could.
Supposedly, Aaron and Charly rode in the back on the stiff vinyl seats for their own safety, but Charly wasn’t so sure when she kept catching her uncle’s suspicious looks at Aaron through his rearview mirror. Mikey, on the other hand, sat unencumbered on the front seat, chatting amiably with her uncle and singing snatches of melodies from the radio.
Uncle Price cleared his throat. “Mikey, how did your murder mystery really end?”
The cheerful British gent was a little more sober that night, but he perked up in his seat. “Do you want the necklace version or the non-necklace version?”
“Um, necklace?”
Even Charly straightened with interest, though Aaron blinked tiredly. Mikey leaned his elbow into the back of his seat and grinned back at them. “You’ll love this.”
“Will we?” Aaron asked. He sounded a little testy. The way the Murder Mystery had gone the past few days, the ending might be as confusing as the script had been, but honestly, Charly welcomed the distraction from the stressful evening. Aaron rested his cheek against Charly’s head. “I just want to know if I was the murderer.”
“Not so fast,” Mikey said. He licked his lips and fell into his familiar Brooklyn accent. “When I hired you to track anything suspicious at my club, you jumped at the excuse so you could do what you do best—get dirt on the mayor and bring him to justice.”
“So I was a vigilante? Why? Was I trying to avenge some old girlfriend or something?” Aaron caught eyes with Charly. “Sorry, she was a river, you’re a... a...”
“An ocean,” Charly finished for him.
Mikey held up his hands. “No, no old girlfriend—you just have an overdeveloped sense of justice, Aaron.”
“So I’m not the murderer?” He sounded disappointed.
“Let’s just say the mayor’s murder was no surprise to you.”
Uncle Price whistled low under his breath, turning the wheel. The patrol car was moving noticeably slower as the sheriff took his time bringing them back to the station. “So who was Charly supposed to be?” he asked in his gravelly voice. “She was turning into quite the coldhearted baggage at the end of all this. Red flags all over the place.”
Trust her uncle to mix fiction with reality. Mikey rubbed his hands together. “You caught that, did you?”
“Excuse me?” Charly had to defend her character. “What was I supposed to do? I was a girl all alone in the world! The city would spit out a sweet little country bumpkin like me.”
“Except you weren’t some innocent from Minnesota,” Mikey smugly corrected her. “Oh no, you were a butcher from the Bronx.”
Charly’s nose wrinkled the same time she giggled, and the sound came out a snort. “Butcher isn’t code for a killer?” she asked.
Aaron squeezed her around the shoulders. “My money is on killer.” He lifted his chin. “Right, Mikey?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself.” Mikey was eager to explain. “It wasn’t like she didn’t want to take out the mayor. The creep took a special interest in her kid sister, after all, and Charly was desperate to free her sister from a life of crime, but when Charly went to confront the mayor, he was already dead with that Czech princess ruby necklace clutched in his hand. The same necklace that belonged to her kid sister... Darcy.”
“No!” Aaron’s voice echoed her own. She took a moment to appreciate that he was suddenly having as much fun with this as she was, though she guessed the stress of the evening had exaggerated their reactions somewhat. “Darcy’s my kid sister?” she asked.
“And you had to protect her,” Mikey said. “Punishment for murder in Eureka Springs is death by hanging. The only problem was that you weren’t alone that night when you found the mayor’s body. Dominic was with you and saw everything. He wanted that necklace as payment for his silence, but you told him someone stole it from you.”
“Did they?” Uncle Price asked.
Mikey’s lips firmed, which meant they were getting ahead of themselves again. He took a deep breath. “Well, Dominic thought Charly was lying. That’s why he thought he’d get at the necklace a different way. After all, man and wife share everything. So he threatened to turn in Darcy if Charly didn’t marry him.”
She made a face. “He would!”
“Yeah, but then that lowlife you pretended to be your brother came and told me you used his name to get into my club. After that, the guy ended up dead in an alley.”
“Charly, you didn’t,” Aaron said with a chuckle. “You took your fake