EYE OF THE STORM Read online

  I washed up, refastened my ponytail, and changed out of my clean-the-office grungy shirt into a clean, purple Dead End Pawn polo, and then locked up the shop, and Jack drove us to Beau's.

  "Any news on Mr. Peterson?"

  "He's going to be fine. They're tough old guys," Jack said. "I hope I'm that tough at their age."

  "I wonder how old they actually are. I know they're older than Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby. Who is running for mayor, by the way."

  "Yeah, I kind of got that from the posters."

  "They need some help campaigning, that's for sure, and maybe from a professional. So far, they're at RUBY FOR MAYOR: OR ELSE YOU'RE STUPID. This is not a catchy slogan."

  He grinned at me. "I liked HAVEN'T YOU HAD ENOUGH OF THE RAT'S ASS?"

  "None of the signs said that!"

  "I know. I suggested it to Shelley, and she said I shouldn't do a swear, because I was already in enough trouble for being caught at your house so early in the morning, because Aunt Ruby, and I quote, 'said Tess was not allowed to have sleepovers on a school night with a boy.'"

  I slumped down in the seat. "Oh, boy. This is going to come to no good, I can tell. If I have to have the birds and the bees talk again, you're in big trouble, Mister."

  "The birds and the tigers talk."

  "That, too. Ack. I might need an extra milkshake at lunch to drown my sorrows in."

  We pulled up to Beau's to find that, as expected, the parking lot was overflowing down the street. Nothing brought Dead Enders out in droves to the only eat-in restaurant in town like grisly news to gossip about.

  I hesitated before opening my door, once we finally found a parking space. The last time we'd been to Beau's, I'd foreseen a death that had then happened right in front of the restaurant only a few minutes later. It was the kind of experience that left a person with a bad feeling about a place.

  And, maybe, the place—or at least the people in it—with a bad feeling about me.

  Jack touched my hand. "I won't let any bad guys near you. And I promise to take care of the death cooties."

  "You know they'd revoke your rebel leader card if anybody ever heard you talking about death cooties, right?"

  He started laughing. "Oh, yeah. I'm doomed."

  Beau's was hopping, but it felt strange inside, and it took me a minute to realize it was because Lorraine wasn't there to greet us. For fifty or so years, Lorraine had been a fixture at Beau's in her pink starched uniform and orthopedic shoes.

  "I guess we just seat ourselves?" I glanced around, but nobody seemed to be filling in for her.

  "You were expecting me to wear pink?"

  The man who'd walked up on my left and now stood there barking at me was maybe five-ten and a couple hundred pounds of red-faced irritation rolled up in a bald, bearded package. He wore old jeans, sandals, and a shirt that advertised a seafood restaurant in Key Largo.

  "Beau?" I gasped. "Is that you?"

  He scowled. "No, it's the tooth fairy. Have you been a good girl?"

  "I have to tell you, man, that the idea of you getting anywhere near a sleeping child frightens the hell out of me, and I don't scare easy," Jack drawled. "Maybe tooth fairy isn’t the job for you."

  Beau, who hadn't been seen in Dead End since I was maybe fourteen, glared up at Jack. "Don’t give me any lip, Jack Shepherd. I remember you when you were still in diapers. Now go find your own damn table."

  He smacked two menus in Jack's direction and stomped off.

  I looked around at everyone and waved at people I knew and then smiled at Laurie Raab-Hunsaker, who was seated at a table with the women from both sides of her feuding family: the Raabs, who claimed their great-great grandmother was Fae, and the Hunsakers, pure vanilla humans who had a weird fixation on monthly trips to Disney World. The feud had to do with the accuracy of Tinkerbell as a "fairy," and it had been going on for more than twenty years.

  Laurie smiled back and mouthed Help me behind her hand.

  Then she frantically waved her coffee cup at Beau, but he completely ignored her and disappeared through the swinging doors into the kitchen, then popped his head back in long enough to bellow: "The coffee's self-serve today."

  We made our way to a table by the front window, saying hello along the way, and then Jack opened a menu and stared at it in disbelief.

  "What?" I opened my menu. A printed note was taped to the menu. It said:

  YOU CAN HAVE A BURGER AND FRIES

  OR YOU CAN GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO HAVE YOUR DAMN LUNCH.

  "I guess I'll have a burger," I said, trying not to laugh. I looked around the diner and, sure enough, every single plate held burgers and fries, except for Mrs. Frost, who was eating a salad out of a Tupperware bowl.

  "Burgers it is," Jack said. "Hey, there's your mayor-slash-insurance person."

  "He's your mayor, too."

  "Not for long," Jack said, in a hammy stage whisper. "I'm NOT STUPID."

  I could almost hear the capital letters in his voice.

  "Call him over, so you can file your claim, Tess. After all, you know the most important thing about insurance claims."

  I knew I was going to regret it, but I asked anyway. "What's the most important part about insurance claims?"

  "It's Now Or Never to file them," he said, smirking.

  I threw my napkin at him.

  "Hey, look, he's heading our way," Jack said.

  Mayor Ratbottom bustled over to us. Lorraine's comment about the teeny weenie he brought to the picnic flashed into my mind, and I nearly swallowed my tongue trying to choke back the horrified laughter.

  "A hunka hunka Burning Love, he is not."

  Jack stared at me. "What?"

  "Something Lorraine said."

  "Do I want to know?"

  "Do you want to lose your appetite?"

  Jack's face went pale, probably imagining what could be so bad that he'd lose his appetite. Then he stood right back up.

  "I'm going to go order us some food. What are you in the mood for?"

  I patted the menu. "I was thinking a burger. You?"

  He grinned. "Maybe six or eight burgers and a pound or two of fries. It takes a lot of energy to deal with death cooties."

  But the mayor arrived just then, blocking the aisle, so Jack sat back down.

  "Tess. You called me this morning. I'm sorry I couldn’t take your call, but I was out inspecting the damage at Dead End Hardware. Terrible thing, terrible thing."

  Ronald Ratbottom looked like he'd chosen to live up to his unfortunate last name. He had beady mud-brown eyes, slicked-back dark hair that was a color somewhere between swamp dirt and grease, and wore his suits like they'd been specially tailored—for someone else. There was no way suits off the rack could fit that badly.

  Also, he'd been sucking up to the Irish mob guys who'd threatened my family, so I was disinclined to like him even a little bit.

  But he was my insurance contact, so I had to deal with him, at least for now. I made a mental note to look for new insurance, and then I gave him my best polite smile.

  He flinched.

  "I'm sure you must be scared to death, poor thing," he crooned in one of the most obviously fake displays of concern I'd ever seen. "It's a tragedy."

  "Tragedy," Jack, whom the mayor had completely ignored, chimed in.

  Ratbottom sniffed. "Maybe you should think about increasing your coverage, Tess, now that such … unsavory elements have moved to town."

  Jack's smile showed teeth.

  This was a bad thing.

  Apparently the mayor didn't know much about tigers, because he took Jack's smile as a sign of surrender, and an expression of triumph crossed his face before he turned back to me, mask of concern back in place.

  "I'll be out to your place at two o'clock, if that works."

  I nodded. "I'll call Susan and see what else she needs from me for the official report."

  "Perfect." He half-turned to go but then stopped and looked back at me. "I hear your aunt is running against
me in the election."

  Oh, boy.

  "I'm not sure what her plans are," I said cautiously.

  "Well, a little healthy competition never hurt anybody," he said heartily, playing to the crowd of people at other tables who were all avidly listening.

  His smile never even came close to his eyes, though. Our mayor wasn't happy about Aunt Ruby's campaign. Not one bit.

  I silently vowed to help her campaign all I could. I'd even hang HAVENT YOU HAD ENOUGH OF RAT BUTT? signs in the shop window.

  After he processed my claim.

  I thanked him for his time, and he scurried off, and then, finally, I looked at Jack.

  "The man is a weasel," I said quietly, mindful of those still listening in. "I'm totally helping Aunt Ruby."

  Jack's attention was fixed on the tower of sugar packets he was building, but he looked up at me. "I'm an element?"

  "What?"

  "The illustrious mayor looked right at me when he said 'unsavory elements.'"

  "Oh."

  "Which element am I?" He flashed a wicked grin. "I think silver. Or gold."

  Suddenly, I was thankful I'd had Mr. Washington for chemistry, snake shifter or not. I waited until Jack finished his tower and looked up at me again before I answered him.

  "Boron. Definitely Boron."

  "Because I'm produced by cosmic rays?"

  "No. Wait. Is that true? How did you know that?"

  "Simple chemistry. Boron, chemical element. Symbol B, atomic number—"

  "No, you do not know the atomic number of Boron. Stop it, right now."

  "Atomic number 5," he continued smugly.

  I Googled.

  Darn it.

  "Okay, fine, but you didn't say any of that stellar nucleosynthesis stuff," I pointed out, still reading.

  He raised his eyebrows. "It was implied."

  "Ha! This is me, scoffing."

  "Scoff away. But why did you say Boron?"

  "Rhymes with moron," I said cheerfully. "Now go order us some food before Beau decides to shut down the diner altogether."

  9

  The Boron sighed, but he went to order food, so I took the opportunity to chat with everybody at the tables around us. By the time Jack came back with the cheeseburgers (one for me, eight for him), fries (maybe two pounds of potatoes), and four banana milkshakes (tigers love bananas), I'd learned a few things, but I kept them to myself while we ate and chatted about unimportant things.

  "Look, there's Susan."

  We left money on the table and headed over to where Susan was picking up a takeout order. She motioned for us to meet her outside.

  When she came out, she put the bags of food in her sheriff car and then walked over to where we were standing beside of the building, away from any windows.

  She nodded hello and then looked at Jack. "Any news?"

  "Nobody has seen him in six months."

  I got the uncomfortable feeling that this conversation should be private. "Hey, guys, I'll just be in the truck. Susan, I'll call you about the police report, okay? The mayor is coming to the shop at two about my claim."

  She stopped me with a raised hand. "It's okay, Tess, although I appreciate that Jack has kept my confidences. It's my ex. Stephen. He said he'd make my life hell. He's the one who turned Carlos, when my brother came to rescue me. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't involved I this."

  "Did he know anybody named Ivan?'

  "Not that I ever heard of. But who knows? The Ivan you met is trying to buy out Carlos's club, and it's the kind of thing Stephen would do. He told me he was in real estate, but he never mentioned he was killing everybody who didn’t give in to his demands." Her face went hard and grim. "I was a fool. Never again."

  "Now you're a badass," Jack said, and she blinked and searched his face, probably looking for mockery, but he was quite clearly being sincere.

  "I appreciate that. I'm trying my best. I want to be sure nobody else ever goes through what I did. I have a bit of good news, though."

  "I could use some good news," I said. "Aunt Ruby woke me up at the crack of dawn to tell me she's running for mayor."

  "Really? That's great! I bet she wins, too." She smiled. "I'll go around and post signs for her in the dead of night when nobody can see me, too, so I don't get fired."

  "What's the good news?"

  "Oh, right. Elvis is probably turning out to sea, according to a meteorologist I know." Her cheeks turned pink. "He, ah, he says we should be fine, but I still have my deputies checking on the town seniors, because storms can turn in a heartbeat, and I want to make sure everybody's safe."

  I gave her my best innocent-question face. "Oh. Thanks. By the way, what's his name?"

  "Who?"

  "Weather Boy," I said, grinning.

  She blushed even harder, but immediately changed the subject. "And how was The Date?"

  "Well. We didn't have it, because just as we were leaving, we found out about the robbery …"

  "And just afterward, your brother took her to his club to get attacked," Jack added, a hint of hot amber flashing in his eyes.

  "That's not how it happened, so don't start that again," I told him. "By the way, Susan, you're invited to my house for a barbecue tonight at around eight. I want to introduce Carlos to my friends."

  She looked surprised. "Really? I thought after last night you wouldn't want much to do with him."

  "That was not his fault," I said firmly.

  She shrugged. "I'll try to make it, thanks. Anyway, we did get an ID on the dead vampire, from the wallet in his clothes. He was a petty criminal from Orlando who turned vamp last year."

  "So who killed him?"

  She stepped back to let Mrs. Quindlen and her walker pass by, smiling, on her way to her car. We exchanged pleasantries with Mrs. Q, and then I waited in a frenzy of impatience until she was on her way before turning back to Susan.

  "And?"

  "And he had no reason to be in Dead End. Strictly a city boy. Whoever he was with—the killer—must have been the organizing force."

  "So, maybe this Ivan is the killer, and the dead guy was just the hired help."

  "Ivan is also a city boy. None of this makes sense," she said, and I could see she was frustrated and exhausted. "We're going to track Ivan down and question him, but I don't hold out much hope."

  "But he was wearing my cross! Isn't that evidence? I have documentation that proves it's the same one," I said.

  "We'll do our best," she said.

  "Did you talk to the guys out at the swamp?"

  Jack's friends, Austin and Dallas Fox, Lucky Tremaine, and a few others, all former military who'd come home from war with various degrees of PTSD, owned and operated an airboat business at the swamp. It was fairly new, but it was doing well.

  "No, I couldn't find anybody."

  "I'll take a drive out and see if they saw anything," Jack said.

  "I'll go with you," I told him. "Susan, you should get some rest. But first, I have to ask you about this new deputy. Baker, looks like a bulldog. He was shockingly rude."

  "I'm sorry, Tess. If you want to file a complaint, you can." Her eyes darkened. "It won't be the first one. He's offended half of Dead End in his first week."

  "I don't care about him being rude to me, but he was a jerk to Uncle Mike. I'll hold off on filing a complaint, though. You have enough to worry about. I was just surprised you'd hire somebody like that."

  She shifted her stance and shoved her hands in her pockets. "Yeah. Me, too. His resumé was great, and he gave a good interview. The mayor pushed for me to hire him, and I have been short-handed. But he hadn't been here a month when he started being a jerk. I have to do something about him, I'm just not sure what yet."

  We said our goodbyes with a feeling of nothing at all having been accomplished, and Susan promised to call me about the report for the insurance claim. Then Jack and I got back in the truck, and I decided to go with him out to the swamp to see the boys. I'd called them Jack's "swamp comman
dos" when I'd first met them, and they'd liked the name enough to christen their business Swamp Commando Airboat Rides, which had made me embarrassed and proud at the same time.

  After all, it was a more creative name than Dead End Pawn, but I was too sentimental about it to change the name of the shop I'd practically grown up in.

  Also, the paperwork would be a nightmare.

  Okay, more practical than sentimental, but still.

  Swamp Commando Airboat Rides was, as you might guess, in the swamp. It took about twenty minutes to get to the dock from which the boats took off and returned. We'd called on the way, and Lucky was at the dock waiting for us.

  "Good to see you Tess! Jack, always a pleasure. You want to go out for a spin?"

  I had to shake my head. "I wish, but I have to get back to town to meet the mayor about insurance. Can we take a raincheck?'

  Lucky was a handsome guy who looked like the boy next door every girl's mother wanted her to bring home, but he'd had some real problems when he got back from overseas. He'd gotten some help and some counseling and was doing much better these days.

  He was also dating my best friend Molly, who was currently out of town with her band.

  "Sure. Any time, you know that."

  "Thanks! I'm giving a barbecue tonight. Why don't you and Dallas and Austin come by? Around eight? And my new neighbor is a vampire, but he's a good guy, so give the guys a heads up. I don't want anybody freaking out when they meet him."

  Lucky's gaze snapped to Jack. "Sit Rep?"

  Jack shrugged. "The Situation Report is that I'm not entirely convinced that he's a good guy, but I'm pretty sure at least that he's not a bad guy."

  I tried not to be annoyed that Lucky felt he had to confirm with Jack. It was a soldier-to-soldier thing with them, not a man/woman thing.

  Lucky suddenly started laughing, and he pointed out to his right. "Tess. That gator has been staring at you for the past five minutes. Think he's one of the ones who almost got you at the gator farm? I heard once they get your scent in their noses, they'll hunt you for life."