Page 21 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
Eric doesn’t listen to her immediately; he moves to Gemma first, crouching down next to her and reaching for her hand. He says something I can’t hear, then gestures to the table. She shakes her head; he nods, kisses her on the forehead, and then comes to settle himself in the seat across from me.
“Hey,” he says, still looking tense. He can’t seem to decide where to rest his gaze; it jumps back and forth between Heidi and Gemma before he finally faces forward.
I give him a nod. “Hey,” I say.
“You’re here most days, right?” he says, and his eyes on me are more discerning than I would expect from someone who flits through life seemingly carefree.
“I am, yeah,” I say.
“Good,” he says. “You watching out for my girlfriend?”
I blink at him. “Not…really?”
He grunts. “Fair. What about my sister?”
“I would if she’d let me,” I say, frowning at Heidi, who’s now bustling around anxiously and watching the police do their thing.
Eric snorts, leaning back in his seat and relaxing a bit. “That sounds about right.”
I’m not sure if he knows how I feel about Heidi, but as protective as he is, I’ve never seen him pull that card when it comes to the men in her life—although thankfully there aren’t very many of those.
He glances around. “So what happened here exactly? And what happened to Heidi’s head?”
“You’re gonna have to ask her about her head,” I say slowly. “But over there”—I point to the table where Carmina sat—“one of her customers just…died.”
Dead.
Murder.
Eric shudders, a look of distaste crossing his face. He folds his arms over his chest. “She just…”
“Died, yeah,” I say with a nod. “Sort of slumped over.”
“Wow,” Eric says. He glances at Carmina’s table. “That’s horrible.”
“It was,” I admit. “It was pretty—”
But I break off when the building owner enters, the bell over the door jingling in a way that’s much too merry. I’ve only seen the man once, but I recognize the dyed black hair and the waxy tanned skin and the custom suit. He’s got to be pushing eighty, but he clearly spends an exorbitant amount of money to appear younger, and—though I feel bad thinking it—it’s cringeworthy almost to the point of patheticness.
“Whoa,” Eric whispers, his eyes widening. “He’s so…old.”
That is…accurate.
“Mr. Mills,” Heidi says, hurrying over to him. She keeps her head held high, but there’s a tremor in her voice when she goes on, “I am so, so sorry.”
Mr. Mills raises one eyebrow, a motion that hardly registers on his suspiciously wrinkle-free forehead, and a little smile flits across his stretched, puffy lips. “It is unfortunate, but I hardly think you’re at fault, young lady.”
My shoulders slump in relief. At least he’s not going to blame her.
He strides over to one of the policemen, passing him a business card that he’s seemingly conjured from nowhere. “Roger Mills,” he says. “I’m the building owner.”
He stays just long enough to speak to several people; they pass him around, though I can’t hear everything they talk about. He seems oblivious to the rest of us staring at him, Gemma and Heidi with wide eyes and Mel with distrust. He leaves thirty minutes later with no problems, and I watch him go with envy, rubbing my growling stomach.
By the time the police finally clear out, my insides are devouring themselves.
I look around at the bunch of us. Heidi is sitting and staring off into the distance, looking preoccupied and deeply troubled. Eric has moved to sit next to Gemma, his arm around her, his hand playing absently with her hair; in a move that perfectly defines their relationship, every now and then she reaches up and swats him away, and despite the solemnity of the situation, he just grins. Mel is slumped next to them; Calvin is in the chair I usually sit in, and I’m at my own table. No one is sitting where Carmina sat, and no one is speaking.
“Who wants a muffin?” I say, standing up. “I’ll pay,” I add, looking at Heidi.
