Murder in Real Time Read online

  On the sidewalk, everyone stopped to stare. All sound ceased and I thought I heard my mom having a coronary somewhere. Maybe it was all in my head. I couldn’t be sure after the amount of product I’d inhaled in the last two hours.

  “You look like Dolly Parton.” Adrian bounced along beside me.

  I glowered. “I hate you so much.”

  Claire touched my hair again with tentative fingers and hummed. “The tan’s a little much.”

  “A little much? I look like an Oompa Loompa.”

  Adrian scoffed. “Maybe if Oompa Loompas were hot leggy blondes.”

  I averted my eyes as we passed Mr. and Mrs. Franks on the sidewalk. This was not the professional impression I wanted to give my clients. I stepped around Adrian to hide.

  Mrs. Franks hit her husband with her purse anyway. “Stop looking at her, Frank!”

  My head fell forward. “Please, take me home, Adrian. I beg you.”

  We all climbed into the Jeep. I turned to Claire and Fargas in back. “You came here together?”

  Claire stroked my shoulder over the seat. “Adrian promised us a sight we’d never believe or forget. Is that shimmer powered? Oh, honey.”

  “Don’t forget dinner,” Fargas added.

  “What?” Panic zipped through me.

  Adrian flipped on his blinker and slid into traffic. “I’m taking you all to the Tasty Cream for dinner.”

  “I need to go home first and change. Where are the clothes I had on before?”

  He glanced at my dress. “Looks like you forgot them.”

  “Well, I’m freezing.”

  “Yeah, you are.” His smile widened.

  I turned my face away from him and crossed one arm over my chest. My skirt crept farther up my thigh every second. When the freckle, only previously seen when wearing swimwear, came into view, I clamped my fingertips around the hem of my dress and held it in place. True to his word, Adrian pulled into the Tasty Cream lot instead of up to the curb outside my apartment, where Claire’s car and Fargas’s cruiser sat.

  Claire hopped down from the backseat of Adrian’s giant Wrangler and looked at my place across the street. Her gaze slid over my new look. “We could make a run for it.”

  My ankles wiggled. If I took off my shoes, I could run, but by the time I got across the street, my dress would be around my waist like a belt. “I can’t run.”

  Adrian slung a heavy arm across my shoulders. “Chin up, buttercup. I’m buying, so order anything you want.”

  As if I could eat in this modern-day undergarment death trap. Still, I hadn’t eaten in hours. “Excuse me.”

  I baby-stepped into the restaurant and shuffled past the counter. Mrs. Tucker covered her mouth with both hands. Someone took a picture. I kept my head down and moved as fast as possible on stilettos to the bathroom. My mouth watered as I passed tables full of Mrs. Tucker’s food. My brain took inventory of the smells mingling in the air. Salty fries, greasy burgers and rich chocolate malts. My tummy groaned as I locked the bathroom door and wrestled free from the Spanx. I dropped the garment into the trash and inhaled. Air whooshed into my lungs. I leaned against the wall to enjoy the sweet rush of freedom.

  Finding my friends in the crowded restaurant was easy. I followed the familiar laughter. Despite my morning ambush, I smiled. Whatever else happened, I had great friends. I had a hideous outfit, but a good life.

  “Here she comes,” Adrian belted out, “She’s Miss America.” He stood and dragged the chair beside him away from the table.

  I yanked the hem of my dress as low as possible and sat in the chair, scooting my bare thighs under the table and covering them with an open napkin.

  Claire looked compassionate. If anyone understood how awful I looked, she did. “I ordered you a chocolate peanut butter malt.”

  “Thanks.”

  I lifted a menu to my face, hoping no one else would notice me. No such luck.

  Todd Ramone wove his way through the crowd, swiping a chair from a nearby table. He turned it around and straddled it. “I’ve got news.” He leaned both elbows on our table and greeted us by name, except Fargas. He called him Sheriff.

  “Go on.” Fargas gave Todd his full attention. His congenial expression was instantly replaced by a look I recognized, one Sebastian wore often. Maybe there was more to Fargas than I’d noticed before.

  Todd’s eyes twinkled as he locked his gaze on me. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I’m sorry I missed it. You were in the salon so long, I went looking for another lead and ended up at the hospital.” He rocked on his chair, inspecting my face and hair long enough to make me squirm. “The new pathologist gave me a firm warning about you and a detailed account of how her predecessor was axed when you finked on her.”

  I stared. His words weren’t registering. My right pasty had detached along the bottom edge. I could only imagine what would happen next. I appraised the distance between me and the bathroom. The crowd was thick and my heels were higher than my hair. I couldn’t make a run for it, so I wiggled in place, pressing my arm to my chest, hoping to right myself without a scene.

  Fargas cleared his throat.

  “Right,” Todd said. “Well, what I found out was completely off the record and I can’t use it in my article, but, according to toxicology reports, Rick Fitzgerald had cocaine in his system at his time of death.”

  Adrian slapped the table. “One of the food truck guys said Rick was an addict. I figured the guy was being dramatic or fishing for attention.”

  The wheels of my brain shifted into gear, processing the new possibilities. “If he had an addiction, he could’ve owed someone money.” The hit might’ve been meant for Rick after all. Relief washed over me. I’d overreacted again. Maybe Rick’s murder wasn’t a case of mistaken identity by one of Jimmy the Judge’s goons. Maybe the murderer was someone else’s goon, and Sebastian was safe on the island.

  Still, Rick’s bad habits didn’t explain why someone shot my car, or Adrian.

  Fargas stood. “I’m going to look into this and see if someone over at The Watchers knows anything about the allegation. The cast seems pretty close. One of them has to know if he had a problem or if someone might’ve come looking for him on the night of his murder.”

  The waitress delivered our drinks as Fargas was getting up from the table. “Leaving so soon, Sheriff? Can I get you anything to go?”

  “No thank you.” He dropped his wide-brimmed hat on his head and tipped it to the waitress.

  She promptly blushed and Claire’s smile grew.

  Todd followed Fargas to the door.

  “Can I get a to-go cup and an order of fries?” I asked.

  “Good idea.” Adrian rattled off his to-go order after mine and a few minutes later we headed for the Jeep.

  When we parked in Adrian’s drive, Fargas’s cruiser was nowhere around. I wiped the grease off my fingers and sighed contentedly. Adrian poked my exposed belly button.

  “Stop.” Stupid sequin cutouts. “I should’ve changed when we left the Tasty Cream.”

  Cameras rolled as we approached. Vance and Elisa rocked in the chairs on Adrian’s wide wraparound porch. Jesse Short stood in the grass, observing and rubbing his chin.

  Elisa’s voice rose over the low buzz of offstage voices. “I think this island really is haunted.” She rubbed her arms and widened her big blue eyes for the camera.

  Vance joined her at the porch railing. “Don’t worry. We’ll be gone soon.”

  Hallelujah.

  “Mr. Short?” I moved into Jesse’s line of sight and a wide wolfish smile stretched over his face. Two seconds later, recognition dawned over his features and the smile fell with a huff. “Patience Price. To what do I owe the honor?” Sarcasm dripped from each word. He held up a finger. “Wait. Let me guess. Your sheriff j
ust left, so I suppose you want to know about all Rick’s bad habits, too.”

  Adrian nudged me. “Go on.”

  I straightened my spine and wrapped both arms over the peek-a-boo holes in my dress. “Rick had bad habits?”

  Jesse snorted. “Yeah. Just a few. Alcohol, coke, gambling, women...that guy was a disaster, but people loved him. He was the life of any party, even if he did owe half the West Coast money.”

  “For drugs and gambling debts?”

  Jesse shrugged. “I don’t know. We weren’t that close. He didn’t tell me any personal details. He had a few high-ticket projects go belly up though. Everyone knew that.”

  “Did anyone ever come to the set and try to collect?”

  Jesse looked as if I’d asked the most absurd question ever uttered. “Guys in fancy suits showed up from time to time when we were filming. They invited him out for lunch or drinks. He’d come back all roughed up. That kind of crap screwed with our taping more than once. Black eyes, busted lips, fractures, hangovers. We spent half the makeup budget on his pretty face.” He sighed. Both hands fell from his chin to his hips. “Excuse me. Cut!”

  Jesse barked orders and corralled the crew onto Adrian’s porch, leaving us alone on the grass.

  Adrian helped me into the Jeep. “That was insightful.”

  “Well?” Claire poked her head between the front seats.

  “Did you wait in the car so you wouldn’t be seen with me in my new Extreme Island Makeover?” I caught a glimpse of my giant eyelashes in the side view mirror and laughed. Maybe laughing was the right response. I pressed the straw from my malt against my lips and coaxed the ice cream into my tummy.

  “Of course not.” She looked guilty. “I didn’t want him to get mad at me for asking questions and cut me out of the scene I’m in. There were plenty of extras. He could easily replace my two minutes of fame with someone else’s. Besides, I think you look wonderful, and I need multiple pictures as soon as possible.”

  I choked. “Promise me you won’t take any pictures, and I’ll tell you what we learned.”

  She smiled. “No promises. Tell me anyway. I know you want to.”

  True. “He said Rick owed people money, and what do I always say about money? Whatever bad thing is happening, it’s almost always about money.”

  Adrian started the Jeep. “Now we need to find out if Rick owed someone enough to be killed for it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Less than twenty-four hours until Halloween, and I was holed up in my apartment waiting for it to pass. A steady stream of onlookers had filed over the bridge into Chincoteague all week. The island was over capacity, engorged to the point of bursting. RVs and minivans lined the ball fields and families had set up tents over every square inch of grass. Hundreds of fans had partied day and night for two days straight, tailgating in celebration of the big event: The Watchers Halloween special. Ghost hunters came in droves from all corners of the world. Candlelight vigils for Rick and Anna were an ongoing and sometimes impromptu event. I’d stop inside a shop for something and come out ten minutes later to a flash mob of candle-toting mourners.

  The previous buzz of controlled chaos had grown steadily into a roar. The little voice inside said there was a lion behind that sound. The Watchers would stop at nothing to secure ratings, and the thickening crowd made a proper investigation nearly impossible.

  When my parents invited Sebastian and me over for dinner and Sebastian agreed to go, I breathed easier for the first time in days. I needed a respite from my apartment, my transient roommates and any talk of gunmen for a few hours. I craved normal. My parents were consistent, reliable and predictable. Everything else in my life was fruit loops.

  The love bus rattled to a stop outside my parents’ house on the harbor. Bamboo and evergreens lined the drive, separating it from the neighbors and providing a semblance of solitude on an island bursting with activity.

  “Can you smell that?” Sebastian opened his door and hesitated. “That smells amazing. Remind me why we don’t eat here every night.”

  For starters, Sebastian didn’t come back most nights, but probably his question was rhetorical, so I went with a less pointed response. “I don’t know, but we should definitely come here more often.”

  The warm buttery scent of seafood hung in the cool night air. Tendrils of smoke from Dad’s grill wafted into the sky above their house, mixing muted gray with soft shades of lavender and moonlight. This time of night the moon looked large enough to touch. Inches over the horizon, it floated on gently rippling waters, making its heavenward ascent. Silhouettes of gulls lined the roof. They flapped their wings and craned their necks toward dinner cooking on the deck below. The birds took turns squawking and complaining, or maybe calling dibs on the feast under dad’s grill lid.

  My parents’ house, like all the others on the harbor, stood atop enormous six-foot poles. The poles protected waterfront homes from the angry waters of a coastal storm. Island kids spent hours under their homes, playing in the sand and shade, drawing tic-tac-toe boards with bamboo rods and carving their initials into the sturdy poles.

  “P. P. plus A. D. forever.” Sebastian ran his fingertip over the heart linking my initials to Adrian’s.

  I remembered the day Adrian carved those letters. Twelve years later the images were fresh in my mind, bright, vivid and powerful. Frustrating.

  I tugged on Sebastian’s arm. “Who knew forever lasted so long?”

  Sebastian’s attention fixed on the initials.

  I kissed his cheek and tugged on his arm again. He followed me under the house and onto the rear lawn where a dozen wooden steps led to my parents’ deck.

  I forced out memories of my childhood with Adrian. Partly because the idea that I’d made the wrong decision pushing him away stung my heart like a jellyfish. My brain knew I was happy with Sebastian. Adrian was my past. Sebastian was, possibly, my future, but was I thumbing my nose at destiny? Did I believe in destiny? Does anyone really meet their soul mate in preschool? Were soul mates a real thing? I inhaled to clear my head. No. Those were my parents’ ideas, not mine. First loves were supposed to end with high school, not return ten years later, all rich and handsome, to sleep on my couch and confuse my brain.

  Sebastian touched my arm. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

  “Peepee!” Dad waved his arms in air circles large enough to land a Cessna. “You’re here!”

  His enthusiasm was contagious. I smiled. My awkward romantic issues could wait. I needed a hug from my dad. It took incredible self-restraint not to run to him.

  Dad wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. “Good to see you. You look amazing. How you doing, big guy?”

  Sebastian shook Dad’s hand. “Glad to be here.”

  Fresh shrimp and scallops swam in a bubbling butter and herb bath, and veggies from Mom’s summer garden steamed in a pot on the side burner. Her centerpiece of fruit and dinner rolls adorned the table beneath a giant wide-mouth vase. Mom turned the glass upside down to protect our appetizers from the swarms of gnats and other bugs that hovered close by. When you lived on an island, cooking outside was an at-your-own-risk behavior.

  I slipped my hand under the glass for a handful of blueberries and popped them into my mouth. Sebastian opened the Igloo on the floor by the table and twisted the top off a beer. His expression wasn’t right. His body language seemed normal, but his eyes were on alert. If he sensed danger, he wouldn’t have a beer, though. Right?

  He set it on the table without taking a drink. Crap.

  “Everything okay?” I intruded on his personal space. “You’re acting hinky. Something’s off tonight.”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “We need to talk.”

  Crap. Crappity crap crap. A colony of bats dove past the moon like harbingers of do
om. No girl ever wanted to hear those words from the man she share a bed with—on the nights he bothered to come home so she actually had a clue where he was. My attitude kicked into defensive mode.

  “What is it? Tell me now and be straight about it.” I wrapped hands with electric blue fingernails around my hips. It had taken a thirty-minute shower and a bottle of shampoo to undo the damage inflicted during my ambush makeover, but I didn’t hate the nails.

  Sebastian sucked his teeth. “The team got new intel on Jimmy the Judge that suggests he’s not in Vegas. Jimmy’s my assignment. I need to check out the lead as soon as possible. The agents in Chincoteague will remain here another forty-eight hours until The Watchers pack up and head out, or longer if Fargas needs additional help with the murder investigation.” He glanced away. “I’m leaving for Norfolk in the morning.”

  My mouth fell open and a bug flew in. “Gah!’ I swatted the air and rubbed a napkin over my tongue. “Wah?” I gagged and grabbed his beer for help. I sucked in a mouthful of bitter liquid. My eyes watered. The bug tasted better.

  Mom slid the door to her kitchen open and glided to my side. “There you are. I thought I heard you two. I made your favorite.” She frowned at the beer in my hand and offered one of her signature Mai Tais instead. I passed the beer back to Sebastian. Mom’s frozen cocktails were amazing, packed with fruit skewers and blended with ice.

  A few swallows later, I came up for air. “I ate a bug.”

  Mom nodded. “It happens.” She patted my shoulder and went to help Dad at the grill.

  I collapsed into a chair at the table and stared at Sebastian. “You’re leaving in the morning.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know where Jimmy’s hiding?”

  “The bureau got video confirmation of him downtown yesterday.”

  “Downtown?” My skin iced over. “You mean downtown Norfolk. He’s gunning for you. That’s why agents are on the island. They suspected he was close before the video confirmed it.” These weren’t questions. The truth was in his expression—a strange mix of grim and eager.