Dead Eye (A Tiger's Eye Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

I took a deep breath. “Too late.”

“
What?
Tess, you know better. If—”

“Speak of the devil, er, tiger,” I said quickly, pointing. “Here he comes, with Aunt Ruby.”

Aunt Ruby parked her Chevy Malibu (her rebellion against Uncle Mike’s obsession with all things Ford) and came bustling across the lawn, not bothering with the little paver-stone walkway she insisted we all use, so I knew it was serious. Jack followed behind her with packages from the bakery. I tried not to notice how the sun glinted off the deep bronze of his hair, or how really, truly excellent he managed to make a simple pair of jeans and a white sweater look. I told myself that my mouth was just watering because of the doughnuts, but it’s hard to lie to yourself successfully, so I didn’t believe me.

“Tess! I’m so glad you’re finally here!”

I pointedly looked at my watch. Donald Duck’s hands told me it wasn’t even nine-thirty, so “finally” was stretching it. She ignored my not-so-subtle hint and pulled me up off the swing and into a tight hug. Aunt Ruby was pleasingly plump, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, and “If God wanted me to go gray, He wouldn’t have made Clairol” blonde. She was also four or five inches shorter than me, depending on the heel height of her orthopedic shoes, so I had to lean into her hug, which I was happy to do.

She smelled like honey-glazed doughnuts and home, and she squeezed me harder than usual before letting go. “I was so upset about Chantal, and so worried about you last night. It was all I could do to respect your wishes and let you
sleep
,” she said, pursing her lips and casting a glance back at Jack, who’d wisely taken the stone path instead of walking on the grass.

Jack winced. “Sorry, Tess. I ran into Ruby at the bakery and told her that you’d been kind enough to make me dinner last night.”

Uncle Mike shot an outraged look at me. “You had a man you don’t even know in your house at
night
?
Alone
?”

I sat back down, closed my eyes, and thumped the back of my head against the swing a few times. “I do know him, Uncle Mike. You know him. We
all
know him. He’s Jeremiah’s nephew. We grew up in the same town.”

Uncle Mike was unmoved by my logic. “We knew him then. We don’t know him now. From what I read, he’s been involved in a lot of the crazy violence going on in the US for years.”

“Standing right here,” Jack put in, his voice mild.

“We’re business partners now. You’re going to have to get used to it,” I told Uncle Mike. “And I’m not a little girl anymore. I can invite anybody I want over for dinner. Molly’s coming over tonight, and Owen is coming over Saturday. Do you have a problem with that too?”

“Still standing right here,” Jack said, a little louder this time. “And who’s Owen?”

I gave him a narrow-eyed look. “None of your business, that’s who Owen is.”

“He’s her dentist,” Aunt Ruby helpfully piped up. “And her boyfriend.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that an ethical breach? Not to mention weird. Do you talk about how many cavities you have, and whether you’re flossing enough when you’re on a date?”

I buried my face in my hands. “Doughnuts are so not worth this. I’m leaving.”

“Chocolate-covered Bavarian crème,” Aunt Ruby said in a sing-song voice.

“On the other hand… Gimme.” I hopped back up out of the swing and snatched one fragrant bag out of Jack’s hands.

“I don’t think your boyfriend would approve of all that sugar,” Jack said, a hint of laughter in his voice.

Some mornings, a girl just couldn’t catch a break.

T
he three of
us sat around the kitchen table, because nobody ever used the dining room except for Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners. Aunt Ruby busied herself making coffee, putting out little yellow plates, and casting worried glances at her husband.

“Now, don’t start, Mike. Let the poor boy eat his doughnut in peace,” she admonished, patting Jack on his shoulder as she walked by.

I rolled my eyes. The “poor boy” looked like he could bench press her Chevy.

Jack grinned smugly at Uncle Mike. “Thank you, Mrs. Callahan. You were always my favorite person in town.”

She beamed. “I bet you could eat some eggs too, couldn’t you? I’ll just make some eggs and sausage. A man needs protein for breakfast.”

“Maybe some tuna fish for the kitty,” I muttered, snatching the last doughnut and taking a big bite when I saw Jack reaching for it.

He shook his head sadly. “Poor Owen.”

I almost choked.

Uncle Mike stared at his wife in outrage. “
A man needs protein
? You made me eat oatmeal!”

It was his turn for a shoulder pat. “It’s better for your heart, dear. But you can have some eggs and sausage too, since I’m making it.”

I raised my hand, and Aunt Ruby laughed. “Yes, yes, everybody gets eggs.”

“I’ll help,” I said, but she shook her head.

“I’ve got this. Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

She started pulling out pans, and I told them about finding Chantal. Jack added in bits and pieces from his point of view. Uncle Mike’s face turned more and more grim, and Aunt Ruby sighed a lot and murmured “that poor girl” and “I just don’t understand what the world is coming to” while she cooked.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” I concluded. “Why would anybody shoot Chantal? I didn’t know her well, but she seemed like a nice person.”

“She was a sweet girl. Never complained about stocking the shelves when I was filling in as cashier,” Aunt Ruby said, plating the food and placing steaming hot breakfasts in front of us.

I looked at mine, too full of doughnuts and regret to be hungry. “Still, somebody hated her or got mad enough at her to kill her. Not to be casual about death, but we all know that it happens. Especially when people have been drinking a lot. But why bring her to the pawnshop?”

Jack thanked Aunt Ruby and took a deep whiff of his heaping mound of eggs and sausage with obvious and deep appreciation. “I cannot tell you when I last had a home-cooked breakfast. Thank you so much, ma’am.”

Aunt Ruby’s face lit up. “You’re very welcome. And call me Ruby.”

Jack grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

Uncle Mike looked troubled. “It’s too much like what happened to Jeremiah to be a coincidence. And anyway, I don’t much believe in coincidences, especially when it comes to something like this.”

Aunt Ruby poured herself another cup of coffee and sat down, nodding absently when I thanked her for cooking. “I don’t like anything about it, coincidence or not. It makes me worry that Tess might be in danger.”

I paused with a forkful of eggs halfway to my mouth. That possibility had never occurred to me. But if a killer had some kind of sick fixation on the pawnshop…

“Tess won’t be in danger,” Jack said, his voice hard. “I’ll make sure of that.”

Uncle Mike’s head popped up from where he was bent over his breakfast, inhaling sausage like he was afraid Aunt Ruby would change her mind any second and take it away from him. He eyed Jack with suspicion. “Right. For how long? The week or two until you settle up details about your uncle’s estate and close the P.I. firm? And then the people you managed to piss off along the way come after her twice as hard.”

I dropped my fork on my plate. “Maybe you could quit talking about me like I’m not in the room, Uncle Mike. I don’t need Jack to take care of me. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, just like you raised me to be. I can change a tire, split wood for the fire, and shoot a gun.”

Uncle Mike snorted. “You can shoot a gun. You just can’t hit anything you aim at.”

Aunt Ruby pointed a finger at him. “Enough of that. We have more than enough people around here carrying guns without you encouraging Tess to arm herself. Anyway, guns won’t do much good against a lot of our residents, like the vampires or the witches or—no offense, Jack—the shifters.”

“If we had a killer vampire on the loose, we wouldn’t have gunshot victims who still had blood in them,” Uncle Mike replied.

“Two things,” Jack said. “First, I’m not going anywhere until we figure this out. Second, what do you mean, the P.I. firm? What P.I. firm?”

We all stared at him.

“Jeremiah’s P.I. firm,” I said slowly. “He started it about five or six years ago. We thought it was just a hobby, but he occasionally took on clients. He knew somebody who knew somebody, so he got a waiver for the required two-year apprenticeship period, not that state laws apply in Dead End, anyway. Didn’t he tell you about it?”

Jack flinched like I’d punched him. “No, he did not. And you didn’t think to mention this before? It seems like a pretty obvious place to start looking for people who might be holding a grudge or have reason to want my uncle dead.”

Aunt Ruby smiled and shook her head. “No. It was nothing like that. I typed up his files for him. He only ever handled about five cases, total, in six years, and the most dangerous one was when Mrs. Quindlen kept losing her cats. Jeremiah found out that Bubba McKee’s pet boa constrictor was eating them.”

I shuddered, thinking of Lou.

Jack stood up and took his empty plate to the sink, then collected mine and Uncle Mike’s too. Uncle Mike raised his eyebrows at me.

“He tried to do dishes at my place last night,” I admitted.

“He is a nice southern boy at heart,” Aunt Ruby said, smiling, and I rolled my eyes again.

Jack grinned at me and then sat back down. “I know history and collecting were Jeremiah’s true loves. The pawnshop made sense. But why a P.I. firm? It’s weird. I got a P.I. license several years ago, as part of an undercover job I was doing, and I wrote to Jeremiah about it. But he never told me about this.”

Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby traded glances, and then she reached over and patted Jack’s hand. “He did it for you, of course. He was hoping you would eventually get tired of all your roaming around and come home, and he wanted you to have something to settle into.”

Jack’s face was a study in confusion. “But—”

“It’s incorporated as Tiger’s Eye Investigations,” she said gently. “He did it for you.”

Jack blinked, hard, several times and then he abruptly stood up and strode out of the room, leaving Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby staring at me in surprise.

“He just found out about Jeremiah’s death a month ago,” I told them. “He hasn’t had half a year to mourn and move on, like we have. And for whatever reason, Mr. Chen didn’t tell him that Jeremiah was murdered, so Jack didn’t know that until yesterday. This must be really hard on him.”

Aunt Ruby tilted her head toward the doorway. “Go.”

Uncle Mike started to protest, but she stared him down. Aunt Ruby was soft and nurturing on the outside, but she had an inner core of solid steel and made sure to remind us of it whenever we forgot.

“Go,” she repeated.

I went.

*

I found him
in the pasture, standing near the fence and feeding Bonnie Jo an apple that he must have taken from the bag in the barn. She nickered a greeting to me, and I stroked her silky neck.

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling inadequate, but not knowing what else to say. “I miss him too.”

“It’s just so damn wrong. I should have been here to protect him. I spent most of the past ten years protecting the whole damn country, but I couldn’t protect the one man who meant the most to me.”

Bonnie Jo tossed her head and ambled off.

“I remember when she used to canter,” I said, watching her. “She’s too old to do any running anymore, but I don’t blame myself for that.”

A muscle in Jack’s jaw clenched. “Is that some kind of life lesson you’re trying to teach me? Jeremiah wasn’t a horse to be put to pasture. He was murdered in the prime of his life.”

“And you couldn’t have done anything about it, even if you’d been here. It’s not like you would have been with him twenty-four hours a day. I found him when I opened the shop in the morning. Would you have driven him to work every day to keep him safe from an unknown danger we had no idea about?”

He didn’t look at me, but his shoulders relaxed a little bit, and he sighed. “No. You’re right. I know you’re right. But it doesn’t matter.”

“And it doesn’t make it hurt any less,” I said, shoving my hands in my jacket pockets to keep them warm. “I get that, but he loved you. He wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”

Jack suddenly snapped his gaze back to me. “Why wasn’t she wearing a jacket?”

“What?”

“Chantal. She was just wearing a tank top, and it was cool that night, right?”

“Yeah, it was cold. You think that her killer kept her jacket?” I felt excited and a little nauseated. Was this our first clue? “Or maybe it’s still at the crime scene?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she left it at the bar, or wherever she was. Maybe she didn’t wear it that night. Do you think your friend Deputy Gonzalez will tell us what they find out about time of death?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me much about the investigation when Jeremiah died, but then again, I didn’t try to be part of it. I trusted them to do their job while I took care of the shop and his house and the…things.” I didn’t want to bring up the funeral. We hadn’t known where Jack was or how to reach him, so he hadn’t been here to say a final goodbye. Just thinking about it made me realize that I did have something I could do for Jack that might help.