I felt a slight blush creeping onto my cheeks at his kind words, and when I looked at him, I noticed he was a little red as well.
Recovering quickly, he added with a twinkle in his eye, “I mean, I’d definitely call you bullheaded and nosy, and you can’t deny you have a horrendously annoying rebellious streak.”
I laughed. “You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself, John Stafford.”
“It’s a gift.” He glanced over toward the counter. “Is Kira working tonight? I thought you’d said she would be here all this week.”
I took a quick scan of the room. “Yes, she’s here somewhere. I’ll go look for her.”
“Nope. You stay put. I’ll find her. That is, if you don’t mind me barging around in the inner sanctum of your coffeehouse.”
“Be my guest.”
I watched Stafford speak to Cole then head down the back hallway. After a minute or two, Stafford and Pete came out into the dining area, both with grim faces.
My stomach clenched. “What’s going on?”
Pete said, “Kira’s gone. Again.”
Chapter 28
“What?” I cried, heaving myself off the couch and hopping on one foot toward the counter.
Pete grimaced at me but came over to help me limp the rest of the way across the room. “Cole said she went on break twenty-five minutes ago. He was getting ready to say something to us because she’d been gone an extra ten minutes.”
Cole, visibly shaking, said, “This is twice in a row now. It’s my fault again.” He ripped off his apron and threw it on the floor. “I can’t handle this shit!” He stormed away in the direction of the restrooms.
“What was that about?” Stafford asked sharply.
I rubbed my forehead. “Cole thinks because he told Kira it was okay for her to take a break that it was his fault she went missing last time. That if he’d told her no, the whole thing wouldn’t have even happened.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know, but Cole has had a rough week. Between his guilt over Kira and finding Amelia’s body, he’s in way over his head. He’s a mellow guy. Stress is a foreign concept to him.”
Stafford didn’t look convinced, but he let it go. “Look, she could have simply taken a walk and lost track of time. But given all the strange happenings in the girl’s life lately, I’m not going to take any chances. I’m going to make a sweep of the block, and I want you to call her cell. If we don’t find her, then I’ll be back to question everyone.” He raised his voice and addressed the dozen other people in the room. “We have a potential missing persons situation. Don’t worry; you’re not in danger. But no one is to leave here until you’ve spoken with me.”
Of course, when he told everyone not to worry, everyone started worrying. He stationed Pete at the front door and hurried outside, already calling in for backup. I could tell from the look on Stafford’s face he didn’t believe for a second Kira had lost track of time. I called her cell, but it went straight to voicemail. I left a message and sent her a couple of texts. This was beginning to feel exactly like last time.
In the three minutes it took Stafford to sweep the block, two uniformed officers arrived, the flashing lights from their vehicles casting an eerie strobe effect through Java Jive’s many windows.
Stafford came immediately to me. “Were you able to reach Kira?” he asked, out of breath.
“No.”
He nodded and headed over to speak with the two officers. Pete was dismissed from door duty and came over to me, enveloping me in a hug.
“I’m sure she’ll turn up,” he said unconvincingly.
“Pete, I’m not trying to make it about me, but I can’t go through this again. I have no more to give, physically or emotionally.”
“I know. As soon as Stafford gives us the okay, I’m taking you home.”
I pulled back from him. “I didn’t mean I’m going to give up on her. I was talking about the all-night searching and—”
Pete frowned. “I doubt if there’s going to be much interest in searching for her this time, Jules. She’s the girl who cried wolf—at least that was Stafford’s gut reaction when he found out she was gone. I’m leaning that way, too. Who’s to say she’s not going to turn up tomorrow with another cockamamie story?”
It was a hard thing to stomach. Yes, Kira’s sudden reappearance and flaky explanation made everyone who’d searched for her feel like chumps, but in my gut I knew there was some merit to the kidnapping theory. I didn’t believe her “I fell down and blacked out” excuse for a second.
The uniformed officers had begun interviewing our customers, and Stafford was coming our way, all business. “Juliet, I need to speak to you. Pete, I’ve got her.”
Pete stepped away from me, and Stafford slid an arm around my waist to support me as I hopped back to the office. When he settled me gently down onto the couch, our faces were only inches apart, his turning an adorable shade of pink when he glanced up and realized how close we were.
I looked away first, noticing my crutches against the far wall. “So that’s where Pete hid my crutches,” I griped.
Seeming happy to have something to break the awkward moment, Stafford went over and retrieved them for me. “There. Now you can get around on your own.” Back in control, he stared me down. “Aside from the two officers taking statements from everyone here and a quick search of her premises, I’ve been told my department isn’t going to funnel any more resources toward trying to find Kira a second time.”
“Oh, that’s not good,” I breathed.
“However, I’m willing to look for her off the clock, but I don’t have a lot of time. I need to know right now what you know that you’re not telling me.”
Uh-oh. “Um…what?”
“What were you and Pete really doing last night, and why did it result in you nearly getting killed?”
I cringed. I couldn’t dream of lying to the man, but if I told him the whole truth, I’d be in trouble at worst and ridiculed at least.
“Juliet,” he prompted.
I sighed. “Okay, okay. On Monday, Kira told me she needed to leave early to go to her study group; later I found out she’d quit the group a month ago but had continued to ask off for it. So, I followed her. She—”
“Not just you. You and Pete. I know he’s your partner in crime.”
“Fine. We followed her to a building on Seventeenth. The Genesis Building. The building that happens to house Jack Beaumont’s medical practice.”
“And you didn’t think that was something you should share with the police?” he demanded.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know where the line was between being concerned for her and meddling. There are several businesses in the building, and we had no way of knowing whether she went there to see Jack or not. We didn’t have any evidence at that point to back up our suspicions, and we honestly didn’t want to make trouble for Jack or bug the police for no good reason.”
He studied me for a moment. His interrogation made me every bit as squirmy as one of Ryder’s, although in a different way. Ryder made me angry and defensive. Stafford made me apologetic and much too eager to talk.
“You said you didn’t have any evidence at that point. Do you have evidence now?”
“Damn. You are a good detective.”
He smiled slightly.
I went on, “Over the next couple of nights, we went back to some of the businesses and asked if they knew Kira.”
“Which ones?”
“The escort service and the talent agency.”
He was staring at me again. “So you just walked right in and started asking questions? Or did you have to finesse it a bit?”
I began fiddling nervously with the bandage on my arm. I would be mortified if he found out about the escort thing.
“Juliet.”
Sighing, I said, “We might have had to be a little creative with our questioning tactics.” When his eyes grew dark, I backpedaled. “We didn’t hurt any
one or coerce anyone. We just…might have misrepresented ourselves.”
I swear I saw his mouth twitch. “How exactly might one misrepresent herself at an escort agency?”
Why did he have to be so smart? “I don’t want to answer that question.”
He smiled. “And there’s my answer.”
I put my head in my hands.
“So you sniffed around at an escort agency and a talent agency. Seems pretty benign. What else?”
“We went and talked to Kira’s ex, Martin. We had just come from the bar where he works when I got run over.”
“I talked to him. He was the wannabe gangbanger. Did you make him angry enough to run you over?”
I grimaced, remembering Martin and Pete’s exchange. “Pete did. But once Martin found out someone was messing with Kira he completely changed his tune. He even bought us a drink. I don’t think it was him.”
“So we’re back to Jack Beaumont. Have any altercations with him you’d like to tell me about?”
“Actually, yes. I’d almost forgotten. The night of the accident, he saw us in the Genesis Building and started yelling, saying he’d sic his lawyer on us for slander.”
Stafford frowned. “Did he seem especially angry or out of control?”
“He was plenty angry. And he’s been out of control for the past week. He’s nothing like he used to be.”
Nodding, he stroked his beard thoughtfully. “All signs point to him, but he was in jail long before Kira went missing tonight.”
I snorted. “Don’t I know it. His wife came in here earlier and ripped us a new asshole because of it.”
He snapped his head toward me. “His wife?”
“Yes. Mallory. We’ve been friends for a long time, but tonight she—”
Cutting me off, he asked, “When did she come in?”
“Um…about a half hour before you came in, maybe? I wasn’t paying attention to the time.”
“In other words, right before Kira went missing?”
My face fell. “Whoa, John. There is no way in hell—”
“I need to go. I’ll see you later.” He rushed out, leaving me staring dumbly after him.
Getting my crutches, I pulled myself up and limped over to the door. Pete met me in the hallway.
“What was all that about?” he asked.
I gave him a contrite smile. “Um…I kind of told him all about our little investigative adventures….”
Pete rubbed his forehead. “Why is it that every other law enforcement official in this town pisses you off so much you fight back against them and actively work to make their lives miserable, yet one word from this guy and you sing like a bird?”
I hung my head. “I don’t know. For one thing, he never makes me feel like a criminal when he talks to me.”
He ruffled my hair. “At least this time we didn’t do anything illegal, like break into somebody’s place. We can’t get in trouble for pretending to be something we’re not. If that were a crime, everyone in this town would be locked up.”
“True. It was still embarrassing.”
Nodding, he replied, “He found out about the escort thing, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll find a way to make a bigger fool of yourself in front of him at some point.”
“Thank you, best friend. You always know exactly what to say.”
He grinned. “You know it. Hey, you look beat. Let’s go home.”
I followed him down the hall. “Like I said before, if Kira is missing, we can’t just go home and pretend nothing’s wrong. We need to at least try to look for her.”
Stopping, he turned to me. “This is against my better judgment, but since I know you’ll nag me until you get your way, I’ll agree to drive you around for a while so you can feel like you looked for her.”
“See? Was that so hard?”
He ignored me and continued out into the dining area. The police had let most of the customers leave, and it was nearing ten o’clock, so we had Cole and Shane start shutting the place down. Stafford was gone, so Pete and I checked with the other officers that it was okay for us to leave. There were already news vans beginning to gather on the street. Luckily, Pete had parked out back. He helped me out the back door and into his car.
“Well, where to?” he asked. “Same route as the last search, because it worked so well?”
“You have a horrible attitude about this. What’s up with you? Before, you were all about helping Kira.”
Shrugging, he pulled out of the tiny parking lot behind Java Jive and headed down the alley. “I don’t know. Something feels off. I have the feeling she’s not completely innocent in all this.”
“Yes, I have no doubt she’s enabling or at least cowering to the person who’s been abusing her, but that doesn’t mean she’s doing any of it willingly. Whatever her reasons are, she’s got to make up her mind to get out of this situation. No one can do it for her.”
Pete drove past my apartment complex, but there were a couple of police cruisers in the parking lot, so there was no point in us looking for Kira there. We then headed to the Genesis Building, where we saw Stafford standing in the front yard. We kept going, driving up and down every street in the area, both of us staring out into the dark and hoping for (but not actually expecting) a glimpse of Kira.
After an hour of sitting in the same position, my knee was killing me. I shifted in my seat, whimpering quietly as my bruised thigh brushed up against the center console. The pain in my leg was nothing compared to the burning sensation that ran the length of my arm, though.
Pete looked over at me. “You’re in pain.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’ve been grunting and frowning ever since we got in the car.”
“Maybe I’m frustrated because we haven’t found Kira.”
“And you’re pale. Well, paler.”
He was right—my already milky-white complexion had become nearly translucent between the mental and physical stress I’d been under lately. He took the next turn and began heading in the general direction of his house.
“When was the last time you took a pain pill?” he asked.
“I’m a little overdue.”
“I’m calling it. We’re going home.”
This time, I didn’t complain.
Chapter 29
Being behind on my pain medication was not the best situation to be in right before bedtime. I couldn’t find a position to lie in that didn’t hurt. In the middle of my sleepless night, I decided I’d give the sleep clinic a try. It certainly couldn’t make matters worse.
Pete went to work in the morning, leaving me to my own devices. I called the sleep clinic and made an appointment for later in the morning. After showering, which completely wore me out, I called a cab to take me to my apartment to get my car. Pete would probably have my head for this, but he had to have known I couldn’t stay at his house all day and twiddle my thumbs. I drove around for a while in another futile attempt to look for Kira. Driving was more difficult that I’d expected in my banged-up state, so I didn’t give my search as much time as I’d intended. In need of coffee and breakfast, I headed to Java Jive.
When I got to the counter, I slid awkwardly onto a stool, sweating and out of breath. Rhonda came over to me, frowning.
“Pete said you got run over. We have the place covered. Why are you here?” she asked.
I tried to muster a smile but failed miserably. “You know me. I love to work. Can’t seem to stay away.”
She lowered her voice and glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “Is Kira missing again?”
“Yes. She disappeared last night in the middle of her shift, just like last time.”
“So are we to assume she’ll randomly turn up like before?” she asked disdainfully. Evidently Pete wasn’t the only one who felt this way.
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Well, I’m not covering for her, too,” she
griped.
She flounced back over to fill some customer orders before I had time to ask her to get me some breakfast. Too tired to expend the effort to flag her down, I propped my chin up on my hands and waited for her to come back my way. Eventually, she did, and she grudgingly served me some much-needed coffee and a blueberry scone. The scone was delicious. I was pleasantly surprised that Camille and Rhonda were such good bakers. I certainly wouldn’t mind them taking over my early morning baking duty on a regular basis, maybe even a couple of times a week.
When I’d just popped the last bite of scone into my mouth, a quiet voice behind me said, “Juliet, can we talk?”
I wheeled around on my stool and gasped, sucking some scone crumbs down my windpipe. The dry particles threw me into a coughing fit.
Mallory raised her voice. “Are you okay? Drink something.”
I spun back around and took a sip of my coffee, which actually helped. When I got my cough under control, I turned around to face her, asking warily, “You’re not going to yell at me again, are you?”
Her face fell. “No. And please let me apologize for my behavior last night.” She hung her head. “I was drunk.”
“You don’t say.”
She collapsed onto the stool next to mine. “Yesterday was a terribly rough day for me, as you might imagine.”
Poor thing. She looked so defeated. Mallory was always bright and sunny, never angry or down. I put my hand over hers on the counter, my guilt over my part in Jack’s predicament starting to rear its ugly head again.
“I sort of know what you’re going through. When Pete was arrested for his girlfriend’s murder, I very nearly lost it. I imagine it’s much worse watching your husband go through it.”
Tears slipping out of her eyes, she nodded. “That’s why I came to you. I was hoping you could help me.”
“Of course I don’t mind standing by you through this, but I can’t imagine you’re exactly thrilled with me right now after…”
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I know you were the one who told the police about Jack’s relationship with that girl. But when I sobered up and realized one of the detectives was your boyfriend, I didn’t blame you for clueing him in rather than getting yourself into trouble by trying to protect Jack.”
A Whole Latte Murder Page 26