by Alyssa Day
Dave spoke up. “I guess it’s supposed to be a big deal magically, right? Melody always said Shelley would have a special life since she was born on the night of a Blood Moon.”
Alejandro and I both stared at Dave.
“You knew Shelley’s mom?” I was surprised, again, at how the same names kept coming up in weirdly interconnected ways.
He nodded, sadness in his eyes. “We were friends. Mom tried to set us up, back in the day, before I came out, before Melody had her daughter. We used to laugh about it when we saw each other around town. Shelley and Zane were in the same class last year too, but she hasn’t been back to school since her mom died.”
I hadn’t even thought about the fact that yesterday had been a school day when she’d been in the shop. Wasn’t truancy a problem? I knew those Kowalskis were a bad foster family for Shelley. But skipping some school after her mother died probably wasn’t enough of a reason to get her away from them, either.
Alejandro’s face was grim. “The Blood Moon is magically important. Certain dark rituals, when conducted on that night, will become massively more powerful than they would normally be.”
“But that’s black magic,” I protested. “We don’t have any black witches in Dead End. You have to go clear to Miami to find black magic, according to Mrs. Kowalski.”
“We’ve heard rumors that something big is happening somewhere in the southeast; we’re just not sure exactly what or where.”
“That’s pretty vague,” I pointed out, and he nodded.
“Frustratingly so. I learned that Mr. Shepherd was here in Dead End, though, and I thought I’d combine two trips,” Alejandro said. “I just stopped by today to ask you to pass along my message to him.”
“Sure.”
“Thank you. I’ll be on my way now.”
“Good luck with that Blood Moon thing,” I said.
He nodded. On his way out the door, he patted the gun case. “Nice selection here, but the real prize is in the sheriff’s office. Did you ever see the nickel-plated .41 caliber Colt Thunderer that the sheriff owns? He claims it was the gun that Doc Holliday carried at the O.K. Corral.”
The agent’s eyes gleamed with the pure appreciation of a true collector. Under other circumstances, I’d try to sell him a gun or three. But, reeling from the bombshell that Alejandro didn’t even know he’d just dropped, it was all I could do to keep a level smile on my face.
“Is that so? Fascinating,” I said. “Have a nice drive.”
Dave scratched his head. “But, Tess—”
“Wish the nice agent luck, Dave,” I said, smiling through clenched teeth.
“Good luck, nice agent,” Dave said, looking puzzled.
Alejandro’s sharp gaze fixed on me for a second, but then he just nodded. “Thank you. I look forward to hearing from Mr. Shepherd. I need a new partner.”
I didn’t move until I heard his car drive off, and then I sank down onto the stool behind the counter. “Yeah, I bet he does. Lost his old one to a basilisk accident, after all,” I said bitterly.
Dave walked over and peered down at me. “Tess, isn’t that gun—”
“The one that Jeremiah swore he’d never sell? The one Sheriff Lawless wanted so badly?” I nodded. “Yeah. So how did he get it?”
*
A few hours later, I was still thinking about that damn gun. Eleanor had come in for the afternoon shift, and I’d driven straight home to catch up on some nice, ordinary chores. Cleaning the bathroom was normally my least favorite chore, but I’d set to with a will today, glad to be out of the public eye and free of answering questions about how the other guy looked.
After an apple, crackers, and Tylenol snack, and a quick text to Owen to tell him I needed a rain check, I’d played “chase the amazing ball of yarn” with Lou, which was one of her favorite games. Now she was taking what was probably her seventh or eighth nap of the day while I dusted furniture, sorted through mail, and wondered how exactly the sheriff had convinced Jeremiah to sell him that gun.
Jeremiah had adored that Colt. Told the story of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the O.K. Corral to anybody who’d shown the slightest bit of interest in it. Sworn to me that he’d never sell it. Then out of the blue one day, I’d noticed it was gone. I’d asked about it, figuring that he’d sent it out to be restored or something, and Jeremiah had gotten a strange look on his face and said he’d sold it to a collector in Europe. He wouldn’t tell me anything else about the sale, and I wasn’t doing the books at that time, so I’d figured it was none of my business.
It had bothered me, though. More than I’d even realized, I guess, because the idea of the sheriff having it was driving me nuts. Could he have killed my boss for the gun? No, that didn’t make any sense. Jeremiah had sold the gun months before he’d died.
I threw in a load of laundry, drank some water, and fired up the vacuum cleaner, no closer to any kind of epiphany than I’d been earlier, but with a significantly cleaner house. Lou opened one eye and gave me a disgusted look. She hated the sound of the vacuum.
“Sorry, kitty, but when a girl’s gotta clean, a girl’s gotta clean,” I told her, and then I went back to singing at the top of my lungs about my pocketful of sunshine and how people needed to shut up and dance with me. I was spectacularly bad at singing, but it helped me think. And clean. And probably scare off hot guys, small children, and grizzly bears. My secret weapon—the deadly “can’t carry a tune with a bucket” trick. I should have tried it on my attacker the night before.
“I’ll be happy to shut up and dance with you, if you’ll quit making that sound,” Jack said from right behind me, making me shriek and jump about a foot in the air.
I turned off the vacuum and glared at him. “What the heck? You can’t sneak up on a person. Especially a person who was just attacked from behind.”
“Oh damn. Tess, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that. I knocked, and when it sounded like you were in pain, I just came in.” He looked really remorseful, so I forgave him on the spot. Except for the part about my singing which, though true, was a little bit hurtful.
“Who are you to judge? Can tigers even sing? Or is it all growl, snarl, I’m going to eat your face off?”
He grinned at me, taking in my Saturday afternoon cleaning clothes with a slow sweep of his gaze from the top of my ponytailed head to the bottom of my bare feet. I was wearing an old pair of cut-off denim shorts and a threadbare Garth Brooks concert t-shirt. Luckily, I was wearing a bra, because the appreciation in his eyes was making my nipples pointy.
No, no, no.
“I have stuff to tell you,” I said briskly, all business. Definitely not thinking about getting sweaty with my new business partner. Nope.
“I have quite a story for you too, but can we share while we go find a real grocery store? I need to stock up, and the Pit Stop isn’t up to the task,” he said, scooping Lou up off the couch and petting what was evidently the perfect spot, judging by the sound of her purr.
“Actually, grocery shopping is on my Saturday list,” I admitted. “Let me grab a quick shower, and we can run out to the Super Target.”
He gave me that slow, dangerous smile again, but he didn’t go so far as to offer to help me shower, which was good, since I wasn’t sure at that exact moment if my answer would have been yes or no. I put the vacuum away and escaped for a quick shower, threw on jeans and a sweater, combed my wet hair away from my face, threw on a little makeup—trying to mask the black eye as much as I could—and I was ready. I grabbed my grocery list from the counter next to the coffee pot, gave Lou fresh water and a quick cuddle, and I was good to go.
Jack was sitting in my living room, leafing through the latest issue of Archaeology Today that had been open on my coffee table.
“You are a woman of diverse interests, aren’t you?” He nodded at the table, where a stack of magazines and my library books waited for me to have a free evening to get back to them. “Biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, Tina Fey’s memoir, two mys
teries, one science fiction, a romance novel about pirates, and a book on the history of the Academy Awards. Are you reading all this, or is it just for show?”
I tilted my head to the side and stared at him, not smiling and not speaking, until he put the magazine down and stood up. Then I finally answered.
“Yes, Jack, I leave books out just for show, in case Chris Pratt happens to stop by and wants to talk about literature and dinosaurs. That’s why I decorate with silk and satin and gold-plated furniture too. You never know when Oprah might stop by for tea.” I held my arms out in a flourish, encompassing the entirety of my worn but comfortable furniture.
He at least had the sense to look sheepish. “I’m not really good at small talk. My conversations over the past several years have been more the ‘here’s the exit strategy, make sure you have silver ammo’ kind.”
I waved a hand in dismissal. “Whatever. We don’t really know each other at all, do we? Let’s just go. You can tell me what you found out about Arroyo the overly dramatic vampire.”
He held the door open for me. “Yeah. You were right. It couldn’t have been him. He died quite a while ago in a tragic fishing accident.”
After the week I’d had, I didn’t even blink. “Is there any other kind?”
Chapter Fifteen
We took Jeremiah’s—now Jack’s—truck and headed to the store. Jack switched off the radio, which had been blaring classic rock.
“So, tragic fishing accident?” I prompted.
“Apparently the guy was a huge fisherman before he turned vamp, and even afterward. He was in pursuit of some elusive champion-sized blue catfish, had been after it for years,” he said, signaling and pulling smoothly onto the freeway, which had quite a bit of traffic today.
“So, what, the fish attacked him?” I laughed, sort of on the fish’s side.
“No, the accident was that he stayed out in his boat just a few minutes too long, and he got caught by the sunrise.”
I winced. Goodbye, vampire. “And the tragic part?”
“The tragic part is that he actually caught the fish. Reeled it in, and it was flopping around in the boat when a fellow fisherman came by a few minutes later.” Jack whistled. “One hundred and fifty-one pounds. A world record, the guy at the fishing supplies place told me.”
“So, him dying isn’t the tragic part? It’s that he died so he couldn’t tell fish stories about the one that didn’t get away?”
Jack nodded. “Exactly. Poor guy. That story would have bought him beers in bars for years.”
I realized that I would never understand men, ever. So I just ignored the whole thing and moved on, telling him about Agent Vasquez and his persistent job offer.
“His partner died from a basilisk incident, and he wants to hire me? Now I’ve heard everything.”
“I’m not really sure if his partner died or just quit, but yeah, basically. And Alejandro’s headed to Miami to investigate some black magic practitioners before the Blood Moon gets here in a few days.”
Jack passed a white-haired gentleman who was speeding along at a fast thirty-five-mile-per-hour clip in a sixty-five-mile-per-hour zone. The man’s car sported Michigan license plates. We had a lot of snowbirds who came down to Florida for the winter, and sometimes they forgot that they weren’t fighting their way through blizzards on our roads.
“Dave Wolf also stopped by. He wants to know why you haven’t called him.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. “What can I talk to Dave about? He’s the best guy I’ve ever known, and he has a kid, a good job, a nice mom, and a life. I have a history of blood and battle and death.”
“He’s your friend,” I said gently. “Like I’m trying to be. Maybe if you quit feeling all lone wolf, you’d have plenty to talk about with Dave.”
“Lone wolf? Shouldn’t that be lone tiger?”
I could tell he was trying not to laugh, so I pushed it a little bit. “Lone tiger doesn’t make the point, because tigers aren’t pack animals. How about rebel without a claws? Get it? Claws?”
“I got it,” he said dryly. “You’re just not funny.”
“I’m totally funny.” I smiled at him, just a teensy bit smug.
“Also, that wasn’t even grammatically correct.”
“Grammar, shmammar. Change lanes; there’s the exit to Super Target.”
*
I was weighing the merits of Red Delicious versus Granny Smith, avoiding people who stared at my bruised face, when Jack found me. He looked at my cart, half full of fruits and veggies, and made a face.
I glanced into his, which was full of meat. Two cases of bottled water on the bottom, and what looked like fifty pounds of meat in the cart.
“Steaks, pork chops, more steaks, chicken, hamburger, and more steaks. Are you planning on inviting a hundred people over for a barbecue?”
He laughed. “Jeremiah has a freezer. I hate shopping, so this seemed easy.”
His comments in the truck, about Dave having a good job, came back to me.
“Um, I don’t know how to even ask this without it being unbearably embarrassing for both of us, so I’ll just blurt it out, because that’s a lot of meat, and meat is really expensive, and, well, ah… Do you need a loan until Jeremiah’s estate is worked out? The shop is half yours, so…” I felt like my hair might catch fire, my face was so hot.
Jack looked at me with the strangest expression on his face, like I was a weird species of creature he’d never seen before. When the silence got way too uncomfortable for me, I elbowed him out of my way and started bagging up three of each kind of apples.
“I was just trying to help,” I mumbled.
“You know what, Tess? You might be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” he said in a thoughtful tone.
When I glanced over at him, startled, he shrugged. “Of course, there’s still that singing problem. I think you hit some notes that even dogs would have trouble hearing.”
“Argh.” I moved on to lettuce, looking for red leaf.
He followed me with his cart of meat. “Hey, I’m kidding about your singing. Mostly. But thanks for the loan offer. I’m good, though. I’ve got plenty of money, after I sold off some of the Atlantean gold they made me take. I didn’t really want it, but I didn’t want to cause an international incident, either.”
I closed my eyes and counted to five in my head so I wouldn’t ask. He had a tendency to casually say these things that any normal person would be curious about, but I was tired of playing that game.
“Fine. Atlantean gold. Whatever. Look, I need to tell you a few more things that we didn’t get to on the drive over here.”
I stopped to dodge a toddler who was running away from her parents, laughing wildly and shouting, “Look at me, Daddy! Look at me!”
Jack watched the little girl, smiling faintly.
“Do you ever want one of those?” I asked, impulsively, and his face clouded over.
“No. You?”
“Yes, sure. I mean, I thought so, once. I had a pretty good childhood, thanks to Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike. But now I don’t know. What if this death-seeing ability is somehow genetic? I would never want to put a child of mine through this.” I grabbed lettuce and tomatoes, my good mood slightly flattened.
“Hello, Tess, Mr. Shepherd.” I looked up to find Susan Gonzalez coming around the corner of the aisle, pushing a cart. She didn’t look particularly happy to see us.
“Hey, Susan.”
She gave me a sympathetic look. “I heard from Kelly that there are no leads on your attacker, unfortunately.”
“Or Chantal’s killer?”
Her face closed off. “You know I can’t talk about that.”
“Or Jeremiah’s death,” Jack put in.
The look she gave him wasn’t friendly at all.
“Tess, I have the scoop for you about Chantal’s services. Her brother wanted her body shipped to him in Texas, so she could be buried with her parents. There won’t be anything here in town.”
> “Thanks for letting me know.”
She nodded, and then narrowed her eyes and looked up at Jack. “I’ve been hearing more and more about your past, Mr. Shepherd, and none of it is particularly peaceful.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Not many soldiers get the luxury of being peaceful, Deputy.”
“The sheriff thinks that if we take a closer look at you, we’ll find a connection to Chantal,” she said. “And we know about the will, and how Jeremiah left everything to you.”
“The sheriff can’t find his ass with both hands, let alone a nonexistent connection between me and the dead woman,” Jack said. His eyes flared with that hot orange light that warned me it was time to step in and calm things down.
“Jeremiah didn’t leave everything to Jack,” I said evenly. “He left half the pawnshop to me. Am I a suspect too?”
Jack snorted and walked off, pushing his cart like it was a bulldozer.
Susan looked uncomfortable. “Tess, I’m just doing my job.”
“Okay, then, Deputy Gonzalez, we’ll just be on our way.” I swung my cart out and away from her, and headed for the ice cream section. Some days just called for caramel pecan crunch.
Susan held out a hand to stop me. “Tess—”
“I don’t want to hear any more about Jack being a killer. It’s ridiculous,” I said hotly, but then a thought occurred to me. “Susan, what did Sheriff Lawless tell you about how he came to get Jeremiah’s Colt? The one that’s supposed to have belonged to Doc Holliday?”
She looked confused at the abrupt change of subject. “What? I don’t know. Jeremiah was tired of it, I think, and asked the sheriff to take it off his hands. He crowed about that gun for weeks. Made us all look at it and listen to his long-winded story about it. Why?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know why. There are just too many weird things going on at once. The sheriff didn’t have any connection to Chantal or to Melody Adler, did he?”
“No, he didn’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not trying to pin these murders on the sheriff, are you? I know he can be a jerk, but that’s going too far. And Melody died in a one-car accident that had to have been driver error. There was nobody else involved.”
