Death Before Decaf

by Caroline Fardig

  “What did you do with that mail?”

  “I gave it to the police earlier and—”

  “I have to go.” Ryder cut me off again, grabbing his keys and heading for the door.

  “I guess I’ll just stay here, then,” I called as he shut the door without a backward glance. Blowing out a disgruntled breath, I reached for a cookie and shoved the whole thing into my mouth. Men.

  Chapter 23

  Besides watching TV, there was nothing to do at Ryder’s house. He had no books, no magazines, his laptop was password protected (I checked), and there was no food, so I couldn’t even cook us some dinner. What did he do for fun? Did he work 24/7? I guessed the same could be said of my apartment, except my laptop was not password protected and I had my new guitar to play. Halfway through a second rerun of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (there was also nothing interesting on TV), the doorbell rang. I got nervous, worried that Voice Changer Guy had found me, but decided that someone coming to kill you most likely wouldn’t ring the doorbell. I peeked out the window and saw a cop car. That didn’t seem like a good thing, but it was way better than a killer. And since the cops were actually back on my side again, I didn’t think it would hurt to answer it.

  I opened the door, and a plainclothes cop with a badge around his neck smiled. He said, “I’m looking for Hamilton. Is he here?”

  “No, he’s not. Sorry.” What the hell did he do that the cops are looking for him?

  He smiled. “No worries. I’ll find him.” He’ll find him? That didn’t sound good at all.

  I closed the door and immediately texted Ryder about what had happened. His only response was “OK.” Wasn’t he worried? I would have been going nuts! Hell, I was going nuts, and it had absolutely nothing to do with me. I tried to calm down and watch more TV, but I couldn’t sit still, so I paced the floor for a while. Pacing certainly didn’t help my nerves. I was nearly at wit’s end when Ryder came strolling nonchalantly through the door, Chinese takeout in hand.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  I descended on him, demanding, “What have you done? Why did the police pay you a visit at home?”

  “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” he said, brushing past me and setting out the containers of food on his coffee table.

  “I’ve never had the cops pay me a visit at home, and I was a prime suspect, remember? What’s your excuse?” I cried.

  “Would you quit nagging me about it, woman?”

  “No! And don’t call me ‘woman.’ Cops don’t come looking for you over nothing.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you kill someone?”

  He laughed. “No.” His expression abruptly turned dark. “Not lately.”

  “WHAT?” I exploded. I was not going to be involved in any way with a murderer of any kind.

  A slow smile spread across his face. “You’re easy to tease.”

  “What?”

  “I’m joking. I’ve never killed anyone.”

  I slapped him on the arm. “Why would you joke about that?”

  “Because it’s fun to watch you get all bent out of shape.”

  Grabbing the box of takeout he offered me, I flopped down onto the couch. “I hate you so much.”

  Obviously amused by my distress, he chuckled to himself and sat down next to me. “I’m an acquired taste.”

  “Are you going to tell me why you went tearing out of here earlier?”

  “No,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  We ate our dinner in an awkward silence. For my part, I was miffed that I spent the evening worrying about him, and he responded by completely brushing the whole issue aside like it was nothing. He didn’t need to tell me all of his secrets, but he could have at least addressed my concerns. He seemed to be struggling with something, though, since the crease in his forehead was deepening as he ate.

  I got up to throw away my empty container, then came back and stood in front of him. “If this is what we’re going to do all evening, I might as well go home. Then I won’t nag you, and you won’t irritate me.”

  He didn’t look up from his dinner. “Not gonna happen.”

  “What, the me going home or the you not irritating me? Because the irritating is happening as we speak.”

  “You’re staying here. We discussed this.”

  “Fine. Then I’m going to bed.” It was before ten, but I could use a little extra sleep, anyway.

  I grouchily brushed my teeth and changed into my pajamas. My cellphone rang as I was getting into bed. It was Pete.

  “Hey, Pete. How was your date?” I made a gagging gesture to myself.

  He hesitated. “It went really well, actually. I wanted to tell someone the good news.”

  Hoping that his good news had something to do with Cecilia moving to Tibet or falling down a well or joining a convent, I asked, “And what’s that?”

  “Cecilia and I have decided to give it another try. We’re back together.”

  My heart sank. Deep down, I had sort of expected it to happen, but it was still a kick in the gut. Trying for a cheerful voice, I said, “That’s great.”

  “Jules, I know how you feel about her, and I don’t expect you to like it. She’s going to be around, so just find some way to tolerate her, at least at first. She really is cool once you get to know her.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” I knew her. We hadn’t ever become friends, but I had known her for ten years. If Pete thought we were all of a sudden going to be besties, he was insane.

  “How did your recipes turn out?”

  “Fine.”

  “Jules…”

  “What?” I replied, a little more exasperatedly than I’d intended to.

  He sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye.”

  I hurled my phone across the room and screamed, “Aaauugh!” It hit the wall and clattered to the floor unharmed. Indestructible cases were a must for the Redheaded She-Devil. “Damn it! Son of a bitch!” I flopped back on the bed and put my hands over my face. There was a soft knock at the door. “Go away!” I yelled, definitely not in the mood for more of Ryder’s crap.

  He stuck his head in the door. “You okay? I heard a crash…and screaming.”

  Not taking my hands off my face, I fumed, “I said, go away!” Peeking through my fingers, I could see him coming toward me. “You’re not going away,” I whined.

  He sat down on the bed. “No, I’m not. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  His voice serious, he said, “I heard your phone ring. Did you get another threatening call from the guy with the voice changer?”

  “No.”

  “Who was it, then?”

  I sat up and stuck my nose in his face. “What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ do you not understand?”

  Ryder smiled kindly at me and brushed my hair back from my face. “I’m sorry. I only wanted to make sure you were safe, that’s all.” He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, and then got up and crossed the room to the dresser. He picked up a framed photo and brought it over, sitting down next to me again.

  “This was my wife, Amanda.” He handed me the picture. It was of a very young Ryder and a beautiful blonde.

  “She was lovely,” I said quietly. It wasn’t like Ryder to bring up something like this on his own.

  Taking the photo back and studying it, he said, “Yes, she was. She was an ER nurse.” He smiled to himself. “She was great at it. She could stay calm in the face of anything. Never lost her temper.” He nudged me.

  “Come on, blondes have it easy.” I grabbed a handful of my red hair. “Temper tantrums are hard-coded into my DNA. It’s not my fault.”

  He laughed. “I suppose between the hair and the week you’ve had, you’re due for a meltdown or two.”

  “That’s right. You remember that.”

  He was staring at the photo again, lost in his own thoughts. After a moment, he began speak
ing quietly. “One night, a teenage girl came into the ER while Amanda was working. She had been beaten up badly, but she wouldn’t give up the name of the person who did it, wouldn’t let Amanda call her parents or anything. Amanda sat with her all night, trying to comfort her and get her to open up. Amanda was obligated to turn it over to child services, since the girl was a minor. That’s when Amanda started getting death threats. She went to the police, and they put some crusty, two-months-from-retirement cop on the case, and he didn’t do shit. Not long after, the teenage girl turned up dead.”

  He stopped, his eyes anguished. I put my hand on his shoulder. Sighing, he continued, “I wouldn’t let Amanda out of my sight, except when she was at work. I thought she’d be safe inside a damn hospital.” He shook his head. “They found her in a supply room, strangled with a length of IV line. Cops couldn’t figure out who did it. It drove me crazy. So I quit law school and decided to investigate it myself.” Clenching his jaw, he said quietly, “It’ll be ten years this spring, and I still haven’t figured it out yet.” He hung his head.

  Overwhelmed at his show of emotion, I pulled him to me. He hung on to me tightly, and we stayed there unmoving for several minutes. Finally, he let me go and took my hands. “If you wonder why I’m anal about your safety, that’s why.”

  I put my hand on his cheek. “I had no idea what you’d been through. I am so sorry. You’re not obligated in any way to keep me safe, but you’re doing it anyway. Know that I really do appreciate it, even though I might not show it.”

  Ryder kissed my hand. “See? You like me after all. You just admitted it.”

  I groaned. “Now I know why you’re so good at twisting my words and arguing. You would have made a great lawyer.”

  “It’s a useful skill. I have many useful skills.” He kissed me gently.

  “Yes, you do. And I do like you. Most of the time.”

  “Only most of the time?” He laid me back on the bed and kissed me again. “We’re going to have to do something about that.”

  —

  Morning came way too soon, and I did not want to give up my comfortable spot in Ryder’s bed, cuddled up next to him. The alarm on my phone was being extremely annoying, and unfortunately, the phone was still across the room where I had lobbed it last night. Resentfully, I got up and shut it off. Ryder was still asleep, so I showered and got ready for work. He was awake by the time I’d finished, trying several of his best tricks to lure me back to bed. It took a lot of willpower to refuse.

  He drove me to work, and when we pulled up in front of Java Jive, he said, “I’ll be in and out all day to check on you. I have a couple of things to follow up on, but I won’t be too far if you need me. If anything happens, even something insignificant, you call me, got it?”

  “I will. Be careful, okay?”

  He smiled. “You’re starting to care about my safety. I’m definitely wearing you down.”

  “Maybe,” I said, pulling him in for a kiss.

  Camille was already hard at work when I got there, getting everything ready for us to open. She gestured outside and asked, “Is that the hottie professor who always sits with Gertie?”

  I blushed, not realizing she had seen us together. “Yeah.”

  She grinned. “Go, Juliet. Are you guys serious?”

  Not feeling like discussing my dating (or whatever it was that Ryder and I were doing) with my staff, I replied, “It’s complicated,” and headed for the kitchen. “Complicated” didn’t begin to scratch the surface of what we had going on, but I didn’t have time to think about it now. I had kept back a batch of the cookie dough I had made yesterday, and I wanted to get the cookies baked and cooled so that we could put them out for sale later today. I busied myself baking, happy to have something to keep me away from Camille, lest she ask any more probing questions.

  It was time to open, and our requisite rush of customers came in. With all of the extracurricular nonsense I had to put up with this week, at least one thing I didn’t have to worry about was Java Jive losing money anymore. For better or worse, that problem had fixed itself, for now. I was betting that in a month or so we’d be back to how it was before we became a macabre hot spot, so now was a good time to start implementing some changes for the better.

  After I set all of my cookies to cool, I headed out front to help Camille and Rhonda. Gertie was there at the counter, so I went over to take her order, even though I knew it would be coffee and a bagel.

  “Good morning, Gertie.”

  “Good morning, yourself.”

  “Want your usual today?”

  “Do I have a usual? Shit, I thought I was more interesting than that.”

  “I think you’re very interesting, but you did have a bagel and coffee every morning last week. Well, except for the day I talked you into pie.”

  “Hell’s bells. So I did. What else you got?”

  “I have some cookies I made.”

  “It’s about damn time somebody baked something from scratch around here. I always told George his bakery selection was shit.”

  “I agree. And that’s the first thing I want to change. I’ll get you one.”

  I went to the kitchen to get Gertie’s cookie, and just as I delivered it to her, Ryder walked in. I could tell immediately that something was very wrong. He was sweating and wincing, holding one hand to his stomach as he walked. He looked like he was in terrible pain. I sucked in a breath. The last time he showed up looking like that, he had been in a knife fight with Johnny Brewer.

  I rushed around the counter and over to him. I whispered, “What happened?”

  With obvious effort, he said, “Can we go somewhere and talk privately?”

  Gently, I steered him down the back hallway and into the office. He sat down carefully in one of the chairs. I repeated, “What happened? Are you okay?”

  He blew out a breath. “I got shot.”

  “WHAT?” I screamed, running over to him for a better look. “Where?”

  He lifted his shirt. “Here. I’m fine. I had a vest on, but it still hurts like a bitch.” He had a red, bloody sore the size of a nickel on his upper abdomen, and a nasty purple bruise larger than my hand forming around it.

  “Ryder,” I gasped, tears forming in my eyes. I kneeled in front of him and took his free hand. “You could have been killed. What were you doing?”

  “Don’t freak out,” he warned.

  A tear ran down my cheek. “Too late.”

  He grimaced. “Johnny Brewer was in your apartment this morning. I assume he was waiting for you.”

  I froze. “He was in my apartment?”

  “I drove by there after I dropped you off. I saw his car, but he wasn’t in it. I did a sweep of the area and didn’t find him. That’s when I checked your apartment. The door was open, and he shot me the second I walked through.”

  I couldn’t breathe. Several horrible images of what could have happened passed through my head. If I had gone home this morning to get ready for work, I would have been shot and very likely killed. If Ryder hadn’t happened to be wearing his vest, that gunshot would have killed him. I felt sick. I didn’t want to ask my next question, but I couldn’t help it. “And Johnny Brewer? Where is he now?”

  Ryder looked away. “I was able to get a couple of shots off as I was going down.”

  My heart sank. I knew what had happened in my apartment. I didn’t care at all about Johnny Brewer. My concern now was what was going to happen to Ryder. “Is he…dead?” I whispered.

  Ryder didn’t respond.

  I closed my eyes. “Ryder…are you going to be charged with murder?”

  He shook his head. “It’s going to be fine. Don’t worry.”

  “You killed a man! Did you call the police? Or…wait, did you flee the scene? Tell me you didn’t flee the scene. That makes you look guilty! Surely you know this!”

  Putting a hand on my shoulder, he said, “Would you relax? The police are at your apartment now. I spoke to them already. I have to go to
the station later to give my formal statement, and they said you will, too, since it’s your apartment.”

  I put my head in my hands. I wanted nothing more than to run back home and live with my parents again. Hell, I would rather relive what Scott the Dickhead did to me than deal with anything that had gone on since I moved here. Being cheated on and stolen from was nothing compared to this. However, I couldn’t imagine what Ryder was feeling, having taken someone’s life. Granted, it was a gunfight, and it was either him or Johnny, but still.

  As gently as I could, I put my arms around Ryder. “I’m sorry I lost it. I can’t stand the thought of you getting into trouble because of me. I am on your side no matter what, okay? Anything you need, just say so.”

  He leaned back and smiled at me. “I need you to quit worrying. Carmichael’s boss confirmed that he’s been out on the road since last weekend, so there’s no way Carmichael could have killed Dave or shot Ron. He was halfway across the country. Brewer’s our guy, and he’s dead. It’s over.”

  Standing up, I took a deep breath and let it out. I started pacing around, even though my legs were trembling. “Are you sure? I don’t like the idea of Rob Carmichael still being out there. If he sent Johnny to beat up Dave and silence Ron…and me…doesn’t that still make him a bad guy?”

  Gingerly, Ryder got out of his chair. He stopped me and pulled me to him. “I don’t want you stressing anymore. The situation is covered. Yes, Carmichael is still a bad guy, but his boss is cooperating with the police. They know exactly where his semi is and are sending a unit as we speak to haul him in for questioning. It’s really over.”

  My mind couldn’t quit racing. I mumbled into his shirt, “But what if they let him go, like they let Brewer go? If he finds out you killed Brewer, he might come looking for you.”

  “Can we just have this moment, please?” Ryder asked impatiently.

  “Sorry.”

  We held each other for a few minutes, and then Ryder said, “I think I should head to the hospital. I’m pretty sure I have a broken rib or two.”

  Looking at him, I said, “No med student patch-up this time, tough guy?”