by Kylie Logan
“Now? You mean, what’s going to happen to the house now that Bernadette is dead?” He massaged his right hand with his left. “Her attorney called. She had a will. Believe it or not, the house is mine.”
Jazz didn’t bother to point out it made one heck of a good motive for murder.
She didn’t have to.
One second, Tillner’s cheeks flushed with color. The next, the blood drained from his face. “You don’t think that means I could have—”
It wasn’t her place to say. Instead, Jazz asked him, “What happened to her things?”
Tillner was so busy considering how he suddenly looked like a suspect, it took him a moment to collect himself. “Bernadette’s things? I never touched them. Not for months, anyway. But I’ll tell you what, there’s only so long you can live with pictures of Jesus staring back at you from every wall. And the candles and the statues!” He shivered. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against religion. But Bernadette was a little over the top. I put up with it all for a while; then one day, I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. I scooped it all into boxes and dragged everything up to the attic.”
“Can I look?”
“Look?” He popped out of his seat and headed for the stairway. “There are a few boxes. If you can help me carry them down, you can have them all.”
CHAPTER 13
She had just finished unloading the boxes from Bernadette’s and stacking them in one corner of her living room, and Jazz stepped back and wondered which one to start on first. There were two shoe boxes, four archive boxes, a battered box with an ill-fitting cover and the name of some long-gone department store printed on its side.
She’d just decided to go with the archive boxes, one by one, when her doorbell rang. She caught a glimpse of her mom out the front window, so the boxes would have to wait. She was already smiling when she opened the door.
At least until she saw there was a man standing to Claire Ramsey’s right.
Six weeks before, when she announced the news to Jazz, Claire had been up front about dating a man she’d met at church, Peter Nestico. But Jazz had never met him. Aside from the usual “Where did you go?” “What did you have for dinner?” “Did you have a nice time?” she’d never asked much about him in the subsequent weeks when her mom called her to update her on how things were going with Peter.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to know.
And it wasn’t like she didn’t care.
Her mom meant the world to her.
It was just that …
The familiar pang of heartache stabbed Jazz’s insides.
This Peter Nestico character wasn’t her dad. He never could be.
But there he was, standing on her front porch, and now she gave him a quick once-over.
Peter was tall—but not as tall as Michael Patrick Ramsey had been.
Peter had blue eyes—but the color wasn’t nearly as deep or as gorgeous as her dad’s.
Peter was a man close to sixty, she guessed, and he had a trim figure and wide shoulders. But he was nowhere near as muscular as Michael Ramsey.
Peter had iron-gray hair.
Ha!
Though her dad’s dark hair was shot through with gray, he was years away from going totally silver. Jazz couldn’t say why it was important to her, but it was. Maybe it was because when she dreamed about her dad he was forever fifty.
“Honey?” Her mother’s voice penetrated her thoughts and Jazz shook herself back to reality. “Jasmine, I’d like you to meet—”
“Peter Nestico.” He stepped forward, stuck out his hand, and offered a smile. There was a gap between his two front teeth. “Your mom talks about you a lot. I’m glad to finally meet you, Jasmine.”
No one called her Jasmine.
Except her mom.
And her dad.
A quick, fierce shot of resentment marched across Jazz’s shoulder blades before it dug down deep. Her spine went stiff. Her chin came up. Somehow, she managed a smile. She wondered if it looked as tight around the edges as it felt. “Come on in,” she told her mom and Peter.
Naturally, the sounds of activity and the voices of visitors roused Wally from the nap he’d been taking in the kitchen and a scramble of claws against the hardwood floor announced his arrival. He knew Claire. He gave her a tail wag and a lick. Peter was new. Before Jazz could stop him, Wally jumped up on Peter.
“Off!” Jazz commanded.
Wally didn’t even acknowledge her. But then, he was too busy enjoying the attention when Peter rippled a hand over his woolly head and said, “Oh, he’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“I mind,” Jazz told him. She hardened her voice. “Off, Wally. Sit.”
Wally had heard the iron in her voice before. The time he got into the garbage. The time he’d chewed her newest pair of running shoes.
He sat.
“He’s going to be big,” she told Peter, mad at herself for feeling she had to make excuses, that she had to apologize. This man was dating her mother. He was trying to take her dad’s place. He’s the one who owed the apologies. “I don’t want him to develop any bad habits.”
“I get it.” Peter sent one smile to Jazz and another to Wally, who ate up the admiration with a slurp and a butt wiggle. He stroked Wally’s back. “We had Labs when the kids were young, so I’m used to big dogs. I’m used to crazy puppies, too.” He rubbed a hand over Wally’s head and Wally let out a whimper of approval. “I know you need to be firm. This little guy is just so adorable, I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Okay. All right.
Some of the starch went out of Jazz’s shoulders.
So Peter Nestico liked dogs and he knew a little about training them. He had good taste; he thought Wally was adorable.
One point in Peter’s favor.
Still, Jazz couldn’t stop herself; she glanced at the photograph on a shelf nearby. Jazz and Manny, her first HRD dog. Her dad and Big George, his search and rescue dog. In the picture, Dad was smiling.
Jazz turned toward her mom and saw that looking at Peter, Claire was smiling, too.
It hit her then. Somewhere between her heart and her stomach. In the fourteen months since her husband’s death, Claire had been chipping away at her grief and Jazz and her brothers had been doing all they could to help, hoping that someday their mom would rise above the crippling agony of remembrance and live again.
It looked like Claire had. It looked like she would.
It was time for Jazz to watch, to learn, and to do the same thing. She’d never get over the sadness. She’d never forget. But here and now, it was time to move on.
Jazz’s eyes welled, and before either Peter or her mom could notice, she turned away and swiped at them with her fists.
Peter had done what she and her brothers still struggled with. He made her mom happy. Damn! She had no choice but to give Peter another point.
“Why don’t you…” She turned back around, cleared the emotion from her throat, and her smile was genuine when she waved toward the couch. But before she had a chance to tell them to settle in and she’d get drinks, Claire wound her arm through Jazz’s.
“We’re not here to stay,” her mother told her. “We’re taking you out to dinner. You know, to celebrate the end of the school year.”
Jazz looked over the pile of boxes she’d brought from Bernadette’s. She was itching to look through them, anxious to uncover their secrets. “That’s really nice, Mom, but—”
“But nothing.” Peter grinned. “Your mother has made up her mind, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, once that happens, not much is going to change it.”
He knew her mother well. “But I have plans,” she told them both.
“Plans with Nick?” her mother wanted to know.
“No, not with Nick. With—”
“Maybe another guy?” Claire wondered.
“No, not with a guy.”
“Well, I know you’re not going anywhere with Sarah tonight because Matt and Sarah hav
e a date.” Jazz didn’t even bother to wonder how her mother knew. Matt and her brothers, Hal and Owen, were great friends. Hal and Owen told her mother everything. And even if they didn’t bring up the subject of Matt’s dating, Claire would somehow manage to worm the information out of them. She was talented like that. “Who exactly are you going out with?”
“I’m not going out with anybody. Wally and I are going to work on long stays and—”
“See.” Claire leaned in close to Peter and spoke in a stage whisper clearly meant for Jazz’s ears. “I told you that’s exactly what she was going to say.”
“You two were talking about me?” Jazz threw her hands in the air, exasperated. Her mother could be nosy, interfering—
And totally loving and wonderful. It was so good to see her happy and joking again.
“I’ll grab a jacket,” Jazz said. “Where are we going?”
“Thought we’d try Bourbon Street Barrel Room.” Jazz had already started up the stairs to her bedroom and Peter called up to her, “I hear they’ve got a kick-ass jambalaya!”
When she got to her bedroom, Jazz made a face at herself in the mirror that hung above her dresser.
She knew this day would come sooner or later. She knew she was bound to meet Peter. And she’d promised herself that when she did, she’d stay strong. There was no way she was going to like him.
And here she was, going to dinner with him.
And giving him another point.
After all, the man loved kick-ass jambalaya.
* * *
Peter Nestico was not as good a storyteller as her dad. He wasn’t as funny or as irreverent. He wasn’t as handsome and he didn’t know every second person they passed on the way to the restaurant, which was close to Jazz’s home. No matter where they went, her dad always knew someone, to the point that there was a running joke in the family—he ought to run for mayor.
What Nestico was, however, was attentive to her mother. A good conversationalist. Proud of his three kids and the seven grandchildren they produced. He had loving memories of his late wife and he wasn’t embarrassed about sharing them. Peter knew enough about wine to order a bottle that suited the jambalaya perfectly. As promised, it was kick-ass.
In the course of dinner conversation, he brought up the subject of the skeleton at St. Catherine’s. Of course he did. If he hadn’t, Jazz would have known he was trying to shield her from the emotional upheaval that followed the discovery, and talking about it meant that he trusted her enough to know she could handle the subject. But thank goodness, he didn’t beat it to death. He didn’t pry. He wondered what she knew. He asked how she was feeling and promised the next time he saw her he would bring along some of his favorite chamomile-based herbal tea, just in case she had trouble sleeping. He hoped the police would find the killer soon and bring the monster to justice.
Peter paid for dinner and he insisted that since he and Claire had driven Jazz to the restaurant, it was only right that they drive her back home. Either he was the perfect gentleman or he’d heard stories about the crime rate in Tremont—he didn’t pull his car out of her driveway until Jazz was safely inside her house.
“I tried not to like him,” she told Wally when she got him out of his crate and snapped his leash to his collar. “But he did think you were adorable!”
Wally barked his agreement, and together they headed out on their nightly walk.
Weeknights, the neighborhood had a different feel. Laid-back, quiet. There were nights when Jazz swore she could feel the history of the place vibrating from the slate sidewalks and catch a glimpse in the shadows of the ghosts of residents long gone.
Weekends …
Ready to cross a street, Jazz stopped to let a line of traffic by and was happy to see Wally sit right down beside her without a command. “You’re a good boy,” she told him before they crossed.
It was a warm night, and Wally had been patient while she went out with her mom and Peter. They did their usual sweep around the school across the street from Jazz’s house; then to reward him—and to work off some of that kick-ass jambalaya—they headed up to Lincoln Park.
More traffic, more crowds. Conversations floated in the air. Music vibrated through the neighborhood. Techno dance music from one bar. Mellow standards from another. Much to Jazz’s delight, Wally didn’t mind any of it. He wasn’t skittish or antsy, not even when a waiter on a nearby patio dropped the tray he was carrying and silverware clattered and clanked. Wally greeted—politely—the people they passed. He obeyed commands without too much sass. By the time they spent a few minutes in the park, then turned around to go back home, Jazz was feeling pretty darned proud of her dog training skills, and more positive about life in general.
They crossed Starkweather and Jazz breathed in the scent of the petunias someone had planted nearby and the honeysuckle that twined around the fence of a house that was being renovated. She only hoped that the yellow paint on the front of the house looked less garish in the daylight than it did in the dark.
It was, she decided right then and there, a perfect night in a perfect place.
The thought had just had time to settle when a punch landed between Jazz’s shoulder blades and the air rushed out of her lungs on the end of a gasp of surprise. Before she had time to recover, while her head was still banging forward and her shoulders were still instinctively hunched, another jab slammed into her, this one at the small of her back.
She crumpled and her knees hit the pavement. So did her forehead.
Wally barked. He growled. But she couldn’t find her voice to tell him to sit and stay. Her breath was gone. Stars exploded behind her eyes. Right before someone grabbed her hair and yanked her head back and held a knife, cold and shiny, to her throat. He nicked her neck with the blade of the knife and a hot trickle of blood snaked down her throat.
“Mind your own business,” he said, the whispered warning rough against her ear.
He shoved her forward and her elbows slammed the pavement.
Stunned for a second or two, Jazz listened to her own rough breaths. She winced from the pain in her back and wiped a trickle of blood out of her eye. But she’d be damned if she was going to give up. To hell with the pain. Her right hand already balled into a fist, her arm cocked, she jumped to her feet and spun around just in time to see a shadow slip into the backyard of the nearest house.
Her attacker was gone and Jazz let go a breath that stuttered around a cry.
It was good. She was good. She was safe and so was—
It wasn’t until she looked down and saw the sidewalk beside her was empty that panic overwhelmed her.
Yeah, her attacker was gone.
But so was Wally.
* * *
It was nothing but adrenaline. Pure and simple.
She was an experienced dog trainer, an expert handler. She knew exactly what she was supposed to do. Keep her head. Make sure her voice rang with assurance and command.
But Jazz couldn’t help herself. Her head pounded. Blood streamed from the scrapes on her knees. Her legs were rubber. It felt as if a hand had reached down into her insides, clawing her stomach, tightening around her heart.
When she called out, “Wally, come!” her voice was sharp and desperate.
If he was on Starkweather, on the sidewalk or even in the street, she would see him. But there was no sign of the puppy either in front of or behind her, and realizing that he was frightened and on the run made Jazz’s blood whoosh in her ears. Her heart balled into a tight wad and jumped into her throat and her eyes filled with tears, and she called to him again and again, and when she didn’t get a response she took off for the park.
She tried to run, but her knees hurt too much. Her breaths were too shallow; her back ached. She limped back the way she’d come, calling out to Wally the whole time, and she was nearly to the park when she heard an unmistakable bark and saw him in the pool of light thrown by the fixture above the front door of the building that housed the Polish Legion of
American Vets.
By the time she got to where two seniors, a man and a woman, had ahold of Wally’s leash and were doing their best to keep him from breaking free and bounding toward her, Jazz was weeping with relief.
“His leash slipped out of my hand!” she wailed, and when Wally jumped up on her she didn’t correct him. Her knees screamed with pain when she stooped down to give him a hug.
“Thank you. Thank you!” When he offered it, she took the leash out of the man’s hand and held on tight. “He’s usually better behaved, but he got spooked and—”
“His leash got tangled around that bush,” the man said, and pointed. “Lucky thing he was caught. There’s too much traffic around here for a dog to be out running around at night. Especially a dark-colored dog like him.”
Jazz dashed the tears from her cheeks and stood up and the woman leaned forward to peer into her face. “Honey, you’re bleeding. What happened?” She didn’t wait for Jazz to provide an explanation, just dug in her purse and pulled out a tissue and handed it to Jazz. “Your forehead and your knees.” She looked Jazz over. “Your elbows. And your neck, too.” She got another tissue.
“You want us to call the cops?” the man asked.
“No. Really.” Jazz hung on to Wally’s leash—and what little composure she had left—for all she was worth. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to some cop she didn’t know and explain about Bernadette and why some guy with a rough voice and a knife wanted her to mind her own business. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” The woman was short and had chubby cheeks. A grandmother from a Norman Rockwell painting. But there was flint in her eyes. “We’ve got to get you taken care of. We can drive you to the hospital.”
“No. Honest.” Jazz stepped back, farther into the shadows, farther from the light. “I was out walking Wally and I tripped and fell and—”
“You sure about that?” When the man looked at her, his salt-and-pepper eyebrows were low over his eyes. “There’s bound to be a police car around here somewhere. We can just—”
“No. Really.” She stepped back and away from them. “I live close by. I’m going to get Wally home and—”
