Fatal Fiction (A Book Barn Mystery)

by Kym Roberts

  “I’ll get them packaged up and—”

  I couldn’t let her finish. “Scarlet, I love them one hundred percent.”

  Hope appeared in her eyes as she looked up.

  I continued. “ ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’” I raised my hand across my chest and made an X. “‘Stick a needle in my eye,’ throw my body to the crows, and let my spirit doze.” It was the wrong thing to say in The Barn, but I didn’t care. It was the right thing to say to Scarlet.

  The upturned corners of her mouth turned into a laugh and I smiled. The two of us standing feet apart and looking into each other’s eyes was a moment of genuine friendship I hadn’t experienced in years.

  “I would be honored to sell your book art,” I told her.

  “It’s my donation to the store.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “It’s for your dad, Charli. He’s done more for me than I could possibly repay. Besides, I made these for him out of books Princess destroyed.”

  We both looked down at the armadillo, who had chosen that moment to wander out of the back room, a piece of paper hanging from her mouth.

  “She has a habit of tearing apart some of the books,” Scarlet said.

  I remembered the sound of pages being torn up in the loft the first day I’d returned to Hazel Rock. At the time I’d thought it had been a killer lurking in the shadows. Now I suspected it was a rodent with a hard shell.

  “Did my dad see your work?”

  “No. When I showed them to Marlene, she told me absolutely not. So I never even attempted to talk to Bobby Ray about them.”

  “When he gets back, that will be the first thing he notices. Not the paint or the redesign of the interior but the art we have on display.”

  “That’s what I thought, but Marlene—”

  “Didn’t know my daddy as well as you.”

  Scarlet beamed with pride. She hugged me hard with a hint of a tear in her eye but quickly pulled back and picked up the tea set to return to work.

  “What would you think about having classes in the loft and teaching people how to create different items? We supply the books, the tools, and all the decorations,” I said.

  “OMW! That’s exactly what I proposed to Marlene. She wanted no part of it.” Scarlet was bouncing in places that wouldn’t even jiggle on my body.

  “I love it! You can teach the classes if you have time?” I cringed, hoping I wasn’t asking too much.

  “Time?” She laughed. “It’s not as if the men of Hazel Rock are beating down my door. My nights are totally free. We can teach them together, but we’ll need a big table.”

  I frowned. I didn’t have a table.

  “You’re talking to the right man.” For a big guy, Coach could be scary quiet. Neither one of us heard him walk up to us.

  “You have a table we could use?” I asked.

  “No, but I’ve got milled logs that I’ve been meaning to use.”

  “That sounds expensive.”

  “Not to me it doesn’t. It sounds perfect.” Cade winked at Coach, who nodded, as if a deal had been struck.

  No, no, no. I couldn’t be indebted to Cade any more than I already was. I squared my shoulders. “I’m sorry, I can’t accept it,” I told Coach.

  Coach frowned and Cade overrode my decision. “It’s not for you. It’s for Scarlet and Bobby Ray.”

  His comment stung, but no one seemed to notice except me.

  Scarlet squealed. “We’ll have the store looking better than ever in no time flat.” She began giving orders once more. “Aubrey! Darrin! Let’s get these tubs moved toward the front of the store.”

  Princess didn’t seem to care for the amount of activity that was going on and disappeared somewhere on the second floor. I hoped she wasn’t going to tear up any more books. I’d like to be the one to choose which books were repurposed and which ones remained intact.

  The paint on the counter was cleaned off before we’d returned. Mateo apparently took the service part of his job very seriously. I didn’t care what his reasoning was as long as I didn’t have to look at the eerie message any longer.

  By the time the sun went down, I thought everyone would be ready to leave. On the contrary, some of the player’s mothers arrived with fried chicken, potato salad, ranch corn, and herb biscuits. The entire group sat on the ground out by the fountain and ate the hearty dinner on the plates and silverware from the tearoom. All that was missing was a bonfire and red plaid tablecloths to make this the end-of-the-season football feast.

  “Why aren’t you eating?”

  The sheriff stood above me holding a plate of food, his snug white T-shirt hugged every muscle across his chest and abdomen. I couldn’t help but admire the results of years of working out. The splatter of white paint on his arms told me he’d been helping Cade transform the face of The Book Barn Princess. The difference was astounding—on two sides. But they were the sides that mattered most, the front and the courtyard sides where I was going to have to direct customers until after Marlene’s funeral.

  I smiled and invited him to join me by sweeping my hand across the vacant pavers next to me. “I–I was just thinking.”

  He nodded and sat down with his legs crossed in front of him, his ball cap hiding his dark eyes in shadow. I had no doubt he was watching me. That’s what the man did.

  “What’s got you tied up in knots?” he asked.

  “I’m not . . .” There was no use denying it. I was uptight and pretty much everybody knew it. “I was just thinking about my dad.”

  I waited for him to say something, but he just nodded his head and took a bite of his chicken leg.

  “Have you had any luck finding him?” I sipped my tea, acting as casual as could be.

  “Nope.” He took another bite.

  I waited for him to say something more, but his bite was followed by another and then another. I forged on with a theory I’d been too afraid to think, let alone voice. “You don’t think . . . you don’t think that maybe . . . maybe he’s hurt and can’t return home, do you?”

  The sheriff finished chewing the bite in his mouth, took a sip of tea, and then wiped his mouth carefully, making sure not a speck was left on his face before he answered the question.

  “No, I don’t think he’s hurt.”

  I expected him to say something more. Give me his opinion as to why my dad hadn’t returned home. Instead, Mateo took another bite of chicken.

  “Then why hasn’t he come home?”

  He wiped his mouth once more, then tipped his hat back so I could look into those deep chocolate eyes of his and said, “You tell me.”

  I scoffed at such a ridiculous statement. “If I could, I wouldn’t be asking.”

  He searched my face. For what I don’t know, but I was beginning to get a bad feeling about the sheriff sitting down with me.

  “My detectives sent your belt off for DNA testing.” He took another bite, his eyes never leaving my face.

  The image of my pink leather belt with rhinestones and studs wrapped around Marlene’s neck made my throat clog. I didn’t want to think about it, but there it was, thanks to the sheriff. Her face darkened, yet lacking color, a deep, purplish-gray hue that took away all the highlights of her makeup. Her mouth open, her tongue swollen. I wanted to gag, but I shook my head to rid the image instead.

  “That’s good. It will lead you to her killer.” My voice sounded strangled.

  “That’s the plan.” He continued to scrutinize my expression. “If you remember, I’ve got your DNA sample from when you gave it to the detective the other day.”

  “I thought I was in the clear.”

  “You are, but if we find the DNA of a relative of yours on the belt . . .”

  Suddenly, I understood. “You think my daddy did this?” That welcoming tone I’d had when he first approached me vanished from my voice.

  He tilted his head, his hat falling back down over his eyes as he put a forkful of
potato salad in his mouth. He was watching my reaction, his eyes trying to read my very soul.

  “Well, you’re dead wrong,” I growled.

  The sheriff paused and I realized what my words sounded like, but the last thing I had on my mind was to threaten the man. “What I meant to say was that my daddy isn’t capable of murder. It’s not in his blood to fight—for anything.”

  “You said yourself that you hadn’t seen your father in a decade.” He took one last bite, then folded his napkin and dropped it on the empty plate in front of him. All he needed to do now was pat his belly, lay back, and take a nap.

  I pictured him with a cowboy hat tipped over his face, a piece of straw hanging out of his mouth and his boots crossed at the ankles. I could even see the silver star on his chest and a gun on his hip.

  “What would you do if my dad walked up right now?” I asked.

  The sheriff didn’t mince his words. “Take him into custody and question him in regard to Marlene’s death and his whereabouts for the past forty-eight hours.”

  Whereas he’d taken me into custody because I was at the scene of Marlene’s death and a total stranger, Mateo would take my dad into custody because he knew him. Knew that my dad not being here was all kinds of wrong. The irony was eye-opening.

  “How well do you know my dad?” I asked, my blood starting to get as hot as the midday sun.

  “Well enough.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  Mateo sighed. One of those male noises that said, God help me deal with this emotional female.

  I don’t like that type of sigh. I was on my feet before he could start shaking his head in a I-knew-that-was-coming manner.

  “If you’ve got something to say, Sheriff, I think you’d better say it.” We were starting to attract attention.

  Actually, I was attracting attention. I was good at it. Mateo was just sitting there.

  “All I was going to say was that everyone is capable of murder.” His tone was much quieter than mine.

  “Not my daddy,” I growled again, because no matter what our differences and the number of years that had passed since I’d last seen him, I knew my father. He wasn’t capable of the act of murder, let alone killing the woman he loved.

  Mateo stood up and towered over me. I could see his eyes as he peered down, searching my face for what I had no idea. “No offense intended, Ms. Warren.” He tipped his hat and said, “I best be moving on.”

  With that he was gone and I stood in the middle of the courtyard looking at all my neighbors, new and old. All of them watching me. All of them with the same expression on their face.

  Approval. By standing up for my father, I’d won their approval. It was surreal. After twelve years of wanting it, I finally got it.

  I was home to stay—until I cleared my daddy’s name.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I rolled over and smacked the crap out of the annoying alarm on the nightstand. A nightful of bizarre dreams had made for a few fitful hours that I’d like to do over. Instead, I was dreading another day of wiping snotty noses on a bunch of five year-olds. I yanked the sheet up over my head and groaned, stretching for the corners of my king-size bed—that wasn’t king size. In fact, it was only full size.

  I suddenly remembered where I was and peeked out from under the sheet, lifting one corner high enough to see the swaying piece of wood hanging from the ceiling by three pieces of rope at the side of the bed. Waking up in Hazel Rock still seemed unreal—as if it couldn’t possibly be happening.

  But it was.

  My dad had made the hanging-wood nightstand for my bedroom in Texas when I was a little girl. We didn’t have enough money to buy one, so when a tree by the river toppled over and needed to be cut, he turned it into a nightstand, two end tables, and a bench in the backyard. I was looking at the smoothly sanded finish of a five-inch piece of that tree. Braided rope suspended it from the ceiling in a rustic design my mom had come up with, way before all those home improvement shows. I caressed its surface, thankful to see it once more.

  Then I remembered the conversation I’d had with the principal of my school the previous night. I had one week before I would be on unpaid leave. If I missed more than three days of work after that week, he would consider it my resignation. I gulped down the fear that wanted to rise in my throat and swung my legs out of bed. I had twenty minutes before Scarlet was going to meet me at the diner for breakfast.

  I made it in eighteen, thanks to taking a bubble bath the night before. The diner was busier than I’d dreamed it could be at seven o’clock on a Monday morning.

  Hadn’t these people ever heard of a drive-through or a breakfast bar on the run?

  What about a Pop-Tart?

  I found it hard to accept that so many people would take the time to have breakfast at a full-service, sit-down restaurant during the week, but apparently small-town Texas still liked its biscuits and gravy every day, not just on Saturday and Sunday.

  Scarlet was sitting in a booth toward the back and I walked past all the smiling patrons feeling as if I’d been transported to another dimension.

  “Morning, Princess. Welcome home,” Mr. Draper said over his cup of black coffee. His dark, weathered skin and windblown, curly white hair gave credit to every year he’d spent on his cattle ranch.

  I paused for a moment and smiled. “Mr. Draper, it’s nice to see you.”

  “Your daddy would be right proud of you, little lady.” He smiled, showing off teeth that weren’t anywhere near as white as his bushy eyebrows.

  “Thank you, sir.” I nodded and headed toward Scarlet.

  “That girl has a loyal heart in her chest,” Mr. Draper said to the young man sitting across the table from him.

  I didn’t know him, but I was betting he worked for the old guy from his response. “If you say so, Mr. Draper.”

  “Charli! I heard you were back in town watching out for your daddy.” Joe Buck stood up from the booth he’d occupied and hugged me tight. He was like a big teddy bear, soft and mushy all over, with a spirit as genuine as the smile that was a constant on his face. His cheeks glowed—literally. I used to tease him about putting on makeup that made him glisten like the actors on the red carpets, when in actuality he had a natural complexion every girl envied. As Cade’s offensive center during high school, we’d spent a lot of time together, and from the way Cade told it, that smile was a killer after he crunched the defensive tackle on the other side of a football.

  “Joe . . .” I managed to squeak out.

  He laughed, and I felt his belly tighten before he released me and rubbed my ponytail like he was flopping the ears of a dog.

  It used to make me mad when he did it in high school. Not because it was mean but because my vanity got the best of me. But Joe flopping it around wasn’t going to hurt it a bit.

  “Some things never change.” I smiled up at the big man I hadn’t realized I’d missed until that very moment.

  “Some things changed for the better.” He eyed me up and down, giving me an appreciative once-over.

  “Careful now. I might have to knock you on your backside.” I poked him in the chest and his smile got bigger.

  “Sounds like a good time to me.”

  I laughed at my old friend who was now married with his first little one on the way. According to Scarlet, Joe wasn’t just married, he was deeply in love with his wife, Leila, and had inherited the Tool Shed Tavern when his parents retired to Houston.

  It was only then that I noticed his companion. Mike Thompson, the man who’d made my debt to Cade even larger. He was watching me with unveiled animosity and I couldn’t help but think I should be the one who was thoroughly disliking him right then.

  But Mike was sitting with Joe, so I decided he must have some likable qualities I didn’t know about.

  “How’s your nose, Mike?” I smiled, trying to be polite. I think I succeeded in looking like I’d seen a dead rat in the middle of the table.

&
nbsp; He rubbed his snout gingerly. “I’m still considering my option to sue.”

  Joe laughed, and I remembered how he could turn a fight into a party. His humor was infectious and irresistible. Mike actually started to smile until Joe punched him in the arm and laughed even harder. If he’d hit me like that, I would have been on my butt nursing a broken arm. As it was, Mike was holding his biceps while trying not to cry.

  “You’re such a riot, Mike.” Joe wiped tears of pure joy from his eyes. “Look, you made me cry.”

  Mike’s lip quivered. “You’re not crying because of me. You’re crying because of the damage to the bar last night.”

  Joe stopped laughing and his eyes narrowed. “If you didn’t have the kind of voice that drove the women wild on Friday nights . . .”

  “I took that as my cue to leave and patted Joe on the arm. “We’ll catch up later.”

  A few other patrons said hello: Franz the baker and the quilt shop owner, Betty Walker, who still looked like they had a thing going on between them, and of course, Coach and Cade sat together with a notepad between them, discussing plays. Both nodded but were in a deep discussion that I wouldn’t dream of interrupting.

  That was never my role.

  One of the antique dealers, Mr. Diaz, told me to bring over any old books I came across and he’d give me a fair price. I made some noncommittal comment, knowing the chances of me doing that were slim. My mom and dad had always been against that strategy. It went against their desire to be the source of books, new or old, in the community.

  I finally made it to where Scarlet was sitting in a booth with her head down as she texted someone on her phone. “I didn’t think you’d make it back here,” she said without looking up.

  “I didn’t think anyone in this town would treat me like they just did ever again.” It was reminiscent of the days when I was the darling of Hazel Rock and could do no wrong. Well, I did wrong, people just made excuses for my wild ways back then. Things like driving my daddy’s truck at fourteen when the forecast said we had a 10 percent chance of rain and I didn’t want to get my hair messed up for picture day. (I used to have issues about my hair. I probably still do to some extent.)