Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries Boxset
Page 82
He shook with fury. “This is ridiculous! This is insane!”
“Eliana told you to come clean out on the trail, didn’t she? That’s exactly something she would have said.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No. No.”
“So you admit you saw her out there and talked?”
“No! I didn’t say that! I didn’t!” Jeremy looked around to the group for support, but he wasn’t getting any. Even his good friend Byron had moved away a little bit.
“She told you to come clean, or she was going to tell everybody. Isn’t that what happened?”
“Jeremy,” Anastasia said, her voice thick with disapproval.
“NO!” Jeremy shouted. “That didn’t happen! I have nothing to come clean about! That medicine is totally legal.”
“You didn’t want your reputation trashed, just like hers. You didn’t want to be stripped of anything you’d won over the last few years. It meant a lot to you. And you’d always have that hanging over your head. That’s what you were afraid of.”
“That’s not illegal!” Jeremy shouted. “It’s not! I’m within the rules.”
“Oh God, Jeremy,” Anastasia said. “How could you do this?”
“I’m not answering any more questions. You all can go to hell!”
Jeremy stalked off. The group parted to let him pass. But Jeremy didn’t get very far. Lieutenant Simon appeared, just as they’d planned. As a police officer, he wasn’t allowed to go through Jeremy’s things without a warrant. But the same restrictions didn’t apply to Missy. She could get into trouble, yes, but not in the same ways.
“Jeremy,” Simon said. “I’d like to take some casts of your sneakers. Any objections?”
Chapter Seventeen
“Congratulations on another case solved.” Tyler raised a glass of red wine.
Missy raised hers as well. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“No, when you told me that doping doesn’t always help it cleared some things up for me. Before that, I wouldn’t have considered the possibility of Jeremy taking anything. Anastasia had me convinced otherwise.”
“As always, it was actually me who cracked the case.”
She pinched his side, and he spilled some wine on the kitchen floor. Her Irish setter, Cody, quickly licked it up though.
“Now you’re killing my dog?” Missy asked.
“Your fault.” Tyler pointed at her. “You tickled me.”
They drank their wine and went into the living room. She was so sore from the weekend. But also, she was looking forward to the Celtic Games. She felt like she could do the six miles. She felt like anything was possible.
Well, okay. Not anything. She wouldn’t be squatting two-and-a-half times her bodyweight anytime soon. But maybe she could get a little stronger. And a little stronger. And a little more.
Over time, all that training would add up. Who knew what she could …
She said, “It was a good thing Lieutenant Simon was there. Jeremy didn’t get very far.”
Tyler nodded. “Score one for the authorities. But you set him up for the spike.”
“The pictures were what did it. Simon had Jeremy convinced they could take those grainy pictures from Marie’s phone and prove the prints were from his sneakers.”
“Total bluff.” Tyler smiled. “Any good defense attorney would have had a field day with that in court.”
“Said defense attorney still might. Like you’re always telling me, a confession isn’t the end of the case.”
“Not by a long shot. The prosecutor has their work cut out.” He gave her a look. “But that’s somebody else’s problem, right?”
She laughed. “Right. I’m done with this case.”
“Promise?”
She laughed again. “Promise.”
Missy leaned against him, forcing herself into the crook formed by his arm and torso. He was always so warm.
And muscular. How did he look so good and yet exercise so infrequently?
“Why did he do it?” Missy asked.
“Uh, Missy, you do remember you were the one that solved the case, right?”
“I mean, why? For what?”
“His reputation.”
“It just seems insane.”
Tyler nodded. “People take their hobbies very seriously. Usually they’re more passionate about what they do on the side than what they do for a living. They work to live, but they don’t live to work.”
“That’s deep.”
He laughed. “I’m a deep guy.”
“But still,” Missy said. “He killed her because he didn’t want to be stripped of his Celtic Games title from last year? Really?”
“When you put it like that …”
“I guess it was how he defined himself.”
“And part of that self-definition included how others saw him.” Tyler took another sip of wine. “The thought of being known as a cheater was just too much to bear.”
In his confession, Jeremy had told authorities that Eliana had given him an ultimatum: come clean with everybody or she would tell. He had no other options.
“I think I believe him,” Missy said. “That it was just an accident.”
“Nothing is truly accidental,” Tyler said. “He put his hands on her and she wound up dead.”
“I just mean, I can believe he didn’t intend for her to die. They just ran into each other there, she told him to own up or she would tell everybody, and that set him off. They got into an argument and things escalated.”
“You’re being too nice to the guy,” Tyler said. “A man should never put his hands on a woman. He did. And now Eliana’s dead. He deserves what he gets.”
“No argument from me there.” Missy nodded. “But I don’t get it. Jeremy could have just owned up to doping. That’s better than being known as a killer.”
“People tend to compound their mistakes. I’ve seen it happen all the time. They do one thing that isn’t so bad, but then they get themselves in trouble and decide to do something else that’s a little worse to hide the first thing, and it just escalates. That’s how it happens most of the time, and once they’re on a bad path they feel like they don’t have any choice and have to keep going.”
“Snowball effect.”
“Yeah.”
They both sipped their wine and sat in silence for a while. Cody came into the living room and, of course, wedged herself between the coffee table and couch, sitting right on Tyler’s feet.
“I am going to be incredibly sore tomorrow,” Missy said. She could feel the beginning of a cramp in one leg, and her back felt like one big knotted muscle.
“Well, Missy, I already thought about that.” Tyler got up and put his glass of wine down. “Be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t say. He disappeared for a moment and came back in lugging a folding table in one arm.
“Is that what I think it is?” Missy asked.
Tyler unfolded the massage table. It had the mandatory hole cut out on one side for her face.
“I actually took this out of the evidence room.” He smiled. “We have to return it first thing tomorrow before anybody gets in.”
“This is one of those moments where I can’t tell if you’re joking or being serious.”
He patted the table. “Hop on.”
“Is there a way I can drink my wine while you do that?”
“Miss, really?”
“First world problems, huh?”
He laughed.
She put her wine down and came over.
“Wait.” He held a hand up. “There’s one thing you have to do first.”
“What?”
He smirked. “You need to get out of those clothes to get the full benefits of my massage.”
“Oh, how convenient for you.”
They kissed for a long time. Then Tyler went to work and she felt all the tension seep out of her sore muscles and a
ching joints and she thought about how much she loved this man and about how much he loved her and she couldn’t remember ever being this happy.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brianna loves mysteries, hunky men, and crafts, but not always in that order. She has long yearned to write a cozy mystery series but always struggled to find the time between raising children, trying not to blow up the kitchen, and taking care of her rescued dogs. In her fleeting spare time, she enjoys scrapbooking, trying out new recipes, and binge-watching TruTV. She and her family live in Pennsylvania.
Feel free to tell all your Facebook friends about her books ;-)
ALSO BY BRIANNA BATES
MISSY DEMEANOR SERIES
Flea Market Fatal (#1)
Book Club Bloodshed (#2)
Diet Club Death (#3)
Scrapbooking Slaying (#4)
Tea Room Toxin (#5)
Exercise Expired (#6)
MARLENE AMBROSIA, WITCHY WIZARD COZY MYSTERY SERIES
The Once and Future Scream Queen
Missy Bundle – Mysteries 1 – 6. Copyright 2018 by Brianna Bates. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Edition: May, 2018