Blind Dates Can Be Murder (2 page)

Of course, that meant Jo needed to start dating again, something she purposely hadn’t done for six months—and for good reason. But once her girlfriends started getting worked up about Dates&Mates, she reluctantly decided to join them and sign up herself.

Now here she was, surprised at how she was feeling. Up until today, this had been more of a business move than a personal one. So why was she so nervous, like a girl on her first date? She was twenty-seven years old, for goodness’ sake. She’d certainly had her share of dates.

On the other hand, after six months of specifically
not
dating, Jo wasn’t sure if she remembered how to be interesting and engaging. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she knew how to converse about anything at all beyond the topics of her dog, her job, and her friends.

Jo took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She couldn’t believe she was really doing this. She was out on a date for the first time since last September, when she was jilted at the altar by her groom.

Danny couldn’t believe Jo was doing this.

His hands were on a basketball, but his mind was across town, on a blind date with Jo. For months—ever since the groom had taken a powder at Jo’s wedding—Danny had listened to his best friend work through her issues about love and romance and men. For months Danny had heard her talk about her temporary “moratorium on dating” while she attempted to fix what was wrong in her heart that kept leading her to make such stupid choices in men. For months he had loved her in silence, waiting for the moment when she would announce that she was ready to start dating again, so he could tell her that he loved her, that he wanted to spend a lifetime showing her just how much.

He’d had big plans, all right: The minute she was ready, he was going to sweep Jo Tulip off her feet, showing her that the only man in the world for her had been the one who was there all along. He had no doubt that she loved him too—she just needed help understanding what was in her heart.

“Yo! Earth to Danny! We playing or what?”

Danny’s head snapped up to see four other guys poised for action, looking at him expectantly.

“Sorry,” he said, dribbling the ball.

With a vengeance, he made his way down the court, aiming for a layup, his eyes on the rough gray net hanging from the rim. As he went, he pictured himself as he had been last Saturday, when he was working at Dates&Mates as a photographer, taking portraits of their clients for their computer profiles. It was a new photography gig for him, just three hours a week, but lucrative. Jo Tulip had strolled into his makeshift photography studio there precisely at 10:30
AM
, and Danny had smiled, telling her he couldn’t chat for long because he had a 10:30 appointment.

“I know you do, silly,” she replied. “
I’m
your ten thirty appointment.”

Dumbfounded, Danny had gone through the motions of a photography sitting, asking her questions as he did so, trying to ascertain when and how she had come to the decision to sign up with the dating service. A dating service! She talked about her agent, Milton, and her website traffic and the group of girlfriends who had been pressuring her to do it anyway, and all he could think was,
Don’t you know that the only man you’ll ever need is already smack-dab in the middle of your life?

Danny knew he needed to tell Jo how he felt about her, but he had been too shocked and tongue-tied to say anything at that moment. In the week since then he still had not found the nerve or opportunity to say the words.

Why hadn’t he said the words?

Danny leapt up into the air and slammed the ball through the hoop as hard as he could. When he came down, he realized that the staccato squeaks of rubber soles on the hardwood had stopped—and two of the guys were on the floor.

He hesitated.

“Did I do that?” he asked, gesturing toward them.

“Yeah,” his brother-in-law Ray replied in a low voice, pulling him aside. “Come on, bro. Lighten up. This is just a pickup game, not NBA tryouts.”

“Foul,” someone yelled.

Personal foul
, Danny thought as the other team threw the ball back inbounds.
I hope Jo doesn’t encounter any personal fouls tonight
.

If she does, I sure hope she’s playing good defense
.

Jo spotted a squat, older man with a bald head and a bulbous nose waving at her from across the restaurant. At first, she thought he might be waving to someone behind her. But as he made his way toward her, Jo’s heart leapt into her throat. Was this—could it possibly be—her date?

No
way
.

“Jo Tulip, right? Hi, how ya doin’? I knew it was you right off, soon as I came in the door.”

He sat without waiting for her reply, picked up the napkin roll in front of him, and let the silverware clatter out onto the table. Then he tucked the napkin into his shirt, at the neckline, and sucked in a deep, ragged breath.

“Scuse me a sec,” he rasped as he pulled a small yellow device from his pocket. “My asthma’s been acting up all week.”

He stuck the device into his mouth and inhaled deeply. Jo was speechless, her mind racing in a thousand different directions. This was her
match?
This was the man the computer said would be physically, intellectually, and emotionally compatible with her? That was impossible! The guy was twice her age—not to mention half her height. Surely, there must be some mistake.

Closing her mouth, Jo could feel the heat rush to her face, embarrassed at her own reaction. She knew you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

But what a cover!

“Before you say anything,” he told her, tucking away the inhaler and holding up two stubby hands. “I lied about my height on the application. Lied about my age too. But the rest was all true, I swear.”

At that point, Jo swallowed, finding her voice.

“I’m sorry if I seem surprised,” she said, “but I’m only twenty-seven years old. Doesn’t this seem vaguely inappropriate to you?”

“I’m fifty-four,” he replied, shrugging. Then he grinned. “Works for me.”

Lettie positioned herself near the side cash register and waited for the chance to make her move. She usually wrapped things up and slipped out of town on Fridays, and if all went well tonight would be no exception.

Since coming to the Jersey Shore two weeks ago, Lettie had been working three part-time jobs—at a gas station, a beauty parlor, and here at the discount store. Though she had put in hours at all three places, the jobs were merely a front for her
real
work. After tonight, that work would be done and it would be time to move on to somewhere new.

Again.

With a heavy sigh, Lettie pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and watched as a group of college-aged kids came into the store. Though she was only twenty-three herself, watching them giggle and preen made her feel decades older.
Had she ever been that young?

Had she ever been carefree?

Lettie hated working this particular cash register because there was a mirror across the aisle, above the cosmetics display. She didn’t have to look in a mirror to know what she would see there: An unattractive girl in thick glasses, wearing washed out, shapeless clothes and sporting long, stringy bangs that covered half her face. When she was a girl, the other kids would tease her for wearing her hair down in her eyes, but that was the style she preferred. There was something quite comforting about being able to hide behind her hair. If she could, Lettie would spend her life in hiding.

“Hey, guys,” one of the young men called, pausing at a display rack. “I told you they’d have flip-flops here.”

The whole group seemed a little drunk, which might provide a useful distraction for the manager. Sure enough, when they finished choosing flip-flops, they moved on to the toy aisle, where they began fooling around with the rubber ball display. Lettie watched the manager head in their direction, and then she quickly went to work.

It didn’t take long. She reached for the credit card machine, flipped it over, and slipped away the back panel. Reaching inside, she pulled loose the digital skimmer, a tiny, silver disc no bigger than a watch battery. It may have been small, but that disc contained a record of every single credit card transaction that had been run through the machine in the last two weeks. Lettie had put it there herself, and now it was time to take it out and harvest the data.

She slipped the tiny disc into her pocket, replaced the back panel, and flipped the machine over. Done, and no one the wiser.

The twentysomethings were in the snack aisle now, rounding up a cart full of nuts and chips and salsa, and the manager had given up on trying to contain them. Instead, he was walking in Lettie’s direction, his head shiny under a bad comb-over. Self-consciously, she slipped one hand into her pocket and fingered the little disc.

“I hate Friday nights,” he whispered to her, his breath sour with the stench of the coffee he nursed day and night. “Brings out all the freaks at the shore.”

“It’ll be closing time before you know it,” she replied softly in consolation, wishing that was true. She was counting the minutes until she was finished and out of there for good.

“You know, you’re even better looking than I expected,” Brock Dentyne said as he lavishly buttered a roll. “You’re one hot mama.”

“I…uh…thank you,” Jo stammered, unable to form a more intelligent reply. She had received compliments from men before, but no one had ever called her a hot mama, at least not to her face.

“I gotta admit,” he added, “I thought I knew what to expect on account of I seen your little photo in the newspaper. The one they put with your column? But it hardly even looks like you.”