by Kym Roberts
I wasn’t sure where the real-life rumor started about my mom’s sign, but it was a fact that the sign had fallen on several people—most of whom were up to no good—from Cade trying to get to second base in high school, to a killer trying to stop me from figuring out his crime.
Up until that moment when I read it in print, I found the thought of my mom watching over me via her sign like a gift. Nathan Daniels’s book, however, portrayed the sign as an evil entity turning the innocent into the deranged. I didn’t like the comparison or anyone making the link between fiction in print and the reality that was my life. Nathan Daniels’s book made a comforting aspect of my life sound evil. My mama’s sign wasn’t evil. Yet again, I couldn’t deny the disturbing similarities.
The front doors opened, and the bell rang. I immediately took my feet off the counter and closed the book. Dallas Dover walked in the store looking as lost as ever. He wore the same cowboy hat he’d on the first time I met him at his recycling plant. His fancy belt with the shiny belt buckle was wrapped around his waist, and his leather gloves were sticking out of his back pocket. I was beginning to think he never went anywhere without those gloves.
“Dallas, welcome to the Book Barn Princess,” I said with a smile. It was nice to see something positive come out of my crime. Dallas had been running the recycling plant for eight months, and I’d never seen him in our store until that moment. Maybe something good did come from something bad.
Dallas smiled, and when he did, it changed his appearance. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, just not one that would normally catch my attention, but when he grinned he was full of a boyish charm I found appealing. I got the impression that he recognized that charm and knew how to use it too. He sauntered toward the register. “Just the woman I was looking for,” he said.
“Oh?”
“I was wondering if you had that book that everyone’s talking about. Scorned Woman or something?”
I pulled my copy out from under the counter. “Woman Scorned?”
“That’s it. Do you have any more copies?”
“I gotta warn you. After what happened at the hotel, it’s kind of creepy.”
He rubbed his beard. “And yet, you’re reading it.”
He had me there. But I was reading it because I wanted to see how so-called art had turned into life. “I am. Let’s go back and check. If I’ve got any back there, it’s only one or two copies.”
We made our way to the mystery section and sure enough, we had one copy left. As I rang it up, Dallas asked, “Did you know Maddie?”
“Not well, no. She came to a book club meeting last week with Sugar. But that’s the first time I’d talked to her.”
“She and Sugar were friends?”
I winced. I didn’t want to talk about Sugar. Not only did she work for us, but she was a dear friend in quite a pickle. A life and death pickle. “I’m sorry, Dallas. I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Dallas didn’t hesitate. “Of course. I didn’t mean to pry. I…I actually didn’t come by to buy the book.”
“You didn’t?”
Dallas gave me that boyish grin again as he tipped his head. “I came to ask if I could take you to dinner.”
“Dinner?” My vocabulary seemed to have gone on vacation.
“You know the last meal of the day that most people eat right about now?”
I grinned. “Obviously, you didn’t come in to buy a dictionary.”
Dallas winked, and I could have sworn he was about to say, alright, alright, alright, but I was wrong. “No, ma’am. Something else entirely.”
I let him down easy. “I’m sorry. I have to work.”
Dallas looked around the store. “Are you here by yourself? That doesn’t seem very safe.”
“We are a small operation. Not a lot of cash flow and not a lot of high-end merchandise to interest a thief.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth, then the doors swished open, and Tiny stomped into the Barn. Unlike Dallas, Tiny knew exactly where he was going. Dressed in a white shirt and overalls, he looked the part of an angry farmer-biker. Lucky for me, he embraced the more urban persona, otherwise the meaty hand he raised with abrasions all over his knuckles would have had a pitch fork in its grasp. Instead it was just an index finger calling me out. From my angle, Tiny’s fist looked like one of those trick photography images I’d seen on the internet when a giant pinched a mere mortal’s head between his thumb and index finger. Dallas’s head was about to be smushed like a grape.
“You!” Tiny yelled. “What are you doing going out to my mama’s house?”
Staring down an angry Tiny made me glad I had a counter and a witness between him and me. I prayed his arms weren’t long enough to snatch me out from behind the counter.
“I just went out to offer my condolences to your mom. That’s it. That’s all I was doing.”
Tiny reached the counter, but Dallas stayed between us. I was thankful for that. Tiny looked down at him like he could swat him away like a fly. I didn’t think Dallas would be that easy, but he definitely wasn’t going to be able to go toe to toe the way Mateo had.
Tiny’s gaze returned to me, and I could have sworn there was pure evil lurking in his soul, just dying to get out. “Why?” he demanded. “You weren’t friends with Maddie.”
That was true, but I went with the line Scarlet and I had used at his mom’s house. “She was a new member of our Mystery Moms Book Club. We wanted to offer our—”
Tiny’s response was less than pleasant. In the middle of it was an accusation that I was just trying to get Sugar off the hook for killing his sister. Spittle hit Dallas’s face. He flinched but stood his ground between me and the angry man that stood head and shoulders above the two of us. I thought of David and Goliath. Except I’d always dreamed I was David, and I certainly wasn’t acting like him while hiding behind a customer and the register.
I threw back my shoulders and came around the counter. I approached Tiny with the backbone my mama gave me. “Tiny, I’m sorry for your loss. I know you’re hurting in ways no one else can imagine. We meant no harm.”
Tiny stared at me. His nose flared and stayed flared as he exhaled. A rumble from deep within his gut reverberated through his belly like a bass drum. “My sister left me a voicemail telling me she got in a fight with Sugar. It was the very last time she called me.” His voice quivered. “I missed that call.” Then he turned and walked out the door without another word. He was like a man whose emotions were ready to erupt at any given moment. I didn’t know if he was like that before Maddie disappeared, but every time I’d seen him since, his temper had been volatile.
“That wasn’t smart, Charli,” Dallas said.
I looked at him and felt the adrenaline seeping out of my system and tingling in my fingers. “I’ve never been accused of making smart decisions.”
Dallas got a kick out of that. He laughed, the sound a bit high for a man, yet manly because of his lack of fear to share it. “A woman after my heart.”
“Ahh, you should never give your heart away so quickly. That’s dangerous.”
Dallas’s expression turned serious. “I mean it, though, Charli. Tiny’s not a man to mess with.”
Dallas stared at me, and I could tell he wanted to say more but wasn’t sure how much he could say until he finally just blurted it out. “He abused his sister, that’s why I laid him off.”
That was the last thing I expected. “Maddie?”
Dallas rubbed his hand across his jaw. “I shouldn’t be saying anything, but you gotta be careful around him. His temper is more explosive than a stick of dynamite.”
The doors swished open again, and we both turned around expecting Tiny to be back, but it was Cade. He looked tired and rumpled like his day had been way too long. I was feeling the same way.
“Tiny didn’t do anything, did he?” Cade aske
d.
“No. Did you expect him to?” I hoped Cade’s response would be something like, Tiny would never hit you. He’s a pie thrower, not a guy who would punch a woman. Even if he had hit his sister and looked like he was going to remove my head and put it on a spike.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect.” Cade brushed his hand across his scalp. “Thank you, Dallas.”
“For what?”
“For keeping Princess safe.”
Dallas laughed but it wasn’t full of humor like it had been. “I think you got things all wrong, Mayor. Charli is the one who handled Tiny. Not me.”
Cade looked like he didn’t believe him, and Dallas patted him on the shoulder. “You’ve got a lot to learn about this woman. I’ll see you later, Charli.”
We watched him leave, and Cade asked, “Am I missing something?”
Princess came out from behind the counter and snorted before she headed out her pet door in the back of the barn. Cade watched her leave.
“She thinks that was a rhetorical question.”
I bit my lip and tried not to laugh. Cade was giving Princess more credit than most people would even dream of doing. Yet I tended to agree with him, and it was nice to be on the same page with someone for once.
“I just got the results of the search warrant they served at the hotel where Maddie was staying.”
That wiped my smile away. “What’d it say?”
“They found blond hair and a fingernail that matches Sugar’s in Maddie’s room.”
“I thought it took a while for DNA—”
“The shade of blond is the same shade that Scarlet uses on Sugar’s hair, and the nail matches the manicure Sugar had done last week.”
“But that doesn’t mean—”
“Sugar admitted to getting in a fight with Maddie the night she disappeared. The DNA will come back as hers.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Cade looked around for something to do or something to talk about as the bad news sunk in.
“Do you want a glass of tea?” I asked.
“I could use a whiskey.”
I gave him a sad smile. “Sorry, we’re all out.”
“Then I’ll take that tea.”
We walked back to the tearoom, and I opened the sliding stall door to where his election supplies were stored.
“I suppose I should recycle this stuff…” Cade’s voice drifted off like a wistful dream lost forever.
“Don’t say that.”
“Charli—”
I shut him down before he could argue. “This has always been your dream, and everyone who knows you believes in you.”
“I got hate mail today,” he confessed.
It was the last thing I expected. “What?”
Cade moved into the tearoom and got the tea out of the refrigerator. I pulled down two glasses and we sat down at the only table without Calloway for Senate paraphernalia covering the surface.
“My political party’s not sure they want me as their candidate, and I got a stack of hate mail big enough that the post office said they would have to make a special delivery.”
“How do you know it’s all hate mail if you haven’t read it?”
Cade took a long drink of tea and set his glass on the table. “Even if it was fan mail, which I seriously doubt, I’m going to have my hands full defending Sugar and Dean. It’s a capital case.”
I did not want to think about what that meant for my friends. “How did the search warrant go?”
“They got Sugar’s gun.”
I suddenly felt the pressure of the world on my chest. “Is it the murder weapon?”
“We’re still waiting on the autopsy report. The ME was at a conference but was due back this afternoon. He should have it to Mateo tomorrow.”
“No matter what the report says, you know they didn’t do it.”
“Their statements sound like they did.”
“How so?”
Cade looked down at his tea. He looked defeated. It was the last expression I’d want to see on my attorney’s face if I was facing the death penalty. “I can’t discuss that with you, Charli.”
“Why not? You’ve told me about the other stuff?”
“I told you about the things that are public record. If I tell you about their statements, nothing will protect Sugar and Dean from you having to testify about the content of our discussion. My privilege won’t extend to you in their case. It only extends to you in your burning charges.”
I was glad he didn’t say book burning. It sounded much better that way.
Princess walked into the tearoom with her boyfriend on her tail. Cade froze. He hadn’t been at the bookstore the day we got skunked.
“No, Princess.” I pointed back at the way she’d waddled in. My frustration was evident in my voice. I’d had it up to my eyebrows with things going south.
Princess ignored my correction, stood up on her hind legs, and waved her front paws at me like a dog begging for dinner. Her boyfriend did the same. Any other day, it would have been cute. Adorable even. Tonight, I was prepared to send her to bed with no dinner.
“No. You take that young man outside, and you leave him outside. He is not allowed in any more buildings.”
Princess huffed and dropped down on all fours. The skunk sniffed and then followed, his tail hung low and tight against his body.
“I’ve never seen you be that mean to Princess before.”
“And you’ve never had a teenage girl with a troublemaker for her first boyfriend.”
Cade brought up the topic I thought he’d forgotten about. “You almost got caught at Dean and Sugar’s place.”
“But I didn’t.” I reached over and squeezed his hand. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
Cade held my hand across the table. “Can you keep your nose out of any more trouble? I’d like to focus on Dean and Sugar right now. As it is, I’m probably going to be bringing in a team to help me prepare their case. The last thing I need to add to my plate is defending you against charges for hindering a murder investigation.”
I pulled my hand away and laughed. “Mateo wouldn’t arrest me for trying to help my friends.”
Cade stood up but didn’t join in my good humor. “He would if I reported you.”
My mouth fell open as he turned and walked out the door. Cade had gone to the other side. Drat the man.
Chapter 11
My conversation with Cade kept playing over and over in my head. I hadn’t convinced him to hold on to his political dreams, yet he’d sounded more like a prosecutor than my defense attorney. In the past, he’d left everyone else behind in pursuit of his goals. Today he was a different man being led by outside forces.
I had one customer the rest of the night, and I was beginning to worry about the Book Barn’s future. I called my cousin Jamal as I locked up the store and asked if he’d seen any downward drop in the use of our Book Seekers app that he’d launched a while back.
“Are you stirring up trouble again?” he asked.
“What makes you say that?”
“You tend to call when there’s trouble.”
“I do not.”
“Do too.”
“You know you sound like you’re in grade school,” I taunted.
“If I do, so do you.”
“I do not.”
“Do too.”
I was getting nowhere. My cousin was like a brother to me. Except he got his daddy’s freakishly tall genes, superior mathematical mind which made up for his lack of athletic ability. I’d like to think I was a little on the tall side, athletic, and possessed half a brain that was enough to keep me alive.
But even that was questionable sometimes.
“I just need to know the app isn’t spiraling into a black hole of the unknown when it come
s to book apps. Otherwise the Barn may be in trouble.”
“Does this have anything to do with you burning books?”
“You know about that?”
“The whole country knows about that. Change that to the whole world. Maybe the universe. I hear Klingons are ordering books off Amazon instead of beaming down to Hazel Rock for the latest bestseller.”
“You’re not very funny.”
“Mom seems to think so.”
“She gave birth to you. She’s supposed to laugh at your bad jokes.” My aunt Violet had finished raising me after I ran away from home at seventeen. She was my mom’s twin, but not a lot like her, other than having a heart bigger than the state of Texas. Jamal and I had been raised like siblings.
“The app is fine. We had a small down-tick the day the story broke about the book burning, but it’s leveled out again. I’m launching a new version this summer, so that will drive it upward again.” Jamal started talking algorithms and computer mumbo jumbo and lost me.
The Book Seekers app was his baby, not mine. I did what he told me to do on the computer and benefited with the profits. If we hadn’t been cousins, another bookstore would be benefitting from his genius instead of the Barn. We talked for a bit longer as I got ready for bed. He told me his mom was doing great, and he thought she had a boyfriend she wasn’t talking about yet. It was a little good news in the midst of a rough week in Hazel Rock. Jamal said he’d come to visit soon to discuss the new app, and we ended the conversation.
I went around the outside of the Barn after I set the alarm and locked the door. Most of the time, I used the hidden door between the loft and my apartment, but tonight I needed the fresh air. I also wanted to see my mom’s sign and get the bad vibes out of my head about its ability to make people evil. I didn’t believe spirits or circumstances of life that involved the perfect timing of a sign falling on someone’s head changed a person’s soul.
I walked through the gate and looked up at the lone light bulb with a metal hood illuminating the wrought iron scrolls of Eve’s Gate. That sign and the gate below had marked the entrance to my private life since I was eight years old. Very few people were invited to enter.