"What's this?" Maddox pulled the carving knife from the back of my waistband and held it up.
"I didn't want to go outside without some kind of protection."
"You could have called the police from inside."
"I wasn't sure they were definitely dead until I was outside." The flaw in my plan hit me but Maddox didn’t comment on it.
"Next time, call me straight away," he said, his voice serious.
"There isn't going to be a next time. I'm not going to find any more bodies." And if wishes were fishes...
"That's good to know. I was worried on the way over."
"About me?"
"That I'd find you hurt."
"I'm okay." Better than okay, now his arms were around me again. I looked up, into his lovely eyes, now ablaze with worry. "Thanks for coming."
"No problem." He kissed me and my evening didn’t suck so bad after all.
Chapter Thirteen
Lily got home to find a squad car parked at the door and immediately came up to find out what was wrong. After assuring her everything was okay and there was nothing to worry about, she went back to her apartment, and after a while, everything got quiet. Along the street, people returned to their homes, lights switched off, and dogs were brought inside. After one last look outside to make sure the cops were still at my door and awake, I went to bed with the carving knife under the pillow, and had a restless night.
Worry gnawed at me. Martin Dean was dead, so was his girlfriend, and the two goons who killed Dean were shot to death outside my apartment, with a note that may or may not have been intended for me. Someone had definitely left me a clump of dead thorns.
The thing was, I was pretty certain the Finklesteins hadn't killed Dean's girlfriend. For one thing, they were too large and cumbersome. The man in the alley could run pretty fast. Plus, even though I hadn't seen him clearly that night, I could tell he wasn't either Twinkles or Knuckles. He was shorter and had hair. Somewhere in Montgomery, a merciless killer was still at large.
I had a number of possibilities, and none of them reassuring. I made a mental list, working through the options. One, the man in the alley was behind Dean's killing, Tanya/Tallulah’s, and the Finklesteins. Except, I couldn't see why the Finklesteins were shot outside my building unless it was to scare me. But in that case, how did that man know who I was and where I lived?
Second, the man in the alley only killed Tanya, and might have had a possible connection to everything else. Unless her murder was a massive coincidence.
Third, I knew the Finklesteins killed Dean, but could their employer have killed them?
Fourth, someone else killed the Finklesteins, except that seemed like too much of a coincidence as well. It was becoming unreasonable to think that the four murders weren't connected, since their common denominator was Dean. I just couldn't see how one person could be responsible for four deaths.
Maddox picked me up in the morning and drove me to work after dismissing the officers who were replaced sometime in the night. We hadn't arranged to carpool, but truth be told, I was relieved to have the company.
"How did you sleep?" he asked.
"Badly." It wasn't just the murders that caused my sleepless night. Maddox played a part too. The kiss had been heavenly, reinforcing how yummy I thought he was. The occasional thought about Solomon also crept into my mind. "How do you sleep at night after seeing so much bad stuff?" I asked. I was trying to extinguish my mental comparison about the way they kissed. Me. Not each other.
He smiled. "I'm overworked. I just keel over at night, then start all over again the next day."
Vincent was exiting his car when we parked and got out two bays away. He ran his eyes over both of us, his forehead puckering into a cross frown. Saying nothing, he strode on ahead, although he did hold the elevator.
"Carpooling?" he blurted, like he couldn't contain his curiosity anymore.
"Car trouble. I had to call Adam for a lift," I lied.
"Do you need a ride home?" Vincent asked hopefully.
"No, thanks, Vincent. Besides, I don't think I’m on your way. My friend, Lily, is picking me up." That was a lie, too, but I didn't want it to look like Maddox was picking me up and taking me home. As the temp, being careful to avoid becoming office gossip, as well as not sleeping with the boss, was part of my job description. So far I had succeeded at both; staying on the edge of the former, while seriously wanting to do the latter.
"Nothing's out of the way for you, Lexi," Vincent said, winking as we exited the lift. I thought he was flirting with me, but I didn't have the patience to play along today. I tried hard not to encourage him, but he was so hopeful, like a happy little optimist that truly believed there was someone special for everyone. There probably was for Vincent too, but I was not she. I would not ever be his honey.
"You're sweet," I said. Vincent flushed, but smiled happily at me and zoomed off to his cubicle. I hoped he hadn't taken my kindness as encouragement, or more than what it was, which was simply kindness.
"He's sweet on you," said Maddox, clearly not even remotely bothered. "Please don't marry him. It'll break my heart."
"No chance of that."
"Why?"
"I have my eye on someone else."
Maddox smiled down at me. "Anyone I know?"
"Maybe," I said, arching my eyebrows at him, as I peeled away to my own desk. I slid my purse underneath and powered up. Busying myself by arranging my notepad and pens while waiting for the password screen to pop up, I entered it and looked down again at my handwritten to-do list.
When I looked up, I shrieked and almost fell out of my chair seeing the screen. Instead of the generic background, big capital words spelled out “I'M WATCHING YOU.”
Maddox's IM box immediately popped up.
Adam: What?
Me: Someone changed my screensaver.
Adam: ?
Me: Do that thing where you can see my screen.
I waited a moment, then saw that Maddox was typing.
Adam: Oh.
Me: Can you see it? Who did that?
Adam: I'll look into it.
Me: I'm getting rid of it.
I closed the IM window, and changed the screensaver back to the generic screen. It was bad enough that someone already deleted my files, but now they were in my computer leaving messages that they were watching me too. I hoped they weren't watching everything I was doing. That would be creepy as hell for me, and boring for them. Even worse, it made last night's note pinned on Knuckles even more frightening.
I snuck a glance at Maddox, wondering if he thought the same, but his brow was furrowed as he concentrated on his screen. There was no way I could work without caffeine, so I went to the kitchenette and switched the pot on, too shaken to function.
"Hey there. You need a caffeine boost too?" Vincent sidled past me, aiming for the coffee pot. He touched it with the back of his hand to check if it were ready, before pulling a mug from the open shelf above. "Pass the sugar, sugar! Hah!"
I rolled my eyes and pushed the sugar over to him. "It's a caffeine type of morning," I said, ignoring his attempt at flirting.
"You need a shoulder to lean on, I got two." Vincent patted one of them with a pasty hand.
"That's very nice of you," I said. "But I'm just going to dive into work."
"Maybe you want to get lunch later? A friend in need is a friend indeed."
"That's very true, but I have a half day today."
"Doing anything nice? Shopping? Spa?"
"Hanging out with my brother." After Garrett dropped my brothers and Ted off, he called and promised to take me to the shooting range so I could try out some different guns. Apparently, after the events of last night, he pulled some strings, got some time off work and booked the range for today.
Maddox had no problem giving me the afternoon off, especially after he heard I was going to be with Garrett. I hadn't told him exactly what we were doing though. I sensed he wouldn't be overly thrilled abou
t me going to the range. After all, I was supposed to be avoiding danger, but I saw no harm in preparing for it, especially now that the threats were getting so much more personal. Plus, without requisite boyfriend status, he had no right to ask me not to do something, or expect me to answer to him.
"Any plans for the weekend?" Vincent persisted. He tapped the spoon against the countertop. He tried to flip and catch it, but missed and the spoon skittered across the floor.
"No. Not yet." So long as it didn't involve dead bodies, I was good. "You?"
He retrieved the spoon and leant against the counter casually. "This and that. Going to try out that new barbecue place. Want to come?"
"Oh, I..."
"Lexi, make me a coffee while you're getting yours and bring it to conference room one." Maddox's voice boomed behind us and Vincent jumped. "Fast as you can," he added.
"Sure. Coming right up," I said. I snagged the pot as soon as the light clicked off and made our coffees, scooting away before Vincent could ask me out again.
"Shut the door," Maddox said, barely looking up when I entered the conference room. I kicked it shut and placed the mugs on the table, sliding into a seat on the curve of the table, not quite next to Maddox, but not far away either.
"Thanks for saving me,” I said gratefully. “Any news on the Finklesteins?”
"Solomon is working on it. We're looking for the link between the brothers and whoever hired them. Let's hope someone got sloppy."
"Okay. Good. Great." So, not great. Someone out there was probably pissed off that their hired thugs were dead, and that meant more people pissed at me. The rational part of my mind insisted that I had nothing to do with the goons' deaths, it could have been just a coincidence that they parked on my street. It was simply unfortunate that someone chose to shoot them there, right outside my building. The irrational part of me wanted to run home to my parents and hide under their bed. “What do you want me to do?”
"Go back to work. Chat with the other employees."
"What do you want me to talk to them about? The night Dean died?" I didn't remind him that he thought I should be off the case. If he didn’t bring it up, neither would I.
"No, don't mention that at all. We're going to announce it tomorrow morning. Just talk about whatever you normally talk about. See if anyone's body language is off. Has someone developed a nervous twitch, or a guilty expression about something? Someone having secret phone conversations or acting like they’re doing something they shouldn't be."
"Can't you do this stuff?"
"I'm the boss. Everyone acts nervous in front of me."
"I don't. Do I?"
"You send me lingerie pictures."
"That was an accident." I got up and grabbed my coffee, flashing him an indignant look. My hand was on the door handle, when he asked, "So what did you get?"
"Hmm?"
"Did you buy that lingerie?"
"Like you don't already know. You forgot that you told me you can see everything I do on my computer."
Maddox grinned. He looked really happy. "The lemon set is sexy."
I rolled my eyes and walked out, trying not to imagine him looking at me while I wore it and nothing else. I spent the next five minutes Googling dating websites and dog houses, while hoping he got the message. Then it occurred to me that whoever else was monitoring my computer was probably getting very mixed messages about my personality. I shut the browser and pretended to work like normal.
Through the morning hours until lunch, I made excuses to talk to everyone from Dominic, Bob, and Anne, to a few of the suits that occupied the other half of our office. No one seemed abnormal at all, though Anne tried to persuade Lily and me to give her burlesque troupe a chance. I resigned myself to finishing the spreadsheet Dominic begged me to do, emailing it to him just as Garrett called to let me know he was parking in the lot. I waved goodbye to Maddox and went downstairs, pausing in the lobby to text Maddox. I let him know I saw nothing out of the ordinary, just in case he hadn’t already used his detective instincts to work it out.
Garrett took one look at my neat shift dress and heels and drove me home to change.
~
The shooting range was a popular spot with the MPD. Garrett got a warm reception from the man behind the desk, who signed us in. Not long afterwards, we were ushered into a booth on the range.
"When was the last time you shot a gun?" he asked.
I wrinkled my face up in thought. "I was twenty-four," I said finally. It was a bleak period of my life that coincided with the army incident I tried to forget. "Rifles and handguns. I don't remember what type."
"So you're probably rusty?" he asked.
"I have no idea."
"Try this one." Garrett loaded a small revolver and handed it to me. Then he placed a pair of earmuffs over my head. "Aim and fire when you're ready. We've got the range to ourselves."
I readied myself, held the revolver forward, my arms straight and shoulders relaxed before squeezing off a shot. I hit the second ring out.
"Not bad," shouted Garrett. "Do a couple more."
I emptied the gun, scoring one inner ring, another second and the rest dotted around the outer rings. I made sure the gun was safe and laid it on the shelf in front of our booth.
"How's that?" I pulled my earmuffs off and Garrett grinned. He pressed the button to bring the paper towards us and we examined it.
"It's a Graves thing," he said proudly. "We can shoot anything."
"We can even shoot our mouths off."
"That, too. How about something bigger? A Glock? A SIG Sauer?"
We returned the revolver and booked out the SIG. "It's a good size, accurate too," explained Garrett as he showed me how to load the magazine and insert it. "It comes in compact too."
"Like a dangerous tampon," I said.
"Yeah, that'll make the bad guys run."
"They wouldn't need to run. They could rollerskate or windsurf with the SIG Tampon Compact."
"Fire the gun, sis’."
Garrett made approving noises about my aim, secured the gun and we went back to check out a different model. Garrett ran me through my paces on a variety of weapons until I settled on the SIG Compact. During our last twenty minutes, I fired round after round, my shots gradually becoming tighter together.
"This is the one I want," I told him, giving the weapon a friendly pat.
"Are you going to tell me why you need it?"
"Just to keep at home." I shrugged like it didn't matter.
"With you and Lily on your own, I guess it's a good idea to have some extra security."
"Right," I agreed.
We both thought about the Finklesteins. I hoped Garrett assumed that West Montgomery was just getting to be a bad neighborhood, and not that I was the target. He looked at me for a long time before he said, "We can set you up in a few days."
"I can't go get one now?"
"Baby steps. It's a gun, not a new sweater." I followed Garrett out of the range, waiting while he exchanged hellos with some buddies in the small lobby. I climbed in the car alongside him, but he didn't turn the engine on right away. Instead, he said, "You can tell me if something is wrong. I'm not going to blab to the rest of the family. Not even Traci, if you say not to."
"Nothing is wrong, honest."
"I gotta admit, Lexi, I'm kinda worried. The Finklesteins turn up dead outside your place, I get why you want a gun. But you wanted one before that and you were asking about Maddox. Then he turns up and you two seem to know each other. Something doesn't smell right."
"I may not be a cop, but we're a cop family. Of course, I know other cops."
"That doesn't really answer anything. So, I'm going to ask you again, Lexi, are you in any kind of trouble? Something you don't want to tell me about perhaps? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, after fifteen years on the force, I've seen everything." I was quiet a long while, thinking what I could say. Evidently, Garrett got bored because he asked, "Is it Lily? Is Lily okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine."
"So it is you." This time it wasn't a question.
"Yeah, it's me. Garrett, you can't tell anyone about this." And despite orders to the contrary, I told him, because Garrett wasn't just on any team, he was on my team and he was a cop. And someone had left me the deadheaded roses and the creepy message, neither of which thrilled me to the core.
I told him about finding Dean and seeing the Finklesteins get rid of his body, then how Maddox and I got out of there, and how I found out he was a cop running an investigation with the FBI. I omitted plenty of stuff. There was no need to mention my breaking and entering moment, or the rediscovery of Martin Dean, or the stuff at the club, or when Lily and I visited Tara Henderson. I did tell him that I'd been snooping around the office.
"I can't believe Maddox got you mixed up in this." Garrett's face was impossible to read. I saw him look similar when his oldest kid got suspended after being caught spraying graffiti on the school gym's wall. It was his quiet, contemplative look while he decided whether to explode or not.
"He's just doing his job."
"He's putting you in danger because he wants a result."
"It's not like that."
Garrett inclined his head to look at me. "Please don't tell me he turned his puppy dog eyes on you and told you that you were part of the team."
"Actually his joint taskforce boss at the FBI approved it."
"Jesus!"
"No, his name is Matt Miller."
"This isn't a game, Lexi. You got mixed up with the Finklesteins, so someone means business. You did the right thing in applying for the permit. You should get a gun, but you can't carry it. You need a concealed weapon permit for that." Garrett leaned his head on the neck rest and closed his eyes. "I'll talk to Maddox's lieutenant tonight. We'll put you somewhere safe until whatever this is blows over."
"No. Garrett, I'm okay. Really, I am."
"Has he got someone watching you?"
"Not that I know of. But he had a car parked at my house after I found the Finklesteins."
"You shouldn't be wandering around."
"I'm not, I'm with you and Maddox picked me up this morning. You want me to come and stay at your house? Put Traci and the kids in danger? Or how about Mom and Dad? I don't think so, Gar'."
Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) Page 19