Hooking for Trouble Read online

  By then, the hour was up, and everyone began to pack up their work. I went up to Eduardo as he was gathering up the bear he’d almost finished. Close up, I could see that he had some crinkles beginning to show around his eyes, but he was still an incredibly good-looking man. And he didn’t have the ego to go with it. “Maybe you can answer a question for me,” I said, standing next to him. He stopped what he was doing and gave me his full attention.

  “If it’s about doing another meeting with the romance writers—I forgot how uncomfortable those leather pants are. I’ll only do it if I can show up in jeans.”

  I laughed and said I’d make a note of it. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk you about,” I said. “Since you own a drugstore now, you probably know about all the stuff you sell.”

  “Drugstore,” he said with distaste. “Please, Molly, it is so much more than that.” He took a moment to describe the old-fashioned ice-cream parlor, the assortment of nostalgic candies and the luxurious cosmetics and grooming supplies.

  “But you sell drugs, too, right?” I said.

  “Of course.”

  I didn’t want to go into a long explanation of what I’d seen, so I just got right to the point. “Why would someone have a bunch of bottles of children’s allergy medicine?”

  “Oh,” he said. “I think they call it mother’s helper. Our pharmacist absolutely doesn’t recommend this, but there are people who use it for one of its side effects—it makes children sleepy.” Eduardo finished putting his crochet tools in his bag. He waited to see if there was anything else, then grabbed his bag and wished me a pleasant evening.

  “What was that about?” Dinah asked, coming in at the tail end of the conversation.

  “It was something I remembered seeing when Ursula was packing up Jennifer’s things.” I started to explain who Ursula was, but Dinah assured me she remembered.

  “You don’t hear about a lot of Ursulas,” she said with a smile. She waited for me to continue, and I mentioned the bottles of allergy medicine that seemed to be in Jennifer’s suitcase.

  “It was almost like she was hiding them,” I said.

  “Not almost—I bet she was. She probably gave it to the kids to knock them out and didn’t want Cheyenne and Garrett to know about it.” Dinah began to load up her tote bag. “Not to change the subject, except that I am,” Dinah said with a laugh. “I don’t know how you did it, but after our tea break, I was okay with picking out the invitations. I could see Commander was really happy about it.” She dropped her plastic container of hooks into the colorful reusable grocery bag she used for a tote. “Now I just have to buy a dress.” She glanced up at me. “You’ll come with me, won’t you? Maybe you can work the same magic again.”

  “Of course I’ll come,” I said.

  “We can go back to talking about the Case of the Disappearing Body now,” she said. “Anything else on your mind?”

  “I was thinking about calling Jennifer again. Maybe with my vast investigative powers I can figure out a way to get the truth,” I said with a grin.

  Dinah sat back down and waited while I took out my cell phone. The number was still on the phone from the previous call, and all I had to do was click on it. “Who needs a memory anymore?” I joked.

  “Or to know how to spell? Take away spell-check and presumptive typing and my students probably couldn’t write a single correct sentence,” Dinah said.

  I put my phone on speaker, and it began to ring. The ringing seemed to go on a long time, and I was just about to hit the red button to end the call when the voice mail greeting came on. I noticed the message was different this time, with Jennifer explaining she was tied up with the care of her mother and saying she would return calls as soon as she could. Then there was the usual beep to indicate it was time to leave a message.

  “Hi, Jennifer,” I said in a friendly voice. “It’s your replacement at the Mackenzies’ again. I wanted to check in with you about your things. I packed all your personal items. Would you like me to send them to you?” I asked before adding my number. Then I did hit the red button, ending the call.

  “Thank heavens my phone’s outgoing calls just say private caller,” I said as I put the phone away.

  “I get what you were doing,” Dinah said. “If she wants the stuff sent to her, she’ll have to give an address.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for, but let’s see how she answers—or if she answers.”

  I saw Commander standing in the front of the bookstore waiting for Dinah, and I urged her to go.

  The yarn department seemed very quiet with everybody gone. I began to clean up, returning the yarn and embellishments to the bin. There were still stray fibers on the table, and I used a piece of paper to gather them up. I chuckled to myself as I put the paper and all the fibers in one of the plastic bags from the detective kit. “More evidence,” I said out loud. It would be fun to look at them with the magnifying glass.

  I was looking forward to a quiet evening alone. Mason had something with a client. My mother and the other She La Las were taking a night off from rehearsing. They’d all gone out to a club and taken Samuel with them. My mother had tried to get me to join them, but I’d turned her down. It was hard having a mother who was more lively than I was.

  I let out a sigh of relief as I pulled the greenmobile into my driveway. I never bothered parking in the garage. The floodlights were on, and I realized Samuel must have turned them on before he left. As I passed the end of the garage, I glanced up at the two burned-out lights. I didn’t even consider dragging a ladder out in the dark, as these lights were so much higher than the others I’d taken care of. I’d have to go all the way to the top step on the eight-foot ladder to reach them. I wasn’t up for that in the daylight, let alone in the dark.

  My greeting committee was waiting inside the back door. Felix and Cosmo danced around my feet as I came in, and the cats walked between my legs. Even Blondie had come out of her solitude, though her greeting amounted to her sitting and looking up at me. Felix and Cosmo heard something before I did and took off, barking, toward my front door. “Are you really a terrier mix?” I said to the strawberry blond dog as she got up leisurely. I followed her out of the kitchen and watched her head across the house, no doubt on her way to her chair in my bedroom.

  I startled as my front door swung open and two people walked in.

  “Oh,” Barry said, stopping suddenly as he saw me. Jeffrey was right behind him and actually jumped. “I’m sorry if we frightened you. We rang the bell,” he said. “But when no one answered, we used the key.” He held it up as if to show proof. It was the key I’d given him when we were together. He’d given it to Jeffrey when we broke up.

  “I just came in the kitchen door.” I looked down and realized I was still carrying my purse and tote bag. “It looks like we surprised each other.” As soon as Cosmo and Felix realized who had come in, they started dancing around, looking for affection.

  Jeffrey went into the kitchen, with Felix and Cosmo in close pursuit. Barry seemed a little ill at ease as we stood in the entrance hall. “I’m sorry it’s so late. Jeffrey wants to come by more often, and as I told you before, I’m trying to make it a father-son activity. This was the earliest I could do it.” I heard the kitchen door open and Jeffrey invite Felix and Cosmo into the yard to play fetch. I noticed that Barry was holding a grocery bag.

  “Do you want to put that somewhere?” I asked, and he gave me a tired nod. He went on ahead into the kitchen and began to unload cans of dog food in my pantry. Meanwhile, I set my things down and finally took off my jacket.

  I hesitated as to what to do. They didn’t need me for the dog care, and it was supposed to be a father-son thing. But I noticed that Barry wasn’t going outside to join the game of fetch.

  I went into the kitchen to see what I could find for dinner. It seemed rude to start cooking something without inviting them
to join me. “I was going to throw something together for dinner. Nothing fancy. Do you and Jeffrey want to join me?” I looked up at his face. He had his cop expression on, which was hard to read. I thought he was going to decline, but then the benign expression eased into a grateful smile.

  “Yes. Whatever it is, it will be better than the burgers we were going to pick up after this.”

  “Haven’t you heard of vegetables and fruit?” I said.

  “Yes, I was going to get one of those salads they have now.”

  “Don’t get me started on that.” I shuddered thinking of the iceberg lettuce with some red cabbage and the sprinkling of carrot shreds that fast-food places called salad. It was probably soaked in so many preservatives that it would still be green and crisp when we were dead and gone.

  Between Samuel bringing over some of his musician friends and the She La Las being at my place all week, my refrigerator was picked pretty clean. I took out a carton of eggs and searched through the vegetable drawer. I had some cook-in-the-bag asparagus, a few green onions, and half a box of mushrooms. I found a few slices of Muenster cheese and some ghee. Barry looked at the jar of hard yellow stuff. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s like clarified butter and used a lot in Indian cooking. It’s great with eggs.”

  Jeffrey came in after a few minutes and stopped in the kitchen to see what was going on. “Molly invited us to eat with her,” Barry said.

  The relief was apparent in Jeffrey’s face. “Thank you,” he said, giving me a hug. “He thinks it’s okay to eat burgers all the time.”

  Jeffrey went into the den with the two dogs, carrying their brush. “It’s nice how he includes Felix,” I said. I had such a soft spot for that kid.

  “The least I can do is help,” Barry said. “Just tell me what to do.” I handed him some place mats and silverware, along with napkins, and suggested he set the table. He obediently went into the dining room with the load.

  “What should I do with this?” he said a moment later, with a little edge to his voice. I went in to see what he was talking about and found him looking down at the detective set. I’d forgotten that I’d left the box open. I closed it and stowed it on a shelf, then gestured toward the clear table. I went back into the kitchen, wondering if I’d made a mistake by inviting them to stay.

  I’d cooked the asparagus in the microwave and cut up the green onions and mushrooms by the time he came back in the kitchen. “Anything else?” he asked, glancing around. I suggested he have a seat at the table, but he hung around in the kitchen, watching as I swirled some ghee in a pan and added the green onions and mushrooms. I sprinkled in a little seasoning and stirred everything until the mushrooms were soft before adding the asparagus. I set the pan aside and took out my favorite pan for making omelets. It was enamel-coated cast iron and made it easy to turn out a perfect one.

  There was probably a way to make all three at once, but I didn’t know it. I stuck to what I always did—make them separately. As the eggs began to set, I dropped on small pieces of cheese, moving the still-liquid egg off the top and pushing it to the side of the pan with a spatula so it would cook. The smell was delicious. After a few minutes of dead air, Barry finally said, “So what’s going on with you?” The silence had made him uncomfortable and he was trying to make conversation.

  I automatically looked toward the two big windows at the back of the kitchen. I could see the lights on at Cheyenne’s through the filter of a tree. I considered bringing up the chaise cushion. I had never mentioned finding the blood residue beneath it. Maybe I should tell him now. But I didn’t speak my thoughts, and the only sound was still just the sizzling of the ghee as it cooked the eggs.

  The silence really seemed to be getting to him, which I found amusing, since I knew it was a technique he used at work to get people to talk.

  Ever the detective, Barry had picked up where I was looking. I could practically feel the tension building inside him.

  “Okay, whatever you’re thinking about, just say it,” he said at last.

  “If you really want to know, I was thinking about the chaise cushion back there. You do remember it?” I asked.

  His shoulders slumped slightly. “Yes, I remember it well.”

  “I’m just curious. Did you look under it that night?”

  “No,” he answered, beginning to appear uncomfortable.

  “You saw the detective set in there before, right?”

  He answered with just an uh-huh. I pushed on and mentioned the spray bottle of Blood Detector. This time he let out a worried groan.

  “Well,” I said, “I did look under the cushion that night and spray the area with Blood Detector, and you know what happened?” I deliberately paused to build up the tension. “It lit up with a blue glow. So, if there was blood below the cushion, it probably got on the underside of it, too.” I hoped he would pick up on it from there, but he didn’t.

  Barry started to shake his head with disbelief. “Molly, you went back in that yard that night, didn’t you? I can’t believe you actually did that.”

  I had continued to cook during our back and forth. I slipped the finished omelet onto one of the stack of plates I had next to the stovetop, poured some of the cooked vegetables over it, and rolled the cooked egg over the mixture. I added some orange slices for garnish. “Why don’t you put this on the table and call Jeffrey.”

  He carried the plate into the dining room and got his son. By the time he returned I was working on the next omelet. His head seemed to be stuck on disapproving-shake mode. “I can’t get over the fact that you went back there.”

  “Well, get past it. I did it. It’s over,” I said impatiently. “I’m just telling you there was blood spatter on the ground.”

  At least he’d stopped shaking his head. “And you’re basing that on something that came in a kids’ detective set? Molly, it’s probably just glow-in-the-dark paint. It’s a kids’ kit, for heaven’s sake.”

  “It is not glow-in-the-dark paint. I’m telling you, I saw a body there. And I think it was the nanny.”

  “You do remember that I spoke to her, right? She was the one who answered the door. She had long blond hair and was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with a hood.”

  “What did her voice sound like?” I asked. I was careful not to give a hint about the voice I’d heard on the phone.

  He took a moment to think. “She had a little bit of a Southern accent.”

  “Well, did you ask for her ID?”

  “Now you’re getting crazy. Of course not. She let us look around and everything was okay. She explained that the kids had thrown the cushion off the balcony and she’d forgotten to pick it up.”

  “Did you talk to the kids?”

  “No. They were sound asleep in their beds. She was the nanny—case closed.”

  The second omelet was done, and I handed him the plate and told him to go and sit down.

  “I’m sorry,” Barry said a few minutes later when I walked in, carrying my plate. “I seem to be saying that a lot lately, but I mean it.” Our eyes met, and the flicker of heat that came off his was so intense, it made me almost weak in the knees. He must have realized how much his emotions were showing, because he quickly glanced away before he continued. “I’m just trying to keep you out of trouble, to protect you. You do remember what I said about not wanting to have to bail you out if you got arrested for being a stalker, right? And you said you were going to let it go.” Our eyes met again, and he was back to being the in-control detective. “Truce?”

  “Okay, truce,” I said, setting down my plate as he reached over and pulled out my chair.

  Even though they’d already gotten their food, they had waited for me to start eating. Now that we’d agreed not to fight, the mood had lightened. We all began eating the omelets together, and Jeffrey started to talk about the play he was in.

 
I heard my cell phone begin to ring in my purse. I was sure it was Jennifer calling back. As much as I wanted to hear what she had to say, I didn’t want to hear it with Barry around.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Barry said.

  “No. I’m sure it’s nothing important.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Coffee first,” Dinah said when I came to her door the next morning. She had called earlier and suggested we shop for her dress today since we both had the time off. I think she wanted to ride the momentum she’d gotten from picking out the invitations.

  I started to walk into her house, but she waved me off. “All I have here is the plain-brewed stuff. Let’s go somewhere where they have espresso drinks.” I looked askance at my friend.

  “Are you sure you’re not trying to stall our shopping?”

  She shook her head so vehemently that the gelled spikes in her short salt-and-pepper hair began to shake. She stopped her head movements abruptly. “Well, maybe just a little.”

  “We’ll ease into it,” I said, waiting while she locked her front door. Her house was conveniently located around the corner from the bookstore, as well as all the shops and restaurants on Ventura Boulevard. I suggested the café at the bookstore, but then realized it was a bad idea. If I was in there, it was all too easy for someone to snag me into helping in the yarn department, and the next thing I knew, our shopping time would be over.

  Le Grande Fromage was further down the street and seemed to be a better option. So far I hadn’t mentioned Barry’s visit, but when we were seated with our drinks, I fessed up.

  “I don’t care what he says about controlling his feelings and accepting that the two of you are done; he still has something going on,” Dinah said.

  I glossed over her comment and mentioned we’d had a fuss and how when it seemed to have calmed down my cell phone rang.

  “Who was it?” she asked.

  “I was sure it was Jennifer calling back, and I didn’t want to talk to her with Barry around. Even if I went in the other room, he might have heard a snippet of conversation and start asking questions. When I checked later, I saw that I was right. She left a message. Nothing more than that she was returning the call. But by then it was too late to call back.” I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the called numbers. When I got to Jennifer’s, I hit the icon, and it began to ring. No surprise—I got voice mail.