Free Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate by Kyra Davis Page B

frustration.
    It wasn’t until I was back up in my apartment that I realized that I had just insisted on doing something that I didn’t want to do.
    I cursed under my breath and plopped myself down on the love seat where Mr. Katz was sleeping. What if the cat message on the phone had been a death threat after all? What if the caller was actually Eugene’s killer and now he had decided that I was going to be his next victim? I should call Anatoly right now and tell him I’d changed my mind.
    Then I thought about the smug expression he would be wearing if I did that.
    No. I couldn’t back out now. There were very few things in this world that were worth risking your life for. Pissing Anatoly off was definitely one of them.

6
Politicians are like cartoon characters. With a few charming one-liners and a lot of corporate support, they persuade people to excuse their violent and stupid behavior and learn to love them.
—C’est La Mort
    “DID I HEAR YOU CORRECTLY?” MARCUS ASKED AS HE RAN HIS FINGERS through my hair, his handsome brown face scrunched up in confusion. “You are going to investigate Eugene O’Reilly’s murder, even though you don’t want to, and now Darth Vader is threatening your cat?”
    I sighed and studied Ooh La La through the mirror in front of me. One of the things I liked about the salon was that the stations were far enough apart and the music just loud enough so that you were able to converse with your hairstylist without worrying about being overheard. That and the fact that they served free cappuccinos and mimosas.
    “I didn’t say he was Darth Vader, although now that you mention it, the synthesized voice did kind of have a Darth Vader-like quality, so who knows? It’s as likely as anything else at this point. But he didn’t threaten my cat. Whoever called really likes cats. He was emphatic about that,” I said. “And I do want to investigate this. I just don’t think I want to.”
    Marcus shook his head hard enough to make his short, well-groomed dreadlocks jiggle. “You lost me.”
    “What I’m saying is that I want to do it more than I don’t want to do it. I just have to figure out why that is.”
    “I thought you were helping out your mentor.”
    “That was the original excuse, but I’m not sure that holds up anymore. She asked me to get her in touch with Anatoly so she could hire him to investigate. I was the one who suggested that I do my amateur-sleuth thing. So technically Anatoly was right when he said that my obligation to her ended as soon as he took the case.”
    “ Technically he was right? Honey, he was completely right. He was absolutely right. Pick any positive adverb, place it in front of the word ‘right’ and that’s pretty much what Anatoly was.”
    “Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I’m still not going to stop investigating this case.”
    “Because you want to.”
    “Yes.”
    “Even though you don’t think you want to.”
    “Don’t ask me why, but I feel like I need to do more for Melanie than what I’ve done for her so far.” I tried to turn to face him but Marcus held my head in place, so I was forced to talk to the mirror. “Besides, if I stop investigating now Anatoly will think it’s because he told me to stop. I can’t give him the satisfaction.”
    “So you’re proving a point.”
    “Kind of.”
    “You realize that’s insane.”
    “No, it’s not,” I insisted. “Do you remember what you told me right after I caught my dear ex-hubby screwing that dancer?”
    “I said that he was an asshole.”
    “Yes, but you also said that someday I would be an incredibly successful and famous writer and I would be able to flaunt that success in front of Scott. You said he would suffer every day of his life because he would know that he blew his chance to reap the rewards of my accomplishments and that I would gain an enormous amount of satisfaction from that.”
    Marcus grinned. “And look at you now. C’est La Mort was on