Apple of My Eye: Tiger's Eye Mysteries Read online

  "Cooking?" His voice was so hopeful it made me smile.

  "Yes. And yes, before you ask, my doors are locked. Roast chicken with carrots and potatoes."

  "I love roast chicken," he hinted.

  "You love all food."

  "Not Brussels sprouts."

  I laughed. "Nobody likes Brussels sprouts. They smell like feet."

  "Soooo."

  "And pumpkin pie," I teased him.

  "I love pumpkin pie."

  "Any chance you're not tired of my company yet? You're welcome to come to dinner."

  There was a silence. When he came back on the line, his voice sounded a little bit odd. "Tess. I don't think I could ever get tired of your company."

  A wave of warmth swept through me. "Same right back at you. Will you stop and pick up whipped cream on your way?"

  His low chuckle was positively wicked. "You might be my dream woman."

  I blinked, and then I realized what he meant and heat washed over my face. "For the pie! Whipped cream for the pie!"

  "See you in twenty minutes," he said, still laughing, and hung up, leaving me to finish my pie and think very interesting thoughts.

  After we ate chicken and pie and cleaned up, we decided to go downtown and have a look at how the festival decorations were coming along. It was such a small town thing to do, though, that I started to worry that Jack would be bored out of his mind.

  Jack glanced over at me when we were driving. "Are you okay? You've gone really quiet on me."

  "I was just thinking about what Uncle Mike said. Dead End isn't a fancy metropolis or anything. Won't you be bored if you stay here for any length of time?" I stared at the window to avoid looking at him. "I mean, after all your adventures."

  There was silence for a long moment, and then he started laughing. Loudly. In fact, it was pretty much a belly laugh. "Tess," he said, when he finally stopped laughing. "What part of the nine months since I came back to Dead End would you qualify as boring?"

  He had a point.

  "Yes, but hopefully it won't always be murders and stalkers and ghost pirates. And then what? We're left doing things like walking around town looking at decorations."

  He reached out and took my hand and squeezed. "I spent ten years in some of the most dangerous situations imaginable. I would be perfectly happy to spend the rest of my life having dinners with you and walking around town looking at decorations."

  Before I could answer that astonishing declaration, his phone buzzed. He handed it to me, since the truck was too old for Bluetooth, and I pushed speaker phone. It was Dallas.

  "Shepherd."

  "I'm here too," I said.

  "Hey, Tess. How are you?"

  "I'm good. Are you coming to the festival? Better yet, do you know anybody short who wouldn't mind dressing up as the swamp cabbage for the parade?"

  Silence.

  "Dallas?"

  "We must have a bad connection. I thought you asked me to find somebody to dress up as a cabbage."

  "Right. For the parade," I said helpfully.

  Dallas chuckled. "Small towns are weird."

  Jack broke into my important recruiting conversation. "Any news?"

  "Yeah, you could say so. Brigham Hammermill the Fourth is definitely still alive."

  15

  We got nothing but speculation accomplished Wednesday night. We let Susan and Andy know, so they could pass the news along to the various state and federal officials who needed to know. And I called Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike to let them know, too. But no matter how much we discussed it, we still couldn’t figure out what Brig might have to do with me or with the missing Ann Feeney.

  Jack was restless at the news that our only possible suspect wasn’t dead after all and might actually be in town, so he went patrolling in tiger form for half the night while I went to sleep.

  When my alarm went off, Jack knocked on my bedroom door and brought me in a cup of coffee.

  "I could get used to this," I mumbled, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

  "I could get used to roast chicken and pumpkin pies," he said, not even flinching when he looked at my frightening morning hair.

  He must really, really like pumpkin pie.

  "I'm heading to Orlando to see what I can find out from some in-person interviews with any of Brig's associates I can get to talk to me," he told me. "I also have some work to do on my new case. Will you be okay on your own at work?"

  I sighed. "Jack. I was okay for all those years before you came back to Dead End, remember? And I'm okay now. Eleanor is supposed to work this afternoon, even. Nobody is going to come after me at the pawnshop when there are customers in and out all day. This guy, whoever he is, has shown that he's a coward who sneaks around at night."

  He didn't look convinced, but I shooed him out of the house. He needed to go home and do some chores around his house, too, instead of spending all his time at mine. I fed Lou, got dressed, and went to work, skipping the donuts this time. My jeans were getting a little bit snug.

  The phone in the shop was ringing when I unlocked the door.

  "Dead End Pawn, may I help you?"

  "Tess. Hello. It's Bill Oliver."

  Oh, boy. I had not had enough coffee for this conversation.

  "Yes, Mr. Oliver?"

  "I just… this is somewhat inappropriate, Tess, but do you know why Eleanor won't return my calls?"

  It seemed like a bad idea to say "Speaking of inappropriate, I saw you hugging your blond hussy."

  "She's very busy."

  "I know she's busy," he said, sounding concerned and frustrated. "But she's always busy, and she always makes time to talk to me. She's not sick, is she?"

  "Not that I know of," I said slowly. The hangover had certainly worn off by now.

  "Then what could possibly be wrong?"

  "Mr. Oliver, I think you're going to have to talk to Eleanor about that. It would be inappropriate, as you said, for me to discuss my employee with you."

  He sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just that she's… well, she's the apple of my eye, Tess. I can't bear to think she doesn't want to see me anymore."

  I put my phone on mute and drew in a long, shaky breath.

  Oh. My. Goodness.

  Is it possible? Could Mr. Oliver be the stalker? If so, why would he give himself away like that? Or is this part of his devious plot to taunt me with the knowledge, when he knew I had no proof? After all, I'd seen firsthand that he had a thing for younger women.

  He was still talking.

  I took the phone off mute and tried to sound calm. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."

  "When does she work next, if you don't mind me asking?"

  "This afternoon," I said automatically, before realizing that I probably shouldn't have told him.

  The apple of his eye.

  "Have you been by the shop recently?"

  "What? No," he said, sounding distracted. "Not since Eleanor and I started dating. I admit my putting the Jackalope in pawn was just an excuse to see her."

  "I never would have guessed," I drawled.

  I had to be wrong. It had to be a coincidence. No way would a man who'd pawn a Jackalope over and over just to see the woman he liked be a crazy stalker.

  Or…

  Was that evidence of obsessive behavior?

  Had he developed some kind of sick fixation on me when he was here to see Eleanor?

  How would he have met Ann Feeney?

  "Well, thanks, Tess. I guess I'll see you this afternoon."

  And then he hung up.

  Was that a threat? Was this enough to call the sheriff about? Unfortunately, it felt more like the Pastor Nash/peppermints theory.

  I called Jack, who didn't answer, but I didn't bother to leave a message. Bill Oliver was coming in this afternoon. I'd see what I thought then.

  First, though, I needed to warn Eleanor. I sent her a quick text. When she didn't reply right away, I put my phone behind the counter and went to work. Cars were already pulling
into the parking lot and taking the day off yesterday wouldn't help me pay the bills.

  By the time two o'clock rolled around, I was getting nervous. Jack hadn't called me back or texted and neither had Eleanor. I didn't even know if she planned to come to work. Luckily, I was too busy to worry too much about it. As expected, we had a lot of people in town for the festival and, lucky for me, some of them felt like shopping.

  I sold several pieces of jewelry, a camera, three more bottles of Yasmine's perfume, and a rain stick that didn't just make a sound like falling rain but actually caused rain to fall on the first Thursday of every month, according to the con artist, er, person who'd sold it to Jeremiah a couple of years ago. I'd never gone outside and chanted the spell, so I had no idea if it actually worked, but stranger things have been bought and sold in Dead End Pawn.

  The wife of the man who bought it gave me a skeptical look. "What if it doesn't work?"

  I pointed to the small sign in the corner of the jewelry cabinet:

  NO REFUNDS ON MAGICAL OBJECTS

  "Sorry. It's a policy."

  I could tell she wanted to scoff, but since witches were out in the world now, she had just enough doubt to make her keep quiet. Sometimes, the people who shopped here—the ones who weren’t regulars—thought I must be a witch to sell so many magical items. I always told them the truth if they asked, but if they didn't ask me the direct question, I let them believe what they wanted to believe. It added to the mystery and made for a better story when they went home to their safe, non-magical lives.

  Just after the couple left, the door opened again and Eleanor walked in.

  "Right on time," I said cheerfully, just as if her soon to be ex-boyfriend didn't have a hussy problem and wasn't potentially a crazed stalker and finger chopper-offer.

  "I'm actually ten minutes late. I'm sorry, but I wasn’t sure I could face him yet." Her face was drawn, and she looked tired and sad. "This is going to be difficult."

  "Well, if you'd answered his calls, he wouldn't have to come find you at work," I pointed out reasonably. "Why don't we just hear what he has to say?"

  "We?"

  Right. I hadn't told her my suspicions. She had enough on her mind.

  We didn't have to wait long. We were in a lull between customers at around three, and I was cleaning the glass on the door when he drove up.

  "He's here," I called out, but then I gasped.

  "What?"

  I just looked at her, speechless.

  "What? Tess, what?"

  "He brought the hussy."

  She threw her polishing rag down on the counter. "The nerve of that man."

  Turned out that the hussy's name was Winifred, Win for short, and she was not, in fact, a hussy.

  She was Bill's niece.

  "He spent the weekend in Tampa helping me move, and I decided it would be fun to come back to Dead End for the Swamp Cabbage Festival," she was burbling. "I haven’t been here in so long, and I wanted to meet you, Eleanor. Uncle Bill talks about you all the time."

  He was in Tampa all weekend, not putting amputated fingers on my porch Saturday night, in case I'd the least doubt after meeting Win, which I didn't.

  Guess it was a good thing Brig was still alive, because we were running short on suspects.

  Eleanor was relieved and delighted, so much so that she was glowing. "Oh, Win, it's so nice to meet you. You two will have to come to dinner at my house."

  "I know," I said. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off, Eleanor? It's slow here, and you can spend time with Mr. Oliver and Win."

  She put up a half-hearted protest, but then thanked me, hugged me, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door with Bill's niece, both of them talking a mile a minute.

  Bill hung back for a minute to talk to me.

  "Tess, I just wanted to thank you. I don't know what you did, but it made all the difference. Thanks so much."

  He held out his hand but then quickly remembered and gave me a rueful smile.

  "No worries," I told him. "Have a wonderful time. I'll see you at the festival."

  When he reached the door, I had a thought.

  "Mr. Oliver? Is there any chance Win would like to dress up as the swamp cabbage for the parade?"

  His mouth fell open. "What?"

  I sighed. "Never mind."

  It was only a little more than twenty-four hours till the parade.

  I was running out of time.

  16

  Friday dawned bright and beautiful, with no rain forecast for the entire weekend. Shelley, who'd spent the evening with me making Autumn Spice Cake and then stayed all night, was up at six a.m. bouncing around.

  On my bed.

  Lou gave me a "fix this" look, but I just laughed. The first day of Swamp Cabbage Festival was a great day to be nine years old.

  "Why don't we get dressed and go have breakfast at Aunt Ruby's?"

  "Yes!"

  Jack had called around nine p.m. to tell me he was staying over in Orlando to follow up on a lead, but that a couple of the guys I called his swamp commandos would swing by to check on my house and shop periodically.

  "I feel like he's escalating and it has something to do with the festival," he'd said. "Maybe I'm wrong, but better safe than sorry."

  Thankfully, it had been an uneventful night, and now we were on the way to a wonderful day, other than the obvious swamp cabbage costume issue.

  We were almost done with a giant breakfast Aunt Ruby had "just thrown together" when Jack knocked on the kitchen door.

  "That boy has an uncanny knack for showing up when there's food on the table," Uncle Mike grumbled.

  I laughed. "That boy is thirty-two years old."

  "Thirty-three in December," Jack said, walking in. "Can I do anything to help?"

  Aunt Ruby fluttered a dish towel at him. "You just sit down, and I'll fry you up some eggs."

  "You're really old," Shelley said, her eyes wide. "How old is your tiger?"

  Jack put a hand on his heart and winced before he sat down between me and Shelley. "Ouch. I'll have you know thirty-three is not old. And my tiger is the same age as me, because we're the same."

  She put her fork down. "How are you the same?"

  "We're two sides of the same person." He flicked the end of one of her braids. "You know how Tess is grumpy and kind of funny-looking in the morning when she just wakes up?"

  "Hey!" I poked him in the arm with my finger. "How did I get pulled into this?"

  "Yep! But she doesn't turn into a cat. Lou is her own person."

  "That's right. But you could say that grumpy Tess and cheerful Tess are just two sides of the same person, right?"

  She nodded, her face screwed up in concentration.

  "Well, I'm like that too. It's just that my other side is a tiger."

  "Which side is the grumpy side?"

  "Both sides," Uncle Mike said, snatching three more pieces of bacon off the platter.

  "Speaking of grumpy," I said, grinning at my uncle.

  "Yeah, yeah. Well, Jack, at least you have good timing. We can use an extra pair of hands to set up booths downtown," Uncle Mike said.

  "Absolutely. Whatever you need. I just need to run an errand at some point, as soon as Dallas calls me with the information I need."

  Aunt Ruby handed Jack a plate of fried eggs. "What information is that?"

  He glanced at Shelley.

  Aunt Ruby leaned over and kissed the top of Shelley's head. "If you're done eating, sweetheart, why don't you go brush your teeth? We'll be leaving for the fair in about twenty minutes."

  Shelley carefully carried her dishes to the sink, rinsed them, and put them in the dishwasher. Then she raced up the stairs to get ready, singing all the way.

  "It's great to see her so happy," Jack said.

  Uncle Mike nodded, his eyes warming. "Thanks to you, in part."

  Jack shook his head. "Thanks to all of you and the incredible amount of love in this family."

  As much fun as it w
as to watch the two of them find common ground for once, I wanted to find out what information he was waiting for before Shelley came back downstairs.

  "Jack?"

  "Dallas found a shell corporation related to Hammermill that's still active and has been making investments in Argentina. Brig is almost certainly alive and spending money. And you're not going to believe it when I tell you where we think he's been hiding."

  "Dead End," I said flatly.

  Jack nodded. "Dead End."

  "Why the heck would he come here? There's nothing in our little town for some trust fund or hedge fund or whatever you call it millionaire," Aunt Ruby said, frowning.

  "Exactly," I said. "There's no reason in the world anybody would think he'd come here, so it's the perfect place to hide, isn't it?"

  "That's what we think. Susan and Andy have the entire sheriff's department searching for places he might be holed up," Jack said.

  Uncle Mike looked skeptical. "Why would he have any reason to chop fingers off people? I mean, I get it if he had a slow burn over Tess rejecting him and he wanted to mess with her. But that doesn't explain the missing woman or the finger."

  "So you think it's just a coincidence that he's here when this is going on?" Aunt Ruby pursed her lips. "Could be, I guess."

  "I don’t believe in coincidence," Jack and I said at the same time.

  "Jinx!" Shelley shouted, racing back into the kitchen. "Are we ready to go? Are we? I'm so excited!"

  "We never would have guessed," Uncle Mike drawled, giving her a fond look.

  We all stood and cleared our dishes, and Uncle Mike reached out and patted my cheek. "I guess if we survived you, we can survive anything a boisterous nine-year-old throws at us, right, Ruby?"

  "So this is 'throw Tess under the bus day' is it?" I grinned at him. "Don't make me teach her all my tricks for sneaking out at night."

  "You had no tricks, dear." Aunt Ruby said gently. "We always knew where you were and what you were doing."

  "Because I was a good kid," I said loudly, following them out through the living room to the front porch. "I should get some credit for that."