Maple Syrup Mysteries Box Set 2: Books 4-6

by Emily James

  Ahanti cringed slightly. Dead end might not have been my best choice of words.

  A knock sounded on the front door.

  “That’ll be Eddie.” Ahanti pointed at the second drawer up. “The calendars are in there.”

  She turned on her heel. Based on the lingering sharpness to her tone, I’d need to apologize again later, once Eddie was gone.

  I opened the second drawer. Laying in a neat row inside were nine planners.

  I wriggled them out and took them to Ahanti’s desk. I opened my phone to the notes I’d taken.

  The first message from the stalker had come right after Ahanti had left Cary’s studio, but that wouldn’t point to anyone since it was linked to a move she’d made in her life.

  I checked the month that the second note came, opened the planner for that year to the month before, and wrote down all the names. I did the same for the following month. He might have sent the message a few weeks after his appointment or a few days. By cataloguing the names in both months, I’d spread the net wide enough to capture his name either way.

  The list was long, despite the fact that she was technically a new business. Many of her clients would have followed her from Cary’s, though.

  Terrance’s name was on the list. I touched the tip of my pen to the paper beside it. My hand itched with the desire to cross it out. It’d be much easier to convince the police that Terrance wasn’t their only possible suspect if he didn’t correlate with the missives at all.

  But if I omitted it and they found out, everything else I’d done would be called into question. Besides, this was only the first month. Eddie’s name was on the list, too, along with a couple of other regulars I remembered from when I used to hang around the studio. Obviously, they weren’t all guilty.

  This wasn’t about one month. It was about the larger pattern.

  After the fifth note, the list had dwindled to half. I crossed off any names that didn’t appear in a month when a note was delivered. Sadly, that still amounted to a lot of names. Including Terrance’s.

  What I’d failed to take into account was that many people would be on the same schedule if they liked the complex tattoos Ahanti was known for. They needed design work ahead of time. Plus, many had to be done in stages, allowing the skin to heal in between. It seemed like a lot of Ahanti’s projects stretched out over months.

  I rubbed at my eyes. When I dropped my hands, Ahanti stood in the doorway. “Eddie and I were wondering how it’s going.”

  Her voice was the kind of soft people got when she wanted to put a tiff behind them without actually talking about it. Even though we hadn’t had a real argument, I was just as happy to move forward.

  Might as well put the best possible spin on it. “I’ve already eliminated half the names on my initial list. I should have it down to one or two solid possibilities to give to the police by the end of the day.”

  Her smile said thank you for everything even though she never actually said the words.

  She ducked back out of the room, but returned a minute later. “I’m going to run across the street and grab us some subs for a late lunch. You want me to get you one? I think we could all use some food before we get back to it.”

  My mouth watered before I could form a conscious response. A glance at my watch told me I’d already been at it two hours. No wonder Ahanti had cooled off.

  I pushed back the chair and joined her in the main room. Eddie’d been face down on the table. He maneuvered to a sitting position with the cautiousness of someone with a bad sunburn. His back probably didn’t feel much better than if that was what he had. The brief glance at his skin showed a huge red patch where Ahanti’d been working.

  I shuddered and averted my eyes.

  Ahanti handed Eddie a slip of paper to write his order, and he passed it along to me.

  My eyes struggled to focus. Something niggled at my mind, and the tightness in my throat that often preceded an anxiety attacked clawed at me.

  I drew a stabilizing breath and scribbled down my order. It was probably just the fear that I might soon need glasses. It wasn’t ego that made me hate the thought. It was that it’d get expensive fast if I misplaced my glasses as often as everything else.

  The tightness moved down my throat, into my chest, as I finished writing down what I wanted. Maybe it wasn’t the prospect of glasses. Maybe what was bothering me was that Ahanti sounded like she planned to go for the subs herself rather than letting me or Eddie or Lucas go.

  I kept hold on the paper. “Wouldn’t it be better if I picked up the order?” I held out the paper and pen to her. “You could write down what you want.”

  Ahanti grabbed the paper, leaving the pen behind. “I told you last night. I’m not going to be a prisoner in my life. It was turning me into a wreck. You can watch me go and come back from the front window. It’s perfectly safe.”

  I couldn’t stop her if she’d made up her mind. Blocking the door physically would only make her angry, and she could still go out the back door.

  Perhaps if it was two against one. I gave Eddie a help-me-out-here eyebrow raise.

  Ahanti was already halfway to the door. “Don’t think he’ll back you up. He thinks it’s a good idea to live my life as normally as possible.”

  What the heck, Eddie! He should know better considering Ahanti had told him about Cary. Since she’d told him what I was working on, presumably he knew about Terrance as well.

  “Take Lucas,” I yelled after her just before the front door swished shut.

  Whether she signaled Lucas or he heard me, he climbed out of his car and trailed after her. I watched them cross the street, then spun back around with a scowl.

  Eddie stood right behind me, looking out the front door as well. A little too close behind me.

  “She’s safe,” he said. “I won’t let anyone hurt her.”

  My skin felt like it was trying to shiver off my arms. That assertion sounded a lot more like it was directed at me than at Ahanti’s stalker.

  I stepped back, but there was only so far I could go. The door stopped my progress, and I couldn’t open it without either moving forward or to the side. Why hadn’t I gone with Ahanti?

  Eddie didn’t come any closer.

  Maybe I was overreacting. This situation hadn’t been as stressful on me as on Ahanti, but according to my counselor, I had a mild case of PTSD from everything I’d been through. It wasn’t impossible that I was reading too much into Eddie’s voice and body language.

  I shifted to face him, abandoning my search for an escape route, and offered a truce smile. My gaze landed on the tattoo on his chest, and the smile died.

  I’d seen some of Eddie’s tattoos in design form, but I’d never seen this one before. It wasn’t one Ahanti had designed since I’d known her, and this was the first time I’d seen Eddie’s naked chest close up. The actual inking process made me squeamish, so I always chatted with Terrance in the back or faced my chair away while Ahanti worked. In the past, when Eddie’s shirt came off, it signaled that I should turn away.

  Now I couldn’t turn away. Right over his heart, the pattern formed what looked like a gift box. It was subtle. The design was made in such a way that it reminded me of those Magic Eye puzzles that used to give me a headache from crossing my eyes to see the hidden image.

  But I saw it. It couldn’t be anything else.

  Dear God protect me. Eddie was Ahanti’s stalker.

  20

  My throat felt like I’d swallowed a hornet and it went down stinging.

  We hadn’t considered Eddie as a possibility for Ahanti’s stalker because he hadn’t been in the day the picture of Geoff appeared. I hadn’t thought to reconsider him now that we knew Terrance sent that photo.

  Eddie’s name was on my list in the back, and even then, I hadn’t put the pieces together. He was just Eddie. Quiet, helpful, always-around Eddie.

  Eddie, who got more tattoos than was normal and always wanted touch-ups on tattoos Ahanti thought were
still fine.

  Eddie, who had access to her apartment and the code to her security system because he’d installed it. Which gave him plenty of time to also install the smoke detector with the hidden camera and microphone. He might have even filched it from work. A lot of security companies now offered systems that allowed owners to covertly monitor their homes while they were at work or on vacation or to make sure the babysitter or nanny wasn’t abusing their kids.

  I had to get out of here. I had to get to a phone. I’d left mine sitting on the desk next to my list of names because I’d been using it to read my notes about the timing of the stalker’s messages.

  I sidestepped. “I’d better get back to it. My fiancé will be here to pick me up soon.”

  It was a lie. Ahanti wouldn’t be bringing me back a sub if Mark would be back any minute. Hopefully Eddie’d believe it enough to not try anything. He might not even realize I was on to him after all.

  He let me pass.

  I headed straight for the back room, keeping my pace casual even though my heart was beating so fast it’d probably soon stop from exhaustion.

  The lock on the door clicked behind me.

  A zing shot down my neck and the hairs stood up as if I’d really been electrified.

  Don’t panic, Nikki. It’s like how your dogs don’t chase a rabbit unless it runs. He might simply be locking the door because Ahanti had it locked.

  But my instincts said not. Since she was coming right back, he should have left the door open for her. I had to get to my phone and out the back door.

  I broke into a sprint, but a large hand clamped down on my arm and dragged me back. I lost my balance. Eddie hauled me back to my feet.

  “I thought you were my friend, too,” Eddie said. “You and Terrance. But both of you tried to hurt my relationship with Ahanti. You shouldn’t have done that. She’s my soul mate.”

  He was going to kill me like he’d killed Cary and like he’d tried to kill Terrance unless I did something. Play along, I’d told Ahanti.

  But how did I play along when I was an obstacle in the way of what he wanted rather than the object of his affection?

  Playing dumb seemed like the next best option.

  “I don’t know what you mean. Haven’t we been working together to keep Ahanti safe? From Cary, remember? And from Terrance. We helped keep her safe from Terrance. I had people add sensors onto her windows and you…” My voice cracked. I sounded frantic, but I couldn’t seem to pull myself together. “You made sure Terrance couldn’t harm her again.”

  His fingers pinched into my arm, sending spirals of pain down to my elbow and up to my shoulder. I bit into my cheek involuntarily, and the coppery taste of blood flooded my mouth.

  “You didn’t help,” Eddie said. “You took out the camera I’d put in to watch over her.”

  There weren’t enough ways in my vocabulary to say crap to get me through this. I wasn’t going to be able to convince him that I was on his side. My next best option was to stall him. Ahanti and Lucas would be back soon. Lucas would know something was wrong as soon as the door was locked and no one answered it.

  “I didn’t know that camera was yours. I would have left it there so you could keep protecting her if I’d known that. I thought it belonged to Terrance, remember?”

  Indecision flickered across Eddie’s face, then he pulled me toward the back office. “I’m sorry, Nicole. I liked you. I just can’t take the chance. She’s finally starting to see that I’m the one she’s meant to be with. I can’t risk you messing that up. It was bad enough you brought in other people to her apartment. That made me look bad. Like I couldn’t take care of her.”

  “She knows you can take care of her,” I said.

  It seemed like he’d stopped listening. He didn’t even acknowledge me with so much as a glare.

  He dragged me past the desks, my cell phone too far out of reach. Even if I could break away and grab it, I’d never have time to dial 911 before he snatched it back. Then he’d smash the phone and my head right along with it.

  We were headed for the back door. My best chance seemed to be to wait until we were outside and then scream fire. I’d read somewhere once that if you screamed for help in a city, no one would come, but if you screamed that there was a fire, everyone would run in your direction. I sure hoped this was one of the times the Internet was right.

  We reached the door. Eddie spun me around and wrapped his arm around my neck before I could lower my chin to stop him. Panic scurried up into my throat, blocking my air. He’d been so smart in going undetected through all of this. Perhaps he didn’t intend to allow me to walk out of here on my own.

  “Ahanti will wonder what happened to me,” I blurted.

  He pressed me back against his bare chest. He smelled like sweat and metal and antiseptic. “I’m going to tell her that you got a call and went outside to take it. How am I supposed to know where you went after that?”

  If he gave her that story, she’d think the stalker grabbed me, and she’d never suspect it was Eddie all along. She’d stop his tattoo, he’d go home, and she and Lucas would call the police. By then, Eddie would be well on his way to disposing of my body.

  Not that I’d care by that point. I’d be dead and in heaven with my Uncle Stan.

  As much as I missed him, I didn’t want to have our reunion today.

  In some back corner of my mind, I recognized that my brain was running in the crazy circles it sometimes fell into, but pulling it out required more willpower than I seemed to possess at the moment.

  Eddie tightened his grip. He leaned his head down slightly. “If you fight me or scream, I’ll snap your neck.”

  The way he said it, I believed him. There was a hardness to his tone that I’d never heard before—one that said he was the kind of man who’d rather commit suicide by cop, getting himself shot, instead of going to prison. He’d have no problem taking me out with him.

  That thought alone would have buckled my knees had he not essentially been dragging me out the back door by my neck.

  He hauled me into the alleyway behind Skin Canvas.

  My advice to play along kept repeating in my head. Dead was dead. If I went with him, I might find another way to escape. He couldn’t take me anywhere far right now. If we both disappeared, Ahanti would be suspicious of him, and he knew it.

  So he must be intending to put me somewhere for now and come back to kill me later, when he wasn’t pressed for time and at risk of someone witnessing my murder.

  Eddie turned us down another side street where three cars parked. We went around to the back of the first car, and it beeped like he’d hit a clicker to unlock it. The trunk popped open.

  My mouth went dry. I hadn’t thought through where he planned to put me. His car made sense in a twisted I’ve-killed-before-and-I’ll-do-it-again way.

  Not only were the buildings butting up to the alleyway made of bricks—and therefore fairly sound-resistant—but I wouldn’t know whether the owners of the other cars were near enough to hear me if I screamed. Likely they were working in a building along this street and wouldn’t be back until the end of the day.

  By then it’d be too late. I’d have died from heat stroke in his trunk. He wouldn’t have to kill me directly.

  The arm linked around my throat tightened again, cutting off my air supply. I instinctively grabbed his arm and tugged at it. He loosened it again, and I gasped in a breath.

  I realized too late to do anything about it that he’d used it as a way to distract me while he grabbed something from the trunk.

  “Hold out your hands, crossed at the wrists and knuckles together.”

  For one breath, I considered fighting him, but those few seconds without air had been enough. He was too strong. I wouldn’t be able to break free.

  I held out my wrists and he locked a zip tie around them. It cut into my skin, and an ache spread down into my hands.

  What kind of a man carries zip ties around in his trunk? a hysterical li
ttle voice in my head shouted.

  But I knew. The kind who wanted Ahanti, believed she belonged to him, and was going to do whatever it took to make that happen. In his delusional world, she loved him. She just didn’t realize it yet. He must have planned to take her back to his apartment or somewhere else he’d set up for them and keep her until she realized it.

  Today had probably been the planned day. With Terrance out of the way, he would have expected them to be alone in the studio.

  Eddie dropped his grip on my throat and tipped me into the trunk in one move. My head smacked into something solid, and the air rushed from my lungs. Before I could grab a full breath, the trunk slammed shut.

  Darkness blocked my eyes, and sweat beaded on my upper lip and forehead. Even though the side street where Eddie had parked was in partial shade, it still had to be well over 100 degrees in the trunk. The air was stuffy, clogging my nose and my throat.

  The cautions on TV and the radio about leaving pets and children in a car on a hot day said they had about ten minutes before the temperatures in the car reached 160 degrees or more, even with the windows cracked. I didn’t have a window cracked in here.

  Think, think, think.

  Eddie hit a clicker to unlock and pop his trunk. That meant his car was newish. All cars made after 2001 were supposed to have a safety release in the trunk. My parents had once defended a kidnapper in a case where they argued that the victim should have been able to free herself if she’d wanted to for that very reason.

  The safety release was supposed to glow in the dark.

  It wasn’t anywhere from my waist down.

  I wriggled around, but the trunk was tiny. I wasn’t quite in the fetal position, but it came close. From the corner of my eye, I spotted the tiny glow back above my head. There was no way I was going to be able to get my hands behind my head to reach the release as long as they were tied together.

  I’d give a lot right now to tell my parents how flawed their argument had been. The poor kidnapped woman could have been zip tied like I was or duct taped or tied with a rope.