? Go let them in, Morgan. Go open the door.”
She veered off from her race to grab the throw off the sofa and yanked open the front door.
“Hurry, please. She’s cold, and she’s bleeding. She won’t wake up.”
She ran behind the EMTs, then stood with her hands crossed over her mouth.
One, a woman with dark red hair and soft blue eyes, looked at her. “Ma’am, how long has she been like this?”
“I don’t know. I just got home. I was late, the rain, and the Chinese takeout, and I got home and saw the broken glass, and then Nina. Can you wake her up?”
“I’ll call it,” the other EMT murmured, and the female walked to Morgan.
“Let’s sit down.”
“Are you taking her to the hospital?” Something hard and heavy pressed on her chest. She couldn’t get her breath. Something high and sharp rang in her ears. “She needs to go to the hospital.”
“I’m sorry, very sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. Your friend’s dead.”
“No. No.”
“I’m sorry. You’re in shock. Let’s sit down.”
“No. No,” Morgan repeated, even as the EMT guided her toward the sofa. “I—I dropped the takeout. I dropped it on the floor.”
“We’ll worry about that later.”
She eased Morgan onto the sofa, tucked the throw around her as she started to shake.
Then looked over as two uniformed officers came in the open door.
“DB down that hall with my partner. Nine-one-one caller’s in shock. DB’s cold, gone a couple hours at least. Can you tell me your name?”
“Morgan. Morgan Albright. She’s Nina, Nina Ramos.” Tears began to spill. “Please, can’t you help her?”
“I’m going to get you some water. Sit right here and talk to this officer.”
“Ms. Albright.” The cop sat beside her. Morgan tried to focus on his face, but it blurred in and out.
“I’m Officer Randall. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. It was raining. I didn’t want to ride home in the rain, so I waited, and I wanted Chinese, so I got takeout. Nina didn’t answer when I texted, but she has a cold, so maybe taking a nap, I thought. Maybe. And my car was gone, and hers is in the shop, so maybe she took it to get something. That’s okay. She’s knows it’s okay.”
“Your car? What kind of car?”
“Um. Thank you.” Everything seemed distant now, far away. Like the wrong end of a telescope.
She took the water, used both trembling hands to lift it. “A Prius.”
“What color, what year? Do you know the tag number?”
“It’s blue. Dark blue. 2019. I—I can’t remember the number. I can’t think of it.”
“That’s all right. You came home and found Nina?”
“I came home, and I looked in her room. She’d come home from work because she had the box of tissues on the bed. She has a cold. And I was going to make her tea. I put the kettle on. I forgot I need to turn it off.”
“I did,” the EMT told her. “It’s fine.”
“I saw the broken glass. I saw it, and I got scared and I called nine-one-one. Then I saw her. I saw her arm, and the blood.”
“Where were you before you came home?”
“At work. At Greenwald’s Builders. It started to rain.”
“Right about five o’clock. Didn’t last long.”
“No. I looked at the radar so I waited it out, and I called in the order for dinner.”
“How’d you get home?”
“On my bike. I usually ride my bike to my day job if the weather’s okay. And if Nina doesn’t have a date and I have time, we usually have something to eat before I go back to work.”
“At Greenwald’s?”
“No, no. The Next Round.”
“You’re the bartender,” Randall said. “I thought I recognized you from somewhere. I’ve been in a few times. Ms. Albright, is there someone we can call for you, somewhere you can stay tonight?”
“I live here.”
“Maybe there’s someplace else you can stay tonight?”
“I don’t…” It hit her, hard, so hard, and everything came into vicious focus. “She’s dead. Nina’s dead. Somebody broke in and did that to her. We don’t even have anything that’s worth anything. We don’t have anything.”
“Why don’t we look around just to see if you notice anything missing. How about in Nina’s room?”
She got up, walked through the terrible clarity into Nina’s room.
“I don’t see her laptop. Her parents gave her a MacBook for Christmas. Not this one, the one before. It was pink. The cover. And her phone—iPhone. But it could be in her pocket.”
She took a deep breath. “Someone’s been in her dresser. She’s messy, but she doesn’t leave the drawers open like that.”
“Can you look in without touching anything?”
“The boxes are on the floor. The clear organizers for her jewelry. She didn’t have anything important, but she kept her jewelry in those boxes, and they’re on the floor. She’d have had a little cash—I don’t know how much—but a little in with her underwear. It couldn’t have been more than a hundred dollars.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll look in your room.”
She crossed the hall, took a long breath.
“I’m not messy. Somebody went through my things. I had, oh God, I had small diamond studs and an antique gold locket that was my great-grandmother’s. Everything else was just costume. I had five twenties rolled in those socks on the floor.”
She closed her eyes, felt herself want to sway. Stiffened against it.
“My laptop, back in my office. The room where—the other room. It was on the floor. It was on the floor and broken and there was blood. It didn’t really register before. They hit her with it. It was broken and bloody on the floor. They hit her and they killed her. And I wasn’t home to help her.”
She swiped at tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “The key fob wasn’t in the bowl by the front door. They saw it, and just drove away in my car after they did this to her.”
She drew another breath. “License number 5GFK82.”
“That’s very helpful.”
“You have to find who did this. She’d have given them anything they wanted. They didn’t have to do this. She works at Let It Bloom Garden Center. Somebody would have brought her home because her car’s in the shop. So somebody knows when she got home. Her mama—”
That broke her, so she dropped down to the floor and let all the tears come.
They wanted to give her a mild sedative, but she wouldn’t take it. Feeling was all she had, and she wouldn’t let go of it. They urged her to stay somewhere else while they did whatever they had to do.
She wouldn’t.
She sat outside, alone. Forced herself to call the bar, which set off more tears, and more offers to stay elsewhere.
Bill showed up—she supposed her night boss called her day boss. He said nothing, just sat beside her, put his arms around her.
“You’re going to come home with me now,” he said after she’d stopped the last bout of weeping.
“I can’t. I can’t. I feel like I’d never be able to come back if I left now. I feel like I couldn’t ever live here if I left tonight. It’s my home. I need my home.”
“I’m going to fix that broken glass and put a dead bolt on the door. I’m not leaving until they say I can do that. And I’m going to have Ava bring over my car. You’re going to borrow my car. I got the truck. I’m not leaving you here without a car. That’s firm.”
“Okay. Thank you. They have to find my car so they can find who did this. Then they have to go to prison forever.”
“You bet your ass, sweetheart. Don’t you come into work tomorrow. Don’t you come in until you feel you can. You understand?”
“I want to—need to—go to Nina’s family tomorrow. I don’t want to intrude tonight. I just feel I shouldn’t be there tonight. And Sam … The police said they’d talk to him, didn’t want me to tell him yet. I’m not stupid, they want to make sure he wasn’t here. He’d never have hurt her, but they need to talk to him. I need to talk to him tomorrow.”
“If you need anything, there are plenty of people who’d jump to help. You matter around here, Morgan.” He gave her a pat on the knee.
“I’m going to see about fixing that door.”
When, long after midnight, she was finally alone—it seemed like days rather than hours—she looked at the card one of the cops had given her. For a crime scene cleanup.
The crime scene they said they’d cleared, like a table of dirty dishes.
The crime scene where Nina had died.
But she wouldn’t call them. It was Nina, and she’d do it herself. The last thing she could really do for someone she’d loved like a sister.
So, late into the night in a house that echoed with silence, she got the bucket, the scrub brush.
They’d taken the laptop—evidence. They’d taken photos and videos and dusted for prints. The detectives had talked to her—questions, questions, over and over. But they’d left the blood behind on the floor, the doorjamb, the wall just inside her office.
It took a long time, longer because she’d gotten sick once, then broken down twice. But she managed. She’d do it all again in the strong daylight if she needed to.
She tossed the takeout, allowed herself a single glass of wine in hopes it would help her sleep.
And in the quiet, in the empty, she lay down in Nina’s bed, hugged the pillow that smelled like Nina’s shampoo.
Though she thought she’d emptied herself of tears, she wept again.
As dawn broke on another April morning, she finally drifted into the peace of sleep.