The Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 2

by Traci Tyne Hilton

There was nothing of interest in the dresser. Such a lack, in fact, that Jane really wondered what a wild looking girl like Ayla had seen in the reclusive, paranoid, polo shirt wearing programmer. Maybe he was one of those sullen, deep thinkers with moody eyes. Irresistible to most girls.

  “Did you find anything?” Ayla asked.

  “Just the sticky note. Maybe they are related to the fundraising, or the programming. I don’t know. I took some pictures, but I’d better leave the notes here. Do you think there’s any place else I should check here?”

  “No.” Ayla wandered back out into the living room. “It doesn’t even feel like he lived here, does it? It’s so cold.”

  Jane joined her. “He must have really lived his life in his office. Don’t you think?”

  Ayla nodded. “That must be it.”

  They turned out the lights, but as they walked out, Ayla slipped something into her pocket. Jane hadn’t seen her pick anything up besides the hoodie.

  What had been in the hoodie pocket?

  Chapter 8

  Jane was a little late for her lunch with Rocky, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  She pulled up a chair, and the waitress, a middle-aged women with a bright smile and short, spikey gray hair, took her order.

  When she had finished, Rocky began. “This is what Flora wants. Tangible. Hard copies. References for everything we do. It’s not so hard once you get the hang of it.” He passed Jane a stapled packet of papers. “That’s from a similar fraud case we handled several years ago.” He took a deep drink from his big ceramic mug.

  Jane flipped through the papers. The stack was thick. A summary page on top, written like a school essay, told the story of the investigation from start to finish. Time sheets were right behind that, and behind those, mileage. Copies of paperwork, like the receipts for the honeymoon cruise this couple had booked, were alphabetical at the back of the stack, with a one paragraph description of the item stapled behind each sheet. Jane bit her bottom lip. She wasn’t bad at paperwork, but she wasn’t used to being accountable to anyone but herself. How would she describe today’s foray, for example? She hadn’t planned on putting it on her time sheet, but it included contact with a person of interest in the case, so it looked, as far as she could tell, like she’d need to include it.

  “Don’t let it worry you. She don’t mind so much about the spelling.” He grinned.

  Jane tried to laugh. “I spell all right.”

  “What is it then?” He leaned forward. “Worried about accounting for your time?”

  She took a deep breath.

  “I’m a PI. Of course I paid attention to how long you stared at those time sheets. Listen, you don’t have to tell her what you do off hours, but this industry is very lawsuit friendly. Plus, we’re a non-profit. We have to be transparent. Above board in all things. As a Christian lady, I think you’d agree with that.”

  “Of course,” she mumbled, and her face warmed up. “No, of course. I’m just not used to it. That’s all.” She laid the papers down. “I skimmed the summary at the beginning. How would you suggest I get a handle on the style she likes?”

  “Hmmm.” He bit into a burger that had been waiting on his plate. “I suppose spend an afternoon at the office reading as many cases on file as you can.”

  That made sense, though she chafed at the time loss it represented.

  “And you could practice right now, by telling me how you spent the morning.”

  “Oh.” She looked down at her hands. Fortunately the waitress came with her turkey sandwich before she got herself started. She pulled the toothpick out of each half and removed the pickles in silence.

  “You like those pickles about as much as you like having to report everything, don’t you?” His grin held a hint of brotherhood, as though maybe he, too, chafed a little at reporting in full every little detail to his wife. “Flora has a gift for investigation and management. She may not be the most flexible woman, but she runs a tight ship.” He gulped his coffee.

  Jane sipped hers. Then she opened up and spilled all the details. At the end of her story, Rocky burst into a deep gut laugh. “I see.” He held his hands on his belly, head tipped back. “No wonder you look like the cat that ate the pet canary.”

  “What do I do?”

  “It depends. Did Flora tell you specifically to leave that murder investigation alone?”

  “I keep thinking no…she just wanted to be sure I had finished the fraud case first. But what if I am subconsciously misremembering to justify doing whatever I wanted.”

  Rocky shook his head. “Not with Flora. You can’t subconsciously misremember her when she’s telling you what to do. If she left it up in the air at all, she won’t be too mad.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Don’t get me wrong. If she implied you shouldn’t do it, and you did, she will be mad. But she won’t be too mad.”

  “What’s the best way to make this right?” Jane squared her shoulders and ignored the nagging feeling that she had already massively screwed up her new job.

  “Write a really good summary. A quality report will cover a multitude of sins.”

  Jane pressed her lips together. A written confession. She could do it, but it made her gut burn.

  “Why don’t you practice now? You just told me what you did today. Why don’t you tell me, in excruciating detail, what you did and why you made those choices? I’ll help you figure out how to best write it.”

  Jane took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

  They went over her morning activity for the next half an hour. Jane managed to eat half of her sandwich and down two more cups of coffee. When she was done, she was fully exhausted, but Rocky looked pleased.

  “Tell you what,” Rocky said. “Write a summary of what you have done for the murder investigation, just like we talked about it, and bring it to Flora first thing tomorrow morning. Tell her it is your proposal to take on the murder as its own case.”

  “Really?” It felt like a light had turned on in a dark room. “She’d go for that?”

  “Maybe. Also write up a summary of your current case. Tell her you are almost done but wanted to try a rough draft to see if you had the hang of it. She’ll like that. Give it to her first, then the proposal.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Rocky got his wallet out and laid a hundred on the table. “That should cover the table for our time, don’t you think?”

  Jane almost kissed his cheek in gratitude. She had money for lunch at the café, but not if she also wanted to get food for tomorrow, too. “Thank you.” This time her words came out in a whisper, but Rocky seemed pleased.

  Chapter 9

  When Jake called, Jane pled a headache, and asked him not to come over. It made her look like she was still really mad. She was still a little mad, but she was getting over it. She knew she’d never be able to get her reports done with him nibbling her ear, or pestering her about getting married, or whatever it was he had in mind. And if she couldn’t get her work done tonight, she’d be really mad, all over again.

  She let her mind wander over to the wedding for a moment. What was her problem, anyway? She was twenty-three. Plenty old enough to get married. Nothing wrong with marrying Jake. She loved him, and planned to do it anyway. Why not do it before he left?

  To start with, she didn’t want him to run off to Thailand for work instead of having a honeymoon. And she couldn’t see a fundraising expedition to a rescue house for trafficked kids as a great romantic getaway, either. So there was that. The timing was really bad.

  Also, her Bible School friends had fallen like flies. They had gotten married left and right, and only one of them had married someone who also wanted to be a missionary.

  But then, that was Jake’s goal, too. To move finally and firmly, with her, to Thailand to serve in foreign missions, so “jumping” into marriage with him wasn’t giving up her dream at all.

  But people might think it was.

  They might see her jump in
to marrying Jake, with no obvious plans to move overseas, and think she was so desperate to get married that she just gave up on God’s call.

  On the other hand, who cared what “they” thought? And who were “they” anyway? Just the voices in her head that judged everyone else. A habit she really had to stop.

  She dragged her hand through her hair. She needed to focus on these two reports. And maybe, if she could, focus on having a humble, leadable spirit. She would be useless, no matter what job she held in her life, if she couldn’t follow a leader and serve an employer.

  She laughed at herself. She had to be able to follow a leader, because even if she started her own mission organization from scratch and got to be the boss of all of it, she’d still have to follow God. So this was where she was now, and this was where she had to learn.

  She’d report, in full, everything she had done remotely connected to the fraud case, summarize her work to date, and organize her facts. Then she’d prepare a similar document about the murder and call it a proposal.

  She stopped and thanked God for Rocky. Without that lunch today, she might have really screwed up what was her best opportunity for a happy life in Portland, for as long as God called her to live here.

  A soft knock on the door interrupted her reverie.

  “Come in.” If Gemma had a cup of tea, or a plate of cookies for her, that would be decidedly good timing on her part.

  “Hey.” It was Jake. Without tea or cookies. He dropped to the floor at her feet and sat with crossed legs. “I won’t bother you, I promise. But Phoebe is having a huge party at our place right now.” Phoebe was his sister, a couple of years younger than them both, and their place was the family mansion in Laurelhurst, an old, exclusive neighborhood in Portland. “Want to tell me what you’re up to? If you don’t, that’s okay, too.” He pulled out his phone and started to toy with it.

  “Sure, I can.” She explained the reports and how they would save her new job.

  “I’m sorry about the phone call,” Jake said. “I was out of line, and I knew it while I was talking, but I still felt right. I wasn’t right, but I felt right.”

  “I know.” Jane paused. “And I need to forgive you, and I’m getting there, but I still feel mad.” She grimaced. “Sorry.”

  He rested his hand on her ankle. “I don’t blame you, but I would appreciate a wife with a forgiving spirit.”

  He had a twinkle in his eye that made her want to kick him. So she did.

  “Hey!” He rubbed his nose, though she had hardly tapped him.

  “Want another?” She nudged his cheek with her sock-foot. “I want to have a forgiving spirit, in theory. I just don’t have it at this exact moment.”

  “We can work with that.” He got up, and then flopped back on her bed. “You have a lot of work to do, but I don’t see any food in your kitchen. I will sit here quietly and order a pizza.”

  “Thanks.” She bent to her work. The pizza came a half an hour later, right as she had finished her first summary.

  Jake slipped a gooey slice from the box and chewed thoughtfully. “You know, most Christian girls in their mid-twenties get a little more excited about their weddings.”

  Jane helped herself to a piece and didn’t answer.

  “And even though I am just starting out in fundraising and development, I do have the means to take care of you.”

  He referred, of course, to his shares of the family restaurant business. Jane had never asked, but suspected that his dividends were enough to keep him comfortably without working, if he wanted to. That and the cash and investments he had inherited from his parents. And the house. And the Jag.

  He couldn’t help it that his parents had died. Inheriting wealth young hadn’t been part of his life plan. But Jane didn’t feel comfortable asking him how much money he really had. And she didn’t like the idea that people would think she was marrying into a life of ease.

  Not that she didn’t like it…who wouldn’t like it? She just wasn’t ready for it…not yet. She still wanted to prove that she could make it on her own. She just…wanted to.

  She chose to ignore her parents and their constant offers of a safety net—contingent usually on her moving to Phoenix. Likewise, she wanted to enjoy her relationship with Jake without acknowledging the safety net that his comfortable means indicated.

  “Never mind.” His words faded away, a hint of hurt in his voice. “While you work on your second report, can I proofread this one?”

  “Yes, that would be nice.” She rolled her chair to the bed and stroked his sock foot.

  He sighed.

  She should explain her feelings better, but how? Jake had always had money, but he had always worked hard. He wouldn’t see the problem. But even if the problem was all in her head, it was her problem to get over.

  “Jane…”

  “I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

  Jake sat up and exhaled loudly. “Can I get a whole sentence out before you cut me off?”

  “Sorry.” Jane rested a hand on his knee. “I guess I’m just…”

  “Pause for a moment please, and let me say this.”

  “Ooh-kay.” Jane leaned away. Jake was sending weird vibes. Stiff body posture, clipped words, and yet those kind of sad eyes. He was really, really not himself.

  “I’ve got to go out of town again. I will be gone a week. You’re pretty heavily invested in this murder case, and it worries me. I’m just saying it. I’m not saying don’t investigate. I’m not saying you aren’t well looked after, I’m just saying it worries me that you are digging into this thing. The people sound dangerous. At least online they do.”

  Well looked after? Jane frowned. She was well looked after? Not competent? Strong? Intelligent?

  “I can’t tell you where I am going, or connect while I’m away. It is part of the ministry, and it’s all very safe-house related. So I just can’t say anything. They sprung it on me.”

  Jane nodded. Weird. Super-secret safe house fundraising weirdness. What do you say to that?

  “This is kind of new for us—for you and me—but I was wondering if we could like…” Jake blushed. “Could we pray together about it? I have to leave tomorrow. I’ll be safe, but will you? Will the kids I’m working with? I don’t know and it’s kind of freaking me out.”

  Her heart melted. How could it not? He reached across the pizza box and they gripped hands and prayed, he in a jumpy, kind of nervous way. Scared for Jane’s life, scared for the kids he hoped to protect, and scared of showing fear to the one person he wanted most to be strong for. She prayed silently, in her head, echoing everything he said and adding her own request that God nip her stubbornness in the bud because it was slowing down what could be a beautiful life partnership.

  Then they kissed, just a little bit more than they should have.

  Chapter 10

  Jane made it to the SCoRI office feeling well-prepared. Jake had stayed until one in the morning to help her get both reports in order. It might not have taken that long if there had been less kissing, but that was as may be.

  Flora welcomed Jane into her private office with a warm smile. The room was crowded with cartons. One of the chairs opposite Flora’s desk was stacked high with them. Jane pulled up the other chair and took a seat.

  The cartons were stacked in precarious towers behind Flora, beside her, and along three of the four walls.

  “Sorry about this.” Flora waved her hand at the boxes but didn’t explain. “I hear you got a quick lesson in reports yesterday.” Her eyes twinkled like Rocky’s had, as though maybe lunch had been her idea.

  “Yes.” Jane bit her lip. “May I show you what I’ve got?”

  Flora held out her hand.

  Jane passed over both reports.

  The second hand on the wall clock ticked loud and slow. The passing clacks bringing Jane back to the days of standardized tests in school. Her skin prickled with nerves.

  Eventually Flora looked up, one eyebrow raised
and a little frown on her face. “Not bad.” She leaned forward and looked toward her office door. “Did Miranda help you write them?”

  “Oh no! I did them myself. Well, I mean, my fiancé Jake proofread them, and we really worked hard, Rocky and I, at lunch yesterday. But I wrote them myself.”

  Flora’s frown turned into a small smile. “Then I’m impressed.”

  She laid them down. “It’s time to talk about the murder case.” The frown was back. “I can see how you might have felt like the situation was a little ambiguous as the murder has a connection to the insurance case.”

  Jane smiled, nodding, hoping to change the tune she was hearing with a bright, cheerful, attitude.

  “So let me be clear: You are not to be investigating this murder case. Do you understand? Finish the fraud up today. From the look of your report you can. Go confirm and reconfirm every last detail. Get in touch with the real caterer. Have one more conversation with the bride, and then bring it to me. I’ll contact the insurance and we’ll close the thing out. And,” Flora’s face lightened up a little, “it looks like the bride will get her money. The insurance won’t be happy, but this poor girl has had enough trouble, from the looks of both reports.”

  “Does SCoRI ever get murder cases?” Jane wove her fingers together and squeezed her hands.

  “No.” Flora’s word was firm, but she wasn’t yelling.

  “What if a case turns into murder? Do we give it over to the police and drop it at that point?”

  Flora leaned her elbows on her desk. “Rocky and I have investigated plenty of murders in our day. But we’re semi-retired now. We look into little cases of fraud on behalf of insurance companies. Things like that. We leave murder to the police. They have the training and the tools.”

  “I get it.” Her gift from Grant had been meant to keep her out of trouble. That’s what she was getting. “So what do I do if Ayla calls again?”

  “Tell her you’ve got everything you need and thank her for her time.”