by Lena Gregory
Bee and Stephanie both nodded their understanding and remained silently rooted in place—except for Bee’s hyperventilating, but nothing could be done about that.
The shadow leaped over the railing, caught its foot, face-planted onto the walkway, and cursed.
Bee’s breathing slowed. Even in his near-hysterical state, he could probably tell this was no ghost, nor anything else supernatural.
The figure mumbled as it scuttled up the walkway toward the back of the shop. Then he detoured, heading across the back deck.
Cass stayed perfectly still and willed herself invisible as he snuck straight toward them. She took shallow breaths through her mouth. When he reached the back corner of the deck, where the three of them would be perfectly visible even in the dark if not for the heavy cloud cover, he stopped and bent over. He came up with a small flowerpot and hefted the weight in his hand. Giving up any pretense of stealth, he took three long strides toward the back of the shop and threw the flowerpot. It shattered the window in the back door.
Cass covered her mouth and stifled a gasp.
After picking out some of the larger glass remnants, the figure reached through and unlocked the door, then disappeared into the dark interior of the art gallery.
“Can you believe he just broke in?” Bee whispered against her ear. His indignation was laughable considering they had come to the beach with the same intention.
Stephanie pulled out her cell phone, its lighted screen blaring like a beacon in the dark night.
“Cover that thing up. What are you doing?” Cass hissed.
She pressed the screen against her leg. “The guy just broke in. I’m calling the police.”
“Are you crazy? What are you going to tell them we’re doing here? Just hanging out on the beach in the dark?”
“In the rain,” Bee added in a hushed whisper. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Is that what you’d want someone to do if they witnessed a break-in at Dreamweaver?”
Bee stayed quiet a moment, then sighed.
Stephanie took it as a sign of agreement and dialed what Cass assumed was Tank’s number. She moved toward the front of the gallery, ducking beneath the boardwalk as best she could to stay out of view.
Cass turned and stared at the shop.
Bee stuffed everything back into Cass’s bag and handed it to her. “Do you think it’s the same guy who broke into your shop?”
She’d thought of that. “Maybe he’s targeting shops along the boardwalk, and I just happened to walk in at the wrong time.”
“I guess.” Bee shrugged.
The back door creaked as it opened.
“Get down.” Bee grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down with him.
The figure poked his head out the door, looked around, then closed the door behind him and sauntered down the walkway.
They couldn’t let him leave. The police hadn’t arrived yet. She couldn’t decide what to do. If she confronted him, they might be able to find out what was going on. If they let him get away, they’d never know.
Bee took the decision out of her hands when he sprang up and took off—faster than Cass would have thought possible—and jumped onto the walkway, his platform shoes slamming against the wood decking with the volume of small explosions in the silence.
The figure spun around and Bee plowed his shoulder into the guy’s gut. The two of them tumbled over the railing and landed in the sand with a grunt.
20
Cass ran around the end of the walkway and found Bee and the intruder tangled together, rolling around the sand.
The guy swung his elbow back and clipped Bee’s jaw.
Bee jerked back but didn’t loosen his hold.
Stephanie stopped beside Cass, huffing and puffing. “What is going on?”
“The burglar tried to leave, so Bee stopped him.”
Bee threaded his arm beneath the guy’s neck and held him in a choke hold, forcing his head into the sand, finally gaining the upper hand.
“Get off me, you big oaf.” A black ski mask muffled the words, but they were clear enough to understand.
Bee snorted and tightened his hold.
Sirens blared in the distance. Finally.
Of course, that meant she’d only have a couple of minutes to talk to him before the police arrived. She ran over, ripped the mask off his head, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find herself face-to-face with “John.”
He stared at her for a moment, mouth agape.
Cass recovered her senses first. “What were you doing in the art gallery?”
“Looking for something.”
“The necklace?”
The guy shrugged as best he could with more than two hundred pounds of Bee wrapped around his neck.
“What’s so important about the necklace?”
He stared at her, his expression a hard mask of defiance, his lips pressed together in a tight line.
The sirens screamed louder.
All right. Think. Think. Think.
“The woman who disappeared was wearing that necklace.”
His eyes widened, but he still didn’t answer.
“Did you know her?”
Nothing.
“Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?”
He scoffed but still didn’t answer.
“Look, if you tell me what’s going on, I might be able to help you.” Okay, that might be a total lie, but it could also be true, depending on what he told her. The guy was pretty young, probably not more than his midtwenties, but he had a hard edge about him. But still, a killer? She couldn’t be sure.
A car door slammed.
Urgency beat at her. “This is your last chance.”
“Fine.” His voice was no more than a hoarse whisper, probably something to do with Bee’s hold on his neck. “You want to help? Find out why Artie Becker was in the gallery having a heated exchange with Leighton Mills.”
“What? When?”
He finally stopped resisting Bee’s grip and laid his cheek against the wet sand, obviously accepting his fate.
“What’s going on here?” The officer’s voice startled Cass, not because she hadn’t expected it, but because it wasn’t Tank.
“Uh . . .” She stared at him for a moment then glanced at Stephanie.
The young cop laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. He’s on his way.”
Cass cringed.
“Are you two going to stand there chatting all night, or is someone gonna get this old goof off me?” The guy tried to squirm out from beneath Bee.
The officer’s partner was already trying to untangle them, but he wasn’t having much luck hauling Bee off him.
Bee only tightened his hold. “Old? Who are you calling old?”
The young cop ran to help.
Bee finally released the kid’s neck. “Ha. Old. I took you down, didn’t I?”
The kid snorted and tried to brush himself off as the officers helped him to his feet.
Bee propped a hand on his cocked hip and fanned himself with the end of his scarf.
One of the officers led the kid a short distance away, and the other moved away with Stephanie. Presumably, she’d tell him what happened.
Cass put a hand on Bee’s shoulder. “You did great, Bee. Thank you.”
He smiled. “Anytime.” His expression sobered. “What do you think he meant about Artie Becker?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. He was coming out of the gallery one day and standing across the street from it another day, so something’s up there.”
Bee pursed his lips. “Remember I said there was a skinny guy asking around about Kelly Becker?”
“Yeah.”
Tank’s arrival distracted her. He pulled Stephanie into his arms and glared over her head at
Cass. Oh, boy.
“Do you think he’s the guy that was asking the questions? I assumed it was the guy I spoke to in the deli.”
“Uh, what?” She returned her focus to Bee.
He huffed out an impatient breath, or maybe he was just still winded from his tussle. Either way, he seemed annoyed she wasn’t paying attention, so she tried harder.
“A skinny guy with glasses and shaggy hair was asking around about Kelly Becker. Remember I told you that was the rumor going around?”
“Oh, yeah. I assumed it was the guy who confronted me in the deli. I figured he was a reporter or something when I saw him at the press conference.” Could be he was just posing as a reporter.
“So did I, but maybe he wasn’t.” He looked after “John” as the young officer put his hands on top of his head and guided him into the back seat of the cruiser.
Although he didn’t look like the guy from the deli, the skinny, shaggy hair, and glasses description did match.
Tank honed in on her and started down the beach.
She sighed, resigned to the coming confrontation.
“What part of ‘stay out of this’ did you not understand?”
So much for the niceties. “I wasn’t trying to be involved. It just sort of . . . happened.”
“And what were you doing on the beach in the middle of the night? Taking a stroll with Curly and Moe?” He gestured at Bee and Stephanie, crowded together far enough away to avoid any spillover of Tank’s temper tantrum.
Cowards.
He rubbed a hand over his head, a sure sign he was agitated. “Look, Cass. A woman was murdered. You’ve already been targeted. Twice. If I can’t trust you to stay out of this, I’m going to have to resort to extreme measures.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He held her stare. “Try me.”
Dang. He had her. No way would she let him call Luke and ask him to babysit her, and he knew it. “Fine. I’ll try to stay out of it.”
“You’d better do more than try.” He turned and walked away, but she didn’t miss the twinkle in his eyes. He had her, and he knew it. Smart aleck.
Stephanie and Bee waited for him to cross the beach before approaching her.
She pinned them with her hardest stare. “Chickens.”
“Yup,” Bee agreed with a grin.
Stephanie held up her hands. “Don’t look at me. I have to live with him.”
“So, what do you want to do? Go to the diner?” Bee asked.
Gray light was already seeping onto the horizon. Another cloudy day. And a wasted night, since she didn’t get to accomplish what she’d set out to do, thanks to “John’s” midnight break-in. “I have to take Beast to the trainer this morning. Either of you want to come?”
“No thanks.” Stephanie smiled and fluttered her lashes.
“I’d rather stay here and contact ghosts.” Bee smirked.
“Maybe I’ll just reschedule it.”
“No!” Stephanie and Bee yelled in unison.
Cass pouted all the way back to the house. She thought about canceling the training class and climbing into bed and pulling the covers over her head, but they were right. Beast really needed to get trained before he got hurt.
At least she didn’t have to open the shop after. Since weekends were her busiest times, she always took Wednesdays off. She could go home and relax after the class.
Or she could try to figure out what Artie Becker had been arguing with Leighton about.
• • •
“You have to be good here, Beast.” Cass clipped Beast’s leash to his collar and looked him straight in the eye. “Please.”
She watched the other dog owners climbing out of their cars, their dogs, mostly puppies, trotting eagerly beside them. She recognized a golden retriever puppy, its paws too big for its furry, golden body, and what she thought was a German shepherd.
The German shepherd barked at a little gray ball of fluff, who in turn ran beneath his owner’s legs. The young woman tripped over him, then scooped him up in her arms and shot the German shepherd’s owner a dirty look.
How in the world did I let myself get talked into this?
Cass cracked open the car door, just enough to get out without letting Beast escape, and slid tentatively from the driver’s seat. She wound Beast’s leash around her hand a couple of times, so she wouldn’t lose him if he took off, and looked around for Herb Cox, hesitant to leave the relative safety of her position. Wedged between the door and the seat as she was, Beast wasn’t going anywhere unless he knocked her over. “Don’t even think about it.”
He wiggled frantically in the driver’s seat, tongue hanging out, eager to be somewhere new. He practically vibrated with energy as he bounced back and forth from one side to the other in the cramped space.
She must be crazy.
The others crunched along the gravel driveway, passed Herb’s small ranch, climbed two small steps to a lawn that had seen better days, and continued to trudge toward a small corral surrounded by a weathered, split-rail fence at the back of the property. It seemed about ten dogs were enrolled in the class. Eleven, if her guess was correct, and the woman with the big straw hat had a tiny dog in her shoulder bag.
She’d wanted a private session, just her and Beast, but Doc had assured her it was better for Beast to be enrolled in a class so he could be properly socialized with other dogs.
Herb appeared from behind the house and strode toward the corral with two more dogs on his heels.
Cass inched the car door open.
Beast’s whole back end wagged. He crouched.
“Stay,” Cass commanded, her voice stern.
He crouched lower, ready to spring.
“I’m going to open the door now, Beast. You stay calm. Understand?”
He glanced back and forth between her and the excitement out back.
She opened the door all the way.
Excitement won out. Beast tore from the car like a maniac, running full tilt for the enclosure, tightening the leash around Cass’s hand.
She tried to dig her feet in and hold him back, but the gravel only slid out from under her feet, leaving her no choice but to try to keep up while trying to loosen the leash enough to free her hand. It was no use. She settled for holding on with both hands and running after him while Beast bounded toward the corral.
All of the others were now staring at her, some shaking their heads, others laughing, and a few kind souls offering sympathetic looks.
When she hit the steps, her feet couldn’t move fast enough to keep up, and she tripped, belly flopping onto the scratchy, brown grass.
Beast finally stopped and looked behind him.
She took advantage of the moment’s respite and unwound the leash, then rubbed the deep red indentations it had left in her hand and wrist.
Herb emerged from the enclosure, closed the gate behind him, and approached Cass. “You okay?” Humor tinged his voice, but to his credit, he didn’t laugh.
“Yeah.” She sat up, more than ready to accept Beast’s first training class was a complete and total failure and go home to a nice hot bath. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s what you’re here for.” He helped her to her feet, then grabbed Beast’s leash and petted his head before finally giving in to the chuckle. “Believe me, you’re not the first person to face-plant coming up those steps behind an overeager dog. I keep telling myself I need to make a ramp or something, but I never remember.”
She gave him a sheepish smile. “Thanks.”
He handed her Beast’s leash. “Come on. Let’s get started.”
She took the leash and patted Beast’s head. It wasn’t his fault; he just got excited.
“Ms. Donovan?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
The petite reporter from the beach stood staring at her.
A man stood behind her aiming a small video camera and a huge grin right at Cass.
“I tried to catch you at home, but I arrived just as you were leaving.” She offered her hand. “I’m Stevie Rhymes.”
Cass eyed the cameraman while she switched Beast’s leash to her left hand—with half a mind to drop the leash and let Beast knock him over so she could grab the camera and run. Instead, she shook the woman’s hand.
“Would you answer a few questions?”
“Um . . . I’m kind of busy.”
“It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Herb had already returned to the corral and was trying to gain some semblance of control. Some of the dogs had jumped up and rested their front paws on the fence, peeking between the slats to watch the chaos; others chased one another in circles; and one rolled over and over in the dirt, all while their owners tried to rein them in.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t a good time.” Not to mention Tank would have my head.
“Cass,” Herb yelled over the howling and barking. “I have to start.”
“Coming, sorry.”
Even some of the people who had originally seemed sympathetic were shifting back and forth with growing impatience.
“I have to go. You shouldn’t have followed me here.”
“Can I come into the shop tomorrow?”
“Um . . . sure, whatever.” She waved them off and jogged toward the corral with Beast. If the woman showed up, she’d find a way to blow her off. Right now she had more pressing things to worry about. She had to get Beast trained, she had to get Mystical Musings ready for Saturday night’s reading, and she still had to go back to the beach and collect stones, glass, sand, and sticks for her centerpieces. Plus, she had to pick up her new dress from Bee for her date with Luke on Sunday. She smiled at the reminder as she lifted her arm to open the gate. A twinge in her lower back stopped her. Ouch.
The top priority was to finish Beast’s training class, then pop a couple of ibuprofen, and take a long, hot bath. She’d do what Tank had asked and leave the investigating to the police. At least for now.