by Gina LaManna
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I already told you that Matt and I are just friends. Do you not trust me?”
“I trust you just fine.”
“So, you were going to just storm off to your big ol’ cop car and let me walk to bingo?”
“I figured Matt could take you.”
“Matt’s—” I hesitated. “He’s not going, is he?”
“Thought you would’ve talked about that,” Cooper said, “or were you too busy sleeping?”
The way he said the last word felt heavy to me, as if he was insinuating other things had happened. I was getting sick and tired of arguing over nothing. I sighed. “Fine.”
I let Cooper stew as I shuffled toward the kitchen. I topped off my hot chocolate with a ridiculous, snowy mound of marshmallows and slid onto a stool around the center island to sip my concoction in peace.
A few minutes later, I heard footsteps. I didn’t bother to turn my head to look. A big part of me thought that Cooper would just keep marching right on out of this place without bothering to say goodbye.
“Fine?” he asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, Cooper,” I said. “Should I call you that? Or are you the chief today? I don’t even know what to call you.”
“I asked you to call me Cooper.”
“Cooper,” I said firmly, spinning on the stool to face him. I licked my lips and tasted sweet chocolate. It gave me confidence. “I went over to Matt’s today to set the record straight.”
“And—”
“Just listen,” I said, waving a hand to cut him off. “I came into town a few days ago, and there’s a whole slew of problems I’ve got to worry about besides men bickering.”
“I wasn’t bickering.”
“You’re bickering now,” I said. “The thing is—I’m not ready for a relationship. I just got dumped publicly, and it still stings. I have to get on my own two feet before I even look at the opposite gender.”
“You told this to Matt?”
“And I’m telling it to you,” I said. “Matt is just a friend. You can trust me on that or not—whatever you want. I’m telling you the same thing I told him. There are no dates, there are no subtle messages hidden anywhere. I am not interested in anything but a friend. I’m being upfront so nobody’s feelings get hurt.”
Cooper studied me for a long moment, his eyes, deep and dark and penetrating, perused over me in great detail. It gave me the shivers.
He took a step closer, his eyes squinting as he studied my face, my hair, my lips. It dawned on me that we were much closer than we’d ever been and a part of me wondered if he was preparing to kiss me. His eyes flicked over my features once more.
“But that hair...” he said, breaking into a grin and reaching out to touch a strand of wild frizz. “What was I supposed to think you were doing over there?”
I swatted Cooper’s shoulder. I couldn’t help but laugh as I glanced at the reflection of my head in the microwave. I did have some crazy hair. “This is my sleep hair!”
“The magical blanket?” He grinned skeptically at me. “You can’t seriously have expected me to believe that wasn’t code for something.”
“It wasn’t! I told you not to look for hidden agendas. I’m saying things how I mean them. It’s part of the new and improved Jenna,” I said. “You know, I read the titles of a bunch of self-help books, and I think it’s really benefiting me.”
“Pity,” he said with a quick shake of his head. “I liked the original Jenna just fine.”
“Then it’s a very good thing I didn’t actually buy the books. I just read the titles,” I said. “I’ll forget everything I learned by Tuesday.”
He laughed, and it was the first time Cooper had truly sounded carefree. His eyes shone, his teeth twinkled white, and his head was tilted back with a pleased expression. I liked what I saw in a way that was probably dangerous for my health. Especially since I’d just ixnayed the idea of a relationship with him.
“It’s a very good thing then,” he said. “Does that mean you’ll let me give you a ride to bingo if I agree that it’s not a date?”
I spun back to my hot chocolate and scooped out the last of the marshmallows. “In that case, I’d love a ride.”
“Jenna, one more thing.” Cooper blocked me from standing entirely as he stepped closer. His eyes roved over me, a slightly more somber note to them. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but in the spirit of being honest...”
“Yes?” I could barely contain the beat of my heart. It seemed rapid, wild, and I just wanted to lean forward and see if he’d seal the deal with a kiss.
Then his eyes flicked back up toward my head, and he gave a smug little grin. “You might wanna fix that hair... or people might think you and me are more than just friends.”
Chapter 16
After storming away from the chief, I huffed it upstairs and changed clothes while he waited in the living room. I ran a few fingers through my tangled mane, decided that my efforts weren’t accomplishing a whole lot, and switched to a messy bun.
I couldn’t quite explain why I felt the need to slip into my new red dress with matching red heels—courtesy of my mother’s store. I had also picked up a faux-fur coat that was two parts gorgeous and one part kickass. A swatch of red lipstick finished my look. In Los Angeles, I might be heading to a red-carpet premier of a client’s film looking like this. In Blueberry Lake, I was going to bingo. Go figure.
I descended the stairs while digging in my clutch for the key that Cooper had just handed me. Apparently, my purse had eaten it.
“You know, I think I lost that key to the back door you gave me,” I said. “Any chance you have an extra?”
When I got no response, I stopped walking and looked up. Cooper was standing there with a hand on his chest as if he were having a heart attack, and a stunned look on his face.
“Cat got your tongue?” I asked, but secretly, I was pleased with his reaction. I wondered if it was the heels or the lipstick, or some combination of them both. Maybe it was the one part kickass of the faux-fur coat that had him looking like a tornado had picked him up and dropped him somewhere that wasn’t Kansas. “You ready to go?”
“You do know we’re going to play bingo?” he asked once he regained his speech.
I frowned. “I know I’m forgetful, but I’m not that forgetful.”
He cleared his throat. “You look—Jenna, you look amazing.”
“Aw, in this old thing? Seriously. I got it second hand. Isn’t it fabulous?”
“There’s no way people are going to think we’re not on a date when we pull up together.”
I self-consciously patted my messy bun. “I thought I tied it back! Is my hair still all sleepy?”
“It’s not the hair, it’s the...” he hesitated again. “The everything. Nobody looks like that when they go to bingo.”
“Well, I like it, so that’s good enough for me.”
“People are going to be staring.”
“Yourself included?” I gave him a sly grin. “Because you’re staring now.”
Cooper blinked, turned away. “Sorry. Shall we get going? I feel like I should’ve brought you flowers or something with the way you’re looking.”
“Eh, good thing we’re just friends.” I caught him eyeing my feet. “Don’t comment on the impracticality of my shoes. They’re worth it.”
“I was just going to offer you an arm to go down the stairs,” he said. “If that doesn’t upset the boundaries of your carefully placed friend-zone.”
“I’d appreciate that.” I accepted Cooper’s outstretched arm after we inched out onto the front steps. Quickly closing and locking the door, I leaned on him as I pivoted back around. As we hiked down the steps, he cinched me a tiny bit closer.
“Doing okay?” he asked softly, his breath dancing over my ear. “Almost there.”
I glanced at him in confusion. A quick look over my shoulder solved the mystery of his sudden closeness: Matt was v
isible in his kitchen window.
“Oh, you are just doing this to tick him off,” I said, swatting at Cooper’s arm. “I’d tell you to let go of me, but I’d break an ankle.”
“He had you all afternoon,” Cooper said. “It’s my turn for the evening.”
“What are you, sharing custody of me?”
“Isn’t that what friends do?”
I made a face at him and dropped his arm the second we reached the car. I hadn’t planned on arriving at bingo in a police cruiser, but then again, I hadn’t planned on a lot of things happening as of late. He helped me into the car, and I pressed my hands to the heater as Cooper cranked it to high.
“I told you not to wear that,” he said, glancing at my frozen hands. “You’ll be cold.”
“You seemed to like it just fine inside.”
“Tell me about Becky.”
“Excuse me?” I swiveled to face him, taken aback by the change in subject. “Becky who?”
“Right,” he said, unconvinced. “What’d she do to you?”
“How do you know about Becky?”
“There you go,” he said. “Keep talking. I asked around, and it sounds like you were pointing fingers at her for what happened at the bachelorette party.”
“Are people tattling on me? This town is one big grade school recess. Nothing is private.”
“Unlike Hollywood,” he said sarcastically, “where the inner details of one’s life aren’t splashed across magazines for the entire world to watch unfold.”
“Fine, you make a good point,” I said, wincing with the open wound that was my own failed (public) relationship. “Still, this was a private party. And Becky was far from innocent. She purposefully tripped me while I was carrying a tray of drinks.”
“You realize that sounds far-fetched.”
“She had it out for me,” I said. “She was watching me all evening, and even before.”
“Before?”
I shut my mouth. I hadn’t yet told Cooper about the creepy photo through the window thing that Becky had pulled off, and I figured he wouldn’t take me withholding information well. Especially when an intruder had gotten into my house. One that might very well have been Becky.
“I won’t make any judgements, nor will I be upset,” he said, flicking a glance toward me as if reading my mind. “But I wish you would just be honest with me so I have all of the information.”
After making him swear three times on his mother’s life that he wouldn’t be upset, I produced the photo May had found in Becky’s jacket and handed it over. We’d just reached the bingo parking lot, so he waited until he’d pulled the cruiser into a spot before he took a good look at it.
His face hardened as he caught a glimpse of the figures in the image. “I can’t believe you tried to hide—”
“Ah, ah, ah!” I tapped on the dashboard with my fingernails. “You’re not allowed to be mad. Just digest the information and move on, Chief.”
“Fine.” Cooper cleared his throat and, looking furious, addressed me. “Why did you hide this?”
“I wasn’t hiding this! I was going to tell you, but I didn’t have the time.”
“Because you were too busy making sure you placed me in the friend zone?”
“Cooper, don’t make this personal.”
“Police work in a small town is always personal,” he said with surprising force. “There’s a good chance that every person I arrest, I’ll see again. Every person I warn, I will see again. Every person who I put behind bars—I’ll probably see them again, too. I assure you I am very thorough and careful about my job. I care about the town and its residents. You’re one of us, so I care about you. As a friend,” he finished awkwardly.
It was the first time anyone had truly included me as one of the town’s residents. My family had celebrated my return, and Matt had become a friend, and Allie was a hoot and a half, but there was still a sense of novelty with all that. The way Cooper looped me in as ‘one of us’ would be a moment I didn’t forget anytime soon.
“Thank you,” I mumbled. “That means a lot to me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“I’m not mad, Jenna, I just—” he sighed. “I’m worried.”
“Don’t worry about me—I’ll be fine. I’m a tough cookie.”
“I know you are, but this person is relentless, and even the toughest of cookies can crumble.” He seemed to think his statement went too personal because he rushed on, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger to ease tension. “Let us revisit what we know.”
“Sure,” I said. “Grant Mark was murdered two days ago. You initially thought it was me, so you came barging into my place to welcome me to town.”
“I don’t remember it being exactly like that, but—”
“You barged in,” I said. “But I forgive you because you care about me.”
“Jenna—”
“You said it, and now you can’t take it back,” I said with a sly grin. “You care about me, and I know it.”
“Look at you, being mature about it,” he deadpanned. “So, we have a dead body and someone trying to frame you. We have this photo and an alleged tripping—”
“Becky did trip me.”
“I am only basing my knowledge on facts. Which do not include tripping because it’s your word against hers,” he clarified. “We have someone breaking into your house to plant the other shoe. There were no prints lifted from the second shoe.”
“The killer must watch NCIS, too. I wonder if they saw any episodes that I styled? Right—that’s not relevant.”
“We also know the murder weapon was a shoe you’d previously wielded as a defense weapon against the victim—”
“Hey, I was forced to do that. He was a creep.”
“Eye witness accounts seem to agree with you,” Cooper said. “As well as popular opinion of the victim.”
“Which means that just about anyone who visited Something Old is a suspect,” I said. “Because Allie bought the shoes, and someone took them from there.”
“Except she wasn’t at the store the whole time,” Cooper said, his eyes landing on mine. “I found out Allie took a break that she didn’t bother to tell anyone about.”
“What do you mean?”
“I paid a little visit to a hotel this morning, and a front desk receptionist by the name of Brayden seemed to recall Allie hanging around the hotel lobby at the time of the murder. Seems he thinks she’s got a thing for him.”
“Come on, are you going to trust that guy?” I asked. “I saw him this morning. He has frosted tips.”
Cooper looked startled. “And you imagine that the color of one’s hair has a bearing on their ability to tell the truth?”
I crossed my arms. “Allie didn’t do it.”
“She lied about her alibi. She purchased the murder weapon hours before it was used. She has an odd fascination with you—and she had just witnessed Grant get handsy and make you uncomfortable. You don’t think she was seeking some sort of vigilante justice? You must admit she has a wild imagination.”
I thought back to all my interactions with Allie. Her interesting clothing choices, her voracious appetite at June’s, her willingness to help my mother with whatever needed doing around the store. None of it added up to her murdering anyone.
But even as I told myself that, a slew of other instances crossed my mind. Allie’s willingness to help me break into a murder victim’s hotel room. Her obsession with a crime that didn’t really have anything to do with her, other than the fact that she’d bought the shoes someone had used to kill Grant. Her very slight awe over the fact that I had come from a foreign land called Hollywood.
“I take it by your silence that you’re not sure,” Cooper said. “I think you need to be careful about letting her get too close. Is there any chance that photo came from Allie and not Becky, and it got mixed up in the jackets?”
“No,” I said. “Allie wasn’t at the party.”
“I assume you’re
not going to tell me exactly how this photo came into your possession.”
“Nope,” I said. “But I don’t think Allie’s stalking me. Grant slightly ticking off a new friend of hers is hardly cause for murder.”
“Unless there’s something we haven’t uncovered yet,” he said. “There’s always a reason—we’ll find it.”
“You’re forgetting the fact that anyone could have taken that bag,” I said. “The list of suspects is as long as my arm. The entire bridal party was there...including Becky, who was seen looking into bags.”
“Did anyone see Becky actually take a bag? Or something out of a bag?”
“Well, no,” I said. “But what about the letters?”
“Oh, you mean the tip I received this morning from two masked bandits who broke into Grant’s room and dug through his possessions? Yes, there’s that,” he said dryly. “The letters have no signature. Without anything to compare them to, they’re next to useless. No defining marks. Ordinary loose-leaf paper. We don’t have the highest tech lab here to dig much further than that.”
“What if we got something to compare them to?” I asked. “Is there anyone around here who could do a quick writing analysis?”
“I could,” he said, “but nothing that would hold up in court.”
“You could ballpark it though. At least enough to get a direction?”
“Yes. I’m not sure I like where your head’s at, however.”
“You will when this works,” I said. “Give me ten minutes and a microphone at bingo.”
“This will not end well.”
“Relax, I’m not singing karaoke,” I said. “That wouldn’t end well, but this might just help us catch a murderer.”
Chapter 17
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, standing on stage at Blueberry Lake High’s auditorium. “Thank you for letting me have your attention. Bingo will begin in a few short moments, but first, I have a fun surprise for everyone!”
To Cooper’s dismay, I’d gotten an idea just big enough and just bold enough to possibly work. I’d convinced Cooper to get Stacy Simone—the head coordinator of bingo and a huge fangirl of the chief—to let me indulge the crowd in a special giveaway while the competitive bingo players found their seats and scoped out their boards.
