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"Your relationship to Mr Fairfield, miss?"

Emerson blinked quickly and even from across the hall--and by way of my super-vamp sense--I could hear her heartbeat speed up, could hear the sharpness of the shallow breath she sucked in I crossed , as Ener like myself"

"And you all three live here in this co or artist co-op or so fro her shoulders "We’re the three finalists in a design co and catching mine "Well, ere"

"So you’re coainst Emerson’s doorframe, the rhythmic tap like a heartbeat "Was there a lot of stress at this cohtened up, her hands going to the doorfraht the smallest scent of sweat on the air

Emerson was nervous

"The coinald would have been--would have thought he wasn’t doing well Maybe Felipe knows more" Emerson’s eyes crested over Hopkins’s head and she looked at lanced at her non-ironic Swatch watch and shifted her weight "Are we through now? I’ve got to work onin the doorway He turned on his heel and ere eye to eye--, and hi on the end of his pen He beckoned for me to come into the hallway

"Can I help you?"

"Miss LaShay," he said, shifting his weight in what I was guessing he thought was so manner "Is there a reason you didn’t mention that you and Mr Fairfield were direct competitors in this competition?"

I snaked my arms in front of lare "I didn’t think it was necessary inforiven someone the motive to harm Fairfield, don’t you think?"

"I would think, had he not hung hiaze "Just ht have so about the way Hopkins kept his watery eyes fixed onhiht out of my apartment until he checked his smartphone, scanned the room, and asked, "Felipe DeLaCruz?"

Felipe turned and raised a small hand "I am Felipe"

Hopkins paused then, his flat-balloon face breaking into what passed as a smile "Pike! Didn’t expect to see you here"

Hopkins and Pike did that aard,and I felt my mouth drop open I made a beeline for them

"You two know each other?" I hissed

"Pike does soraphy work for us on occasion" Hopkins raised his eyebroard Pike "Is that why you’re here now?"

"Actually, I was hired by the ners"

Hopkins’s eyes showed a flash of interest "So you knew the dec--"

I shot a glance overrooht

"Can you not throw around words like deceased and decedent in front of Felipe? That man just lost the man he loved Can’t you be a little more sensitive?"

The sentence bobbed around in my head and my spine stiffened My breather roo me to "be a little more sensitive" She was usually the one inundated with dead bodies and detectives

Guess things were starting to rub off