Tamping down his frustration over the lack of a solid lead and the peep show, Sam closed the notebook. A church packed with people and no one saw anything useful.
“If you think of anything else, here’s my card.” He handed one over and headed for the door. The particle board panel swung open, almost hitting him in the face. He grabbed the door.
Crime tech Wade Collins stepped in. “Sorry.” He nodded at Jess when Sam introduced them, then turned his back to her. “Detective, I need to show you something,” he said softly.
Sam glanced back at Jess. Curiosity was clear in her unusual purple-ish eyes. Before she could ask questions, he nudged Wade out and closed the door behind them. “What it is?”
“I found evidence outside,” Wade said and headed off.
They were about five feet away when the door jerked open and hurried footsteps fell into line behind them. Wade looked back. If she was anything like Summer, she’d probably been listening with her ear to the door.
“She’s following us,” the tech said.
“I know,” Sam replied and kept going. “Ignore her and maybe she’ll go away.”
“I can hear you.”
Sam ran over the dealings he’d had with Summer and now Jess, and realized she wasn’t about to be shaken off. He could have her arrested for interfering with an investigation. But he knew that like a fly at a picnic, as soon as she was released, she’d be back to stick her face in his potato salad, or in this case, his investigation.
Brash & Brazen were the pit bulls of the PI trade. That’s what made them successful in the three short years since they opened their doors. And what frustrated real detectives.
So he’d let her have this one thing and that would be the end of it. She couldn’t force him to work with her.
They followed Wade outside. He walked to a pair of large maple trees flanked by a circle of matching bushes with red berries.
Wade broke through the bush ring and pointed up into the leafy canopy. “Have a look.”
It had been some years since Sam last climbed a tree, but he still remembered how. He shucked out of his coat and laid it over the nearest bush as the tech explained. “We think the sniper took the shot from here. We found evidence that leads to that conclusion.”
Wade was excellent at his job so Sam climbed. There was a crook in the tree about fifteen feet up and signs of evidence collection, bark scrapings, and missing leaves. It was a perfect place to take a shot into the church.
Wade had placed a scope between two branches and aimed at the church. Sam took position and carefully looked through the scope. From there, he could see past the tall stained glass window through to the inside of the church to the aisle where Becky, Wade’s assistant, stood. She waved.
Jess was right. It was an almost impossible shot.
“Whoever made the shot was good,” Sam said. “There was little room for error.”
He climbed back down.
“Let me see.” Jess was up the tree before he could react, took a look, and climbed back down. “Yep, the guy had skills,” she agreed without adding I told you so.
“It gets better,” Wade said, and back into the church they went, passing several wedding goers coming out. Nodding, the tech led them down the aisle to Becky. The cheerful and pretty assistant smiled up at Sam with a hungry expression. From previous dealings, Sam knew she was sporting a crush, but the girl was barely twenty and much too young for him.
He glanced at Jess. She was scanning the room. The woman wasn’t to his taste, even though he was still thinking of her tight little butt. He liked his women less, well, less irritating for starters.
Wade stopped before the blood spot where Tom had dropped and Becky moved to the left. “Okay,” he said. “I’m groomsman number three and two was there.” He pointed at the spot. “Becky is bridesmaid number two, there.”
Sam and Jess nodded. Wade went on. “Ms. Lucas, if you could take your position beside me.” Jess stepped over. The twos and threes were spaced about six feet apart. “So this was where everyone was when the shot rang out, correct?”
Jess started to nod, then froze. “No, this isn’t right.” She took several steps forward. “The flower girl dropped her basket when Darren burst through the doors and it started a chain reaction. Dodger and I were confused by the commotion and almost piled up on Tom and Shelby. That’s when the shot sounded…”
Her face went white when her last sentence trailed off.
Sam walked forward, looked out the window and back, positioning himself in a rough estimate of the trajectory of the bullet’s path. Shit. He stared into Jess’s eyes. “Had the flower girl not dropped the basket and stopped the bridal party, that bullet would have hit you.”
* * *
Sensing where this was going, Jess shook her head before the words were fully out. “You don’t know that. The sniper could have been aiming at Tom, or any of the other bridal party members. Just because I may have been hit if we hadn’t stopped walking doesn’t mean I was the target.”
“She’s right,” Wade said politely, although he appeared to be on team Wheeler. Becky, staring at the detective like he was covered in melted fudge, was already on board with his conclusion. She nodded, grinning at his brilliance.
“If the sniper was a professional,” Jess said, stressing if. She wasn’t convinced at all. “A trained assassin wouldn’t have missed, despite the pile-up. He would have tried again on another day. I still think Tom’s closet needs to be checked for skeletons before you paint the target on my chest.”
Did the detective just glance at said chest?
Jess let it go.
The notion that she was targeted for assassination was absurd. Yes, she’d worked some cases where the cheating wife or husband was crazy, or some low-level felon was ticked off at getting caught, but there were none she suspected were angry enough to want to kill her.
She glanced around. “I’d check for a connection between Tom and the bride. She does get around.”
Three pairs of eyes locked on to her. She took a second glance around the room. No one from the bridal party remained nearby. She didn’t want to get caught gossiping.
“Last night she had a three-way with the father of the groom and his girlfriend. She also slept with Dodger. There are a lot of potential angry exes. And don’t forget Darren. He stopped the wedding. He could be working with someone to take out the groom.”
“The groom wasn’t in the line of fire,” Wheeler reminded her. She waved him off.
“Yes, but if Darren wanted to stop the wedding without actually offing the groom, he succeeded brilliantly. Mandy is not married.”
She didn’t think that Darren had the stones to plan anything this diabolical, but she had to turn the spotlight off herself until she could get to the office and lay the case out. After all, she hadn’t seen Darren in years. If he was still hanging on to Mandy, he had misfiring brain circuits.
Detective Sam Wheeler pulled out his notebook and stared. “Can you confirm any of these charges?”
Good. He was off her. “Dodger told me about the cheating. Tall. Orange tan.” How had she ever considered Dodger as a potential sex partner? He paled—no pun intended—next to the good detective. Ugh.
At least Dodger wasn’t cranky.
“I’ll talk to him.” He glanced back at the broken window. Angels were playing harps. “Two targets we can rule out are the bride or groom. He was already at the altar and she was still in the vestibule before the shooting.” He glanced back at Jess. “Thanks for the tips, but be careful. I still think you’re in danger.”
He wandered off while the techs returned to taking measurements and collecting evidence.
Jess took this as a dismissal. Fine. She went back to the bride’s room, collected her stuff, and grumbled about irritating detectives. The wedding hadn’t gone as expected, but it had been memorable.
In the wrong way. She could have gone her whole life
having not met Wheeler and counted herself lucky. Now they were interlocked through the case. Chances they’d see each other again were very high.
“Great.”
She called Dodger, who’d given her his number before he headed to the hospital, and he told her that Tom was in surgery. On a positive note, the doc said he’d recover. The bullet had gone in, bounced off his clavicle, and then took a southern path into his back muscle. It avoided anything potentially fatal.
Tom was lucky.
They all were, possibly her most of all. She might not believe she was targeted, but until they found a better candidate, she couldn’t rule herself out, no matter what she told the irritating detective.
As she stood in the doorway, taking a minute to solidify the clues in her head, the door opened behind her and Wheeler walked out. Seeing her, he paused as he passed. Frustration lined his face as if reading her thoughts.
“Hey, Brash Girl,” he said. “Stay out of my case.”
Anger prickled down her spine. So much for professional courtesy. Just as he hit the sidewalk, she found her voice and called after him, “Not a chance!”
He kept walking.
Jess loped to her SUV and slammed the door closed behind her. After banging her palms on the steering wheel several times and getting no satisfaction, she reached under the back seat and pulled out her sewing bag. Jerking the crochet needles and her current project out of the bag, she clacked the needles loudly together in the enclosed space and released her frustration for the next fifteen minutes over one too handsome and infuriating detective.
Chapter Four
“How’s your knee?” Jess asked as she joined Taryn in her living room early Monday morning. After a night of therapeutic knitting—thanks to the teachings of her late Grandma Suzanne—she still had a lot of lingering stress and needed a friend fix. Rick was at work so the women were alone. Mostly. A pair of kittens played behind the curtains. “I can’t believe Summer talked you into taking two of those furballs.”
Taryn had sprained her knee during a stakeout after chasing three auto-parts thieves out of a salvage yard. She’d tripped over a sweet-tempered Basset hound that moonlighted—unsuccessfully—as a guard dog, and twisted her leg, all while managing to get photographic evidence to nail the criminally inclined trio.
“I’m doing well.” She adjusted her leg on the coffee table. “And if I hadn’t taken Peanut and Butter, Gretchen would have taken four and she’s already racing toward crazy cat lady at a rapid clip. Six cats are over the top.”
“Peanut and Butter?”
“Rick named them. He thinks he’s funny.”
One of the kittens—the orange and white one—was halfway up the curtain before turning and leap-falling back to the floor. Both women smiled. The little felines were very cute.
“So what’s up?” Taryn said. “You look stressed.”
“You could say that. Mandy’s wedding went sideways in a big way.” She told her about the shooting, Darren, and the Ann Arbor detective. She left out the handsome part, but left in all the reasons she disliked him. “Wheeler thinks I was the target and not Tom because of bridal party placement in line.”
“Why?” Shocked, Taryn hung on every word. “We don’t exactly move in dangerous circles.”
“That’s what I said.” Jess sighed. “But when the flower girl dropped her flowers as Darren started shouting, the procession stopped short. If that hadn’t happened, I might have been hit.”
“Or that Tom person was the target all along.”
Ever since Wheeler put the thought in her head, she’d been unable to shake the notion that he could be right. But who would want to shoot her? “Again, that’s what I told Mr. Know-it-all. I guess we’ll find out once we solve the case.”
“It sounds like you and the detective have some sparks going.” Taryn lifted a brow. “Is he hot?”
Jess scowled. “He is not hot.” Lie. She had to cut off any match-making at the knees. “The only sparks between us will be when I zap him with my Taser.”
Taryn fell silent and watched the kittens bat a toy mouse around. After a minute, she turned back. “What about Darren?”
“What about him?”
“Are there any lingering feelings?” Taryn and Summer knew all about her failed high school romance. Many nights of bonding over chocolate goodies and wine left little in their lives they didn’t share. “He was your first love and first heartbreak.”
Truthfully, she’d barely thought about her ex. The shooting was her focus. “Darren is dead to me. Not only did he damage my trust in men, but he’s still stuck on Mandy. Why in hell would I feel anything but the desire to back over him with my car?”
Taryn’s eyes danced. “I see. I’m relieved that you don’t harbor any negative emotions for the guy.”
Sounds of shuffling footsteps on the porch turned Taryn’s head toward the pair of windows in the front of the house. The lace sheers kept them from seeing out, but shadowy figures showed through.
“What’s that?” Jess asked.
“The boys.” The boys or Taryn’s boys were Taryn’s neighbors, college students who made life in a college town interesting with their mischief. “They’re loitering.”
“Okay. Why?”
“They think you’re hot and are waiting for you to come out so they can gawk.” She shrugged, then yelled, “Boys! Go home!”
“Awww!” came a loud chorus of voices. The footsteps shuffled off.
“I love those little buggers,” Taryn said. She wasn’t much older than the boys, but once they realized she wasn’t going to date any of them, she’d become a surrogate big sister to the lot. “They keep life fun.”
Taryn’s laptop pinged. She flipped it open and grinned. “Summer’s calling.” Jess sat down on the couch beside her while Taryn answered her Skype.
Summer’s tanned and smiling face appeared beneath a tangle of blond hair. A row of tropical flowers sat on a shelf on the wall behind her. She yawned and waved.
“Hi from Maui.” Summer wore a barely-there white nightgown and a shell necklace. “It’s supposed to be a beautiful eighty degrees today with no sign of rain.”
Summer did like her random facts.
“Isn’t it something like three a.m. there?” Taryn said.
“Hey, what are you doing calling us on your honeymoon?” Jess scolded. “Isn’t there a law against letting real life intrude? It should be all sex all the time.”
“Yeah,” Taryn interjected without letting Summer answer. “You should be rolling around naked in the sand with that hot husband of yours.”
“Are you in the bathroom?” Jess said, noticing that Summer was leaning back against what looked like a Jacuzzi tub. The flowers were on a shelf above it.
“Did that, and yes,” Summer cut in with a laugh. She glanced toward what Jess assumed was the bathroom door. “Jason is sleeping, and making love on the beach is fun while you’re doing it, but requires several showers afterward for sand removal.” She grinned and leaned in. “I’ve been taking a lot of showers.”
Jess and Taryn laughed. Summer was beaming. She told them about hikes to waterfalls and scuba diving among the reefs. She and Jason had gotten a basic certification at the hotel and were hooked. “Seeing fish up close is so much fun. I have tons of pictures to show you guys.”
“We miss you,” Jess and Taryn said.
After a few minutes of playing catchup, Summer’s expression turned serious. Her eyes shifted to Jess. “How are you doing, Jess?”
Jess knew what she was getting at. She puffed out a breath. This conversation was long overdue. “There is something.”
Taryn and Summer went silent.
“I should apologize for keeping secrets from you two.” She hadn’t been the best friend over the last couple of months. Secrets strained relationships. “I didn’t want to say anything until I had news. I found a lump in my right breast.”
Summer gasped.
Taryn reached for her hand.
“It turned out to be a cyst, but my aunt and grandmother died of cancer. I worried that I might carry the BRCA gene.”
“Honey, you should have told us,” Summer scolded gently and touched the screen. Jess joined her fingertips with hers.
“We would have been there for you,” Taryn said.
Jess regretted not sharing. “It was a long couple of weeks between total panic and finally discovering that the lump wasn’t cancer. I’m not a BRCA carrier. It was made worse by not having a hand to hold. I should have leaned on you both.”
“We have strong shoulders,” Summer agreed, flexing her tanned and freckled pair.
“I’m sorry for that.” Jess squeezed Taryn’s hand. “I’ve gotten so used to being on my own that I felt I could handle this alone. I didn’t even tell my parents.”
Taryn scowled. “No wonder you were so cranky.”
Jess nodded. “I was. Angry. Surly. Terrified.” She glanced between her friends and remembered how she’d distanced herself and retreated into a mental shell. After losing her grandmother to cancer, she’d thought to spare them that pain. Thankfully, they’d stayed put. “Thanks for sticking with me.”
“Always,” Taryn and Summer said in unison. They all laughed. It felt good to have such loving and loyal friends.
Jess and Taryn stayed away from talking about the shooting. Summer would hear everything when she returned home. Why spoil her honeymoon?
“How’s Irving?” Summer asked, moving on.
A distant male voice came over the feed before they could answer. “Babe, are you on your computer?”
Summer grinned. “Crap! I’ve been caught. Coming, Love Monkey!” she shouted and giggled when he groaned.
“Love Monkey?” Jess snorted.
“I’m going to pay for that,” Summer said. “Can’t wait. Aloha!” She signed off.
Taryn closed her laptop and flopped back on the couch.
The Sweetheart Kiss Page 3
