Thrilled To Death

by Jennifer Apodaca

  And I had to come up with the money. Gabe was wearing the sexy tool belt to help me save money by doing some of the work himself with Blaine. I was also saving money by not getting new furniture. Well, except for Blaine’s new desk; I was paying for half of that.

  “Easy, Sam. You’re tensing up. The wall will be down today. It’s only Tuesday. Tomorrow we will patch the adjacent walls and do all the electric and phone lines. We’ll be ready for paint on Thursday.”

  “Right. Everything is fine.” I took a breath. “What if you don’t like the paint color? Or the carpet? Or the furniture I picked out for your conference room?”

  He grinned. “Then you’ll have to walk around naked a lot to help me take my mind off it.” He leaned down and brushed his mouth over mine. “Later, babe.”

  I watched Gabe stride out of the office, noticing the way the tool belt was slung low over his hips and emphasized his tight butt. My phone rang and ruined the moment. Since my assistant was over on Gabe’s side, I grabbed the phone. “Heart Mates Dating Service.”

  “Sam! It’s Rosy.”

  Rosy Malone was a longtime friend of my grandparents and one of the seniors who gather every morning for coffee and gossip at Jack in the Box. Rosy was retired from the University of Riverside where she had taught literature. “Hi Rosy, how are you?”

  “I’m mad as hell, that’s what I am. You have to do something, Sam!”

  I sat down in my chair. “I’ll try, Rosy. Tell me what’s wrong.” Rosy wasn’t typically the hysterical or dramatic type. Had Grandpa broken into her hospital files again? Last time Rosy claimed she was having gall bladder surgery, Grandpa broke into the files to find out she was having a face-lift.

  “It’s Barney, Sam. He’s been arrested!”

  I shot up out of my chair. “What?”

  Rosy kept right on going. “That upstart young detective marched in here and hauled Barney off to the slammer!”

  “Vance,” I hissed through gritted teeth and squeezed my fingers around the handset of the phone. That sounded just like Detective Logan Vance. The man was so damned arrogant. And sun-god handsome. Not that I cared how handsome he was. Vance and I never saw eye to eye on anything.

  Rosy demanded in my ear, “What are you going to do about it, Sam?”

  Kick some detective bootie, that’s what I was going to do. “Don’t you worry, Rosy. I’m on my way right now to straighten this out.” I hung up and thought, Grandpa, what have you done?

  The Lake Elsinore police and sheriff station was housed in a red brick building with green trim and looked more like a corporate office than a police station. I went through the glass doors to the receptionist behind the window on the left. “I’m Samantha Shaw. I understand that my grandfather, Barney Webb, has been arrested by Detective Vance.” I took a breath and tried to clamp down on the urge to say that Vance had better get his sorry ass out here and explain himself. “I’d like to speak to Detective Vance and see my grandfather, please.”

  The receptionist listened, then touched some numbers on a phone and spoke into her headset. Then she looked up at me. “If you’ll take a seat, someone will be right with you.”

  I went to the glass case holding photos of the local soccer and Little League teams. Okay, I was pissed at Vance. I thought we’d gotten past some of our animosity. Why hadn’t he let me know if Grandpa was in trouble?

  “Took you longer than I expected.”

  I turned around. Vance wore a light gray suit that fell in excellent lines around his swimmer’s shoulders. He had on a shimmering black button-down shirt, no tie. His military short dark blond hair emphasized his stern brown eyes as his gaze zeroed in on me. “It was a little hard to get the story from Grandpa’s friends.” I put my hands on my hips. “Why did you arrest him?”

  Vance’s cop face softened and his dimples winked as he grinned. “I didn’t arrest him. He came down to the station voluntarily.”

  “Oh.” The heat leaked out of my outrage. I sucked in my lips, thinking about those old gossips. Now I started off looking like a fool in front of Vance. Again. Nothing to be done now but brazen it out. “Where is my grandfather?”

  “In my office. Come on.” He held the door wide open for me to walk through.

  I passed by him, catching a whiff of his faint coconut and sun scent. Vance shut the door and led the way to his office, which was really a cubicle off a long hallway. Grandpa sat in the corner with a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

  “Hi, Sam. Guess the gang blabbed, huh?”

  I went into the cubicle and kissed Grandpa’s weathered check. “Rosy called me. In her version, you were arrested and dragged off to jail.”

  “Sammy, no handcuffs can hold me. I came because Detective Vance asked me to.”

  I didn’t like this. I turned so I could see both men. “What’s going on?”

  Vance sat in his chair with wheels. “A serious accusation has been made against your grandfather. It appears that someone broke into the place where Shane Masters was staying last night. Mr. Masters says the man had a gun and intended to kill him. But one of Mr. Masters’s two dogs attacked and bit the right hand of the man. He ran off.”

  I gaped at Vance. “Shane Masters is accusing my grandfather of breaking in and trying to kill him?” What planet was Vance from? “Grandpa doesn’t even have a gun!” He had a switchblade, but I figured this wouldn’t be a good time to mention that. I turned to Grandpa. “Why would Shane Masters accuse you of trying to kill him?” It didn’t make a lick of sense.

  “To clarify,” Vance said in his highbrow voice, “Shane Masters said Barney hired a hit man to kill him. There’s no dog bite on Barney’s hand, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the one who actually broke into Shane Masters’s place.”

  I swung my head back to Vance. “What? A hit man? That’s crazy! What do you think? That Grandpa hired a hit man at Jack in the Box over coffee and a Breakfast Jack?” Where does one go to hire a hit man? This was insane!

  Vance reached for a piece of paper carefully tucked into a protective plastic sleeve and slid it across the desk to me.

  I looked down at it. It was an e-mail, and it read, “Spoiler magicians are not welcome in Lake Elsinore.” A spear of hot dread hit my stomach. I looked up at the return e-mail address.

  It belonged to Grandpa.

  Damn. Fighting to keep my face blank, maybe confused, I said to Vance, “So? No legitimate magician likes these guys. What’s the big deal?”

  Vance had a square-cut face with a strong chin. He met my stare. “It could be interpreted as a threat, particularly when Mr. Masters received hundreds of these. After contacting a few people who sent e-mails like this, they all said Barney Webb was behind the campaign to keep Shane Masters from performing his show in Lake Elsinore.”

  Dark, sweaty fear arrowed deep into my gut. “Grandpa, what did you do?”

  He shrugged. “Just had some friends make their opinions of Masters’s spoiler magic show known. There’s no crime in freedom of speech.”

  Oh God. I should have called Gabe. He would know what to do. I turned back to Vance. “See? It’s all innocent. Can we leave?”

  Vance looked past me to Grandpa. “Where did you say you were last night between nine and eleven P.M.?”

  Grandpa fixed his milky blue eyes on Vance. “I didn’t say.” He took a breath, then added, “Am I under arrest? If you have any more questions, I want a lawyer.”

  Cripes. “Grandpa, just tell him where you were!” Where had he been? He’d gone out and come home late. I just assumed he went to play cards with his friends. Seeing the stubborn set of Grandpa’s face, I shifted back to Vance. “What does it matter anyway? You know Grandpa wasn’t the one who tried to kill Shane Masters.” I could barely keep up with the situation or my own rattled thoughts.

  “The attacker went somewhere when he left Mr. Masters’s place. So far there’s no report of adult males with dog bites at local hospitals. So maybe whoever hired him was waiting for a report and helped the at
tacker doctor up the dog bite.”

  Tension pulsed behind my eyes and wrapped around my neck and shoulders.

  Grandpa set his Styrofoam cup on the desk and stood. “Am I under arrest?”

  Vance stood, too. “Not as yet. But I’m working on it.” He started out of his cubicle.

  I caught Vance in the hallway and put my hand on his arm. His muscles clenched into granite. I ignored the warning signs and said, “Vance, you can’t believe my grandfather’s involved in this!”

  He glared down at me. It looked like it hurt to unclamp his jaw. “Shane Masters is famous. He came to Lake Elsinore expecting to be welcomed, not attacked by a hit man. And your grandfather is involved in this, Shaw. Masters believes your grandfather hired a hit man, and he has thinly veiled e-mail threats to back up his claim. All your grandfather needs to do is answer a simple question about where he was!” He wrenched his arm from my hold and stalked off.

  Probably to kick a kitten.

  Damn, Vance was in a rare fury. Grandpa was in trouble. Serious trouble.

  2

  I had parked my white T-bird next to Grandpa’s black Jeep outside the police station. The Jeep should have been a clue that Vance hadn’t arrested Grandpa or he would have been brought to the station in a police car. We walked out of the police station and headed toward our cars. I took his arm when we reached the back end of the Jeep. “Grandpa, what’s going on?”

  His mouth was pulled tight, fanning out deep lines around his lips. “Don’t worry about it, Sam. I’m handling it.”

  “Handling what?” I was really getting worried. None of this made any sense. “Why would Shane Masters say you hired someone to kill him? And where were you last night? Why didn’t you just tell Vance where you were?”

  He looked down at me. “I don’t have to tell Detective Vance anything. I am not under arrest. I don’t need to tell him where I was last night.”

  I couldn’t figure this out. Okay, so he didn’t want to tell Vance. “What about me? Will you tell me where you were last night?”

  “I went to see a friend.”

  I’d never let my two sons get away with that answer. But Grandpa’s thin shoulders were rigid with anger. Anger at me? At Vance? At Shane? I tried another avenue. “Have you met Shane Masters? Do you know him?” Grandpa had talked about him, but he’d never said he’d met him. Wouldn’t he have told me that? I thought he detested Shane for being a spoiler magician, but it was becoming clear I really didn’t know everything.

  He didn’t answer; instead he turned so that I dropped my hold on his arm. He looked to the street, past our two cars parked side by side. “You should trust me. I’ve always trusted you.”

  The disappointment in his voice cut me. “Grandpa, of course I trust you. I’m trying to help you!”

  He turned his blue gaze back to my face. “Then leave this alone, Sam. Stay away from Shane Masters.” He turned and walked around his Jeep to the driver’s side door.

  I was more baffled than ever. Rather than go back to work, I got into my car and followed Grandpa home. We have always been able to talk. If he was determined not to tell me what was going on, then I was at least going to tell him how much I loved him and that I’d be there when he was ready to talk to me.

  But when we got home, I saw a small yellow truck parked in the dirt lot in front of our small three-bedroom house. There was a man sitting on the porch. Ali, our large German shepherd, barked and fretted from the backyard.

  What now, I wondered, and parked my car between the truck and Grandpa’s Jeep. Then I remembered Bo Kelly was in town. It could be Bo. The sun was in my eyes, so I couldn’t make out the features of the man waiting for us on the porch.

  Grandpa was already out and heading up the steps to the porch. I heard him call out, “Fletch!”

  At the bottom of the porch steps, I jerked my head up and got a clear look at the man. About five foot eight or so, he resembled a goofy Tobey Maguire.

  “Fletch Knight,” I muttered toward the ground. “Perfect, just perfect. Maybe he can finish the job of getting Grandpa arrested.” Fletch was one of the magicians that Grandpa had mentored over the years. Grandpa had taught Fletch to use his natural goofiness and boyish charm to create a comical magic act. It was the perfect combination for Fletch. He was in his element on stage, pretending to trip and fall and then accidentally pulling off fabulous magic acts. No one looked more surprised than Fletch. One of Fletch’s trademarks was his disappearing assistant illusion. He was supposed to make some object disappear, but he would accidentally vanish his assistant instead. He made jokes about how he lost more assistants that way, and hey, maybe that was why he couldn’t keep a girlfriend. At the finale of the act, Fletch got the audience involved to help him make his assistants reappear.

  He was really becoming a popular magician.

  He was a nice guy, too. But every time Fletch came to visit Grandpa, they got into trouble. It was Fletch’s driving need to prove his manhood to his redneck, beer-drinking, contact-sports-loving father.

  “Samantha!” Fletch loped down the four steps like a gangly Great Dane and hugged me. “Always nice to see you.” He let go and looked at me with his big blue puppy eyes. “You ready to marry me yet?”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed at the old joke between us and hugged him back. “I’m still sowing my wild oats.”

  Once inside the front door, Fletch let go of my hand and turned to face me. “Yeah, I heard about your boyfriend.” Then he struck a pose like a bodybuilder. “Think I could take him?”

  I fought back a grin. Fletch ran on the thin side, and though he had a wiry strength, I knew he didn’t stand a chance with Gabe. “In bodybuilding or modeling?”

  He laughed just as our dog, Ali, bounded in from the back door. Since she spotted me laughing with Fletch, she discounted him as a threat and came over to greet us. Ali sat by my leg. I reached down to pet her regal head. She turned her slim nose up to look at me, then she went to check out Fletch.

  Fletch dropped to his knees, delighted to pet Ali. He was a dog lover, having grown up with all kinds of hunting hounds. He always had a way with animals.

  While Fletch was occupied, I walked over the ancient brown shag carpet to the small corner dining room and hung a right to the long galley kitchen to check on Grandpa. He was adding water to the coffeemaker. “Grandpa.” I went up to him, putting my hand on his shoulder. “You know I love and trust you. I just worry about you, that’s all.” I was desperate to help him, but he was shutting me out.

  He closed the water receptacle, slid the coffeepot under the drip, and pressed the button to start the coffee machine. Then he looked at me. “If you trust me, then you trust me. Let me handle the police and Shane Masters.”

  “But—”

  Grandpa stiffened his kind, craggy face into a stern look and pulled out his trump card. “Don’t act like your mother, Sammy. I’m not an incompetent old man.” Anger blazed in his blue eyes.

  I shut my mouth and breathed in through my nose. My mother drove us nuts with her determination to change our lives. And she constantly insulted Grandpa by insinuating he couldn’t live in his own home anymore but should move into a senior complex. And the flat truth was that Grandpa had trusted me, accepted me, and loved me. And he provided the boys and me with a safe place to land when our lives fell apart after my cheating, scumbag husband died. I was torn between the need to help and protect him and his request to trust him to take care of things. Love really was tough sometimes. “How about this?” I tried for a simple compromise. “What if you swear to tell me when you need help?”

  His face softened. “You’d be the first person I’d tell, Sammy.”

  That would have to do for now. Except that I had enough of my mother in me that I was going to do a little checking around to learn all I could about Shane Masters. After all, I had a very cool PI boyfriend and plans to get my PI license—what was all that for if not to protect my grandpa?

  “I smell coffee,” Flet
ch said as he came into the kitchen.

  I glanced at the clock on the microwave over the stove and decided I’d better call the office. But first I should make small talk with Fletch. “The coffee will be ready in a couple minutes. How long are you staying in town?” I tried to keep my voice light.

  He leaned back against the counter with the coffee dripping behind him. “A week. I’ve been in LA getting ready for my appearance at the House of Cards next month.”

  I did know that, I just hadn’t realized that Fletch would be in southern California a month beforehand. The House of Cards was a cross between a magician’s clubhouse, a museum of magic, and a massive theater where magicians who caught the eye of the magic community were asked to perform by special invitation only. An invitation to perform at the House of Cards was on par with an actor being nominated for an Academy Award. This was going to be Fletch’s big night. “You must be very excited. Grandpa managed to get us all tickets.”

  He actually blushed. “It’s awesome.” He turned to look at Barney. “I’m going to add a video backdrop to the show. They have two large screens on the stage. It’ll be perfect.”

  Grandpa’s look of pride turned stern. “Remember, don’t try to change anything in your act. As soon as we have the video, we can go to the House of Cards and do some rehearsals. Any little difference can affect your timing.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not changing anything in my act. The backdrop is only for the intro and finale. The rest of the time, the screens will go to close-ups of my act. I’m just adding a little pizzazz.”

  “Pizzazz?” I didn’t like that sound of that. Experience had taught me that what Fletch called pizzazz, I would call disaster. “What exactly is your idea of pizzazz?” I crossed the kitchen to the coffeemaker and took down three cups. Grandpa obviously knew what Fletch was up to with this pizzazz idea. Clearly the two of them were cooking something up, which was probably why Fletch was in the area so early. I picked up the coffeepot and started filling the cups.