by Libby Kirsch
“Thanks,” Finch said. “I’ll be right over.”
Jason frowned but moved across the room.
Fifteen minutes later, Janet was appreciating Detective O’Dell’s brevity.
Finch was apparently determined to break her by discussing everything about the bar except Ike. Just then, he was honing in on how inappropriately her employee was dressed.
“All I’m saying,” he eyed Cindy Lou, “is that nobody wants to see belly button anymore—especially not before dinner.”
Janet looked down at her own midriff. Her belly button was completely hidden, but with Finch’s attitude, she’d never wanted to show it off more. She’d just opened her mouth, ready to defend her staff, when O’Dell spoke from across the room.
“Finch, leave her alone. Don’t you know who her dad is?”
“Brass is going to come down hard on this one—first murder in five weeks. The mayor was just about to hold a press conference about how safe our streets are, and now this?” Finch snapped. “I couldn’t care less who her dad is. I’m only interested in solving this murder.” He shot Janet a disgruntled look but got up from the table and walked away.
“And belly buttons,” Janet muttered, but she couldn’t help agreeing with the jerk. She didn’t care that her dad was a federal judge, either, and she also wanted to get to the bottom of Ike’s murder. The killer was someone who knew about their security system—that much was clear—which meant it was probably someone associated with her bar.
Her eyes swept the room. Someone had gone out of their way to cover their tracks—and the outside camera. The truth was, somebody in this room knew something.
Chapter Five
By four o’clock, Janet had resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t be able to open the bar for business. Homicide had only just begun their investigation, crime scene techs were still dusting every available surface for fingerprints, and Ike was still lying next to the Dumpster—although his body was now covered with a black tarp.
Elizabeth’s shift had started a half hour earlier, but so far, she was a no-show.
“All I’m saying is it doesn’t look good,” Frank said to Cindy Lou, unable to contain his glee. “She’s not here, and there’s a dead body outside?”
Janet turned away from the bouncer; leave it to Frank to be excited about the crime. She stared thoughtfully out the window. She couldn’t deny that it was odd Elizabeth wasn’t here, though. Her absence was either worrisome or suspicious, and the homicide detectives appeared to be leaning toward the latter, based on the questions they were asking. She tried Elizabeth’s cell phone, but the call went straight to voicemail—again.
She disconnected, her finger throbbing in time with her heartbeat. Although Janet had changed the bandage three times, blood seeped through again, and her pain level increased with each passing minute.
“You think she’s an intern?” she asked Jason. They sat at the bar, watching an evidence tech use packing tape to lift fingerprints from the section of counter across from them. What the woman was hoping to find was beyond Janet—there had to be sixty different sets of prints from the last night alone. “Are you guys going to be here all night?” she called.
The crime scene investigator didn’t answer.
Jason groaned. “What a day. My system is attacked by some malware program, and I’m stuck here, waiting on a detective to tell me I can go back to work. It’s just so frustrating!” He grabbed her hand and she moaned, the pain in her wound seared straight up through her elbow. He flinched and released her fingers at once, instead cradling her hand in his own. “Have you called the doctor yet?”
“No.”
“Do it now. One of us is going to be stuck here all night, and it might as well be me—I can’t do any work at home, anyway; on top of everything else, the Internet chose today to go down, too. Once the police leave I’ll set up shop in the office here and try to figure out what’s attacking my system.”
“What about Elizabeth?”
“If she shows up, I’ll tell her you want to talk to her when she’s done with the police. I would have said her reaction to the missing money would be telling, but this murder kind of makes anything else seem like no big deal.”
Janet stared at him for a moment before she nodded and stood. She bent over to kiss him on top of his head and said, “I’ll see you at home, then.”
He hooked her arm and stood as she turned away. “Are you okay?”
Nearly nose to nose, they stared at each other. Janet finally shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been a . . . well . . .”
“I know,” he said, and pulled her close. They stood together for a moment before he smoothed a hand over her cheek. She leaned into him and felt butterflies form in her stomach at his tender smile.
He tilted his face down and gently touched her lips with his own. Heat zinged through her core before he pulled away. “See you later.” He squeezed her uninjured hand and she knew his words were a delicious promise.
Finch cut across the space to meet her at the door. “Don’t go far—we might have more questions for you, no matter who your dad is.” He looked as if he wanted to stop her from going, but his partner called him over, and Finch sent one last wary look over his shoulder. O’Dell winked at Janet, and she felt a puzzled smile form as she walked out the door to the parking lot.
The humidity outside was so thick that she felt like she was cutting through it with every step, and a blast of heat hit her in the face when she opened her car door. She turned the key in the ignition, got all four windows down, cranked up the AC to full blast, and got back out of the car while it cooled down. She had to wipe her sweaty hands on her jeans to tap a number into her phone screen.
After a few rings and a quick word with the receptionist, she was forwarded to the scheduler at her doctor’s office, only to find out her doctor was on vacation for the next two weeks.
“That must be nice,” she muttered.
“The other two doctors in the office are taking her patients while she’s gone,” the scheduler said in a bored voice, listing the names with such apathy that Janet forgot them as soon as they were mentioned. “Do you want whoever’s first available? We just opened up clinic hours this weekend.”
Janet assessed her finger. “First available is fine.” She made the appointment for Sunday morning and climbed back into her car. The air blowing out of the vents wasn’t cool, but it wasn’t hot, either, so she closed the windows and steered her car toward home. In just a few minutes, she pulled up to the duplex she and Jason had bought a year ago.
Newer beige wood siding cut perfect lines along the front of the house. She loved the color—so clean, so fresh—but Jason said it lacked energy. Earlier in the spring, small red and white flowers had filled the planter boxes just under the windows on their half of the house, but they were long wilted and dead from the summer heat, and Janet was glad, despite what Jason said, that she’d planted plastic flowers in the second-floor window boxes.
A moving van stretched across the front of the home; their new tenants waved her over from the other side of the building, but she pretended not to notice. It had been a long day already, and she didn’t feel like making small talk with strangers. The two separate entrances were tucked discreetly away from each other, and she walked into her home without a backward glance.
The first thing she saw was a pair of crumpled checks from their new tenants sitting on the hall table: the security deposit and first month’s rent.
She took out her cell phone and called Jason.
“I thought you were going to deposit the checks from Kat and Mel two weeks ago—you know, right when they handed them over?”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I thought I did, but then I found them in the middle of a stack of papers in my office. I was going to deposit them today, but then . . .”
She rolled the tension out of her neck and purposefully relaxed her shoulders. “It’s fine. I’ll do it tomorrow. Is everybody still there?”
“Yep, and regulars are starting to arrive. I wish you could see Nell talk to that idiot cop. It’s classic.”
“Is she running the conversation?” Janet asked, grinning despite the gruesome topic.
“He can’t get a word in edgewise, and last I heard, she was telling him all about her dog’s digestive issues.”
“You’re sending them home, though, right?”
“Yes. I told them that when you open back up tomorrow night, the first drink’s on the house. Beer guy finally came—I had him load up the cooler, so you should be set for tomorrow.”
“Elizabeth?”
“Nope.” She blew out a sigh, and Jason said, “I’m making some progress on the Internet thing, so hopefully I’ll be home later,” before disconnecting the call.
Janet’s finger throbbed painfully, and her head was starting to throb, too. She wandered to the main room and sat on the couch, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling. As she tried to remember where in town the closest walk-in health clinic was located, her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number, and after she answered, she wished she’d let the call go to voicemail.
“Listen, Detective O’Neil—sorry, O’Dell—there’s nothing else I can tell you about Ike Freeman, our staff, or our security system. Nothing.” O’Dell was the nicer of the two detectives from earlier, but she was too tired to be very polite.
“I wanted to talk a little bit more about Ike. Can you come in early tomorrow? First thing?”
Janet made a face. She didn’t like the sound of the invitation.
“I know your dad—well, I know of your dad. When he was appointed federal judge, we helped out with the background check on his family—”
“Yes,” Janet interrupted. “I remember it.” She and her father hadn’t been on speaking terms back then, and she’d successfully evaded the FBI and local police for weeks, not caring to have any part in anything her father wanted or needed. Eventually her father had come to town to track her down, and Janet was more surprised than anyone that it had led to the beginning of a father-daughter relationship, the first she’d ever had.
“I’m not going to pull any surprises on you, Janet, just a few questions I didn’t want to ask in front of an audience,” O’Dell said. “I’m sure you’ll want to do your part to help with this case.”
She grimaced, but she heard herself agreeing to go in before she could think better of it. “Fine. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.”
Chapter Six
“First thing in the morning” was subjective. Janet set her alarm for eleven fifteen, just to be on the safe side, but didn’t roll out of bed until shortly after noon.
Her pajamas were rumpled and her hair lay tangled on one side, but as she brushed her teeth, she noticed that her skin was clear. She’d quit smoking about a year earlier and continued to find unexpected benefits.
After taking a quick shower, she spent a few minutes drying her hair and then threw on jeans and a tank top.
She was heading toward the kitchen when Jason called out, “Shoes!” He leaned back to look at her through the open doorway.
She slid her feet into the flip-flops she’d left by the door the night before and walked into the work zone that was their kitchen.
Jason had started renovating it shortly after they’d moved in by tearing the old, dilapidated kitchen down to the studs. A major project had then come in for his security business; another followed, and another after that. They’d been eating out and using the microwave extensively ever since. Now, with the malware attack, Janet wasn’t sure when he might get back to working on the kitchen. Just then, he had three laptops spread out on a sheet of plywood over two sawhorses where the island would someday live.
“Did you sleep at all?” she asked, pressing her body against his back and kissing him between his shoulder blades. He turned and draped an arm around her shoulders. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was rumpled.
“Hi, Janet!” called another voice, this one deep and gravelly. She looked quickly around the room and then at the computers when the voice said, “Down here.”
“Wex?” In the lower corner of the left computer monitor, Jason’s college roommate waved, live via webcam. His dimples deepened when she asked, “Did you cause this, Wex, or are you fixing it?”
He chuckled and ran a hand through his floppy brown hair. “I’m trying to get Jason to fix it, so I don’t have to charge him, and then he’ll be able to do it himself next time.”
“Oh, please, spare me the learning-experience bullshit and just tell me what to do!” Jason said, only half joking.
Janet smiled at Wex, and then headed through the kitchen into the hallway where the fridge and coffeepot had been relocated half a year earlier. She fixed a cup of coffee and drank it as she made her way back through the kitchen to the front of the house.
“Can I have some?” Wex called as she walked by.
“Stop ogling my woman!” Jason said, and then unplugged the webcam, making Wex’s laugh the last thing they heard from him. He followed Janet. “Sorry I’m distracted.” She set her drink on the plywood and he pulled her close. “Good morning.” She leaned into the hug and felt her body relax into him. He chuckled when she let out a low moan.
“It’s okay, you’re busy. How are things coming?” she asked his chest.
He stepped back and leaned down, softly touching her lips with his, then it was his turn to moan. “Mmm. I missed you last night. I thought I could lick this thing on my own, but I had to call Wex early this morning. Damn virus.” He shook his head. “It’s wormed its way into my operating system. Wex thinks he can isolate it before it does more damage, but it’s locked up my whole system.”
“Are you suspicious of the timing?” Janet asked, suddenly wondering if Ike’s killer was a computer whiz, too.
“No,” he said, frowning. “Wex thinks it’s been lurking on my hard drive for weeks, and something I did, some combination of keystrokes, triggered it into action.”
“Wow. Sounds very sophisticated.”
“It is,” he agreed, running his hands up and down Janet’s arms. He cocked his head to the side. “I’m due a lunch break soon.”
“How soon?” She ran her fingertips lightly over his chest. Heat flooded her stomach and she pressed her hips closer, nipping hungrily at his lower lip.
His breathing grew louder and it took him a moment of exploring her mouth to answer. “I’ve got Wex for another hour.”
“Ugh!” she moaned. “I’ll be at work by then.”
Jason’s cell phone rang. “Wex,” he said, looking at the screen. He tapped a button that silenced the phone, then leaned closer to Janet and planted a scorching kiss on her lips. His phone rang again, and he rubbed a hand through his hair and blew out a loud sigh. “Gotta go. I’ll see you tonight!” he said, then jogged back to the kitchen.
Her lopsided, dopey smile remained until she opened the door and a blast of heat melted it off her face.
“Morning!” a cheery voice called from the street.
Janet squinted past the glare of the sunlight and saw a woman carrying a pillow up the drive. Behind her a moving truck was still half-full.
“It’s me, Katherine—but you can call me Kat,” she said.
Kat had long, wavy brown hair that swung back and forth like a pendulum with each step, and she tossed the pillow up in the air as she approached.
Behind her, her partner, Mel, labored up the driveway with three boxes stacked high in her arms. Mel had short, sandy-blond hair, and wore hiking boots, gray cargo shorts, and a T-shirt. She gave off an air of cool efficiency.
They’d all met three weeks earlier when the two women had toured the open half of the duplex and signed the rental papers.
Janet pivoted and reached back inside the house, her fingers closing around the checks on the hall table.
“I’ll head to the bank,” she called to Jason, whose only response was a grunt. She turned back to Kat, who wa
s still smiling widely. “I’m, ah . . . I’m running late. You’re unpacking, huh?”
Kat hugged the pillow before answering. “Yup, almost done. We want to get the truck back by three, so we can get our deposit back, and I think we’ll make it.”
“Well . . . great,” Janet said. “Welcome!” She barely avoided a hug as she edged past Kat.
In the car, her pulsing finger reminded her that her doctor’s appointment was still days away. Blood had continued to seep from the wound all night, and now something else was oozing out as well, something creamy and whitish that definitely didn’t belong in a finger.
After a quick trip through the bank drive-through, she headed to the nearest walk-in medical clinic.
The waiting room was packed, and when she signed in, the administrator guarding the clipboard said, “Mornin’, sweetie. Looks like the wait is right around two and a half hours to see a doctor.”
“Two and a . . .” Janet looked around the room slowly. Despair, pain, and suffering wafted through the air. She didn’t have hours to waste here.
She crossed her name off the list and headed back to her car. She had bandages and antibiotic cream at home. She’d be fine. She touched the edge of the bandage to wipe away a smear of blood and had to bite her lip at the pain.
It was just a cut, for God’s sake!
Janet determinedly headed downtown, ignoring the regular pulsing through the pad of her finger, and turned the music up to drown out the pain.
“You said first thing in the morning,” O’Dell said when he came out to the lobby. His eyebrows were knitted together, but he didn’t look truly upset. “Oh, and call me Patrick.”
Janet squinted up at him, wishing she’d had the foresight to stop for a cup of coffee on the way. “We don’t all work nine to five, Det—Patrick.”
His eyebrows shot up and he nodded with a half smile. “Well, come on back.” He opened the door to the right of the bulletproof glass that enclosed the receptionist. “My office is through here.”
