Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

Even before she had finished her story, however, both Jake and Reese rounded on her with equal sternness.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Why didn’t you call Jake?”

Jake, in particular, appeared upset, pushing back from the table and giving Darla a dark look. “Rule number one, kid. You come home and it looks like someone’s broken into your place, you get your butt right out again and call 9-1-1—or me—but you don’t play cop. Better safe than sorry applies in spades here.”

“But it wasn’t a break-in after all,” Darla defended herself.

Jake shook her head. “This time, maybe not. But if it really had been a B and E, and you’d found the perp hiding in the back room, we might have had two dead bodies in two days. And for the record, just because Hamlet wasn’t raising hell wouldn’t necessarily mean that the bad guy took off. It could have been someone he knew, and that person could have still been there.”

Darla hadn’t considered that last. Nodding soberly, she held up both hands in surrender.

“Okay, I get it. Bad decision. I promise next time Hamlet strikes that I’ll drag Jake up to see his handiwork.”

She paused for a deep breath. One revelation down and another to go. Might as well get it all out into the open.

“Oh, and there’s a Part Two to what happened this afternoon after y’all left,” she added in a bright tone. “While I was talking to Mary Ann, she mentioned seeing a woman mixing with Valerie’s fans. It turned out to be the van driver, Marnie Jennings, handing out Bible tracts to the goth kids and scaring the bejeebers out of them with her lectures on how Valerie Baylor is burning in hell right now.”

The announcement had just about the effect that she anticipated. Reese choked on his beer, while Jake missed her mouth completely with her pizza slice and dumped half the toppings into her lap.

“That’s pretty damn cold,” Reese said with a shake of his head when he could speak again. “You run over someone and kill them, and then hang out at the accident scene talking smack like that? She’s lucky those kids didn’t take her apart.”

“Yeah, well, I doubt she was running around with a name tag on,” Jake countered, muttering a few choice words as she scrubbed tomato sauce off her jeans. “Now, don’t tell me, Darla . . . while I was sitting all snug and clueless down here, you went outside and had a chat with her, didn’t you?”

“I was only out there a few minutes. I rescued some boy she was trying to save, basically told her what a jerk she was, and loaned her a thousand dollars so she could fix her van and leave town.”

She mumbled that last in a rush, but Jake didn’t miss a word. She shoved her chair back from the table and stared at Darla.

“You loaned her a grand, just like that? What, so you two are BFF’s now?”

“I wasn’t doing it to be nice,” came Darla’s defensive reply. “She and her friends were going to be stuck here until her church could raise the money for the van repairs. I was just trying to get her out of town before anything else happened.”

“Like running over one of the most famous authors of the decade?” was Jake’s ironic response. Reese’s reply, however, was even more stinging.

“Hate to tell you this, but someone might think you were paying off this Marnie to leave town. A little hint, Darla: it just doesn’t look good, handing over that kind of cash after an incident like this.”

“It was a personal check,” she countered. “ And why would I need to pay her off?”

Reese merely quirked a brow, but it was enough for Darla to realize just where his thoughts were headed. Her redhead’s temper flared from zero to volcanic as she leaped from her chair and stared him down.

“Oh my God, don’t tell me you think Marnie and I were in cahoots, that we planned to kill Valerie Baylor together!”

She shot a look at Jake, who promptly raised her hands as if to ward off a similar accusation.

“Calm down, kid, I know you’re in the clear,” Jake hurried to assure her. Turning a stern look on Reese, she added, “And Mr. Detective over here does, too. But as for Princess Wackaloon . . .”

She trailed off with a shrug and then added, “Yeah, yeah . . . I know it was an accident, but I have a sneaky feeling your buddy Marnie isn’t as sorry as she acts.”

“Now, that’s not fair, Jake. In her own narrow-minded way, she really is devastated by what happened,” Darla shot back, a bit surprised to find herself taking Marnie’s side. No doubt it was one of those reflexive support-your-homegirl things.

Jake must have picked up on that vibe.

“Jeez, kid, just because she knows your sister doesn’t mean you owe her a damn thing. Have you forgotten that letter she sent, trying to blackmail you into cancelling the Valerie Baylor autographing?”

“Letter?” Reese interjected before Darla could answer. His gaze whipped between her and Jake. “What letter? And what the hell did Jake mean about the Jennings woman knowing your sister?”

Jake raised her brows. “You didn’t mention any of this to Reese when you gave your statement?”

“I guess it kind of slipped my mind?”

Still offended by Reese’s earlier unspoken accusation, Darla gave him a defiant look. When her questioning tone didn’t buy her a pass from either of them, she went on, “All right, I was tired, and I figured the cop handling things outside would share with Reese. It didn’t seem that important anymore, especially once they decided not to charge Marnie with anything.”

“Yeah, but if I’d known that little tidbit about a threatening letter, we might have taken another look at the woman. If nothing else, I would have put her in a lineup with a bunch of scarf-wearing women for Janie to look at. So, do you still have it?”

By now, Darla had regained control of her temper. Reese was a cop, she reminded herself, and part of the job was asking unpopular questions. And she was pretty sure he had long since crossed her off any list of suspects.

Pretty sure.

“It’s upstairs,” she answered. “If you want, after we finish eating, you can come up and take a look, and I’ll tell you the whole story. So, Jake,” she added in a hopeful tone, “I don’t suppose you have some wine to go with this pizza? I’m not feeling much like beer.”

“Right, change the subject,” the woman muttered, but she obligingly found a bottle of decent white chilling in her refrigerator—not exactly what Darla would have chosen to pair with marinara, but it would do. She was hardly in a position to complain.

To her relief, Reese let the matter of the letter slide while they finished supper, though the occasional stern look he shot her over the course of the meal told her he wasn’t about to let her off easily. It was a little after eight when Darla slid back her chair and said, “I’m going to call it an early night, since I’ll be opening up tomorrow as usual. Reese, if you want to see that letter, you’d better come up with me now.”

“Sure, let’s go,” he agreed, polishing off his beer and getting to his feet.

Darla rose a bit more carefully, mindful of the two glasses of wine she had downed. She should have just run upstairs earlier and brought the letter down to him, but she had to admit that after that afternoon’s fright, she wasn’t looking forward to entering the apartment alone. And, whatever his shortcomings as a dinner companion, Reese definitely was tough enough to best any intruder, human or supernatural.

“You sure you don’t need help cleaning up?” she asked Jake as she surveyed the aftermath of their evening’s gluttony.

Jake waved her off. “I’ll send the leftovers home with Reese, and a trash bag will take care of the rest. Now, go, before Hamlet sends out the search party.”