Peril for Your Thoughts (Mind Reader Mystery) (3 page)

“Again, I do.”

I walked beside him, fishing in my purse for my keys. The quicker I got this over with, the better. I practically tore the doorknob off in my haste to jam the key in the lock. The door finally swung open, and Miss Priss stuck her head out, purred at me, took one look at the detective, and then stuck her nose in the air as she walked away.

“I missed you, too, Prissy,” I said to her retreating back, welcoming the feel of something normal. She was a beautiful calico cat, and her name was Priscilla, but everyone insisted on calling her Miss Priss because it fit her to a tee. “Well, Detective, it was nice meeting you. I hope everything goes well for you in fitting into this town. And I apologize ahead of time for anything my family might put you through.”

“Please call me Nik. It was nice meeting you, too, Kalli. And don’t worry about your family. I’ve had enough practice to know exactly how to deal with them.” He smiled, but made no move to walk back to his car.

A loud whining noise sounded from the door to the other half of the house. When I’d gotten my big break with the store in New York, I’d stopped working in my parents’ restaurant, moved out of their house, and moved in with Jaz. She owned a big old colonial house with a huge fenced-in backyard on Picture Perfect Drive—a dead end road just off of Main Street.

She’d had carpenters split the house into two halves, insisting she didn’t need that much space. I couldn’t afford to rent the other half by myself yet, and I was determined not to take charity from anyone, so I paid to live with her. So far the other half had remained vacant. She insisted she hadn’t met anyone nice enough to rent it to yet.

I had been away in New York City for the past week, meeting the people at Interludes and firming up plans for my spring line. Everyone had been there except my PR representative, whom I would be meeting with for dinner right here in Clearview. I had gotten home late last night, excited yet exhausted. By the time I had left this morning for Full Disclosure, I hadn’t noticed a thing.

Someone had obviously changed her mind and moved in. By the sounds of it, they had a dog. A rather large dog. Why hadn’t Jaz told me? My insides knotted, and I suspected that was why. Cats I could handle. They were self-sufficient and as clean as me. Dogs … not so much. Her mission was to help me come out of my shell. Was this part of her plan? I swallowed hard.

“Wh-What’s that?” I asked.

“That’s Wolfgang,” he answered.

“What’s a wolfgang?”

“Not what … who.” Nik grinned like a schoolboy and pulled out a set of keys from his sport coat and then proceeded to unlock the door.

My jaw hit the floor.

A humongous St. Bernard leapt out the door, stood on his hind legs, and slammed his front paws onto the detective’s broad shoulders, standing nearly as tall as his six-foot-something frame. The canine’s enormous tongue tried to reach every inch of the detective’s face, slobber flying everywhere, and the detective just laughed.

Laughed
!

I convulsed and gagged, trying not to vomit. That was all it took for “Wolfgang” to notice me. His eyes grew huge and focused on me. I didn’t have to be a dog whisperer to know his thoughts:
Fresh meat.

He dropped down on all four paws and lunged.

I screamed.

Prissy appeared out of nowhere and hissed, her hair standing straight on end.

Detective Stevens grabbed the dog’s collar and yanked. “Heel, Wolfgang.”

The dog stopped immediately and sat, though his tailed thumped rapidly and his hind end kept fidgeting. He whined in a high-pitched, pathetic wail.

“I know, buddy. It’s okay.” Nik patted the top of the beast’s head.

“I-It’s not okay. What’s he doing in there?”

The detective shrugged. “Checking out his new home, I guess.”

“Wh-where is his owner?” I knew the answer, but I just couldn’t wrap my bruised and battered brain around it.

“You’re looking at him.” Nik the nice guy was gone, Detective Stevens the cunning cop was on break, and Nikos the smug Greek was back in full force.

“Good night, Detective,” I said stiffly as he stood there grinning like a fiend over my reaction to his beast. I quickly squeezed through my door and slammed it shut behind me, then leaned against it, thinking,
Great
,
just great
!

I hated chaos, I hated unpredictability, I hated change. What more could possibly happen to upset the peaceful, steady order of my life?

Maybe it was all just a dream.

I woke up the next morning and stretched, feeling the back of my head. No bump. I listened for sounds from next door, but there was no sign of the beast—man or canine. I padded over to the window and glanced outside. No car except mine, which if last night had happened, my car would still be at the restaurant.

Things were looking up.

But Jaz’s car was gone. I pursed my lips. Then again, she was an early riser and would be at the boutique already, I reasoned. If last night
had
happened, she’d still be up in her nookie nook—a Jazism for the loft. Same with a booty-que call being a Jazism for a booty call in her boutique. I cringed. I would have to disinfect the loft all over again if I planned to get anything done up there. If she still let me up there after my little incident. I had my work cut out for me today.

I shook off those thoughts and decided to remain positive. Today was a whole new day. A day to start fresh. A day filled with infinite possibilities, I thought, having no clue that in a little while today would become one of the worst days of my life.

I quickly showered, washing my hair three times, and then dressed in yet another practical suit. I already felt more like myself. I rechecked my house three times, making sure the throw pillows were at the precise angle and every knickknack was in its place. I fed Prissy and then headed out the door with a positive outlook.

Until I ran smack dab into Detective Stevens.

His bag of groceries and cup of coffee flew from his hands. He wrapped his arms around me and twisted so I landed on top of him as we fell to the hard ground with an oomph. “Whoa, there. You okay?” he asked.
Damn she smells so good. Feels good too. Soft curves in all the right places. I just wish—

“Oh, my God. I don’t want to know.” I quickly rolled off him and sat up, pulling my suit coat down and searching my pockets for my hand sanitizer. I finally found it, and my heart rate slowed as I scrubbed my hands.

“What’s wrong? You don’t want to know if you’re okay?” He rolled to his feet in his jeans, more casual sport coat, and T-shirt this time, then reached down to help me up.

“Yeah, that’s it. I’d rather not know.” I scrambled to my feet on my own, sure, now, that last night was
definitely
not a dream. And he smelled great too. Oh, man, was I in big trouble.

“Okay, then. I’ll, ah, see you later. I have to feed Wolfgang.” He picked up the bag of groceries and held up the dog food he must have gone to the store for, then scooped up his empty foam coffee cup. “I’ll just grab a cup at the office. By the way, I had your car towed back early this morning. I figured you’d need it for work.”

“You figured right. Thanks. See you later, Detective Stevens.” Much later, I hoped.

“It’s Nik,” he hollered after me.

I scurried to my car before he let Wolfgang out. So much for it all being a dream. I could still read minds, the beast still lived beside me, and Nik the “nice one” had decided to stick around. Where was Nikos when I needed him? This wasn’t a dream at all. It was more like a living nightmare.

Spring showers I was used to, but today looked like the Heavens were about to open up and shower their wrath upon us. Black clouds, a streak of lightning, a crack of thunder. Why did my gut tell me it was a sign that things were about to get worse?

My phone rang while I was still sitting in the driveway.

Glancing at the caller ID, I prayed for strength as I answered. “Before you even get started, I’m okay, Ma.”

“I want you to come home, right now. Your yiayia Dido is having heart palpitations. You’ll never be able to forgive yourself if you send her to an early grave. She says your papou Homer knows a guy, and your father agrees he comes from good stock. He mostly works with animals, but I know how you don’t like doctors, and—”

“Ma, stop. Grandma and Grandpa will be just fine, but tell them thanks for me. And tell Pop not to worry. I’m not going to a doctor of any kind. I’m fine. It’s just a bump on the head.” I refused to dwell on it being anything more before I hyperventilated.

“At least rub some superglue on it and wrap it in Duct tape, or use some of that aloe from the plant I gave you.”

Superglue and Duct tape were my father’s answers to fixing everything, and my mother swore by aloe as her cure-all.

“Falling fifteen feet is not just a bump on the head,” she rambled on, not surprising me in the least that she had already heard the details. This town was small, and Ma had eyes and ears everywhere. “Are you out of your mind?” she continued. “You can’t take these things lightly. Remember what happened to your cousin Frona when she fell off the apple wagon? That was only four feet off the ground, and her head swelled to the size of a watermelon. She never was the same after that. There could be something seriously wrong with your brain.”

I stifled a hysterical laugh and thought,
If you only knew.

She went into a whole monologue about brain injuries, but I stopped listening as the detective walked out the door. He stared up at the sky as the first few sprinkles started to fall, and then he looked at me curiously. I pointed to the phone and rolled my eyes.

He laughed and gave me the OK sign and a sympathetic look, then climbed into his car. I watched him answer the CB radio thingy, say something, then shoot me an odd look. Seconds later, he disconnected and turned on his lights, then peeled out of the driveway without another look in my direction.

Well, that didn’t seem good.

“Ma, I gotta go.”

“You always
gotta
go these days.”

“I promise I’ll make it up to you just as soon as I finish my book of designs. I want to make some progress before I meet my PR person later today. We’re supposed to go over a promotion plan for my new spring line, so they’re pushing me to finish on time. Unfortunately, you can’t rush creativity, and I haven’t exactly had a whole lot of peace and quiet lately.”

“You would if you lived back home. When are you gonna get a real job and design something respectable lik—”

“Look at that, my phone is dying. Sorry, Ma. Talk later.” I hung up and pulled out of my driveway, heading toward Full Disclosure. Stealing a move from the detective, I was just about to turn my phone off completely when it rang once more. I glanced down at the ID. Speaking of Full Disclosure …

Turning on my Bluetooth, I answered the call. “Sorry I’m late, Jaz. I got hung up talking to my mother, but I’m on my way now. Anything wrong?”

“Everything’s wrong,” she wailed, completely out of character for her.

“Oh my gosh, what happened? It’s Darrin, isn’t it? I knew there was something off about him. Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine … he’s the one who’s not. Oh, my God, it’s so awful.”

“Jaz, focus. What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s dead, Kalli. Deader than the doorknob to Disclosure, and they think I killed him.”

“You can’t seriously think Jaz is the one who killed Darrin,” I said to Detective Stevens later that day at the police station as we sat across from him in his new office with his partner, Detective Boomer Matheson. “You know her,” I added, appealing to the Nik I knew resided within him.

“Not really,” he replied with an emotion as blank and bland as the white walls in the room. “Look, I’m not saying she did kill the victim, Miss Ballas.” The detective was in full cop mode now, with Nik the “nice one” nowhere to be found as he put forth his best professional side in front of his partner. Go figure. “I’m just saying she was the last person that we know of to see him alive, and he was found dead in her boutique with a bullet to the gut from the same type gun registered in her name. My hands are tied. I have to follow all leads. She has no alibi and admits to being with the victim all night long.”

Detective Matheson sat on the edge of his desk and grunted over that last comment, obviously not worried about looking professional himself. If this was good cop, bad cop, he was definitely the latter. Of course, it didn’t help that he was one of the many broken hearts Jaz had left in her wake. A decent-looking man with russet-colored hair and hazel eyes, but his personality was seriously lacking.

Jaz scowled at Boomer and focused on Nik. For the first time since I’d known her, she didn’t look glamorous. She was free of make-up and in a sweat suit. A designer sweat suit, but a sweat suit nonetheless. She pulled herself together and said, “I’ve had the gun for years. From back in my city days. You must know how it is, being from the city yourself. Small town or not, old habits die hard, Detective.” She blew her nose, genuinely upset. “I keep it behind the register, but it hasn’t been fired since I learned how to use it years ago at a pistol range.”

“Maybe someone tried to rob her, found the gun, and shot him,” I said hopefully.

“How could she not hear the gun go off?” Detective Matheson asked, sounding like he didn’t believe a word that came out of her mouth.

“How could no one else hear the gun go off?” Jaz snapped back. “Besides, we’d had a lot to drink.”

Again, Boomer grunted. “This is the business district. Most people go to their homes in the residential district to sleep,” he pointed out. “No one would have heard the shot from a puny gun like that.”

“Normally size matters,” Jaz shot him a fake sympathy look, “but in this case, a gunshot sound is a gunshot sound. Loud and ear piercing.”

“Kind of like someone else I know,” he countered back.

“Unless someone was walking or driving through that area in the middle of the night. I don’t think the real killer would have risked it,” Detective Stevens cut in.

“The throw pillow Jaz sits on behind the register was missing,” I said. “Maybe someone used it as a silencer.”

He and Jaz both stared at me, looking surprised.

“What can I say? I’m observant.” I felt my cheeks heat.

Detective Matheson’s eyes narrowed, and I was sure I didn’t want to know what
he
was thinking.

“Okay, fine. I’ve always thought it was highly unsanitary and secretly sprayed it with disinfectant when she wasn’t looking. Same as I do with half the things in her shop.” Jaz gasped, and I winced with a sorry look, then turned my gaze back on Boomer. “I notice things like that. Satisfied?”

He just grunted again, making some notes—and making me seriously irritated. The man was not very likable.

“You were saying?” Detective Stevens asked encouragingly, showing the first genuine signs that he really did want to help clear Jaz’s name.

I clung to that and continued, ignoring Boomer the Butthead. “Anyway, when I got to the store today, I couldn’t stand the mess. There was so much blood.” I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry and my skin feeling like it was crawling. I took a breath and continued, “So I did what I always do. I started cleaning, as much as the CSI team would allow, that is. That’s when I noticed the pillow was gone.”

“Did you move it?” he asked Jaz.

“Moving my butt pillow was the last thing on my mind last night. Darrin and I headed straight up to my nookie nook—my loft—with a bottle of wine and didn’t come down until this morning. Or at least I didn’t. That’s when I found him lying on the floor by the front door in a pool of blood.”

“Yet nothing was taken and there was no sign of a break-in, correct?” Detective Stevens checked his notes.

“Correct. I don’t know how anyone could have gotten in. I just know I didn’t do it.”

“No gun, either,” said Detective Matheson, taking over. “Like the killer hid it just before we got here. Yet you admit to having the same type of gun that it appears the killer used, which is also missing. Convenient if you ask me.”

“Why would I admit to that if I killed him with it?” Jaz stood up and started pacing.

“We would have found that out in time.” Detective Matheson shrugged.

“Look, I’m cooperating,” she said right in his face. He didn’t even flinch. “I might not have an alibi, but I certainly don’t have motive, either. And I have no idea where the stupid murder weapon is.”

“Isn’t your MO to meet them, love them, and leave them?” Boomer sneered.

Given Boomer’s history with Jaz, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to make a comment like this. However, the way he used the exact words I’d said to Nik made my stomach turn.

Jaz shot me a horrified look, and I nailed Nik with a
How could you
look. He must have repeated what I’d said to his partner. I’d only meant Darrin was her type because he wasn’t the serious sort. Detective Stevens didn’t quite meet my eyes.

“Hence the word
leave
them, not kill them,” I sputtered, shooting Detective Matheson a murderous look.

“We’re just trying to prepare you for what type of questions you’ll be asked. Are you sure you don’t want your attorney present?” Detective Stevens asked quietly.

Jaz thrust her chin up defiantly. “I have nothing to hide.”

“Then why didn’t you call 911?” Detective Moron asked, butting in again.

“I told you I overslept. I woke up to sirens wailing and came down to find Mrs. Flannigan pounding on the front door. She’s one of my regular customers and knew I was having a sale today. She’s the one who called 911. You know the rest.”