Checked Out (A Ricki Rydell Mystery Book 1)

by Abby Matthews

  “Because I specifically asked him to do something and he went against my wishes. It’s as simple as that. I expect some level of obedience and respect. Now, that’s all I have to say about the issue. I highly recommend you start picking your books up at the other branch across town. It’s a smaller library, but it’ll serve your needs quite sufficiently. You might have to put a few more things on hold than usual because their collection is smaller, but I think it would serve everyone if you respected my wishes. That will be all. Thank you.”

  Victoria shot up out of the chair and stared down at a baffled Ricki. That was her cue to get up and leave the office. But she wasn’t going to go until she put her final word in. “Don’t fire Jon because of me. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s a good egg. I was the one at fault.”

  “I’ll take your recommendation into consideration.” And those were Felicity’s last words. Victoria didn’t bother saying another word to her either. Instead, she waltzed her right out the door without a thank you or a goodbye or I’m sorry. It was pretty much here’s your hat, what’s your hurry? But on the way out through the maze of desks, Ricki noticed something she failed to see when she passed through the first time—probably because she was distracted by the feeling of impending doom. Jennifer’s desk was completely cleared off. No pictures on the wall, no papers on the desk, no book truck filled with books, not even a single paper clip. Just a computer, keyboard, mouse, and phone. She filed that away in her brain.

  Inside her car, windows up, heat smothering her, she waited for all of this the sink in. She had very few jobs in her life, mostly fast food jobs when she was in high school before her career took off. She never experienced being fired from a paying job, but here she was being fired from a volunteer position. Who could say that? Yay. Congratulations, Ricki Rydell, you’ve just been humiliated in the second worst possible way. The first, of course, her ex-boyfriend Marty leaving her for a woman in Chicago.

  What would her family say when they found out? She could already hear her brother pointing his finger and laughing at her. Her dad would definitely get a good hearty chuckle out of this. It would be a story he could tell his friends when they got together for coffee.

  As she drove back home to her beloved dog, who she knew would not ridicule her or laugh at her for being fired from a volunteer position, she realized what she had done. It was quite stupid. She put Jon’s job on the line, and she had done something she had never done in her life before: manipulated somebody. She hated when people did that to her. Charming people who tried to smooth you over with their words just so they could talk you into something you didn’t want to do always rubbed her the wrong way. And she did it to an unsuspecting young man who obviously had a hard time saying no to her. She felt horrible about herself. She was turning into a monster and all because she was bored.

  And if things couldn’t get any worse. She found Damon parked in her driveway.

  She pulled up next to his truck and tried to find words. Unfortunately, this time, they were there and they were plentiful. Maybe it was because the reality of what she had done, which was completely against her character, had sunk in and she was feeling pretty badly about herself, but she let those words spew out of her mouth before she could even stop them. “What are you doing here?” She didn’t want to be rude, but she was. She had a burr up her butt, and it was irritating her.

  Damon was a smart enough man to pick up on her bad attitude. “I just came over to talk, but I can see now is not a good time.”

  “It’s not. I just had a fight with someone and I need a moment to think.” She had to think of a better excuse than that. Something a little less defensive. “Besides, I have a deadline to meet. I’m right in the middle of reading something for work.”

  He fumbled with the keys in his pocket. “Well, when would be a good time?”

  “I’m not sure.” She had a feeling he was going to ask her out, and she wanted to let him down gently. “It might be a while.”

  “Maybe we could go out for coffee or drinks to get to know each other a little better.”

  “Like I said, it’s not a good time right now, so I’d appreciate it if you would take this as a final answer.”

  He blinked slowly, shot a quick smile, and got in his truck and left.

  Great. It seemed like she should have stayed in bed that day because half the town was already mad at her and it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

  Eleven

  Ricki locked herself in the house before she ripped anyone else’s head off and rolled it back out to them. Damon didn’t deserve to be treated so rudely. Even if he came over unannounced, she shouldn’t have taken her bad mood out on him.

  She threw herself on the floor and pouted. Not that she was prone to throwing a tantrum like a spoiled child, but with how the day had gone it seemed like a good time to throw a pity-party. She had manipulated a young man into letting her into the library so she could snoop. She got busted and fired from a volunteer position because of that. And now Jon’s job was on the line. Because she was in such a bad mood after all of that, she practically threw Damon Evers off her property before he even had a chance to say why he came to see her. All she needed was a rocking chair and a cane while she shook her fist at the sky, shouting, “Get off my lawn, you filthy kid.”

  Rumpus pounced on her, licking her face and nuzzling her neck with his wet nose. “I don’t deserve puppy licks.” She cradled her head in her arms. The weak attempt at blocking him only encouraged him to try harder. He continued with his antics before finally throwing his body on the floor, rolling on his back, making all sorts of grunting and slobbery noises. As cute as he was, she felt she didn’t deserve to be treated with such kindness from her dog. “I’m a big old meanie. I can’t believe I chased an old friend away. When Chris hears about this he’s going to be so angry at me. And when Mom finds out? No more pie for me.” Her mother would be so disappointed if she knew how rude her daughter was to Damon. Her father would only shrug and tell her to move on.

  So the day couldn’t get any worse, she decided she might as well stay in and make the most of it. No more tantrum or pity-party. So what if she got let go as a volunteer? Whoopee. So what if she got short tempered with an old friend? Whoopee.

  She would have to apologize to Damon sooner or later and promised to do so when she was in a better mood. But how was she going to apologize to Jon when she wasn’t allowed in the library ever again?

  She had no idea what his financial situation was, if he was in college, if he was supporting himself by living in a small studio apartment that barely had any water or even a toilet. On top of that, she had done something that went against her nature. And that was the second thing that bothered her most.

  She pushed herself up to sitting and rested her head on her hand while she watched Rumpus roll around on the floor. She needed to distract herself from this self-flagellation and the only way to do it was to read Jennifer’s manuscript. If she were going to be a sleuth, she was going to have to pull herself out of this slump and get down to work. There were clues to find, a mystery to solve.

  She made a pot of coffee, extra strong, and took a frozen pastry out of the freezer. While it warmed in the toaster oven, she grabbed the honkin’ big three-ring binder with Jennifer’s book, a notebook and pen, and spread everything out on the table so she had room to think. As the coffee maker gurgled and sputtered, she thought back to what she had found while reading Jennifer’s masterpiece. Since she liked to break the fourth wall, Ricki assumed she did it on purpose. It came out of nowhere. It didn’t make sense. It had nothing to do with the story whatsoever, but it made a very specific statement. And they carried on as if nobody knew, but I knew, I knew everything, and now you know.

  In chapters four and six, she found more rogue statements. Jennifer was leaving messages in the even numbered chapters, and Ricki was just about to start chapter eight. She couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say in this one.

  With a fresh cup of coffee i
n her hand, and Rumpus busy chewing on a rawhide toy, she started to skim chapter eight to find clues, taking notes along the way.

  The book started with a prologue at a future time where the hero and heroine met at a political function. The two main characters were trying to be discreet, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Their feelings for each other had grown and their spouses were present at said function. The prologue was full of sexual and emotional tension. Then in the first chapter, Jennifer goes back in time where the couple had met for the very first time. Ricki gathered quickly that both of the main characters were important people—one a political figure, the other was someone in the public eye but without the clout of politics behind them. Both main characters were married, unhappily, with large families and both knew that if the relationship was ever made public a lot of people would get hurt. Their clandestine meetings involved some pretty kinky things, and Jennifer wasn’t shy about the details of their sexual escapades. And Ricki thought her books were full of the delightful naughty bits.

  That was where she had stopped, but this was also the place where things got interesting. There was a secondary character, a man named Jeff Bittner. J.B. How about that? And this Jeff character seemed to have found out, unsuspectingly, about the two main characters having an affair.

  Chapter eight, where the hero and heroine tell each other they love each other for the first time, was filled with all those Where have you been my whole life? and Why didn’t I meet you twenty years earlier? sentiments. While the couple whispered their discreet sweet nothings, they also spoke of caution. No one could learn of their affair. It would destroy their families and his political career. But so far, the suspense part of this romantic suspense hadn’t shown up. So far, it was nothing more than a sensationalized tell-all disguised as a love story. Whether or not Jennifer was really only writing a tabloid headliner or an actual story, Ricki had no way of knowing. But one thing she did know: there was a message buried within the story.

  Ricki skimmed ahead through to chapters ten, twelve, fourteen, and each even-numbered chapter. As she went through, she made a note of the aside that Jennifer left in the chapter. By this point, she figured she would just call them clues because that’s exactly what they were, and by the time she got to chapter twenty-six, the final chapter, she had a page full of scribbles.

  Jennifer was clever at hiding them. The final clue was at the start of the book in chapter two, leaving the very first clue at the end in chapter twenty-six. She tore the page out of the notebook and wrote the clues in order on a fresh page.

  If you’ve made it to the end of the book, you probably figured out the message I left behind. That is, if you’re smart. Although I don’t feel badly for what I am doing to the parties involved, if something happens to me you know where to look. I don’t trust them. Either one of them. Nobody should. I know I’m no angel, but at least I’m not a hypocrite like they are. If you go to the Starlite Motel off Highway 6, on every other Friday, you will see what I mean. To the public, they act as if they’re untouchable but sooner or later the truth will come out. This book is their tale, the truth as I know it, the truth they’re trying so hard to hide. But secrets have a way of coming to the surface. And they carried on as if nobody knew, but I knew, I knew everything, and now you know.

  Just as she was about to read the clues out loud to understand them better, her cellphone vibrated. It was her brother’s number flashing on the screen. She tapped a finger on the table, debating whether or not she wanted to take this call. Did she want to have to deal with her brother at that moment, considering it was probably about Damon? Not really. So not in the mood to be lectured about what she did when she was already having a bad day. She let the call go to voicemail. Then she remembered the pictures she had taken the day she manipulated Jon into letting her in the library. For a quick second, she cringed at the memory but let it go to get back to Jennifer’s clues.

  As she swiped through the pictures, she found it difficult to see the detail of Jennifer’s desk, so she connected her phone to her laptop and brought the pictures up on a large monitor. There might have been something she had missed. With the photos now a ginormous size, she examined each item on the desk with the scrutinizing eye of a scientist. Could a desk shed some light on a person’s personality?

  She felt she was getting to know Jennifer a bit better just by reading the book. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the Jeff Bittner in the story was actually Jennifer Barnes and that she knew the people she had written about intimately. She assumed it was a fictionalized real-life story and that Jennifer wrote it because she had something on them. Oh my God, she had something on them. What does a person do when they have something incriminating on another person, if they were criminally minded? They blackmail them. Blackmail would certainly explain Jennifer’s extravagant lifestyle.

  Funnily enough, blackmail was part of the story. It was hinted at, not really fleshed out as much is it could have been, but it was there. Maybe that was the suspense part of this so-called romantic suspense. Ricki made a note of it to get back to it at a later time, but for now she focused on the pictures.

  There wasn’t anything extraordinary about Jennifer’s desk. It was pretty much the standard messy office desk with the usual office thingies, including a couple of cute stuffed animals. She had the usual desk calendar, little drawers filled with paperclips and erasers and Post-it notes. She had a stack of folders with papers bursting out at the edges, a phone, her desktop computer along with a disgusting keyboard filled with breadcrumbs and stuff, a half a bottle of sports drink, a coffee cup with dried coffee at the bottom, and a jar of candy. Unfortunately, nothing jumped out at her. She printed out the pictures so she could study them more casually, maybe even show them to Becca for an objective opinion.

  She then clicked on the image for the book truck where, according to Jon, she was working on a side project. The book truck was filled with nonfiction titles that had no connection whatsoever one to the other, but all the call numbers were facing upward, making them easy to see.

  The first book on the left-hand side of the truck had a call number of 345.5 with the author’s last name starting with the letters BAI. The second book had the exact same numbers 345.5 but with different letters. The second author’s name was LEY. So 345.5 BAI, 345.5 LEY. So far, there wasn’t anything unusual about this. And then there was another book: 345.5 AVE. The other books: 204.596 with the author’s name LIN. The second book the same number with the author’s last name DEN. Third book, same number, author’s last name PLA. Another book, same number, CES.

  Since Jennifer left so many clues behind in the book, Ricki made a huge assumption she was doing it again with the books. But what did they mean? She’d have to work to solve this brainteaser. Her skin tingled. She shrugged to chase the chill away. Jennifer must have known something was about to happen to her, and she left a trail of clues behind to point to a possible culprit.

  She printed the pictures of the book truck off as well. By now, she had a list of clues from the book, a not so suspicious looking desk, and a bunch of call numbers that meant nothing to her so far.

  During the outlining phase of any book she wrote, she’d take index cards and write out the scenes she wanted and pinned them to an oversized corkboard. Because she was a visual person, she needed to see what the story was like on a larger scale before tackling it on a smaller scale. Since she was between books, and the corkboard was clear, she took the pictures and the list of strange clues she found in the book and pinned them to the corkboard. She stepped back and stroked her chin. The action was soothing and helped her think. Just then, her phone rang again. Another call from Chris. She still wasn’t ready to speak with him yet, so she let it go to voicemail a second time. But just as she was about to make an observation about one of the clues, the phone buzzed again. This time, however, it was a text message. Again from Chris. It read: You’re not going to believe what happened.

  This may have been
a ploy to get her to call just so her brother could lecture her about how rude she was to Damon, but she wasn’t about to fall for it. She texted back: What?

  As she rinsed her coffee cup out in the sink, a new text came in: Grace Rossini was taken into the police station for questioning.

  Twelve

  Grace1, taken in for questioning? What could she have possibly done to warrant this? Ricki was in shock, speechless, textless as it were—she didn’t even send her brother a reply text. The only connection Grace1 had to Jennifer was through her granddaughter Trina, but was that really enough for the police to question her? She hardly thought so. Unless Grace1 was hiding something. Only one person could possibly know. She called her mother.

  The phone rang and rang and rang. In the Rydell household, phones don’t go unanswered. For one, her mother thought it was rude not to at least answer. She was okay with politely hanging up on annoying telemarketers, but she always answered the phone. And for two, her father hated to hear the blasted thing ringing. So this was unusual. They could have been outside or something. She tried again. Still no answer.

  Impulsively, she jumped in her car and headed across town to Grace’s house. If anything, she could offer her condolences or whatever was offered when someone was taken in for questioning. It wasn’t the only reason she wanted to visit Grace1. She did have an ulterior motive. Ricki wanted to find out what was going on. This sleuthing was turning her into someone she didn’t recognize, someone who got involved with…people. It was also turning her into a pushy monster. She hated pushy people, and all of a sudden she was putting her nose in everyone’s business. She was so desperate for something new and different, she decided to become an amateur detective. And she had no idea what she was doing. Her brother was the one in law enforcement, not her.

  Her mother always told her never to go to someone’s house empty-handed, but unfortunately, she wasn’t the one who had a knack for making pies. She marched up the steps and knocked on the door without an offering of food. Nobody answered the door. She knocked again. Again, no answer.