Peril for Your Thoughts (Mind Reader Mystery) (17 page)

 “What are you doing here, Kalli?” he asked,
his jaw tightening and a muscle in his cheek pulsing.

 “Shopping. I’ve got to say her spring finds
are fabulous, yet familiar. Gee, I wonder why.” I crossed my arms over my chest
and smirked.

 “Ana told me you were out to get her.”

 I threw my hands up in the air. “Are you
kidding me?”

 “Nope. I’m dead serious, Ms. Ballas.”

 “Come on, Max. You’ve known me since we were
both in diapers.”

 “And yet I feel I don’t know you at all.” He
shook his head. “The Kalli I knew didn’t date.”

 “I still don’t.”

 He leaned in, thrusting his face in mine,
making me hop back a step. God forbid his spittle made contact with my pores. I
might not make it out alive. “You could have fooled me based on what I saw at
your parents’ house on Sunday,” he ground out.

 I bobbed and weaved, barely avoiding a drop
of saliva and earning an odd look as he asked, “Is that a new quirk? I think
they’re getting worse.”

“I’m fine, just a little crick in my neck,” I said as his
words finally registered. I replied, “That wasn’t a date. That was just a
kiss.”

 “Which I would have thought was worse. Guess
it would only be worse if it had been with me.”

 “Max, I—”

 “You’re armed and dangerous, is what you
are, Annie Oakley. I heard the gossip. My mama always told me to avoid
situations where I might get hurt.”

 “So you turn to Ana of all people? You
honestly think she isn’t playing you for a fool?”

 “Can’t be any worse than what you’ve done
since we hit puberty.”

 I rubbed my temples. “I can see this isn’t a
good time.”

 “No, Kalli, it isn’t. And something tells me
it will never be a good time for you and me.”

 I dropped my hands and stared at him,
pleading, “Max, please don’t be like this. You’re one of my closest friends.”

 “That’s the problem. I guess I always
thought the issue was with your quirks and being with
any
man, but now I
know it was really about being with me.”

 “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on
with me. I never meant to hurt you.” I tried hard not to, but my eyes welled up
with tears.

 He sighed, and his face softened. “I’ll get
over it. I just need some time. And I think it’s time you left.”

 “Okay,” I said, feeling helpless as I
watched him walk away, back to Ana—and out of my life for good, I was afraid.

 That also meant spying on Johnny was out.

 Ana kissed Max’s cheek, whispered something
in his ear that sent him on an errand for her. I saw Johnny slip out of the
room while shoving something in his back pocket, then look around, but no one
noticed him again except for me. Ana headed toward him with a suspicious look
on her face, but Mrs. Flannigan intercepted her and started up a conversation.
Johnny’s expression read total satisfaction as Max walked back in, carrying a
cup of coffee for Ana, none the wiser. I would have to find out what Jonny was
up to some other way, and soon. Not to mention what kind of game Ana was
playing. Max was too important to me, and I was terrified that if I didn’t do
something quick, Max would be headed for his biggest heartache yet.

By the time I got home, it was just before dinner. I walked
inside our half of the house and called for Jaz. No answer. She must have gone
somewhere. I set my purse down and took off my lavender suit coat, rolling up
the sleeves of my white silk blouse. Slipping off my heels, I finally began to
relax. I poured myself a glass of white wine and ran into Prissy. She turned up
her nose at me and pranced away. Clearly she hadn’t forgiven me for this
morning when I’d let the detective inside our sanctuary.

“Awww, don’t be that way, Prissy,” I said. “Come see me, and
I’ll give you some milk.”

She refused to look at me as she stretched out lazily on the
windowsill overlooking the back yard. She purred in the sun that had finally
graced us with its presence, shining its rays of hope on a bleak day. Until she
looked outside. Then she hissed and turned her back against the window.

I glanced out into the yard to see the source of her
displeasure.

Wolfgang!

Earlier today I’d watched the detective let the dog out and
then put him back inside before leaving for work. If the dog was outside now,
then it meant the detective had come home. Maybe if I got him talking, he would
reveal what he’d found out earlier about Johnny and Ana. Carrying my glass of
wine and grabbing one of Jaz’s beers, I headed next door under the guise of a
peace offering.

I knocked with my elbow, but no one answered. I knocked
again, and this time the door opened. I called out Nik’s name, but he didn’t
answer. There’s no way he would have left without locking his door. I studied
the doorknob, and it was still locked. Must be he hadn’t closed the door fully.
I was no detective, but given that he hadn’t fully closed his door and he’d
left his dog outside, I’d deduced he was called away in a hurry.

I bit my bottom lip with a smile. My day was most definitely
getting brighter. I didn’t have to break or enter anything. The beast was
outside. And the detective was long gone. Even Jaz wasn’t home to pass judgment
on me. I was completely alone, and that never happened to me.

It was a sign!

I stepped inside and used my bare foot to close the door
fully. Unlike the detective, my mama didn’t raise no fool, and I didn’t like
surprises. Taking a fortifying sip of my wine, I wandered around, checking out
his place and admittedly looking for clues to what he’d found. The layout of
his half of the house was set up exactly the same as Jaz’s and mine, but that’s
where the similarity ended. Jaz had put her stylish flair for decorating all
over our side of the house. Modern elegance and class. Whereas the detective
was a bachelor with a capital B. Bare minimum and nothing matched.

Walking down the hall, I made my way into the detective’s
bedroom. My stomach did a weird little flip when I saw his rumpled king-size
bed. I attributed it to indigestion and not the fact that I still longed to do
something about my spring fever. Things were just so complicated right now.
What was I doing here, anyway? This was crazy.

I turned away from the bed and was about to sneak back to my
place before anyone was the wiser, when Nik’s desk caught my attention. I don’t
know why but I tiptoed over, as though that would somehow make a difference and
keep me from being discovered. Or maybe I was just subconsciously worried about
the microscopic dirt from his carpet touching my bare feet. I kept Jaz’s half
of the house so clean you could eat off the floor, so I didn’t worry about
going barefoot over there. This just showed how rattled Nik made me that I’d
actually ventured into parts unknown with my feet in the buff.

I curled my toes and kept moving, refusing to be deterred.

Stopping at his desk, I looked down and my jaw unhinged.
Bingo! I’d struck gold. The security tapes from Ana’s store Vixen on the night
of the murder. Beside that sat a file. I set my wine and his beer down on the
desk. Glancing around, I spotted a box of tissues and grabbed one. I carefully
opened the file and started to read. Johnny Hogan stated that on the night of
Darrin aka Scott’s murder, he didn’t actually go home from Flannigan’s Pub. He
had been angry at Jaz and had gotten in an argument with Scott, then proceeded
to get drunk and walk it off, but he never made it home.

Ana confessed that she picked him up and took him back to
her store. She knew he was in a vulnerable state, and she used that to seduce
him. She made him keep the affair secret because she didn’t want Maria to know.
She wanted Maria to continue hating Jaz and not her. Meanwhile, she tried to
seduce Jaz’s secrets out of him, figuring Jaz had let her spring line slip over
pillow talk. But Jaz was smarter than that. She never mixed business with
pleasure and certainly wouldn’t let something that important slip. Once Ana
realized that, Johnny had become useless to her. She didn’t want Jaz’s sloppy
seconds, so she’d tried to break things off with Johnny, but he wouldn’t take
no for an answer.

She’d arranged for Sully to deliver the note for Johnny to
meet her at Lakeshore Heights. Other than their first time together in her
store the night of the murder, Ana and Johnny had started meeting at the small
hotel in Lakeshore. She’d broken things off with Johnny once and for all that
night; that’s why they had left separately and the clerk hadn’t thought things
went well. And that’s why Johnny was so angry at Sully. He’d thought Ana had
dumped him for another man. He hadn’t looked any happier today after obviously
finding out she’d only used him.

Kalli tried to process everything. So Ana had been having
the affair with Johnny, not Sully, but Johnny wasn’t the mole. And neither was
Sully. Sully said he wasn’t the killer, either, because he was planning his
parents’ anniversary party with his sister, but she couldn’t be sure he didn’t
sneak out during the night. And Maria was still a suspect because she had no
alibi and the Full Disclosure security tapes did show her peeking in the
windows. But what about Ana and Johnny? She refused to say who gave her the
information about Jaz’s spring collection, but she did confirm she and Johnny
were each other’s alibis for the night of the murder, and she could prove it.

The security tapes had a sticky note taped to them that
said,
Proof
.

I picked up the tape, played it, and nearly threw up. That
could
not
be good for my esophagus. Gasping for air, I slapped a hand
over my eyes and groped about with my other hand until I switched the tape off.
The image of Ana and Johnny going at it in her office at Vixen would forever be
burned into my retinas. I refused to call it making love because there was
nothing lovely about what I’d just seen. I briefly wondered if something like
that could ruin a person’s vision and was about to go buy the strongest eye
drops I could find, but then I heard the sound of the front door being
unlocked.

There was no way out!

My burning eyes would have to wait. Nik would be by the
front door, and I wasn’t going to attempt the back door with the beast in the
yard. So that left hiding somewhere. Footsteps grew louder as he made his way
toward the bedroom. Figured, my luck would run out. Had I said my day was
getting brighter? That was a joke.

I had no choice. I quickly closed the file, picked up my
wine and his beer, and then hid in his closet. I had barely closed the door
when he walked inside while talking on his cell phone.

“Ma, this is ridiculous.” I peeked out through the slatted
door and saw him put his phone on his bed, hit the speaker button, and then
pull off his shirt and tie. His bronzed muscles rippled as he moved, and my
mouth went dry. Who knew all that had been hidden beneath his clothes? I mean,
I could tell he was built through his clothes, but I had no clue he was built
like
that
. Broad shoulders, huge biceps, bulging pecs, and rippled abs,
all covered with a thin layer of hair that tapered to a fine line and
disappeared into…

Oh, yeah. I most definitely still had the fever.

“I told you I’m fine,” he said out loud, and I couldn’t
agree more as I tried to focus, realizing he wasn’t talking to me, he was
talking to his mother.

“What’s happening? Did you put the speaker on me?” Chloe
said.

“No, I didn’t put the speaker on you, Ma. I put
you
on speaker phone.”

“Well, I don’t like it, Nikos. You sound all hollow. Or
maybe that’s your voice, and I’m right. I just knew you were going to get the
rabies. I saw how you looked at that girl. I like her, but she’s not full
Greek, you know. That makes her susceptible to things like rabies.”

“She’s not Greek at all, Ma, and I’m not full either.” He scrubbed
his hands over his face and then stared up at the ceiling as though he was
counting to ten. I couldn’t blame him. His mother sounded exactly like mine,
and they’d obviously been talking. “I’m not getting rabies, and Kalli doesn’t
have rabies either, and being full Greek wouldn’t make a bit of difference
anyway.”

“She’s got something, I tell you. I’ve seen the way she
looks at you too, and I’m not alone. We’ve all seen it.”

He stopped moving and gaped at his bed. “We? Who’s we?”

“The mamas, of course. You can’t fool the mamas, you know.”

He undid his belt, button and zipper, then dropped his pants.
Be still my beating heart
, I thought, taking a hearty sip of wine. My
temperature had risen a few degrees, and I was pretty sure I had a fever of
some kind. Pausing at her words, he just stood there in his boxer briefs with
his pants pooled around his ankles, staring at his phone like he was processing
her words.

“You’re crazy, you know that? You’re all crazy.” He stepped
out of his pants, but left his boxers on, and I let out the breath I hadn’t
realized I’d been holding. He looked around for a minute at the noise, but I’d
frozen and held my breath once more. Just when I thought I’d pass out, he
grabbed a towel off a hook and started to move, allowing me to quietly breathe
once more.

“You’ve been bitten by the bug,” his mother said through the
phone.

“What bug?”

“The love bug.” He snorted with laughter, until she added
with certainty, “You’ll see. You don’t realize it yet, but you will.”

“Next time don’t call me while I’m working unless it’s an
emergency. I gotta go, Ma.”

“Enjoy your cold shower,” she said knowingly and then hung
up.

He stared at his towel and then frowned, heading down the
hall and out of sight. I heard a commotion and then finally the water in the
shower turned on. I downed the rest of my wine, grabbed his beer, and then slid
the closet door open to make my escape.

I’d only crept halfway down the hall when an unmistakable
whine pierced my ears. My head snapped up, and I locked eyes with the beast. He
stood massive and strong, his tail wagging furiously, as he blocked my path to
freedom. I froze, afraid to so much as breathe and clue him in to the fact that
I was not just a figment of his imagination or doggy daydreams. I glanced at
the front door, then I looked at the back door, then I peeked at the bathroom
door. It was just enough movement to send the canine into ecstatic motion.
Every ounce of his fur quivered and his entire being wiggled in glee as he
launched his body into motion. I screamed to the top of my lungs and started to
run to the closest door to me.

The bathroom door.

Muscles bunched as they flexed and then lengthened and then
flexed once more, over and over as the massive creature lumbered toward me. His
humongous pink tongue hung long and loose with doggy drool flinging about nilly
willy, splattering everything within a four foot radius. It was like a horror
scene being played out in slow motion, and I was his next victim.

I truly was in jeopardy of dying.

I did the only thing I could. I whipped open the bathroom
door, ran inside, and slammed it shut.

“What the hell?” Nik said, poking his soaking wet head out
from behind the shower curtain, obviously naked as his boxer briefs lay in a
wadded up heap at my bare feet.

I smiled wide, thrust my hand out in front of me as if it
was the most natural thing to do, and said the only thing I could think of. “Care
for a beer?”