“It’s risk management. They’ve been on my case ever since your little incident in Denver,” Lance continued. “Then Vegas was even worse. And now they’re just worried about your safety, I guess.”
I folded my arms across my chest.
“Are they?” I asked sarcastically. “Or are they worried about me being a liability—like some sort of lawsuit waiting to happen?”
“They’re just doing their jobs, Jae,” Lance replied, sounding tired. “Yeah, they try to avoid lawsuits—but of course no one wants to see you get hurt. We’re all human beings, you know?”
I relaxed a little and laughed. “No, we’re not. We’re reporters. Different species.”
Colin glanced my way and smiled.
Lance chuckled. “Anyway, they don’t have an issue with any of your choices. I guess it’s me they have a problem with. They keep accusing me of pressuring you to get the type of stories that are putting you in tricky situations.”
“Well, you’re not,” I said. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”
My tone was decisive, but I knew that statement wasn’t entirely true—at least not when it came to my mom.
Lance laughed. “That’s what I told them.”
Then he added, “Jae, I know this might offend your independent spirit, but I have to say it anyway: Colin, I need you to look after her. Whether you’ll admit it or not, I’m willing to bet you two are investigating this roller derby murder situation.”
I held my breath. I really wanted to protest—to tell him that statement was annoying and misogynistic. But I didn’t want to prove Lance right, so I kept quiet.
Colin grinned mischievously. “I won’t let her out of my sight.”
Lance snorted a laugh. Then he said, dryly, “Good luck with that.”
In typical editor fashion, Lance ignored the social custom of saying goodbye, and simply hung up.
“What was that?” I nearly shrieked when the call was over.
Colin shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess they get nervous with reporters constantly going rogue.”
“Ha. ‘Rogue,’” I said. “I like that. It makes my job sound cooler than it really is.”
Now my phone was ringing. It wasn’t paired with the car speakers, so I took it out of my bag and looked at the screen.
“It’s Kara,” I muttered while I pressed the “Accept Call” button.
But the next voice I heard wasn’t Kara’s.
“Jae! Thank God I found you! They took Kara away!”
It was Mia. She sounded like she was crying and out of breath.
“What? Who?” I asked.
Colin was still driving us toward the Bluestem. He glanced in my direction, looking concerned.
“All I know is the detectives went to Neil’s work—to the hospital—but he wasn’t there. He never came to work today,” Mia said. “Me and Shannon were over at Kara’s house when the cops came.”
“Okay, but how did they take her in? Was it for questioning?”
“No. They arrested her.” Mia’s voice was shaking now. “They read her her rights. She left her phone with me and asked me to call someone to help her.”
“Okay,” I said, exhaling a deep breath. “Let me think. Did she ever get a lawyer?”
“She had a meeting with Angel’s uncle. He’s a lawyer,” Mia said.
“Okay, good. Call him and tell him what happened.”
“Shouldn’t we go down there?”
“To the police station?”
“Yeah. Maybe they’ll let us see her or bail her out or something. We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
I imagined a couple carfuls of roller derby athletes unleashed on the police station. Whatever happened in that scenario, it probably wouldn’t help Kara.
“Listen—what she really needs now is a lawyer. Call Angel’s uncle and then make sure everything is okay at Kara’s house before you leave there. And leave a couple lights on.”
I heard a female voice murmur in the background. Then Mia said, “Yeah, okay, good,” sounding far away.
She came back onto the phone with me.
“So, Shannon already called the lawyer. He’s supposed to be on his way down there. We’re gonna meet some other girls from the team down at my shop—just to see if we can think of something to help Kara.”
“Okay,” I said.
Colin glanced my way, then back at the road.
There was silence on the line, then Mia asked, “So are you coming? You and Colin?”
“To InkRage?” I asked, practically feeling a physical pull on my body as I was getting drawn further into this case. “When?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “We’re on our way.”
I put my phone away and then asked Colin, “Did you catch that?”
He switched on the left turn signal and pulled into the turning lane.
“Kara’s in jail, so we’re meeting the team over at the tattoo place?” he asked.
Colin steered the car into a donut shop parking lot, turned around, and drove back onto the road in the other direction, toward Mia’s shop.
“Should I ask, you know, why we’re going there?” he asked.
I answered him with an eye roll. “What was I going to say? ‘Sorry, you’re on your own’?”
He shrugged and smiled. “I know, but it was exactly ninety seconds ago that we told Lance we’re going to stay out of trouble.”
“Oh. Yeah,” I said flatly. How had I forgotten that conversation so quickly?
When we arrived at InkRage, Colin held the shop’s door open for me and I stepped inside.
Dane was there, standing behind the reception counter.
“Hey! It’s Jae!” Dane said, giving me a bright smile. He added, “Hi, Colin. Everyone is in there.”
I thanked Dane and walked toward the room he’d indicated, relieved that he wasn’t going to subject me to any more awkward flirting.
“Thanks,” Colin said while he followed me toward the other room.
Maybe it was the antiseptic aroma or the mix of neon and fluorescent lighting, but something about being back in Mia’s shop triggered the memory of the last time Colin and I had been there—the only time we’d ever fought.
It was a painful memory and it made me realize that, even though Colin and I were getting along fine now, I wasn’t totally over what had happened that night. Colin hadn’t done anything so horrible, but it was like the Colin I knew had disappeared into the tequila bottle and, for just a little while, an obnoxious bro had taken his place. It was a feeling I recognized. And one I definitely didn’t want to feel again.
As I rounded a corner and saw the grim faces of my new friends, I knew this wasn’t the time to sort out my feelings about the only bad night I’d had with Colin.
“We really need to start considering the possibility that Neil might actually be guilty,” Shannon was saying to the group when we walked in.
“No,” Mia said defiantly as she took a step toward Shannon. “He wouldn’t do that. And Kara would never be with someone like that.”
Shannon’s cheeks reddened. She stood her ground.
“Don’t be so naive, Mia,” Shannon said. “Nobody really knows what anyone else is capable of—what they’re like behind closed doors.”
“Well, I think I can figure out whether someone is a murderer or not!” Mia was nearly shouting now.
“Sure you can. Except that’s probably what every person who’s ever been murdered thought, too,” Shannon said.
Mia’s eyes narrowed as she took another step closer to Shannon. Now, their height difference—Shannon towering a good ten inches above Mia—was even more obvious.
Before Mia could say anything, Angel stepped between them. With her back to Shannon, Angel rested her hands on Mia’s shoulders.
“You guys, stop!” Her tone bordered on whining. “Come on, we’re supposed to be helping Kara.”
Mia stepped away from Shannon, who
was still wearing a stony expression.
“Anyway, Mia,” Jenny chimed in. “Shouldn’t you be busy designing Kara’s prison tattoos? She’ll probably want you to draw one of those big black spider webs on her neck when she gets out.”
Mia giggled, but told her teammate, “That’s not funny.”
I smiled and glanced at Colin. Our eyes met and I could see that his were twinkling with the laughter he was holding in.
Shannon covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head.
“Can you even imagine our little Saint Kara, with her Ph. D., teaching college courses with a big old neck tattoo?”
“Well, she did have a black eye when she went to defend her master’s thesis,” Jenny said with a laugh.
“Oh, Jae!” Mia said, apparently noticing me and Colin for the first time.
I smiled and gave her a little wave, feeling my cheeks warm as I realized the entire room was looking at me, expecting something, and I wasn’t even sure why I was there.
“What can we do to help?” Colin asked, rescuing me from the expectant gazes.
“We were thinking of maybe raising money somehow—to pay for her lawyer,” Mia suggested.
“Like a pig roast?” Angel asked.
“Not a pig roast,” Shannon said. “Half the team is vegan or vegetarian.”
“We could sell T-shirts?” Jenny said. “They could say ‘Free Kara.’”
“Or ‘Release our Captain,’” Mia said, laughing.
“That seems kind of Jersey Shore,” Shannon said. “I don’t know if Kara would go for that.”
Mia scowled, but Angel agreed.
“She’d hate it,” Angel said.
Finally, I spoke up.
“Money would definitely help pay for the lawyers, but if we find Neil, they’ll let Kara go,” I said. “I think that’s the fastest way to help her.”
“But if the police can’t find Neil, what makes you think we can?” Shannon asked.
“We’re not talking about first-rate investigators here,” Colin said. “So far they haven’t been competent at all.”
Mia protested, “I don’t want to turn Neil in. He’s innocent.”
“But that would get Kara out of jail,” Shannon said.
“That doesn’t make it right,” Mia said with an angry tone.
“We’re not doing this again, guys,” Angel said.
“Finding Neil isn’t automatically saying he’s guilty. It’s just letting the cops talk to him,” Shannon said. “Besides, if he did run away, doesn’t that tell us something? If nothing else, he’s a crappy boyfriend to leave Kara all alone in this mess.”
“Not necessarily. Maybe he just decided that he won’t be treated fairly so it would make sense to go away for a while,” Jenny said.
“He’s not being treated fairly,” Mia snapped. She bit her lip and looked down at her feet. “Neither is Kara.”
After a few seconds of silence, Mia looked up at me and asked, “What do you think, Jae? What do we do now?”
I looked around the room.
“Someone does need to find Neil. Kara’s arrest is just a power play to get to Neil, and everyone knows it,” I said. “But I don’t think he’s the real killer. So, basically, to protect them both, we really do have to get some evidence pointing to the actual murderer.”
“Then, who do you think did it?” Shannon asked.
I looked at Colin, then at the faces around the room. “We’ve been looking at a couple people,” I said. “Harris Myer was having an affair with someone he met through his business. Her name’s Bonnie Key. And her boyfriend is a car salesman. We’re checking out their alibis. But we have to hurry—it looks like they’re going on a cruise that stops in Mexico.”
Mia’s eyes widened. “You think they want to run away to Mexico?”
Shannon shrugged. “That doesn’t make sense. If they want to disappear in Mexico, all they have to do is drive south.”
Colin and I looked at each other. She did have a point.
“What about Harris’ wife, Rita?” Jenny asked. “I heard they were both cheating on each other.”
“Well, Rita was with Lacey when it happened, so she’s in the clear, unless she, like, paid someone to kill her husband,” I said.
“I don’t think anyone in that family is smart enough to pull that off,” Shannon quipped.
“Rita Myer did have lots of motives, though,” Colin said.
“Harris was supposedly cheating on her for years. Why would she suddenly get jealous now?” Mia asked.
“Maybe it wasn’t just jealousy,” Colin said. “Remember how Lacey said there was a big life insurance payout? Maybe it’s a money thing.”
I remembered the long line of shiny limousines parked outside of Myer’s funeral earlier that day. If Rita was somehow involved in killing for greed, why would she make such a lavish display of wealth at her victim’s funeral?
“I never liked Lacey or Harris,” Mia grumbled. “And that Rita—all she ever did was shill her pyramid schemes on Facebook.”
“I think Jae’s right,” Jenny said. “I think we have to find Neil. Does anyone know where he might hide? Like, does he have friends or family somewhere?”
“I think his brother goes to Rice,” Shannon said.
“All right, can you guys check out the brother’s social media stuff? Check out his friends and followers—see if there’s any clues,” I asked.
“I’m on it,” Jenny said.
I thought about asking Shannon or Mia to look around Kara and Neil’s house for clues about where Neil might have gone, but that just seemed too invasive. I knew Quinn would be able to find something for me, anyway.
“What about Bonnie and Dylan? Should we check them out?” Shannon asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Maybe just look them up on social media and go from there.”
“What do I do?” Mia asked.
Angel threw an arm around Mia’s neck. “I like the fundraising idea. You draw something for a T-shirt. We can sell it at the Trash Bash. If Kara doesn’t need the money, we’ll use it for the team.”
Mia nodded and mumbled, “Okay,” without taking her gaze up from the floor.
“Don’t worry, Mia,” I said. “We’ll get Kara back.”
“Yeah, this isn’t Jae’s first tough case,” Colin said. “We’ll get this figured out.”
| Seventeen
Seymour was curled up beside a terra cotta pot of geraniums on the front porch of my cottage when I got back from Mia’s. As I stepped onto the porch, the cat stood slowly and stretched. I reached down to pet him.
“Hello, sir,” I said. “Did I disturb your beauty sleep?”
I put my messenger bag on the floor of the porch and sat down. While Seymour crept onto my lap, I kept my phone clutched in one hand. I had texted Quinn asking her for help finding Neil while Colin drove us back from Mia’s shop. I was expecting a reply at any second.
She had assured me that if Neil had his phone with him, she could find him within a few hours.
I rubbed the top of Seymour’s head. Some tension in my neck started to disappear when the cat lay down on my legs and began to purr. It was cool in the shade of the porch and for just a moment, I forgot about everything except the cat’s cute, upturned face, and how good it felt to be outside.
That small serene moment disappeared, though, when my phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw an unfamiliar number. Assuming it was Quinn calling from a new phone or a different line at Alt News America, I answered right away.
“You found him?” I asked. “That was fast!”
“Jae?”
I froze and felt the tension return to my neck and jolt up through my skull, settling behind my eyes.
“Hi, Mom.”
“What was that about?” my mother asked. She sounded sober today.
“Nothing, just something I’m working on for a story. I’m waiting for Quinn to call me back.”
“Oh. Sounds exciting,” my mom said. “So, y
ou’re still enjoying your journalism work?”
It was a benign question, but something about her voice made my neck burn with irritation. Seymour gingerly climbed out of my lap and headed back to his spot by the flowers.
I replied to my mother with a flat, “Yeah.”
A few seconds of silence passed. She had called me. Why wasn’t she talking?
Finally, I said, “So what’s up?”
“Oh yeah, good news, honey. Roger had a slip-and-fall lawsuit with Air Atlantic. He finally got his big settlement. Part of the award was tons of free miles.”
“Okay. That’s nice,” I said, making no effort to hide the snarky tone in my voice. Roger sounded like a loser.
“So I thought I could come stay with you a little while,” she said.
“What? No, Mom. I’m working,” I said. “I’m not supposed to have visitors.”
That was a lie. Reporters were allowed to spend time with friends and family when they traveled—as long as they weren’t in dangerous locations. There was even a policy allowing us to buy guests meals on the corporate account.
“I won’t be any trouble, Jae… I just…” My mom’s sentence broke off with a sniffle.
I didn’t know what to say.
“I already got a ticket to Houston,” she continued. “I really—I just think I’ll do a lot better if I can get a change of scenery. And Roger and I haven’t exactly been getting along lately. He thinks we need to take a break.”
That all sounded like code for “I’m drinking again.”
“First of all, I’m not in Houston, so that won’t work. And besides that—”
I stopped talking when my phone beeped, telling me another call was coming in. I looked at the screen and saw it was Quinn. I sighed, told my mom I had to run, and ended that call before she had a chance to reply.
“Quinn?” I asked after I’d accepted her call. “Thank God.”
“Easy there, champ,” she said with a giggle. “I don’t have anything that exciting to tell you.”
“No, it’s just that I was on the other line with my mom and I really, really needed an excuse to get off the phone,” I said.
“Should I ask?”
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