Page 100 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

“Oh! Hi! I guess itwasMo,” Chris says to Kendra.

“Good to see you, good to see you, yeah great place for a hot date, I too am on a hot date,” I blabber. “Akillerdate. Like—”

Don’t do it, Mo. Don’t—

I lick my finger and touch my hip with it and gotsssssssslike my finger is putting out a fire.

Kendra coughs with embarrassment.

“You’re on a date withher?” asks Chris, pointing in the direction of my table with Tasha, even though he can’t see through the vines. He looks back at me, waggles his eyebrows, and then offers me a high five. “Nice! Way to aim high!”

Honestly, I was hoping for more regretful longing.

“Yeah,” I say, bitterly finishing the high five. “Itisnice. So. There’s that.”

I hover at the table for a second like a bisexual ghost of vengeance and then whisk away from whence I came.

Okay, that did not accomplish exactly what I was hoping for, which I guess was lots of apologies from both of them. Maybe a little coffee/red wine combo will help me come up with the perfect zinger. And in the meantime, back to the recon I’ve been prepping for.

“No napkins?” Tasha asks as I plop back down.

Shoot. Napkins.

“They’re refilling the, ah, dispenser,” I say. “So while that’s happening, there’s something I want to ask you.”

She bites her bottom lip and I can’t seem to look away. “Right. I’m ready.”

“Remember when we were talking yesterday at your office?”

“Mm-hmm,” she says.

“Well, I was just curious what you did after that.”

There’s a very long pause. She halfway smiles like she isn’t sure, then tilts her head at me. “What?”

“You know.” I try a casual laugh that accidentally sounds like a wild boar goring someone. “What did you get up to? Were you, like, around the neighborhood?”

“Yeah,” she says slowly. “At work. As you know.”

“Cool cool,” I say. Rodney O’Malley’s ease-in technique is harder than I expected.

“Why are you asking?” she asks.

“Becauuuuuse...” My brain goes blank and I forget the entire comments section I read last night, so I shoot my coffee and take a big bite of my croissant to buy time. It showers flakes all over me. “Mm.”

“Listen, Mo,” Tasha says, putting down her barely drunk wine. “I have an ex who was super jealous and controlling and hated that I loved my job, and I just—I can’t do that again. Like, not ever. Soif you need to know my whereabouts at all times, maybe it would be better if we just—”

“I’m not like that, I swear—” But then I interrupt myself, because this isn’tactuallya relationship negotiation and also more croissant is flaking out of my mouth. I should’ve gotten a muffin. “Thing is, I already know where you were.”

“Right. At wo—”

“I know you took the money,” I interrupt. “You’re the only person, other than me, who knew where it was.”

There. It’s done.

Tasha does a double take. “The what?”

“The bribe money in Claudia’s statue’s abs,” I clarify, my heart pounding. “The question I have now is, did you also kill Claudia?”