Blind Dates Can Be Murder (5 page)

“It’s Lettie,” she told him, driving onto the bridge that would take her over the Delaware River and into Pennsylvania. “Job’s done.”

“Good girl. You headed back?”

“Yes, sir. I should be there in about two hours. Do you have another assignment for me?”

“Already? This’ll be like five in a row.”

Now or never
, Lettie thought.

“Yes, sir. Well, I might as well work while I can. Chuck’ll be out on parole soon and I won’t have as much time.”
That’s because I’ll be thousands of miles away
.

“You’re ten times the worker he ever was,” Mickey chuckled. “Why don’t we let him stay home and play the wifey and you keep working full-time?”

“After three years in prison,” she said, “that might suit him just fine.”

Mickey laughed.

“All right, come by tomorrow around noon and we’ll settle up. I’ll find something else for you next week.”

“Okay, that sounds good,” Lettie said, disconnecting the phone.

When she got home tonight, the first thing she was going to do was take her money out of hiding and count it. Then she’d decide how much longer it would be before she could make her move.

Jo stepped into Danny’s open arms, pressing her face against his shoulder and trying not to cry. She wasn’t sure how he had known to come, but she’d never been so glad to see him in her life.

“Okay, okay, the man’s got a job to do,” Chief Harvey Cooper said, gesturing with his hands. That’s when Jo realized that Danny was there not as her friend but in an official capacity. She pulled away, embarrassed, though he kept a firm hand on her back.

“You okay?” Danny asked softly, his blue eyes locked onto hers. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The evening had been a nightmare from beginning to end.

“You sure?” he pressed.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m all right. Go do your job.”

As Danny reluctantly took out his equipment and started photographing the scene, Jo stood beside Brock Dentyne—the
real
Brock Dentyne—and listened as he repeated his story for Chief Cooper.

“I arrived promptly at six o’clock,” he said in a cultured Southern accent, glancing at Jo before continuing, “but the moment I stepped from my car, a man approached and asked if I was here to meet Jo Tulip. I said that I was, and he told me to come with him.”

“So you went with him, just like that?” the chief asked.

“There was no reason not to trust him,” Brock said. “I thought he was her father or a chaperone or something. This is the first time I ever went on a computer date. I wasn’t sure of the protocol.”

Jo felt her face flush, mortified at the way it sounded. She could almost imagine what was going through the chief’s head. He must be wondering why she was so desperate for a date that she had to use a computer service.
My agent told me to do it
, she wanted to say.
I’m trying to drive up the traffic to my website
.

“So you went with him. Then what happened?”

“Well, he lead me around behind the restaurant, over there,” Brock continued, pointing toward a row of dumpsters. “He told me to pick up a piece of paper that was lying on the ground, and when I bent over, he smacked me in the head. That’s the last thing I remember until I woke up, in the trunk, with my hands and feet tied and duct tape over my mouth. From the feel of this lump, I’d say he used the butt of that gun.”

“And how long were you conscious before Miss Tulip found you?”

Brock looked at Jo gratefully.

“Probably just a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity.”

“How horrible,” Jo said, wishing she could have gotten to him even sooner.

“And you said that you didn’t know the guy, never saw him before in your life?”

“No. I just wanted a nice date with a lovely lady. If that fellow hadn’t waylaid me, I’m sure that’s exactly what I would have gotten.”

He flashed Jo a slight smile then, and it struck her suddenly that Brock Dentyne was quite good-looking. She had been too traumatized to notice before, but now that she thought about it, she realized he was exactly the kind of guy she had hoped would be showing up tonight.

“How about you, Jo?” the chief asked, turning to her. “What’s your story?”

“I got here about five fifty,” she said, glancing at Brock. “I wanted to be early.”

“Go on.”

“A little after six, a man walked into the restaurant and said he was my date.”

“The guy on this license? The one named Frank Malone?”

“Yes, but I thought he was Brock Dentyne.”

“Him?”

“Yes.”

The chief looked from the photo on the license of Frank Malone to the face of Brock Dentyne.

“Jo, there’s not exactly a resemblance.”

Jo flushed, embarrassed to admit that she had accepted the computer’s match without ever seeing a photo.

“I…it was a blind date, Chief. I didn’t know what to expect. Admittedly, when that guy showed up, I was disappointed. He wasn’t what I had been expecting, but I tried to make the best of it. We had dinner, made conversation.”

She went on to describe their meal together and the asthma attack that brought the man to the floor.

“I came out to his car to look for another inhaler,” she said. “That’s when I found the…weapons in the car.”

She told about the ambulance coming and going inside to pay the bill and the waiter giving her back the wallet.

“I was just standing here trying to decide what to do next when I heard thumping from inside the trunk. I popped it open, and there he was. My real date.”

“And you don’t know the guy you had dinner with?”

“No. I’ve never seen him before tonight.”

“Okay, thanks.”

The chief moved along to other witnesses at that point, though he told Jo and Brock not to leave the area. “Unless you think you need to get over to the hospital right away,” he added, gesturing toward the lump on Brock’s head.

“No, sir. I can wait. Thank you.”

Jo glanced at Brock herself and offered to get him some ice. She also said she could remove the gummy residue from his face, where the duct tape had been.

“That’d be real nice,” he said, drawling out the last word.
Nahce
. “I’d appreciate it.”

“I’ll be right back,” she told him, excusing herself to run inside the restaurant and ask for a bag of ice, a small amount of peanut butter, and some napkins. When she returned, Brock was leaning against the bumper of his own car, a snazzy little BMW, with his head cradled sideways in one hand. Despite his pain, he gave her a smile, and she realized that he had dimples. Really cute dimples.

“Here’s your ice,” she said, ignoring the quickening of her pulse and handing him the baggie. As he pressed it to the back of his head, she scooped up a small amount of the peanut butter with her finger and wiped it onto his face. She used her fingertips to gently rub the peanut butter around in circles on his cheek until she could feel the adhesive give way underneath.

“Now I’m going to go around all night smelling like a peanut,” he teased.

“Actually, you smell like mint,” she replied. “Your breath does, at least. It’s nice.”

Their eyes met, and Jo realized she was flirting.

“No, wait,” Danny said loudly, and Jo glanced over at him, thinking he was talking to her. He was looking her way, but he was speaking to a deputy who was holding a dark blue pillow. “Let me get a shot of that.”

Jo wiped off her hand, gave Brock the rest of the napkins, and then joined Danny, curious at what he was photographing.

“This was up under the backseat,” the deputy said. “Looks like dog hair.”

Sure enough, it was a pet pillow, covered in the long, white hair of what was probably either a dog or a cat.

“Okay, thanks,” Danny said after snapping a few photos.

The deputy walked away, and Danny turned his attention to Jo.

“Making up for lost time?” he asked softly, a frown wrinkling his brow.

“What do you mean?”

“Now that you found the missing date,” he said, rolling his eyes toward Brock, “do you really have to be all over him like that?”

Jo was confused. Danny seemed angry, and she had no idea why. Knowing him, he was concerned for her safety.

“He’s been through a harrowing experience,” she replied evenly. “I’m just helping him out.”

“You need to be careful, Jo,” he said, his eyes locked onto hers. “At this point, if I were you, I wouldn’t trust anyone.”

She pursed her lips, let out a grunt of frustration, and then stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on Danny’s cheek.

“Stop acting like a big brother,” she said. “I know how to take care of myself.”

A big brother.

A big brother!

After Jo walked away, it was all Danny could do not to completely give up hope. How could anyone be as blind as Jo Tulip? How could anyone be so clueless?

Frustrated, he turned his back to her and Mr. Perfect Date and got on with the business of photographing the crime scene. Certainly, he had enough to do to keep himself busy.

The manager of the restaurant was nearly apoplectic at this point, eager to get the cops and their entire entourage out of there. From what Danny could tell, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Chief Cooper was thorough, and this case was just weird enough to merit the full attention of him and his resources.

Things took a turn for the worse when the chief took a phone call from one of his deputies. Danny was standing near the chief when he answered his cell, grunting and nodding and making the occasional comment. Finally, he hung up, clipped the phone on his belt, and stood there with his hands on his hips, surveying the scene.

“Everything okay?” Danny asked, lowering the lens from his face.

“Nope,” the chief replied, letting out a slow breath. “That was the deputy I sent over to the hospital to question Frank Malone and keep watch on him till he could be released into our custody.”

“And?”

“And it’s a moot point now. Frank Malone never regained consciousness. He just died.”

3

D
anny wanted to be the one to tell Jo. The evening had been traumatic enough for her without throwing a death into the mix. And though she was a mature and logical woman, she was probably at her limit for the day as far as shocking events were concerned.

Danny pulled her aside and said it gently but straight out, without any embellishment. A number of emotions flashed across her beautiful features all at once.

“Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised,” she replied finally. “He looked pretty far gone before the ambulance got here.”

“Of course,” Danny said, “this makes it a lot harder to figure out what was going on and why he abducted your real date.”

“The poor man,” Jo replied. “He didn’t deserve to die like that, even if he was some sort of crazy stalker. At least I don’t have to worry about him coming after me anymore. That’s selfish, I know, considering the man is dead, but that’s how I feel.”

Danny hugged her again, holding on longer than he ought to. Selfish or not, that was how he felt too. Deep inside, he was glad the guy was dead. Danny didn’t know what he would do if anything terrible ever happened to his best friend and the love of his life.