out here, please?”
There was no doubt he was talking to me. Resigned, I dropped my head and shuffled through the door, doing my best to pretend I wasn’t bothered by the way our reintroduction was playing out. “Hi.” My voice was a breathy squeak I absolutely hated.
“Hello.” His response was cooler. “David says you found the body.”
I nodded, grim. “Brad sent me out for pickles,” I started.
“Pickles I never got,” Brad called out.
I shot him a dark look. “I think there are more important things to worry about besides your pickles.”
“Again, there are so many different ways that statement could be misconstrued,” David lamented.
Hunter shot him an amused look before turning his full attention back to me. “Go on.”
He acted as if we didn’t know one another, as if we hadn’t spent more than two years wrapped up in each other to the point of distraction. It was irritating, but also easier because it allowed me to focus on what needed to be done. Perhaps he knew that going in.
“There’s not much to tell,” I replied. “I walked out this way. I wasn’t really paying attention. My shoe landed in what I thought was water and I kind of slid until I hit the storage building. When I turned to see what I’d slipped on, I saw ... him.”
“Uh-huh.” Hunter glanced down at my sneakers. “I need those for evidence.”
I balked. “They’re brand new.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I need them.” His inflection didn’t change, which agitated me. How could he be so calm when we were seeing each other for the first time in almost ten years — and standing over a body?
“Fine.” I fixed him with a dark look. “Would you like me to take them off now or can I go upstairs to get a different pair?”
“I need them now.” He reached in his pocket and came back with a plastic bag. “Just drop them in here.”
I was dumbfounded. “You can’t be serious. You want me to go barefoot around a dead body?”
“I want those shoes,” Hunter replied. “I need them before you contaminate any evidence even further than you already have.”
“And just how am I contaminating them?”
“By ruining whatever evidence you might’ve stepped in.” For the first time since arriving, Hunter raised his voice. “Don’t make me ask for them again.”
Was that a threat? It sure sounded like a threat.
Clearly uncomfortable, David cleared his throat to get my attention. “Just give him your shoes, Stormy. It’s no big deal. They’re Skechers. You can get a new pair for fifty bucks.”
I was ashamed to admit that I didn’t have the fifty bucks. That’s the reason I was living in the apartment above the restaurant. “Whatever.” I plopped down on the ground, making sure I was nowhere near the body, and started wrestling my shoes off. “This is ridiculous.”
“Thank you.” Hunter dropped the bag by my feet and went back to studying the body. “This is Roy Axe. He was friends with your grandfather.”
“More like frenemies,” David replied, causing me to narrow my eyes as I shoved one of my shoes into the plastic bag.
“I thought they golfed together,” I said, grimacing when I noticed the blood on the second shoe. That’s what had caused me to slide across the alley. The white bottom of the formerly pristine sneaker was stained a horrible rust color.
“They did ... back then,” David explained. “I don’t know that I would ever call them friends, but they were certainly friendlier back then than they were in recent years.”
Hunter’s forehead wrinkled. “What caused the falling out?”
I sensed trouble. “You can’t think Grandpa had anything to do with this,” I argued before David could answer.
Hunter pinned me with an unreadable look. “I’m just trying to get a feel for what might’ve happened.”
He was lying. He still had the same tell. His left eye opened wider than his right when he was hiding something back then. The same phenomenon was on display today.
“I think we should call Grandpa out here,” I said to David, fixing him with a pointed look. “This is his restaurant. Has anyone bothered to tell him what’s going on?”
“It’s after lunch,” Brad reminded me through the door. “He’s taking his post-lunch ... um ... constitutional.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant. “I don’t understand. Did he leave?”
David let loose a low chuckle and shook his head. “He didn’t leave. He’s just ... taking his afternoon ... um ... bathroom break.”
My cheeks burned under the sudden realization of what he was saying.