Thyme to Live: A We Sisters Three Mystery Read Free Page B

perkily, almost like he could read my mind.
    I shrugged. “Sure. That’s on my way.”
    His shoulders sagged with relief. “I really appreciate this, Thyme.”
    “I can’t imagine how crazy I’d be going if one of my sisters were missing,” I told him.
    “How many sisters do you have?”
    “Two,” I answered before I realized he wasn’t beside me any longer. I turned and saw him hailing a cab. I’d instinctively headed for the subway station. I joined him at the cab stand in front of some boutiquey hotel I’d never noticed before. “Taxis? Are you independently wealthy?”
    He flashed me a smile. “I got my hack license when I first came to your country. Worked my way through Columbia’s journalism school driving a cab. Guess I have a soft spot for these guys, you know?”
    A cab pulled to a stop alongside us, and Victor opened the door and ushered me into the back seat. He settled in beside me and gave the driver an address—presumably, Helena’s—then glanced over at me. “So tell me about your sisters.”
    “Well, I’m the youngest. Rosemary, the oldest, got her degree in science, but now she runs her own holistic catering company in California. She’s dating a homicide detective. Sage is in the middle. She used to be an accountant, but now she’s a parenting consultant—basically, a fancy nanny—for a professional golfer and his family in South Carolina. She’s dating a caddy.”
    “And you? What did you used to be before you were a personal trainer?”
    “I got my psychology degree. I was planning to go to grad school but …” I trailed off, unsure how to explain my family’s financial situation in a pithy way.
    “Interesting that you all reinvented yourselves,” he mused, more to himself than to me. “And who are you dating?”
    I blushed. I knew he was just asking because I’d included Sage and Rosemary’s relationship statuses in my little summary. But, there was the teensiest chance he was asking because he was interested. And I was currently on boyfriend hiatus after a disastrous breakup with my college sweetheart.
    He was watching my face, half-smiling.
    I didn’t respond. Instead, I turned my face and looked out the window to make it crystal clear that the topic wasn’t one I cared to elaborate on. We rode in silence, except for the driver’s persistent stream of soft curse words aimed at every New Yorker who dared to cross his path. At least he was quiet about it. Nothing stressed me out more than a cab driver who screamed, red-faced, while pounding his fist on the steering wheel. It sounds like a caricature, I know, but cross-town traffic could bring out the maniacal side of just about anyone. I’d yet to drive in the city, and I hoped to keep it that way.
    The cab lurched to a stop in front of a pre-war apartment building. Victor paid the fare and exchanged some cabbie pleasantries with the driver while I scooted out of the back seat and inhaled the crisp, fall air. As much as I didn’t want to drive in New York, riding around as a passenger tended to leave me slightly carsick and queasy. I took another deep breath.
    “Are you okay?” Victor asked as he joined me on the sidewalk.
    I nodded and sneaked a peek at his face. He looked a bit green, himself. Either he was also carsick ... or he was worried about what we might find in his sister’s apartment.
    My pulse ticked up a notch. I hadn’t really considered all the possible ramifications of Helena’s disappearance, which, in retrospect, was kind of silly of me. I mean, in the past six months, each of my sisters had been involved in a murder investigation. What if death really did come in threes?
    Stop that, you sound like Mom with the old wives’ tales. Death doesn’t come in threes, fours, or twelve-packs. It’s random, I reassured myself; only, somehow, that wasn’t very reassuring.
    I took another look at Victor and swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Do you have a key to Helena’s place?”
    He