“It’s not like he would have missed it,” said Rook.
“But don’t you see?” she said to him, as if he never would. “If I took his money, then that would be what it was all about. It wasn’t like people said. It wasn’t about rising to the top on my back with my legs in the air.”
Rook persisted. “Still, nobody would have to know you took his money.”
“I would,” she said.
And with those two words, Detective Heat closed her notebook. A carrot cupcake was screaming at her from that plate and it had to be silenced. As Nikki peeled at the ruffles of the bottom wrapper, she nodded her head to the trendy bake shop and asked, “What about all this? Not where I expected to find the infamous M.B.A. on Red Bull.”
Morgan laughed. “Oh, that Morgan Donnelly. She’s around somewhere. Makes an appearance once in a while and turns my life nuts.” She leaned forward over the table, toward Nikki. “The end of that affair three years ago turned out to be an epiphany. Before it came, I was getting hints, but I ignored them. For instance, some nights I’d stand there in my big old corner office up on the penthouse floor of the Starr Pointe, one phone going, two lines on hold, and a dozen e-?mails to answer. And I’d look below on the street and say to myself, ‘Look at all those people down there. Going home to somebody.’”
Nikki was licking some buttercream frosting from her fingertip and stopped. “But come on, a career woman at the top of your game, that must have been very satisfying, right?”
“After Matthew, all I could think of was, What was I left with? And all the stuff that had passed me by while I was putting on the power suits and doing the career. You know, life? Well, here was the epiphany. One day I’m watching Good Morning America, and Emeril’s on, and he was making pies, and it got me remembering when I was a kid, how much I loved to bake. So there I was, in my pajamas and Uggs, creeping up on thirty, no job, no relationship, and let’s face it, not getting much out of either one when I had them anyway, thinking, ‘Time to reboot.’”
Nikki found her heart racing. She took a sip of her Americano and asked, “So you just took the jump? No net, no regrets, no looking back?”
“At what? I decided to follow my bliss. Of course, the price of bliss is a loan to the eyeballs, but it’s working out. I started small…hell, look around, I still am small…but I’m loving it. I’m even engaged.” She held out her hand, which had no ring on it.
“It’s lovely,” said Rook.
Morgan made a whoops face and blushed a little. “I never wear it when I’m baking, but the guy who does my Web site? He and I are tying the knot this fall. I guess you never know where life’s taking you, huh?”
Nikki reflected and unfortunately had to agree.
As they headed uptown, Rook balanced a huge box of two dozen cupcakes on his lap. Heat brought the car to a gentle stop at a red light so his gift to the precinct break room wouldn’t turn into a box of crumbs. “So, Officer Rook,” she asked, “I haven’t heard you tell me to slap Morgan Donnelly in jail. What gives?”
“Oh, she’s got to be off the list.”
“Because?”
“Too happy.”
Heat nodded. “Agreed.”
“But,” said Rook, “you’ll still check her alibi and whether Paxton cut her a fat good-?bye check.”
“That’s right.”
“And we have a surprise mystery guest to check out, the Nordic Nanny.”
“You’re learning.”
“Oh, yeah, learning a lot. Those were very revealing questions.” She watched him, knowing something was coming. “Especially when you finished asking about the case and started getting personal.”
“…Yeah? She had an interesting story and I wanted to hear it.”
“Huh. You sure didn’t look like it.” Rook waited until he saw the color come to her cheeks, and then he just stared straight ahead out the windshield with that stupid grin again. All he said was, “Green.”