EVIL EYE, page 6
I took a deep breath. "Okay, then. Ghosts."
While Susan took expert charge of my coffeemaker, I told her about Pierre Arneaux showing up in my shop that morning—had it really been only a few hours ago? Felt like days—and then encountering him at the Arnolds' place.
"Gold-thieving pirate scum," Jack growled, from where he stood leaning against my magical potions counter, which was always locked, for obvious reasons. Nobody wanted a replay of the Montana tourists episodes.
I shuddered, and they both looked at me. "Never mind. Bad memories. Anyway, then he showed up in the backseat of Jack's truck when we arrived here and threatened me with exactly this." I explained what he'd said, how he'd acted, and what I'd done with the salt.
Jack burst out laughing.
Susan shook her head, a look of admiration on her face. "Salt packets? How did you come up with that?"
"I learned it in one of my online classes," I said modestly. "Non-Corporeal Life Forms in Literature from the Renaissance to the Present Day. I got an A."
Okay, maybe not all that modestly.
"And you just randomly carry salt packets around?" Jack was still grinning.
"Doesn't everybody?"
Susan finished her coffee and put her mug down. "All right. I need to get a deputy or two over here to secure that gold. I’m hoping I can count on you to guard it in the meantime, Shepherd?"
"No problem, Gonzalez."
I rolled my eyes. "Great. But what about Dice? Did you let her go?"
Susan's expression shut down, and she gave me Cop Face. "I can't comment on ongoing investigations."
"Oh, come on. It's not like a text to Molly won't tell me."
"Fine. We let her go, but under caution until the crime scene investigation results come back. Are you happy now?" She started for the door but stopped to listen when I called her name.
"No, Susan, nothing about this day has made me happy. A guy I've known for years is dead, a very nice woman who liked pecan pie and was nice to little girls is dead, the killer is on the loose, and a crazed pirate ghost is trying to frame me. Not to mention, my best friend's band mate is a suspect."
She glanced back at me, her expression bleak. "Yeah. And now imagine you have my job."
I took the hit in silence, because I deserved it. "You're right. I wouldn't take your job for a million bucks right now, Susan. But I know you'll do your best, because that's who you are. I'll close the shop until the deputies come by for the gold, just to avoid any potential problems."
She thanked me, and then she was gone.
I kept up with my cleaning and other mundane chores while we waited, mostly in silence, because I didn't feel much like talking. Jack was fine with this, since he was either thinking deep thoughts or brooding, and even though he looked really hot when he was brooding, I didn't have the energy to pay much attention to him.
By the time Andrew—Deputy Kelly—and the other deputy, whose name I didn't catch, came and went with the gold, it was nearly five, and I was all done in.
"I've been closed all afternoon, what's one more hour? Let's just get out of here. I'm starving, anyway," I said, then immediately felt that peculiar twinge of guilt that one feels when thinking about eating or, really, doing anything, when somebody you know has just died.
Dr. Parrish would never be able to eat pecan pie again.
But life, as they say, goes on, and we keep living and breathing and eating, so I was ready to get out of there and find some food before the headache that had been hovering all afternoon laid waste to my skull.
"I'm heading home for dinner, and then I'm going to cuddle my cat and watch mindless comedies on TV," I announced, and a slow, sexy smile spread across Jack's face.
"Cuddle your cat? I'm down with that."
I could feel the heat of the blush all the way to my hairline. "Not you. My cat cat, not my tiger … not that you're my anything … I mean, argh. Never mind, already! Stop teasing me. I'll see you tomorrow."
"You will," he said, opening the door and stepping out in front of me to scan the parking lot for ghosts or murderers. "You'll also see me follow you home, cook dinner for you, sit on the couch with you, and spend the night with you."
"You could at least wait to be invited," I grumbled.
"Not when there's a murderer in town," he said, all traces of humor gone. "We've been through this before."
He was right, and I even appreciated him for it, but still, after being independent for all of my adult life, I wasn't prepared to let him get away with taking over without a fight.
Then again, he had said he'd cook me dinner … I decided to choose my battles, and this wouldn't be one of them. "I'm out of steaks," I finally said.
"I'll swing by my house and get some on the way." Jack, being a tiger, kept at least a hundred pounds of meat in a freezer in his garage, in addition to all the steaks, burgers, chicken, and hot dogs in the refrigerator in his kitchen. Because, tiger.
I'd offered him a tofu burger once and laughed for five minutes at the expression on his face. Tigers, apparently, do not eat tofu.
"Great! You get the steaks, I'll pull out the tofu," I told him as we walked out to the parking lot, just to see his reaction.
Tofu: 1 Tiger: 0
It felt good to have something to smile about on the short drive to my place.
When we pulled onto the short dirt road that I liked to call my extended driveway, I noticed some activity at the abandoned house on the right. It looked like somebody had finally bought the place and was either fixing it up or getting ready to tear it down. I'd have to ask Aunt Ruby. She knew everything about everything and everybody in Dead End.
At the end of the dirt road, my little house shone in the late afternoon March sunlight. It was small, and nearly a century old, but it was all mine, and I loved it. White with deep blue storm shutters, it looked like a house in a children's storybook, and I loved that, too. I even had a porch swing. Sometimes I worried that I'd gotten more than my share of contentment in life, and that my 'gift' was some kind of cosmic payback for being too happy. But then I usually talked to Uncle Mike, out on his porch swing, the same one where I'd poured out all my childhood troubles to him, and his calm, grounded wisdom centered me back where I needed to be.
Behind me, somebody tapped on their horn, and I glanced in the rearview mirror to see that Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby were behind me, as if I'd conjured them up from my thoughts. I grinned at the fanciful notion and pulled into my actual driveway, parking at the far right side so my family and my tiger had plenty of room for their cars.
Shelley was the first one out of Uncle Mike's F-150, and she ran over to me and jumped in my arms. "I did it! I did it, I did it, I did it!"
I winced, because a nine-year-old yelling in your ear carries quite a punch. "That's awesome! What did you do?"
She hugged me fiercely, the way she did everything, and then jumped down and looked up at me. "I won the history fair! Now I'm qualified to go to the state competition in Tallahassee."
She said "Tallahassee" with as much reverence as I usually said "bakery," which made me smile.
"I'm so proud of you, honey! Thanks for driving over to tell me."
"Oh, no, Tess, we're not just here to tell you. We're here for a celebration!" She danced around the yard, filled with too much excitement for her small body to contain, and the sight of it brought a sudden lump to my throat. Shelley deserved to be happy, and we'd worried for a while that she might never be again. This was a start.
"Are you going to help me, Tess, or do I have to give this pineapple coconut cake to somebody who deserves it?" Aunt Ruby smiled and held out her old, familiar, white-and-red cake carrier, and I rushed over to greedily snatch it out of her hands.
"Mine!" I kissed her cheek and then headed over to give Uncle Mike a one-armed hug. "You should have called and let me know you were coming. I could have stopped and picked up more groceries."
"No worries there, sweetheart," he said. "We brought you a few things."
I sighed when he opened the back of his truck and I caught sight of the dozen or so cloth grocery bags, all stuffed full. I loved my family, but they still sometimes treated me as if I were a helpless child who needed to be cosseted and taken care of at every turn.
"I can shop for groceries, Uncle Mike," I said for maybe the five hundredth time. "I'm a big girl now. I even have my own business."
He grinned at me. "Like you'll ever be a big girl to us. We changed your diapers. You may as well relax and enjoy it, especially since Ruby made you two pies in addition to that cake, which I call dibs on two pieces of, by the way."
I heard the sound of another truck coming up the driveway, right on cue. "Good thing you called dibs now, because that's Jack, and you know he'll eat the whole cake if he gets a chance."
Uncle Mike frowned. "Damn shifter metabolism. Last time he was over for breakfast, he ate an entire dozen eggs. I had to go back out to the chicken coop just to get any breakfast for my own self."
I laughed. "Well, he had a dozen eggs for breakfast today, but no lunch, I don't think, so keep a tight grip on your plate."
Jack parked neatly between my car and Uncle Mike's—showoff—and then climbed out and pulled two large bags filled with what looked like fifty steaks out of his backseat.
Uncle Mike's face brightened. "I always said that Jack was a nice young man, Tess. You should invite him over more often."
I rolled my eyes. "Sure. Whatever you say. I'm going to go help Aunt Ruby while you two do your manly bonding over your carnivorous tendencies. But we're having tofu burgers for dinner."
I left him sputtering in the yard and followed Aunt Ruby and Shelley, both laden with bags, up the steps to my porch. Everybody had a key to my house, to the point where I wondered why I even bothered to lock it, but they both waited for me to do the honors. I held the door for them, and they headed down the hall to my kitchen, but I stopped to say hello to the beauty sunning herself on the back of my couch in the light from the recently replaced front window.
"Hello, gorgeous." I scratched behind Lou's ear, and she stretched her head up into my palm and purred. Lou, short for Lieutenant Uhura, had shown up at my place one rainy night. Bedraggled, with the tip of her tail mangled, she'd been a wet ball of misery who'd clearly had a difficult past. I'd fallen in love with her on the spot, and she'd been with me ever since. She didn't like strangers but adored Uncle Mike, was okay with Aunt Ruby and even Shelley except for that one time my new sister tried to play dress up with her, and—inexplicably—she adored Jack.
He said it was a cat thing. I thought it was suicidal recklessness, since she wasn't even afraid of him in his tiger shape. Whatever it was, it worked, which made me happy. I'd find it hard to be friends with someone my cat hated, or who hated her.
Jack and Uncle Mike came in, talking about the best way to grill steaks, and I realized that my house was being taken over again by uninvited guests, and I loved every minute of it. I loved my family.
And Jack? Jack was rapidly becoming part of the family, in more ways that I wanted to examine right then.
"I made you a peach pie, Jack," Aunt Ruby said, patting the scary rebel leader on the arm as she bustled past him to go back outside. "Come and help me get the rest of my things, you sweet boy."
"Tell her about how master vampires have cowered before you, sweet boy," I called out as he meekly followed her out the door. "If only they could see you now."
He flashed me a look that promised retribution, but I just laughed at him. If only the vampires had thought of hiring Aunt Ruby for their side, the rebellion would have failed spectacularly.
Shelley danced her way out after them, and Uncle Mike took the opportunity to pull me aside. "Let's fix that sink," he said, overly loudly, before dragging me down the hall to the laundry room.
"My sink is fine," I protested. "You fixed it last month."
Uncle Mike, dressed for visiting in blue jeans that were no more than a decade or two old and a flannel shirt of the same approximate age, fixed me with his stern "Tess is in trouble" gaze.
Oh, boy. I was twenty-six years old, and that look still got to me. "Whatever it is, I didn't do it," I said automatically.
"I heard you found a dead body again."
"Oh. That. Yeah, I did that."
10
Thankfully, Aunt Ruby had been too busy with Shelley and the history fair to hear any of the bad news, so we'd be able to have a peaceful dinner, or at least as peaceful as dinner with an excited little girl could be. I started to tell her I'd met a real pirate, since her history fair exhibit was about pirate gold in central Florida, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do it that didn't involve talking about ghosts or dead bodies, so I let it go. Maybe if Arneaux quit framing me for murder, so we could have a civilized talk some day, I could introduce him to Shelley.
I suddenly realized I was contemplating introducing a murderous pirate to my kid sister and, ghost or no ghost, it was a terrible idea. Especially since he'd proven he could affect things in the physical world. What if he went nuts and did something to hurt her?
No way. If I learned anything from him, I'd tell her myself and leave him far, far out of it.
I made a salad and then sat down and enjoyed letting everyone else do the cooking, because Jack and Uncle Mike were already fighting over who was the better grill master, Aunt Ruby had brought side dishes and desserts with her, and Shelley and I were battling over a hard-fought game of Scrabble.
"Burfi is not a word! You're totally cheating!"
She giggled and shook her head, her pigtails flying. "It is, too. It's a kind of Indian candy. Computer Scrabble on my phone played it against me once, and I looked it up."
"Fine. But sixty-two points? You're crushing me, you little Burfi." I put my hand over my heart and faked swooning back onto the couch. Lou stared down at me, probably in disbelief that her humans were so undignified. Any minute, though, Uncle Mike or Jack would come in and she'd be all "rub my belly," so she had no room to judge.
Shelley jumped on me, so then I had to tickle her, and when we were both breathless with laughter, I looked up to see Jack standing perfectly still in the doorway, staring at us with something that looked like longing in his beautiful green eyes. As soon as he caught me watching him, the look disappeared, and he grinned at Shelley. "Come on, kid. Dinner's ready, and we need to feed you up, so you have the strength to demolish all those other kids at the history fair."
She giggled again and, Scrabble forgotten, ran over to jump into Jack's arms for a hug. "Oh, Jack. You're so silly."
"That's me," he said easily, giving her a hug. "Silly Jack."
When Shelley scampered off to the kitchen, he held out a hand to me. "Come on, ghost buster. Let's eat."
I let him pull me up off the couch, which put me closer to him than I'd intended. My breath caught in my throat in an involuntary reaction to, well, Jack. His forest and sunshine scent, his warmth, his strength. His kindness to Shelley and my family. His fierce protective nature when danger was around.
He was … kind of perfect. I stood there for a moment, frozen by the realization, until he tapped me on the top of my head with one finger.
"Just to let you know, I already ate half the cake, while we were grilling," he said, blasting the "perfect" illusion all to heck. Cake was serious business.
Whew.
"I'm going to kill you," I told him. "In various astonishingly painful ways, slowly and with great glee."
"Getting a little bloodthirsty, Callahan," he said, walking backward and holding me off with one hand as I feinted punches at his head. "You might want to talk to somebody about that."
When we walked into the kitchen, Aunt Ruby smiled at us, her blue eyes sparkling. "Now cut that out, you two. You're setting a bad example for the C-H-I-L-D."
Shelley rolled her eyes. "Aunt Ruby, you do realize that I can spell, right? I'm in fourth grade, and I've been reading since I was five. And I'm not a child."
I dropped a kiss on her head when I took my seat next to her. "Get used to it, kid. They still call me the C-H-I-L-D, and I'm twenty-six."
"Wow. That is very old," she said solemnly.
"Ouch."
"It is very old," Jack agreed, taking the chair next to mine, so I punched him in the shoulder.
"You should use your words, Tess," Shelley told me. "Hitting is wrong."
"Yes, use your words, Tess," Jack said, enjoying himself immensely.
I waited until Jack took a big bite of steak and then I looked innocently at Uncle Mike. "Did Jack tell you he's planning to spend the night here?"
Jack started choking, and my sweet, genial uncle's face instantly transformed into an Incredible Hulk-like expression. "He what?"
"Discuss among yourselves," I said sweetly, and then I stole a slice of peach pie off Jack's plate and took a big bite out of it right in front of him.
"Touché," he murmured, when he quit choking. Then he explained to Uncle Mike that he'd be sleeping on the floor, as a tiger, and not anywhere near me.
Shelley blinked up at me. "Why do you make Jack sleep on the floor? He can sleep in my room."
We all froze, and then Aunt Ruby called for everybody to eat her good food before it got ruined from being cold, and by the time the dinner and pie and cake were all eaten, Shelley had forgotten about her sleeping arrangement questions, much to my relief.
On their way out the door, I got hugs from everyone and an especially tight hug from my uncle, who then pulled Jack aside to "look at a tire with low air on Tess's car."
After my family drove off, I raised an eyebrow. "My tires are fine."
"He wanted me to know that I should protect you from any and all possible dangers, but if I tried to take advantage of you, he had an entire gun cabinet full of shotguns, and surely one of them could be used for tiger hunting." Jack shook his head. "That man can be quite scary for a pure-vanilla human going on seventy years old."
