I drove over to Mann’s and parked my car near the entrance. There weren’t many cars in the lot, so I knew it would be a quick in and out. Plus, I knew exactly what I wanted.
On the way in, I grabbed a basket and hurried through the aisles. All I needed was ground beef, taco seasoning, queso, chips, sour cream, and a fresh jalapeno. Normally, I didn’t like jalapeno that much, but I was having wicked cravings. I might pay for it with heartburn later, but I wanted the spicy kick.
There was no one in the self-checkout, so I was in and out of the store in under ten minutes. I put the groceries in the back seat so the car’s air conditioning would keep the perishables somewhat cool.
Meri jumped into the back and started swatting at the jalapeno. He climbed into the bag, and I could hear him going to town.
“Knock it off. I need that for my dinner,” I said over my shoulder as I pulled out of the parking spot.
His little head popped out of the bag. “No,” he said and dove back in.
I just rolled my eyes and proceeded out of the parking lot. My little exchange with Meri kept me from noticing that a car had pulled out of a space near mine at the exact same time.
As I pulled out onto the street, they stayed right behind me. “Tailgaters,” I lamented as I sped up a bit.
It wasn’t like I was going to get a ticket. Maybe one of the deputies would pull me over, but I had serious doubts about that.
“What is this guy doing?” I asked as the car behind me sped up too.
Meri finally gave up his battle with the jalapeno and jumped into the back window. “They are right on your butt,” Meri said. “Like literally inches from the bumper.”
The car was an older luxury car, but I couldn’t tell exactly what make. It might have been a Rolls Royce. I wished that I had a better knowledge of older cars, but in the moment, it didn’t matter so much. It was shiny black too. So much so that the sun glared off it and stung my eyes when I tried to get a better look.
Next thing I knew, the old car nudged my bumper. At that point, the proximity alarm on my car that had been issuing a lazy, unassuming beeping started to really wail.
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “Should I use magic? I think this would be an okay time.”
“No. You’re driving. Anything you do to fix this magically is going to take too much power. Hit the gas, Kinsley.”
I wanted to argue, but he was right. The amount of magic it would take to stop a car or push it off the road would be staggering. In my current condition, it would make me woozy. That would put me and the baby in danger.
“Maybe I should just pull over,” I said and started to slow down. “If they get out of the car, I can handle that better.”
“Hit the gas, Kinsley!” Meri shouted.
Just as he was yelling at me to go faster, the car chasing us rammed into the back of my car. I fishtailed, but Meri’s protection magic righted us back into the lane. As soon as we were good, I stomped on the accelerator.
My little electric car could go from zero to sixty in under four seconds, so when I put the pedal down, we flew forward. I felt the Gs pulling at my insides like when a roller coaster dropped. I hated that feeling, so I never used the car to its full potential. In that moment, I was glad that baby could go.
We left the car chasing us in the dust. I drove into my driveway and grabbed the groceries and Meri from the back seat. After dashing into the house, I went to the window and watched to see if I’d been followed home.
After about ten minutes, I called Thorn and told him what had happened. He put an APB out on the car immediately and said he’d be over in five minutes.
When he came over, Thorn took a report, but nothing ever came of it. No one else saw the car that evening, and no one could think of anyone in Coventry who owned a car like that.
“I don’t want you going anywhere alone until I figure out who just tried to kill you,” Thorn said as he sat next to me on the sofa holding my hand.
“We both know that’s not going to happen,” I said and kissed him on the cheek.
“I know, babe, but I have to say it,” Thorn said and squeezed my hand.
“Do you believe me now?” I asked. “That maybe someone tried to kill Paul?”
Thorn took a deep breath through his nose and sighed. “I should have listened to you. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I can do now, though. There’s absolutely no evidence that a murder took place. I don’t even think they are doing an autopsy because it’s not a suspicious death.”
Chapter Nine
Thorn might not have known what to do, but I did. He had to operate within the law, but I did not.
The day after I was nearly run off the road was Paul’s funeral. Thorn and I were going together. It was supposed to rain all morning, so I wouldn’t need to open the shop until afternoon.
Thorn couldn’t actually take time off work, so we went in his cruiser. He was on the clock, and I’d have to hitch a ride home if he got a call. Or I’d have to go with him. He would have been dubious at best about leaving me alone at the funeral. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
Before we left for the services, I made bacon, eggs, and fresh baked banana bread. The night before, after Thorn and I calmed down, we had a nacho party.
As we sat at the breakfast table, I watched Thorn sipping his coffee and reading the morning news on his tablet. It hit me that despite the fact that he was a touch overprotective, he was my best friend.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Thorn asked without looking up from whatever article he was reading. “Something wrong with my hair?”
His blond curls were tousled but in a perfect way. He took a sip of his coffee, and I watched his square jaw flex as he swallowed it. Thorn was a good-looking man. For the briefest of moments, I wondered what our children would look like.
Then the guilt washed over me again. My hand instinctively covered my belly. I did not, could never, forsake my baby, but a small part of me wished they were Thorn’s. Then, I felt guilty for thinking about that too.
“Honey,” Thorn said. He’d finally looked up as if instinctively sensing that something was suddenly off with me. “Stop thinking about it. I love you and the peanut.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” I’d seen my father do this to my mom, but that’s because he could actually hear her thoughts at times.
“It’s written all over your face, Kinsley. The way you’re looking at me and holding your belly. You’re worrying about things you shouldn’t fret about.”
“Do you want some more coffee?” I asked, suddenly needing a change of topic.
“Only if you’re up…” Thorn started to say, but halfway through I shot out of my chair.
“I’ll get you more,” I said.
“Do you want to talk about this, Kinsley?” Thorn pushed his tablet away. “We can. If that’s what it takes to make you feel better, then we can talk about it.”
“No. It’s a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down right now. Let’s just enjoy our breakfast. I think that time is the only thing that’s going to make this better for me. The time between me freaking out about… about the baby’s biological father is getting longer.”
Thorn smile at me softly. “Okay then. Let’s enjoy our breakfast.”
Paul Fraser’s funeral was a much larger service than the last few I’d attended. There were at least a hundred people in attendance. Rebecca had gone all out with the flowers, blue velvet tent, and what looked to be a top-of-the-line casket.
She was near the front of the funeral area weeping openly while several people surrounded her. They offered her pats on the back and tissues. Occasionally, someone would lean over and whisper something in her ear.
If not for her genuine display of grief, I could have sworn it looked as though she was holding court. In fact, at one point, I began to doubt the sincerity of her sorrow. No one had leaned in to whisper to her or offered her a tissue for a couple of minutes, and she appeared to look a
round in frustration. At that, the woman I recognized as her receptionist rushed over to her. Placated, Rebecca went back to her full display of sobbing. She kicked it up a notch to include some moaning as well just as the minster took the podium to begin.
When the services were over, people surrounded Rebecca again, but she kept looking around. Her patience with her entourage seemed to wear thin.
Her eyes finally found me in the back of the small crowd, and much to my surprise, she made a beeline for me. “What’s on your mind, kid?” she asked in a husky whisper. “You look troubled.”
I found it odd, and the wild look in her eyes told me she wasn’t entirely stable. It was an understandable state given that she was at her husband’s funeral, and I felt guilty for my previous uncharitable thoughts.
Thorn was off talking to a couple of men, and I was there alone with Rebecca. We were far enough away from everyone that we could have a private conversation if we kept our voices down. Some of her friends and family glanced over at us, but Rebecca would glare at them and they’d go back to their conversations.
“I just wanted to be here to offer you support,” I said. What I really wanted to do was talk to her about Hollie, but it wasn’t the right time.
“That’s not all,” she said.
“It is,” I assured her.
“You know, I got something strange this morning,” Rebecca said as she looked around to see if anyone was watching. “Someone left a package for me on my porch this morning, and it’s unsettled me to say the least. But, if you’re only here to be supportive…”
“You got a package that scared you this morning? I’ll get Thorn,” I said.
“No. No need to involve him. Not right now,” she said and sighed. “It’s really what was in the package that worried me.”
“What was it?” I took the bait.
“It was an assortment of exotic mushrooms,” Rebecca said. “Very expensive.”
“Uh… How is that unsettling?”
“Because someone just left it on my doorstep this morning,” Rebecca scoffed as if I was a simpleton.
“Maybe it was a sympathy gift. Was there a card?”
“There was a generic sympathy card attached to the top, but it wasn’t signed by anyone,” Rebecca admitted.
“Well, perhaps they just forgot. Obviously, if they left a gift on your doorstep, they didn’t have time to talk. They probably aren’t here at the funeral either. Do the mushrooms mean anything? It sounds like a strange gift, but perhaps it means something to you.”
She scowled at me for a moment, but then Rebecca’s expression softened. “We were both foodies. Paul much more so than me, but I can definitely use them.”
“There you go,” I said. “I’m not dismissing your concerns, by the way. I do think that there is something more to Paul’s death, but I’m not sure that the mushrooms have anything to do with it. You’re probably going to get more gifts.”
“You sound as if there’s more,” Rebecca said matter-of-factly. “I can tell that you’re holding something back.”
“I do want to discuss this with you, but I’m not sure that now is the time. You’re grieving your husband. We can save it for another day,” I said.
“Why? He’s dead, Kinsley. He’s not going to get any less dead because we wait, but it might get harder to solve his murder,” Rebecca said with a tinge of cold resolution.
The way she talked about her husband’s death caught me off guard. I thought back to the things Hollie had said and wondered if I should be talking to Rebecca at all. The last thing I needed was her stalking me, but I also wanted answers.
And I wanted to put all of it behind me. I suddenly felt tired. Too tired to be nosing around in the death of a man I didn’t even know, but I’d already stuck myself into the middle of the matter.
“We can wait,” I insisted again because I really didn’t want to bring up Hollie at Paul’s funeral.
“No, we can’t,” she hissed at me under her breath.
“Okay,” I said. “I will just be frank with you. Your husband was in the habit of emotionally manipulating young women to get them to send him nude pictures. Young women who attended the college where Paul studied and worked as a graduate assistant.”
“I had my suspicions,” Rebecca admitted.
“I know you did,” I said. “Hollie showed me the pictures of you following her around.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Rebecca gasped and clutched her chest as if wounded, but that caught the attention of a few people around us. Obviously, she didn’t want anyone involved in our conversation, so she quickly stopped and flashed all those concerned with a tight smile.
“Rebecca, I know. I know you were… following her around. Hollie went to delete the photos she sent to your husband from her phone, and while she was going through her albums, she noticed something in all of the photos of her and her friends. It was you. You were in the background of all of her pictures. I saw it too,” I said.
“That’s insane,” Rebecca said. “This is a small town. I get out a lot. Of course I’m the same place as she is because everybody is. There aren’t that many places to go.”
“Always at the same time?” I pressed.
“Are you accusing me of stalking a young woman? Because it sounds like that’s where this is headed, and frankly, it’s crazy. You know what is suspicious, though. Hollie deleting all of those photos. She was flagrantly deleting evidence, and yet you’re here, at my husband’s funeral, accusing me!” That time she let her hysteria rise and didn’t care that everyone around us noticed.
“I told you we should wait and discuss this later,” I retorted calmly.
“No need because this is over. I was happy that someone was interested in figuring out what happened to my husband, but you’re taking the side of someone who was destroying evidence. You need to either rethink your stance on this or stay away from me!”
“We should go,” Thorn’s voice startled me.
“All right,” I said as he took my hand and led me away. “But…”
“I heard enough of it,” he said. “No need to explain.”
Before we got to Thorn’s cruiser, Chef Wylie stepped into our path. We both stopped abruptly before running into him.
“Excuse me,” Wylie said, and I could swear he blushed a little. “I didn’t mean to almost run into you.”
“It’s okay,” Thorn said. “How are you, Mr. Romano?”
“Please, call me Wylie. We’re friends now,” Wylie said with a hearty laugh that he quickly stifled when people looked over at him. “I’m sorry to bother you. If now is a bad time…”
“Not at all,” Thorn said. “We were leaving, but we have time to chat.”
“I just wanted to thank you both for the positive press you brought to Bella Vita. Having someone get as sick as Paul did in the restaurant could have put us out of business, but the two of you saved me. I could never thank you enough, but what I can do is offer you free meals for a year. How does that sound? I know it’s not enough to thank someone for saving a business, but I’m talking to the owner about free meals for life,” Wylie said with a wink. “No promises, but he’s definitely softening to the idea.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Yes, thank you so much,” Thorn added. “That’s very kind and generous.”
“I’ll let the both of you get on with your day, but I look forward to seeing my favorite couple very soon,” Wylie said before shaking our hands.
As we were pulling out of the cemetery, I noticed that Wylie was making his way over to Rebecca. I had to wonder how awkward that conversation would be…
Chapter Ten
Thorn dropped me off at work after that. I could tell he was agitated, but he kissed me hard and told me to be safe. He said he’d check in on me throughout the day, but he looked relieved when he saw Dorian waiting outside the shop for me.
Thorn seemed to like and trust Dorian even though he’d caught us breaking into P
aul’s office at the college together. Probably because Thorn knew he couldn’t tell me what to do and at least someone he believed in had my back. Someone who had a press pass and could probably keep my butt out of legal trouble too. That was a bonus even I recognized.
“Hey, what brings you to my shop?” I asked as I unlocked the front door. “You looking for a part-time job? I think Reggie isn’t going to show up again today. Know how to run a register?”
“Wait, you want me to work in your store?” Dorian asked as he followed me inside.
A Taste for Magic (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 5) Page 10