Although Derek had begun ranting as soon as he’d roused from the bash across the temple Jack gave him the night he kidnapped Mia, some of what he said made sense. In his fevered mind, the woman who’d spurned him—Vickie—had become famous beyond anyone’s expectations. Even though that fame had happened posthumously, in Derek’s addled, revenged-soaked thinking it was fame he could, unfairly, never hope to achieve. One thing he knew for sure, though, was that Victoria’s infamy—deserved or not—was created by a celebrity-focused media frenzy. And because Mia led him to believe she was a reporter, for him the face of that media was Mia Kazmaroff.
Unfortunately, while Derek was sitting in jail on charges of kidnapping and murder—both of which would surely send him to prison for life—his DNA evidence for Victoria’s murder didn’t match.
Jack watched Mia as she ran a comb through her long hair then bent to look under the bed for her clothes. It didn’t matter. One case solved. One killer off the streets.
Now if only Mia felt that way, too.
“We still going to your mom’s for dinner tonight?” he asked as she pulled on shoes and socks. Their brief moment of afternoon delight after a late lunch had turned into an impromptu—and much needed—nap for Mia. For that Jack was glad. Lately, she pushed herself too far and too long.
“Yep,” she said. “She’s totally stressed over the whole wedding thing. I swear, they should just run off somewhere.”
“She’s doing it for you.”
“That’s crazy. Why does she think I want her to have a big wedding?”
“It’s not really that big.”
“It’s bigger than a Justice of the Peace and brunch at Cracker Barrel.”
“That’s true.”
She came and sat down on the bed next to him. “I’ve got two guys today. Both in Riverside.”
“Kind of a trek on a Friday,” Jack said. “What with rush hour and all.”
“I know, but once they’re done, we can focus on Midtown for the next month. Won’t that be convenient?”
He kissed her. “So convenient.”
“Can we run by Wojinziky’s while we’re at it? Pretty please?”
Jack frowned. While Mia had filled in the details of her day before Derek nabbed her, he still didn’t like the whole Wojinziky element to this fixation of hers.
“Is there a reason? I thought you said he’s been going nowhere and doing nothing.”
“I know. He has. I just want to do a boots-on-the-ground surveillance. I read in a blog post for PIs that it’s better to layer your surveillance methods.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Before he could answer, Mia spoke up.
“Never mind,” she said, softly. “I can track him from the computer. There’s no reason to go to his place.”
No reason except Mia could not unstick from her belief that Jeff Wojinziky was Victoria’s killer. Even to the point of befriending Wojinziky’s ex-fiancée.
“No,” he said, squeezing her arm. “We’ll go if you want. Talk to his ex-fiancée recently?”
“Not since last week. She’s still hooked on him.”
“She tell you yet why she broke up with him?”
“No. She says it would be a betrayal.”
“Sounds ominous.”
*****
Mia was happy to let Jack drive to her mother’s house at the end of their afternoon of interviews. After the work he did on a daily basis to keep her spirits up and pretend to care about the Victoria case, it was the least she could do. Even Ned was bored with hearing about the case. And of course, the chief shut down if she even hinted she might bring it up.
Was it time to let it go? To admit defeat and pick up the banner of a life with this one significant failure hanging over it? Was it that time yet?
One by one, the suspects—the ones she’d been so sure of—had been cleared and fallen to the wayside. Who killed Victoria? Not Joshua Cook. He had an ironclad for the time of death. Not Derek, his DNA was nowhere it needed to be to pin it on him. Not Cargill. His wife loathed him enough to clean his clock in the divorce, but confirmed that her husband had been with her that night. That only left Nathan Turner—whose alibi and DNA were both MIA—and Jeff Wojinziky.
Mia held Daisy on her lap and let her out the window as they drove to Jess’s neighborhood. When they got within a mile, Daisy would start to whine. Somehow the little dog always knew when they were close.
How did Mia know it was Wojinziky? Did it matter? She knew it. His guilt was as sure and infallible in her mind as DNA in a laboratory.
Yet he walked free and the Atlanta Major Crimes division allowed the days to pass, nudging Victoria’s case further and further into the deep freeze of cold cases. Was anybody even working it anymore?
She turned to look at Jack as he concentrated on the road. Her heart soared to see his face, serious and handsome. His eyes a cerulean blue that missed nothing.
“We need someone on the force to feed us inside information,” she said.
He laughed and glanced at her. “Yeah, that’d be helpful.”
“I’m serious.”
“Okay. You know it’s not me, right? Half the guys on the force hated me. They think I’m a stooge for going private.”
Mia sighed. “I thought we had the chief.”
“He was pretty responsive that time I called him to say I thought you were in trouble,” Jack reminded her.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“He’s done that on more than one occasion as a matter of fact.”
“He has to. How would he explain it to his fiancée if you called in an SOS on me and he didn’t respond?”
“The chief didn’t do it for Jess’s sake, Mia.” Jack’s tone was admonishing.
“I just don’t understand why—if his people aren’t going to bust their ass to solve Victoria’s case—he doesn’t let me do it.”
“I’ll bet you do understand.”
“Oh, whatever.”
As they pulled into Jess’s neighborhood, Mia put her hand on Jack’s arm.
“I haven’t thanked you for helping me with this case,” she said. “Even though I know you think it’s a colossal waste of time.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Well, anyway, thank you. I’m so glad nobody punched you today.”
“Bright start to my weekend.” He grinned that grin that made her insides melt, and for a moment Victoria and Tracy and Mindy and the chief and everybody else who created turmoil and snagged major portions of her thoughts faded away.
“I love you, Jack.”
“I love you, too, Mia.”
Daisy began to whine.
*****
The evening with Jess was relaxed and easy-going. It occurred to Jack at one point that part of that might be because Maxwell wasn’t there. He’d had to work late. Even Jess seemed more at ease. Jack and Mia had been so busy in the last few months, between Mia’s obsession with the Internet Hussy case and Jack’s cooking business, plus they’d picked up a few cheating spouse cases. It was a surprise how quickly the wedding had snuck up on all of them.
Jack and Jess made a basic spaghetti alla carbonara, one of Mia’s favorites. Since it was just the three of them, they opted to eat in the kitchen—another reason things felt so relaxed. As Jess brought the garlic bread to the table and Mia poured the wine, Jack dished up.
“Oh, tell my mom about the one guy we interviewed tonight,” Mia said.
“Which one?” Jack set her dish in front of her.
“You know. The guy who was ginormous.”
Jack turned to Jess, who was listening expectantly, her face upturned, a smile on her lips. It always surprised Jack how young Jess looked. She had to be late-fifties and he knew she’d never had any work done. He also knew she’d suffered terrible loss and pain. But her brow remained uncreased.
“There was just no way he was a candidate,” Jack said, “and so as soon as he answered the door, I started to backpedal. You know, like, ‘So
sorry, there’s been a mistake…’”
“And I could tell Jack was about to close things down—” Mia said.
“So she leans past me and grabs the guy by the arm!”
“Goodness, Mia, dear,” Jess said, her hand to her mouth. “Was that wise?”
“And then Mia shrieks,” Jack said. “And trust me, usually during these interviews, it’s not Mia shrieking. It’s either the guy who’s being ambushed or me after the guy decides to deck me as a result of being ambushed.”
Mia put the wine bottle down with a thump and looked at her mother.
“His arm came off in my hand,” she said. “I’m standing there with this…this plastic thing with fingers and the guy’s standing there…”
“And then your daughter gets the giggles,” Jack said, frowning at Mia and shaking his head, as Jess burst out laughing. “Oh, I see it runs in the family,” he said, still shaking his head but smiling too.
“I trust you didn’t pick up anything useful from the poor man’s prosthetic?” Jess said, still laughing.
“Not so much,” Mia said, seating herself. “Oh, I hear Daisy outside. Y’all carry on. Let me get her.” She jumped up and ran through the living room to the French doors leading outside.
Jess touched Jack on the wrist.
“Are there any signs she’s giving up on this case?” she asked, all traces of mirth gone now.
“You know your daughter better than that. No. She’ll be working it from the nursing home.”
“I’m picking up on a little something…flat from her.”
“I’m not surprised. We don’t have any leads and nothing is moving forward.”
“But these men you’re interviewing…”
“We’re just eliminating them. But yeah, what happens when we get to the last of them if, dear God, we ever do get to the last of them, and she hasn’t found him? What then?”
Mia came back in.
“Hey, you guys are looking serious again. What happened? The chief call or something?”
“Enough of that. He’s under a lot of stress,” Jess said, focusing on her plate. “The wedding is in a week, you know.”
“Wow. I knew it was creeping up,” Mia said.
Jess smiled at her. “You make it sound like an exotic animal or a plague.”
“I’m sure you’ll both be glad when it’s behind you,” Jack said, watching Jess’s face.
“It has been more stress than I expected,” Jess admitted. “Oh, my, this carbonara is wonderful, Jack.”
“Well, we both did it.”
“Teaming up with Jack,” Mia said around her first forkful of spaghetti. “I highly recommend it.”
The rest of the dinner was pleasant and light. But between Mia’s low-grade depression about how nothing was happening on the Victoria Baskerville case and Jess’s worry and strain over her upcoming nuptials, Jack felt like he was sandwiched between a very edgy rock and a fairly sticky hard place.
Hopefully, things would calm down after the wedding was behind them. Jack had no doubt Maxwell adored Jess. But whatever was going on with his daughter, Mindy, was seriously polluting the pleasure of that adoration. Anyone with eyes could see that.
Jess took Daisy and curled up on the couch while Mia and Jack tackled the dishes. It wasn’t unusual for a chef to enjoy every aspect of the cooking process—even the washing up. He liked the feeling of the hot water, the aroma of the soap and the sensation of getting the dishes squeaky clean, rinsed and stacked. It was a circle and, for him, it wasn’t complete until the dishes were put away and the leftovers tucked into plastic lidded containers.
Mia dried and hummed—which was how Jack knew that, just for now and just for a few minutes, she was at peace.
“I can’t believe the wedding’s coming up so soon,” she said, stacking a dish. “I feel guilty I wasn’t more help.”
“I guess you mean any help.”
She snapped him with her dishtowel and reached for another dish from the rack where he was placing them.
“Which reminds me,” he said, giving her shoulder a light squeeze. “I’ll be right back.”
“You better be,” Mia said, continuing to hum again.
Jack went into the living room where Jess was relaxing.
“Jess, did you ever find out if anyone coming to the rehearsal dinner has any allergies?”
“Oh, thank you for reminding me. Bill’s uncle Joe has a problem with peanuts. Will that be okay?”
Jack frowned and looked around the living room.
“It should be okay. Mind if I use your computer to double-check the recipe for the sea bass?” He sat down and typed in “Daisy” and the browser opened up.
“Damn, Jess, you’ve got about a hundred unopened emails here. Do you ever use this machine?”
“No. I’m not clever that way. I do everything by phone.”
Jack noticed the subject line of one of the unread emails that read Maxwell Wedding. He opened it, a feeling of dread inching up his spine at the first line of the email: Are you sure you want to cancel?
It was dated five weeks ago.
“Jess, did you cancel the catering for the wedding?” He clicked on another email. “Or the flowers? Or the reception hall?”
Jess got up from the couch to come look over his shoulder. “I don’t use email,” she said. “I talked to all those people by phone.”
Jack drilled down into the history. “Yeah, but…they were all cancelled from your computer,” he said. “Over a month ago.”
*****
The next morning, Mia sat at a table in her local coffee shop. While not addicted to coffee as Jack clearly was, Mia had to admit few places smelled as pleasant as a Starbucks. That wasn’t the main reason she’d arranged to meet Mindy here, but one thing she knew about computer nerds—they were all speed junkies in one form or another.
And in Mia’s experience, you wanted to make your mark as comfortable as possible before you slammed the trap shut.
Not surprisingly, Mindy was thirty minutes late. Mia waved to her when she saw her enter the shop. Mindy’s eyes darted around the shop interior as if she expected a plant of CIA informants hiding behind every opened newspaper.
Even from fifteen feet away, she looked like a basket case.
It hadn’t been difficult to get her to meet. The woman was intensely curious.
Another characteristic of the typical computer hacker.
Thank you, Mindy, for being such a helpful stereotype.
Mia crossed her arms and waited for Mindy to make her way across the coffee shop to her table. She’d ordered an espresso for Mindy but it had long gone cold.
It hadn’t taken Mia and Jack five minutes to find the remote access app on Jess’s computer. Mindy hadn’t even bothered to remove the thumb drive or hide the fact that it had been installed the very day Mindy and her mother had visited Jess. With only six days until the wedding, the sabotage had thrown Mia’s usually calm and balanced mother into a flurry of tears and hysteria.
And for that, Mia was not feeling very forgiving.
“Wow, I have to admit you have some pretty serious computer skills,” Mia said as Mindy slumped into the chair opposite her. She was wearing jeans, strategically ripped at the knees, and an old cardigan with the elbows worn and frayed. There was a definite Dragon Tattoo-feel about Mindy that was compelling for its eccentricity.
“All that computer cognitive genius,” she said. “Must come in handy changing diapers.”
Mindy leaned back in her chair. “What do you want?”
“I want you to leave my mother alone. The wedding’s still going on in spite of you— the only difference is now you won’t be there.” Mia slid the thumb drive across the table to her.
“You’re lying,” Mindy said. “My father would never get married without me.” She picked up the small plastic drive. “Does he know?”
“That you put illegal software on my mom’s computer and cancelled all her appointments for the wedding? No.
Because she insisted Jack and I not tell him. Seems she has this fantasy about all of us being a family some day.”
“Dad did say insanity ran in your family.”
“I’m just sorry you didn’t get an earful of some really heavy sexting between the two of them.”
“Are we done?”
“Don’t you have a husband? And a kid?”
“I have a very full life. What’s your point?”
“Does your husband know you’re doing this shit?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I read online that most hackers are driven by an insatiable curiosity to see how things work. Must be frustrating being just a boring old Dunwoody housewife.”
“You’re nuts. In fact, Dad tells me on a regular basis how nuts you are.”
“That’s not news. Oh, but this might be.” Mia leaned over the table until her face was near Mindy’s. “I love your Dad. How’s that feel?”
“Shut up!” Mindy sat up straight in her chair. “Shut up about him.”
“Yeah, I thought that’d hit a nerve. Truth is he’s like my own Pop-Pop the way he listens to me and gives me advice all the time—”
“You’re lying! He says you’re crazy!”
“You already played that card, Mindy. It’s actually a shtick between your dad and me about how crazy he thinks I am…in a totally lovable way, of course.”
“That’s not true. He told me you were a pain in the ass.”
“Same as with you, right? I mean, you’ve got this gift for computers and I know the chief. He must hate that.”
“You don’t know him at all.”
“But I’m right about this, aren’t I? Does he love the fact that you’re a hacker?”
Mindy hesitated. “Don’t be ridiculous. Hacking is illegal.”
“It is, isn’t it? Pretty inconvenient to have the one thing you do best in the world be the one thing your father detests.”
Mindy glowered at her.
“I mean,” Mia said, “stands to reason—he doesn’t understand computers so he doesn’t understand you. Major disconnect.”
Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4 Page 78