“It’s still a concern,” my mom said. “We’d hate for you two to fight over the same guy.”
“Our tastes are completely different,” Milo said, sniffing the air snobbishly.
I thought that my heartthrob and his weren’t all that different. Both Andy and Elijah had similar builds and physical appearances, but that’s as far as I could compare since I didn’t know much about Elijah’s personality. Of course, Andy seemed to have changed a lot since he moved back to Blissville, so I couldn’t say that I really knew him anymore either.
“Let’s not forget Maegan’s theatrics our junior year in high school,” Milo continued. The gleam in his eyes told me that he was enjoying himself immensely. “I finally got my first boyfriend and Maegan had to go and get cancer.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “I’m so sorry that my battle with leukemia was a hardship for you.” What I loved most about my brother was that he never looked at me different or changed the way he treated me. Many of the kids at school treated me like a pariah, almost like they worried they would catch it if they breathed the same air as me.
“You just had to show off your perfectly round head and impeccable bone structure when you lost your hair,” Milo teased, but he threw his arm around my shoulders and pulled me until my head rested on his shoulder. He wasn’t taking a chance that I mistook his teasing as genuine hurt or criticism.
I hoped my laughter dispelled any doubts. “I’m sorry, I think. That almost sounded like an offhanded compliment.”
“You should be sorry, so don’t you dare get cancer again,” he said haughtily. “You’ve had your fair share of attention, which is why you should’ve let me discover the severed head in the alleyway.”
“Oh, you!” I elbowed him in the stomach and sat up. “It wasn’t a severed head.”
“Finger?”
“Nope.”
“Foot?”
I shook my head. “I told you already. It was a marble bust.”
“That’s much too boring for your typical theatrics. Last night it was a dead body and tonight it was the potential murder weapon. Does that mean you can expect the killer to come knocking tomorrow, or do you think he’ll toy with you some more?”
Okay, sometimes Milo’s sense of humor runs a little on the macabre side, but I knew he didn’t really want the killer to come knocking on my door. He had the twisted mind of Stephen King but sometimes his attention span resembled that of a five-year-old.
The killer entered the back door and silently crept up the back staircase, careful to avoid the creaks in the steps he had discovered the last time he was in her house. He was only a few feet away from the top when… Squirrel!
I giggled at my inner musings, but shook my head when Milo raised a brow in question. He wouldn’t find it nearly as funny as I did.
“You think a crazed killer on the loose is funny?” he asked.
“No, I think the idea that the killer has a personal vendetta against me is funny.”
“I think you need to consider moving in here until he’s captured just to be safe,” Mom said.
“Yeah, Mae. Your bedroom is in the exact same shape that you left it,” Milo said. “Same posters and pictures on the wall and all your trophies still lining the shelves. I bet Mom goes in there every week to dust them just in case you ever need to move back home.”
“I do not,” Mom rebutted.
“More like once a month,” Dad countered. “She does your old room too.”
“Well, it isn’t because I’m expecting my kids to move back home, Dennis. You know damned well I can’t sleep if there’s dust in the house.”
“Of course, I know it,” my dad replied. “That doesn’t make it sane.”
“Sane? Are you saying I’m insane?”
“Just when it comes to dust,” my father answered calmly.
I could sense that my mom was working up to a good snit. I might rather tango with a killer than watch my parents argue on a Saturday night. As if I emitted a distress signal, Elijah chose that exact minute to call me.
“Hello?”
“I got extra rolls, Freckles. Emma put in some cinnamon butter for you. She said you love it.”
“Aww, I do.”
“I think they just got engaged,” Milo said to my parents.
“What?” my parents asked at the same time. I shook my head and elbowed my brother again.
“Your house or mine?” I asked Elijah.
“I imagine you’ll feel more comfortable in your own bed, so we’ll hang at your house tonight.” Bed? I wanted to tease him about his assumption, but let it go, especially with my family hanging onto my every word.
“Sounds good.”
“Maegan, I didn’t mean to imply that…”
“I know,” I assured Elijah. “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes or less.”
“Bye, Freckles.”
I stood up and smiled. “Well, this has been an entertaining night to say the least, but I must be going. There’s a guy across town that’s delivering Emma’s beef stew and extra dinner rolls to my front door. I don’t want to be late.”
“It is a date,” my mom said hopefully.
“Mom, its… I don’t know what’s going on with Elijah and me, but it’s exactly what I need right now.”
“That’s good enough for us, darling,” she said with a sweet smile.
My parents hugged me a little harder and held on a little longer than normal. “I’m going to be okay,” I told them.
“Of course, you are,” Dad said. “You’re a badass, Maegan. That’s why those people didn’t ask how you were holding up. They know that you’re a warrior.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
“I’ll walk you out, Mae,” Milo offered.
When we reached my SUV, Milo pulled me into the circle of his arms. He couldn’t hug me as tight as normal with Lulu tucked between us, but I understood the sentiment. His teasing was to cover up the fear he felt for me.
“I’m going to be okay, Milo. No one has a reason to hurt me.”
“I want to believe that, Maegan. You’re my sister and best friend; I can’t lose you.”
“No one is losing me. Elijah will keep me safe and catch the killer.”
“Don’t let all the air out of his muscles with sex then,” Milo said then pinched the tip of my nose. “He needs to save up some strength and stamina in case he wants to use that body for something other than pleasing you.”
I thought back to the glimpse of strength and stamina that I witnessed already. I had a feeling it was just the tip of the iceberg too. “Somehow I don’t think Elijah has to worry about that.”
“Now you’re just bragging. Take your lucky ass on out of here and go get you some.”
“Want to grab breakfast in the morning before we open?” I asked once I put Lulu in the car.
“I’ll call you once I’m up and moving. Let’s cross our fingers that nothing goes wrong at Books and Brew because we could both use an easy day.”
“I hear you. Night, Milo.” I pulled the door shut and fired the engine to life. Milo waved when I backed out of the driveway. I glanced in the rearview mirror when I reached the intersection at the end of the street and saw that he was still watching me. I felt his fear as strong as I felt my own earlier in the evening.
I’m going to be okay. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince Milo or myself, maybe both. I wanted it to be true and decided that’s how it would be. Whoever killed Thom was going to screw up and get caught. I just needed to stay out of his way until that happened.
Elijah was waiting on my front porch with a huge paper bag filled with food. “Aren’t you cold?” I asked when I joined him.
“Focused,” he said, scanning the street. “Take the bag and hand me your keys, Freckles.”
“Why?”
“I’m going in first to make sure things are okay.”
“What if he attacks me on the front porch while you’re checking out my house?’
“Yo
u’re going inside with me, but you’ll stay by the front door while I check things out.”
“This is silly,” I said, marching around him and sliding my key in the front door. “I was just here earlier and nothing was disturbed.” I pushed open the door and a blur of black fur darted out the door, scaring the fuck out of me. I cried out in surprise and Lulu barked at the escaping intruder.
“Since when did you have a cat?” Elijah asked.
“I don’t have a cat, and it wasn’t here when I picked Lulu up.” I covered my racing heart with my hand and looked up into Elijah’s eyes. “I can’t be sure, but I think that is the same cat from the alley when I discovered the bloody object.”
“Fuck me!” Elijah said, pulling out his cell phone.
“I had planned on it,” I mumbled.
SO MUCH FOR A QUIET Saturday night with Maegan. Red and blue lights bounced off all the houses on our street from the three patrol cars that responded to my call while our neighbors watched the flutter of activity in and out of Maegan’s home from their lawns, porches, or big picture windows.
Adrian pulled up in front of the house and shook his head when he got out of his car. “We gotta stop meeting like this,” he said when he joined Jones, Wen, and me on the sidewalk. “Where’s Maegan? Is she okay?” he asked Jones. Why’d he ask him? Did they have a history, Jones and Maegan?
“She’s at my house with Officer Kasey,” I replied, trying to keep the possessiveness I felt out of my voice. “She’s okay; just a little shocked from everything that’s happened in the last thirty hours.” I thought Maegan was taking it better than most people would, but I couldn’t tell if that was a front for me, or just the way she handled things.
“Did you find any prints or evidence to nail this bastard?” Adrian asked me.
“There were no signs of forced entry, and we didn’t find any traces of an intruder in that house. In fact, if the cat hadn’t darted out the front door, we wouldn’t have known that our killer had paid her a visit.”
“Do we really know for sure he was here? Maybe the cat darted in the house when Maegan was letting her dog out before she headed to her parents’ house,” Jones suggested.
“The very same cat that startled her in the alley where the killer left the murder weapon?” I asked him.
“Do we really know it’s the same cat? There are a lot of black cats in the world,” he countered.
“Sure, both things are true, Jones, but my gut tells me that isn’t the case,” I said. “My instincts tell me that the killer lay in wait to observe Maegan’s reaction when she found the evidence. He was close enough to snatch the cat when it ran out of the alley. Then he waited for Maegan to leave, found a way inside her home, and put the cat inside to let her know he was there.”
“I don’t know, man,” Jones hedged. “That seems farfetched to me.”
I blew out a frustrated breath and willed myself not to snap. I was new to the department and making enemies of veteran cops on the force during my first week wasn’t a good idea. “Look—”
“Too much of a coincidence, Jones,” Adrian interrupted, winking to let me know he had my back. I took a few more calming breaths to get my shit under control. “There’s nothing neat and tidy about someone clearly unstable enough to kill. Don’t try to rationalize the irrational. The facts are that someone killed Thom Renzo not long before Maegan arrived at the house. We don’t know if the killer knew Maegan was due to arrive or not. Approximately twenty-four hours later, Maegan finds what we believe is the bloody murder weapon behind her business. Fast forward a few more hours and Maegan returns home to find a strange cat in her house that is either the same cat or similar to the one behind the alley. If we could find the cat, we could check its paws for blood. Did anyone see which way the cat went?”
“Up there,” I replied, pointing to a bare tree in Maegan’s front yard. Of course, the cat was perched close to the top of the huge oak.
“Meow.”
“I’m afraid of heights,” Adrian said.
“I pulled a muscle playing basketball,” Jones added.
“That means you need to shimmy up the tree, Romeo, and grab that cat,” Adrian told me. “Unless you want us to call the fire department. They’ll be happy to flex their muscles for Maegan.”
“Hey, I’m starting to feel better now,” Jones said, moving toward the tree. He suddenly sounded eager to impress Maegan or prevent the firemen from impressing her. I wasn’t happy either way.
I wondered if I was the only one who heard the low growl in my throat. “I can handle this,” I said calmly. I grew up climbing trees and playing rough. I didn’t need some damn do-gooder with a ladder trying to impress my girl. I… My girl? I tabled that thought for later as I made my way to the tree.
I leaped up and grabbed a sturdy branch above my head and pulled myself up until my head and shoulders rose above the limb. I repositioned my hands over the top of the branch, grateful that there wasn’t a layer of ice making my task more difficult, and continued to use my upper body strength to push up until the limb was even with my waist. Then I swung my left leg up and over like a gymnast until I straddled the thick branch.
I carefully got to my feet and reached above me for the next branch and repeated the process. Luckily, the limbs were denser the further I climbed, and I could just step between them like stairs as I got closer to the ball of black fur huddled at the top. The downside to the denser limbs was that they also became thinner. I had to test each limb before I moved onto the next. The cold made them brittle and likelier to break, so I tuned out the pseudo-encouraging words like “don’t fall and break your neck” and “only fifteen more feet to go” from down below.
“Elijah!” Maegan yelled. “What the hell are you doing up there?”
I made sure I had a good grip on the limbs above my head before I looked down at her. She stood on my front porch with her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m trying to interview a witness. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re taking unnecessary risks with your life,” Maegan fired back. “There’s a much easier way to get that cat out of the tree.”
“How? Ask it nicely?”
“No, smartass.” Even from the distance I could clearly see her eye roll. “Watch and learn.” Maegan marched across both our yards and into her house. She returned less than a minute later with a can of something in her hand. “Watch yourself,” she warned as she popped the top. “Here, kitty kitty kitty.”
The black cat scrambled down the tree, using my shoulder as a launch pad to leap to the lower limbs. Maegan knelt and placed the can on the porch. The cat had devoured half the contents before I made it back to solid ground.
“Tuna,” I said once I reached the porch and could smell what the cat was wolfing down as fast as it could.
“Works every time.” Maegan stroked the cat’s back and it began to purr, but who could blame it? I’d had those lovely hands on my body and I reacted similarly. “I can feel every rib and vertebra of his spine.”
“How do you know it’s a he?” I asked her.
She looked at me like I was an idiot. The purring got louder the longer she petted him. “He’s been through a traumatic experience.”
“After he’s done eating, I’d like to look at his paws to see if I can prove this was the cat in the alley.”
“You doubt me?” Maegan asked.
“Not me, no.”
“Who doubts me then?”
“Officer Jones,” I said, not caring that I threw his ass under the bus. “Don’t spit in his coffee or anything though.”
Maegan snorted. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” She leaned toward me and lowered her voice. “I’m going to stop giving him the biggest apple fritter though.”
“That’s my girl.” I hadn’t realized what I said until a soft blush crept up Maegan’s neck. I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to take it back and hurt her feelings, but I didn’t want to give her false hope. The words jus
t flowed out of my mouth naturally, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I lifted the cat and handed him to Maegan. I motioned for Jones to come over. “Let’s check this fella out.”
Jones stood beside me and aimed a flashlight on the cat’s front paws. Unfortunately, Maegan’s rack beneath her super soft-looking sweater was just as illuminated as the cat. I knew damn well what Jones was looking at, because I had a hard time concentrating on the task at hand too. I very well couldn’t tell Maegan to cover her tits with a coat like I wanted to, so I decided to get the job done quickly and send Jones on his merry way.
“Looks like dried blood to me, Jones.”
“I’m not crazy, Jones,” Maegan said.
“No one said you’re crazy, Maegan,” I said in a soothing voice. “Jones just pointed out that black cats are common.”
“You told her that I said she was crazy?” Jones asked incredulously.
“I told her that you had your doubts that it was the same cat.” I gestured to the feline who had started squirming in Maegan’s arms. It probably felt the rising tension and wanted to get the fuck away. There was no telling how the killer treated the animal while it was in his custody. “Let’s swab his feet to see if we can match the blood.”
“It’s okay, sweet boy,” Maegan cooed to the frightened cat, but her soft voice also soothed the beast stirring inside me. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Lulu barked from my front porch sounding like she was giving her mistress hell. “Don’t you worry about Lulu; she’ll come around.”
The cat growled low in his throat when Jones swabbed his paws, but he didn’t attempt to claw him or get away. Once we finished, Maegan rewarded the cat with extra cuddles as she carried him across the yard and inside my house.
“Looks like you’re getting a cat, partner,” Adrian said.
“No, Maegan is getting a cat,” I corrected him. “She doesn’t live with me.”
“Yet,” Adrian said. “See you in the morning, Elijah.”
“Goodnight, Adrian.”
The rest of the officers packed their stuff up and took off also. A few of them gave me curious looks and I knew they were speculating about my relationship with Maegan. Instead of dwelling on it, I locked Maegan’s house and jogged over to mine.
The Lady is a Thief Page 14
