by Natalie Ann
“What else happened, or is that it?”
“Someone complained. I never get complaints. But someone tried one of my new creations even after I told her what was in it, and she didn’t like it. I gave her a refund and her choice of anything else, but she was snotty about it. Said I should have warned her it was spicy.”
“What was it?”
“It was a jalapeno muffin. Don’t people know that jalapenos are spicy? I have to actually say, ‘it might be hot’?”
He bit back the grin. “Well, now you know. Is that all?”
“No. That’s not all. The worst is my car.”
“What’s wrong with your car?” he asked. They were in her apartment right now and she was slamming things around as she put them away. He’d never seen this side of her before.
“Someone dinged and scratched it or something in the parking lot.”
“Here?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. I think at work. The parking lot between my building and the wine store. That’s where I park. Where do you park when you come?”
“I park in the road if I can, or the same parking lot. Are you sure it happened today?”
“I’m not positive. It was on the passenger side. I hardly ever go to that side of the car. But my hands were full and I walked over to put stuff in today. Where are you going?” she asked.
“To look at your car.”
“Do you have skills in auto repair now too?”
He ignored her sarcasm and walked outside to her car, looked over the damage, and took some pictures. Then he squatted down and looked closer. Another car didn’t hit this. That was a fist imprint and what looked like key scratches.
He went back up to his apartment, got what he needed, and returned. He lifted any prints he could, then took putty and pressed it against the car, trying to make a mold of the damage. That would all be going to the same lab as the roses and the cat bowl. This was escalation for sure.
Pulling his phone out, he called Detective Myers.
Twenty minutes later, both Piper and the detective were standing next to her car while he took her statement. “Are there cameras in the parking lot?” the detective asked.
“I don’t think so. I don’t have cameras in my store, and I don’t think the wine store does either. I never go in there, but I’ve never seen anything outside their building.”
“I’ll check it out,” the detective said. “But this doesn’t look accidental in the least. Have any problems with anyone lately?” he asked Piper.
She hesitated. “No one other than the woman who was mad her muffin was too spicy.”
“What’s her name?” Detective Myers asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Piper asked, her hands on her hips. “I was joking. She was barely a hundred pounds and was looking for some free food. I’ve seen her type before. They buy something, say they don’t like it, complain, and get something else free. She couldn’t put a dent in this car with her fist even with Vin giving her a shove.”
“Her name just the same.”
Piper sighed. “I don’t know it. She paid cash. If she comes in again, I’ll ask her, but I’m telling you, I doubt it. I’ve never seen her before.” Piper stopped and then tensed. “You think this has something to do with the flowers and my dumpster, don’t you?”
Vin wasn’t going to lie. “Yeah. I do. Come on, Piper. There is more going on in your head. More you haven’t been saying. Tell me.”
“But this is the first time this has happened. I mean, the first time they did anything to my personal property.”
“Piper,” he said. “Who else? I see it in your eyes.”
“Karl McNulty,” she said, then shuttered.
“Who’s that?” Detective Myers asked.
“One of my past foster fathers. He’d gotten a little…grabby with me. With a lot of girls, I think. I reported it to my caseworker and she brushed it off. Told me that she’d heard the story before and she wasn’t falling for it. That all of us girls were the same. A few weeks ago, he was in my shop. He’s been in my shop a few times.”
“You didn’t think to tell me that?!” Vin shouted.
“Don’t get mad at me. I wanted to forget. And I didn’t actually see him. His voice. I heard him. He’s got a loud voice and I remembered it. It’s hard to forget it. Believe me.”
“I’ll check him out,” Myers said.
“Piper,” Vin said. “This is getting really personal. You need to start taking precautions. And you need to tell me everything. You can’t go anywhere alone. I’ll bring you to and from work. Don’t go outside without Sam or Nicole with you.”
“No way. I’m not getting them involved in this. They don’t know. Nicole has a child. Sam is just a kid.”
“She’s not a kid,” Vin said.
“It doesn’t matter. They don’t need to know this. It’s nothing dangerous, but if it is, I don’t want them to get hurt.”
“So it’s okay for you to get hurt?” Vin said.
“But I’m not hurt. I’m just upset.”
“Now, Ms. Fielding, I have to side with Vin here,” Detective Myers said. “There is a pattern to these things and it’s escalating. And it’s escalating rapidly. For over a year, you’ve gotten flowers and felt like you were being watched. In the past week, you’ve been left a nasty word on your property and now your car has been damaged. What has changed in that time?”
“Me,” Vin said.
“Meaning you two just started a relationship? You’ve lived in the building together for months.”
“Yeah, and we’ve talked on and off for several weeks. But in the past week we’ve…gotten closer.”
Detective Myers nodded. There wasn’t much more for Vin to say. “So now it seems there is a threat. Whoever this is, whoever is watching has gone from admiration to jealousy. I’ll be looking into this McNulty guy right away.”
Vin had already figured that out himself, which was why he set up a camera on his terrace and one in the hallway above his door. He wanted to hide one above Piper’s, but wouldn’t without her knowledge. Right now he wasn’t breaking any laws keeping it on his own property. And he’d be checking into this McNulty guy himself too.
“I’m covered. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m going to file this report. If you find out anything else, or hear of anything, you’ve both got my number.”
Vin watched him walk away and turned to Piper, saw her standing there hugging herself. “I’m scared now.”
He pulled her in. “I know.” This time he felt the hair standing on his arms. He lifted his eyes and scanned around as best as he could without giving anything away. But there was nothing there. No one that he could make out. Just buildings and lots of windows in those buildings. Didn’t matter, he knew he was being watched right now too.
Monday he’d be talking to the landlords.
Bait
“You didn’t need to come in with me,” Piper said as Vin drove to the bakery with her on Sunday morning. “I just want to see if the traps caught anything and get it cleaned up.”
“You don’t like doing this.”
“How do you know?” she asked, turning her head to look at him. He’d been sweet since yesterday, but she was getting a little sick of him being in her way now. This was her business and she had to pull up her big girl panties and deal with it.
“Sam told me that you don’t like to deal with anything dead. You told me that too. Mice are nasty alive. Ever seen one in a trap?”
She shuddered. She didn’t want to do this but had no one she could really ask. She wouldn’t ask Sam to do it, even though deep down she wanted to. There were only so many things you could ask of your friends, she was realizing.
“No. But that doesn’t change the fact this is my business and I need to deal with it. If they aren’t caught or there is any sign of more, then I need to call an exterminator. I just wanted to avoid doing that. I wanted to avoid the cost too.”
They pulled in the
parking lot, got out and made their way to the back door. “Do you always come in the back door when it’s closed?” he asked.
“No. I always come in the front, but I’m not going to open today, so I figured I’d come in the back. Even when I’m closed, I turn all the lights on in the storefront. Kind of like they know I’m in there baking and everything will be fresh when I open.”
She didn’t want to remember the last time she came in the back because she was afraid to walk down the alley to the front door. This was the first time she’d parked in the parking lot coming in so early since that day. She’d been parking right out front and running to the front door since and locking herself in, then moving her car when daylight came.
She unlocked the door with Vin next to her. Not scared in the least. Not because it was daylight out. But because Vin was with her. And Vin made her feel like everything was right in the world, when she knew deep down something wasn’t. That she was trying to pretend it, but like so many things in her life, pretending didn’t make it go away.
“Where’s the light?” Vin asked.
“On the wall,” she said, feeling around. Hating the darkness so much. Hating that now she was feeling a tiny bit of fear, like she did that morning.
He pulled his phone out and turned it on, then aimed it at the wall, walked the few feet and hit the light. She wished he didn’t when she saw about ten dead mice lying in the middle of the floor. She didn’t even want to go into the storage room where the traps were.
“Don’t move,” he said. “Where’s the storage room?”
She lifted her arm and pointed to the door at the back and he pulled it open, then looked inside. “Two traps filled, the rest are empty.”
“I don’t understand what is going on,” she said, her eyes filling fast.
“Call the detective now. They’ve been poisoned so that they’d die in here.”
***
“Are you going to take this seriously now?” Vin asked Detective Myers.
“We’ve been taking it seriously and I don’t appreciate your tone.”
Vin ignored him. Piper was sitting on a stool by her large counter in the back, flipping through recipes in a book and making notes. He guessed she needed something to take her mind off of everything. Whatever worked.
“Don’t care what you appreciate. I told you all along something wasn’t adding up. Did you talk to Quinton Morgan?”
“Yes. I did. Scared the crap out of the kid. No way it’s him. Does he have a crush on Piper? Sure. He even admitted it. But he doesn’t have it in him to do any of these things. Besides, his mother was all but tying the apron around him tighter and pulling him over for a hug.”
Vin rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t mean he couldn’t do any of this.”
“I know. But I’m telling you, it’s not him, and I don’t have any reason to believe otherwise. I don’t have enough for a warrant to look for anything either. Even you know that.”
“Meaning what?” Vin asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Meaning that you and all your money and fancy titles and connections know enough.”
Vin looked over to see if Piper heard anything that was said, but she showed no reaction to the conversation. “What about McNulty?”
“He’s cleared. He’s been out of town for over a week. Not only that, the guy had no clue that Piper owned the business. Said he just started coming here and he’d never seen Piper.”
Vin wanted to address more with McNulty. About the allegations Piper made, but it wasn’t the time. It was in the past and right now there were other things for him to focus on.
“If you guys did your job I wouldn’t have had to reach out to any of my connections. I’m waiting on a few things.”
“Are you going to share what those things are?”
“Are you going to share with me what you find from the dead mice?”
Detective Myers just snorted. Vin didn’t think so.
An hour later, the detective left with the bagged dead mice. All but the one mouse Vin had hidden away for his own testing. No way he was handing everything over.
“Can we leave now?” Piper asked.
“Yeah. Tomorrow the detective is going to talk to your landlords and get a list of all the tenants. I want to install some security cameras here. So we’re going to the store to get them.”
“What? You can just do that? Buy them and install them yourself?”
“Low-tech ones, yes. Anyone can. I’ll monitor them on my computer. We’ll just put them by the doors for now. No reason to do more than that.”
“Okay,” she said. That she wasn’t fighting him should be saying something.
Once all the cameras were installed and set up, they left and went to get a late lunch. He would have preferred to go back home and do some more research, but what he wanted to do he couldn’t do with her around. He’d be accessing information that he shouldn’t be. Making calls that he didn’t want to explain. Those would all have to wait.
“Do you think we’ll find out who is doing this?” Piper asked.
“Yes,” he said. The question was when and if they could do it before it got worse.
“I just want it over. I can’t believe it’s been going on for so long and I had no clue.”
“You knew. You were just trying to tell yourself it was nothing.”
“I didn’t know,” she argued.
But he didn’t believe her. He knew she was lying to him, or at least to herself. “You’ve felt like someone has been watching you. It’s that internal feeling to be aware.”
“Do you really think it’s gotten worse because you and I are in a relationship?” she asked.
The guilt that question prompted didn’t surprise him. “Yes.”
“And now you’re trying to figure out a way to end things, aren’t you?”
“What?” he asked, shocked she’d ask that. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you’ve felt enough guilt over what happened in the army. And now you’re afraid I’m going to get hurt and it’s going to be your fault.”
“You aren’t going to get hurt. I won’t let that happen.”
“Are you wearing a gun right now?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Does it matter?” he asked.
“Which means yes. Back to my question, are you trying to find a way to end what we just started?”
“No. I’m not happy this is happening. Do I think it had to do with me? Yeah, I do. I even wondered if you were being targeted because of something in my life or my background, but this started before I moved here. The truth is, Piper, whoever this is wouldn’t have stayed in the shadows forever. You would have found someone at some point. Something would have triggered this. I’m glad it was me. I can protect you.”
Her features softened and her eyes filled. “You probably can. If you don’t get on my nerves being in my face all the time.”
He laughed, glad she was trying to find some humor in this situation. “You don’t think it’s one-sided, do you?”
“Oh really?” she asked, kicking him under the table.
“Let’s go home now.”
“Gladly,” she said. “Will you find a way to take my mind off of all of this?”
“You know I will.”
Will to Live
Monday morning, Detective Myers called him to say that the owner of the wine store was out of town, but when he got back he’d let them look at the security tapes. That there wasn’t one aimed at the parking lot per se, but inside the front and back doors watching the store. If there was anything they could do to help, they would.
Nothing was adding up and Vin was waiting for lab results that he hoped to get by the end of the day tomorrow. He’d overnighted the mice, and was told they’d put a rush on at least testing for anything they could find to match the bowl or the roses for prints. Until then, there wasn’t much more for them to do but try to continue on with life in general.
Piper was at work and he was s
itting at his desk looking over a proposal for a new contract.
Was Piper right? Was he really thinking of trying to find a way to end things with her? Maybe a few days ago he was thinking that he brought this on her. That maybe it was him someone was trying to get to.
Then he realized that was crazy and brushed it off. There was no reason to think what she’d been going through had anything to do with him. For all intents and purposes, what was going on with her started long before they became neighbors and knew each other existed.
No, whoever was doing this to her had been for longer than she’d like to admit.
Did he feel guilty that their relationship—and if hearing her say that word formed a cold sweat to trickle down his back, he wasn’t admitting—caused whomever this was to escalate? Yeah, he did feel guilty over it. But he wouldn’t change a thing.
He deserved to move on with his life. Finding her was the best thing that had happened to him. He was willing to admit that.
Days later, he realized the cold sweat he’d felt was because he was falling in love with her.
Her crazy ways. Her independent nature. The horrible childhood that she’d had that she just brushed off like lint on her shoulder and proceeded about her day.
She had a strength behind her that he was jealous of in the best of times. It was hard for him to admit that, but it was there.
She was stronger than some of the toughest men he’d been with side by side in the army. Gender and physical strength had nothing on the will to live your life a certain way and know that nothing was going to stop you. That was her.
His phone started to ring, so he reached over to it, surprised to see Piper’s name come up. “Hey, what’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just thinking of you. Silly, I know. I just saw you a few hours ago, but I felt like calling.”
“I’m glad you did. Everything okay there this morning?” he asked.
He’d followed her to work, went in with her, and walked around. No more dead rodents or anything else. Then he locked up behind her and watched the cameras around the building on and off until Sam showed up.