Dead Eye (A Tiger's Eye Mystery Book 1) (19 page)

“Show me, already,” Molly said from outside the door. “I know this is the one.”

“I don’t wear red,” I repeated with no conviction, over the music blaring through the loudspeakers. I wasn’t sure that a song about thrift shops tied in with the overpriced store’s marketing plan, but what did I know?

The overly cheerful saleslady chimed in. “You know, no red on redheads is just an old myth. Red looks spectacular on some redheads, like you, for example. You should totally get this dress.”

If she hadn’t said I should “totally” get each one of the five dresses I’d tried on before, she might have had more credibility. On the other hand, I did look spectacular. I looked badass—like somebody who could fight crime, seduce hot guys, and become an international jewel thief in her spare time.

“I’m getting it. I deserve this dress.”

I could hear Molly and the saleslady high-fiving each other, which was pretty understandable, because one of them got the commission and the other one had been patiently finding me dresses to try on for the past two hours. We’d been up and down the mall from one end to the other before finding this dress in the last shop I’d been willing to enter. Because, naturally, that’s how it always worked.

I looked at the price tag and tried not to fall over. I hadn’t spent that much on a dress since my prom, and look how well
that
had turned out. Suddenly feeling reluctant to make such a big investment in such a small piece of fabric, I changed back into my jeans and sweater and hung the dress carefully on its hanger.

When I opened the fitting room door, Molly saw the look on my face and didn’t even bother to listen. She snatched the dress out of my hands and handed it to the waiting saleswoman.

“She’ll take it,” my best friend said decisively. Then she turned to me and grabbed my purse out of my hand before I could protest. Walking up to the counter, she pulled my credit card out of my wallet and handed it over.

All I could do was follow. “This feels like some kind of credit card fraud,” I pointed out.

The saleslady gave Molly a pained smile. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

I looked at the silky red fabric on the counter, and I weakened. I really did look spectacular in it. “Okay, okay. I’ll take it. I’ll eat Ramen noodles for a month to make up the price or something.”

“Maybe you’ll finally sell that nightmare catcher,” Molly said, always the eternal optimist. “We should get cheesecake.”

One of the reasons it was sometimes hard to be Molly’s friend was that her metabolism burned up every calorie that ever went into her mouth within about thirty seconds. She was always fidgeting, constantly in motion, and she had a sweet tooth like I’d never seen before, but never gained a pound. If I ate half the food that Molly did, even though I was several inches taller than her, I’d gain a hundred pounds in a week.

I glared at her. “Don’t make me buy the tiniest dress I’ve ever owned and then expect me to eat cheesecake. I’ll never fit into it again.”

“We need to start running. I want to sign us up for another 5K race,” Molly said.

The saleslady, who was long and lean and looked like an athlete herself—which was just annoying—perked up. “Oh, there are so many races around here to choose from. I’m going to do the Walt Disney Marathon next year, I think. Which races are your favorites?”

Molly blinked, probably startled at being called on her BS.

I smiled at the saleslady. “We don’t actually run. We just talk about it. Did you read that study that says thinking about exercise is almost as good as actually exercising? We really, really believe in that study.”

I signed the receipt, only gulping a little bit, took my beautifully wrapped package, and we left the store, leaving the saleslady still looking perplexed behind us.

“Good one,” Molly said. “She was annoying me. When she told you that ugly orange thing was ‘totally’ the right dress for you, I wanted to punch her.”

“No more punching, remember? You don’t want to have to go to anger management classes with Dice next time.” Guitars were not the only things in danger when Dice was feeling particularly brokenhearted. The heads of drunk guys who’d hit on her had been targets before. Molly said she’d seen her bass player hand out more than a little trust fund money to placate men with injured heads and wounded egos.

We got Molly her cheesecake to go, and I gave in and got a piece too. Banana cream, because who can resist banana cream cheesecake? On the way to the car, Molly patted my arm.

“I really am sorry about Owen. I know you really liked him. I’m not going to add insult to injury by saying I never thought he was right for you—”

“Actually, you just did,” I said, rolling my eyes and unlocking my car.

She gave me her “don’t interrupt me, I’m making a point here” look. “But he was very nice, and he liked you, and I don’t think you’d ever have to worry about him turning out to be a rat bastard.”

We put our packages in the backseat. In addition to the dress, I’d picked up vanilla spice bath gel, a pair of flats, a bright blue cardigan that matched my eyes, and a pair of silver earrings. Molly had picked up three pairs of jeans, a bag full of lacy underwear, new gloves, and a pair of boots.

“I really should have thought this through more when I was choosing a best friend,” I said, sliding into the driver seat. “If I’d gotten one with the same shoe size, I could’ve borrowed all her new boots.”

“Coulda, shoulda, woulda,” Molly sang out. “Don’t even get me started on the length of your unborrowable pants legs.”

“Unborrowable isn’t actually a word,” I pointed out, backing out of the parking space.

“Yeah, well, is
bite me
a word?”

“That’s two words.”

We both started laughing, but she turned serious before I was even back on the highway.

“Tess, I hate to spoil our wonderful day, but I’m worried about all of this. I hate that you got hurt, and I hate the danger you’re in. I keep worrying that if somebody is out there dumping bodies at the shop, it’s only a short step to killing people
inside
the shop.”

I sighed. “Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? It worries me too. But I can’t run away. I can’t close the shop and hide in my basement for the rest of my life. Besides, Jack—”

“Jack is somebody we don’t know at all. He’s been off doing mysterious and awful and dangerous things for the past ten years. He was a soldier, Tess. We know what happens to them these days. We went to school with guys who’ve come back from fighting in the Middle East, and now they live out in the swamp, communing with nature, suffering from PTSD, and breaking into violent rages sometimes. Is it possible that Jack is like them?”

She was my best friend, and the last person in the world I would ever try to lie to, so I said nothing, but we both knew that saying nothing was an answer all by itself. We drove along in silence for a while, each thinking our separate thoughts, before I figured out exactly how to answer her.

“I know that he’s dangerous, Molly. But I also know that he’s not dangerous to me. It doesn’t make sense, and I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s true. We need to find out what happened to Jeremiah so that Jack can figure out what he’s doing next. I don’t know if he’ll even stay in Dead End. But if he’s going to—if he ever hopes to make a home here—he can’t see the ghost of Jeremiah’s unavenged murder around every corner in his house and in the shop.”

Molly was silent for a little while, but finally she nodded. “That makes sense to me, Tess. And I think you feel the same way about Jeremiah’s ghost. But you have to promise me that you’ll reach out for help the first second you feel like you’re in danger—whether from Jack, or from anybody else. I can’t lose you.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” I promised, and then I laughed. “Without me, you’d have to promote Dice to best friend, and you’d wind up beating her over the head with her own guitar. I consider it my civic duty to keep you out of orange jumpsuits.”

She gave me a side-eye. “Just so you know, I understand that you’re deflecting this serious conversation with humor, but I’m going to let you get away with it, because it’s a beautiful day out, and I’m in a good mood.”

With that, she turned on the radio and started singing along.

“Can I sing too?”

She shuddered. “Not a chance. Nobody’s mood is
that
good.”

She had a point, but it was still just a little bit hurtful.

*

My phone rang
just as I was parking the car next to Molly’s in my driveway.

“Watch out for my mirror,” she shouted.

I slammed on the brakes.

Molly looked out her window at her car and then back at me, her eyes wide. “I don’t understand how you do it. There’s nobody else in the driveway. You could’ve parked with ten feet between our cars, and instead you manage to be so close that I have to climb over to the back seat to get out of here.”

“It’s a gift,” I said dryly, fumbling for my phone. It was Jack.

“Hey, Jack, what’s up?”

“Are you at home now?” His voice was grimmer than I’d ever heard it. “I need to know that you’re safe, Tess. Tell me where you are right now.”

I put the phone on speaker. “Molly’s here, Jack. We just pulled up to the house. What’s wrong?”

“Other than your parking skills,” Molly muttered.

I glared at her, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

“What’s wrong is that I went downtown to talk to the sheriff, to find out if they’d made any progress on Jeremiah’s case. I thought I’d ask him about the gun while I was at it, but I couldn’t get anywhere near the police station. It’s chaos down here.”

Molly quit smiling and started to look worried. “What do you mean, it’s chaos? What’s going on?”

“It’s Gator,” he said.

“Did you talk to him? What did he say? Do you think he had anything to do with Chantal?” The questions kept tumbling out of my mouth, but the tone of Jack’s voice was freaking me out, and I babble when I’m stressed.

“Tess.”

“Did he—”

“
Tess.
Stop. No, I didn’t talk to Gator. Nobody’s ever going to talk to Gator again. His head exploded.”

I watched the color drain out of Molly’s face and knew that mine was turning just as pale. “Jack, we must have a bad connection. I thought you said that Gator’s head exploded.”

We could hear shouting and alarm bells in the background, and the noise was like an exclamation point to the finality in Jack’s voice. “No, we don’t have a bad connection. His head exploded when he was in the jail cell alone. I caught Deputy Kelly for a few minutes before he ran down the street to get Doc Ike, and he told me.”

“So somebody shot him through the window? He shot himself with a gun they didn’t notice when they brought him in? There was a bomb?” I didn’t understand what Jack was trying to tell us.

“There was no gun. There are no windows in the cellblock. There was no shooting, no bomb. Gator’s head exploded
on its own
.”

“That’s not even possible,” Molly said, her voice shaking.

I thought back to the conversation that Jack and I’d had in the middle of the night. “It’s possible. But it means that black magic has come to Dead End, and none of us are safe.”

“I’m on my way out to you right now, Tess. Please go inside and lock your door. Molly, you too.” With that, he hung up, and Molly and I sat in the car staring at each other in shock.

“This is bad, Tess. This is really bad.”

“Jack is staying here at my house, as a kind of bodyguard. You should stay with us until we catch whoever’s behind this.” I was proud that my voice was only shaking a little bit.

Molly shook her head. “No, I’m headed to the airport in a couple of hours actually. We’ve got a gig and a meeting with a music exec in Chicago. I’ll be gone for a week.”

“Good. Then you’ll be safe from whatever the hell is going on around here.”

I silently turned the car back on and backed it up so she could open her door. We climbed out of my car, and she transferred her packages.

“You should come with me,” she said impulsively. “The hotel room’s paid for, and I have an expense account with the record company for the week. You can have a vacation—a real vacation—and get out of the line of fire at the same time.”

It was tempting. So very tempting. But I couldn’t do it. Even if I
wanted
to run away and leave Jack alone to figure this all out on his own, which I didn’t, I couldn’t do it. It would all just be waiting here for me when I got back, and I’d spend the entire week freaking out about what was happening in Dead End. On the other hand, it was a really good time to send Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike on that Alaskan cruise she’d been talking about.

Molly could tell by the look on my face what I was going to say before I even said it, and she started trying to talk me out of my decision.

“Tess—”

“I can’t. I’m sorry, Molly, but I can’t. I have to stay here and help Jack figure this out. We have to make Dead End safe again, before any more dead bodies show up. Sheriff Lawless is useless, or he’s just not trying, and Susan doesn’t have the authority on her own.”

“You don’t have any authority, either,” Molly said, her voice almost hysterical. “You work at a
pawnshop
, Tess. You’re not Sherlock freaking Holmes.”