Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  Somebody must have seen something.

  *****

  Mia drove to her mother’s house to pick up a few more of Dave’s outfits for Jack.

  What was his problem last night? Was it just being upset about the arson and José? Then why did it feel somehow personal?

  Here they were living together—just one short hallway separating them, eating their meals together, picking up the condo together—and he acts like he can’t bear to be in the same room with me. What is the damn deal?

  Right after they’d solved Dave’s murder, Mia was sure he was up for the two of them getting together but somehow nothing happened. If he’d decided against the idea, he certainly never said anything to her.

  And now, watching TV with him at night, saying goodnight in the hallway and waking up to matching mugs of coffee in the breakfast room…well, it was all just about the most awkward scenario imaginable.

  Before she turned onto Peachtree Industrial, her phone rang and she grabbed it from the console thinking it might be Jack.

  Whoa, girl, slow down, she chided herself. If he’d wanted to gush sweet nothings in your direction, he had all of last night to do it. The screen said Unknown Caller.

  “Hello? This is Mia.”

  “Hi, Mia, this is Ben. Do you remember? The nurse at Grady?”

  Mia relaxed. She couldn’t wait to tell Ned.

  “Hey, Ben. Of course I remember. I’m glad you called.”

  “How’s your friend doing? No ill effects?’

  “No, he’s fine. At least physically, anyway.”

  “Well, that’s pretty rough having your house burn down with you in it. I’d probably be in major therapy if it happened to me. I mean, all your stuff? I’ve got a Spiderman Comics collection that I’ve had since I was a kid. And now I am officially rambling…”

  Mia laughed. “No, I know what you mean,” she said. “If my house burned down and I lost every memento of my dad and my brother, not to mention all the photos of my childhood, it would kill me.”

  “I know, right?”

  “But Jack isn’t sentimental like most people. Not that it wasn’t horrible for him, especially with José dying.”

  “God, how do people get over stuff like that? I think I’d be haunted forever. But you said he wasn’t a good friend? José, I mean?”

  “No, we’d just met him that night.”

  “But still.”

  “I know.” Mia pulled into her mother’s driveway and turned off the car. Jess’s car wasn’t there and she tried to remember where her mother said she’d be this morning.

  She heard Ben take in a quick intake of breath as if about to take a plunge underwater. She smiled. He was going to ask her out.

  “So anyway, I was wondering…and I know this is kind of sudden but I was hoping or rather thinking that we might, you know, go out some time for a cup of coffee or maybe dinner. I suppose you’re busy. Or, God, you probably have a boyfriend…”

  Mia laughed again. “No, I don’t have a boyfriend and I’d love to go out with you.”

  “You would? That’s great!”

  Mia could practically see the big goofy grin coming through over the phone line.

  Why shouldn’t she date? Jack was clearly not interested.

  “Absolutely. Where and when?”

  “Is today too soon? It’s just that I have to work at the hospital the rest of the week and I’m on-call for the weekend—”

  “Today’s great. How about the Starbucks in Midtown. Do you know it?”

  “I do.” She could feel his excitement and it gave her a flutter of pleasure. It’s nice to be desired.

  “Say three o’clock?” she said.

  “That’s perfect. See you then, Mia,” he said.

  And he even knows how to pronounce my name correctly, she thought with a smile.

  “Until three,” she said, disconnecting. She sat for a moment in the quiet of her car and let the pleasant thrill of the conversation settle around her.

  Wait ‘til I tell Ned, she thought as she exited the car. It was unseasonably warm for Atlanta in January but she was still grateful for the barn jacket she’d worn. She’d wrapped a short scarf around her neck but wore the jacket unbuttoned as she jogged to the garage door and flipped open the lid on the entry keypad.

  She remembered her mother saying she was staying over at Maxwell’s last night. As Mia stood waiting for the garage door to go up, she thought she just might get used to the idea of her mother dating the chief deputy. They did seem to get along well. And Bill definitely had the whole moon-eyes thing going on every time Jess walked in the room. Mia grinned at the image and bent over to slip into the garage before the door was completely up.

  The minute she did, she felt hard hands grabbing her around the middle and wrenching her off her feet.

  5

  Terror vied with a racing heartbeat as Mia pried at the hands dragging her into the interior of the garage. The man was large. He was carrying her toward the kitchen door where the button to bring the garage door back down was located on the wall.

  Even in her terror and disjointed panic, Mia knew if he managed to get the door closed, it was all over for her.

  She could hear he was speaking to her but the rush of fear and the pounding of the blood in her ears made what he was saying indecipherable. He was moving quickly now to close the distance from the outside and the kitchen door.

  He dragged her past her childhood bicycle, the recycle bins Jess kept forgetting to put out, the fertilizer spreader they bought but never used, the garden hoe…he was nearly at the garage door closer now. He’d reach it any second now just by stretching out an arm…

  When she felt him shift her weight in order to make the reach, she wriggled out of her jacket and whirled around, lashing out a hand to grab the hoe by feel. He was big but thin. He had busy eyebrows that made his face look dark and almost cartoon-sinister but it was the surprise at her escape that she saw registered on his face that gave her the advantage.

  “Bien, perra,” he snarled, looking at her and then glancing away to his original goal, the garage door access panel hanging by the door to the kitchen.

  That glance away was all she needed. With both hands, Mia swung the hoe at guy’s head. It connected with a thud and a roar. She released the hoe and scrambled for her jacket at his feet. He grabbed his ear where she’d hit him but lurched in her direction, reaching out with his free hand. Mia felt him grab her hair and lift her into the air as shards of pain screamed into all her nerve centers. He shook her in fury before turning again toward the garage door access panel.

  Blocking out the agony of his hands knotted in her hair, Mia plunged her fingers into the pocket of her jacket until she found her keys. She jabbed the panic button on the key fob and heard her car erupt into piercing wails of alarm. He stopped as if unsure of how to react and she yanked her hand free of the pocket, the keys in her fist, and jammed them once, twice, then three times into his face—hoping, praying to hit his eyes.

  “Joderla madre que te parió!”

  He flung her to the floor and she crawled away from him. He stood over her, hopping up and down in pain, his hands covering his face. She could see the blood streaming down his cheeks from between his fingers.

  “Puta madre!” he screamed and then plunged out of the garage into the daylight.

  Mia ran to her car and wrenched open the driver’s side door, looking around her to see which way he’d gone. He was nowhere in sight. She jerked open the glove box and grabbed her Glock.

  *****

  Jack stood on the porch of the house directly across from where his house used to be. He’d started his search where the road began to curve. He figured if anybody saw anything, it would be because they noticed the same car driving up and down the street—which they would do if they were trying to decide what was happening at Jack’s place.

  So far, nobody had seen squat.

  The door opened and Andre Jeffers stood on the threshold. Jack
forgot how old Andre was but he looked to be at least ninety. Like everybody else he’d talked to today, this was probably going to be a waste of time.

  “Hey, Andre.”

  “Jack! My goodness, man, how are you? Come in, come in.”

  Jack saw that the old fellow had a walker behind him, which would account for the length of time it took him to get to the front door.

  “No, that’s okay,” Jack said. “I was just hoping you maybe saw something last night, you know…”

  “Shit on a shingle, man! So it was arson? I knew it! I told Angela…do you remember my wife, Angela? I told Angela, there’s no way a homicide detective’s house just burns down. Do you have any leads?”

  Jack nearly grinned. “Well, not really. That’s why I’m on your doorstep, Andre. I’m hoping to find someone who saw something I can go after, you know?”

  Andre frowned as if in deep thought and Jack could see he was about to shake his head when Jack said, “It can be anything at all. Just something unusual you noticed. You don’t have to have seen a guy on his hands and knees lighting a match.”

  Andre tapped his bottom lip with a long gnarly finger. “Unusual like a pick-up truck in need of a muffler driving by your place around eight o’clock last night?”

  Jack felt a shiver of excitement.

  Had Andre seen the killers?

  “You saw a pick-up truck on the street last night? Can you describe it?”

  “Not really. It was dark and I had the TV set on. They just introduced all the new players on Dancing with the Stars. You ever watch that show? Normally I wouldn’t but Angela just loves it.”

  “It comes on at eight o’clock?”

  “That’s how I know the time of it. It was a blue Ford, not very new, maybe late nineties. Two guys in the front. Nothing in the back that I could see.”

  “Can you describe the guys?”

  “You really think they might’ve been the ones set a light to your place? Damnation, I wish now I’d called the cops. I told Angela it was damn strange them driving down the street so many times. At least twice. I thought they were looking to break in here. You know I’ve got that collection of Limoges china. Well, I imagine everyone on the street knows.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “One white guy, one not.” Andre screwed up his face and looked into the sky as if trying to re-visualize the truck and its occupants.

  “You mean a black guy? African-American?”

  Andre gave a snort of derision at the term and Jack reminded himself again to be patient with the old guy. “No, maybe Mexican? Come to think of it, they weren’t looking at my place. You think they’re the ones? Oh! There was a big dark rectangle on the side of the truck. I remember that.”

  “You mean like a logo of some kind?”

  “No, no, like there’d been one of them magnetic signs on the truck but not any more.”

  “So, maybe like a company truck of some kind.”

  “Yeah, maybe. You sure you don’t want to come in, Jack? Angela made cookies. Where are you living? You going to rebuild? I have a grandson who used to be a builder before the recession. He freelances now. You want me to get his number?”

  Jack turned to look at the blackened scar that used to be his landscaped front yard. A white guy and an Hispanic in an old blue pick-up truck. His phone began to vibrate in his pocket as he turned back to Andre. It was Jess.

  “Thanks, Andre. You’ve been a big help. Give my best to Angela,” he said as he accepted the phone call. “Hey, Jess. What’s up?”

  *****

  “Why does this always happen to you? I’m just curious.”

  Chief Detective Maxwell stood in Jess’s kitchen, his hands on his hips, looking at Mia as she demurely sipped a cup of coffee at the kitchen table.

  “What are you implying, Chief?” Mia said. She’d gotten her shaking under control before the cops arrived but she had a feeling it could start up again at any moment.

  “Now, dear,” Jess said, patting Mia’s hand, “we’re all just upset, that’s all.”

  Mia caught her mother giving Maxwell a meaningful look and he shrugged and went to look out the kitchen window.

  “Burton’s here,” he said casually.

  Mia turned in time to see Jack burst through the front door without knocking. He was in the kitchen in four strides, his face flushed with worry.

  “What happened?” he asked, looking only at Mia.

  “The guy was waiting for her,” Maxwell said.

  Jack pulled up a chair and sat next to Mia. “What guy?”

  “I don’t know,” Mia said. “He was Mexican and extremely ugly and hadn’t had a bath this year.”

  One of the detectives stepped into the living room and called to Maxwell who left the room.

  “Walk me through what happened, please,” Jack said patiently.

  “Can’t I do that tonight?” Mia was starting to realize she was tired. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to talk it to death over the next few hours.”

  “She’s quite upset, Jack,” Jess said with the closest thing to an admonishment as Mia had ever heard her mother give. “What with poor José and the house fire and now this. Darling, are you sure you don’t want Bill and I to take you to St-Joe’s? You’ve had quite an experience.”

  As soon as her mother mentioned St-Joseph’s Hospital, Mia remembered with a start her coffee date with Ben. She twisted around to see the clock in the kitchen. It was nearly three o’clock. She sighed. It was probably just as well.

  “I need to make a call,” she said. “I left my phone in the car.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Jack said, standing up.

  “No, stay here. It’s…it’s a personal call.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Well, you stay here and my mom will explain it to you,” Mia said, feeling an growing pique with him. If he’d been with her today none of this would have happened. She stood and left the kitchen without another word.

  Jack turned to Jess and felt his emotions tumbling over him like a cascading drape of twisting serpents. “She was attacked by some guy waiting in your garage?”

  Jess nodded and Jack saw how hard she was trying to keep it together.

  “Who is this mysterious guy she’s calling?”

  Jess frowned and stood up, taking two empty coffee cups with her to the sink. “What makes you think it’s a man?”

  “Why else would she want to talk in private? Maxwell told me about the guy she’s seeing out at the barn.”

  “Well, I wish he wouldn’t have done that. It’s Mia’s private affair.”

  Jack cringed at Jess’s choice of words.

  “Besides,” Jess said, “she probably just wants to talk to him and tell him what happened.”

  As opposed to telling me, who she just brushed off with a I’ll-tell-you-later line.

  Jess put out a hand to stop Jack as he was leaving. He looked at her expectedly.

  “Jack, I want to thank you for honoring my request not to date Mia.”

  “I still have no idea why that’s necessary.”

  “As I said before, I believe she’s only just getting a handle on controlling her gift and a relationship of a sexual nature could easily derail those efforts.”

  “Looks like she’s doing just fine with Barn Boy,” he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  “Well, I can’t do anything about that,” Jess said.

  No, but me you can get to jump through all your flaming hoops.

  When he didn’t speak, she said. “I don’t know what’s going on with her and this young man at the barn, but it doesn’t feel serious to me. Not like what I picked up from her toward you.”

  Jack was in the processing of going into the living room when he stopped and did a slow turn. “She’s into me?”

  “I hope that doesn’t encourage you to do the exact opposite of what I’ve asked of you,” Jess said. She stood in her kitchen, her arms wra
pped around her waist protectively. Almost as if she were holding and guarding her precious daughter.

  He hesitated. “No,” he said. “I promised I wouldn’t.” He turned to go into the living room where Maxwell was talking with both detectives.

  “Well?” he said. “What did you find out?”

  The detectives, neither of whom Jack knew, looked surprised that he would expect to get information from them on an ongoing investigation but before they could respond, Maxwell released them and turned to Jack. He pulled him outside onto the front porch. Jack could see Mia sitting in her car talking on the phone and he felt a rush of jealousy.

  “There’s not much to know at this point,” Maxwell said. “Mia said the guy ran out of the garage and disappeared and we found some evidence that he’d broken through the bushes that line the driveway. We lost his tracks once he got to Peachtree Industrial so he either had a car parked in one of the businesses up there or somebody was waiting for him.”

  Jack shook his head, forcing himself to stop staring at Mia. She was talking with her hands and he saw she was smiling.

  Got over the trauma of being attacked pretty damn easily.

  “So what was it? She interrupted a home invasion?” he asked Maxwell.

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “Well, what did Mia say about him?”

  Maxwell shrugged. “Just that he was foreign, cussed at her in Spanish, had bushy eyebrows and had been around chickens recently.”

  “Chickens?”

  “Yeah. Not much to go on.”

  “That’s all she came up with? He manhandled her and that’s all she had?”

  Maxwell snorted. “Well, there was the other thing.”

  “What other thing?”

  “She said she could tell by the feel of his hands on her…well, I told my team not to report it because it was nuts.”

  “May I hear what it was?” Jack said, compressing his lips.

  “She said she could tell the guy had recently killed someone.”

  *****

  The days passed quietly. Maria slept in the big bedroom with Carina. He was well pleased with her and sought her company morning and night. When she emerged into the house, exhausted and foggy headed as if she could not clear her mind to think straight, one of the women made her breakfast while another slipped into her room to clean and straighten it.