Better Watch Out

by Dani Sinclair

  Thoroughly annoyed, Jackie found them and headed for the back door, carefully locking it behind her. The next time she saw J.D.—and she had no doubt that would happen soon—she would demand her car keys back.

  Her car tended to be temperamental. It turned over when she started the engine, but the wipers couldn’t clear the frost from the windshield.

  Disgruntled, she turned off the car and stepped out. The scraper was in her trunk. A movement on her left sent her twisting in that direction. A young man moved toward the garage two houses down. She waved to be neighborly, almost thankful to see someone else moving about in this quiet neighborhood. He didn’t see her, but it was enough to know she wasn’t alone out here.

  She picked her way to the back of the car and stopped. Silver keys dangled from the lock.

  She fought against a suffocating sense of panic. There was a reasonable explanation for her missing car keys to be in the trunk. Not J.D., of course. He wouldn’t have any reason to open her trunk.

  Unless, maybe he’d been looking for the snow shovel?

  The snow shovel that had been sitting on the front porch in plain sight?

  Well, maybe he hadn’t seen it right away. Maybe he’d checked her car and the garage before finding it on the porch. It was possible. Wasn’t it?

  Every instinct screamed at her to go back inside. She looked around, searching for the neighbor she’d seen earlier. Nothing and no one moved.

  Heart pounding, her hand snaked out and twisted the key. Without giving herself time to chicken out, she pulled the heavy trunk open.

  The elf lay crumpled like a sack of old laundry. His distorted expression sent her reeling backward. Only a burlesquelike ballet kept her from landing in a heap on the icy ground.

  Her ankle throbbed in protest. The contents of her stomach battled their way up her throat. Silent screams choked her mind. She twisted toward the house and somehow made it inside as far as the kitchen sink before her stomach purged itself.

  Gripping the counter for support, she waited until the dry throat-wrenching spasms finally stopped. The police. She needed to call the police. One of her crutches had fallen. She ignored it, desperate to reach the telephone. Using the backs of the kitchen chairs, she crossed the room and grabbed the receiver.

  It took her shaking finger two attempts before she stabbed out the 911 sequence and asked for the police.

  “Police emergency.”

  “This…this is Jackie Neeley. You’d better send someone. The body’s back.” The room spun, growing darker at the edges of her vision. She fought against a need to surrender to that soothing blackness. The calm voice on the other end helped anchor her. She answered questions, trying to blot away the horror. Help was on its way. This time they would have to believe her.

  The telephone rang the second she disconnected.

  A familiar gravelly voice filled her ear. “Jackie, it’s J.D. We need to talk.”

  She almost laughed, but the laughter would be too close to the hysteria laying in wait for her.

  “Not now,” she whispered. “I can’t talk right now.”

  “Jackie, what’s wrong?”

  His concern cleared away the fog. Jackie shook her head and her voice came out stronger, more certain.

  “You don’t want to know, J.D. Don’t worry. I won’t bother you any more.”

  She heard his voice speaking low and urgently as she replaced the receiver. Using her other crutch, she pulled the dropped one across the floor until she could bend over and pick it up. Then she stood and headed for the front door.

  Officer Thompkins stepped from his cruiser. She squared her shoulders and focused on his stern features.

  “Officer Thompkins.”

  “Ms. Neeley. Dispatch said you found another body?”

  He was good, she’d give him that. He kept every trace of disbelief out of his expression and his voice.

  “No, it’s the same body, just a different location. This time someone put him in the trunk of my car. You can’t miss him. The car’s parked right in front of yours.”

  He stopped moving toward her and turned back to the driveway. Then he turned her way again. His expression showed nothing.

  “What car?”

  Chapter Seven

  Her heart slammed against the wall of her chest. She swung her way across the porch, fighting a horrible sense of panic. “Right there, in the drivewa…”

  Her car was gone. Only an oil smear showed where it had sat just minutes earlier.

  Jackie barely noticed the policeman rushing onto the porch, steadying her, guiding her back inside the house. Not until he tried to lead her to the chair inside the living room did she snap out of the shocked stupor that had taken hold.

  “The kitchen,” she demanded. She could never sit in that chair. Just thinking about the body resting there yesterday made her want to gag.

  Hot and cold crashed through her system. She couldn’t decide if she was more angry or scared, but she tried to hold onto the anger. Fear weakened her. She needed to be strong or the police would lock her away for sure.

  How could the body be gone again? What had happened to her car?

  She sat at the table, staring blindly at the clean wood surface, trying to make sense of the disappearance. “Someone must have driven it away when I came into the house.”

  She’d never heard the car start up. Never even sensed another presence outside. Yet, he had to have been close by. Waiting.

  “How could he have known I’d go outside just then?” She lifted her head to Thompkins, whose face was a blur. Instead, she kept seeing the horrible expression on that contorted face and—

  “Take a deep breath. Lower your head between your legs.”

  “I’m not going to faint,” she protested. But she took a steadying breath, and some of the blackness receded. “I don’t understand. Don’t you see? Even I didn’t know I was going out there. I decided to check on the store at the last minute. I wasn’t even sure I could drive with this leg. How could he have known?”

  Her voice broke as she battled terror.

  “Take a sip of this, Ms. Neeley. It’s water.”

  She needed two hands to hold the glass Thompkins extended. She took a sip to please him before setting the glass back down on the kitchen table. Her entire body quaked with cold.

  “I’ll be right back,” Thompkins said. “Let me check your garage.” He left the room and returned a few moments later, shaking his head.

  “I know you think I’m crazy,” Jackie said. “I know there is no earthly reason for you to believe me. But I’m not insane. Someone put the elf’s body in the trunk of my car and left it there for me to find.”

  He scowled, but his eyes remained darkly unreadable. There was no way to determine if that scowl was directed at her or the circumstances.

  “The car’s gone,” she hurried to add. “Surely that’s proof of something!”

  Thompkins didn’t say a word, simply scratched at his jaw. Jackie took another deep breath.

  “He’s doing this to terrorize me. He likes terrorizing people.”

  “Who does?”

  “My ex-husband. After I filed for divorce he used to break into my grandmother’s house and leave things for me to find. Once, he put a dead bird on my bed.” She shuddered. “Now it’s dead elves.”

  Thompkins sounded gruff and angry as he demanded a description of her car. Calmly, she rattled off the particulars including the license-plate number. Maybe Thompkins would realize she couldn’t have lost her mind if she could remember things like a license-plate number.

  Thompkins lifted his radio and began speaking in a low, clear voice, repeating her description. Did he believe her? Dear God, she needed someone to believe her. If only J.D. had grabbed the right elf last night.

  They both heard the pounding on the front door.

  “You expecting someone?” Thompkins asked brusquely.

  “No.”

  “Wait here.”

  She liste
ned to the low rumble of masculine voices. Relief washed over her. She would recognize that gravelly voice anywhere. J.D. had finally arrived. Only now did she realize she’d been waiting for him, even though she’d told him to stay away.

  Thompkins led him back to her kitchen. J.D. paused in the doorway, looking incredibly handsome and solidly reassuring. He wore another perfectly tailored suit beneath his open topcoat, but his hair stood at odd angles—as though he’d been running his fingers through the thick waves.

  “You look like hell,” he told her.

  The surprising words nearly summoned a smile. “Thanks. Just what I needed to hear.” But his calm, matter-of-fact approach was, indeed, exactly what she had needed to calm the horror in her mind.

  He rocked back on his heels. “Ben says you’re seeing elves again.”

  The words snapped her erect, dissipating her calm in an instant “Get out of here!”

  Then she noticed the way his right hand clenched and unclenched at his side. His studied nonchalance was just that—an act. He even admitted as much with his next words.

  “Well, at least you’ve got some color in your cheeks now.” He nodded as though satisfied. “Want to tell me what happened?”

  The burst of anger warred with her pulsing need to be believed. “What’s the point? You and your baseball buddy don’t want to listen to the truth. You’ve already decided I’m crazy.”

  He hooked a chair, drew it out and straddled it backward, draping his arms across the back. The casual action might not have surprised her if he’d been wearing jeans, but coming from a man so formally dressed, she had to work to keep her surprise in check.

  His expression softened and his lips curved upward just a tad. “Maybe,” he stressed, “that’s what someone wants us to think, Jackie.”

  She couldn’t seem to breathe. Couldn’t look away from those dark, intent eyes.

  “I never once said I thought you were crazy,” he continued in that slow, gravelly voice. “It’s obvious that something is going on around here.”

  She blinked back sudden tears. If he offered her sympathy she’d cry for sure, and she mustn’t cry. Larry liked it when she cried. She wouldn’t give that bastard the satisfaction of making her cry ever again.

  She sucked in a deep breath, squared her shoulders and gripped the edge of the tabletop, nearly knocking over the glass of water. “I’m not crazy.”

  He nodded. “Then tell me what happened.”

  “I came home, washed my hair, straightened the house and decided to see if I could drive to the shop.”

  He frowned. She frowned right back at him.

  “It’s only two blocks,” she defended.

  “On a sprained ankle.”

  “The car is automatic.”

  He shook his head. “Never mind. Go on.”

  “There isn’t anything else. I went outside, found the keys sticking out of the trunk—”

  “How’d they get there?” Thompkins interrupted.

  “I thought J.D. put them there,” Jackie told him.

  “Me?”

  She nearly smiled at his stunned expression. “When you shoveled the snow the other morning I thought maybe you opened my trunk to look for the shovel.”

  “The shovel was on the porch,” he said as though explaining something to a slow-witted child.

  “I know that, but I thought you must not have seen it right away,” she snapped back. “You did help yourself to my house key, so it seemed reasonable to assume you also lifted my car keys.”

  His expression was enough of a denial. “You left them on the hall table, didn’t you?”

  The vexed tone aggravated her. “I always leave my keys there, I told you that.”

  “And I told you it wasn’t safe.”

  “It’s a perfectly fine place if strangers would stay out of my house.”

  Thompkins shifted but didn’t interrupt.

  “Jackie,” J.D. began and stopped. He finger-combed his hair, adding to his slightly rakish appearance. “Just go on with your story.”

  “My fairy tale, you mean?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Okay, fine. I saw the keys, opened the trunk and…” She had to swallow then, because the memory caused her stomach to lurch.

  “You saw a dead elf inside,” J.D. supplied.

  His words snapped her back from the brink of a precipice she didn’t want to face again. “Not a dead elf. The same dead elf. He was stuffed inside like—”

  “I get the picture,” J.D. soothed. “Then what?”

  “What do you mean, then what? I came inside, threw up and called the police. But by the time your friend got here, the car was gone.”

  “I was here four minutes after the call came through,” Thompkins stated, moving away from the refrigerator he’d been leaning against. “I was on patrol at the other end of town when she called.”

  J.D. twisted to face him. “You didn’t see anyone driving away?”

  “No.”

  Frustration rose in Jackie like bile. “Elves are magical, aren’t they? Maybe they sprinkled the car with reindeer dust and—”

  “Stop it, Jackie,” J.D. ordered.

  “Well, why not? You already think—”

  “That you’ve had a hell of a shock,” he stated grimly. “Again.”

  His words deflated her.

  “This wasn’t the elf you thought you saw last night?” he asked.

  “Thought I saw?” she demanded angrily. “Of course, it wasn’t. This one is dead!”

  “What elf last night?” Thompkins wanted to know.

  Jackie glanced at him to explain as J.D. demanded, “So who was the elf you had me chasing at the mall?”

  Her gaze riveted back on him. “I never once asked you to chase—”

  “Jackie!”

  “The man from the living room,” she told him, too tired to argue any longer. “The one I tried to hit with my crutch.”

  Thompkins took a step closer. “Wait a minute. I thought the elf you saw in your living room was dead.”

  “He was! The other man wasn’t dressed as an elf, then. The elf was on the chair. The man from last night was the one who was crouched down between the chair and the bed.”

  Thompkins glared at J.D. “We’ve got more than one elf?”

  “Looks like it,” J.D. agreed. Succinctly, he filled Thompkins in on the events at the mall. Jackie decided they sounded much less threatening the way J.D. told the story. “I nearly got arrested for assault,” he concluded.

  Thompkins muttered something pithy.

  “If you’d listened to me,” Jackie cut in, “we could have gone back to where they were taking pictures and found the right elf.”

  “Not a chance,” J.D. argued. “You can bet he was long gone as soon as security hauled me away.”

  “You can’t know that.” Her fingers gripped the edge of the table.

  “It only makes sense, Jackie. Wouldn’t you run?”

  About to argue, she suddenly grasped the lifeline he was offering. “Does that mean you believe me?”

  J.D. closed his mouth on whatever he’d been going to say.

  Thompkins scowled at both of them. “Ms. Neeley, how did you know the elf last night was the same man who’d been in your house the other day? You weren’t even able to give me a description after it happened.”

  “I know, but I saw his eyes both times. They were blue.”

  Thompkins snorted; J.D. shook his head. “Jackie, do you know how many people in the United States have blue eyes?”

  “You don’t understand, we made eye contact both times. He recognized me at the mall just as I knew him. That’s why he changed places with that girl.”

  Thompkins interrupted before J.D. could respond. “Let’s back up here a minute before I get even more confused. Does your husband have blue eyes?”

  Startled, Jackie shook her head. “No. Why—”

  “So what does an elf at the local mall have to do with your ex-hus
band? That is who you thought was moving the dead elf around earlier,” he reminded her.

  Her heart slammed against her rib cage. “I don’t know,” she had to admit. “But there must be a connection.”

  J.D. drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “What’s the word on her ex?”

  “So far, we know he’s remarried and the last report had him living in Ohio. The Akron police are still checking.

  “Married?” Shock doubled her anxiety. “He married some other poor woman?”

  Thompkins rocked to and fro on his heels. “So it appears.” To J.D. he said, “There’s no current wants or warrants. He does have a small pedigree—some drunk-and-disorderlies, two assaults and one aggravated assault, but those were in Indiana and the assault charges were all subsequently dropped.”

  “Nice guy,” J.D. muttered.

  Thompkins shrugged. “I still don’t see a connection to dead elves in Maryland.”

  Neither did Jackie. “Then you at least believe that I saw a body?”

  Thompkins lifted a shoulder. “Frankly, ma’am, I don’t know what the hell to believe. There’s not one shred of proof, you know.”

  Jackie tried to stand, but dropped back down when she put weight on her bad foot. Ignoring the stabbing pain, she glared at him. “What do you call a missing car? You think I drove it away, walked back here on crutches and then called to report a dead body inside?”

  “I didn’t say that, Ms. Neeley.”

  “Jackie—” J.D. rumbled in warning.

  “Just what do you believe, Officer?”

  Thompkins heaved a sigh. “Was anybody around who could verify your story?”

  “No. I came back from Bessie’s early this morning by cab. The driver might have noticed my car…. Wait! I’m not sure he saw me, but a young neighbor, two doors down on the left, was going to his garage when I went out to start the car. I waved, but he didn’t see me—or at least he didn’t wave back. Still,” she hurried to add, “he might be able to verify that my car was in the driveway. Or maybe one of the other neighbors noticed.”