Mayhem & Mistletoe

by Amanda M. Lee

  “We go back.”

  Sabrina looked so relieved by my answer that she didn’t waste a second, scampering for the gate I’d left open and disappearing from sight. I took a long, wistful look at the house and then followed. I was brave, but not stupid. There was nothing else I could do here — for now.

  I latched the gate shut behind me and moved down the tracks. Sabrina had already made her way to the police tape and was waiting for me.

  “Well, was that worth the danger?” she asked when I rejoined her.

  “I think so.”

  She made a face. “How can you possibly believe that? We didn’t find anything except some rubber boot you were excited to see. What’s so exciting about the boot?”

  “I don’t know yet. I need to think.”

  “Does that mean we’re done here?”

  “Yeah. For now.”

  “Where to next?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She waited, staring at me.

  “What?” I asked after a beat. “I need to think.”

  “But you’re Avery Shaw. You’re supposed to know everything. At least ... that’s what I was led to believe.”

  “Well, I don’t know everything. I don’t even know half the things. I usually have to muddle through.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  Before I could respond, the sound of a vehicle door slamming caught my attention. When I glanced at the nearby parking lot, I cringed. There, standing next to the driver’s side door of his Navigator, was Jake ... and he didn’t look happy.

  “Do you want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

  Well, crap. Any answer I gave him was bound to be met with annoyance. “I’m waiting for you,” I lied, forcing a grin. “I figured you would show up eventually and tell me what it is you’re hiding.”

  “Oh, you’re so full of it.” He obviously wasn’t in the mood to participate in witty repartee. “The only reason I’m here is because I’m looking for you. Eliot suggested I might find you here.”

  “Remind me to kill Eliot next time I see him.”

  “He was reluctant to share the information,” Jake shot back. “He’s not a squealer, and you know it. When he couldn’t get you on your phone, he gave in and told me where you were.”

  Uh-oh. I dug my phone out of my pocket and frowned when I realized I’d missed ten straight calls, eight from Eliot and two from Jake. “I had my phone on silent.”

  “That’s brilliant. You were supposed to text your boyfriend every ten minutes.”

  The fact that Eliot had let even that much slip told me he was probably furious. “I’ll call him as soon as you’re done yelling at me.”

  “Don’t bother. I already texted him when I saw your sidekick. He knows I found you.”

  “I’ll call him anyway. I believe that’s a rule or something when you’re dating. You’re supposed to check in.”

  I couldn’t be sure, but I was almost positive Jake broke into a brief smile before he went back to scowling. “That’s between you and Eliot. I want to talk about you and me.”

  I almost fell over as I cast a worried look toward Sabrina. “Um ...?” He couldn’t possibly have tracked me down here to talk about Eliot’s proposal plans. He wasn’t going to say something stupid, was he? Oh, geez. How was I supposed to live through this on top of everything else?

  “We need to come to a meeting of the minds here, Avery,” Jake stressed. “You keep digging into my case and I’m sick of it.”

  “Oh, that.” I was relieved.

  The look he shot me was peculiar. “What did you think I wanted to talk about?”

  “Um ... nothing. I knew you wanted to talk about the dead Santas. Are you ready to release the rest of the names?”

  “No.” He eyed me with the sort of aggravation only people who were completely comfortable with one another could muster. “We’ve already talked about that. The other thing. I meant what I said. Stop freaking yourself out.”

  Sabrina stirred. “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing,” we responded in unison, eyeing each other.

  “Why are you out here, Jake?” I asked, keeping my voice even. “What do you want?”

  “You were at Ruth Shepperly’s house today.”

  It wasn’t a question, so I merely waited.

  “You put it together that she was Cal’s wife. She admitted what she told you when she called.”

  Well, that was mildly disappointing. “She called you to narc on us?”

  “After you left, she worried that you would approach her daughter.”

  “I told her I wouldn’t.”

  “That doesn’t explain how you found her in the first place.”

  “We don’t have to reveal our sources,” Sabrina fired back. “We’ll die before we tell you.”

  It was an interesting tack, one I wasn’t interested in backing up. “Sabrina went to high school with the daughter. She figured it out.”

  “I can’t believe you just told him that,” she shrieked.

  I waved off her complaints. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jake agreed. “It’s annoying and something I couldn’t have seen coming, but it definitely doesn’t matter.”

  “So ... is that it?” I was hopeful right up until he shook his head.

  “This is off the record, but I feel it’s important to your safety.” He was grim. “Several of the bodies had gunshot wounds. Only one, the one closest to the tracks, had no bullet wounds.”

  I ran the scene through my head. “That was Beau.”

  “We figure he was either part of the massacre and they turned on him after the fact, or he managed to run during the shooting. We believe he was fleeing at the time he was killed.”

  “He tried to jump a train.”

  Jake nodded. “That’s the scenario that makes the most sense. We don’t have confirmation yet, but that’s what we’re going with.”

  I was still confused. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “There’s one other thing.” He was so serious my heart skipped a beat. “The rounds in the men don’t match the rounds in the bodies at the halfway house.”

  “Maybe our killer has more than one weapon.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe we’re dealing with more than one killer.”

  He nodded, his lips curving down. “That’s probable. I need you to be really careful.”

  “I’m always really careful.”

  “I’m serious. I don’t know what you were doing out here and I don’t expect you to tell me. But this is very dangerous. You need to hold it together.”

  Because I knew he had my best interests at heart, I simply nodded. “I’ll be careful, Jake. You have my word.”

  MY MIND WAS JUMBLED WITH POSSIBILITIES when we parked in front of Eliot’s shop. Sabrina had been quiet the entire ride back. I could tell she was conflicted. Part of me wondered if I should try to ease whatever worried her. The other part simply wanted to encourage the silence.

  “What now?” she asked at the sidewalk. “Are we giving up?”

  “True journalists never give up.”

  “You heard Sheriff Farrell.” Her voice ratcheted up a notch. “He said it wasn’t safe.”

  “Believe it or not, he’s warned me about imminent death a time or two.”

  “Yes, well, you’re not the only one involved in this case.”

  I rolled my neck and stared at the sky, considering. “Do you still want to be a member of the team?”

  “You can’t just abandon me. We had a deal. I gave you Ruth Shepperly. In exchange, you’re supposed to keep me with you all day.”

  “Yes, but that was before I knew how things would go.” I opted to approach her honestly, hoping against hope that she would recognize the truth in my eyes. “I need to go in there and have a talk with Eliot. It’s going to involve private matters, so you can’t be present.”

  Her eyes narrowed to suspicious
slits. “What sort of private matters?”

  “The sort that has nothing to do with this case and everything to do with emotions and other torturous things that I would rather not deal with.”

  “Oh.” She solemnly nodded. “You think he’s going to be angry you didn’t call.”

  “Among other things.”

  “Well, I guess I can wait out here. Your relationship is obviously important.”

  “Yeah, and I’m not even sure how it happened.” I was talking to myself more than her. “One minute I was perfectly happy being the only person of consequence in my universe. Now I have him ... and a cat ... and I actually talk about feelings and stuff. It’s absurd.”

  “Sounds normal to me.”

  “Yeah, well ....” I drew in a breath to center myself. “You’re you and I’m me. As for what I’m going to do, I need to talk to Eliot ... and there’s likely an argument coming. You can either sit out here and freeze to death or try another solo assignment.”

  Sabrina was back to being suspicious. “You’re going to dump me.”

  “I’m going to trust you to track down information on your own.”

  “What sort of information?”

  “I need you to go to the county building and request information on their community service details. I need both county and state lists.”

  “Why is that important?”

  “Because Ray had community service boots. So did Ruth.”

  Sabrina’s eyes widened to comic proportions. “What do you mean?”

  “I saw the boots next to the door when she let us into her house. I didn’t think much of them — they’re just rubber boots — but they seemed off. I don’t know a woman who would buy those boots. There’s no color to them.

  “Then I saw the same boots in Ray’s garage,” I continued. “I want to know why Ruth had those boots.”

  Sabrina was suddenly all for the assignment. “Do you think she’s part of this?”

  “I don’t know. I think she was holding back. It’s possible she was holding back about Cal. Maybe those weren’t her boots at all. Maybe they were his boots and she’s seen him more recently than she said.”

  “Oh.” Realization dawned on my sidekick. “You think she’s embarrassed, that the reason she never divorced Cal is because she’s still in love with him.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” I admitted. “Sometimes people crawl into your heart and refuse to leave. Ruth fell in love with a weak man who turned into a bad man. Maybe she couldn’t get over that love no matter how hard she tried.”

  “What if Cal isn’t on the community service sheets?” Sabrina asked. “What if Ruth was serving the community?”

  “Then we’ll be dealing with a whole other problem, which is one of the things I need to talk to Eliot about. Can you handle your assignment?”

  “Absolutely. This is the sort of stuff I live for.”

  I almost laughed at her earnest response. “See what you can dig up. I’ll be available by phone. Once I’m done with this, we’ll see where we land.”

  I froze when she threw her arms around me for a tight hug. “We really are a team, aren’t we?”

  “Not for long if you keep doing that.”

  “Oh, right.” She was solemn when she pulled away, but she couldn’t hide her smile for long. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  26 Twenty-Six

  Mario was the first one I saw when I walked through the door. He looked downtrodden.

  “Where’s your friend?”

  “Looking up some information.” I slid my eyes to Eliot’s office door, which was open, but he didn’t come through it to greet me, which was his normal way. “How angry is he?”

  Mario shrugged. “I think he’s more worried than mad. He’ll probably forgive you if you strip naked and dance to the piña colada song.”

  I shot him a dirty look. “That’s really gross. I’m your cousin.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to see you naked. I just think that would be a sexy way to make him forgive you.”

  I could take only so much. “Just ... do whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.” I trudged toward the office. “If you hear us arguing, don’t interrupt. I think this one is going to be a doozy.”

  “And I think you tend to overreact. It will be fine.”

  If he believed that, he clearly didn’t know Eliot.

  I didn’t bother knocking. Really, what was the point? I slipped through the door, quietly shut it, and waited for Eliot to look up. In addition to being strong and silent when he wanted to, he was also unbelievably stubborn. He kept his eyes on his computer.

  “I saw Jake,” I announced.

  He merely grunted in response.

  “I know you saw him too.”

  Still nothing. He refused to look at me.

  “Did he tell you why he wanted to see me?”

  “He did.” Eliot’s tone was clipped.

  “What do you think of the news?”

  “I think it makes sense that we’re dealing with more than one person. There’s no way one person could keep five men stationary once bullets started flying.”

  I sank into one of the chairs across from his desk. “I didn’t see Ray.”

  “Do you want me to say I’m sorry about that?”

  “No. I do want to apologize for not texting. I got distracted.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “That’s not really a good excuse. I know that. It’s just ... I did something stupid and forgot to text. I’m sorry.”

  “Do I even want to know what stupid thing you did?”

  “No, but I’m going to tell you. Things are coming together, but not in the way I expected.”

  He leaned back in his chair, linked his fingers on his stomach, and waited.

  “I broke into Ray’s yard. He had a privacy fence with a gate. I picked the lock and walked right in.”

  I expected him to explode. Heck, I was hoping for it. If he could get it all out of his system at once it would be better for both of us. Instead, he remained unmoved.

  “The yard is pretty much what you would expect,” I continued. “It’s a big trash heap. He has a detached garage. The door was open, so I looked inside.”

  He didn’t as much as twitch a muscle.

  “I didn’t go inside, other than right by the door,” I offered hopefully. “He had one of those sticks you use to pick up trash, and a pair of rubber boots issued by the county. The ones you pull over regular shoes that keep your feet dry.”

  His eyes lit with intrigue. “I didn’t know Ray was on the hook for anything of late.”

  “It’s possible he kept the equipment from a previous sentence, but that seems unlikely. I’m pretty sure you have to turn that stuff in, or pay for it if you don’t, when you finish your sentence. I don’t know anyone who would want to keep those boots.”

  “That means he was performing community service recently.” Eliot rubbed his chin. “That’s ... interesting. I don’t know how that helps you with your story, though.”

  The fact that he was talking to me at all — no temper tantrums — was a good thing and I ran with it. “That’s not all. When I was at Ruth Shepperly’s house, I saw the same type of boots in her foyer. Once I saw the raised seal on Ray’s boots, it became clearer.”

  “Wait ... are you saying you think Ruth is part of this?”

  “I think it’s entirely possible. She was holding back a bit. I thought she was just leaving out the embarrassing stuff about her relationship with Cal because she didn’t want to admit she was in love with a drug addict. But I think there might be more to it.”

  “Such as?”

  “What if she was still involved with Cal? What if she was involved in all of this because he got her involved? The fact that she’s never divorced him is strange. If she was really over him, wouldn’t she have walked away?”

  Eliot held out his hands. “I can’t say. Love does strange things to a person.”

 
I sensed danger. “Yeah. It makes you do wonky stuff.”

  “It tends to make me crazy.”

  I tentatively met his gaze and found amusement rather than fury. I was confused. “Wait ... you’re not angry?”

  “I’m not happy, Avery. I asked one thing of you.”

  “I know. I got distracted. I’m sorry.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that something could’ve happened to you out there and I wouldn’t have known because you didn’t stick with the plan. All you had to do was text every ten minutes. I would’ve accepted dirty texts or even a random emoji.”

  “Like an eggplant?”

  His eyes fired. “I just want you to be safe and not do anything stupid.”

  “I was perfectly safe.”

  “You just told me you broke into a potential murderer’s yard and wandered into his garage.”

  “I was barely in his garage. There was no way I was going in any farther because I’m sure rats live in there. And not the cute ones you see at the pet store. The big ones that run off with small dogs in their jaws.”

  That cajoled a smile out of him. “You are ... unbelievable.” He shook his head. “Next time, keep your promise to text.”

  “I will, at least to the best of my ability. It’s not as if I did it on purpose. I had the best of intentions.”

  “You always do.”

  We both knew that wasn’t true. “Not always,” I countered. “I did today. That should count. I mean ... I should get partial credit.”

  “You’re not being graded.”

  “You can totally grade me if you want.” I moved out of my chair and crossed to him, shoving his arms away so I could sit on his lap. He wrapped himself around me as I settled. “I really didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I know.” He rested his chin on my shoulder. “I was worried. I wanted to go after you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Because I knew it would drive you crazy.”

  “Kind of like I drive you crazy.”

  “You definitely drive me crazy.” He brushed his lips against my cheek. “I don’t want to argue. You’re okay. You have a new hunch.”