Page 37 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
“Look,” I say. I reign in my panic, forcing my voice to remain calm and innocent. “Carmina and I didn’t get along. And I did say that. But I didn’tkillher. Good grief.” I blink. “I have trouble killing offcharacters,much less a real human being.”
When they stare at me blankly, I clarify. “I’m a writer.”
“Ah,” they both say, nodding. Then the short one pulls the pen out of his pocket. “And do you often write about inflicting violence on others?” he says, looking intently at me.
“What—no!” I say. “No! I’m saying Idon’tdo that! I write about—about—I don’t know. People, and relationships, and the dynamics of dysfunctional families, and society, and what it means to be human!”
It sounds lame even to me. But no one ever said I was high concept.
This is going very poorly.
“Well, Mr. Mackenzie, we’re going to ask that you stick around for a while, okay?”
Good grief. They’re doing that thing where they ask me not to leave town. This is so bad.
“I didn’t kill anyone!” I burst out, throwing my hands in the air.
All they do is nod.
“We’ll be in touch,” the short one says.
I wave my understanding, feeling suddenly exhausted and weak, like there are weights tied around my bones. I bet if you dropped me in a river, I’d sink right to the bottom.
Don’t be needlessly morbid,I tell my brain.
I watch as Tall and Thin follows Short and Fat out of the storeroom, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Heidi bursts in thirty seconds later.
“What happened?” she says, out of breath.
“Pretty sure I’m a suspect,” I say dully.
“I think I might be too.”
“I threatened to dropkick Carmina all the way to Yellowstone.”
Heidi looks at me disapprovingly, and then she sighs. “I served her her food and drink,” she says.
I frown. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Heidi shrugs. “I got the feeling it was a potential poison thing.”
My answering sigh is loud in the cramped space. “Did you give them the envelope?”
“I did, yeah. I told them about the blood I found last night, too. Before I called,” she says, playing absently with the end of her ponytail where it falls over her shoulder. Then she looks at me. “I think it might have been mine, but they said they’d have someone come and collect a sample.” She sighs. “I need to figure out what happened to her. I keep feeling like I’m missing something, and Iknowit’s whatever secret I forgot. Iknowit. And I can’t shake the feeling that it has something to do with Carmina.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, thinking.
“And now with the police asking me these questions,” she goes on, “I can’t sit here and do nothing. I’m not going to get in trouble for something I didn’t do. I don’t have time for that. I need to figure out what happened.”
I watch her for a moment, the faraway look in her eyes, the tension around her mouth, her slightly-too-pale face. And it hits me then, so powerfully that I almost lose my breath.
I’m going to date this woman.
I watched someone die yesterday, and now the police are looking at me with suspicious eyes. I’m stumbling my way through a manuscript that still feels totally foreign to me, and I’m tense most of the time.
But even with all of that going on, I can’t think of anything I would rather do at this very moment than kiss Heidi Lucy on the lips.
