Death on a Deadline

leaving him so suddenly after church Sunday. Apparently he wasn’t ready to accept my apology.
    And as if that weren’t bad enough, Carly had forgotten all about our standing Tuesday night date at the creepy deserted Monitor building and had already promised the twins a movie. So here I was alone. At least the hallway light stayed on permanently.
    In Hank’s office I turned on the overhead light and quickly retrieved the new envelopes from the Dear Pru file. I placed my typewritten copy of this week’s column in the manila folder. “No way I’m going to look around without Carly to back me up. I’m outta here,” I muttered. I turned off Hank’s light and started down the hallway. A noise on the opposite side of the building froze me in my tracks.
    Every side of the Monitor office had an exit. I’d come in the back door. But the noise came from the east side. Nothing over there but the alley that wrapped around the building. Except the central-heating unit. The heater. . .it was the heater, I repeated to myself silently.
    A doorknob rattled in the distance. Not the heater. Someone was obviously trying to get in. An employee who’d forgotten something, maybe. Or a murderer come back to tie up some loose ends. Should I call 911? Run for my car? I looked up at the Women sign on the wall beside me. Hide in the bathroom? If I didn’t calm down, I’d need to be near the bathroom.
    I heard the door open before I could decide, so I quickly slipped into the ladies’ restroom. After a minute of no noise, I stuck my head out the door and looked both ways down the hall. No one in sight. But with several empty offices on both sides of the hall, that didn’t necessarily mean I was alone in the building. I ducked back inside, and waited, back against the wall. I could hear a muffled sound, possibly footsteps. But they didn’t sound really close. I stuck my head out the door again. Nose to nose with Brendan Stiles’s shocked face.
    I screamed, a short frantic cry, cut off by clapping my own hand over my mouth.
    “Jenna, what on earth are you doing here?” Brendan’s eyes were wide and his breathing shallow. I could tell he’d considered screaming.
    “I work here. What are you doing here?” I tried to sound normal, but my voice trembled.
    “Just looking for some papers I left with Hank.” He held up a key. “A buddy loaned me his key so I could get them. So you work here. What are you, the night watchman?”
    “Uh. I, uh. . .” I looked down at the manila envelope still clutched in my hands. It didn’t say Dear Pru anywhere on it, thankfully. “I got a part-time clerical job here. Marge hired me.” Whew. Almost forgot my cover story. “Why did you say you were here?” I tried for casual, hoping he’d attribute the slight quiver in my voice to leftover surprise.
    “I was getting advice on some investments from Hank not too long before he died, and I left some papers with him. Since they were confidential, I wanted to pick them up before anyone else read them.” He gave me that wide grin that used to make me feel like I must be wrong about his personality. I’ve always been a sucker for a nice smile. And his was definitely above average. But after that night at the bowling alley, I was grin-resist ant.
    “Thought you said you weren’t friends.”
    “Hank was a good investor. I didn’t have to be his friend to ask for his advice.” The smile stayed in place, but his eyes were cold.
    Uh-oh. Time to back off. “Gotcha. Well, I hope you found them. Or do you want me to help you look?” My turn to force a smile.
    “No, Jenna, that’s okay, I’ll go look around some more in Hank’s office.” He appeared to buy my helpful attitude. “There is one thing I’d like you to do, though.”
    “What is that?”
    “I’d rather you didn’t mention to anyone else that I was here.” Brendan winked at me, and I forced myself not to shudder. “I don’t want anyone else to know Hank was looking into those investments for me.”
    “Right. No one else needs to know.” Except maybe John and Marge. But this was not the time to mention that. Who wanted to antagonize a killer? I just wanted out of there alive.

    *****

    “So you were at the paper last night doing some clerical job for Marge. . .” John regarded me with a skeptical expression I was getting too used to seeing on his face. “And your old boyfriend dropped by. And now you want me to arrest him. Is that about it?”
    “Not even remotely