Bright New Murder: A Plain Jane Mystery

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  Jake let out a low whistle. He tightened his grip on her waist. “Well done.”

  “I also learned that the security guard on duty that night is now on administrative leave, and that the room is monitored, so whatever he did…for example, if he left his post…has been recorded.”

  “Interesting. Does he have any ties to the victim?”

  “Nothing I’ve found yet. I’m still waiting to hear back from his girlfriend. She works security there too.” Talking about the case in whispers didn’t help calm her down. Every word he whispered felt like code, and every word she said felt like a promise.

  “Have you worked out her connection to the protesters yet?” Jake couldn’t get any closer. She could feel the bristles of his unshaved face on her cheek.

  “Not yet. I need to get ahold of the reporter too. Remember her? She and a cameraman were everywhere that night. They must have seen something. Maybe even recorded it.”

  “I’ve got that contact. Let me get in touch with her.”

  Jane’s heart flipped. He could know the kind-of-famous, and very pretty, news reporter. Why not? It didn’t matter to her.

  “You’re going to crack this open, Jane.” He pulled her around so they were face-to-face.

  Her heart beat so hard she knew he could hear it. His nose bumped hers.

  “Jane…” He leaned forward, just enough to bridge the hairsbreadth distance between his lips and hers, but she turned her head.

  He leaned his forehead on hers. “You hardly knew him. You hadn’t seen him in six months.” He wrapped his other arm around her. Both arms embracing her, hiding her away. “He never called while he was in Costa Rica. Then, just a month after that, he moved to Montreal.” His whisper was soft, inviting.

  “But…” She didn’t have an answer.

  “It’s not a rebound if it’s real love.”

  She rested her forehead on his shoulder.

  He ran his fingers through her hair.

  “Are you the sardine?” The whisperer had a deep voice and stuffed-up nose.

  A girl giggled. “Did we find Heather in the breakfast nook?”

  Several people pushed into the corner, pressing Jane into Jake. He tightened his arm around her. “See?” He tilted her face up with his thumb. “We’re predestined to do this.” He laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle, and kissed her, full on the lips, with people pressed around them in the dark.

  She melted, from the top of her head to her toes. She thought she would slip through his arms into a puddle on the floor.

  The light turned on.

  Someone laughed.

  Jane’s eyes flew open.

  Jake stopped kissing her, but didn’t let go.

  “Sorry! I just wanted to get the paper towels!” A red-faced woman with a Christmas light necklace that actually lit up laughed nervously. “Those rugs in there are antique.” She grabbed for a roll of paper towels on the counter.

  The man who had been jostling Jane with his elbows grabbed Jake by the shoulders and shoved him across the room. “Get your hands off of her!” It was Isaac. He pushed Jake again, this time into the kitchen table.

  Jake pulled himself up and sat on the table, a silly grin plastered on his face. “Hold your horses, cowboy.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Isaac pushed him with his fingertips. Jake wobbled, but kept his seat.

  “Kissing Jane. Did you not see?”

  Isaac reeled back and swung. His fist cracked against Jake’s nose with a burst of blood.

  “Isaac!” Jane screamed. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

  “You were going to marry me, Jane. You were still going to marry me.” He brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. “We had one dumb fight. That was all. It was going to be all right.” Isaac wavered. He looked at his bloody fist and then at Jane.

  “Have you been drinking?” Jane stepped back.

  Two women pressed wet towels to Jake’s face.

  “Isaac, have you been drinking?” She grabbed his arms in clenched fingers and stared at him.

  “Maybe. Why wouldn’t I be? This Christmas is a nightmare.” He wrenched his arms out of her hands.

  “Go home, Isaac. Walk it off.” She stared at him. His face was burning red, and droplets of blood from breaking Jake’s nose were splattered across his white shirt.

  “You still love me.” He used his teacher voice. Like it was an assignment.

  “I don’t even know you.” She swallowed. Nausea overwhelmed her.

  Isaac’s face softened, and one tear escaped.

  Her head spun. Isaac was broken. Completely brokenhearted. She touched his sleeve.

  “I still love you.” Isaac’s voice was different now. Not fighting. Not demanding. Just sad.

  “You don’t know me.”

  “Can someone drive Jake to the hospital?” an older female voice asked.

  Jane looked over Isaac’s shoulder.

  Jake was staring at her, one eyebrow raised, half a smile on his face, a wet towel slowly turning pink pressed to his nose.

  “I’ll dribe byself.” Jake hopped off the table.

  “Don’t.” Jane reached for Jake, but he just smiled and ambled out of the kitchen. “Is he okay to drive?” Jane looked around the room, trying to catch someone’s eye.

  The girl nearest her shrugged. “Sure.”

  “He seems fine. They’ll stitch him up.” The older woman, not that old really, but with a tired, gravelly voice, waved her glass at Jane and then left the kitchen as well.

  Jane spun around ready to yell at Isaac, but he had managed to slip out.

  Instead, she found Gemma. Crying.

  “I’m so sorry.” Jane stepped forward, her hand out to comfort her in some way.

  Gemma scrunched her face up. “Whatever.” She pushed her way through the rest of the guests and left.

  Jane stared around the room. A few girls snuck a look at her, then looked away, but mostly people were more interested in their own thing than in her. She slumped against the wall.

  It would stink to walk all the way home in her rain boots.

  13

  The snow fell in soft, dust-like flakes that shone white under the streetlights. It was a dry, cold snow, but the ground was wet from recent rain and the flakes melted on contact. Jane watched them from her seat under the bus shelter. She had walked as far as the bus shelter in her rain boots when she decided that the hot, stinky bus was better than the cold, dark night.

  “Why Jake Crawford?” Isaac took a seat next to Jane on the bench.

  “Been walking around in the dark?” Jane tapped her toes in rapid staccato.

  “Yes.” Isaac ran his hands through his hair. “But I wasn’t drinking. I was just really mad. I don’t like that I got so mad, but…”

  She knocked his knee with her fist. “You were pretty mad.”

  “You were kissing Jake.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Again.” Isaac stared into the street as he spoke.

  “Yeah.”

  “Has it always been Jake?”

  Jane shook her head. “No.” She paused. “I don’t know. He’s a good friend. You were a long-distance boyfriend. Long distance is hard.”

  “Yeah.”

  She reached for his hand. “I can’t marry you, because you don’t want to be married to me. You want to be married to a girl who seems like me but has a different personality.”

  “I don’t see it like that.”

  “I know.” Jane tipped her head back so it rested against the plastic wall of the bus shelter.

  “It’s only ten. Want to go get something to eat?”

  “No. I want to go home and make Gemma feel better.”

  “Jane…I don’t want to give up.”

  “We can’t make this work. You’re too…” She chewed on her cheek. What was he? She was tempted to say too perfect, but she really meant he thought he was too perfect.

  “What?”

  “You’re too not right for m
e. I have a dream, and a plan, and a hope, and your dream doesn’t have room for any of those. I can’t give up all of that for something I don’t want.”

  Isaac stood up. “The bus is coming.”

  Jane saw it down the road, just a couple of blocks away. “I’m sorry about not answering your calls.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It was rude.”

  The bus pulled up.

  “I’m going…” Jane pointed at the bus.

  “Yeah.” Isaac narrowed his eyes, but looked away.

  “Montreal…” The bus door folded open. “Just…enjoy it. It’s your dream.” She climbed into the bus. From her seat, she watched him as the bus pulled away.

  He walked slowly, eyes to the ground.

  ***

  At the apartment, Gemma paced the living room. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and her eyes were red and swollen. “You know how I feel about him, and you didn’t even want to give me a chance.”

  “You invited Isaac to the party, didn’t you?”

  “You’re an idiot for leaving him. He’s nice, handsome, has a good job. What are you thinking?”

  Jane pressed her lips together. “He is nice, and handsome, and has a good job, but so are hundreds of other men in the world I’m not going to marry.”

  “You shouldn’t ruin your friendship with Jake this way.” Gemma paused in front of the window and crossed her arms. Her brows were pulled down over her eyes.

  “I agree.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Gemma’s whole body quivered.

  “I don’t know.” The apartment seemed small with Gemma so angry. Jane grabbed her purse and went back out. She drove past her aunt’s house, but it was pretty late, and Jane was fairly sure Aunt May would take her daughter’s side. She drove past the library and really wished it was open twenty-four hours. She drove past the Miramontes, a small, fancy hotel not far from her apartment, but even if she did have an expense fund from Jake burning a hole in her pocket, she didn’t think it would be a wise use of money.

  She drove to the big Crawford house and stared at the dark windows.

  The front porch light flicked on.

  Jane whapped her head against the steering wheel. Why did he have to be home already?

  Phoebe Crawford, Jake’s sister, came running down the steps, wrapped only in a silky robe. She knocked on the window of Jane’s car. “Are you coming in or not?” she asked. “It’s cold out here.”

  Jane followed Phoebe into the house.

  They stopped in the front living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been when Jane was cleaning it. A little messier, but mostly the same.

  Jane slumped onto the loveseat.

  Phoebe lounged in a wingback chair. “The important question now is: what are you going to do about it?”

  “You heard?”

  “Uh, yes. Jake’s not going to let a war wound go uncommented on, is he?”

  Jane checked her watch. “But he’d hardly be out of the emergency room yet. It’s only been an hour and a half.”

  “He called.” Phoebe shrugged. “He took a hit for you. How will you repay him?”

  Jane stared at the ceiling. “Is it wrong to say that I don’t know?”

  Phoebe slid onto the couch and crossed her long legs. “You don’t have a lot of experience with this, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Was Isaac your first boyfriend?’

  Jane smiled, embarrassed. “There was another guy, back in high school, but…”

  “Isaac was your first. And you just dumped him, and you feel like it’s breaking some kind of important code to immediately replace him with someone you like better.”

  Jane took a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “And you feel guilty for liking Jake better because if Isaac had lived here, you probably would have liked him better.”

  Jane lifted her eyebrows.

  “Years and years of therapy, Jane. I may only be twenty, but I’ve got more meds on my chart and more therapy under my belt than the Real Housewives of New York.”

  Jane looked away.

  “It’s okay, really. It’s a good thing. You wouldn’t rather my bipolar disorder go untreated for all these years, would you?” She laughed.

  Jane smiled. “I’m sorry. I’m confused. I don’t know where to start.”

  “Start like this: how hot is Liam Hemsworth on a scale of one to one hundred?”

  “Uhh…” Jane scrunched her face.

  “Okay then, Joseph Gordon-Levitt?”

  Jane grinned. “Ninety-nine point five?”

  “Exactly. Cute, charming, talented. But you don’t know him, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Because he doesn’t live here. He’s an actor, not whatever it is you are. And your paths won’t cross—ever. You might like him way more than Isaac if you ever met him, but will you? Nope. Would you move to LA so you could meet him and make him love you?”

  “No.” Jane saw where this was going, but it wasn’t the same. She had met Isaac, and she…

  “Earth to Jane. Don’t abandon the conversation. It’s important. Maybe you would like Isaac or Joseph Gordon-Levitt more than Jake, but what good does that do? They aren’t a part of your life. Not a real part.”

  “I get it, but it’s a stretch.”

  “Okay then, back to good old Joseph G-L. How hot do you think he is?”

  Jane laughed. “He’s my type.”

  “Exactly. He was the actor who looked and acted the most like Jake that I could think of.” Phoebe stood up. “I’m going to bed. I’m glad we got this sorted.”

  Taking love advice from Jake’s surprisingly insightful sister…another new experience to chalk up for the year. She curled up and closed her eyes. Apparently Phoebe was okay with her spending the night.

  ***

  “Psst, Jane.”

  Jane pressed her face into the pillow. It couldn’t be morning yet. She turned and peeled one eye open. It was still dark.

  “Wake up, just a little.” Jake pushed her shoulder.

  Jane rolled onto her side and hugged the throw pillow to her chest. Jake had a bandage across his nose and bruises under his eyes. She reached out and touched his bandage, just barely. “Did Isaac break you?”

  “Only fair. You broke him, after all.”

  She stroked Jake’s hair. “Poor Isaac.”

  Jake leaned back against the couch.

  “I thought you didn’t live here anymore.”

  “I don’t, but it was closer than home, and, to be honest, this kind of hurts.”

  Jane kissed his cheek. “It looks like it does.”

  Jake wrapped her hand in both of his. “I don’t ever want you to leave that couch. But I also don’t want to rush you—which is a lie. I do want to rush you. But I won’t.”

  Jane sniffled. She didn’t know exactly what she was sniffling about, but the tears were coming anyway. Good girls didn’t jump from man to man like this.

  “You’re really close to my ear right now, and that snot-slurping thing you just did was disgusting, but I still want to kiss you. That’s how I know it’s love.”

  Jane laughed. “I keep running to you when things are hard. Or when they are good.”

  “And that’s how you know it’s love.”

  Jane didn’t respond, but he was right.

  “We’re family, Jane. Not kissing cousins or anything weird like that. Just family. It’s meant to be.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “I’d better not tempt fate.” Jake kissed the back of her hand, and left.

  14

  Rose of Sharon finally responded to Jane’s earlier Facebook message to get together at Sprouted Quinoa. She had also friended Jane on Facebook. They were to meet for breakfast at nine, which gave Jane plenty of time to read everything Rose of Sharon had posted. There were a dozen posts about the Fro-Yo Murder, and how a good woman had given her life for the cause.

  Wou
ld Rose of Sharon murder to create a martyr?

  Jane went to the little vegan restaurant with all senses on alert.

  Rose of Sharon was smaller up close than Jane had expected. She was no taller than Jane, in fact. Five three and a half at the most.

  Rose of Sharon took Jane’s hand in hers and held it for a moment. Her skin was papery like an older woman’s, but warm. “Thank you so much for coming here to meet me.”

  They sat in a small booth at the back of the restaurant. “How are you holding up?” Jane’s heart twinged with sympathy. Rose of Sharon’s eyes were red and her signature curly hair was pulled back into a bun.

  “Michelle was a good woman. Stabbing is a painful way to die.”

  “I can’t think of worse.” Jane sipped her kefir. “How long was Michelle a Helper?”

  Rose of Sharon wiped her eyes with an unbleached cotton napkin. “She wasn’t. We were just friends.”

  “I had heard…”

  “I know. That’s a problem I have. My girls went to Trillium. I have a deep respect for Michelle, and we were friends. But she wasn’t a protester.”

  “When were your kids at Trillium?” Jane was writing as she spoke, but Rose of Sharon didn’t seem put off by it.

  “Clover was there ten years ago, and Isis was there about fifteen.”

  “Michelle supported the work of HLP though, didn’t she?”

  “She was a kindred spirit, for sure, but she was never involved in any protest.”

  “Could any of the protesters have had a problem with her? Maybe they thought she was benefitting from the work and from her friendship without giving back in return.”

  Rose of Sharon picked up a wafer that Jane didn’t recognize and nibbled it. “Maybe.” She put her food down. “The Human Liberation Party is not as organized as people on the outside think. We meet like flash mobs do, and always have. We don’t have an official roster or membership list. I can’t vouch for everyone who calls themselves a Helper.”

  “Do you wish it was different?”

  Rose of Sharon nodded.

  “Really?” Jane raised an eyebrow.