EYE OF THE STORM Page 10

  Larry tried to play hard to get, so I went down to $490, just to let him feel like he'd talked me down a bit. Pawn shop sales were all about the barter, and I'm great at it.. Not yet Jeremiah or Eleanor good, I'm getting there.

  Most importantly, my customers know I'd never screw them over.

  While I wrote up the sale, Larry commiserated about the robbery. "Your insurance rates will go up," he said mournfully. "Mine just went up, and I didn't even report any claims!"

  "Are you going to the town hall?"

  "Yeah. I don't know what good it will be, but I'm going. See you there. And thanks again."

  I grinned. "I'm sure you and Diana will be very happy together."

  Three o'clock rolled around, and Jack came back to pick me up to go to the town hall.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said. "By the way, I didn't get a chance to mention it earlier, but it looks great in here. Good job!"

  "Thanks. A lot of work, but the insurance will cover the damage and the new counters. Any news?"

  "Only weird news."

  I locked the door, and we went out to his truck (anything with heavy/tight parking, and our unspoken deal was that he drove).

  "So, tell me the weird news."

  "Lucky called. A few weeks ago, they hired a teenager to help with the business. A kid named Buddy. The kid didn't show up for work today. Lucky got worried, because Buddy had been very reliable up till now. Turns out the kid was in the ER half the night."

  "Why? And what does this have to do with us?"

  Jack glanced at me. "He was in the ER for alligator bites. And when the doctor asked him about it, he couldn't remember anything. The hospital chaplain's office got called in, as they do anytime they suspect something supernatural, and the priest on duty diagnosed vampire enthrallment."

  "Oh, no! Is he going to be okay?"

  "He should be. He's young and resilient, and it looks like it was only a one-day thing."

  I clenched my hands into fists. "I guess we found our alligator delivery boy."

  "He's lucky to be alive. Ivan—and it has to be Ivan—could have just as easily ordered him to kill himself after he delivered that gator."

  I felt sick. Sick to my stomach and sick of scary things happening.

  "I'll find him," he promised.

  I knew he would. But would it be fast enough, or would more people get hurt or die?

  13

  By the time we slipped into the back of the Town Hall meeting room, Lorraine was already giving a report on the Hurricane Preparedness Team.

  "And again, the good news: Elvis has left the building. I repeat: Elvis has left the building. The hurricane has been downgraded to a Category 3, and it moved offshore and will not make landfall or cause any damage to people or property anywhere."

  Everybody cheered, because:

  1) that was great news, and

  2) probably everybody was sick to death of Elvis puns.

  Then the mayor stood and opened the topic of a neighborhood watch. Basically, he spent twenty minutes of long-windedness rambling on about how we need all the help we can get, due to undesirable elements in town.

  "Gold," Jack whispered.

  I elbowed him in the ribs. "Boron."

  And then Mayor Ratbottom wrapped up with how we all had to be good neighbors and fight crime together.

  "Maybe be a good neighbor and quit raising our insurance rates, Ronald," somebody yelled, and whoever it was got a big laugh, and I wasn't surprised to see the anger flash through the mayor's eyes, but I was a little bit surprised that he hadn't hidden it better.

  "These crimes must be really getting to him," I whispered to Jack.

  "Yeah, hurts his reelection chances."

  He called for any new business and, to my surprise, Aunt Ruby stood, and Shelley and Uncle Mike stood right next to her. I couldn't get to her across the crowded room, but I waved and blew kisses to my aunt, so she knew she had my support.

  "I'm Ruby Callahan, and I'm here to tell all of you good people that I'm running for mayor in December. I am not going to say anything negative about Ronald—"

  She got drowned out in a lot of people calling out "why not?" and "I will!" but she waited for silence and then continued.

  "Instead, I'll be running on a platform of ideas that I'll present next month at the county festival. Thank you for your time."

  She smiled and nodded, seemingly at the entire room, and then sat down. At least three-quarters of the people in the room stood and cheered for her, and Ronald definitely did not like that.

  He started beating his gavel, yelling "Out of order! Out of order!" and, after everybody sat down and quieted down, he announced that there would be a debate next month between all interested candidates.

  "All candidates? There are others?"

  Jack just shrugged, clearly as puzzled as I was.

  After that, the meeting disintegrated into the usual calls for Free Margarita Mondays in town, complaints about the roads, and—a new one to me—a call for the Raabs to quit growing fairy rings of toadstools that they almost certainly planned to use to poison the Hunsakers.

  I saw Laurie sneaking out the back, and I didn't blame her one bit.

  "We should go, too," I told Jack. "We're invited to dinner at Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby's place, and I promised we'd bring the steaks."

  We made our way out the back and, once we were outside, Jack started laughing. "Ha! That sneaky old plotter. He always complains that I eat all his food, but I reality I'm just the conveyor of many more fine steaks to his table than Ruby ever let him eat before."

  My mouth fell open. "Oh, my goodness. You're probably right! Oh, I'm going to let him have it."

  "No, don't. I'm glad to provide the steaks, if it keeps me in your family's good graces." He took my hand, right there in front of most of Dead End, and I didn't know what to think, except some sappy variation of:

  Where have you been all my life?

  Instead, I pointed, with my free hand. "There's Susan. Let's see if she's found Ivan yet. I want to give Aunt Ruby a hug, too."

  But the crowd surge carried us along, so we missed Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike altogether, but we caught up with Susan in the parking lot and filled her in on Buddy.

  "Who did it to him?" Her hair, usually so tidy, was a little wild, and she looked like she was running on caffeine and pure willpower.

  "The priest said Buddy should be coherent by tomorrow," Jack told her. "Then he'll give us an eyewitness identification, and maybe he even knows where we can find Ivan, so we can nail that vampire's ass to the—"

  But Susan was already shaking her head. "Jack. No. It's not Ivan."

  I didn't want to ask, but I had to. "Why not?"

  She sighed. "Because Ivan is confirmed to have died in a high-speed car crash down by Miami a day and a half ago. The state highway patrolman recognized him from the BOLO I had out on him."

  "No chance the trooper could have been enthralled?"

  But she was shaking her head again. "No. Law enforcement personnel have to go through magical interference detection at the beginning and end of each shift."

  "So, if Ivan's dead, who the hell is behind all this?" Jack bit off each word, and I could almost hear the frustration sizzling beneath every syllable.

  I knew the feeling.

  "Maybe he enthralled Buddy first, before he died?"

  Jack shook his head this time. "Enthrallment doesn't survive the vampire's death."

  "Damn," Susan said. "Just damn. Now I have to start from scratch."

  She suddenly winced and ducked behind Jack. "Don't look now, but the mayor is searching for me, and I just can't deal with his neighborhood watch crap right now. I'm going to go hide out and sleep for ten hours. If you need me, you can call me, but don't need me, and don't call me."

  I hugged her, because she looked like she needed it, and I certainly did, and then we blocked her from sight as she escaped.

  "Well, let's get out of here and stop at my place for the steaks,"
Jack said. "I'm in the mood to be threatened with being turned into a rug. And then I'll start asking him about his plans for when he's the First Gentleman of Dead End."

  He laughed a truly evil laugh, and I had to chuckle at the idea of Uncle Mike being First Gentleman. I could bet he'd never considered that idea.

  "Okay, let's go, if we can get out of this crowd."

  "We could stop and get donuts at Mellie's on the way—"

  "Definitely not," I said, my better judgment and my waistband both crying out in pain. "Granola, maybe. Or raw carrots. Yep, that's what I need. A raw carrot diet for a few weeks to get rid of this extra cushioning."

  Jack grabbed my hand and pulled me closer, still walking down the sidewalk and waving and smiling at everyone we know and some we didn't. "Tess. I love your cushioning."

  Stupid Irish complexion. I could feel the hot red flush from my hairline to my toes.

  But when we finally arrived at Jack's house, everything changed.

  14

  "I'll get the steaks, if you want to grab my mail and put it on the counter?"

  Jack headed for his enormous freezer, and I wandered over to the front door, where a basket hung beneath the mail slot in the door. We'd entered through the side door, that led into the kitchen, as usual. I didn't think I'd ever seen either Jack or Jeremiah walk in through the front door. People weren't very formal in Dead End.

  And when you do enter the front door, you might find an alligator waiting for you.

  I took Jack's mail out of the basket and carried it over to the counter, glancing down at it as I walked, and then I froze, in the middle of the family room.

  "Jack?"

  "Almost done."

  "We're not going to need those steaks."

  15

  Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby had been understanding but curious, and I'd promised to tell them all as soon as I could. Then I'd congratulated Aunt Ruby again, promised to work on the campaign, and finally gotten them off the phone.

  By then, we were almost to our destination.

  "Okay, you need to tell me what's going on, Tess," Jack said, outwardly calm but hands gripping the steering wheel just a bit too tight.

  "Careful." I pointed at his hands. "Remember the time you left your fingerprints in Jeremiah's old truck?"

  He threw back and laughed the full, rich laugh that I so loved. "He was so mad. He loved that truck."

  "I miss him," I said quietly.

  "So do I. I've gone out to the cemetery to talk to him a few times lately," he admitted, and I tried to hold back my gasp.

  There'd been a time Jack had refused to go to see Jeremiah, because of his misplaced guilt that he'd let his uncle down. I was glad he was finally coming to terms with his feelings about everything.

  "Okay. Just through these bushes. Park on the other side, so we can see out, but they can't easily see in."

  We were on the north side of Dead End, if you could give directions to a town so tiny. The "rich" side. And the enormous bank of azalea bushes we hid the truck behind faced the front left corner of the ugliest McMansion around.

  "Who lives in that hideous pile?" He looked at me. "Tess, what's going on?"

  "Just go with me for a minute. Okay. What are the motivations for most crime?"

  "Power, money, sex," he said instantly.

  "Huh. I would have said, love, money, power, but I guess we've got the same thing, bottom line. So. Who benefits from the crimes in Dead End? And don't tell me some random vampire who lives—lived—in Orlando."

  Jack thought about it for a minute. "Crime goes up, we need more police, the sheriff can get the budget raised, but we know it's not Susan. Hmm. Crime goes up, people get angrier and want to go vigilante, but that doesn't work here …"

  I shook my head. "I forget you've never been a business owner. Crime goes up, insurance rates go up. Who benefits from that?"

  "The insurance guy?" Jack's eyes widened. "Tess, is this the mayor's house?"

  "Bingo. Listen. This all started Sunday, just after Aunt Ruby declared her candidacy for mayor on Friday by filing the paperwork downtown. He would have found out about either right away or Saturday, at the latest."

  "But why come after you?"

  I shrugged. "I'm not sure. The only thing I can think of is that everybody knows how protective Aunt Ruby has always been of me. Maybe he thought that if he scared or harmed me, she'd withdraw to focus on taking care of her family."

  A smile spread across his face. "But instead, she was even more determined to run for mayor, so she could help protect everybody in the community."

  "Right! Bad news for him, so now he needs money to campaign, instead of being an unopposed candidate. More reason to drive everybody's rates up."

  "What brought this all together for you?"

  "When I got your mail. You had an envelope from his insurance agency that looked like the one he'd sent me informing me that my rates were going up due to the claim. And then Larry said Dead End Towing's rates went up, too, even though they hadn't had a claim. It all started to come together."

  "How sure are you about all this?"

  I leaned back and sighed. "Maybe seventy percent? That's why I need the help of somebody with superior tiger hearing. I have a feeling our mayor is going to be meeting with new henchmen tonight, since Ivan died."

  "So now we wait?"

  "So now we wait."

  He grinned at me. "Can we make out while we wait? I haven't made out in a car since high school."

  "Definitely not! We need to focus."

  Luckily, we didn't need to focus for long.

  Within the hour, just after sunset, a black sedan drove up to the mayor's house, backed into the driveway, and parked.

  "Why back in?"

  "Easier to make a fast getaway," Jack said, watching the two men who got out of the car.

  As soon as the mayor answered the door and hurried the men into the house, we made our move.

  "We're going around the side, there, where the trees are heaviest," Jack said. "Although, you should really—"

  "If you say wait in the car, you'll regret it."

  "Stick with me," he said hastily. "Let's go."

  A few minutes later, we were crouching in the bushes beneath the windows of the mayor's study, but we didn't need superior hearing of any kind to hear what was going on, because the window was open and the mayor was shouting.

  "It's better that Ivan died! He was getting greedy and dangerous. I only needed a little trouble, not murder and amputated feet. I asked him why the hell he cut that foot off and you know what he said? Because he wanted to! What the hell kind of reason is that?"

  Jack looked at me and then whispered in my ear. "I wondered about that foot, too."

  One of the men from the car spoke up next. "Yeah, yeah, what do you want us to do?"

  "Hit the pawnshop again. I want Ruby to be too busy worrying about her niece to run against me. I'm fed up with those Callahans, anyway. Mike has always been a stubborn pain in my ass, when it comes to my pet projects. He's not even on the City Council, but he's friends with all of them, and they listen to him."

  "Time to call Susan," I whispered with barely any sound. I knew Jack would hear me. Then I sent a text to Susan and Andy, both, in case Susan was sound asleep with her phone turned off.

  The meeting was wrapping up inside, because it sounded like the thugs were sick of listening to Ronald moan and complain.

  As they headed for the door, Jack leaned over and put something heavy in my hand. "Party time." Then he rolled out of the bushes, shifting while he rolled, and sprinted around to the side of the house.

  I stood and looked down at the pistol he'd given me, smiled, and ran around the other side, so maybe I could catch somebody off guard while they were distracted by the terrifying tiger that suddenly appeared in the mayor's front yard.

  But when I got there, Jack had only the two thugs cornered. Ratbottom was nowhere to be seen.

  Jack swung his big head to look a
t me and then roared, but it was too late.

  The mayor had snuck up behind me and put a very large knife to my throat.

  "You're going to let me go, Shepherd, or your pretty little girlfriend will die—"

  "Mayor," I interrupted. "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight."

  Then I shot him in the foot.

  It only seemed fair.

  16

  I ran for the rope in Jack's truck, and he shifted back and tied them up while I trained the gun on them. The mayor cried, screamed, and threatened Jack, me, my family, and Susan with every horrible thing he could think of until Jack got tired of it and told him to shut up or we'd duct tape his mouth shut.

  We also called 911 for an ambulance.

  "Okay, Annie Oakley," Jack said, after he finished the last knot. "I'm not sure it's the solution I would have picked, but it worked."

  I dropped the gun on the grass and started shaking. "I'm going to jail, Jack. I shot the mayor! He and his thugs will lie and say it was unprovoked, and—"

  Jack gently took my shoulders and turned me to face the front of the house. "Look up there. See that black square with the red light? It's one of about twenty working cameras our paranoid mayor has as part of his house security. The video will show exactly what happened."

  Sirens screamed into hearing just then, and within minutes, Susan, Andy, and Deputy Baker were all running up the lawn.

  "Watch out for Baker," I said urgently, but to my surprise, Baker was backing up Andy like an actual helpful deputy.

  "It might be a trick."

  Susan, still looking exhausted, but with a giant smile on her face, sauntered up to me. "So. Let's hear it."

  Jack told the story, and I filled in the part where Ronald had held a knife to my throat. It didn't hurt that the knife was in the grass next to the gun, and there was a bleeding scratch on my neck that turned Jack's eyes to amber fire when he saw it.

  Susan stopped him from going over to punch the mayor in the face. "I think Tess defended her own damn self just fine. Good job, Tess. Oh, and by the way, Baker was being enthralled to be such a jerk and basically a minion for the mayor, by one of Ratbottom's pet vampires. After our talk, I made sure to update our interference detectors, and we caught it right away. He's actually a good guy."