Jazzy tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Well, obviously you and your friends aren’t going to judge now, not after last night.”
“Of course we are. We said we would, and we’re not the kind to back out of our commitments.”
Disbelief stole over Derrick as he stared across the table. “Jazzy, nobody would blame you. In fact, once people hear that an attempt has been made on Liz’s life, nobody will expect you to keep those commitments.”
Jazzy’s head tilted back as she lifted her delicate chin a stubborn fraction. “Even your sister?”
Derrick leaned against the rear cushion. Chelsea would be frantic to have the musicians back out just hours before the wedding. But they’d manage. If nothing else, he could draft old Mrs. Ingersoll to play the piano. She could probably still play if she took her arthritis medicine and he wheeled her chair up to the keyboard. “Chelsea would understand. I’ll take care of it.”
Green fire flashed in her eyes. “I don’t need you to take care of anything. We’re staying, and that’s final.”
Frustration sizzled along his nerve endings. Why wouldn’t she listen to him? He was just trying to make sure she was safe. There was a murderer running around town, for crying out loud.
Derrick opened his mouth to make a stronger argument when a harsh voice snapped at him from across the restaurant.
“Derrick Stephen Rogers, what do you think you’re doing?”
His spine stiffened to attention at the familiar voice from his childhood. He leaped out of the booth and stood with his arms hanging uselessly at his side as Aunt Myrtle stomped across the restaurant toward him. Her harsh expression defied anyone to question the necessity of the cane that pounded the floor with each step. As a boy, Derrick had developed a habit of giving that cane wide berth, since Aunt Myrtle was known to use the crooked handle to snag unsuspecting nieces or nephews as they passed by her chair. He and Chelsea had suspected that Aunt Myrtle wielded that cane as a weapon, not a walking aid.
“I told you on the phone to meet me in the lobby at six forty-five.” Steel-gray eyes bore into his. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Uh …” Derrick glanced at his watch and gulped. He was seven minutes late. “I’m sorry, Aunt Myrtle. I was here early, really. But I ran into a friend ….” He gestured helplessly toward the booth.
Aunt Myrtle’s stern expression transformed itself. Actual dimples creased her rouged cheeks as she bestowed a dazzling smile on Jazzy. She hooked the cane over her left arm and extended her right. “Well, hello. Aren’t you a pretty girl? Myrtle Rogers, Derrick’s great aunt from Sarasota. And your name is?”
A becoming blush bloomed on Jazzy’s cheeks. She glanced at Derrick as she stood and took Aunt Myrtle’s hand. “Jasmine Delaney. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Rogers.”
“It’s Miss, dear.” The older woman covered Jazzy’s hand with her other one, the cane dangling in midair. “I’m the old maid of the family.”
Jazzy’s smile deepened. “And you’re in town for the wedding?”
“Yes, I flew in last night and had to take a taxi from the airport in Bowling Green.” She tsked with disapproval. “The price I paid to get here! But nobody would come to pick me up. It seems they were all busy.” The glance she threw toward Derrick was designed to inflict guilt, and she had it down to an art.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “We had the rehearsal.”
Jazzy gestured toward their cups. “Won’t you join us?”
“Heavens, no, dear. We don’t have time. Didn’t Derrick tell you?” Aunt Myrtle raised a gray eyebrow in his direction. “I’m to spend the day with Chelsea. There are a million and one things to do before the wedding. Hair, makeup, reception favors to make.”
Derrick knew Mom would prefer not to have Aunt Myrtle underfoot all day, but the old lady was accustomed to having her way.
“Jazzy is one of the musicians for the wedding,” Derrick told his aunt. “You should hear her play her fiddle.”
A crease appeared between Jazzy’s eyes. “Violin.”
“Ah!” Aunt Myrtle threw her head back and assumed a look of ecstasy. “I love a good violinist. Do you play Pachelbel?”
Real delight overtook Jazzy’s expression. “We do! In fact, we’re playing ‘Canon in D Major’ at the reception this evening.”
“One of my favorites. Do you also know …”
Derrick listened with growing impatience as they spouted a bunch of foreign-sounding names at each other. None of it made a lick of sense to him. He glanced openly at his watch several times, and finally broke into Jazzy’s animated description of some song or other with a Latin-sounding name.
“Aunt Myrtle, didn’t you say you wanted to be at Mom’s house by seven?”
The old lady started, then threw him a sour look. “It’s your fault we’re late.” She turned her smile back on for Jazzy. “We need to leave, dear. I don’t want to do anything to upset the bride on her wedding day.”
Jazzy flagged down their server and ordered two coffees to go. Derrick threw a few dollars down on their table and then assisted Aunt Myrtle to the entrance. The server brought Jazzy’s coffees as they reached the doorway.
“Aunt Myrtle, I’ll be right back,” Derrick told his aunt. “I want to make sure Jazzy gets back to her room okay.”
Jazzy opened her mouth, probably to protest, but Aunt Myrtle cut her off with a shrewd smile. “Always the gentleman, our Derrick.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper and leaned close to Jazzy’s ear. “I notice you’re not wearing a ring, dear. He’d be a good catch.”
Flames erupted in Derrick’s cheeks. He studied the pattern on the worn lobby carpet while Jazzy bid the old woman goodbye with more self-possession than he could muster.
“I’ll be right back,” he mumbled to Aunt Myrtle.
Jazzy started toward one of the hallways at the rear of the lobby, and he shuffled alongside her. “Sorry about Aunt Myrtle.”
She turned her head and smiled up at him. “I think she’s delightful.”
They rounded the corner. Derrick caught sight of one of Sheriff Maguire’s deputies at the other end of the long hallway, a stark reminder of the danger Jazzy and her friends were in.
“Have you prayed about judging those—” he began.
She cut him off with a look. “We have. We’re doing them. Discussion over.”
Irritating woman. Derrick spoke through clenched jaws. “At least stay out of sight today. Don’t make the deputies’ job harder than it has to be.”
She flashed him a look that might have been slightly less belligerent. “The pageant is right here in the hotel at three, so the only place we’re going is your sister’s wedding.” They walked on for two steps. “Oh, yeah. And there’s some sort of meeting Liz and Caitlin have to go to at noon to get instructions on judging tomorrow.”
The sheriff would probably send a deputy with them. As long as they stuck together, they’d be okay. But knowing Jazzy, she’d probably do something foolhardy, like run off on her own.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe stay here and practice a little.”
She sounded hesitant, and no wonder. Who’d want to sit in the same room where someone had broken in and tried to strangle her friend just hours before?
Months ago Derrick had scheduled the day off from his job at the power company in case Chelsea needed him to do something on her wedding day. But the thought of hanging around Mom’s house and dealing with the bridesmaids, and the hair and makeup people, and Aunt Myrtle …
He made a snap decision. “Let me take you on a tour of the Bar-B-Q Festival route. It’s right here in this area, all up and down the river. Give you a chance to stretch your legs.”
They reached the door to her room. Her gaze did not rise from the cups as she handed them to him and extracted her key card from a back pocket. “I’d better not.”
“Come on.” He dipped his head
to catch her eye. “It’ll be better than sitting in that room all by yourself. And you can try some of Waynesboro’s world-famous barbecue. I guarantee it’s the best you’ve ever had.”
The corners of her mouth tugged upward. “You guarantee it?”
“Absolutely.”
The grin broke free. “Well, in that case.”
Derrick’s pulse skipped as she sliced the card through the door lock. She propped the door open with a foot, then took the coffee cups back from him.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “What’s your number, in case I get tied up with wedding stuff?” He punched her number into his phone, then took a backward step. “So I’ll pick you up in the lobby at a quarter ’till twelve.”
Jazzy gave a single nod, then disappeared through the door.
His step light, Derrick turned and headed toward the lobby. Even Aunt Myrtle couldn’t sour his mood this morning.
TWELVE
Jazzy let the door close and leaned against it until her pulse settled back into something resembling a regular rhythm. Totally ridiculous the way her stomach fluttered when Derrick asked to show her around the Bar-B-Q Festival. He wasn’t at all her type. She’d established that already.
“There you are!” Caitlin rushed around the wall that formed a short hallway just inside the suite’s door. “You’ve been gone so long we were starting to get worried.”
Liz, fully dressed but still buttoning the top of her blouse, joined them from the bedroom. “After the night we’ve had, you could have at least left a note and told us where you were going.” She relieved Jazzy of one of the cups and took a sip, her eyes closed with ecstasy. “Ah. You’re forgiven.”
“I’m sorry.” Jazzy handed the other cup to Caitlin. “I figured the deputy would tell you.”
“He did.” Caitlin followed Liz to the sofa, Jazzy trailing behind. “We just got worried when you stayed gone so long.”
Jazzy looked around the room. Her friends had straightened the place up in her absence. The sofa bed had been folded up, and Liz’s suitcase lay in a corner with the contents neatly folded. Even the music and brochures on the desk had been straightened into orderly stacks. “Where’s Matt?”
“He went home after we got up.” Liz dropped onto one of the sofa cushions. “But he left two of his buddies, one for the front and one for the back.” She jerked her head toward the patio door, which had been secured with a thick metal rod wedged horizontally against the opposite casing. Through the open curtains Jazzy glimpsed a uniformed man leaning against the outside wall.
She perched on the love seat, facing her friends. “I’ve had an interesting morning.”
“Oh, yeah?” Caitlin, seated beside Liz, drew her legs up beneath her and directed her full attention toward Jazzy. “Tell us.”
Jazzy described her conversation with Bradley, including the details of the missing security recordings and the fact that there were no external cameras that might have caught the intruder last night. Then she told them about being accosted—there was no other word for the encounter—by Irene Baldwin. And finally, she ended with Derrick and his Aunt Myrtle.
“So,” she concluded, “I’m going to spend an hour or two with Derrick this afternoon while you two go to your meeting.”
Liz and Caitlin exchanged shrewd smiles.
“What?” Jazzy asked innocently. “He’s just trying to keep me occupied while you guys are busy, that’s all.”
“Right.” Liz’s smirk held more than its usual amount of sarcasm.
Caitlin’s delight was more obvious. “He’s so into you, girl. I think it’s terrific. But what made you change your mind about him? Last night you said he wasn’t your type.”
“He’s not.” Jazzy paused, her unfocused gaze rising to the picture on the wall above her friends’ heads. “But he said something that kind of caught my attention.” She lowered her gaze first to Liz and then Caitlin. “He asked if we’d prayed about keeping our commitment to judge the contests.”
Both their mouths formed amazed O’s.
“So the guy’s good-looking and a Christian.” Caitlin’s grin was contagious.
Jazzy felt her lips trying to answer, and schooled them into a straight line. “I already knew he was a Christian, but his question says a lot about the depth of his faith. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s really not my type. We have nothing at all in common. And besides, we live four hours apart. Not exactly an ideal dating situation.”
“But …” Liz prompted.
Jazzy’s top teeth bit down on her lower lip to keep it under control. “But it’s just lunch and a walk. I mean, why not?”
“Exactly.” Caitlin giggled, then she got serious. “You do have one thing in common though. A very important thing. You’re both Christians. That’s a pretty big factor, if you ask me.”
Jazzy thought so, too. She’d made a commitment in Sunday school last year at the urging of her pastor’s wife to prepare herself for the marriage the Lord had in store for her. That included only dating Christian guys. She’d been on three dates since then, all of them lukewarm on the romance thermometer. Her recent prayers had focused pretty intently on petitioning the Lord for a Christian boyfriend. For him to be husband material, she wanted the guy to enjoy the same things she did—concerts and foreign films and nice meals in elegant restaurants. Derrick seemed more like a hotdog-on-a-picnic-table kind of guy. Definitely not a candidate for a long-term relationship.
But a date was a date, and she intended to enjoy the hotdog. Or barbecue, as the case may be.
“You know,” she said as a guilty flush warmed her neck, “I told Derrick we’d prayed about this whole contest thing, but we really haven’t. I mean, I’ve shot up a few arrow prayers, but could we pray together?”
“Absolutely.” Liz settled herself more comfortably on the sofa while Caitlin leaned forward to set her cup on the coffee table.
“You start,” Caitlin said to Jazzy. “Then Liz, and I’ll close.”
Her heart full of gratitude for the friends God had given her, Jazzy bowed her head.
At eleven-forty Jazzy waved goodbye to her friends and Bradley as they exited the hotel on the heels of Deputy Frank. They would ride to the meeting at the VFW in the back of the deputy’s cruiser. Sheriff Maguire was taking no chances with their safety, which went a long way toward relieving Jazzy’s anxiety.
Her mood light, she selected a spot on the sofa near the front desk to wait for Derrick. The lobby was comfortingly busy. Dozens of conversations combined to form an indistinguishable clamor that echoed around her. The festival event marquee indicated that the Toddler Pageant had just ended, and the Youth Pageant began in twenty minutes, which explained the crowd.
A steady stream of mothers with young girls in Sunday-school clothes paraded in front of her, heading in the direction of the International Ballroom. A few even wore makeup, Jazzy noticed with gathering disapproval—the oldest of those girls was no more than six or seven. Another stream consisting of much younger children filed past in the opposite direction. She caught a few angry scowls on the faces of the parents, heard a few irate voices from both moms and dads. Apparently their kids had not won, and they didn’t look happy about it. Did they blame the judges? Unease nibbled at the precarious peace she’d managed to establish.
At least she didn’t see any sign of Irene Baldwin.
Forcing herself to relax, Jazzy settled more deeply into the sofa. The cushions were old and threadbare in places, but extremely comfortable. Her interrupted night’s sleep was starting to catch up with her. She didn’t bother hiding a wide yawn.
“I’m not keeping you up, am I?”
She looked up to find Derrick standing over her, a teasing grin aimed her way. He’d changed clothes from this morning, she noted, and the thought pleased her. His button-down shirt was a touch dressier than the T-shirt he’d worn earlier, but the brown plaid was still casual enough for walking around the festival. And it matched the color of his ey
es almost exactly.
Embarrassed at the turn of her thoughts, she quipped, “Yes, but you’re not doing a very good job of it. I was just about to doze off.”
He glanced at his watch as she stood. “I’ll have you know I’m right on time.”
“And I’m glad, because I’m starving.”
The continental breakfast they’d ordered from room service had lasted a few hours, but her empty stomach told her it was time for lunch.
“Then you’re in luck. You’re moments away from the best barbecue in the entire world, guaranteed.”
Jazzy took the arm he offered. “You keep saying that. You realize you may be building up unrealistic expectations.”
“Not a chance. You’ll see.”
They threaded through the people loitering around the lobby as he guided her toward the automatic doors. As they glided open, he said, “I hope you don’t mind if we have some company. Old Sue loves the Bar-B-Q Festival.”
Jazzy dropped his arm and stopped a foot inside the open doors. “You brought your dog?” She’d been about to add “on a date?” but bit the words off at the last minute.
“I hope you don’t mind. The poor girl stays cooped up in my apartment all day long during the week while I’m at work. She won’t be any trouble, though. I promise. There she is, right where I told her to stay.”
Jazzy looked where he nodded. A dog sat on the sidewalk, its brown floppy ears perked forward. Its head moved as it watched the couple in front of them exit the hotel and head for the parking lot. At first glance Jazzy thought the animal was splattered with dirt. A second look showed her that the splotches covering the white body weren’t dirt, but muted spots of brown fur. Brown also circled one watchful eye, making the poor thing look like she’d been walloped. Derrick’s chest swelled as he smiled down at the creature.
“Oh, my.” Jazzy cast around for something nice to say. It was definitely the ugliest dog she had ever seen. “She looks, uh, very obedient.”
“She is. She won’t move from that spot until I tell her it’s okay. Isn’t that right, girl?”
Murder in D Minor Boxed Set Page 8