CHAPTER 15
I left Panera and drove straight to The Lush. The bar wouldn’t open for another hour, and the parking lot was empty of all but a handful of cars, making Harris Mickler’s easy to find. A Mercedes logo was emblazoned on his fancy key fob, and the ring attached to it had only held three keys: one most likely to his office and one most likely to his house. The smaller key that had dangled between them—probably the key to a gym locker or to a secure cabinet or file drawer—Patricia had kept. I didn’t care. I wanted them gone. The last thing I needed was for some detective to track me down and find them inside my house.
My van idled between the only two Mercedes in the lot. I pressed a button on the key fob and caught the flash of taillights in my rearview mirror. Lining up our driver’s-side doors, I backed my van into the space beside Harris’s car. Then I used one of Zach’s burp rags to wipe everything down: his phone, his keys, his wallet … Curious, I pried open the billfold, my eyes widening at the crisp bills nested inside. I could take them, I thought. Make it look like a robbery. But then why would a common street thug leave a wallet full of credit cards and an expensive cell phone in Harris’s car?
No, better to leave it neat.
If there was no sign of foul play, maybe the police wouldn’t investigate his disappearance too deeply. Maybe they’d assume he’d left the bar, ditched his life, and run off to Tahiti or Milan with some mystery woman he’d just met.
Still wearing my wig-scarf, I slunk out of the van with my sunglasses on, the long strands of the blond wig hanging loose to conceal my face as I fidgeted with Harris’s key fob. His car alarm blared. The taillights flashed and the horn honked in time with my heart. I frantically pressed buttons until the commotion stopped.
Peering around the parking lot, I used my sleeve to open Harris’s car door. Then I wiped down the key fob and dropped his possessions on the driver’s seat inside. I’d never been arrested and booked before, so I knew a fingerprint couldn’t be used to find me. But it could definitely be used to convict me if I ever became a suspect.
I locked his car from the inside, my heart still pumping double time as I climbed back in my van and turned the key in the ignition.
“Oh, no,” I whispered, depressing the brake and turning the key again as the engine made a stubborn clicking sound. “No, no, no, no!” I’d have to call a tow truck. Which meant there’d be a record of my vehicle being towed from this lot, from the parking space right beside Harris Mickler’s car.
This was not happening.
I jerked the hood release, stumbling out of the van in my rush to pop it open. I don’t know why I bothered. I had no idea what I was looking at as I stared at the mass of metal, tubes, and wires under the hood. I knew how to fix diaper rash, skinned knees, and dinners that came in a box. Auto maintenance—or any maintenance, for that matter—had always been Steven’s department.
“Theresa?” I spun toward the voice behind me, my back pressed against the heat of the van’s grill, my heart beating so fast I thought it might fly right out of my chest. I pressed a hand to it, willing it to slow as I sagged against the bumper. It was just Julian.
Julian, the bartender who saw me here last night.
Julian, the law student who could probably smell my guilt from across the parking lot.
Shit.
“Sorry.” His gaze fell to the panicked flush I felt creeping up my neck. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. Everything okay?” He frowned over my shoulder at the open hood.
“Fine! Everything’s fine,” I blurted. My mind reeled. Had he heard the alarm? Had he seen me leave Harris’s wallet and phone? “Probably just a dead battery. What are you doing here?” I cringed at my own stupidity for asking.
“Early shift.” He slung a crisp collared work shirt over the shoulder of his snug-fitting cotton T. Body wash and shampoo smells wafted from him as he raked his damp curls away from his eyes. He gestured to the engine. “Want me to take a look?”
God, yes.
Hell, no.
“Sure.” I cleared my throat and hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “The keys are in the van.”
The corners of his eyes creased with his smile. I hadn’t noticed their color in the bar last night. In the bright sunlight, his irises seemed torn between subtle shades of green and gold, and I was pretty sure I’d be content staring at them until they made up their mind. He leaned into the van and turned the key. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes as the engine made that terrible clicking sound.
“Definitely the battery,” Julian said, stepping out from behind the driver’s-side door. “I’ve got a set of jumper cables in my Jeep. Hang on. I’ll pull it around.”
There was an easy bounce in his step as he jogged to a maroon Jeep with a soft top. Weaving it through the lot, he pulled it in front of my hood until our bumpers were just a few feet apart. He emerged with a set of black and red jumper cables, and I tried not to stare at his backside as he popped his hood and leaned over the engine to connect them.
Probably as hard as I’d tried not to kill Harris Mickler and take his wife’s money.
“Was it giving you trouble before?” he asked.
“Um, no. It was fine,” I told him as he hooked the other end of the cables to the battery in my van. That wasn’t entirely true. The van had been giving me trouble for weeks, and I’d ignored the occasional odd noises and dimming lights, hoping they’d eventually disappear, just like the money in my bank account. I guess things could have been worse. This could have happened last night while Harris was passed out in the back.
“It’s probably your alternator. We’ll let it charge for a few minutes and get you back on the road, but you should swing by a mechanic on your way home and have it checked out.” Julian was closer now. Or maybe I was. Close enough to notice his face was smooth and he smelled faintly of shaving gel. And something intoxicatingly cool under that. “So what are you doing here anyway?” he asked with a lift of his brow. “The bar doesn’t open for a while yet.”
It was the fumes, I told myself. Or maybe the heat coming off the engine making the air feel thin. It was definitely not the way he smelled. Or the way his hair fell over his eyes when he tipped his head. Or the way they glinted in the sun.
“I … lost something in the parking lot last night.” Like my common sense. Or at least my good judgment. “But I found it,” I lied.
“Oh,” he said with a wounded smile. “I was hoping you’d changed your mind.”
I blinked away an image of Julian in the back seat of my minivan. I’d had one too many men in the back of my van this week already, and look where that had gotten me. The only thing I planned to do in this van was vacuum it. Or set fire to it. “Maybe next time?”
“I’d like that.” The silence dragged out, unrelenting and awkward. He lowered his gaze, hiding a self-effacing smile. I tucked a lock of fake hair behind my ear as he checked his watch. He nodded once. “Go ahead and fire it up. It’s probably been long enough.”
I reached into the driver’s-side door and tried the key. The engine turned over, and I exhaled pure relief as Julian disconnected the cables. He dropped his hood, slapping his hands together, his fingertips colored by grease and grime. Remembering the crisp white shirt he’d brought with him for work, I grabbed a pack of wet wipes and a dry burp cloth from my van, checking to make sure it didn’t smell like sour milk and that there wasn’t any blood or hair on it before I handed it to him.