The Heart of Teaberry

by R A Wallace

  ***

  She looked around the front of the jewelry store as she waited for Jerry to join her. She’d never been one to have an interest in jewelry. She didn’t really see the attraction, but she knew others had been known to kill for it. They weren’t sure yet how the jewelry figured into this death, but she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it did.

  “What have you got?” Erica asked Jerry when he returned from the back room. With all of the technicians back there working, there hadn’t been enough room for them all to squeeze in there. Erica had gone out front to check if there was anything of interest there.

  “I have a guy covered in blood with the murder weapon in his hands.” Jerry rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Is he talking?” Erica looked closely at Jerry. Something seemed off.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s talking. He keeps repeating, ‘It’s all my fault.’” Jerry covered his mouth with one hand.

  “You okay?”

  “We’re going to have to bring him in,” Jerry said with a sigh.

  Erica didn’t understand his point. Of course, they were going to have to bring him in. He was their best suspect. The man was practically caught in the act.

  “Yeah? And?” She knew there had to be an and. What he was saying so far didn’t make sense.

  “The murder took place in the work room where Miles received shipment. There are boxes of jewelry that had just been delivered mixed in with the scene of the crime.”

  “Yeah?” she stretched the word out, prompting him to continue.

  “If we arrest the jeweler, the shop is going to be closed.” Jerry looked at Erica as though he were making an obvious point.

  It wasn’t obvious to her. “So?”

  He pointed toward the work room.

  “One of the engagement rings back there is mine. I bought it for Madison. I was supposed to pick it up today after work.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Cole finished rinsing the breakfast dishes and let them sit in the sink. His mom would wash them when she woke up. Her job had her working long hours. His job was to get his brother ready for school. That included ensuring that Garrett made it to the middle school by walking with him.

  “Garrett, you ready yet?” Cole pushed the door open to the bedroom they shared.

  Garrett was stuffing his homework into his backpack.

  “Yeah, just about.” At twelve, Garrett was a younger version of Cole. Both had inherited their looks from their father’s side if the picture their mom kept on her dresser was any indication.

  “You got all that homework done?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you need me to check any of it?” Cole asked.

  “No, it was just math.”

  Cole knew that Garrett didn’t usually have any problems with his math homework. That made it easier on Cole. He wouldn’t need to check it.

  “I might be late tonight. I have some work after school.”

  “You always have work after school,” Garrett complained.

  “Yeah, but this work I’m actually getting paid to do.”

  “I thought you always got paid to work?”

  “Not always. Sometimes I have extra work. I have that shadow thing going and a test next week to study for.”

  Garrett hefted his backpack to his shoulder. “Is that the test Bella is taking?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “She doesn’t seem worried about it.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” Cole made a face. He was killing himself to study for the test and a thirteen-year-old kid was probably going to ace it without even trying.

  “What’s the shadow thing like?” Garrett asked as he followed Cole back to the kitchen.

  “You’ll find out when you have to do it too. You basically just hang out with someone in business and learn stuff from them. And, you might have to complete a project, like I do.”

  “More homework?” Garrett dropped his backpack on the kitchen chair.

  “Life always gives you more homework.” Cole reached inside the fridge and pulled out two lunches. “Here’s yours. Let’s go.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Garrett stuffed his lunch into his backpack and then put both arms through the straps. He hefted it onto his back and followed his brother out the door.

  Cole gave his brother a friendly push on one shoulder as they reached the school campus. The doors to the middle school opened early for kids who walked. There were monitors in the multipurpose room to stay with the kids before school actually started. They also served something for breakfast for the kids who didn’t have anything at home. Cole continued on to the high school and headed straight for his locker.

  The hall was filled with other kids doing the same thing. Cole hung his coat then reached into his locker and took out the first few books he would need for his morning classes. He didn’t pay any attention to the group of kids the next locker over until one of them said something to him.

  “Hey, you looking to make some easy money?” There were four kids. They were standing close together. One of them elbowed another one and they both turned and watched two girls walk by. They called out to the girls and then elbowed each other again and laughed when the girls kept walking past them.

  Cole wasn’t sure he’d heard the guy correctly. He recognized two of the kids. He’d seen them recently.

  “What’s that?”

  “I hear you’re always looking to make money.” The kid looked at his buddies on either side of him before taking a step closer to Cole. “We figured since you need money so bad, you might want to work with us.”

  Cole couldn’t imagine them doing any kind of work that he would want to do.

  “What kind of work?” he asked suspiciously.

  The leader shrugged. “You’ll know that if you pass the test.”

  “What test?”

  The leader looked at his buddies and started laughing.

  “It’s a special kind of test. To see if you’re smart enough to work with us. Not everyone understands the codes we use.”

  Cole closed his locker and spun the lock.

  “No, thanks. I already have enough jobs.”

  The leader stopped laughing and looked at his buddies again before shrugging.

  “Your loss.” He gestured to his buddies and they walked away.

  Cole turned when he felt a presence behind him.

  “Hey,” Julia said.

  “Hey.” Cole was confused at first. She’d never stopped to talk to him before.

  “I typed up those questions for the interview. We just need to get an appointment with the police officers now.”

  “Yeah, I think I figured that out. I called the station and left a message with someone explaining what we needed.”

  Julia was impressed. She watched Cole turn to look at the kids that had been talking to him when she’d first seen him standing in the hallway by his locker.

  “What did those guys want?” Julia asked.

  Cole looked back in the direction they had gone and shrugged.

  “I have no idea. They said I might want to work with them.”

  “Weren’t two of them the guys we saw at the library using the map software?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It looked like they were checking out houses,” Julia said as she thought it through.

  “I thought so too.”

  “Do you think they’re up to something?” Julia asked.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be good. Those guys are bad news.”

  Julia looked at Cole. “Maybe we should look into it?”

  “Why?” Cole wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was.

  Julia took a step closer and lowered her voice.

  “What if those kids are the ones breaking into the houses through the garages?”

  She was thinking the same thing he was. He looked back down the hall. The kid had said something about codes.

  “We can’t do anything that would get us into trouble.”

/>   Julia nodded. “I know that. But we don’t want to tell the cops about them if we aren’t sure either, right?”

  Cole shook his head.

  “Cole, what do you think? Should we try to follow them after school and see what they’re doing?”

  “I dunno. Maybe.” Cole noticed that she had some flecks of green in her light brown eyes. He’d never seen anything like that before. “I’d have to think about it.”

  ***

  Rhys pulled up the map on the computer. He had the image displayed on a large monitor in the main office.

  “This shows the neighborhood that has had the most problems lately.”

  Ian checked his notes and walked over to the monitor.

  “This house got hit. They lost mostly tools. The thieves only got into the garage.”

  Rhys walked over and pointed at another house.

  “This is where they made it all the way into the house. The owners lost a large flat-screen television and some cash.”

  “It sounds like they’re grabbing the easy things,” Ian muttered.

  “Yeah, I thought the same thing. There might be another pattern too.” Rhys went over to his desk to change the screen before returning to the monitor.

  “This is a table showing the approximate time of when each incident occurred based on our interviews with the victims,” Rhys explained.

  “Some of the victims weren’t positive of the actual time,” Ian pointed out.

  Rhys nodded. “But most were able to narrow it to a window. That’s what I used here. Notice any patterns?”

  “They’re all during our shift,” Ian joked. He narrowed his eyes as he studied the times. “And some are on the weekends.”

  Rhys smiled and nodded.

  Ian nodded with him. “The times are all after school and on the weekends when the kids don’t have school.”

  Rhys went back to his desk and flipped the monitor back over to the map.

  “Now, let’s see if we can figure out any other patterns,” Rhys said.

  “You want to try to triangulate and figure out if the houses being hit are where any of the students live?” Ian guessed. “Maybe it’s a matter of convenience? They’re stealing from their own neighborhoods?”

  “I think it’s worth a try,” Rhys said. “If nothing else, we might want to see if there are any connections between the houses that were hit.”

  “Including connections to the school.” Ian rubbed his chin as he stared at the map. “I think it’s worth a try too. But we might want to keep looking at those times a bit more.”

  Rhys turned to Ian.

  “You have another idea?”

  Ian nodded. “What if we check for patterns with the times around school events?”

  Rhys thought it was a great idea.

  “Like maybe a basketball game in the evening or something?” Rhys threw out. “Maybe they’re hitting the houses when the owners are at a school event?”

  It was exactly what Ian was thinking. “I think it’s worth a try.”

  Rhys agreed. “So do I. I’ll print out the list of the times that I came up with. We can check with the school and get a list of the events.”

  Rhys was getting excited now. They’d been running in circles just taking reports about the thefts after the fact. It finally felt like they might be able to get a jump on figuring out who was doing it and when, so they could stop the next theft before it happened.

  Chapter Twelve

  It took him an hour of searching but he was certain that he finally had what he needed. Vince read the description of the movie and then searched online for comments made by others who had watched it. Based on what he read, it sounded like the perfect love story to watch on Valentine’s Day.

  He smiled to himself as he saved the link for the web page and thought about their evening. He would stream the movie after dinner. He rubbed his hands together as he considered it. He still needed to finalize the plans for the meal. He was reading through recipes online when the doorbell rang.

  A quick glance at the time told him he’d lost track of it. He quickly moved to the door to answer it. As he’d suspected, he found Bev on the other side.

  “You could have used your key,” he pointed out as he helped her remove her coat.

  “I like when you’re here to help me with my coat,” she confessed.

  Vince hung it up in the hall closet then took her hand.

  “I have a very serious problem,” he said.

  Bev raised her brows in concern as she walked with him to the kitchen.

  “I can’t figure out what to cook for our big night.”

  Bev brought her hand to her chest. He’d scared her for a minute.

  “That doesn’t sound like much of a problem. We still have several days to decide.” She took a seat at the island in the center of the kitchen.

  Vince went around to the other side of the island and stood.

  “Oh, but there’s the anticipation to consider,” he said with a smile.

  “Ah, yes. Having days in advance to imagine how good it will be.”

  “Exactly.”

  She pretended to consider the problem seriously.

  “We could just order barbeque,” she suggested.

  Vince made a face to indicate he was taking it under consideration.

  “From the Station Pub & Grill?” He nodded his agreement. “We could at that.”

  “But it would mean you wouldn’t have the fun of cooking,” she said.

  “There is that.” He turned to the fridge and took out a tray that he had prepared earlier. He set it on the island.

  “Oh, this looks good. See, we would miss things like this if we order out.”

  Vince smiled. He knew she was just playing along with him.

  “Have the kids figured out what they’re going to do?” he asked.

  Bev shook her head as she reached her hand out to the tray.

  “Not that I know of. It sounds like they’re in the same quandary. No one seems to know what to do on the big day.”

  ***

  It was the profound silence that worried her. She glanced over at the oven. It looked like the tray of cookies she had in there were ready to come out. There were several weddings planned for next week and she was working as fast as she could to keep up with the orders. She should slide the next tray of cookies into the oven as soon as she took that one out.

  She turned her gaze to the baby monitor. Maybe the volume had been turned down accidentally. What if Grace had needed her and she hadn’t heard? Lauren felt her pulse hammering in her temples as she envisioned everything that could go wrong.

  She looked down at her hands covered in dough. She pulled off her apron and used it as a towel to wipe the raw dough from her hands as she crossed the room to the baby monitor. No, the dial looked like it was in the right place. She pulled the tray from the oven and set it down on a cooling rack before leaving her work kitchen to pass through the house.

  When she got to the baby’s room, she stopped. Grace wasn’t there. Was that why she hadn’t heard anything through the monitor when she knew Grace should have been waking? She turned and went down the hall to her own bedroom and stopped in the doorway. What she saw brought tears to her eyes. Quietly, she crept into the room. She went to the opposite side of the bed and slid onto it as carefully as she could.

  Then she pressed herself along the length of her husband and wrapped one arm around him and their daughter. She looked at his peaceful face. Their daughter was sleeping on her stomach on top of him. One of his hands was resting on her bottom, holding her in place. He opened one eye and looked at her.

  “I didn’t think you were sleeping,” she whispered.

  “Fibber.”

  “Nuh uh. You snore when you sleep.” She smiled at him.

  “I thought she’d be waking up soon,” he said.

  “Maybe she’s going through a growth spurt,” Lauren whispered.

  Justin smiled at the thought, then frowned.r />
  “I don’t want her to grow up too fast.”

  Lauren huffed out a laugh. She knew exactly how he felt. Justin shifted and put one arm behind his head to prop himself up a bit.

  “Have you figured out where you want to go for our anniversary yet?” Justin asked.

  Lauren shook her head.

  “Me neither. Do you think it’s because we don’t want to leave the kids?” he asked.

  “There’s something wrong with us,” she whispered. “We have a night off from our kids and we don’t want to leave.”

  He turned to look at her. “Maybe we should just stay home?”

  She smiled. “I think you’ll break Dan’s heart. He’s looking forward to spending time with the kids to see what it’s like.”

  “I guess there’s always dinner and a movie.”

  “I wonder what’s playing?” Lauren said. She was really only familiar with the movies for kids that were out.

  “They’re probably all love stories.”

  “It’s technically your fault,” she pointed out. “You could have been looking forward to a nice action movie if we’d gotten married on a different day.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You didn’t want to wait until the summer to get married. You were the one who picked Valentine’s Day for our wedding.”

  He was pretty sure she was right about that.

  “I’m pretty sure you agreed at the time that we shouldn’t wait.”

  “It would have been warmer in June.” She laughed at the look of mock dismay on his face. “Okay, you’re right. Neither one of us could wait to get married. I’ll bet lots of people are that way.”

  Justin pulled his arm from under his head and placed it on a tiny back when his daughter began to squirm. Princess Grace was waking up.

  “I guess. I imagine it depends on their circumstances.”

  ***

  He sat across the table from her and held her hands.

  “I just think I need to get the business really going before we get married.”

  Jessilyn managed to keep the smile on her face.

  “Of course. I understand.”

  “You do?” Seth asked. The conversation had gone more smoothly than he had imagined.