“I box at Top Team. It’s an excellent full-body workout as it’s a valuable balance of resistance and cardio. Abe got me into it.”
“Please tell me you don’t spar with Abe.”
“Not anymore.”
“Tom! One hit and you’d blast him through the ropes! And possibly the wall behind the ropes.”
“Like I said, not anymore.”
She groaned, then realized he was teasing and smacked him on the elbow. “Well, I’m officially thanking you for preventing my mugging and subsequent need for a new purse.”
“The important thing is that you weren’t hurt,” he said softly.
“No, the important thing is that neither of us were hurt. And speaking of hurt, will you tell me about the Mall of America murders?”
Never had he been so pleased to talk shop. “Murder, singular. It wasn’t murder so much as manslaughter. The restaurant had a new employee who was behaving foolishly with the machine they use to make eggrolls.”
“Am I about to be very glad we didn’t order egg rolls?”
“Perhaps. During the employee’s shenanigans—”
“Oh, man. Gotta give full props to anyone incorporating ‘shenanigans’ into a story about death by egg-roll machine.”
“—one of the blades violently detached and nearly amputated one employee’s arm. And while people were panicking over that, a cylinder somehow rolled loose and crushed the first employee. His chest cavity filled with blood and he suffocated.”
“Wow.”
“Yes.”
“Awful.”
“Yes.”
“So the takeaway here is to keep the shenanigans to a minimum when you’re making egg rolls. Got it. Y’know, I love this macabre shit, even though I spent ten years pretending otherwise. I’m sure someone died a horrible-yet-weird death right here in this building.”
“A banker had an allergic reaction to someone else’s service dog and went into anaphylactic shock. It wasn’t murder, but it was interesting.”
“It is interesting!”
“I’m pleased you’re pleased. But if you’ll allow me to go off topic—”
“No more carpet and egg-roll chitchat while you work up the nerve to tell me what’s really on your mind?”
That took him by surprise, which was foolish. Ava was many things; stupid was nowhere on that list.
“—you checked the peephole before you opened the door, yes?”
“Yep. Don’t worry, it definitely wasn’t Becka with a crowbar. Though I’m so hungry, I might’ve let her in if she’d had food.”
“Your text alarmed me.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to tell you what was going on. I called Jan, my union rep, too. To ask about Becka.”
This, too, was alarming. He set down his partially gnawed kebob. “Ava, I do not like your exposure here.”
“Don’t worry, Jan won’t say anything. And she didn’t give me much, either. Apparently Becka was a big fan of mine even before she started working for the airline.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Jan knew who I was asking about before I mentioned Becka’s name.”
He had picked up his kebob, then nearly dropped it. “I don’t like that, either.”
“Weird, right? But apparently she aced her psych exam. All her exams. And Jan didn’t think I was in any ‘physical’ danger from her.”
“That’s an interesting way to quantify such a thing.”
“That’s what I said! Then that rotten bitch hung up on me, which is only fair, but it’s still annoying. So what do we—salt, please—what do we know? Becka’s young—early twenties.”
He took the salt back. “Which could rule her out.”
“Except we can’t use the ‘she’s too young’ rule because she could have a partner. That’s why you suspected me at first.”
“Yes, but in her case, she’s—what? Eight or nine years younger than you are?”
“Yeah. So if she has a partner, it hasn’t been for long, is that what you’re saying? Because it’s a good point. And talking about Boston, that’s the other thing I wanted to know—how’d she know I was going to Boston and how’d she find me, also in Boston?”
“It is troubling. If you’d never before met, never moved in the same circles, why would a random pilot seize her attention in such a manner?”
“Hey! No, wait. You’re right. I am a random pilot.”
“Perhaps the exposure from the belly landing flagged her attention?”
“Maybe, but that wouldn’t explain how she knew all about me months earlier, when she was applying to the airline.”
“Point. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to get some answers.”
“Have Hannah dose her with truth serum? Bug her uniform? Dig a pit and lure her into it, and refuse to let her out until she confesses?”
“Those are all terrible ideas.”
“There are no terrible ideas in brainstorming, Tom.”
“That is a lie.” He batted away the mushroom she tossed at him. “Ask her. The two of us. We sit down and we ask her. We. As in, the two of us. As in, do not rush off alone, Ava. Do not tackle this without backup. Do not—”
“O-kay! Cripes, I get it. And I’ve got to give you points for the direct approach. I like the idea of inverting a trope.”
“What?”
“Or would it be subverting? In the books, the amateur sleuths never just sit down with their suspect. They come up with all these plans to do everything but sit down with her, or him. They spy on them or follow them around or bug them somehow … everything but a sit-down.”
“What books are we talking about?”
“Ones you haven’t read, apparently. Never mind. It’s a good idea. Especially if we do it in a public place. Not a food court,” she added quickly.
Do it. Perfect opening. “Ah … Ava. About that…”
“Uh-uh.”
“… I wish to explain—pardon?”
“You don’t have to explain dick.”
“I don’t have to explain dick,” he parroted, bemused.
“You couldn’t think there. So we came somewhere you could. And, by happy coincidence, somewhere I could have you all to myself. Win-win. Case closed. Well. That case, anyway.”
Do not be fooled. It’s never this easy.
Yes, but in the past the Ava Capp factor was never in play, either.
“So I’ll reach out to Becka and we’ll set up a meet. She’s probably still doing the MSP-BOS-LAX run. We could probably meet her here in the Cities in the next couple of days. Assuming she wants to even meet with us.”
“My advice is to frame it as a meeting with you. She needn’t know I’m there until it’s time.”
“Okay. Definitely worth trying. And if she doesn’t want to get together, we can—”
“She will,” he said at once. “She will not be able to resist.”
Ava just looked at him. “Is that a fact?”
“It is.”