Dying to Read (15 page)

Cate couldn’t believe it when she woke to find she’d actually dozed off right there on the blanket, and Mitch was smiling and tickling her nose with a stalk of grass.

“It’s 4:30,” he said.

Cate jumped up and started looking for her shoes. She noted Mitch wasn’t rushing to get into his. “Hey, we should hurry. The real estate woman might be back from Reedsport by now.”

Mitch crossed his hands behind his head on the blanket. “How about we just forget Lorilyn and stay here a couple more hours before we head home? Maybe get some hot dogs and buns and stay even longer. Have a moonlight weenie roast on the beach.”

Tempting as that idea was, Cate said, “But Lorilyn and Texie are the reason for this trip over here.”

“Not my reason,” Mitch said with a meaningful grin.

“Maybe we can come again sometime. Just for fun.”

“Just tell me when.”

They put their shoes on and gathered up leftover wrappers and cartons from their lunch. Just as Cate was opening the door on the passenger’s side of the SUV, Mitch grabbed her arm and swung her around.

“This has been fun,” he said. “I’m glad you asked me to come along.”

“I’m glad too.”

His arms slipped around her, and she looked up to meet his blue eyes. Wind had tossed his brown hair into ragged peaks, and sand glinted in his eyebrows. A surprisingly appealing combination.

“I’m thinking about kissing you,” he said. But he didn’t do it. He just kept looking at her, apparently undecided.

“You think too much.”

She stretched up on tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth. He grinned and did a much more thorough job of kissing her back. The wind whipped their hair together, and Cate’s heart thumped faster than the incoming surf. And then an old pickup with a load of kids in back bounced down the rutted road and pulled up beside Mitch’s SUV. Cate laughed and backed away from him, but he held on to her hand.

“Cate, I’ve been thinking.”

“You know what I said about thinking.”

“Maybe. But what I’m thinking is, we could really use another person in the Dudes office. How about coming to work for us?”

“Really? Doing what? I use a computer, of course. But I’m no expert.”

“There’s more work than our receptionist can handle. But if you’re interested, you could work into the computer part of it. I could teach you. You could wear jeans or whatever you wanted to work. We’re pretty casual.”

Working for a company that was small but apparently stable. Learning something new. A steady paycheck. Working with Mitch! It all sounded great, until something lurking under the job offer poked out and jabbed her.

“Have you been looking for someone to fill this position?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Has there
been
a position, before about five minutes ago?”

“Lance and I have talked about it.” Mitch’s eyes dodged hers, and he sounded uncomfortable. “And I’ll have to discuss salary and benefits and everything with him. But I’m sure we can come up with a good offer.”

“A pity job. Because you think I’m too incompetent to find a decent job on my own!”

“No! I think you’re sharp and intelligent and capable. It’s just that it’s a tough job market now and—”

“So you’re going to pull a knight-in-shining-armor good deed! So I won’t be standing on a street corner with a sign reading ‘Will do private investigating for food.’ ”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Offering me a job that doesn’t exist is ridiculous!”

“And your chasing over here after a murderer isn’t ridiculous?” he countered. “Cate, I can’t understand why you’re so involved in this. You’re not really a PI—”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’ve always had a dormant PI gene, and it’s just now getting a chance to do something.”

“People don’t have dormant PI genes.” He paused. “Okay, for all I know, maybe they do. And maybe yours is all awake and hot to trot. But this morning, there at the house, I saw someone moving at an upstairs window. I think this woman you’re looking for was up there. She may be a murderer. And dangerous.”

“So why didn’t you tell me you saw her?”

“Because I don’t think you should be involved in this! It . . . concerns me.”

“That’s very sweet, your being concerned and all, but this really isn’t any of your business.”

“It isn’t any of yours either. Your uncle told you to stay out of it! Cate, you’re no PI. You know that as well as I do. Just because you managed to find this woman you were looking for doesn’t mean you’re qualified to investigate
murder
.”

“I have a client—” The statement burst out before Cate thought better of it.

“What client?”

“Client information is confidential.”

She yanked the SUV door open to end the conversation, although the gesture lacked the effectiveness of a decisive slam. It didn’t help that the window was open, and Mitch glared through it.

“Okay, forget it. I just wanted to help. I don’t like the idea of your chasing around looking for murderers.”

“It’s none of your business,” Cate repeated. “I’ll thank you to just . . . butt out.”

He stalked around the SUV to the driver’s side door, slid inside, and slammed the door with enough muscle to rock the vehicle. It was also not a particularly effective gesture, since it merely put them together inside the SUV.

Mitch stared straight ahead. “The real estate office or the house?” he muttered.

“Real estate office.”

They rumbled up the rutted road to the highway. At the real estate office, he pulled to the curb. The closed sign was turned to “open.” Cate did a quick recalculation. If she went in to talk to Lorilyn, the woman would undoubtedly call Texie to warn her someone was looking for her.

“I’ve changed my mind. Let’s go to the house.”

Without further comment, although his hunched shoulders said volumes, Mitch drove back to the blue house.

“Wait here,” Cate commanded. She slammed out, went to the door, and rang the bell. No response. Now what? If she hadn’t been able to feel Mitch’s eyes burning into her back, she might have quietly retreated. Even if Texie was hiding inside, Cate couldn’t just storm the house like some one-woman SWAT team.

But since Mitch was watching her, she wasn’t going to confirm her incompetence at being a PI. She marched around the house to the backyard, where the high hedge enclosed more green grass and a covered patio.

Texie sat in a lounge chair on the patio, a book in her hands. Cate was close enough to see the title.
The Bridges of Madison County
. A sad-ending romance? Not what she’d expect a Whodunit person to be reading, but Texie seemed engrossed in it. No cowgirl gear today. Texie’s feet were bare, and slim white capri pants and a pink tank top emphasized her trim figure. A glass of iced tea sat on the table beside her. And beside the tea . . . Cate’s eyes popped. A gun!

Cate stopped short, but she must have made some giveaway noise. Texie jumped up. Cate saw both fear and recognition on her face, but she couldn’t tell whether Texie recognized Cate as herself or thought she was Willow. A split second later Cate saw her make a snap decision to fake non-recognition. She also stepped in front of the gun, hiding it.

“I’m sorry. Lori isn’t here,” Texie said. “She’s at the real estate office.”

“I’m not looking for Lorilyn. I came to talk to you.”

Texie’s eyes held Cate’s, but her hands edged around behind her back. She was going for the gun!

 12 

Cate dodged behind the only available shelter, an oversized barbecue grill with a metal hood.

Before Cate could say anything, Texie yelled, “Get out of here! You have no right to—”

A crash and clatter—gunshot! The sound blasted through the quiet backyard like an explosion.

Am I hit?

Cate flexed body parts, almost frozen with shock, grabbed her thigh when something bit into it, then realized it was only the rocks still in her pockets. She warily peeked over the top of the grill. Texie just stood there, looking as stunned and shocked as Cate felt. They spotted something at the same time. The gun! It lay on the concrete patio, only a couple of feet from the grill. Cate lunged for it, and they met with a crash of heads. Cate saw spinning stars from the impact, but she managed to snatch the gun first.

She stood with the gun shakily pointed at Texie. Although she didn’t really know what to do with it. Her dad had taught her to shoot a rifle, but she knew nothing about handguns. She wanted to look at it to try to figure it out, but she also didn’t want to take her eyes off Texie.

“You shot at me,” Cate accused, voice as shaky as her hands on the gun.

Texie snapped out of her daze. “I didn’t shoot at you! I accidentally knocked that stupid table over, and the gun went off when it hit the ground. Now give it back to me.” She held out her hand.

Cate realized now that the table was indeed sprawled on its side, but she warily backed away and just stood there, undecided what to do. She didn’t have to contemplate the problem of her ignorance about guns for long. Mitch grabbed the weapon out of her hand and held it as if he definitely knew what to do with it. Cate didn’t remind him she’d told him to wait in the car. She was too glad he was here beside her.

“Okay, what’s going on?” he demanded.

Cate saw now where the bullet had blasted a ragged splinter off the side of one of the wooden posts supporting the patio cover. It had missed her by only a few inches. Shattered glass littered the patio, and iced tea spread an amoebic pattern dotted with ice chips over the concrete. Texie’s book lay on the concrete too.

Texie didn’t apologize about the gun. She held a hand over her eyebrow, apparently the impact point of their collision, and glared at Cate. “What are you doing here? Who told you I was here?” She didn’t wait for an answer, and her voice gathered steam and volume. “It was Doris, wasn’t it? Nosy old blabbermouth Doris! Did she tell Radford too? But I’ll bet she didn’t tell you she had just as much reason to kill Amelia as I did, and maybe
she
pushed her down the stairs!”

Cate tried to assimilate the barrage of questions and information. The first thing that hit her was that Texie was admitting she had reason to kill Amelia, but the next item was more startling. “Doris had some reason to kill Amelia?”

“Of course she did. All the Whodunit women did. Except Doris had the most reason of all. Now give my gun back, please.” She held out a hand to Mitch, the gesture imperious rather than pleading.

“No.”

Texie’s mouth compressed in a frustrated line at the no-compromise tone of Mitch’s one-word response. She looked back at Cate. “So why are you here?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

“What do you mean, all the Whodunit women had reason to kill Amelia? You’re the one she stole Radford from, and from what I hear, you were mad enough to push her off the planet.”

“Blabbermouth Doris told you all about Radford, of course.”

Cate couldn’t deny that. “Why did you call Doris, if you think she’s such a blabbermouth? Especially if you think she may have killed Amelia?”

“Because I needed to find out if they’d arrested Radford yet.” Texie hesitated. “And it wasn’t until I was talking to her that I realized maybe she’d done it herself.”

“So now you’re packing a gun because you’re afraid of Doris?”

“I have a gun because Radford threatened me. And if he’d kill Amelia, he’ll kill me!”

“Why would he kill you?”

“To keep me from going to the police with what I know about him.”

“So go to the police
now.
” Cate took a step forward. “We’ll go with you.”

Texie looked as if she’d prefer to take off and run, but, in bare feet, with a minefield of broken glass around her, she stood rooted to the spot. Her toenails glittered with sparkly pink polish, somehow an incongruous touch for a gun-packer.

“Except maybe you don’t want to go to the police because
you
killed Amelia, and you’re afraid you might incriminate yourself some way if you talk to them,” Mitch suggested, and both women turned to look at him.

Hey, I’m the PI here.
But his accusation made sense.

“I didn’t kill her,” Texie muttered. “Even though I felt like it for a while.”

In an effort to encourage her, Cate suggested, “But not so much after your niece investigated Radford and told you about his past, right? By then, you must have been grateful Amelia had him, not you.”

“It was still a sneaky, underhanded thing to do,” Texie said. Then, apparently realizing that comment didn’t exactly reinforce her claim of innocence, she set the overturned table upright and became very busy picking up shards of shattered glass.

“I’d like to talk to your niece.”

“No. I’m not dragging her into this. She could lose her job.”

“Don’t you want the police to find out who killed Amelia?”

“If it wasn’t you?” Mitch put in.

“Yes, of course I do.” Texie shot Mitch a baleful glance as she stood up, hands full of shattered glass. She set the shards on the table and reluctantly added, “I suppose maybe I should go to the police. Would they give me protection, so Radford couldn’t get to me?”

“I don’t know,” Cate had to admit.

Texie planted her hands on her hips, the lift of her chin defiant even though the gun was in Mitch’s hands. “And if Radford found out I’d gone to the police, and then it turned out they wouldn’t protect me, and he came after me, and I’m lying there dead, it would be a little late to realize I
shouldn’t
have gone to the police, wouldn’t it?”

True.

“Besides, even if I don’t go to the police,” Texie added, “they’re surely investigating Radford already, aren’t they? I mean, isn’t the boyfriend an obvious suspect? They’ll find out about his past too.”

“I don’t think they’re investigating anyone. Amelia had traces of sleeping pills in her system, and they’ve decided it was an accidental fall. No one saw anything.”

“So he’s going to get away with it,” Texie said. She wasn’t mentioning her suspicions of Doris now.

“You could go to the police and keep that from happening.”

“And then Radford finds out I did that, and I’m dead meat.”

They were back to that unpleasant point. “Where is Radford now?” Cate asked.

“Who knows? Maybe he picked up and left the country. Isn’t that what killers do?”

It was also more or less what Texie had done, though she hadn’t managed to cross any borders yet.

“Where does he live?” Cate asked.

“He had an apartment in Shadow Rock Terraces, out on the west side of town. But it wasn’t exactly high-class, and after he got Amelia in his clutches . . .” Texie tilted her head and squinted off into space. “Or maybe it was the other way around, after she got him in her clutches. Whatever. Anyway, he moved. I don’t know where.”

“But why do you say Doris, and all the other Whodunit women too, had reasons to kill Amelia?”

“Money.” Texie nodded meaningfully. “Follow the money. See who lost the most. I lost some too, but not like the rest of them. Especially Doris. Ask about how she and Amelia got into a shouting match at Krystal’s, with Doris yelling that Amelia wasn’t going to get away with it. Doris was mad enough then to push Amelia out of a ten-story building.”

“Get away with what?” Cate asked, but before Texie could answer, if she intended to answer, the sliding glass door from patio to house shot open. A woman, smartly dressed in white slacks and high-heeled sandals, charged outside. Cate assumed she was Lorilyn. Her body stiffened when she saw Mitch with the gun in his hand, but she didn’t panic.

“What’s going on here?” she demanded, less intimidated than Cate would have been in her situation, even though the gun in Mitch’s hand drooped off-target now. Cate remembered Doris saying Lorilyn was into self-defense lessons. Right now, she looked capable of going on a high-heeled offensive. “Texie, are you hurt?”

“No, but—”

Lorilyn stepped forward, broken glass crunching under her sandals. She jabbed a finger at Cate and Mitch. “Get off my property. You’re trespassing and harassing my guest.”

Texie nodded vigorously. “Yes. Asking nosy questions. Harassing! And that’s my gun.”

“Set it on the ground,” Lorilyn commanded Mitch crisply. “And then get off my property.”

Mitch looked momentarily undecided, but he didn’t follow orders about the gun. Lorilyn whipped out a cell phone as if it were also a weapon.

“I’m calling the police.”

“No! Um, wait.” Texie grabbed the other woman’s arm. “I’d rather not—”

“You don’t have to talk to these people. They have no authority to question you.” Lorilyn raked Cate and Mitch with an acid glare. “In fact, who are they?”

“She’s some kind of private investigator,” Texie said. “I don’t know who he is.”

“Well, whoever they are, they’re not welcome here. I told you you’d be safe at my place, and I intend to see that you are safe.”

“We’ll leave the gun around front,” Mitch said.

Cate wanted to ask more questions about the Whodunit women and the money, but Mitch grabbed her arm and marched her around the house. About halfway down the front walkway, he emptied the bullets out of the gun and set the weapon on the grass. He looked at the bullets for a moment, then stuck them in his pocket. Cate glanced back when they reached the end of the walkway. The gun was already gone. Neither Cate nor Mitch said anything until they were back on the highway. Cate fingered the lump that was sprouting like some alien appendage on her head.

“Are you okay?” Mitch asked.

“Texie and I bumped heads when we were trying to get the gun before you got there.”

“We can stop and find a doctor.”

“I’ll be okay. I’m just feeling a little . . . disoriented.” Maybe as much from the startling encounter as from the head collision. “That was . . . odd.”

“Just another day in the life of the private investigator,” Mitch muttered.

Cate didn’t hear actual sarcasm in his tone, but there was a definite suggestion of disapproval. “I suppose you’re going to say I told you so. That it isn’t safe to be tracking down a killer.”

“You don’t think I’d miss a chance like this, do you?”

He didn’t actually say the “I told you so” in words, but Cate felt them hanging like a storm cloud between them. She purposely ignored both cloud and Mitch. She squirmed in the seat until she could reach the beach rocks in her pockets. Out of the water, they weren’t nearly as bright and pretty as they had been. But they were still worth keeping, she decided stubbornly.

“What if I hadn’t come along with you today?” Mitch said.

Cate wasn’t sure what a hackle was, but she felt hers rise. “You’re implying I’d be helpless if I were alone?”

“I didn’t mean that. But you had hold of that gun as if it were a live snake. And you weren’t sure which end was the head.”

Cate gritted her teeth. “Okay, I appreciate your male presence. Very impressive. Thank you. But I don’t think Texie would really have shot me. The gun going off was an accident when it fell.”

“Having a gun within grabbing reach, when all she’s doing is sitting in a backyard, reading? Looks like someone willing to pull the trigger to me. And you might have been hit when the gun fell even if she didn’t deliberately aim at you.”

“And maybe I’d have found out more from her if you hadn’t dragged me away!”

He apparently decided to ignore that. “So what do you think now?” he asked. “Is Texie hiding out solely because she’s afraid of Radford, or because she’s guilty herself?”

“I think she’s mostly afraid of Radford. But it might be in a different way than she told us,” Cate added slowly as a new thought surfaced.