by Lin Stepp
Bill Magee looked up from his paperwork. “Faith and Zola got a threat call and right afterward some man ran up and threw a smoke bomb into the store. The women acted smart—they ran out the back. And when the bomb exploded it set off the alarms. We’re looking for who did this right now.”
“What kind of threat was made?” Spencer’s face grew angry. “And who would threaten Zola?”
Magee shrugged, his attention on his paperwork. “Something about Zola causing bad luck.”
Before Spencer could comment, the young officer interrupted. “I just got a call, Chief. They picked up the man who threw the bomb. Caught him from the description of his car and the license number a tourist gave.”
Zola turned her eyes to his. “Do they know who it is?”
The officer nodded. “Yeah. It was Aldo Toomey, the kid that does the local deliveries around town. You know, the one who works for the Beardsleys.” He scratched his head. “Don’t reckon he’s ever been in much trouble before.”
The chief phoned in to the station as the officer finished answering Zola’s question. He stepped away from the counter for a little privacy while being filled in on the arrest.
“I know Aldo,” said Zola in surprise, her mouth dropping open at the officer’s words.
“Yes,” added Faith. “He’s that froggy-looking kid who’s always coming in here running his mouth about how he’s going to win the lottery or the Powerball. Always full of pipe dreams.”
She gave Zola a puzzled look. “Aldo doesn’t quite seem like the bomber type.”
“No.” Zola agreed, trying to remember what she knew about Aldo.
The chief hung up the phone. “I think we’re about finished here. I may need you to come down to the station later. To see if you can identify Toomey.”
Faith looked up. “He wore all black and a ski mask but he seemed the right size, now that I think on it.” She scratched her head. “I just can’t figure out what got into Aldo to do such a thing. I mean, he ain’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but he isn’t normally mean-spirited.”
“No, he’s not.” Zola frowned. She tapped her fingers on the counter as she thought about this and then looked up at the chief with determination. “I’m going down to the station with you, Chief Magee. I want to hear what Aldo has to say about this.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Spencer put in with a scowl. “It might be dangerous. He threatened you.”
Zola sent a warning look his way. “I think I’ll do as I see fit, Spencer Jackson. And we can take a rain check on that date we planned.”
It was about six p.m., the time they’d agreed to go out to dinner together tonight. Zola knew this was why Spencer happened to be in the area.
She turned to Faith. “Do you think you can clean up here and then close the store by yourself, Faith? I think we ought to close early after this. There’s still smoke in the air but it ought to settle out by morning. Besides, most of the visitors we’d get now would probably be curiosity seekers versus buyers.”
Faith nodded in agreement. “I’ll sweep up and spritz some air freshener around before I leave.” She waved a hand at the gray soot till floating in the air. “This smoke might irritate folks’ eyes if we stayed open, too, but it’ll be gone by the morning.”
Zola reached under the counter to find her purse.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Faith asked. “I’m a bit worried like Spencer about you confronting Aldo if he’s still upset or acting demented.”
Zola shook her head.
“I’ll go with her.” Spencer stepped forward.
Zola turned to him, ready to argue.
He put up a hand. “We’ve got a date, remember,” he reminded her. “After this situation is cleared up, we’ll go out to eat like we planned.”
Spencer sent her a smug look before she could protest. “Besides, you don’t have your car. You drove in with Faith. I can drive you home afterward.”
Zola remembered he was right. She had ridden in with Faith.
“If you’re sure you don’t mind,” she replied, having too much on her mind to put up further arguments.
Bill Magee started toward the door. “I’ll see you both down at the police department.” He turned to look back at Zola. “And you’ll only get to talk to Aldo if I think it might do any good or shed some light on this. Be sure you know that, Zola.”
As it turned out, she did get to talk to Aldo Toomey. She told Spencer about it over dinner. He’d taken her to Howard’s on the parkway, a fine steak house that had been in Gatlinburg for over fifty years.
“I hope you like steak,” he said, as he parked the car.
“I do.” She ventured a smile, although she still felt edgy and keyed up.
“Good.” He grinned boyishly at her. “Howard’s is my favorite date place.”
She sent him a pouting look. “So that means it’s not a place you chose especially with me in mind?”
“I didn’t know anyplace Tahitian in the Burg.” He grinned back at her.
Zola giggled, dissipating some of the tension she felt. “Well, I’m going to be an expensive date,” she said, offering him a sassy reply. “I want those wonderful fried mushrooms they have as an appetizer.”
“Umm.” He took her arm as they crossed the street. “I like those mushrooms, too. We’ll share.”
After the events of the evening, Zola wasn’t sure why Spencer seemed in such a good mood, but she felt grateful for it. The afternoon had been stressful, and she’d been rattled and frightened by the bomb being thrown into the store. Even though it turned out to only be a smoke bomb, she and Faith hadn’t known that at the time.
Settled in a cozy booth now, she and Spencer sat working their way through two of Howard’s fresh dinner salads. The dim lighting and the hum of soft conversation around them felt soothing.
Zola licked raspberry vinaigrette dressing off her finger, thinking about her talk with Aldo.
“Ready to talk about it?” Spencer asked, picking up on her thoughts.
Zola blew out a breath. “I guess. You heard Faith say Aldo is always getting whipped up, saying he’s going to win the lottery or Powerball. Well, he said he had a dream about some numbers and then the next day the numbers in the dream exactly matched the packing number on a box he was getting ready to deliver.”
She shook her head. “Well, Aldo became convinced that he held the winning numbers for the big Powerball giveaway going on. The prize amount had risen to several million dollars—a lot of money. He babbled all this conviction to Madame Renee, the fortune-teller on the highway coming in to Sevierville. Evidently, Aldo took a delivery to her store and they got to talking.”
“Is this the same Madame Renee you’ve had run-ins with before?” Spencer asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “And Madame Renee looked into her crystal ball and told Aldo she saw that he would win the Powerball on those numbers. She called it a series of fortuitous signs.”
“So what happened?” He forked up a bite of salad as he asked.
“Aldo got even more excited and started making winning plans—that he’d drop out of school, quit his job, and get into NASCAR racing. He decided he’d buy a Corvette to start, for local races, and then move up.” She shook her head, remembering. “He actually came into the store a week or so ago telling me all this. I listened but I told him I saw that he should not buy a Corvette or quit school or his job. I told him that I knew he was excited over the coincidences of the numbers, but that I believed his numbers were not the winning numbers.”
Zola sighed. “I saw clearly they weren’t.”
Spencer leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. “And that’s what made him come after you?”
“No. There’s more.” She took another bite or two of her own salad before she continued. “Aldo didn’t listen to me. He bought the car, dropped out of his college classes, and turned in his notice at Beardsleys. The officers said he went all over to
wn telling everyone how rich he was going to be.”
“I gather he didn’t win,” Spencer said, before popping a fried mushroom into his mouth.
“No, he didn’t win, and he was angry. Now he couldn’t pay on the Corvette and he didn’t know if he’d be able to get back his old job.” She sighed. “He went to confront Madame Renee in a snit and told her he should have listened to me instead of her. He claimed it was all her fault he’d gotten himself into this trouble because she told him he would win.”
Spencer considered this. “Well, it didn’t help things with a guy like Aldo.”
“No, it didn’t.” She sipped at the white wine Spencer had ordered.
“What did Madame Renee do?”
“Well, that’s the worst of it. She convinced Aldo I’d ‘cursed’ his luck and caused him not to win the Powerball.”
Spencer raised an eyebrow. “I gather she’s one of those people that can’t admit to being wrong?”
“Evidently.” Zola fidgeted with her napkin. “Aldo fits a pattern, too. He’s one of those people who always sees the messes he makes in his life as being someone else’s fault—and never his. So, of course, he got angry at me.”
Spencer interrupted in annoyance. “And he decided to punish you by scaring you and throwing a smoke bomb into your store?”
Zola nodded. “That’s about it.”
“He told you this?” Spencer tapped his fingers on the table with annoyance.
“Yeah, I think Aldo regretted what he’d done as soon as he did it.” She spread her hands.
Spencer snorted. “And regretted it even more after he got caught and realized he might serve time over this.”
Their steaks arrived and conversation paused as they talked to the waiter who brought their dinner. They’d ordered Howard’s T-bone steak for two with baked potatoes.
Zola put pats of fresh butter on her potato and then looked across the table at Spencer. “I didn’t press formal charges against Aldo. He’ll have some issues to work out with the police on his own, but I didn’t add to them.”
Spencer laid down his steak knife after cutting the meat. “You felt sorry for him.” His mouth quirked into a slow smile.
She studied his face. “I thought you’d be critical of me for not pressing charges.”
“No. How could I? I didn’t have the police arrest Leena Evanston when she tried to rob me. How could I be critical of you?”
She smiled. “I forgot about that.”
He shrugged and took a bite of his steak. “Eat.” He pointed to their steak. “This is great. And I hear red meat is good to help with stress.”
She watched his mouth twitch. “You’ve never heard that about red meat in your life,” she accused, spearing a bite of steak with her fork.
He grinned at her. “Maybe not specifically, but it’s probably true. I’m sure there’s a study out there somewhere that documented it.”
She laughed. “I’m glad you stayed around and still took me out to dinner tonight, Spencer.”
“Is that right?” he said, raising an eyebrow and studying her with those smoky hazel eyes.
“That’s right. You’ve made a bad evening better.”
Later, when he drove her home and walked her up to her porch, he laid a hand on her arm. “Do you think Madame Renee is the type to get vengeful over this and cause you further trouble?”
She wrinkled her nose as she thought about it. “No. I think she’ll hear about what happened and worry that some repercussions might come her way over this.”
He smiled. “She’ll probably take a malicious delight in knowing your store got smoke-bombed.”
Zola blew out a breath. “She probably will. She’s a very strong-willed and opinionated woman. And highly competitive.”
“She sees you as competition.”
Zola sighed. “I guess.”
He put a hand up to her face. “I’m sorry she sicced Aldo your way with her lies.”
“Me too.”
Spencer leaned in to kiss her then, and Zola felt herself tense.
He stopped before his lips touched her mouth. “It’s only a kiss, Zola. I won’t ask for more than you want to give.”
She smiled at him in the moonlight. “And what if the more-I-want-to-give is to go on a photo shoot with you one morning again?”
He kept his lips next to hers as he answered. “I’d tell you to be ready at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’m going out early.”
She threw her arms around him and kissed him then with abandon. “Will you really let me go?”
“Of course,” he said against her neck. “You bring me luck.”
“I hope I bring you blessing,” she said, tracing her fingers down his arms.
“That, too,” he said softly, wrapping her in his arms again.
A little later, he pulled away to look at her.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered.
“That you are very beautiful in the moonlight and that I wish I had a camera to capture this moment to remember it.”
She touched his face with her hand. “Just snap the photo with your memory. Then you can never lose it.”
He brought his hands up and made a clicking sound. “There. It’s done. A moment never to be forgotten.”
Spencer stepped back, preparing to leave.
“Thanks for being there for me tonight. I appreciate it.”
“I owe you a few, Zolakieran. I’m glad I could be there for you.”
Zola hugged herself in the chill of the evening as she watched him leave. He had made a bad evening turn into a good one.
She stood on the porch until his car was out of sight down the drive.
“I guess we’ll simply have to wait and see how this all turns out, Father,” she said on a soft prayer as she let herself into the house at last. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
CHAPTER 12
Spencer went to bed thinking of Zola and woke up thinking of Zola. The woman was getting to him. He still couldn’t decide if that was a good thing for him or not.
He padded out on the porch to let Zeke out and to check the light. Day was just breaking, but it looked like a good morning for photos, the sky clear with no rain clouds in sight.
Spencer stretched and thought about his plans for the day. At mid-April, the wildflowers were blooming. Butterflies and newly hatched insects were out. Birds were returning, and many small animals that had been hibernating or holed up for winter were enjoying the spring weather. Spencer’s goal had been to randomly hike up some trails and see what delights he might stumble on today. That made it a nice sort of day to take Zola along.
He talked to Zeke as he made his way back inside. The big shepherd trotted along eagerly beside him toward the kitchen. “Zola probably wouldn’t like to go along on some of my shoots that take me wading through swampy lowlands or sitting for hours watching duck nests.”
Spencer reached down to scratch Zeke’s head as he poured out his dry dog food. “You eat up, friend, and I’ll take you out for a short walk before I head out.”
He pulled up to Zola’s house shortly before seven to find her sitting on the porch waiting for him. She picked up a backpack that sat by her chair and grabbed a small cardboard box sitting on the table.
Spencer got out to open the door for her and gave her a teasing grin. “Packing light, I see?”
“Actually, yes.” Her answer was saucy. “The pack is all I’ll be carrying on the trail. The box has some breakfast food in it, plus some extra bottles of water.”
“I brought coffee.” He pointed to the thermos and cups in the SUV as she climbed in.
“Good, I like coffee,” she said, buckling her seat belt. “But I like food in the morning, too.”
“Trail bars?” he asked, climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the motor while he snapped his seat belt.
“Better.” She dug into her box and brought out warm bagels and a container of cream cheese. She proceeded to spread cheese over
a bagel with a plastic knife.
“Girly food.” He grinned at her.
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” she said, popping a bite of bagel slathered with cream cheese into his mouth.
The bagel had a warm, wheaty taste and was laced with soft raisins. “Mmm, pretty good.”
“Did you eat before you came?” she asked.
“No.” He looked both ways before heading out of the driveway and onto Jonas Creek Road. “I usually only bring snack bars and portable food along. I eat as I get hungry.”
“I thought of that idea but decided this would be better—since I wouldn’t be driving.” She began peeling a big navel orange now, and soon broke off a juicy section to offer him.
“I feel like a baby bird being fed by its mama.”
“Then open wide.” She grinned and tucked the orange section into his mouth.
He caught her hand with his and nibbled on her finger. “It’s kind of sexy being fed by a woman.”
“Believe me, I do not feel sexy at seven a.m.” She pulled her hand away from his to take another bite of her bagel.
Spencer let his eyes rove over her. Zola wore jeans and a snug-fitting T-shirt today. A gray knit hoodie hung loosely over her shirt to ward off the chill of the early morning. She’d pulled back her dark, wavy hair today and caught it up with a clip, but the curls were already escaping to drift down her neck.
“You look sexy to me.” He caught her eyes with his and reached over to trace a finger down her cheek.
He saw a wary look in her eyes that surprised him. Evidently, he wasn’t the only one wondering about their relationship.
She put his hand back on the steering wheel. “You seem to be in a pretty good mood today.”
Intuitively, he knew she was remembering the times he’d acted more broody and moody. She’d seen him in one of his darker moments, too.
He drove silently, thinking on this, while she picked up the newspaper on the seat to browse over the front page. Zola passed him bites of bagel and orange as he drove.
They made quick time through Gatlinburg in the early morning hours. The tourists were still sleeping in, and even the town had just begun to wake. The only places busy at this hour were the restaurants serving breakfast and the hotels checking out travelers heading home.