Free Death Wore Brown Shorts (Happy Holloway Mystery Book 1) by Audrey Claire

other means.”
    She widened her eyes. “You don’t mean breaking and entering, do you?”
    “I’m next of kin. Technically, everything inside belongs to me.”
    “Yes, but I don’t want to land in jail, because technicalities don’t keep you free.”
    “Are you scared, Annie?”
    He leaned an elbow on the banister from the base of the steps, the very picture of tranquility. She considered her options. Nothing ever stopped her from getting the information she wanted, but up until now she remained within the bounds of the law. For some reason, Flynn seemed to think he knew about her stubborn streak.
    “I’ve read about how to pick locks,” she said. “Not every kind.”
    He smirked and held up a ring of keys. “I was only teasing. I already spoke to the owner, and he dropped the keys with me yesterday.”
    “That wasn’t funny.”
    He moved past her and stuck the key into the lock. “It so was, Annie. You’re an interesting woman. It’s good to know the lengths you’ll go to.”
    “Is that two strikes against me?”
    “I’m joking.”
    “Somehow I don’t believe you.”
    He laughed and led the way into the apartment. After puffing up the stairs to the second floor, Annie paused to take a look around. She ran fingers under her chin to wipe away some of the moisture. The apartment was sweltering. Paul either didn’t like A/C, or he turned it off when he left each day.
    The studio apartment contained a sleeping area, an office area, which might originally have been intended to be a dining and living room, and a tiny kitchen nook. Off the kitchen lay another door Annie figured was the bathroom. One could stand in the middle of the floor and reach everything. Okay, that might be an exaggeration.
    A load of what looked like dirty laundry lay piled on an unmade bed. At the foot of the bed stood a wardrobe with the door cracked open a couple inches. A previous tenant, or maybe Paul, must have owned a pet, because the corner at the wardrobe’s bottom had been chewed.
    Annie scratched her arm and continued to take in the surroundings. Piles of small boxes next to the computer stirred her curiosity. Did Paul have a small side business? The boxes were unmarked and the lids closed. She hesitated to go digging through them, but the same conviction didn’t stop Flynn from heading that way. She left him to it.
    Paul had hung a whiteboard over his computer table. Tilting her head and squinting, Annie tried to make heads or tails of what the scribbling meant. “Two dash Overton? Huh?”
    Flynn followed her line of sight. “Code? Maybe he was a bookie and took bets to make extra cash.”
    “You’re pretty imaginative. Maybe I should call you the next time I have plotting trouble.”
    He winked.
    Annie spun away and dared to look through the clutter on the kitchen counter. Paul used it as a dresser going by the lotion, the shaving kit, a roll of socks, and the box of spaghetti among other items.
    She picked up a stack of papers more to fan herself than to take a closer look. As she waved the papers before her face, she gazed around the room searching for the thermostat. A little A/C couldn’t hurt. She spotted the window beside the wardrobe first. If she didn’t get a breath of fresh air now, she would pass out.
    Annie wrestled the window open an inch. She frowned and tried again. “Come on, you stubborn thing.”
    “Need a little help?” Flynn called. He stood before the computer booting it up.
    “I’ve got it. I think.”
    Something thumped behind the wardrobe wall. She froze.
    “Annie?”
    “Flynn, did you hear something?”
    “Like what?”
    Her throat dried. She swallowed. Must have been her imagination. The apartment was too small for anyone other than them to be there without them knowing it. In her enthusiasm to get the window open, she must have bumped the wardrobe.
    Annie managed to get a bit more height on the window and clutched the papers in her hand as she leaned on the sill. “Better,” she