Sean informed him that he was bringing in a forensic specialist from the city to help go over all the evidence.
“It’s hard to admit, but I’m way over my head with these murders.” Sean sat on the bench they had built together a few years back. “In the past eight years, since I took the job, the closest we had to a murder was when someone ran over the Hawthorn’s prized sheep.”
Cade sighed. “The murder of Snowflake.” He shook his head.
Sean chuckled. “Finding a teenager who’d snuck out and taken a joyride on a four-wheeler and hit a sheep was a lot easier than finding a murderer who would hit a man over the head, killing him, and then rig it so an elevator would snap his head right off. Or one that would know how much poison and what kind to put in a woman’s tea so that she wouldn’t taste it and spit it back out too quickly.”
“Are those the official causes of death?” he asked.
Sean looked at him. “Yes and no. The elevator is a little trickier than that.” He sighed. “Damned if I know how someone bypassed all the security measures on the old thing. The best we can tell is that, at some point, the power to the elevator had stopped. Ramsey was locked inside and had pried open the doors. He was in the process of climbing out of the cabin when someone hit him over the head with something heavy, which was the official cause of death. Then the elevator’s power came back on, and when Raven hit the button…” Sean made a motion with his hands, simulating doors sliding shut. Cade winced when he realized that if the doors hadn’t done the trick, the elevator cabin going between floors would have finished the job. “Ramsey had been dead at that point for almost an hour,” Sean added. “Or so the coroner claims.”
“Don’t most elevators have security measures in place to stop the doors from closing and the cabin from moving if something is in the door?” he asked.
“Yup, which is why I said it gets tricky.” He sighed.
They grew silent for a moment, then Cade glanced over at his uncle.
“So, you and my mom?”
Sean tensed.
“Where’s that going?” He let the question hang in the air.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Fire that’s closest kept burns most of all.” ~ William Shakespeare
Spending her day off working wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to her lately, so Raven figured she might as well go through the day with a smile on her face.
It helped that she got to enjoy the fabulous lunch Tim had made specifically for her. He was trying out a few new menu options, and she didn’t mind that he was using her as a guinea pig.
After stuffing herself with delicious fresh veggie lasagna and homemade garlic bread, she balanced a plate with a large slice of French silk pie with fresh cream on top in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Her laptop was tucked under her arm as she made her way back to her office.
She was halfway down the hallway to her office when Cemal came rushing out of the bathroom and bumped into her.
Thankfully, she managed to save her laptop and the pie, but her coffee mug toppled over and spilled down the front of her shirt and slacks.
“I’m so sorry,” Cemal began as she wiped frantically at Raven’s blouse.
“Cemal, it’s okay.” Raven stopped her. “At least you didn’t get my pie,” she joked.
“Or your laptop.” Cemal sighed. “Your shirt is probably stained though.”
“It’s fine. I have another one in my office I can change into.” She shifted her laptop to her other arm. “Are you in a hurry?” she asked, when Cemal glanced down the hallway.
“No, yes,” she corrected quickly. Then she sighed and her shoulders slumped. “It’s just… That man makes me nervous.”
Raven’s eyebrows shot up with concern. “Which man?”
“Tom,” Cemal answered, looking over her shoulder again. Tom? Tommy? The bellboy? He wasn’t a man. Wasn’t he still in school? So far Raven had seen nothing but professionalism from the kid, after her first encounter with him. He’d not only appeared to appreciate his uniform, but since her aunt’s departure, the kid had blossomed in his job. Actually, Raven was thinking of moving him up to head bellboy.
Raven took a step closer to Cemal. “Has he done something to…” Cemal’s head jerked around and Raven watched horror then humor cross the girl’s face.
“No, nothing like that. It’s just…” She sighed. “Gosh, he’s just so…”—Raven noticed the attraction in the girl’s eyes before she even finished the sentence— “dreamy.”
Smiling, Raven started towards her office again. “Well, the two of you work together. It’s going to be hard to avoid him for long.”
“I know, it’s just… I sort of embarrassed myself this morning.” Cemal followed her into her office where Raven set her laptop and the piece of pie down. She opened her bottom desk drawer and pulled out the bag containing another shirt she could change into.
“What happened?” Raven asked.
“I…” Cemal closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I dropped a very important receipt behind the copy machine, and he helped me move the heavy thing so I could get it.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad,” Raven replied.
“I had tried to move the copier myself and… well, I was stuck when he found me like that,” Cemal said.
“Stuck?”
“I thought that if I could wedge myself between it and the wall I could… push. But instead, I got stuck. When he walked in and found me…” She glanced down at herself. “My skirt was… higher.”
Raven glanced down at the simple black pencil skirt Cemal was wearing now. It came to just above the girl’s knees.
“Higher?” Raven tried to hold in a chuckle. She knew that Cemal was more modest than most of her other employees. She figured it was the girl’s age.
Cemal’s eyes moved back to hers before she nodded slowly.
“What did Tommy…” she shook her head. “What did Tom do?”
Cemal’s caramel skin turned a deep shade of red. “He looked at me and froze in place. I had to ask him twice before he finally moved to help me.” She looked back down at her hands. “It was so embarrassing.”
Raven smiled and walked over to the girl to set her hand on her shoulder. “Cemal, take it from me, Tom wasn’t… He was…” She didn’t quite understand how to explain that the boy was probably turned on by what he’d seen. Taking a deep breath, Raven shook her head. “If you ask me, I think Tom likes you.”
“He does?” Cemal’s head jerked up. “How do you know?”
The conversation confirmed to Raven that Cemal hadn’t had much experience with dating. Not that she was an expert at it herself.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” she suggested.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Cemal shook her head.
“Okay,” she said after a moment of thinking, “you don’t necessarily have to verbally ask him. There are trivial things men do when they are interested in a woman.” She sat on the edge of her desk and, for the next few minutes, enlightened the girl on everything she knew about flirting.