by Carol Durand
“So they don’t have any idea where she is?”
“Unfortunately, no. I’m sorry Missy, I wish I had better news,” he kissed her hand.
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” she murmured, staring into the distance. “At least there’s one thing that gives me hope,” she said cryptically.
“Really? What’s that?” Chas frowned.
“Dead people don’t bleed.”
Chas had instructed his team to clean up the blood and lock up Missy’s house once they were done with their investigation, but he insisted that she stay with him overnight, knowing full well that she was in no condition to return to an empty house. He grilled her about the phone calls that she had received, and instructed her to wake him if any more calls came in during the night. Fluffing the pillows in the guest room and moving Toffee’s spare bed into the corner, Beckett made his visitors as comfortable as possible before retiring to his room. He left the light in the hallway on so that Missy could find him if she awoke scared in the night, kissed her soundly, not wanting to let go, and tucked her in.
Chapter 11
Missy awoke disoriented, not knowing where she was at first, until she heard Chas’s stereo playing in the kitchen while he made breakfast. Sunlight streamed beautifully in the guest room windows, and Toffee stood and stretched when she heard her best friend stirring. Missy patted the side of the bed and the lovable golden girl trotted over for morning cuddles. The dog moved aside when her owner swung her legs off of the bed, yawned and stretched, heading for the kitchen, where the delightful smell of bacon had her stomach growling despite the unfortunate circumstances in which she currently found herself.
“Good morning, Beautiful! Sleep well?” Chas inquired, turning from the stove, spatula in hand, looking impossibly gorgeous in flannel pajama bottoms and his college sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off.
“Surprisingly well actually,” she returned his smile, entirely unaware of just how adorable she looked in his gym shorts and oversized tee shirt. “It smells amazing in here,” she came up behind the handsome detective, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“I’m glad you think so,” he grinned, turning around to kiss her quickly before getting back to the delicate operation of turning bacon. “The coffee is fresh and you know where the mugs are.”
Coffee had never tasted so good as it did, standing there in Chas Beckett’s kitchen feeling safe for the moment, appreciating the strong, dependable man who had prepared it. Missy wished that she could just stay in this moment for a while, not facing the ugliness that awaited outside.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Chas teased, catching her staring out the window.
“Honey, my thoughts are so topsy-turvy at the moment, they’re not worth even a penny,” she smiled ruefully.
“Well, that’s certainly understandable. Hopefully a good breakfast will help,” he replied, dishing up a heap of home fried potatoes, perfectly crisp strips of bacon and succulent slices of tomato, alongside lightly buttered 12-grain toast with homemade blackberry jam. He knew that Missy wasn’t a fan of eggs for breakfast, so he had fixed all of the other breakfast food groups, hoping to tempt her into eating. He set the plates down on the granite breakfast bar, and poured tall, cold glasses of mango juice to go along with their feast.
Missy looked down at her plate with dismay. “You do realize that this is enough food for a small country, right?”
Chas smiled, taking her comment as a compliment. “I wanted to make sure that you had enough choices to find something that seemed palatable,” he explained, digging in.
“Well, everything looks delicious, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to finish this,” she said apologetically.
“Don’t worry about it. Eat your fill and I’ll take the leftovers to work for lunch,” he said easily, washing down a bite with coffee.
Having skipped dinner the night before, Missy was hungrier than she thought and made a sizeable dent in the feast, delighting Chas to no end. “What should I do today?” she asked, hating the helpless sound in her voice as she put down her fork, pleasantly full.
“That’s completely up to you, sweetie. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d like, if you’d rather not go home for a while. I have plenty of food and treats for Miss Toffee, although if you keep eating like that I’ll have to do some ‘people food’ shopping,” he teased.
Missy smiled, despite her fear of having to go home again. “I just wish there was something I could do. I feel so helpless.”
Chas put down his fork and reached for her hand. “I know you do, Missy, but really, the best thing for you to do is to let us try to figure out what’s going on.”
“Do you think it’s safe to go home?” she worried.
“If you decide that you’re ready to go home, just let me know and I’ll send extra patrols on drive-bys all day long. All night too,” he assured her. “But don’t even think about going home until you’re ready. You and Toffee are welcome here. You can stay until the case is solved if it makes you feel better.”
“I don’t want to intrude,” Missy blushed, touched at his generosity.
“Look at me,” he directed gently, tipping her chin up. “Your company is never an intrusion. I never get tired of seeing that lovely face and hearing that musical laugh of yours. Your smile is what makes getting up in the morning to face another day worthwhile. When I say that you and that goofy dog of yours can stay as long as you’d like, that’s exactly what I mean, okay?” he gazed at her with a warmth that had her blushing from head to toe. She nodded, spellbound, and he kissed her, softly at first, then with increasing ardor, making her pulse race. She wound her hands around his neck, pressing closer, her lips moving with his, and jumped a mile when his doorbell rang, shattering the perfect moment.
“Just a minute,” he called out, clearly annoyed at the interruption. “I’ll go see who that is. You…hold that thought,” he grinned seductively, kissing her quickly one more time on his way to the door.
Missy nibbled a piece of bacon, impatient for Chas to return to making her feel better than she’d felt in quite a long time.
“Well, isn’t this quite a surprise,” she heard him say shortly after opening the door. She was so shocked that she nearly fell off of her barstool when he came back into the kitchen with Echo trailing in his wake.
“Echo!” Missy cried with joy, running to embrace her friend. “I thought you were…I thought something had…where were you?” she demanded, relieved tears streaking down her cheeks. “I was worried sick!”
“I’m sorry, Missy. I should have talked with you before I left, but I just had to get away. It wasn’t a planned thing, I just reached a point emotionally where I couldn’t stand being cooped up in my house feeling like a criminal anymore and I just had to get out of there, so I threw a few things into a bag and hit the road on my bike. I rode to the bus station, grabbed a ticket to New Orleans, and stayed overnight in a B & B.”
“Why would you do such a thing? Didn’t you know I’d be worried?” Missy chastised her, relieved but frustrated.
“Well, I wasn’t really thinking clearly because I’d had a really strange phone call that freaked me out,” she admitted, embarrassed.
“A strange call?” Chas stepped in. “What was strange about it?”
“Someone called and started laughing at me, but the laughter was really creepy – it sounded deranged or something, but sort of familiar too.”
Missy’s eyes went wide. “That’s exactly what happened to me too, and I thought that it sounded familiar! Chas, do you think that this is someone that we know?”
“If it is, I can’t think of who it would be. Echo, did you ever speak with Jonathan Michener from Creamy Delight?” he asked.
“Sure, he called me a couple of times and stopped by the shop once, but we were busy so I didn’t get to spend much time with him. Do you think he’s the one who made the calls?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“It’s possible.
Was he hostile to you at all during your conversations?”
“Hmm…I wouldn’t say that he was hostile. Persuasive, certainly, but not threatening. I understand he and Missy didn’t exactly see eye to eye though,” she glanced at her friend.
Missy snorted, “That’s a bit of an understatement. But, Chas, didn’t you say that he had an alibi?”
“Yes, he did, but being in another country wouldn’t preclude him from making strange phone calls,” Beckett mused, deep in thought.
“So what do we do now?” Missy asked.
“You two, stay here. I’m going to the office to contact Mr. Jonathan Michener,” he replied, his jaw set. In less than ten minutes, Chas was freshly showered, dressed in a somber grey suit and on his way to the LaChance Police Department.
Chapter 12
While Chas was away, Missy filled Echo in on everything that had happened in her absence.
“There was blood in my house?” she shuddered. “How on earth did it get there?”
“That’s what I wanted to know, I was so worried that something had happened to you,” Missy exclaimed. “Are you sure that you didn’t cut yourself or something?”
“Nope, I was perfectly healthy when I left. It’s bizarre that blood would turn up in my house when I wasn’t even home.”
“Chas thinks that maybe the blood was put there just to try to scare us. The same thing happened at my house, which is why I stayed here last night.”
“Aww…that’s too bad,” Echo teased. “And here I thought perhaps your relationship was more involved than I thought,” she made Missy blush. “Honestly, I didn’t think I’d find you here, but when no one was home at your house, I thought that it was at least possible,” she shrugged.
“Chas offered to let me stay here with Toffee until the murder is solved, but I don’t want to impose,” she said, fanning the flames that seemed to have taken over her cheeks.
“Impose? Girl, if you can’t tell, that man is crazy about you! He offered to let you stay because he was hoping that you’d take him up on it, silly,” Echo grinned, her joy at Missy’s relationship momentarily eclipsing her fear and worry.
“He is pretty wonderful,” she smiled shyly.
“Ya think? I’d give my left foot for a chance with a guy like that. You’re one lucky lady.”
“Yeah, as long as I don’t end up in jail with my best friend,” Missy brought the conversation back to their harsh reality.
“You don’t really think that they still suspect us, do you?” Echo asked, skeptical.
“I wish I knew.”
“I hope you called me down here for something good,” Chas grumbled good-naturedly at his friend and colleague, Detective Richard Keller.
“Lab results,” Keller said, tossing the report in front of Beckett and giving him a chance to look them over.
“Pig’s blood? In both locations?” Chas was bemused.
“Yup, apparently the same perp committed all three of the vandalism crimes, using pig’s blood in Miss Willis’s shop and home, and Miss Gladstone’s home,” Rich summed up the report.
“Anything else?” Beckett asked. “Anything to tie that perp to the murder?”
“Not yet, we’re working on it. But…I did find out something interesting. I have a friend who works in a certain corporate office at a certain phone company who owes me a favor, and this friend somehow stumbled upon the fact that the phone calls to Miss Gladstone and Miss Willis originated from a cell phone registered…get this…in California.”
“California?” Chas sat up straighter. “Echo is from California. Both she and Missy thought that they recognized the voice on the phone, but couldn’t place it. Sounds to me like someone that Echo knew, who maybe at some point was introduced to Missy.”
“You get anywhere with the corporate dude from New York…Michener?” Keller asked, looking through his reports.
Detective Beckett shook his head. “Nahh…everything he had to say checked out, he was on video attending some sort of seminar when all of the weirdness went down around here.”
“Well, try to probe Miss Willis’s memory a bit. See if she’s had any visitors from back home recently,” Rich advised.
“Will do. Thanks Rich, keep me informed,” Chas shook hands.
“You know it.”
Missy, I really don’t think that we should be doing this,” Echo worried as she trailed behind Missy in the dark. “Mr. Wonderful told us to stay put, and I think it would have been a really good idea if we had done that,” she said, scared and disapproving.
“Don’t be such a ninny,” Missy scolded her friend. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with stopping by my own home to pick up some clean clothes,” she insisted.
“Then why aren’t we turning on any lights?” Echo challenged.
“We’re just taking extra precautions, that’s all,” Missy returned, sounding lame, even to herself.
“I just don’t think this is the smartest…” Echo’s sentence was cut off by the sudden blindness brought on at the snap of a light switch.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” a chilling voice asked snidely from behind them. The women whirled around to confront the intruder.
“Brice?” Missy was confused.
“Jimmy?” Echo was terrified.
The two women looked at each other. “You know him?” they asked in unison.
The sinister laugh that had chilled the marrow in their bones when they’d heard it on the phone, rang out, piercing the room with its evil tones. “Hmm…two peas in a pod, huh?” the man in the blue coveralls snarled.
Missy was furious. Thinking that she was dealing with an overzealous dry goods supplier, she put her hands on her hips and moved to step toward him, Echo’s hand reaching out to snatch her backward. “Now you listen to me Brice, I don’t know what kind of game you think that you’re playing here, but I’m more than tired of it. You get yourself out of my home immediately,” her eyes flashed fire, as she strained against her friend’s iron grip.
“Spitfire, eh?” he snickered, licking his lips.
“What are you doing here, Jimmy?” Echo growled. “These people have no business with you.”
“That’s right my little California Sunshine, they don’t, but you do, and if they happen to get in the way of my business with you, that’s just too bad,” he threatened, stepping up to Echo, who held her ground even when he thrust his face no more than an inch away from hers.
While Brice or Jimmy or whoever he was, was fixated on Echo, Missy saw her chance and took it. With lightning-fast speed, she stomped on his foot while simultaneously delivering a right hook straight to his tender parts and screamed, “Run Echo!”
Completely blindsided, the intruder dropped to a crouch, howling in pain and following the women surprisingly quickly considering his injuries. Missy and Echo ran for the front door as fast as they could, bursting through it and onto the porch, nearly mowing down Chas Beckett and most of the LaChance Police Department.
“Keep going, head for my car,” Chas barked as the friends stumbled past him and police swarmed into Missy’s home. There were brief sounds of a scuffle as LaChance’s finest took down a man who was wanted for murder and more in multiple states, and the women who had unwittingly helped them capture him huddled terrified in the back of Beckett’s patrol car.
When they saw the intruder being led out of the house in handcuffs, the look on Echo’s face spoke volumes. “They finally caught the sorry S.O.B.,” she spat bitterly. “He’s haunted my nightmares for years, and he’ll finally pay the price.”
Missy knew that there must be quite a story regarding her friend and the dry goods deliveryman, but for the moment she kept her questions to herself, knowing that it would all come out in the end.
Chapter 13
When Chas returned to his car, he drove Missy and Echo down to the police station to wrap up some loose ends.
“How did you know Jimmy Cronister?” the detective asked Echo, recording her answ
ers.
“Jimmy was a drug-runner for the jet-set crowd that I ran with in L.A.,” she replied dully. She had tried so hard to put her troubled past behind her, but it had caught up with her yet again.
“Did Cronister ever kill anyone that you know of?”
“I never saw him kill anyone, but there were lots of rumors, and he used to brag about how good it felt to see the life drain out of people and animals,” she gagged slightly at the last part.
“He grew up on a farm and moved to California as a teenager, is that right?”
“That’s the story that I heard,” she replied wearily.
“Do you know what type of farm?”
“They raised livestock. Cows, chickens, goats, sheep, pigs.”
“Did you ever have reason to believe that Mr. Cronister was a danger to you, personally?”
Echo nodded, her eyes welling with tears.
Chas leaned forward, filled with compassion. “Echo, I’m sorry, but for the sake of the recording, can you please give your answers audibly?”
“Yes, I knew that Jimmy wanted to kill me. He was one of the main reasons that I left California,” she explained, ashamed.
“Why did he want to kill you?”
“My ex-boyfriend owed him money and skipped town, so he held me captive and told me that he’d forgive the debt if I slept with him. I pretended to go along with the plan, but when Jimmy got naked and vulnerable, I kicked him where it counted and escaped. He screamed that he was going to kill me if it was the last thing he did, but I got away. I changed my name back to the one that my parents had given me, shaved off all of my hair and bought a shabby wardrobe from a second-hand store to try to disguise myself. I found the most obscure little town that I could and started my life over. And here we are.”
Echo had begun to cry about halfway through her story, and by the end of it, she was so choked up that she could barely speak. Missy shot a glance at Chas, and he ended the session, letting the distraught woman know that they had all they needed from her. She hurried from the room and leaned against the bathroom sink, splashing water in her face to calm down.
