by Nic Saint
I saw I’d received a message from someone I didn’t know. It contained a link so I clicked it. A video came up, and when I looked closer, I recognized the person in the video as… Marjorie! She must have gotten the same link, for she drew in a sharp breath.
Marjorie was asleep in the video, wearing a silly sleeping mask that said ‘Wake me only for sex,’ and audibly snoring up a storm. The videographer had obviously taken great relish in his subject as he’d circled her and filmed her from all positions. Peals of laughter began to ring out in the tea room, as other patrons were obviously watching the same footage.
Then the image changed, and footage of Virgil was shown, also fast asleep, and also snoring loudly. The policeman had thrown off his comforter and was sleeping in fetus position, wearing a pink onesie in the shape of a rabbit, big fluffy ears and all. The sight was so funny I couldn’t suppress a snicker, even though Marjorie was sitting right next to me.
“This is so hilarious,” one of the patrons told another patron.
Marjorie threw him a censorious look but he ignored it, too engrossed in the sight of a sleeping Virgil. Then, as abruptly as it had started, the video ended, and I saw it had been posted to Fee’s YouTube channel.
“Fee!” cried Marjorie. “Why would you do such a thing?!”
“But I didn’t!” Fee exclaimed. “I swear to God I had nothing to do with this!”
“Someone must have hacked your channel,” I said, “and posted these videos.”
Loud laughter and applause now rang out in the tea room, as everyone seemed to think this was a very funny little joke. The only people who weren’t laughing were all sitting around our table. For on the screen a message had appeared: ‘The Neighborhood Watch Will Pay!’ was all it said.
And for some reason I didn’t think this was very funny at all.
Chapter 9
Rock walked into the store just as I was rearranging some new tracksuits that had been delivered. I was crouched down in a corner and placing them on the bottom shelf when the doorbell dinged and I called out, “Be with you in a second!”
“Take your time,” the pleasant baritone sounded, and I looked up, my face instantly flushing with heat. Why did this man have such a powerful effect on me?
“Oh, hi, Rock,” I said, rising and walking over to where he was admiring my uncle Mickey’s collection of hunting knives.
“Get a lot of business for these?” he asked, tapping the glass display case.
“I guess,” I said.
“What do they use them for, I wonder,” he mused softly.
“Hunting and fishing?” I said with a shrug. I never spend a lot of time wondering about my uncle’s business. If he decides to offer knives and guns and all the other stuff the real outdoorsman needs, I sell it for him, without question or pause. “Why, you think we shouldn’t carry them?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “Just that sometimes I wonder if we should be selling these potentially dangerous weapons without a proper check-up.”
“Everybody uses knives, Rock,” I pointed out. “You want to do a background check on my mom when she buys a new butter knife?”
He smiled. “No, of course not. That would be ridiculous.”
“Too damn right.”
His smile widened as he took me in. “I didn’t want to tell you this back at the duck farm, but you’re looking particularly sexy today.”
My blush deepened. “Sexy?” I stared down at the gray slacks and the sensible white blouse I was still wearing. Even though this was my funeral home outfit, I hadn’t had time to change into something more appropriate for the gun store. “I look like a lawyer,” I said.
“Lawyers can be sexy.”
“Lawyers can be dead from the neck down.”
“Something you’re clearly not.” He suddenly took hold of my blouse and pulled me in. When he claimed my lips I thought I heard a soft whimpering sound. Then I realized it was me.
When he finally released me, he said, “See? Very sexy.”
“That was the third time,” I said, before my senses returned.
He arched an eyebrow. “Third time?”
“Never mind.”
“Oh, you mean the third kiss.” He smiled. “Are you keeping count?”
“Of course not. I’m just… wondering where all this is going.”
He pulled me in again, like a fisherman reeling in a catch. “How badly do you want to know?”
I slapped his hand away from my shirtfront. “Hey, I’m not a fish.”
“Great, I was hoping I’d caught a girl this time.”
I scowled at him. “So you can throw me back when you have no more use for me?”
He grinned. “Now why would I go and do a stupid thing like that?”
I shrugged. “So did you get my message?”
“I sure did.” He took a notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “Video message, posted on Felicity Bell’s YouTube channel, where she usually only posts baking videos. So what’s the big deal?”
I huffed out a breath, flabbergasted. “What’s the big deal? Someone secretly filmed Marjorie and Virgil while they were sleeping!”
“What makes you think it wasn’t some practical joker?”
“Because of the message at the end: the neighborhood watch will pay!”
“Could still be a practical joker.”
“Someone broke into Virgil’s house, Rock. Your colleague Virgil.”
“I know,” he said. “Virgil gave me an earful.” He smiled. “You’ve gotta love those bunny ears. And that sleeping mask. Nice touch.”
I planted a hand on my hip. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Look, I’m sure some nephew or some prankster shot this video and then posted it online just to get a rise out of either Virgil or his mom.”
“Virgil doesn’t have any nephews. And have you seen Marjorie? Pranksters wouldn’t survive in that family.”
“So what are you saying? This is a genuine threat?”
“This is a genuine threat,” I said emphatically. “A threat against the neighborhood watch.”
“By using a video of a bunny-eared onesie,” he said dubiously.
“It’s the message that counts!” I cried, flapping my arms like a duck.
“You’re cute when you’re mad,” he said, repeating a statement he’d made before. In fact right before he’d kissed me the first time. “Your nose—”
“Wrinkles up. Yeah, I know. You told me before.”
“Listen, I’ll look into this, all right? Though I’m sure Virgil is already on it.”
“Virgil is a…” I was going to say moron, but even though the word was in the dictionary, and even appropriate, it didn’t seem nice to use it when referring to an old friend, one I’d been in kindergarten with, no less.
“I know what Virgil is,” said Rock with a sly grin. “Which is probably why your dad chose to put me in charge of the investigation.”
“My dad did that?”
“Yep. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate with this whole Banning Pender thing. By the way, what did you think about the three musketeers? How they came to the rescue of their mother this morning?”
“They’re very high on our lists of suspects,” I confirmed. “As is their mother, who, by the way, if the rumors are true, is having an affair with a developer and wants to turn the Pender Duck Farm into a golf course.”
He smiled. “I knew there was a reason for allowing you and your cronies to conduct your own investigation. Are you sure about this?”
I gave him a frown. I didn’t know if I liked the word ‘cronies.’ “Pretty sure. I got it from Bianca Bell, and she’s usually very well informed.”
“Of course she is,” Rock murmured, jotting this all down in his illegible scrawl. “Something else you can tell me?”
“Well…” In a few words I told him about the three sons, and how they were all in need of a serious cash injection into their respective businesses. If he already knew a
bout this, he didn’t let on, though I had a feeling he did. Rock Walker was nothing if not a very good detective.
“I like this,” he said, gesturing between us. “I like this collaboration we’ve got going on here. I scratch your back and you scratch mine.”
“More like you kiss me and I…” My voice trailed off. Now why did I have to go and say that?
He smirked. “You like that, huh?”
“I never said I did. In fact, I find it kinda weird that you would keep kissing me, without ever stopping to ask my opinion.”
“It’s all in the nonverbal response,” he said, reeling me in again. I placed my hand on his chest and pushed him away. He stared down at my hand. “Not the nonverbal response I was going for.”
“I saw Priscilla this morning.”
He frowned. “Is this one of those statements like ‘I see dead people?’”
“No, I really saw Priscilla. She was watching us from the willow tree nearby.” I was going to add I’d seen Banning near the same willow tree but fortunately stopped just in time.
“Priscilla,” he said, giving me a dubious look. “As in Priscilla Presley?”
“Yep. The one and only. But before I could talk to her, she ran off.”
“Don’t tell me. She suddenly disappeared in a puff of pink smoke?”
“No, she drove off in a burgundy suburban.”
“Plates?”
“Too far away to see.”
“Dammit.”
“Hey, that’s the second piece of vital information I’ve given you. A little bit of gratitude is in order.”
“You’re right,” he said, puckering his lips for a kiss.
I held up my hand. “Ugh. Not that kind of gratitude.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. You have no idea what you’re missing.”
I had a pretty good idea what I was missing, and if I was totally honest, the reward he had in mind was the exact same one I had in mind as well. Then again, a girl has never gotten anywhere by being easy, though right now I was yearning to find out how far it would get me. “Fee is getting married,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
“Good for her.”
“We were going to get married together. Walk down the aisle like sisters.” I dreamily stared through the window at the street outside, wondering why I was telling this to Rock, of all people. “In fact we had it all planned. We were going to fly to Necker Island—that’s Richard Branson’s private island in the Caribbean—and fly in dozens of guests with helicopters. It was going to be a huge thing. Very exclusive. Very Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.” I bit my lips, as it was Angelina Jolie Reece had met on a recent shoot and had fallen for. Of course La Jolie had displayed better taste than to fall right back for Reece, which served him just right.
Rock placed his finger under my chin and raised my head until our eyes met. I noticed for the first time how much his eyes looked like the ocean. Not a clear blue but reflecting shimmers of light, like the sunlight hitting the surface of the Atlantic, making the water sparkle and glitter. “This guy did a real number on you, didn’t he?” he said in a low voice.
There was no use denying it. “Yes, he did.”
His jaw clenched. “If I get my hands on him…”
“Well, you won’t, for he doesn’t live here anymore,” I said in what I hoped was a chipper voice.
It must have backfired, for Rock’s face betrayed his concern. Then, for no reason whatsoever, I suddenly found myself in his arms, pressing my face into his shoulder while he hugged me close. His chin rested on the top of my head, at least when he wasn’t pressing kisses on it, and he murmured, “You’ll get your dream wedding. Just you wait and see.”
Had I heard him right? I didn’t care. I was melting into his embrace, which was firm and tender at the same time, and as I was listening to the sound of his steady heartbeat, I thought this cop was a lot more complex than I’d figured. And so was my response to his incessant flirtations.
As suddenly as he’d pulled me in, he released me. He scratched his scalp a little sheepishly. “About that diary.”
I frowned, the sudden loss of physical contact jarring. “What diary?”
“The Casper diary?”
“Oh, that old thing.”
“Yeah.”
I busied myself folding another tracksuit. “What about it?”
“The thing is, I happened to glance at a couple of pages.”
I looked up in alarm. “You read my diary?”
The expression of sheepishness intensified. “Well, no. I didn’t read anything. Like I said, I just happened to glance at the pages. And that’s when I saw that most of the entries were from a couple of months ago. I also noticed the word ‘ghost’ being mentioned more than a few times, in bold, with a circle drawn around it, which made it kinda hard to miss.”
“I can’t believe you read my diary!”
“No, I didn’t read your diary! For one thing, I didn’t even know it was your diary until I opened it and… happened to glance at the entries.”
“Oh.” Well, that sounded pretty logical. I remembered now that after Reece had broken up with me, I’d spent a couple of nights at my parents’ place, while Fee and Rick were out of town. I must have scribbled in the diary then. Dang.
“Now about this ghost business. I don’t get it.”
“What’s there to get? I like ghosts. Movies about ghosts. Books about ghosts… um… songs about ghosts.” I tried to sound as airy as I could.
“Yeah… Look, this would go over a lot better if it didn’t coincide with some other stuff I noticed… and heard.”
“What did you hear?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from going shrill.
“That you and that neighborhood watch of yours are into… ghost hunting.”
“Hah!” I laughed loudly. “That’s such a load of crap!”
“Is it?” he asked, fixing me with an intent look.
“Yes, it is.”
“But is it?”
“Yes, it is! I don’t know who spreads these horrible rumors, but I can assure you that we’re not into ghost hunting or any other weird business.”
“I asked Virgil about it,” he said.
Dang, dang, dang. “Oh, and what did he say?”
“It’s not what he said but what he didn’t say, if that makes sense. He suddenly got all jumpy and shifty-eyed. Not to mention bright red in the face.”
“That’s Virgil for you,” I said. “Jumpy and shifty-eyed. I wouldn’t take any notice of him.”
He nodded, then eyed me for a long time, while I folded some more tracksuits and put them on the shelves. “Look, whatever it is, you can talk to me, Alice. I won’t tell. I realize we haven’t known each other long, but…”
“No, that’s true,” I said. “We haven’t. But even if we had, there’s nothing to tell.”
He finally nodded. “Okay. If that’s what you’re going with.”
“That’s what I’m going with. Because it’s the truth,” I quickly added. “The absolute, God’s honest truth.”
He gave me a grimace. “Gotcha,” he said, and walked out. Then he stuck his head back in. “Oh, and your dad told me to tell you his chickens aren’t laying.” He rapped the doorframe and then he was really off.
Chapter 10
The moment Rock had left, a client walked in. I looked up, half expecting the detective to have returned to tell me more about my dad’s chicken issues. Dad had recently started keeping chickens, hoping they would lay him some eggs my mom could use in her cooking. So far he wasn’t having any luck, though. The new arrival wasn’t Rock, but Kelley Pender, of all people.
I got down from the ladder I had mounted to reach the top shelf and gave him my best smile. He might have kicked me off his land, but he was still a customer, and as my uncles never failed to tell me, the customer is always King. Though to Uncle Charlie there was only one real King, of course.
“
What can I do for you?” I asked.
He stood frowning at me, rubbing his stubbled chin. Between when I’d seen him this morning and now, a five o’clock shadow had appeared on his Daniel Craig-like face. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, not sounding too happy.
“Yep, all me.”
“I forgot you worked here.”
“Here and at my uncle Charlie’s funeral home,” I reminded him, “which is going to organize your dad’s service.”
“Well, shoot,” he grumbled. “Look, I’m sorry, Miss Whitehouse. I didn’t mean to go off on you like that. It’s just that… when I saw Mom being crowded by those three horrible women, I kinda lost it.”
“They’re not so horrible once you get to know them,” I said, jumping to my friends’ defense.
“Oh, trust me, I do know them. I’ve stopped borrowing books from the library because of Marjorie Scattering, who used to yell at me all the time about being tardy. I stopped going to Bell’s Bakery because of Bettina Bell, whose nitwit son Busby once dumped a pot of piping hot coffee in my lap and then had the gall to ask me if I wanted sugar and cream with that. And I stopped going to the mayor’s annual ball when Mabel Stokely once gave me crap for not adopting the proper dress code. I wasn’t wearing a tie, you see, which apparently she considered a capital offense. So don’t give me that ‘they’re not so horrible’ crap cause they damn well are.”
“Well, at least you don’t seem to have any beef with me,” I said, resigned. The Holy Trinity were an acquired taste, and I couldn’t expect everyone to like them.
“No, you’re right about that,” he admitted. “I’ve got no beef with you or with Fee Bell.” He approached the display case embedded in the counter and glanced down at the handguns. “I need a gun,” he said. “After my dad got killed, I think it’s about time I got me some protection.”
“Why, you think they’re coming after you next?” I asked, taking my place behind the counter.
“Why not? I figure they probably killed the old man for his money.”
“The money that’s buried,” I said, nodding. When he looked up sharply, I realized my faux-pas. “I mean, that’s the rumor that’s been going around.”