“The protestant in me begs to differ.” She leaned a little closer and teased him. “Who deserves anything but death?”
“This is romance, my pet. Not theology. And speaking completely from a heart of passion, you deserve everything good this world can give you.”
“Sweet talker,” she murmured.
“Just so you know, you can put our wedding off until after the Thailand trip, but once I finally get you into my bedroom—”
She swatted his arm lightly.
“I mean get you down the aisle, I am going to take very good care of you. Phoebe mentioned she gave you a little insight into the way our finances work.”
“A brief outline, anyway.”
“Put it this way, then, fundraising and development folks get a nice salary. I’ll show you my paystub. The family money, in the trust, isn’t for living on. You know what I mean?”
“Not really.” She didn’t care either. Money came from work. That’s all there was to it.
“It’s for the future. For retirement. For educating the kids. It’s tied up pretty nicely. Phoebe thinks I get an allowance from the trust, but I don’t take it. I have everything reinvested. It may sound foolish, but I promise it makes sense on paper.”
“It doesn’t sound foolish to me.”
“Then there’s the house.”
Jane shuddered involuntarily. The house was breathtaking. A Laurelhurst mansion, almost one hundred years old. Jake’s grandfather had had it built and it had been passed down to him, after his parents died. Jane had started her cleaning business with the Crawford’s as her first clients. And her detective business, too.
“I can’t sell it. Much as I’d like to get out from under it. It’s a bear to maintain. And the taxes.” He grimaced.
“Can’t you use your trust money to pay the taxes?”
“Yeah. I could do.” He was quiet for a while. Not his usual self. “Phoebe’s mental health problems are real. She does well, but you never know when she is going to have a struggle. And I don’t ever want her to be homeless.”
“I don’t either.”
“I can’t make her live in the house. And I can’t make her live with me. But I can always have an open door for her. How do you feel about that?”
Jane hadn’t given a lot of thought to the idea of Phoebe living with them. Phoebe was smart, beautiful, funny, and a talented athlete. There didn’t seem to be a lot of reason to worry that she wouldn’t have a home.
“Your silence indicates a problem.” Jake stiffened.
“Not a problem. I just hadn’t ever thought about it before. It deserved thinking about.” She pulled him closer again. “Your family is my family. If she needs to live with us, of course she can.”
He kissed the top of her head. “I cannot tell you how much I love you. Actually, I can. I love you a lot. A whole lot.”
She tucked closer into his arm. “But I think you were getting to something else about the house.”
“Yeah. I was. So, since Cousin Jeff is running the family business now, Aunt Marjory has made it plain that she expects him and his family to get to move into the house.”
“But it’s your house!” Indignation hit Jane like a slap to the face. “She can’t do that!”
“No. Technically she can’t. And it’s ridiculous to think she could. But, in her favor, she’s not asking for it for free. She’s suggesting he rent it from us, well, from me. The offer is good. He’d pay rent, utilities, do small maintenance jobs. I’d take care of taxes, which are no small thing, but the rent would be more than enough to cover it.”
Jane took a deep breath. It was less insulting when put that way. “But why your house?”
“It was Jeff’s grandpa’s house, too. My dad was the oldest kid, but Jeff is the oldest grandkid. Legally, yes, the house is mine. Financially, well, it’s complicated. And Jeff and Heather have five kids, so they could use the space.”
“How do you feel about it?” Jane turned the question to him, since her own feelings were an unattractive mixture of selfishness and envy. A mansion and five kids? Would she ever have a life like that?
But it wasn’t the life she wanted.
But who doesn’t, at some level?
Well, she didn’t.
But, she kind of did.
“Relieved.” He grinned. “It makes taking you to foreign parts to preach the gospel and save the lost so much simpler.”
She squeezed his arm. That’s what they both wanted. And maintaining mansions back home made it awful difficult. “So what about Phoebe?”
“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? She makes pretty good money. She has a nice little income from the trust. There’s no reason she has to live with her brother right now.”
“And in the future?”
“In the future we just make sure there’s a bed for her somewhere. I don’t see any reason we can’t put her in the attic.”
Jane rolled her eyes. “We can make room for her somewhere.”
Jake’s phone beeped. The table was ready for them.
Over a dinner of burgers and fries—not as good as the old Roly Burgers they used to make, but not bad—they sketched out a dream for their future overseas.
“You really think we could get our support together in two years?” A wellspring of happiness threatened to sweep Jane off her feet. In all her days of wanting to leave, dying to leave, begging God to let her leave, this was the first time it sounded like she would actually get to leave.
“Definitely. However, you would still be a year away from having enough hours for your PI license.”
“So?” Jane rested her chin on her hand and sipped her Coke through a straw. “Who cares about that?”
“God might.” Jake pulled a very serious face, but his eye twinkled. “Seriously. If we feel like he is calling you to this right now, we need to consider that he might desire for you to see it through. At least until you had your license.”
“Detecting would be something to do on furlough.” She was joking. She had no intention of staying long enough to get the license if the alternative was heading overseas.
“Talk to Flora and Rocky. If anyone would have insight into it, they would.”
She crinkled her nose. She suspected folks like Flora and Rocky would highly support the idea of following through with your plans. Another thought nagged at her. “What about Phoebe?”
“While we’re gone?” Jake asked. “I’ve got a plan. I don’t want to leave her with just Aunt Marjory. She might turn out to be a tough-love kind of lady. I don’t know. She hasn’t faced anything like this before. Her kids are so normal. But if we rent our place to Phoebe while we’re gone, she would at least have a roof over her head.”
A quick, horrifying vision of the ways Phoebe could destroy her home flashed through Jane’s mind, but she shrugged. “True. That could do it.”
“Speaking of Phoebe again, you know that I manage her trust. If my plane plunges into the ocean this fall, Marjory—who might just prefer to let Pheebs hit rock bottom before she helps—gets to be in charge.”
“She might not. You said you didn’t know if she was a tough-love kind of lady.”
“I’m not one hundred percent positive, but you’ve met her. She’s not who I’d pick to have care for my sister’s fortune.” He lifted his eyebrow and leaned forward.
Jane’s breath caught in her throat. “You want me to take responsibility.”
“You could only do it if we were married before I met my untimely death.”
Jane pushed her drink away. Her stomach was full of rocks. What vicious turn had her romantic evening just taken?
“I didn’t really know how to put it and make it sound romantic. But in addition to knowing you were well cared for if the worst should happen, I would know she was well cared for, too.”
Jane closed her eyes.
Now if she didn’t marry him in the next month or two she was the most selfish person on the planet.
Fifteen
A hard fisted pounding on the hollow bedroom door woke Jane the next morning. “Turn. It. Off.” Gemma’s gravelly morning voice rose above the din of the knocking and some other obnoxious sound coming from outside.
Jane peeled her eyes open and checked the time. Four a.m. Early, even for her. She pulled her pillow over her head. “UUUUUGH.”
Gemma opened the door. “Don’t ugh me. Turn off your car alarm.”
Jane pressed the pillow over her face a little tighter.
Gemma pulled it off and threw it across the room. “Your car. Alarm. Ugh.” She had deep shadows under her eyes and her usually perfect, glossy bobbed hair was ratty. “Turn it off.” She fell back across the bed.
Jane sat up and pressed her hands over her eyes. “Not mine. Can’t be mine. Nothing to steal.” But she was waking up, and it did sound like the alarm on the modest-but-reliable car she relied on. She dragged herself to the window. Shards of glass were scattered around her parking spot. Her back window was toast. Something hot pink was spread everywhere, hanging out the window, strewn across the parking lot. “Vandals. Call Grant.”
“After the alarm.”
Jane shook the fog out of her head and grabbed her keys off the desk. The alarm stopped with the push of a button. “Is this the new TP-ing? What did they do to my car?” Instead of calling the cops, she just stared at the mess and tried to make sense of it.
“What did you have in all those boxes?”
“What boxes?” Jane snapped some pictures from her window. It was pretty dark out still, but the parking lot lights illuminated the scene of the crime.
“The ones in your car. The ones someone busted the window out for.”
Jane stared at the picture on her phone. Boxes.
Boxes.
“Shoot! I forgot to go to the zoo last night!”
“You don’t make any sense. I’m calling Grant.” Gemma left to call her boyfriend.
Jane grabbed her bathrobe and ran downstairs and outside as fast as she could.
First: Brad Carter stalked her in the night.
Second: Phoebe was hit.
Third: Her car was vandalized.
She was definitely getting too close for someone’s comfort. The whole thing must hinge on Paige Tech. The sooner she got to the bottom of it, the better.
The police report didn’t take any time, and she even got to have breakfast afterwards, with Grant and Gemma. But he wasn’t great company this morning.
“I’m not on the case for Devon Grosse and I haven’t heard anything about Kyle Fish, so don’t ask.”
“Oh.” Jane took a big bite from her donut. “What about—”
“No. Nothing. I know nothing. I am working on something I’m not allowed to talk about, and it’s not related to anything you are working on, so don’t even ask.” He took a look at his phone, and then a big drink from his coffee. “I am glad for the donuts, though. Thanks.” He gave Gemma’s cheek a quick kiss. “See you tonight, babe.”
Gemma ran her fingers through her hair—much tidier hair than it had been an hour earlier. “Sure thing.”
Jane opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted again.
“Not a word. Please.” He left with a grin. A grin that made Jane want to kick him. Stupid real-detective.
“So what is he working on?” she asked Gemma.
“I don’t know.” Gemma poured her coffee in the sink. “And now that your report is done, I’m going back to bed.”
Jane considered doing the same, but she could never go back to sleep in the morning. And she had to think of a way to explain how the zoo T-shirts had ended up all over her apartment complex parking lot instead of at the zoo, where they belonged. Flora wouldn’t like it, and Jane couldn’t blame her.
At ten, Jane had her regular seat in the threadbare avocado velvet chair in Flora’s office. “I have to confess a huge mistake I made yesterday.”
“Good.” Flora didn’t look remotely surprised.
“I forgot to go to the zoo.”
“I know.” Flora’s frown didn’t look understanding.
“I am so sorry.”
“Good.”
“I just got really caught up in this side issue of the premarital counseling and this lady who writes books of game cheat codes.”
Flora waved her hand to dismiss it. “I’ve already spoken to the volunteer coordinator at the zoo this morning. They are waiting for you. If you leave right now and go straight there, I probably won’t kill you.”
“The only problem is, I don’t think I have all of the shirts anymore.”
Flora’s mouth went very thin.
“Because last night my car was vandalized. It will be okay. I have insurance, but right now I just have a plastic thingy in the window. But see, the shirts…” First Jane spoke too fast, then, in the face of Flora’s stony disapproval, she floundered. “See, they kind of tore open all of the boxes and threw the shirts everywhere. I reclaimed everything I found, but I don’t really know if they are all there.”
Flora continued to stare over her glasses.
“I folded them all, and brushed off the dirt and broken glass, but it didn’t seem like it was as many as it should have been.”
Flora tilted her chin up. “I’m very sorry to hear your car was vandalized.” She took a long, slow breath. “Bring everything you still have to the zoo, right now, and we can discuss it further when you get back.”
Jane stood up. “Yes, of course. But…see, I spoke with this guy, Shane Paige, and I think that’s part of the car thing. And when you add Brad accosting me, and then Phoebe and the hit and run…”
“First, zoo. Then talk.” Flora stood up.
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
There was no traffic at that hour, and so Jane found herself at the zoo before she had had time to recover from the conversation. Her job as a detective was over. That was for sure. She was completely done. No more supervised hours.
But then, that was okay, because she could just focus on missions stuff now. Bible studies and fundraising and whatever.
It was all she had ever wanted.
It would be fine.
She wiped a tear off her cheek. Not sure where it had come from. She couldn’t be sad, finally getting to focus on everything she had ever wanted.
The T-shirts she had rescued all fit into two boxes, and she was sure she had had at least five, really full boxes before. They looked kind of pathetic, on the dolly, but she rolled them to the gift shop anyway. “Hey there,” she said to the first person she found in a zoo uniform. “These are for the volunteer coordinator, where would you like them?”
The zoo person thumbed towards the back of the gift shop. “Ask for Jeremiah.”
“Thanks.” Jane rolled her way to the back of the shop and knocked on a partially opened door.
“Come in.” It was a woman’s voice.
Jane stood in the doorway with her two boxes and the dolly. “I’ve got a delivery of T-shirts for Jeremiah.”
The woman looked tired. She pressed a button on her walkie-talkie. “Jer—the shirts are here.”
The walkie squawked a reply that was weirdly in stereo. “Thanks, man.” The voice was right behind her.
Jeremiah looked really familiar.
“I know you.” He took both boxes off the dolly with one arm. “Jane, right? From Harvest School of the Bible?”
Jane tilted her head.
“You’re the one that got kicked out for dating the teacher, right?”
Jane blushed, starting at her toes and ending with her face, which felt like it was on fire.
“How is old Professor Isaac?”
Jane grimaced. “We, um, broke up.”
“Whoops. Sorry.”
“No biggie. We both moved on.” Jane checked the walls helplessly for a clock, but didn’t find one.
“Too bad. I had a twenty on you guys being lifers.”
“I guess you lost.” She wished for any reason to end the conversation,
but none came. Jeremiah looked familiar, but she couldn’t be expected to remember everyone perfectly. It had been like, three years ago, after all.
“Whatcha been up to? Anything good? I just got back from Tunisia. Let me tell you, it was hot. In all senses.”
Jane just stared at him. Hot in all senses? Was hot a new church term for ministry? She wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t have meant in the girls were hot sense, because that would have been really weird and inappropriate. “I finished up at Portland State. Looking to go to Thailand soon. After the wedding.” She glanced at her ring finger.
“Ah! So not Professor Isaac, but someone nabbed you.”
She pretended to look at her watch, though she wasn’t wearing one. “So, those are the T-shirts for the volunteers. I don’t think it’s all of them because, um, my car was vandalized.” She sounded like an idiot.
“Whoa. That’s wild. What do you mean?”
“Just, vandalized. I forgot to come by yesterday and they were in my car and…anyway. I think there might be some missing.”
Jeremiah let out a short breath of disappointment. “There weren’t enough to start with, man. Not after the way Violet mishandled the finances. You think you know people, right?”
“Right.”
The woman at the desk spoke up. “If that’s everything…”
Jeremiah gave her an apologetic half smile. “It’s not. I hate to do this to you, Jane, but we’re going to have to see how many are missing. Non-profit and all. Are you insured, or will the company you work for handle that?”
Jane exhaled. “I am, if nothing else.” This T-shirt pass off was never going to end.
“Then let’s just get this done.” He set down both boxes and opened them up. They had to sort them by size and take a complete count.
Midway through the second box, someone else knocked on the door.
Jane looked up.
Brad Carter.
Her heart pounded against her skull, which was surprising.
Brad glanced her way, and then over her, to the woman at the desk. “I’m here for our lunch.” He smiled like a guy who knew how to work a lady.
Spoiled Rotten Murder: A Plain Jane Mystery (The Plain Jane Mysteries Book 5) Page 12
