“That’s debatable,” Faraday grumbled, sipping his cup of coffee.
I headed straight for the coffee pot and poured a fresh mug. The black gold promised a quick kick to get my blood pumping again.
“Faraday, what gives? You’ve been moping and cranky for an entire week.” I took a long sip of my coffee.
Faraday let out an aggravated breath. “Every time you use Insight, I wait for you to pick my old case, and every time you choose a different one. I’m close to retirement, Cree. I’m running out of time to solve it.”
I slowly lowered my cup. “I didn’t know one of those cold cases were yours. Why didn’t you just say so?”
His brows furrowed. “I didn’t want to jump the line.”
“Face it, Cree, the old man is too stubborn to ask for help.”
“I carry a gun, Freddie,” Faraday growled.
“So do I, but I’m not above asking for help when I need it.”
“Okay, you two. Just stop. Faraday, next time I use Insight, I’d be glad to work on your case to see what we get.”
He met my gaze. “You will?”
“Absolutely. You're my godfather. I want you to find peace, and if I can make it happen, I’ll do everything in my power to see it happen.”
The smell of bacon and eggs made my stomach rumble.
“I’m not her babysitter, Faraday. I’m her bodyguard,” Freddie said, changing the subject while handing me a piece of his bacon.
“I don’t need one of those either.”
Faraday and Freddie exchanged a look as I bit off a piece of bacon.
“Don’t worry, Cree. Whenever you’re ready to re-enter society, I’ll always have your back, even if I have to be stalkerish about it.”
If re-entering society meant a late afternoon coffee at five with my best friend in the center of town, then that day was today, and I had no intention of letting Freddie shadow me, stalkerish or otherwise.
“One day I’m going to set up a stand in the middle of Times Square and offer free psychic readings complete with a crystal ball and tarot cards. Hell, I might even chant a spell or two to really give them something to gossip about.”
Freddie chuckled. “I’ll charge extra for breaking you out of the psych ward.”
“I can afford it.” I stole another piece of his bacon. “You don’t charge me at all.”
Chapter 3
“I should have listened to him,” I grumbled, leaning my seat back to stare up at the stars. I’d dropped off my last batch of cupcakes at the coffee shop, and I’d stayed and enjoyed coffee with Charlotte. Time had slipped by while we had some much-needed girl time discussing the merits of my choices of men.
I’d even managed to sneak out of the house to make the trip into town alone. Somewhere between coffee and my way home, my tire had deflated. It didn’t help it had a gash the size of a knife blade across the tread. The locals blamed me for a head mobster beating his charges when, in reality, he’d been innocent of that crime. It wasn’t my fault that he hadn’t been the one to commit the offense. It appeared the locals hadn’t gotten the memo. They were clinging to the grudge like I was a pair of bell-bottom jeans in the back of my closet.
I had a ten-mile hike when the sun receded behind the horizon and the moon rose into the night sky. Of course, I was in the middle of cell service hell, without a cell tower in sight. I sighed. Someone would surely come along and find me soon, maybe. I glanced at my watch again and tapped the screen to get the minute hand ticking again. Perfect. I sighed. My current view of watching the stars in the night sky was a million times better than trying to walk ten miles in heels.
The silhouette of an apparition appeared in the tree line. Her white dress was dirty and torn. Grammy always told me not to stare. Staring invited them closer, and in one blink, this one was standing on top of my hood, and not only that. I knew exactly who she was.
“Calinda Sparks.”
“One and the same,” she answered, and with a snap of her fingers, her attire changed into a black evening gown she’d worn in the last movie she’d acted in. The clothes were fitting if not a tad theatrical.
This was the image I remembered. The one the newspapers had flashed when announcing to the public she’d died. I was only fifteen at the time, but the news had surely rocked my Grammy. Calinda Sparks was the equivalent of royalty in the U.S.
“You’re early. I’m not working your case yet, but if you’d care to tell me who killed you and where you hid the diamond, you’d save me a lot of time.” Sliding out of my Jeep, I climbed up on my hood to get a better look at her ghostly face.
“Do you have a dream?” she asked, momentarily confusing me. “I did, and it was beautiful. He promised to marry me, you know.” Her smile fell into a frown.
I didn’t need to ask who. The affair she’d had with the Prince of Wellington had been making headlines for years.
“Right now, my dream consists of not having to walk back to my house.”
“Your chariot is on the way.” She winked, and the smile returned to her face as she slowly fizzled out of sight.
The first cold, fat raindrop landed smack-dab in the middle of my forehead, almost like the last “screw you” from the locals. In any other car, it wouldn’t have mattered. In my car, that wasn’t the case. The top of my Jeep would remain dry since it was packed nice and neat in my shed.
Thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed in the distance. The coming rain wouldn’t kill me, but the oncoming lightning just might. I could see it now. The town would rejoice and probably proclaim it as a national holiday.
“I won’t melt,” I screamed up into the sky, slipping my phone out of my pocket and holding it up higher in the sky. Still not a single bar.
The rain came down harder from the sky just as lights shined on me from down the road. An unfamiliar sports car slowed. The dark tinted windows hid the driver’s identity. If this was knife-weilding-tire-slashing happy local, there was a good chance Freddie and Faraday would find my dead body on the side of the road.
The door opened, and an umbrella appeared seconds before I saw the face. West Archer rounded the car and stared up at me. “What are you doing, luv?”
“I was just talking to Calinda Sparks.”
“Why don’t you ask her who killed her and where the diamond is? It would save us both some time.” He glanced slowly around as if looking to see if the actress was still near.
“I already did and she didn’t answer, but next time she pops in, I’ll try and pin her down,” I answered seconds before my foot slipped and had me falling toward the mysterious man who’d once darkened my doorstep.
He released his umbrella, letting it fly in the wind, but he caught me in his arms. “You’re dangerous.”
“And you’re getting wet. Care to give me a lift?”
“I thought that’s what I was already doing.”
“She said she sent a chariot.” I smiled up into his dark green eyes. The flecks of yellow darkened as I let him carry me like a bride across a threshold to his car. Normally I’d be complaining I was a woman and knew how to walk, but I relaxed, letting him do all the heavy lifting. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence that a man carried me in his arms.
He lowered me to my feet and stared intently into my eyes while the rain poured down on our heads. It would have been a romantic moment with the right partner. He was soo not that guy.
“I’m not Prince Charming.”
“True, but I think you have more than plenty enough horses under that hood to get me home. Besides, I don’t need a prince. I sort of have one.” I blurted out. “Well, technically he moved away and doesn’t live here anymore, but he’ll come back...maybe. Well, technically he hasn’t yet, but he said he would.”
I was a babbling idiot. What the hell was wrong with me? West Archer didn’t need to know my personal business. The less he knew, the better. Keep it professional.
“If he were truly your prince, he would have never left.”
He opened the door, an
d I slid onto the seat, waiting for him to get in on the other side. “You’re smooth. I can see it in your eyes and in your smile. I’m sure women everywhere watch you walk into a room. You and your sexy accent just swooping in and commanding attention. I don’t need a savior or a prince. I could have walked…with the right shoes.”
He gave me that sexy grin, the kind that promised the fun and games were just beginning. “Are the glass slippers pinching your toes?”
“Just my brain cells.” I turned to look out the window and whipped my head back in his direction. “I was beginning to think you changed your mind about our super-secret project.”
He glanced my way. “Sorry, I’m late. I had a funeral to attend.”
“You really are Prince Charming, aren’t you? You killed the wicked stepsisters. Because let me just tell you, I would have kicked those tramps to the ground and stepped on them with my pretty crystal shoes.”
He tossed the car into gear and chuckled. “Sadly not the evil stepsisters, but someone just as sinister; a terrorist.”
Chapter 4
I couldn’t have possibly heard him right. He didn’t strike me as a hitman for hire. I glanced at him again. His suit fit to perfection, high end. I could tell just by the fabric, not to mention the Rolex watch around his wrist. Surely the FBI didn’t work with hitmen. Did they?
My mouth parted as I stared at him. Words escaped me, and that was a first.
“Relax, luv, he deserved to die.”
“No… I mean, yeah, I’m sure some people deserve to die like pedophiles and serial killers, but you sound trigger-happy, and I don’t mean that you’re happy to see your horse.”
“Trigger the Horse, is that an actual thing?” He chuckled. “You’re unusual, Cree Blue.”
“At least I’m not a gun-toting, trigger-happy, fake-Prince Charming-people-killer.”
“If it helps, he was a really bad terrorist who’s killed thousands and was about to do it again.” West shrugged. “It was either him or me.”
I turned my gaze to look out the window at the passing trees. Him or me. I’m not sure I could argue with that. I would have killed to save my own life too. I almost had, but still. I turned back to him once more. “And you attended his funeral? Did you kill his widow too?”
I just couldn’t wrap my brain around what he was saying. It was straight out of a Bruce Willis movie, where a dozen bad men were killed and no one thinks twice about their families left behind. Well, I did, I thought twice. God forbid movies like that were real events and I came across that many pissed-off spirits all at once.
His eyes sparkled with mischief as he glanced my way. “Why would I kill his widow? She didn’t do anything wrong, and besides, the mourners didn’t know who I was.”
“I’m not sure I do, either. Maybe this working together thing is a bad idea. I mean, no offense, but I don’t generally work with James Bond-type spy people. Not that you're James Bond, are you? Where’s the flame-throwing, missile-shooting control panel?” I ran my hand over the dashboard, looking for secret hidden buttons.
“You have a very active imagination.”
He had a point. Here I sat, wet from head to toe. The villagers had slashed my tire. I had members of both the police and the mob living under the same roof. Maybe I was the one that needed help.
“Are you staying in town? If you are, I wouldn’t mention my name. They kind of hate me.”
“I doubt that.” West pulled beneath the iron gate of the Lady Blue Plantation and slowly drove up the drive. He parked just as lightning flashed, striking somewhere behind the house. The sonic boom made my heart momentarily freeze. Within seconds all of the lights inside the house flickered off.
“That can’t be good.” I yanked the handle and hurried out of the car, jogging up the porch stairs. I threw open the door to find Freddie using the light on his phone to maneuver around the office, opening blinds.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You’re in trouble.”
“What got hit?” I asked, pulling out my phone to use as a flashlight and heading to the kitchen, leaving Freddie and West to follow.
“Not sure. Faraday went down to the basement to check it out.”
“Need any help, luv?” West asked from behind us.
I grabbed some of the emergency candles and a lighter out of the cupboards and lit a few. I tossed West the lighter and grabbed the closest lit candle. “You can light the rest of them while I check on Faraday.”
I headed out of the room just as Freddie spoke. “She’s been waiting for you.”
The basement door stood open. The creepy dark stairwell had scared me as a kid. My Grammy used to say what scared her was the small steep steps. She’d always worried she’d take a tumble and there wouldn’t be any sexy fireman around to help her get back up.
“Faraday, are you down there?” I called out as I slowly descended the stairs.
“Yeah.”
I let out a relieved breath I’d been holding and spotted him in the corner kneeling beside Insight. “Looks like it fried Insight and the heart monitor.”
“Daddy left schematics for Insight. I’m sure we’ll find someone to fix it. The heart machine can be replaced, but you can’t. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Fit as a fiddle.”
I’d never understood that saying. Were fiddles really fit?
Faraday rose and stretched his back, cracking some of his old bones. “Why are you wet? I thought you were lying down with a headache.”
I cringed. “Well…see, here’s the thing.”
“She snuck out and got stranded,” Freddie answered, jogging down the stairs. “The Brit found her standing on top of her Jeep in the rain.”
Faraday gave me that disapproving stare, the kind my dad had perfected the minute I started to crawl.
“Don’t start. I wasn’t investigating.” Yet. “I was having coffee with Charlotte, and someone had to deliver the cupcakes.”
The air in the basement was getting stuffier by the minute. “Let’s go back upstairs.”
“You two go ahead. I need to check the circuit breaker.”
“Okay.” I started jogging up the stairs and turned. “Do you mind if I take your truck? My Jeep got a flat, and I need to go put the top back on before everything is ruined and drive it back to the house.”
Faraday slid the keys out of his pocket and tossed them through the air.
“Thanks.” I jogged up the stairs to find West waiting at the top.
“Everything good?”
“Sure, come on, Archer, you’re with me.”
“Now wait a minute,” Freddie said, resting his hand on my arm. “You’ve already been off running around in town.”
“I’m just going to get my Jeep.”
“Uh-huh. Why don’t I go?”
“Because Faraday might need your help,” I answered as if he should have already known the answer.
“I’m your bodyguard, not Mr. Fix-It.”
Cree let out a long sigh. “Well, bodyguard, this house is known to get kind of hot and muggy, so if you can sleep in those conditions, knock yourself out. Go get the Jeep, and I’ll try to figure out the difference between those silly screwdrivers when he asks for one.”
“I’ll guard her body.” West winked.
“Funny man. Don’t antagonize him. You aren’t Prince Charming. You’re more like the court jester who doesn’t realize his jokes aren’t funny,” I said, grabbing his arm and pulling him to the door.
“If he’s the jester, what does that make me?” I heard Freddie call out.
I’d have to think about that response. Freddie was a great guy, if not a tad bit scary with all of those tattoos, his bulky arms, and the mean-ass scowl he normally sported.
“Bodyguard?” West asked, jogging through the rain behind me into the barn.
“Well, in all fairness, he did save my life,” I answered wiping the rain from my arms before grabbing the soft top for the Jeep.
West took it from
me, and I gestured to the truck.
I grabbed one of the tires and rolled it in his direction.
He lifted it without a single hesitation like the pint of ice cream I ate last night. “Anything else?”
I climbed up into the bed of the truck and opened the tool box to find a jack and lug nut wrench inside. “That should do it.”
I climbed out onto the bumper and jumped down. “I’ll drive.”
“Are you always this bossy?”
“Yes. I could blame it on my southern roots, but I think I was just born this way.” I didn’t even have to think about the answer. He’d realize it soon enough. No sense on denying it.
“Let me grab my umbrella.” West said jogging back out into the rain and returning seconds later. He hopped in as I turned the ignition key. The old jalopy sputtered to life with a little shake.
“Either you’re Marry Poppins with a magical umbrella that just reappears when you need one, or you’re a little OCD driving around with more than one in your car.”
“You’ll find I’m prepared for many things.” He winked.
I pulled out of the garage and headed back toward the long stretch of road. The silence between us lingered as I made it back to my Jeep and started putting on the soft top. The seats were going to take forever to dry out. The rest of my stuff inside was probably ruined. I’d brought this on myself. I knew better than to take the top off without checking the weather. The flat tire, well, that was another story. That could have been anyone while I’d been in the coffee shop.
West decided I was too fragile to fix my tire, so he insisted on doing that part. I stood over him with the umbrella while he fought the tight lug nuts holding the tire in place. Thirty feet in front of me was another ghost I recognized. Well, I knew she didn’t want to die. Davina Richards was standing in the middle of the road. A car was shining the lights on her before plowing right through her spirit. She pointed down the dirt road. Her voice was crystal clear in my head. “You need to hurry, or it will be gone.”
“What will be gone?” I asked, trying to urge her closer.
Deadly Vows Page 2
