Calamity Jena (Invertary Book 4) (2 page)

“Those movies are based on historical fact. They have to research them and stuff.”

“They’re also based in America. You’re in Scotland. Even if they were real, we don’t let you claim asylum in churches over here. Come on, it’s time to leave. The Weight Watchers group meet in half an hour and they like to use the toilet before the weigh-in. They won’t be happy to find the door locked.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “How would you know something like that?”

“I have a mother and two younger sisters. I know everything there is to know about needless weight loss and insane diets. Now, let’s get out of here.”

She grabbed his arm. “I can’t leave. I…” She looked around, maybe hoping that an excuse would present itself. At last her shoulders slumped and she seemed resigned. “There’s someone in town looking for me and I need to hide. Or run.” A thought occurred to her. Her eyes went wide. “Wait a minute. Are you going to arrest me? Did he send you in here to take me to the big house?” Her brow scrunched. “No, that can’t be it. He wouldn’t send in the cops.” Her face went white. “Those have to be Rizzoni’s men he’s got with him. There can only be one reason he brought mob lackeys to Scotland.” She took a deep breath. “He’s going to kill me. I claim asylum.”

With a screech, she ran into a toilet stall and locked the door.

Jena slammed the toilet lid down and sat on it. She was going to die. She knew it. Why else would Frank come all the way to Scotland? It wasn’t as though he loved to travel. He thought New York was too far to visit, and that was only a two-hour drive from Atlantic City.

“Jena.” Matt sounded like he was gritting his teeth.

Jena felt instantly guilty. It wasn’t his fault she’d brought all this trouble to town. He was doing the best he could, but a small-town cop in the Scottish Highlands wasn’t equipped to deal with the Atlantic City mob.

“Tell me what’s going on right now.” His commanding tone sent shivers down her spine. Still, she didn’t answer.

“Jena? Why did you think I was going to arrest you? Why do you think Frank wants to kill you?”

Jena chewed down on her thumbnail before stopping when she remembered she would never be able to afford another manicure.

Matt sucked in an irritated breath. “I’m ten seconds away from ripping that door off its hinges, dragging you to the station and putting you and Frank Di Marco in a room until someone tells me what’s going on.”

Nausea assaulted her at his words. At least she was in the right place if she wanted to vomit.

“Jena. Talk. Now. Why do you think your fiancé is going to harm you?”

She sat up straight. “Fiancé? What fiancé?”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Frank Di Marco.”

Jena shot to her feet and pointed at the door. “He is not my fiancé. He’s a cheating man-whore, that’s what he is. He’s never even proposed. Not that I would have accepted. But there has to be a proposal for there to be a fiancé.”

“Okay, so he isn’t your fiancé. Why would he say he is?”

“Insanity?” She was pretty sure that was the underlying reason for everything Frank did.

“Tell me what’s going on or I can’t help you.” A vision of Officer Donaldson’s deep blue eyes looking all earnest and stern flashed in her mind. She wavered.

“Can you have him kicked out of town? Maybe deported?” She tried not to sound too hopeful.

“Possibly. If I know the truth.”

Jena bit her bottom lip as she shuffled foot to foot.

“It will be okay.” The cop’s soothing brogue almost undid her. “Tell me what the problem is. Trust me, Jena.”

Jena felt herself cave. She took a shaky breath, grateful she was telling her stupid story from behind a door where she couldn’t see the judgment in his eyes. “Frank and I lived together for a while. He cheated on me with a series of strippers. I’m pretty sure they were all called Candy.” She couldn’t keep the snide tone out of her words, which made her feel ashamed. She was better than that. She was better than Frank Di Marco. “Anyway, when I found out about the strippers, I lost the plot a little. I kicked Frank out of the house, sold everything we owned and used the money to move here.”

She took a deep breath while waiting for his reaction.

“Okay, so far I’m not hearing anything that has me worried. I don’t see why the man would come all this way to get revenge over you selling his stuff.”

She bit her bottom lip. “I also sold his perfectly restored 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle. He loved that car more than anything. Definitely more than me.”

There was a pause. “You sold the man’s classic car?”

Jena frowned at the door. “Should I have hit it with a baseball bat and set fire to the seats instead?”

“Point made. Carry on.”

Jena rolled her eyes. Men and their cars. “That’s all there is to tell. Once everything was gone, I surfed the net looking for a new place to live. I remembered my mom talking about Invertary—she’s a huge Josh McInnes fan and gives me updates on what he’s doing. Next thing I knew, I was looking at the town website. Then the town’s real estate site. After drowning my sorrow in a bottle of tequila, I bought a house.” She paused. “And here I am.”

There was silence for a minute. If it wasn’t for the sound of his breathing, she would have thought he’d left her.

“Let me get this right. You sold everything the guy owned, without his knowledge, and bought a house in Scotland with the proceeds?”

She felt her cheeks burn. “I had a holiday in Paris too. But bear in mind that he isn’t really a guy. He’s a scum-sucking man-whore.”

For a moment she heard nothing, and then deep laughter echoed throughout the room.

“Remind me never to piss you off,” the cop said between gasps.

Jena frowned at the closed door, wondering what the correct response was to that statement.

“Am I going to be arrested for selling his stuff?” It had been worrying her.

“You didn’t do it in Scotland, Jena.”

“Will they extradite me?”

The cop started laughing again. “I only talked to Frank for a couple of minutes, but I figure the cops in Atlantic City will give you a standing ovation rather than charge you with theft. I don’t know much about American law, but in Scotland if you live with someone for a couple of years you’re considered to be in a common-law marriage and your property is shared. Over here the stuff you sold would have legally belonged to you too.”

“I did put a lot of money into our relationship. I kept us afloat for years while Frank tried to make it big.”

“Well, there you go, then. Can you come out of the toilet now?”

“I can’t leave here, Matt. Frank must be here for revenge. He’ll want his money back. Along with his car. And I don’t have either.”

“Come out of the toilet, Jena. I’ll deal with Frank.”

She cracked the door open and peered up at him. Instead of the usual disapproval, his eyes were sparkling with amusement. It wasn’t an improvement.

“Let’s get you home,” he said.

She shook her head. “He has to know where I live. I can’t go back there.”

“Are you afraid he’ll hurt you?” His features turned to stone. “Has he ever hurt you?”

“No.” He didn’t look convinced. “No, he’s never lifted his hand to me.”

“Then why are you afraid? Why not just talk to the man?”

“Didn’t you hear me in there?” She gestured to the toilet stall where she’d spilled her guts to him. “He’s here with Vince Rizzoni’s boys.”

Matt held up his hands in exasperation. “So?”

“They’re the mob. Frank got into bed with the guy about a year ago—along with every other skanky woman in stilettos on the East Coast.”

His huge hands clasped her shoulders. “Focus, Jena.”

For a few seconds she was too mesmerised by his perfectly squared jaw and deep-set eyes to focus on anything other than the man in front of her.

“You were telling me about Frank and the mob,” he prompted.

Jena felt herself blush. “Yeah, he started hanging with Vince’s men. He changed. Became harder, more cagey. He kept secrets, other than the women. I didn’t like the men who started to visit. Some of them scared me.”

“Those guys here today, were they the ones visiting?”

She shook her head. “Other guys. Rougher. I felt like I didn’t know Frank anymore. I was worried and he wouldn’t listen to me. He’d get angry. Real angry. I would like to think he isn’t capable of harming me, but he changed, and I don’t know for sure what he’s capable of now.”

Matt let out a heavy sigh. “Okay. There’s no need to worry. You aren’t in America anymore. The mob doesn’t have a lot of pull here. I’ll deal with Frank and find out what he wants.”

“I think it’s best if I stay here until you have a chat with him.”

“You can’t hide in here.”

Jena disagreed. She wasn’t proud. She could definitely hide. Hiding was exactly what she needed to do. She took a step back into the toilet stall and slammed the door shut.

“Thank you for helping me. I really appreciate it, and I hate being rude like this, but I think it’s best if I stay here until you sort out Frank.”

“Jena.” Matt’s tone was a threat.

Jena swallowed hard as she put her earbuds back in place. She’d do something nice for the cop later as a thank you. Something that didn’t involve money, as she had none. She’d bake him cookies but she couldn’t cook. Maybe she’d teach him to dance? Everybody could use some dancing skills. Yeah, that was a great idea.

She sat on the toilet lid, tuned out Matt’s shouting and let Taylor Swift’s voice calm her racing heart.

2

After informing a disgruntled vicar that he had a temporary resident in the ladies’ loo, Matt headed down the high street towards the town’s only pub and hotel. If the wannabe Sopranos weren’t staying there, he’d eat his hat.

“Hey,” Josh McInnes called as Matt entered the restaurant area. “We thought you weren’t going to make it. We already ordered.”

“I’m not here for breakfast, guys. I’m dealing with another Jena Morgan mess.”

The men grinned.

“Who did she date this time? Is the poor guy still alive?” Josh said. “Dougal, get the board. Jena’s at it again.”

There was a murmur of delight amongst the breakfast crowd as a grinning Dougal flipped the smaller of the two chalk menu boards over. The pub owner rubbed out the name of the last guy Jena dated and poised ready with his chalk for the next.

“Who’s the latest victim?” he said.

“I don’t care who it is,” one of the old guys at the bar said. “I’ll take ten to one on a concussion. We haven’t had one of those for a while. We’re about due.”

“Concussion it is.” Dougal marked the board.

Matt took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair and frowned. “You do realise you’re running an illegal betting pool right in front of a cop?”

Dougal grinned, making him look even more like Father Christmas than usual. “You’ll be wanting to place your usual bet on a broken leg, then?”

“Not this time.” Matt let out a sigh. “This latest mess isn’t about her love life. I’m looking for some American guys. They’re in town asking after Jena. She ran away from them and claimed sanctuary in the church.”

There was a disbelieving pause before the room was filled with laughter. Dougal flipped the board back over after promising the old guy he could still bet on the next of Jena’s victims getting concussion.

“You look stressed. Tell Uncle Joshy all about it.” Josh patted the empty bench beside him. “You might as well eat now you’re here.”

Matt shrugged. Jena wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, she didn’t want to go anywhere. Suddenly, he didn’t feel such an urgent need to sort out her latest mess. He plopped into the seat beside Josh.

“For the record,” he told the American singer, “that whole Uncle Joshy thing is seriously creepy.”

“Told you.” Mitch pointed at his friend.

Lake Benson, the retired English soldier, poured a mug of coffee and handed it to Matt. That was what Matt appreciated most about Lake—he was a man of action, not chit-chat.

“So, what’s the story?” Josh was bouncing around on the seat beside him, reminding Matt of an overgrown puppy. A really annoying puppy. “Is Jena on the run from the law? She killed someone she was dating in the States, didn’t she? But then, that would only be manslaughter. Do they extradite for manslaughter?”

The men gaped at the hyper singer for a minute before Mitch confiscated Josh’s coffee mug. “That’s it. We’re cutting off your caffeine.”

“Hey, not fair. I'm sleep deprived.”

Mitch rolled his eyes. “Last I heard it was Caroline getting up through the night to deal with the baby, not you.”

“Yeah, but she disturbs my sleep when she gets up.”

Lake laughed. “I'm telling her you said that.”

Josh grimaced. “Don't even think about it. What happens in the breakfast club stays in the breakfast club.”