by K. J. Emrick
Both of them never would have heard from her again once she was done with them. She was a user who thought she had been one step ahead of everyone. In the end, her own crimes caught up to her, and I couldn’t be sad about that. I was glad I’d found her, glad she was still alive, and glad most of all that she was going to live to stand trial for what she did. I’m not sure how the courts operate in Croatia, but I’m betting they’re a lot harsher than ours.
Most of all… I was just glad to be alive.
“You drive like my grandmother.”
The guy sitting next to me is glad to be alive, too. He’s just cranky because he’s not allowed to drive for the next two weeks. For a guy like Christian Caine, that’s a big blow to his masculinity.
“I’m driving carefully,” I tease him, “so you don’t aggravate your injuries. You’re in a very fragile state. Just like a grandmother.”
“Ha, ha. Listen, the only reason I agreed to this was because I’m on medical leave and I need to do something with my time. You promised me lunch. I’m always up for a free meal.”
“Uh-huh. Admit it, you’re bored.”
He gives that comment a shrug, but he doesn’t have to say anything. I know it’s true. He’s been to my apartment plenty of times before, and we hang out and watch movies and complain about life in general. Never on a weekday, though. Weekdays are workdays for Christian and he would rather be in the office than anywhere else in the world. He’s hanging out with me today, because he’s bored.
I don’t mind. My friend was alive, thanks to a certain wish that I’d bargained for, and he and I were going to enjoy a few hours of bad Netflix shows and good, cold beer.
His arm was in a full cast, and his ribs were wrapped from his two broken ribs. He was going to have a scar from where they opened him up to stop the internal bleeding, too. He showed it to me when I came to pick him up in the hospital. You know that old saying about how chicks dig scars? This one is ugly. Nobody’s going to dig this scar. Personally, I like guys for their brains. Not for being all tough.
Christian’s not as tough as he tries to act. He might have just survived a house blowing up in his face, but he was going to tear up later while watching the end of A Walk to Remember, just like he always did.
Turning into my parking lot now, I drop a string of colorful swear words. Christian actually lifts an eyebrow in admiration. “What’s got you upset all of a sudden?”
“Look,” I tell him, pointing at Mrs. Anderson’s Honda Civic, parked in my spot again. “I do not know what is wrong with this woman, but she will not leave my spot alone. I keep telling her to stop but she won’t.”
He chuckles at me, holding his side where it hurts. “Sid, it’s just a parking spot. What does it matter?”
“It matters because it’s my parking space, that’s why it matters. Why does Mrs. Anderson keep taking it? You’re a police detective, why don’t you figure that out for me?”
I grudgingly park Roxy in Mrs. Anderson’s spot, twisting the key out of the ignition a lot harder than I needed to. When I turn to Christian to keep my rant going, I find him looking at me with an odd expression on his face.
“What?”
He shifts in his seat, and I can tell he’s in pain no matter what he tried to tell me earlier. “The name of your neighbor,” he says. “You said it was Mrs. Anderson? Mrs. Beth Anderson?”
“Well, yeah. That’s her. She’s lived in my building for decades, or whatever, but that doesn’t give her the right to steal my parking space like it’s her own.”
“It used to be her son’s.”
“Wait… what?”
“Yeah.” He shifts again, wincing this time. “Before you moved here, before we knew each other, I worked a case at your building. I had just made detective, but I remember it still. Mrs. Anderson lived in her apartment back then, and her son had an apartment on another floor. He was the victim of a home invasion. Murdered in his bed. It was a sad thing for everybody, but most of all for Mrs. Anderson. She lost her only son that day.”
That was not what I’d been expecting to hear, that was for sure. Her son died, right here in this building? “That must have been hard on her. Did you ever find who did it?”
“Yeah, we did. It took a couple of weeks, but I tracked down the drug addict who pawned the stuff that was stolen from his apartment.” Turning carefully, he points to the other side of the parking lot, where Mrs. Anderson’s car is sitting in my spot. “That was his parking space. I’m betting Mrs. Anderson parks there because it was his. She probably still misses him, you know?”
“Her only son was killed in the building where they both live.” I can’t help but frown when I feel the little tug at my heart. “I can’t imagine how that must have felt. Wow. You think that’s why she keeps taking my spot? Because it was her son’s?”
“Yeah, I do. Like you said, I’m a police detective. We’re pretty good at solving crimes.”
“You have your moments.”
“So do you, Private Eye.”
We share a smile, and then I get out so I can come around and help him. Tough guy needs to lean on me to walk as far as the apartment building. That’s okay. I’m always here for him, just like I know he’ll always be there for me, too.
I take a look over at my parking space, with Mrs. Anderson’s car in it. Maybe it would be all right if it stayed there. At least for now.
We use the elevator to get up to my apartment, because no way is Christian going to be able to take the stairs. He laughs at the way he has to use me like a human crutch the whole way, and I joke that next time I’m getting him a wheelchair to carry his heavy ass around. After a few long steps, we’re at my door.
“Wow,” Christian says. “That smells great. Since when did you go in for fancy coffee?”
I smell it too. The aroma of freshly brewed Turkish coffee. Harris has been busy.
Inside, there’s steaming coffee in a pot in the middle of the table, just waiting for us. The apartment itself is empty. None of my friends would be ready to meet my tall and tan, buff and bare-chested genie friend. Thankfully, he understands that. He’s going to be a big part of my life for a while, and maybe someday I’ll introduce him and Christian, but for now it’s probably better to keep that relationship a secret.
Christian is practically salivating. He hops his way over to a kitchen chair and settles himself in gingerly, sucking in a breath the whole way down. “You get a new housekeeper I don’t know about?”
“No. I’ve just got some talented friends.”
“I’ll say. I thought I knew all your friends?”
“A girl’s got to have some secrets.”
“Yeah, sure. You got some food to go along with this coffee?”
I’m already at the freezer, reaching inside. “Oven pizza, coming up. What do you feel like watching? Comedy? Action? Something with explosions?”
“Uh, no. No explosions. I’ve had enough of that to last me a while.”
I laugh, because I knew he was going to say that.
He pours himself the coffee rather than waiting for me. While I set the oven to the right temperature, I see him leaning over carefully in his chair, looking into the living room.
“Hey,” he says. “Nice rug. When did you get that?”
Harry’s carpet is laid out nice and neat in the living room now, right in the middle of the floor. He’s got the place of honor in my little apartment.
“It is a nice rug, isn’t it?” I put the pizza on the rack to bake, turning to Christian with a wide grin. “I got that the same time I met my friend who makes that nice coffee. Oh, hey. Be sure to look at the grinds at the bottom of your cup when you’re done. You never know. They might just tell your fortune.”
Over in the living room, the tassels on the carpet danced with silent laughter.
Epilogue
The next week, I parked Roxy in Mrs. Anderson’s spot, and waited.
She liked to come down to get her mail directly from our mailman,
so I knew she’d be down shortly. I watched from my rearview mirror, angled to see her Honda Civic. When she came out of the building, she went right to her car, like a woman keeping a guard over the most precious thing in her life.
Then she stops, and she stares.
And then she looks back at me, sitting here in my Mustang. Even from here, I can see the tears in her eyes.
I hadn’t meant to make her cry, but I guess it’s understandable. She just read the memorial plaque I had installed at the head of that space, the one that used to belong to her son. I had to do some serious talking to get the landlord to agree to it. Actually, I had to agree to up my rent by fifty dollars a month for the next three years, is what I had to do. Not that I’ll ever tell anybody that part.
The plaque is brass, attached to a six-by-six-foot post standing just high enough to be read over the hoods of the cars. I came up with the inscription myself and had to pay extra for the nice men to set it in the ground overnight when Mrs. Anderson wouldn’t notice.
* * *
Held in Memorial
For Tommy Anderson
Loving Son of Mrs. Beth Anderson
Taken Too Young
Not Forgotten
* * *
After all. It’s just a parking space. I figure there’s lots of other things in this world more important to worry about than a parking space, right? Mrs. Anderson can have that one. For as long as she wants.
On the seat next to me, my phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, but you never can tell who might need the assistance of one of Detroit’s finest private investigators.
“Hello. This is Sidney Stone. How can I help you?”
* * *
Second Guessing - Sidney Stone - Private Investigator (Paranormal) Mystery Book 2
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Acknowledgments
Edited by Adam C-S
Edited and Formatted by L.E. Crase
Edited by Shawn Wells
Cover Art - Joanna Walker at
http://bookcovermasterclass.com
About the Authors
K.J. Emrick
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Kathrine Emrick writing as K.J. Emrick is the author of the popular Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery series and the Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery series.
Strongly influenced by authors like James Patterson, Dick Francis, and Nora Roberts, Kathrine Emrick dreamed of being an author for the majority of her life.
She never quite gave up on the idea of being a published author and at the age of 51, thanks to the self-publishing explosion, she finally realized her dream. Her maturity allows her to bring a variety of experiences and observations to her writing.
She lives in beautiful South Australia with her family, including several animals. Kathrine can always be found jotting down daily notes in a journal and like many authors, she loves to be surrounded by books and is a voracious reader. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and volunteering at the local library.
Her goal is to regularly produce entertaining and noteworthy content and engaging in a community of readers and writers.
To find out more please visit the Kathrine's website at kathrineemrick.com
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You can also follow Kathrine on:
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S. J. Wells
S. J. Wells is a native of Northern New York, where his gift for writing was born and raised not far from the Canadian border. He spent several years there working in law enforcement before returning to his true passion…writing. It seems his imagination has always run on a short leash, bringing him to places where fantasy and reality mix, places where the most interesting characters live and love and play and tell him their stories with a cheeky grin or a malevolent smirk. When he isn’t completely losing track of time while walking down the twisted pathways of plotline and prose he is hanging out with his family, nurturing the imaginations of his three sons and repeating every Canadian joke he hears to his very patient and very beautiful wife (who happens to be from Canada).
