Stormy Day Mysteries 5-Book Cozy Murder Mystery Series Bundle

by Angela Pepper

  For an instant, I was somewhere else in time, a witness to a moment I couldn’t comprehend, only feel.

  Kyle used his toe to open the car door all the way.

  “Look what I’ve got,” he said.

  “What are you up to?”

  He grinned as the baby plumbed his dimples with pudgy baby fingers. “I’m serving and protecting,” he said.

  “Did you really bring me out here to watch you babysit?”

  He waved the baby in front of me. “Look, it’s a baby king. Get it?”

  I kept my expression neutral, though I did get it. Koenig was German for king. Somehow, he’d figured out the child was an heir to Dieter Koenig’s fortune, and he was fishing to find out what I knew. Had he only just figured it out, or was this why he’d brought me with him on the call? I didn’t dare ask, lest I give away information with my curiosity.

  He prompted, “Stormy, don’t you know who this little cutie-pie is?”

  I answered evenly and honestly, “I’ve never seen that baby in my life.”

  He smelled the baby’s downy crown. “Smells good.”

  “Are you even qualified to hold that baby? It’s not like a sidearm, Dimples. You have to know where a baby is at all times.”

  “Want to see me toss it in the air? My nieces love being tossed up.” He made a practice motion with the wide-eyed baby.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed open the car door and grabbed the baby from him. He was right about it smelling delicious. I cuddled the tiny heir and murmured some of the sweet syrupy nothings I usually reserved for Jeffrey. To settle the matter of the bet with my roommate, I did a quick visual inspection down the front of the green pants and diaper. The baby king was indeed a king and not a queen.

  The boy responded by gazing up at me, smiling, and letting the pacifier fall from his rosebud mouth.

  “Hello,” called out Lady Octavia, back at the front door. “Thank you, Officer. I’m feeling much better now. It was just, what’s the word? Panic. It was just a panic attack.”

  Kyle took the baby from me and returned him to his mother. Lady Octavia was so focused on her child and Kyle, she didn’t seem to notice me there. I slid back into the car and closed the door carefully. If she had noticed me, we could sort it out later, and not in front of the police. In the meantime, I had to do something sneaky, in private.

  A few minutes later, Kyle returned to the car.

  He got in, turned to me, and held out his hand, palm up. “Hand it over.”

  “I don’t like this new sneaky side of yours, Kyle. And I don’t have anything to hand over to you.”

  “You have the baby’s pacifier,” he said. “I was going to swipe it myself, but you beat me to it, because you’re the sneaky one.” He wiggled his fingers. “Hand it over.”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out the small plastic baggie with the pacifier.

  “You carry evidence bags in your purse,” he said, taking the pacifier. “So sneaky.”

  “They’re just sandwich bags,” I said. “I’m environmentally friendly. I use them in restaurants when I don’t finish my dinner and want to take a doggy bag home.” I sighed. “And for evidence, when needed.” I sighed again. “How did you know about the heir?”

  “I googled the countess and found a story about her hooking up with Dieter Koenig.”

  “You googled her,” I said with a chuckle. “That’s some top-shelf detective work.”

  He asked, “Did you notice anything about the baby?”

  “It smelled yummier than fresh bread.”

  “I meant, did you notice something unusual?”

  “No,” I said. “Did you?”

  “The booties were for two left feet,” he said.

  “Mismatched?”

  “Exact same style.”

  I shrugged. “That poor baby, having two left feet. You know what they say about the genes of royal families, though.”

  Kyle grinned, turning his dimples up to maximum. “Having two left feet isn’t a bad tradeoff for millions of dollars.” He started the car’s engine.

  I said, “The other possibility is that the baby king has a twin.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Which would be scandalous for different reasons,” I said. The math was easy, and the ramifications were obvious.

  “Exactly,” he said. “Instead of splitting the inheritance two or three ways, we’re now up to four. As their legal guardian, that puts the Duchess of Kankersores in control of half the Koenig fortune.”

  I snickered. “She’s not a duchess. She’s a countess, and it’s Krengerborg.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Sure it is.”

  He waved the baggie with the pacifier. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves until we get the lab results.”

  “Will there be enough DNA for an accurate test?” I asked innocently.

  I knew darn well there would be but figured it didn’t hurt to play dumb with Kyle. If he could use his dimples, I could bat my eyelashes and ask simple questions.

  He turned his head and watched as a large, dark vehicle passed behind us on the road. I turned as well. The quiet lane had only three homes and culminated in a dead end.

  Kyle backed the cruiser out of the driveway and turned to follow the vehicle, which was a black truck.

  “What do we have here?”

  “You don’t need to call in the license plate,” I said. “That truck’s from the Koenig Estate. I saw the butler driving it last night, when he picked up Tim Barber from the casino.”

  “The butler did it,” Kyle said wryly.

  “Did what? Drive innocently along a road?”

  “That truck’s up to something,” Kyle said. “I can feel it.”

  We turned onto the road and followed the vehicle, which wasn’t even speeding.

  Kyle continued, “If whoever’s in this truck isn’t up to anything, they shouldn’t mind stopping to answer a few questions.”

  The truck reached the end of the road and used the final home’s driveway to turn around.

  Kyle tapped a switch to flash the lights and sirens once in a polite request.

  The vehicle slowed as it neared us, as though considering stopping. The dark tint on the windows, combined with the glare of the setting sun, made seeing the driver impossible. Once it was alongside us, the truck’s engine roared. Dirt and gravel from the unpaved country lane sprayed up from the tires as it raced away from us.

  Kyle flicked on the lights and siren and said, “Stormy, buckle up!”

  Chapter 25

  Scenery whipped past the windows as we pursued the black truck.

  “If someone bolts, I’m a bloodhound,” Kyle said. “I’m going to chase them like a rabbit.”

  I clung to a handhold above the door as we careened through a curve in the country road.

  “You mean like a fox,” I said. “Bloodhounds chase foxes. It’s greyhounds who chase rabbits at the racetrack.”

  “What?” His dimples were gone, smoothed out as he concentrated on the black truck kicking up dust in front of us.

  “You’re a greyhound, because you’re fast.”

  “Bloodhounds are still fast. Dogs are faster than people.”

  “Not chiweenies.”

  “Huh?” He hazarded me a quick glance as he cranked the wheel for a bigger turn.

  I added a second hand to my hold on the strap above my head.

  I explained, “Chiweenies are a cross between dachshunds and Chihuahuas. They’re both burrowing dogs, so they like to dig their way into piles of blankets.”

  “This is what you do during a car chase?” he asked with disbelief. “You spout facts about dogs?”

  “Would you rather hear about the life cycle of fleas?”

  He shot me a look that said no.

  I would have told him about fleas anyway, but something was happening with the truck in front of us. It drifted erratically from one side of the road to the other and slowed down. We caug
ht up quickly. Kyle had to brake hard to avoid running into the back of the truck.

  Kyle switched off our siren but not the lights. The road dust hung in the air. All was still, except for the blue and white lights bouncing off the truck. Thanks to the glare from the setting sun, I still couldn’t see through the tinted windows.

  Kyle unbuckled his seat belt.

  “They’re going to bolt,” I said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The body language of the truck.”

  His dimples made a brief appearance. His light-blue eyes twinkled as he opened his door and stepped out, shaking his head at my warning. I heard him mutter about the body language of trucks as he closed the door.

  What I should have said was that the truck’s tires were pointed toward the center of the road instead of straight ahead, telegraphing the driver’s intention to bolt.

  Sure enough, as soon as Kyle passed the rear bumper of the truck, the red brake lights flashed off. The tires kicked up dirt as it sped away, pelting the windshield. One particularly loud bang made me shriek. A spiderweb crack blossomed on my side of the glass. The impact of a flung rock, so close to my face, caused a cascade of emotions, from fear to anger. Whoever it was in the truck, they’d scared me. Now it was personal.

  I pushed open my door, jumped out, and yelled at Kyle, “Shoot the tires!” I used my hands to mime my instructions, in case he couldn’t understand English.

  Kyle, who was running back to the vehicle, yelled, “Get back in the car!”

  “They’re getting away! Shoot their tires! Do something!” I jumped up and down, shooting with both of my finger guns enthusiastically.

  Kyle seemed to consider my request, his hand on his holster. Then he shook his head and jumped back into the car. I got in as well, quickly fastening my seat belt and reaching for the overhead strap. I pressed my foot impatiently against the ghost accelerator on the passenger side.

  He flicked the siren on and grabbed the radio as we took off. He told the dispatcher he needed backup. He gave our location, and the female voice on the other end asked him to clarify the situation.

  “It’s a ten-twenty-five,” he said.

  “No, Dimples,” I said. “It’s a ten-thirty. And it may turn into a ten-thirty-three if you don’t watch where you’re going.”

  The dispatcher asked, “Who’s that? Who’s there with you?”

  “Ten-fifty-nine,” Kyle said.

  They spoke for a few more seconds about his location, speed, and direction, and he set the radio handset back into its cradle.

  Before I could ask him what a ten-fifty-nine meant, we reached the main road. The truck veered left, nearly cutting off an oncoming vehicle. Kyle braked hard to avoid being T-boned, and then we were off again, shooting like a bullet down the paved road. Here, on the smooth surface, the car had the advantage on the truck. We started catching up.

  We hit a curving section of road that took us through a dip, a natural slough that was too damp to be used for growing hay. The trees were just thick enough to hide the suspect’s truck from sight. As we sped along the road, the setting sun strobed between the trees.

  Suddenly, a dark vehicle whipped by us, going in the opposite direction. It was the truck, which must have doubled back the instant it was behind the blind.

  Kyle and I swore in unison.

  The road was too narrow for a U-turn, so he had to make a three-point turn. To Kyle’s credit, it was the fastest three-point turn I’d ever witnessed. The wild movement of the vehicle made me glad I’d split dessert with Ruby rather than overdo it on my own.

  Kyle used the radio to report our new direction then commented to me, “Whoever’s in that truck, I guarantee you it’s not dumb kids on a joyride.”

  “If it’s the butler, he may be a bodyguard, too. It sure looks like he’s familiar with evasive driving techniques.”

  Kyle snorted. “My training’s better than a butler’s.”

  “Sure, but do you know which tiny fork is used for escargot?”

  He shot me a look that said my silence might be more helpful than my commentary about fancy silverware.

  We pursued the truck for another five minutes before Kyle groaned. “Great,” he said flatly.

  As we crested the hill, I saw what had him down. We were nearing a forested area with trails the locals used for riding dirt bikes and horses. Most of the trails were little more than a horse-width wide, but there were a few with double ruts suitable for Jeeps and off-road vehicles.

  The black truck didn’t even wait for the exit. It veered off the road, down a ditch, and into a field, speeding toward the trail entrance at an angle.

  “We can still get them,” Kyle growled.

  I thought he meant someone from the backup detail could get them. The police had a few off-road vehicles that could handle the rutted goat trail of a road.

  But he didn’t mean we would wait for backup. He thought we could head them off, our speed on the access road superior to their speed over the bumpy hay field.

  We’d barely slowed when we reached the access road exit. Kyle hit the brakes, we fishtailed, and he grunted as he cranked the steering wheel.

  As the world spun, an image of playing cards came to mind.

  The king of diamonds.

  A royal flush.

  Something was making a horrible grinding noise.

  Chapter 26

  One hour later.

  I thought I’d seen every variation of Captain Tony Milano’s unhappy expressions, but it turned out there was another layer to the irritation onion.

  “You two are as bad as my children,” Tony said.

  “Ouch,” Kyle said.

  “Burn,” I said.

  We were inside a hospital treatment room, waiting for the emergency room’s admitting doctor to officially release us. I was sitting on a hard-backed chair, admiring the interesting colors appearing on my bruised elbow and forearm. Kyle sat on the treatment bed, shirtless, getting splinters removed from his shoulder and pretending it didn’t hurt.

  “At least we’re okay,” I said to Tony. “Isn’t that the most important thing?”

  “But you’re not okay,” Tony spluttered. “Your arm is all mangled, and Dimples is broken.” The nurse looked up from the bloody splinter extraction. “Dempsey,” Tony corrected. “I meant Officer Dempsey.”

  Smiling, she went back to the splinter extraction.

  “You’re overreacting,” I said. “We’re not mangled or broken.”

  “Don’t try to diminish what’s happened,” Tony said. “You two really are as bad as my children.”

  I raised my hand and asked impishly, “Dad, if we had a puppy, we’d be too busy with the puppy to chase after bad guys.”

  His face went through three new variations of peeved. He did not appreciate the humor in me calling him Dad.

  “Nobody’s getting a puppy,” he growled.

  I put my hand down and tried to look sorry, even though, once again, I was innocent of the trouble I’d been caught up in.

  When Kyle thought he could outrace the truck to the forest trail, he’d been realistic about his driving abilities. Unfortunately, one of the tires must have snagged a clump of dirt and thrown us off course.

  The only thing we succeeded in apprehending was a giant billboard for the Canuso Lake Casino. When the sliding police car struck the post for the billboard, the whole sign toppled over and broke apart. The spiderweb crack on my side of the windshield was obliterated by a corner of plywood smashing through. The king of diamonds nearly lopped off my head, acting like some mad royal working creatively around the issue of not being granted a divorce.

  When we stopped sliding, poor Kyle was so shocked by the proximity of splintering wood near my throat, he didn’t even notice the injury to his shoulder until I pointed it out to him.

  We’d climbed out of the car and were assessing the damage when backup arrived. Officer Gary Gomez was in an off-road vehicle and continued the pursuit into
the forest, but we didn’t have high hopes.

  When the paramedics showed up, they found me dazed and trying to put the billboard sign back together, treating it like a giant jigsaw puzzle. I would have solved it, too, if Kyle hadn’t been bleeding all over the edge pieces and making the picture hard to see. At least that’s what the first responders reported me as saying. I was in shock, as was Kyle, and couldn’t remember much more than flashes.

  Of course I was happy to be alive, I’d told Tony. But I wasn’t taking the blame for wrecking the police car, and I wasn’t going to sit seriously through a scolding from a disappointed father who wasn’t even my father.

  “Are you even listening?” Tony snapped his fingers in front of my face. “What did I just say?”

  “We’re never, ever, ever getting a puppy,” I answered.

  He kneeled down in front of my chair and looked into my eyes. “How hard did you bump your noggin?”

  I rubbed the right side of my head, where I had a tender spot between the top of my ear and crown of my head.

  “Just enough for a nice goose egg,” I said. “I’m fine, and I really am sorry about your police car. Sorry in the way that a person can be sorry even when they had absolutely no responsibility for the thing that happened.”

  “I don’t care about the car,” he said. “We can get another one.” He glanced around then asked softly, “You haven’t seen Tim Barber around lately, have you?”

  “No, why? Do you think he was in the truck with the butler? You think the two of them are up to something?”

  Tony raised a finger to his lips and shushed me. “Not here,” he said. “And not tonight.” He reached up and touched the tender spot on the side of my head. “That is quite the goose egg.”

  “Tony, what’s a ten-fifty-nine?” I asked. I’d heard Kyle utter the code when the dispatcher asked who was in the car with him. I had a feeling it was me.

  Tony frowned then stood and began asking the nurse if she thought I should stay overnight for observation, just in case.

  I leaned over to look past them and make eye contact with Kyle. The nurse had finished the splinter extraction and bandages. He pulled on a gray sweatshirt the hospital had given him to wear home, since they’d cut his uniform shirt away.