by Lisa Emme
I rolled my eyes. “What is it with werewolves and naming everything after the moon? If the pack is ever outed, you’re all going to wish you hadn’t put that word on everything you own. Besides, in the T.V. show, Bruce Willis’s character worked at the ‘City of Angels’ detective agency.”
“Yeah, but then it was changed to ‘Blue Moon Investigations’ because Cybill Shepherd’s character was the Blue Moon Shampoo spokesperson. I’ve watched just as many episodes as you.” She slid into the booth across the table from me. “I meant it as a homage to the show, not to copy it exactly.”
“Homage? Seriously? If you’re going to pay homage to a T.V. detective agency, you should call it Remington Investigations after the way you went ga-ga for Pierce Brosnan. Or there’s the Rockford Files. You know your uncle would want you to name it after that.”
“Alright, fine. We can figure out the name later.” Tess huffed out a breath.
“TBD,” Tiffy said, setting a cappuccino down in front of Tess. “To be determined.”
I glanced at Tiffy in surprise as her words sunk in. “TBD Investigations! You’re a genius, Tiffy.” I turned to Tess and smiled. “The name should be TBD Investigations because whatever the case is, it will be determined by your investigation.”
Tess’s eyes grew wide and she started to slowly nod in agreement. “Yeah…yeah. I like it!” She turned to Tiffy. “Thanks, Tiffy.” A look of instant regret crossed Tess’s face. “I mean…I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, putting her out of her misery. “Tiffy has been practicing the human custom of saying thank you. She understands it doesn’t mean you feel indebted to her, and in the coffee shop she is doing ‘non-brownie’ work for which she should expect thanks.”
“Whew! Okay, good.” Tess grinned at Tiffy. “In that case, thanks for the cappuccino too.”
“Y-you’re welcome,” Tiffy stuttered, the words unfamiliar to her brownie nature.
“Hey!” Barbie burst into the store with a clang of the bell above the door. “You’ve got to see the news.” She ran behind the counter and found the remote for the new flatscreen TV I’d recently had mounted in the corner of the café. It was a bone of contention with Isaac, who thought it was nothing short of sacrilege to have that “idiot box” in the place where “one sits in quiet contemplation or enjoys relaxed camaraderie in conversation with a friend”, but it was my place and I wasn’t going to miss out on NHL playoffs or the Major League Baseball season if I didn’t have to.
“What’s wrong?” Tess asked.
I waited with trepidation as Barbie, who became increasingly frustrated when she couldn’t find what she was searching for, flipped through the channels.
After a few moments, she tossed the remote on the counter in disgust. “Nuts! The news channel isn’t covering it and it’s not time for local news.”
“What are you talking about?” Tess asked again as she slid off her seat and moved to stand beside Barbie. “Has there been an accident or something?”
“No! Oh no, nothing like that.” Barbie looked at Tess sheepishly. “I heard it on the radio while waiting in line at the bank. There’s been some sort of weird natural phenomenon that’s caused all the cherry blossoms across from the Elm Street cemetery to bloom all at once.”
Tess shrugged, less than impressed. “What’s the big deal about that?”
“It is a big deal,” Barbie replied. “Especially when you consider that grove of trees died a few years ago. I know because my mom used to drag me to see the blossoms every year and she was so upset when they were hit with some sort of blight that killed most of them off.” She patted her pocket and then rushed over to the counter where she had dropped her purse. “I should call her and tell her the news. She’s going to be over the moon.”
“Yeah, you should do that,” I said, sliding out of my seat, trying to keep my face blank. “I, uh, I have to go do the stock order.”
I hustled down the hall to the storage room at the back of the shop, but Tess was close on my heels.
“Alright, Harry. ‘Fess up.” She stood in the doorway, hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at me. “What did you do?”
I turned from the shelf where I had been pretending to count packages of napkins. “Nothing!” I shrugged. “Well, nothing on purpose at least.”
Tess crossed her arms and simply looked at me, waiting to hear my explanation. I quickly told her about the roses and my inadvertent blood magic.
“You really can’t help yourself, can you? Trouble just follows you everywhere.”
“It’s not my fault! If it wasn’t for that stupid guy jumping over the fence.” I scowled at the thought. “I mean, what was he even doing there? Running around, throwing things into…Oh!” I pushed past Tess and dashed to the front of the shop. “Tiffy, do you know where yesterday’s papers ended up?”
“They’re already in the recycling.”
I turned to head back down the hall, only to bump into Tess.
“Harry, what the heck is going on?”
“The guy,” I replied, not bothering to stop and instead dodged around her. “I remember now why something about the guy from the cemetery sounded familiar.” I pushed open the door at the back of the shop and stepped into the parking lot where we had two industrial containers, one for garbage and one for recycling.
“When Miss Penny was talking about the jerk who crashed into her roses, she said he…” I paused for a minute to throw open the heavy lid and peer into the bin. “She said he threw his trash into Lester Pierce’s open grave.”
“So? So he’s a litter bug. What’s the big deal?”
“It was a bag from a fast food restaurant,” I replied with a grunt, boosting myself up on the side of the bin and bending at the waist to dangle over the edge to look in. The bin was almost empty and for a moment I was afraid I was too late, that the recycling had already been picked up. But then I spied the stack of papers in the far corner. I reached towards them, nearly losing my balance. “Whoa!”
Tess grabbed my legs, preventing me from tumbling into the bin. “For fuck’s sake. What’s going on?”
“Just hang on for a sec. I need to see yesterday’s paper.”
With Tess’s firm grip on my ankles, I stretched my arm out until my fingertips brushed the edge of the newspaper on top. “I…can’t…quite…reach….”
“Here, let me.” Tess gave my legs a yank, pulling me back until I was standing beside her. She huffed out a breath and then, putting her hands on the side of the container, vaulted over the edge and into the bin.
“I’m pretty sure it was yesterday’s,” I said, dusting imaginary dirt off my clothes. “But maybe you better grab the whole pile, in case I’m wrong.”
“Here.” Tess thrust the stack of papers at me.
I grabbed them from her, dropping them to the pavement and then crouched down to thumb through them. “I’m sure I remember reading…Aha! Here it is.” I held up the local section of the newspaper triumphantly.
Tess hopped out of the recycling container, landing beside me gracefully. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now or what?”
“I knew something rang a bell.” I quickly scanned the article. The headline read “Brazen Daylight Robbery” over a picture of a small Mom n’ Pop jewelry store. “There was a robbery a couple days ago at this store. The thief made off with thousands of dollars in assorted gems after mugging the owner who had just picked up merchandise from his supplier – merchandise he had wrapped up in a brown paper take-out bag. The cops caught the suspect, some guy named Milton Dudley, on Elm Street, two blocks from the cemetery.”
“So?" Tess frowned at me. “You’re not making any sense.”
“So, they caught the guy, but he didn’t have the jewels on him.”
“Maybe they grabbed the wrong guy.”
“No, they had security video of the mugging. I think he must have stashed the gems somewhere while he was trying to make his escape.”
&n
bsp; Tess’s eyes lit up as the pieces fell into place. “Ahhhh, okay. So you think the rose crusher and the jewel thief are the same guy.”
“Yes! And I think he ditched the bag of stolen jewels in Lester Pierce’s grave. He probably figured he could go back and dig them up once the coast was clear.” I pulled out my cell phone. “I should call Nash and…Hey!”
Tess snatched the phone from my hands. “Are you crazy?”
Now it was my turn to look at Tess in confusion. “What’s your problem?”
“You can’t call Nash.”
“Why not? Just because things between Nash and me are weird, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t call him if I have information about a crime.” Nash, Cian Nash that is, is a homicide detective with the Riverton Police Department and my, for lack of a better word, boyfriend. We’d been having a bit of a rough patch lately, ever since I’d almost gotten myself killed by a demon the month before.
“I didn’t mean you shouldn’t call him about it at all. I just meant you should wait until we can call him on behalf of our clients.”
“What? What clients?”
“The jewelry store owners of course, once they hire us to find their stolen gems.”
“But I think we’ve already found them.”
“They don’t know that.”
I frowned at Tess. “Isn’t it kind of unethical to hire ourselves out to find something we’ve already found?”
“No, of course not. Besides, we haven’t found them yet. You just have a suspicion of where they are.”
I stood, dusting off my pants and then picked up the papers and returned them to the recycling bin. “I suppose that’s true. It’s only a working theory until we can dig up the bag Dudley threw in the grave.”
“Exactly. It’s not like they’re going anywhere. If you’re right, the jewels are buried under six feet of dirt and you said they had this Dudley guy locked up. If we’re going to find the missing jewels, we might as well get paid to do it. It will be our first case.”
“What if the store owners don’t want to hire you?”
“Why wouldn’t they? They get their rocks back and their insurance company pays the finder’s fee.” Tess’s face lit up with excitement. “Let’s go speak to them now.”
“I think we should hold off a bit. We don’t even know if the jewels are in the grave. Let’s wait until we know for sure. Like you said, it’s not like they’re going anywhere.”
Tess mulled it over for a minute and then shrugged. “Okay, fine. Let’s go.”
“Where? Tess, we can’t go dig up a grave in broad daylight.”
“I know that,” she replied with a snort. “I meant let’s go back into the coffee shop. There’s a piece of chocolate cake with my name on it.”
Chapter Three
I left Tess to her cake and after delegating the stock re-order to Barbie (it’s great to be the boss) spent the rest of the afternoon working in my rooftop garden. I may have a green thumb, but even I need to spend some time everyday watering and weeding.
Afterwards, I took a quick shower and changed into my new pair of white stretchy slim-fit jeggings and a white sweater with black pinstripes, grabbed my new black leather biker jacket and headed down to the shop to make myself a bite to eat. The jacket had appeared in my closet at Salvador’s penthouse along with another half-dozen new items. I don’t know who his personal shopper is, but they certainly have good taste. It kind of creeps me out how well they know what I like, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from enjoying the butter-soft leather of my new jacket. At first, I was reluctant to take the clothes Salvador kept offering me – gifts from vampires seldom come without strings – but I’m trying to make an effort in the whole father-daughter relationship department and since he enjoys treating me like his personal dress-up doll and I enjoy the new clothes, it’s a win-win.
I entered the shop through the door at the back so I could stop and hang my new jacket up in the storeroom. Stepping into the coffee shop is always a feast for your olfactory senses – coffee, fresh bread, cinnamon, chocolate – my stomach growls every time I step in the door, but this time there was something different in the air. I walked part way up the hall and paused, taking a deep breath, but despite the shiver running down my spine, there was nothing out of the ordinary that I could detect.
With a frown, I hung up my jacket and made my way into the shop, my senses on high alert as I looked around suspiciously. There were only a few customers and none who stood out until my eyes fell upon the lone man sitting casually on the leather sectional at the front of the room. I noticed he sat with his back to the corner so he had a view of every exit in the building. There was one of our distinctive café latte bowls on the table in front of him and an empty plate indicating he’d tried one of our signature sweets, but he was currently engrossed in the newspaper. He was dressed in dark jeans and a long-sleeved, navy shirt. His short, neatly trimmed hair was a mix of warm coppery hues and light browns, and had a slightly unruly curl to it. It was the kind of hair that makes you want to run your fingers through it.
Whoa. Now where did that thought come from?
I blame it on Nash. My libido must be on overdrive due to lack of attention. Ever since the showdown with Seth when I stepped out of my protective circle and nearly got myself killed, Nash has been acting weird and standoffish. We’ve barely seen each other in weeks – he’s always working, he says – and when we do get together we go out to a public place like a restaurant or the bowling alley where PDA has to be kept to a minimum. I know I said I wanted us to take things slowly, but it was getting ridiculous. I had plans to change all that though. Tonight, Nash was taking me to a movie, and afterwards we were going to hash things out even if I had to tie him to a chair to keep him from leaving.
I cast one last glance at the mystery man – I still hadn’t found a reason for my unease – and was surprised to find his eyes on me. I blinked, frozen like a deer caught in the headlights, and he grinned and then winked at me. Winked at me! The cheek. With his looks, he probably expected women to fawn over him.
I gave him what I hoped was an icy glare – kind of hard to pull off when your cheeks feel like they’re flaming red – and then turned and headed into the kitchen to speak to Hilde about the day’s bread orders.
Later, when I returned to the front of the shop to make myself a sandwich before Nash arrived to pick me up, I noticed the mystery man was still there reading the paper. His café latte had been replaced with a regular coffee mug and there was a half eaten double-chocolate chip cookie on the plate beside it. At least he was paying to sit there all day, unlike some of our “sit and sips” who thought the price of a regular drip coffee entitled them to the use of the shop and our free WiFi for the entire day.
While I slapped together a muffuletta sandwich – ham, salami, provolone, mozzarella, and sliced tomatoes on a crusty Italian bun slathered with chopped pimento olives mixed with olive oil, garlic salt and oregano – I watched the man out of the corner of my eye. He appeared totally benign, but something about him pinged my radar, although he read as simply human on my handy-dandy internal supernatural-detector. Barbie and Tiffy were both gone for the day, leaving Yasmin, my most recent hire, and Hector to handle the evening crowd. Both registered as average werewolves, so at least I knew my supe-detector was working. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling something was off.
“Harry, we must needs…” Hilde stopped suddenly as she came around the corner from the kitchen and into the food prep area. She glanced around suspiciously.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” I asked, keeping my voice low and moving to stand beside her.
Hilde frowned. “There is something. Perhaps another vampire and yet…” She shook her head. “I cannot place the feeling.”
“What about the guy over there in the corner? The one sitting on the couch.” I gave my head a little jerk in the mystery man’s direction.
Hilde turned and glanced across the room. “Harry, when yo
u say ‘guy’ you mean it in the non-gender specific way, yes? Like ‘hey guys, how’s it going?’” Hilde was from Eastern Europe and was still learning our North American parlance.
“No, I mean the good-looking man sitting over there in the corner, the one reading the newspaper.”
Hilde’s face screwed up in confusion. “That is old woman,” she replied, turning to look at me in concern.
“What?" I glanced from Hilde to the mystery man and back to Hilde again. Something was definitely going on. Was it just us or was everyone being affected? “Hey Yasmin, could you come here for a minute?”
She sauntered over, wiping her hands on the apron she wore around her waist. “What’s up?”
“Very casually so not to draw attention, look over at the customer on the leather sectional in the corner and describe what you see.”
Yasmin gave me a strange look, but then shrugged as if to say I was the boss and slowly tilted her head, leaning her body to peer around me and across the room.
“I see a norm. She’s about thirty-five, forty, brown hair, mom jeans and a pink blouse. She’s been nursing her coffee for at least an hour. Why?”
At Yasmin’s words, Hilde tensed. “No. I see old woman. Grey hair pulled back in bun. Flowery dress.”
“Hey, are you all having a party and didn’t invite me?” Hector smiled as he joined our little group.
“It’s an emergency staff meeting,” I replied. “As nonchalantly as possible, look over at the customer in the corner on the leather couch and tell me what you see.”
“Just the young punk sipping his probably cold coffee. He’s been there since I came in tonight. I’ve topped him up twice. Bet he won’t even leave a tip.”
“A young guy? Describe him.”
“Like I said, young, maybe twenty. Long, dark hair. Jeans, T-shirt, dark hoodie.” Hector folded his arms across his chest and frowned at me. “You want me to roust him?”
“No, no, that’s okay.” I glanced at Hilde and she raised her eyebrows in question, waiting. “Just go back to work, but be on your toes.”