by Lori Wilde
She could only pray her punishment would be as lenient as his had been. Her bottom lip trembled as she struggled to ward off tears. Thrusting her hands over her head, she said, “I’ll go quietly, Officer.”
“Edie?”
Her heart leaped. It wasn’t a policeman or security.
“Jonah?”
From out of nowhere he had appeared before her like a superhero to the rescue.
Jonah stepped from the shadows, and she saw his dear, sweet face. He could use a shave, she noticed, as a heavy five-o’clock shadow graced his jaw, but he was the most wonderful sight to ever greet her eyes.
He bent down and stuck something in the top of his boot before whispering, “Are you all right? I heard a scream and came to investigate.”
“I’m fine. I just knocked over a mannequin.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
Jonah swallowed. Edie watched his eyes. “Um...I was driving by and saw that the freight entrance door was cracked. Considering the thefts, I figured I better see what was going on.”
“Rather than call the cops?”
“I don’t like talking to the cops.”
“What were you doing driving by at four in the morning?” Edie asked, a sinking feeling settling deep inside her. She knew he was lying. What she did not want to face was the real reason he was in the store.
“I had a wicked case of insomnia.” He winked. “After you vaulted over fences to warn me, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
She wasn’t going to let him sidetrack her with that charming grin. “Weren’t you worried about stumbling across the thieves?”
“What is this? Twenty questions? How am I supposed to know you’re not the thief?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t owe you any explanation, but I will tell you why I’m here, so you don’t think I’ve got anything to do with the stolen merchandise.” Quickly, she told him about Jules and Kyle and the ruinous security footage.
“So, you two turned off the security cameras?” he asked.
“Uh-huh.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good to know we’re not on camera right now.”
Then a sudden, horrible thought occurred to her. What if she’d been set up? What if Jules and Kyle and Jonah were all in on the store thefts, and they were using her as an alibi or a person to pin the crimes on?
It made perfect sense. The cameras were off. Jonah was distracting her. Jules had disappeared. For all she knew, Kyle had sneaked out of the halfway house.
Good grief! Carl and Harry could be involved as well. At this very moment, they could be loading stolen goods into a van bound for Mexico.
Edie brought a hand to her head. How gullible was she to have fallen for Jules’ story? She was too trusting, too eager to help, too darn unsuspecting.
Don’t assume anything, Edie. See if you can get to the bottom of this.
“I better help you clean this up.” Jonah pointed at the dismantled mannequin. “The lady went to pieces.”
A hysterical giggle born of fear and embarrassment erupted in Edie’s throat. “Poor girl lost her head.”
“Ripped her wig.” Jonah bent and picked up a mop of fake hair.
“She doesn’t have a leg to stand on.” She shouldn’t be laughing, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
“This tragic lady reminds me of a song I wrote when I was in high school,” he said, picking up spare mannequin parts.
“You write songs?” Edie swallowed her laughter and ended up hiccupping.
“Not really. I only wrote this one to rebel against my Aunt Polly who forced me to join the Glee Club. She thought it would keep me out of trouble.”
Edie pushed a strand of hair from her eyes and studied him in the thick shadows. There. He’d just told her something personal about himself.
Great. He picks here and now to bare his soul when they risked discovery.
“How does the song go?” she asked.
Jonah picked up the mannequin’s torso and tucked it under his arm. “Let me see if I can remember.”
She canted her head, watching him.
“I once had a robot girlfriend,” Jonah sang, his rich baritone voice filling the store, putting her at ease. “With a pretty, mechanical smile. She wasn’t very romantic, until I turned her dial.”
“Oh my.” She giggled.
He picked up the mannequin’s errant leg and attached it to her body. “When I switched on her power and energized her soul, her tiny tin lips would open, and her blue plastic eyes would roll. I got her at a bargain, from a strange mail-order place. She came to me disassembled and packed down in a case. I studied her schematics, then put her arms in place, wired up her circuits and bolted on her face.”
Their eyes met. He grinned.
“For real? You wrote this?”
“I kept her in my closet, standing in her case,” Jonah crooned. “So that somebody wouldn’t see her and say ‘Oh what a disgrace.’”
He attached the other leg, then crammed the headless mannequin back on her pedestal.
“Is there more?”
He nodded. “But then one morning early, I found a little note, when I decoded the symbols and read what my darling wrote.” Dramatically, Jonah clutched a hand to his chest. “My head then started spinning, and I with anger turned green. For my little robot girlfriend had eloped with my pinball machine.”
Edie collapsed on the floor, laughing. “You’re a poet,” she managed to wheeze between the helpless giggles. “A true artist.”
Chuckling, Jonah sat down beside her and pulled his knees to his chest. “Aunt Polly wasn’t too happy when the Glee Club decided to perform ‘Robot Girlfriend’ at the spring recital.”
Edie gazed into his eyes. He was such a fascinating, complex man. Now she knew for sure that doing a case study on him was the right thing. “’Who broke your heart?”
“Me? Who says anyone broke my heart?”
“I’m a psychologist, remember? That song is a dead giveaway. You might have thought you were composing it to irk your Aunt Polly, but whether you knew it or not, you had an ulterior motive.”
An emotion she couldn’t quite identify flitted across his face, and she knew he was about to deny that anyone had ever hurt him, then unexpectedly, he confessed. “Head cheerleader, Beth Ann Pulaski. She wanted me to be something I wasn’t. Cliched story. Rich girl, poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks. In the end, when she realized she couldn’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, she dumped me for the quarterback.”
Edie reached out and touched his hand. “It still hurts, doesn’t it?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I’m not that goofy kid anymore. But I did learn something from Beth Ann, and I guess that’s reflected in my song. Birds of a feather flock together. You can’t be something you’re not, and there is no point in pursuing a relationship with a woman who can’t accept you for you.”
His eyes drilled into her.
She and Serenading Jonah were alone, except for the erstwhile Jules, lurking illegally, in a department store that had been experiencing a rash of thefts, and for all she knew, he was in on it.
She wouldn’t jump to conclusions. She would not. She’d made a mistake over the Corvette, assuming Jonah had stolen it. She wasn’t about to make a fool of herself for the second time in as many days by accusing him of being in the store for nefarious purposes.
But why else was he here? She didn’t buy his insomnia story. Not for a moment.
She needed to get out of here and away from him as soon as possible. She needed time to think, to sort out her confusing feelings for him.
Edie gulped. “Can you help me find the mannequin’s head? When last seen, it was rolling for freedom down the aisle of the bedding department.”
“Ah, Marie Antoinette.”
“You’re so funny.”
He reached out for her hand. “Hold on to me.
I don’t want you to slip and fall in the darkness.”
Hesitantly, she placed her hand in his and allowed him to guide her toward the bed where the mannequin’s head had disappeared.
“Which way did she go?”
“Under there.” Edie pointed to the bed in question.
Jonah dropped to all fours, lifted the dust ruffle, and peered underneath the bed.
Edie didn’t mean to take a long, lingering gander at his bottom wagging so enticingly in the air, but she just couldn’t help herself. She admired the way his blue jeans molded to his muscles, enjoyed the thrill that exploded in her belly.
A few minutes passed while he tried to dislodge the hapless mannequin’s head from underneath the bed. He cursed under his breath, then got to his feet.
A cobweb dangled from his hair.
“Hold still.” Edie rose up on her toes and brushed the web away with her hand.
Their eyes met.
She could feel his breath on her skin.
“Thank you.”
“How about the head?” she asked, anxious to alter the chemistry between them before something happened.
“Wedged between the wall and the headboard. I think I can reach it from the top.” He turned and climbed onto the bed.
“Let me see.” Edie sat beside him, and they both peered down the back of the headboard. Sure enough, Marie Antoinette stared sightlessly up at them.
“What can we dislodge her with?” he mused.
“Curtain rod?”
“Excellent idea.”
Edie scooted off the bed and retrieved a curtain rod from the next department. She returned, brandishing it like a sword.
“En garde,” she said, feeling like she needed to do something to keep the mood light, to keep herself from dwelling on the reason why Jonah had shown up out of nowhere.
“Okay, Zorro, calm down.” He reached for the curtain rod. Their hands touched, kindling the growing spark between them.
Edie jerked her hand away.
Jonah dropped his gaze and resumed his position on his knees in the middle of the bed.
Neither of them commented on the power surge that jolted every time they touched.
He slipped the curtain rod behind the headboard.
“It’s really stuck,” he said after a few moments.
“Can you push harder?”
Using the curtain rod like a fulcrum, Jonah shoved with all his strength. The head gave way, throwing him off balance.
He fell backward. Onto Edie. His large body covering hers.
Quickly, he shifted.
Edie looked up.
Jonah peered down.
A beat passed. A moment loaded with lust and longing.
And then he kissed her.
Softly at first, then harder.
Edie’s world tilted, whirled. She was lying on a bed in Carmichael’s, the most incredible man in the world spread out on top of her. A man with lips of pure gold. At any moment they could be caught and arrested. Any moment they could be discovered.
By kissing him here, now, in this way, she was jeopardizing everything she held dear.
“We better stop this,” she said, her voice shaky. What was she thinking? Hadn’t she warned herself repeatedly after that incident in his kitchen that she would keep her distance? He was a man who needed the benefits of her clinical expertise. He was not, under any circumstances, boyfriend material.
Jonah sat up. One of his pant legs had risen up on a shin.
Edie glanced down and saw something poking from his boot. She caught her breath, raised her head, and met his eyes.
Why was the butt of a handgun protruding from the top of his boot?
Chapter Nine
Jonah’s eyes followed Edie’s gaze.
He leaned over and with a quick flick of his wrist, pulled his pant leg down to conceal the gun. Calmly, as if nothing had happened, he straightened and stared her in the face.
“Why don’t you let me take you to breakfast?” he asked.
He’s got a gun!
But he is not pointing it at you.
Yes, but why did he have a gun in his eel-skin Justins? I will not jump to conclusions. I will not jump to conclusions.
Unfortunately, the conclusions were jumping onto her. He’s a bad guy. He’s a thief. He’s—
“Breakfast?” he asked again.
“I can’t.” She waved helplessly at the cosmetics counter. “I’ve got to find Jules.”
Jonah leaned close and whispered in her ear. “Sweetheart, it might be a good idea if you and your friend left the store.”
Was he warning her off because something was about to go down? Was that how criminals referred to their heists?
“Yes. That’s probably a good idea. Thank you.”
He just kept looking at her. Edie’s stomach dove to her feet.
She should stay away from him for so many reasons. For the sake of her dissertation, for the sake of her job, for the sake of her sanity. Before meeting Jonah, she had never considered doing something this crazy.
He wasn’t good for her.
Not at all.
He stood, retrieved the loose mannequin head, and rested it back on the body.
“Hey, Edie. Who’s this?” Jules popped from behind a pantyhose display. “Oh, wait a minute.” She snapped her fingers. “You’re Santa. Did Edie call you and tell you to meet her here or something?”
“There you are!” Edie exclaimed. “Where have you been, Jules?”
“Actually, at first I thought you’d gotten nabbed by mall security. When you screamed, I dove for cover. Then I heard talking. When bedsprings started creaking, I figured you two were taking advantage of the cameras being turned off and needed your privacy.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Edie protested.
Jules smirked. “No? Then how come he’s got lipstick on his collar?”
Jonah rested a hand at his collar as Edie turned to see her lipstick smeared across his white shirt. Embarrassment heated her cheeks.
“Well, it’s been nice chatting with you, Jonah,” Edie said as if they were at a cocktail party instead of trespassing in a department store after hours. “But we’ve got to go.”
“Allow me to walk you ladies to your car.” Jonah looped his arms through theirs and guided them back out the way they’d come.
“STEVENSON,” CHIEF TRUMAN West growled over the phone. “I want some answers, and I want them now.”
Bleary-eyed, Jonah rolled over and stared at the clock. Seven thirty. He’d gotten back from Carmichael’s less than an hour ago. He’d thought he would catch a few hours of much-needed sleep before he had to be back at the store at ten for another day of ho, ho, ho.
“What’s the matter?”
“I just got a call from J. D. Carmichael, and he is fit to be tied.”
Jonah swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “What for?”
“Last night, while you were supposedly staking out his store, over five thousand dollars of perfume was stolen from the cosmetics department.”
Last night? Cosmetics? Jonah groaned inwardly. Jules and Edie had been in the cosmetics department.
But he’d left with them. They couldn’t have hidden that much perfume on their persons.
That didn’t mean they hadn’t stolen the items before he had gotten into the store and hid them somewhere to be picked up later by an accomplice.
Except Edie would never steal. She was too honest and aboveboard. Too unerringly good. Besides, she was simply too smart to do something so dumb.
But he’d seen her entering the store with his own eyes.
Could she possibly be a thief?
No way.
How well do you really know her, Stevenson? Some of the sweetest faces can hide the most treacherous hearts.
His mind balked. He could not believe that of Edie. She’d come to his house to warn him, to save him from the police. She was a reformer, a rescuer, a crusader. She didn’t know the first thing about c
riminal offenses.
But Jules Hardy had free reign of the store while he and Edie had been otherwise occupied. Had there been another accomplice secreted somewhere? That would explain the male voice he’d heard coming from Trotter’s office. Say Jules’ boyfriend, Kyle Spencer? Jonah had a strong suspicion the story Jules had given Edie was false. What had really been on that security camera tape? Jules stealing perfume?
“And that’s not all,” West continued. “When Trotter and the security team reviewed the store footage this morning, they discovered that the cameras had been turned off for twenty-five minutes.”
“You don’t say.”
“Do you know anything about that?”
“Not really,” he hedged. He hadn’t been the one to turn the cameras off.
“What have you got to say in your defense, Stevenson?”
“It’s under control, Chief.”
“Is it really? Are you aware that more items have disappeared since you started working at Carmichael’s than before?”
“I promise, I’ve got a handle on it.” Jonah scratched his jaw and yawned.
“What’s your next move?”
“Believe it or not, I’m going to a strip club on Saturday night with one of the suspects. Harry Coomer was out past curfew. I saw him driving around the mall.” He also had concerns about Kyle Spencer, but if he voiced those to his chief, he’d be forced to explain about finding Jules and Edie in the store, and he wasn’t ready to come clean about that.
“This better be all business, Stevenson.”
“It is. You know I’m not the strip club type.” Unless it was Edie undressing herself for his eyes only.
The chief’s voice changed. “I’m worried about you, Jonah.”
“Worried about me, sir? Whatever for?”
"This assignment was supposed to help you focus; instead, you seem distracted.”
“I’m not distracted,” Jonah denied.
“Just solve the case. And please try to wrap it up before anything else is stolen.” Then the chief hung up without saying goodbye.
CASE STUDY—JONAH STEVENSON Observation—December 10
Yesterday, subject was found to possess a firearm—reason unknown. Today, subject is his usual jovial self when dealing with children. Subject offered no explanation for his appearance in the store after hours on December 9. The fact that more merchandise turned up stolen during this same time frame causes this observer to wonder if the subject might have been involved.