P.M., DARLA WAS LOUNGING ON HER LIVING ROOM couch—a prickly, old-fashioned horsehair sofa inherited from Great-Aunt Dee—clad in gray sweats and a matching hoodie. Unfortunately, the fleece fabric wasn’t thick enough to protect against the sofa’s prickly hide. Grabbing a well-worn quilt, she spread the blanket over the offending cushions and then flopped again, this time with a sigh. She’d twisted her auburn hair into a knot held in place with a couple of her late great-aunt’s lacquered chopsticks, and her bare feet were planted on the coffee table as she watched a video of one of her favorite vintage British comedies. The show was her visual equivalent of comfort food after a particularly stressful day. And this day had definitely counted as stressful. She wasn’t sure how she was going to sleep tonight, since images of a waxen-faced Curt had continued to pop into her head all day.
But with any luck, she told herself, an evening’s marathon of To the Manor Born would be enough to relax her. Otherwise, she’d have to take more drastic measures and dig out the grainy VHS copy she had of The Joy of Painting and watch that a few times. If the soothing tones of Bob Ross talking about happy trees and clouds couldn’t improve her day, then nothing could.
She was halfway through both the second episode and her supper of leftover Thai takeout when the sound of a beehive on steroids nearly made her dump the carton into her lap.
She yelped in surprise, startling Hamlet, who was lounging behind her on the back of the horsehair sofa. A heartbeat later, she realized that the source of the sound was, of course, the buzzer linked to the glass entry door in the downstairs hall.
“Sorry, Hammy,” she told him as she set down the carton and shut off the video, and then padded over to the door.
The security system, similar to the kind one would find in a typical walk-up, had been nonfunctional when she’d first moved in. She’d only gotten it repaired when Jake had bluntly informed her that she was resigning as unofficial lookout for Darla’s evening visitors who didn’t realize their knocks couldn’t be heard two stories up. The intercom had only buzzed a couple of times since it had been restored to working order. Each time, the noise had startled the heck out of her, to the point she was considering bringing the repair guy back to upgrade it with a nice, soothing ding-dong chime.
She pressed the talk button and cautiously asked, “Hi, who is it?”
Except for a couple of food-delivery guys, her only visitors had been after-hours customers rightly guessing she lived over the store and hoping she’d pop down to open up just for them. She had politely declined both opportunities, leaving said would-be customers to go away disappointed. This time, however, she had an uneasy feeling that she knew who was standing down there at her door.
“Yeah, it’s Reese,” came the familiar Brooklyn-accented voice, made tinny by the intercom. “We need to talk, pronto.”
Darla winced. Time to face the music. She could probably think of a few other appropriate clichés, but what it all boiled down to was that she likely was about to get a lecture royal from the detective for breaking the news of Curt’s death to Hilda.
“All right, come on up,” she replied and buzzed him in. This, at least, was a major improvement, saving her from having to trot down two flights of stairs to manually open the door.
Reese must have taken the steps at a run, for a firm knock sounded on her door sooner than she expected. Deciding she’d better find out before she let him in if he was simply mildly ticked or if he was super torqued off, she fastened the security chain and popped the door open the couple of inches it allowed.
“Just making sure it’s really you,” she explained in as casual a tone as she could muster. “You know, safety first and all that.”
“Yeah, better safe than sorry,” was his wry response. “I think they teach something like that at the police academy. So, you gonna let me in?”
Darla hesitated, trying to judge the extent of Reese’s disapproval from her glimpse of chiseled cheekbone, crooked nose, and stern blue eye. Since he was doing a pretty sphinxlike job of hiding his emotions, however, she sighed and quickly unlatched the door.
Reese strode on in. He had on one of those ubiquitous beige trench coats, the official Columbo