Talk Nerdy to Me (Nerds, #5)(21)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

"Models aren’t supposed to color their hair."

"I didn’t know that. But I’m glad you don’t. It looks perfect the way it is."

She picked up a strand and studied it. "It’s okay, I guess. At least the ends look better now that the frizzed part from the explosion is gone."

"You singed your hair?

"Just a little."

"You could have been killed." That settled it. He wasn’t letting her do any more testing without him around. Accidents could so easily happen, but if he double-checked all her work, then … his mind stalled as a horrible thought came to him. What if the explosion hadn’t been an accident? What if someone had wanted to stall the development of the hovercraft until they could steal her notes?

"I have fast reflexes," she said.

"Thank God." But the more he thought about this, the more worried he became. The explosion had delayed Eve’s progress, and someone might have wanted that. "Listen, was Eunice the only person who knew about the hovercraft before we all came over on Monday night?"

"I think so. Unless somebody caught a glimpse of it when I opened my garage door, which I didn’t do very often. A couple of weeks ago I accidentally hit the button and it opened, but the only person outside was Eunice, who was shoveling her driveway."

"Does she usually shovel her own driveway?"

"Usually. She thinks it builds up her boobs. Why?"

"Just thinking." A woman who shoveled her own driveway on a regular basis would have the necessary muscles to use a crowbar on Eve’s back door. But Charlie wasn’t ready to point the finger yet. He needed to find out more about Eunice before he started making accusations.

"Look, Eunice isn’t behind any of this. I knew that the minute I saw somebody had gone after my door with a crowbar."

"If you think that lets her out because she has a key, think again. She could have used the crowbar on purpose, to cast off any suspicion."

"She didn’t use a crowbar on my back door, Charlie."

"How can you be so sure? If she shovels her own walk, she’d be strong enough."

"Strength isn’t the issue here. It’s nails."

"Nails? There weren’t any nails in that door. Just the lock."

"Fingernails." Eve waved her fingers at him. "Shoveling snow is one thing. You can wear gloves and be careful. But using a crowbar on a door is a whole different ball of wax. You can’t predict exactly how it will go and when something will give way, so you stand an excellent chance of breaking a nail on a project like that. Eunice wouldn’t risk it."

As Charlie studied her, he tried to decide if her theory made sense. She certainly knew more about women’s manicures than he did. "Obviously you have been thinking about who did this."

"Of course I have." She smiled. "In between thinking about hav**g s*x with you, that is."

He pushed away his immediate response, which was to grab her and carry her away into the night so they could get nak*d. "And do you have any idea who it might be?"

"I hate to throw out accusations." "I know. Me, too. But somebody broke into your house while you were gone, and until you find those notes, we have to assume that was the reason. I’m not ruling the explosion an accident yet, either."

She waved a hand, dismissing that part of his statement. "It was an accident. The vandalized door was not. The only people I can think who might have done it are … and I hate to say this … Manny and Kyle."

Charlie had thought of them, too. "Motive?"

"They’re lowly assistants, working for a high-powered, successful photographer. Maybe they’re sick of being errand boys who are helping to build another guy’s career, and they want to make a chunk of money so they can go off on their own. You and Rick let them know the hovercraft could be worth money, so they might be trying to peddle the concept."

"I guess it’s possible." Charlie let the idea simmer a moment. Yeah, it was definitely possible. "Too bad they ended up getting in on the discussion Monday night and had to be invited over. But there wasn’t much else we could do."

"And I could be wrong about them. That would be horrible, to accuse two innocent guys when it’s really someone else."

He had a feeling that she had another person in mind who might be responsible, and she wasn’t saying. "So those are the two you came up with, Manny and Kyle?"

"I don’t know who else it could be."

Charlie thought he had to say it, to be fair. Maybe then she’d come out with her other name. After all, she had told her sister, who didn’t live all that far away. And her sister could be insane with jealousy. Family dynamics could get very weird.

"We can’t forget my cousin," he said. "He was there Monday night, too. He believes the hovercraft’s a moneymaker."

"Rick? Why would he jeopardize a great career, one that’s pulling in insane amounts of money, by the way. Do you have any idea how much top photographers get these days?"

Charlie didn’t. "Are you telling me that maybe his Rolex isn’t from China?"

"Not from China. Why do you think Eunice is putting on her alien sexual show with all the fanfare and props? Sure, she thinks he’s cute, but she also knows he’s loaded." She gazed at him. "Look, I have to ask, and then we can drop the subject. Did you offer up your cousin to see if I’d offer up my sister?"

She looked so vulnerable that he could only come up with one answer. It might be a white lie, but he’d take the consequences of telling one this time. "I’m sure it’s not your sister."

"Yeah, me, too. I’m glad we agree on that."

From the soft way she said it, he didn’t think she was at all convinced. But he wasn’t about to press on that sore spot, and she’d desperately needed to hear that he didn’t list Denise as a suspect. "We’re not going to solve it now, anyway."

"No, we’re not. Come on, Charlie, let’s go in. I want to get a look at those cookies."

"Yeah, because it’s not your mother making them." But Charlie was feeling better about braving the X-rated pastries with Eve by his side. Eve helped him maintain his sense of humor about such things.

"Speaking of cookies, how could two guys who got talked into frosting those cookies take a crowbar to my back door? It doesn’t make sense that they’re the ones, when I think about how your mom and aunt are wrapping them around their little fingers."

"Right now, only one thing makes sense."

"What’s that?"

He put an arm around her waist as they walked toward the back door of the bakery. "First of all, repairing the damned mixer."

"And then?"

"Going straight to bed."

She laughed, and he felt that suspicious warmth invading his heart. No doubt about it. He was coming down with a bad case.

Chapter Fifteen

Eve hoped either Manny, Kyle, or both of them together had done that number on her door. If they hadn’t, then Denise was next in the lineup. Denise worked out every day. No flabby muscles would dare cling to her athletic frame. And she might be determined to protect her baby sister from doing something dangerous.

Denise would be smart enough to break down the back door to make it look as if the culprit didn’t have a key. And Denise would rationalize it as all for Eve’s own good. Eve didn’t think Denise would be the least bit conscience-stricken if she thought her actions would save her little sister from her own stupidity.

But Eve wasn’t about to help focus the laser beam of Charlie’s intellect on Denise. She appreciated his protective tendencies, but a false accusation would rip apart a sisterly bond that was already worn in several places. Eve could kick herself for giving in to the urge to tell Denise about the hovercraft.

Charlie opened the back door of the bakery without knocking and they stepped into a world that smelled of family, Christmas, and lazy Sunday mornings. Or at least that’s what Eve imagined the warmth and soothing aromas could mean in the right hands.

There hadn’t been any baking going on in her parents’ house, not with all the charity work her mother had to do. Christmas had been efficiently dispensed with because the holidays were high season if you were running charity balls and teas. Lazy Sunday mornings hadn’t existed, either. Church early in the morning and a big brunch at the country club had taken up the biggest part of the day.

Eve’s reverie ended abruptly as she realized Charlie had opened the back door of the bakery without a key. "The door wasn’t locked?" She’d become fixated on the subject of locks recently.

"It’s a problem with several people in my life these days," Charlie said as they stepped inside. "They say locking the door causes too many problems, like when Aunt Myrtle comes into the alley for a breath of fresh air and locks herself out."

"She goes outside in this weather?" Eve found herself in a little curtained alcove. A small bathroom was off to the right, and a large fuse box was mounted on the wall right next to the door.

"It’s a habit left over from her smoking days."

"BS. She’s sneaking a cigarette." Eve had been around too many people who had supposedly quit to believe that Aunt Myrtle went to the back alley to suck up plain old air. She was after nicotine.

"Charlie?" Rose Shepherd, a voluminous apron covering her pale green pantsuit, pushed back the curtain. "I thought I heard people talking back here. Hello, Eve!"

"Hello, Mrs. Shepherd." Eve winced at the heartiness of the greeting. No doubt about it, Rose was salivating for a daughter-in-law prospect, and by showing up tonight at this hour, Eve was implying a connection with Charlie that could lead to Something Big. Too bad for Rose.

"You should call me Rose," she said. "After all, you and Charlie are friends, so it seems silly to stand on formality."

"Thank you. I’ll do that, then." Eve avoided looking at Charlie. He’d warned her this would be the result of her tagging along, but she hadn’t been able to figure out an alternative. "Listen, as long as I’m here, what can I do to help while Charlie’s repairing your mixer?"

"She can frost!" The raspy voice could only belong to Myrtle, the pseudo ex-smoker. "Manny’s doing fine, but Kyle’s flagging. We could use reinforcements."

Eve’s stomach lurched. She glanced at Charlie for moral support. He winked, which helped relieve her jitters, but it still felt weird to be diving into a communal project with the very men she and Charlie had discussed as prime suspects in the break-in. It looked as if she’d end up frosting X-rated cookies with them.

"It’ll be fine," Charlie murmured as he held the curtain aside.

Of course it would, she told herself. After all, Charlie was here. Comforted by that thought, she stepped into the warm and fragrant back room. Gleaming stainless steel appliances lined the walls, giving it a high-tech feel. A seriously insulated door on one wall obviously led to a walk-in refrigerator.

A butcher-block island took up space in the center of the room, and there Manny and Kyle perched on stools, each man wearing clear plastic gloves. They didn’t look much like criminals while surrounded by an array of cake-decorating tools. Eve wasn’t close enough to inspect the shape of the cookies they were working on, but she had a pretty good grasp of the concept already.

Kyle glanced up eagerly. "Are you here to help? I mean, this used to be fun and all, but after you’ve decorated fifty couples doing it, the thrill is gone. I never thought the day would come that I didn’t care about sex, but after fifty cookies, a guy gets jaded."

"Kyle." Manny placed his cookie to one side and picked up another one. "You haven’t done fifty. You’ve only done twenty."

"Really? It seems like more."

"Actually, it’s less," Myrtle said from her station over by one of the large ovens. "You ate one. So your count is only nineteen to Manny’s thirty."

"Manny’s done thirty? No way."

‘Thirty." Manny’s hands looked huge wielding the parchment cone filled with frosting, but despite that he delicately squirted two dabs of red frosting on his cookie. "This will be thirty-one. You, on the other hand, are not currently frosting diddly-squat, are you?"

"I’m resting my fingers," Kyle said. "All that squeezing was giving me finger cramps. I might get carpel tunnel of the pinky doing this."

Manny snorted and picked up a cone filled with yellow frosting.

Eve had a tough time imagining two guys who were squabbling over how many cookies they’d each frosted taking a crowbar to her back door. But maybe that was the idea. The cookie-frosting caper was protective coloring. And she’d much rather think they did it than her sister.

As she stepped closer to the island she saw the purpose of the two dabs of red on Manny’s cookie. Nipples. The cookie portrayed the woman on her back and the man in a sideways scissors position, so you got him in profile, but she was sporting full frontal nudity.

Eve felt warm breath on the back of her neck and glanced over her shoulder to find Charlie standing there, hands on hips, his gaze intent on the cookie Manny was decorating. Both couples were being given blond hair…everywhere that hair was appropriate. Charlie seemed to be fascinated by Manny’s technique.

"So what do you think?" she asked, just to get a reaction out of him.

Charlie’s color was high as he met her gaze. "Looks complicated. But doable."

She was a bad girl to tease him, but she couldn’t resist. "The decorating or the position?"

He swallowed. "Uh … both, I guess." Then he stepped back and turned toward his mother. "All righty, then! Let’s see about that mixer."

"I don’t know how it happened." Rose led him away toward a far corner of the room. "One minute it was kneading the dough great, and the next it gave a groan of protest and quit working entirely."

"Sort of like Kyle, over there," Manny said.

"Boys, boys," Myrtle said. "Don’t fight." Opening the oven door, she took out a giant tray and smacked it down so hard on the butcher-block island that the cookies jumped. "Here’s another twenty-five, kiddos. Let ’em cool off a little before you start. Eve, you’ll have to tie back your hair if you’re going to help. Health department regulations."