by Mary Behre
“Yes.” Jules grabbed the menu and quickly scanned the beverage section. “I’ll have a glass of strawberry lemonade, please.”
“And you, Dad?” The waitress turned back to Seth. “Do you see anything you like?”
“Coffee.” Seth said at the same Jules asked, “Dad?”
Relief washed over Jules like a warm wave crashing on the shore. She’s his daughter! Wait. Why did she care about Seth or his relationships? She shouldn’t. She didn’t. Did she?
Seth groaned and waved a hand in the air. “Jules, meet my daughter, Theresa.” He gestured to the waitress. “Theresa, meet my neighbor, Jules.”
“Your neighbor, Dad?” Theresa grinned at Seth, then turned her head to eye Jules. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
“Theresa.” Seth’s voice sounded strained. “Can you bring us our drinks, please?”
“Sure! I’ll be right back.” Seth’s daughter hurried away in a bouncy jaunt as she moved through the restaurant.
He watched her leave, a muscle working in his jaw. Then he muttered under his breath, “This is gonna cost me.” Rising from his seat, he added, “Excuse me a moment.”
He followed the girl. From across the busy restaurant, Jules watched him catch Theresa by her elbow and usher her into a corner. He spoke rapidly and the girl simply nodded. The smile on her face never wavered even as her curly brown ponytail bobbed with each nod.
Giving him a quick peck on the cheek, Theresa hurried off. Seth watched her go and then turned and faced Jules. She shouldn’t have watched them but his words—This is gonna cost me—replayed in her mind.
What could a lunch cost him that he needed to chase down his daughter and have a private conversation? Too many things sprang to mind. And none of them good.
Seth’s shoulders were drawn tight and he radiated tension as he made his way back to the table.
“Sorry about that. But Theresa loves to gossip. Thought I’d better stop her before the entire family descends on us,” Seth said when he returned. Lowering himself to his side of the booth, he fiddled with his napkin-wrapped utensils before drumming his fingers on the table.
Jules glanced around. “This is your family’s restaurant? I mean I knew it was locally owned but I didn’t realize when I asked to come here . . .”
“It’s okay,” he said, shrugging. “I didn’t think you knew. Like it?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Your daughter seems very sweet.” She paused, then blurted the question foremost in her mind. “How old are you?”
He gave her a wry grin. “Thirty-five. Curious how I have a teenaged daughter?”
She nodded, then admitted, “Sorry. None of my business.” Truthfully, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Because where there was a child, there was usually a mother.
Seth blew out a breath, then said, “At seventeen, I got my sixteen-year-old girlfriend pregnant. Her parents threw her out when she wouldn’t have an abortion. She moved in with my mother, my sister, and me. The weekend after we graduated high school, I married Catherine. Six months later, Theresa came laughing into the world. She’s been laughing ever since and turning my hair a little more gray every day.”
Jules’s shoulders drooped and her eyes rounded. “Oh, I-I didn’t realize. Wow. You were a teen father? Did you live with your mother after Theresa’s birth?”
“No, I rented the apartment above the restaurant.” He hiked a thumb in the air to indicate the ceiling.
She glanced around then back at him. “How did you go from a teen dad living over a Greek restaurant to being a police detective?”
“For the first year I worked two jobs and took college courses at night,” he said, shifting in his seat. “A week before my nineteenth birthday, I joined the police academy. Nine months later, I joined the force in Tidewater. I eventually earned my bachelor’s degree.” He grinned, radiating pride. “Theresa and I graduated the same weekend. She graduated in her little red gown from preschool and I graduated from Tidewater University.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet.” Jules grinned and she rested her chin in her right hand and sighed.
“There’s a picture in my bedroom of our graduation day.” A devious glint lit his expression before he asked, “You didn’t see it?”
Jules’s cheeks heated. “Um . . . no.”
“Oh, you should come over again sometime and I’ll show it to you,” Seth said, teasingly.
As much as that idea appealed to her—more than it should—she couldn’t help wondering about Theresa’s mother. Granted, she hadn’t seen a ring on his finger or anything feminine in his bedroom, but still. “You . . . you aren’t still married, right?”
“No. I’m definitely not married. Catherine has been gone a long time.” He frowned; all humor fled his expression. “And we’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about your adventure yesterday.”
“Right.” An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Jules wasn’t sure how to fix it. She shouldn’t care that Seth wasn’t married anymore. It was none of her business. Except it stung in ways she didn’t like to admit, that this handsome man wanted nothing more from her than information about his case. It shouldn’t. But it did.
Every time Jules started to relax around him, Seth did something to remind her of what he was. A cop. And that was exactly why she shouldn’t care about him or his love life.
Tugging at her earlobe, she fidgeted with the sapphire stud in it until Seth cast her a knowing glance. She dropped her hand to her lap, straightened her back, and ignored the automatic pull at her defenses that seemed to perpetually happen around him.
Seth was a threat to her peace of mind. He hadn’t brought her here to get to know her. He’d done it to keep her off balance. She’d sensed it almost immediately. But strangely, she also sensed he was uncomfortable.
And it was definitely a sensory perception. Outwardly, Seth epitomized calm and smooth. Still, snippets of anxiety pinged off her chest, as if shot from a bow, whenever his gaze met hers.
What kept him off balance?
Theresa returned with their drinks. Her demeanor had changed. Whatever Seth had said across the room had apparently made an impact. Setting the drinks on the table, she barely made eye contact with Jules and avoided Seth’s gaze altogether.
“Do you need more time or are you ready to order?”
Despite her shrunken stomach, Jules ordered. “I’ll have the Greek salad with the dressing on the side and no bread, please.”
“Is that all you’re going to eat?” Seth grunted and shook his head. “No wonder you’re a twig.”
“I wasn’t aware you brought me here to monitor my eating habits,” Jules countered.
The waitress snorted.
If Seth heard it, he pretended otherwise. “A large Philomena’s special and two plates.”
Without a word, the smirking girl hurried away.
“You’re pushy,” Jules said.
“I haven’t started to push yet,” Seth answered, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Then his lips flattened and he rubbed the bridge of his nose as if it pained him. “Okay, I need to ask you a few questions about yesterday. If we can get them out of the way fast enough, I’m sure we can both enjoy a nice meal. Sound good?”
“Sure,” she agreed, and hoped his questions wouldn’t require her to bend the truth to avoid having him cart her off to the loony bin. “Go for it.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Care to tell me how you ended up in a Dumpster with a dead body?”
Jules’s too-tight stomach shrank again as a lump formed in her belly.
“Not really. In fact, I’d prefer to never think about my temporary career as a Dumpster diver ever again. Next question?” She surprised herself with the airy reply.
Seth laughed, then frowned as if bothered that she amused him. Instead of repeating his question, he simply sat and stared at her. Waiting.
Jules shifted in her chair. She could lie, but she had the feeling that despit
e his lack of ability to distinguish between oregano and marijuana, he was probably well versed at sniffing out a fib. So she settled for a half-truth. “All right. Look, it was nothing nefarious. I’d just put boxes in the recycling bin when I heard my phone, uh . . . singing.”
“And how do you suppose your cell got in there to begin with?” He clasped his hands together and leaned closer, resting his forearms on the table. “Did you know the victim?”
“Well, I lost my cell phone and keys sometime Friday night,” she answered, focusing on the first question he asked. But she was stumped about how to answer the second question.
I didn’t exactly know the victim before she was killed. See, the dead woman you found with my phone is now a ghost who’s been following me around for the last two days asking me for something, but I can’t understand what it is. Oh, and I’m pretty sure she’s the one who tricked me into climbing into your apartment Friday night, but I don’t know why.
Yep, that sounded insane even in her head.
Perhaps if she could learn a bit about who the ghost had been, she might solve the mystery of how to convince the ghost to cross over or go into the light or wherever it is ghosts are supposed to go, and let Jules live in peace.
“I don’t suppose you know the name of the woman found in the Dumpster, do you?” Jules blurted the question before she thought better of it. The surprise that darkened Seth’s expression wasn’t as harrowing as how quickly he narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
“How did you know the victim was a woman?” He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t think you saw the body. Given what we found while you were unconscious, it appeared you had no idea she was in there. So, I repeat, how did you know the victim was a woman?”
“Fifty-fifty guess. I didn’t see the body, and believe me, I’m grateful. Just thinking I was locked inside a bin with a dead body makes my skin crawl,” Jules replied. She conveniently left out the part where the ghost had held Jules hostage and forced her to relive the dead woman’s last moments on earth.
“Oh, right. Good guess.” Seth rubbed a hand over his face. Straightening in his seat, he glanced around. “The victim was a woman around your age. Similar build to yours, but where your hair is red, hers was blonde. Sound familiar?”
“No,” she answered honestly.
“What about your phone? Do you know when you might have lost it?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any idea how I lost it.” If she did, she’d definitely tell him.
“Did you loan it to someone?” When she shook her head, he asked, “Where’s the last place you remember having it?”
“At the reunion, Friday night. Right before I knocked into another hooker contestant in the bathroom.”
• • •
“DANG!” A FLASH of surprise lit her eyes. Jules’s mouth opened to form a small O.
Seth had been right to think she knew something. But her line about the hooker had been a bit too loud for his comfort. He glanced around. No one else seemed to have heard her, thank God.
While he understood it had been for a contest, he was pretty sure he didn’t want to have to explain that to his mother. Although he’d made Theresa promise not to alert the family that he was in the restaurant, he wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t do it just to spite him for tossing her new fiancé out of his mother’s house last week when they’d announced their engagement.
He leaned closer to Jules. “Do you remember what happened to your phone? Did the ho— um, other woman borrow it?”
“Huh? Uh, no.” She shook her head and he was momentarily distracted by the red and gold highlights in her hair.
She really was attractive. While her features were not particularly striking separately—except for her eyes—together, they formed a beautiful woman. Even without the corset and leather miniskirt.
His gaze drifted to her lush mouth. Not overly plump like some of the collagen-enhanced ones on the faces of women with too much money and too little self-esteem, but succulent. At least, they appeared that way. He wondered if they were as soft to kiss as they looked.
And I’ve drifted off topic again.
“What do you think happened to your phone if you didn’t lend it?” he asked, determined to conduct his interview.
“Well,” she said, tapping an index finger to her forehead. “After I went to the health food store, I went to the reunion. Where they had the contest I told you about.” She paused as if waiting for him to agree, but when he didn’t she added, “You know that contest that had you mistaking me for a . . . you-know-what when we met in your . . . er . . .” Her words trailed away.
A lovely pink flush crept up her cheeks, and again Seth wanted to see if she blushed that way all over her body. Blood thundered through his veins as he remembered every second of meeting her Friday night. Damn, she was going to give him a heart attack if she didn’t stop blushing like that.
“In my bedroom?” he asked.
“Shhh!” Jules hissed the sound, a finger pressed to her lips. It was her turn to glance anxiously around.
“What? You can talk about hookers, but blush at the word bedroom?” He smiled when her cheeks reddened.
She shrugged. “Anyway, I bet I lost my cell in the bathroom. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together before now.”
“Care to elaborate?”
She toyed with the straw in her drink, swirling it around until an eddy formed, before releasing the plastic. Seth watched it spin for a moment until she lifted her eyes to meet his gaze.
“At the party,” she said, leaning forward. “Things got a little confusing, you might say.”
“Confusing how?”
“I, um . . . well.” Jules huffed, straightened her spine, and closed her eyes on a long, slow blink. When she opened them again, Seth marveled at the sincerity in their green depths. “At the party, I bumped into this woman. Well, crashed, really. She’d been coming out of the bathroom when I was running in. I wasn’t looking where I was going and slammed into her. We both dropped our purses and everything spilled out. I picked up my stuff and tried to help her. She just burst into tears, told me to leave her alone, snatched up her stuff, and bolted out the door.
“I didn’t even notice my cell was missing until I was outside our apartment building searching for my keys. You didn’t happen to find those in the Dumpster too, did you?”
“No keys, just your cell with a dead woman.”
She shuddered. Lowering her gaze to her drink, she fiddled with the straw, then lifted the cup to her lips and took a sip.
Several questions filtered through Seth’s mind in rapid succession. For one, why had Jules been running?
“Do you think you might recognize her if you saw her again?”
“Maybe?” She met his gaze again. Confusion and a hint of fear darkened her eyes. “It all happened so fast, and we were both in costume so I’m not sure.”
“Would you be willing to take a look at a photo of the victim?”
“I guess.” She shivered again. “Will we need to go downtown?”
“Probably not. My partner can send the morgue picture to my phone right now if you want.”
Jules glanced around the restaurant then back to him. She’d gone pale. Swallowing hard, she nodded.
“Tell you what, why don’t I have him do that after lunch?”
Jules exhaled a slow breath and visibly relaxed. “That would be great.”
Shifting in his seat, Seth continued his interview. “Was the woman from the bathroom dressed exactly like you?” He thought he already knew the answer but wanted to gauge her response.
“Yeah, pretty close. We both wore leather corsets and miniskirts. My boots were higher than hers, or maybe I was just taller. But what was truly amazing was we both had Prada.”
“Why was that amazing?” He tugged his small leather-bound notebook and a pen out of his slacks. He uncapped the pen. “What’s Prada?”
“It’s the brand of m
y purse. I didn’t get a good look at hers, except for the logo.” She furrowed her brow. “At least, I think hers was Prada. I know mine was.”
“Again, why is that amazing?”
“Oh, well. They’re expensive. You can’t even buy them where I lived. At least, not unless you ordered it on the Internet. I guess I should be thankful I lost my keys and cell and not the purse. It’s worth a month’s salary.”
He’d been steadily jotting down her words but jerked to a halt at her last statement. “Forgive me, but you hardly seem the type of person to own something so . . .” He searched his brain for the right term. Frivolous? Ridiculously expensive?
“Extravagant?” she supplied with a sheepish expression. She nodded. “I’m not. It’s what my ex bought me to convince me to forgive him.”
“Didn’t work?”
“Not a bit,” she admitted. “I divorced him but I kept the gift. It’s been in the box it came in for the past two years. I never took it out until Friday night.”
“What did he do that was so bad that he tried to buy your forgiveness?”
“I thought you wanted to ask me questions about your case,” she replied, looking away.
No, he wanted to know more about her. He had to ask her questions about the case. But he could wait to learn more about Jules. Clearly she wasn’t ready to share her secrets with him.
At least she was willing to answer his questions about the case. “Okay then. Tell me everything you remember from the incident. What were you doing just before you two collided?”
“I’d just called a cab and was texting April to tell her I’d won the contest.”
He glanced down at his notes. She’d run into the woman in the restroom. “You called a cab in the bathroom?”
Jules blushed. “No, I was outside the bathroom when I called the cab. Then I started to text April when I decided to . . . wait, and uh, go to the bathroom instead.”
“Where you collided with the other woman?”
“Yes.”
“What made you stop texting April?”
When she didn’t do more than shrug then shake her head, a prickle of warning lifted the hairs on Seth’s forearms. What was she hiding? “Jules, got something else to tell me?”
