"Are you here alone?" The husky, masculine voice almost made me jump out of my skin.
"No. I was supposed to have dinner with my boyfriend tonight, but he isn't answering the intercom." I tried very hard not to let my anxiety seep into my voice.
The raven-haired man gave me a grim smile. "I hate to be the one to tell you, sweetheart, but your boyfriend is dead."
Shit. I hadn't noticed the shoulder holster under his sport coat before. It held a pistol big enough to make King Kong nervous. I swallowed convulsively. "Are you a bad guy?" I can't believe I just said that. What am I, a four-year-old?
He smiled, and I almost had a hot flash. "Yeah, I'm bad. But in a good way."
I choked back a hysterical giggle, suddenly wishing I wasn't quite so fond of Humphrey Bogart movies. "How do you know my boyfriend's dead?"
"I saw you pushing the buzzer for 3C. I've been working a homicide scene in that apartment for the past two and a half hours. I'm just getting back from a coffee run." The man gave me the once-over and sighed. His eyes were a flinty gray, but they softened a little as I returned his look with a blank stare. "You look like you could use a cup." He plucked one from the cardboard carrier and passed it to me. "You can have mine."
The warmth from the cup helped lessen the shaking in my hands. "It's not black, is it?"
He shook his head. "It's got plenty of sugar, but no cream."
"That's fine." I took a sip of the dark, scalding liquid. "Thank you."
((I felt like this story was going to be a mystery, so I put it in the first person so you discover things right along with the heroine. Hope that's not too troublesome.))
Both prompts from The Writer's Book of Matches, but I'm too lazy to look up page numbers right now.
Should I continue this one?
ReplyDelete