battle of wits and wills where she never quite felt like she was winning, Annie plucked the royal blue stocking cap from her coat pocket and pulled it on over her head. “I’m on my way. I’ll meet Detective Fensom there.”
Annie had hung up the phone and bundled up in everything but her gloves when the couple in the hallway crashed against her door again. Clearly they were drunk and having a marvelous time getting intimately acquainted. But she had a crime scene to get to. She held her breath and turned the knob, praying she wouldn’t see anything too intimate.
As soon as she peeked out, music and conversation blasted her from the open apartment across the landing. Annie shook her head and stepped out, locking her door behind her. “What are you doing, Roy?”
Yes, there were some buttons undone, and the blonde woman’s long straight hair was definitely mussed. But her neighbor, Roy Carvello, and his girlfriend du jour had already imbibed too much alcohol to have much success with any personal fireworks tonight.
“Annie!” Roy draped one arm around the blonde and pushed himself upright against the wall with the other. “Happy New Year!”
He slurred the words and stumbled forward, bringing the tall blonde with him. Annie braced one foot behind her and caught him by the shoulders, pushing them both back against the wall. “Easy there, big guy. I don’t want either of you tumbling down the stairs.”
“You’re so nice.” Roy’s stale beer breath curled the hairs in Annie’s nose. He clamped a big hand around her arm and hugged the other woman closer. “S’isn’t she nice, Bets-shy?”
Extricating herself from the awkward embrace, Annie smiled up at the drunken couple. “I don’t want to see you behind the wheel of a car tonight, okay?” She included the taller blonde in the friendly warning. “You either, Betsy.”
“Un-uh,” the blonde promised, crossing her finger over the swell of a voluptuous breast.
“’Kay. Happy New Year.” Repeating himself, Roy leaned down and planted a stale kiss on Annie’s mouth.
Startled, Annie pushed him firmly away. “Oh, gee. You’ve still got some of those left to go around, hmm?”
“Hey,” Betsy protested. “I thought those lips were for me.”
“They are, baby.” When he turned to capture the other woman’s pouty mouth in a kiss, Annie used the directional momentum to guide them back across the landing. But her husky neighbor planted his feet in the open doorway, showing an unexpected bit of focus in his bleary eyes when he looked down at her. “Annie’s my friend. My good friend.” He flipped up the collar of her coat, tending to her as though he cared. “You headin’ out to a party? I wondered why you didn’t show up at mine.”
Possibly because drunk and loud weren’t her favorite things? Or maybe because the first Carvello party she’d gone to had ended up with Roy putting the same moves on her that he was putting on Blondie tonight? Only Annie had been too sober and not nearly as interested in exploring the possibilities as Betsy apparently was.
But he’d proven too nice a neighbor—when he wasn’t in party mode—for Annie to hurt his feelings. “Yeah, Roy. I’ve got someone waiting for me.” So maybe that someone was a detective she wasn’t really looking forward to seeing. But at least she wasn’t lying. “Be safe.” She nudged them both into Roy’s apartment. She even had a smile for Betsy. “You, too. Remember, no driving.”
“Not to worry,” Roy promised. “We’ll be spending the night right here. Together.”
“Oooh, Roy,” the woman cooed, sliding her fingers into Roy’s dusty-brown hair and pulling him into his apartment.
Feeling grossly uncomfortable, unwelcome and unnecessary as the giggles and kissing resumed, Annie shut the door and hurried down the stairs. After looping the pink strap of her bag over her neck and shoulder, she pushed open the outside door and the shock of the wintry night air nearly stole the breath from her lungs. She pulled on her gloves and waved to the neighbors who were now writing their names in the air with sparklers.
Hunching her shoulders against the bracing wind, she set out across the snow-dusted courtyard toward the fenced-in lot across the street where her car was parked.
She was alone and dateless on yet another holiday, babysitting the grown man next door. Now she could look forward to spending the next few hours with her nemesis, Nick Fensom, and a crime scene where a woman had been brutalized and killed, all while freezing her fingers and toes.
Happy New Year, indeed.
* * *
“HEY, GUYS—KEEP IT DOWN, okay?” Nick Fensom apologized for the loud piano music and fourth verse of “Auld Lang Syne” coming from the living room where his family was toasting the New Year with sparkling grape juice and prosecco. He moved down the hallway, farther away from the three generations of Fensoms and extended family who had gathered at his parents’ home to celebrate. “Yeah, Spencer, I know the address. Hell of a way for that woman’s family to ring in the new year.”
“Which is exactly why I’m not letting time or the weather get in the way of finding answers. I’m tired of that bastard staying one step ahead of us.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Spence.” The piano music stopped and the boisterous conversation among his father’s parents, his mom and dad, his mother’s younger brother and his own five younger brothers and sisters faded into the dining room and kitchen. Nick opened the coat closet off the foyer and pulled down the metal box where he stored his badge and sidearm whenever he visited the house where he’d grown up. “Let me say some goodbyes here and explain the situation, and I’ll be there in twenty, thirty minutes, tops.”
“Sorry to tear you away.” Although their looks and personalities were as different as night and day, Nick and his partner for three years, Spencer Montgomery, had grown as close as Nick was to either of his brothers. “Did your grandmother make her tiramisu cake?”
Nick chuckled at the rare wistful softening in Spencer’s voice. “Stop by the house later today and I’ll make sure Grandma saves you a piece.”
“I’ll do that.” Just like that, the glimpse of the human being beneath his partner’s buttoned-up exterior vanished. “I’ll be at the morgue if you find anything useful. In the meantime, I want you and Annie to go over that alley with a fine-tooth comb. If there’s anything—or anyone—close by that makes you suspicious, check it out. And call me.”
“Does Pee Wee know I’m coming?”
“It’s CSI Hermann. Or Annie.” Spencer chided Nick’s inclination to tease the petite coworker with the wildly curly dark hair and apparent immunity to his charms. “And yes, she knows. So be on your best behavior. I need her to focus all those smarts on the crime scene—not on trading quips with you.”
“I’ll mind my manners if she does,” Nick promised. “I’m on my way.”
He snapped his phone shut and unhooked his belt to fasten on his holster and detective’s badge. Then he grabbed his insulated black leather jacket and gloves and headed toward the noise from the heart of the house.
Nick paused for a moment in the kitchen archway to watch his mother, grandmother and oldest sister, Natalie, cleaning up second and third helpings of meatballs and soup and homemade bread. His middle sister,
