Jessica Patch - Fatal Reunion

Piper shook her head. “I wish I knew. I guess he could have come in and taken one from the desk without anyone seeing.”

“Your prints are on them.”

“Well, yeah. I have to touch them to put them in the card holder.” She pinched her lips as if she were holding something back she’d like to say.

“Not all of them.” Luke threw her a pointed look. “And why would he drive all the way to Jackson just to get your business card?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” She rubbed her temple again and gawked at the passing traffic.

Eric pulled up to the doors at the hospital. “I hope your grandma is feeling better.”

“Thanks. I can catch a cab home or something.”

Luke opened his door and stepped out. “I’ll walk you in.”

“Again, I can take care of myself.”

“I believe you.” He ignored the hostility and escorted her inside. “Piper, Eric doesn’t know about our previous relationship. He’s going to ask, though. I’ll tell him the bare essentials.”

“That we loved each other once?” Behind her eyes, a storm brewed. Like the one gathering in him.

At one time he had loved her. Bought a ring and everything. But she’d ruined it when she chose a criminal over him, when she’d lied to him and put him between a rock and hard place, when she’d destroyed everything they’d meant to each other with her blatant deceit. He thought he’d got over it, but the crushing sensation he was experiencing proved the opposite. “We? You mean me. I loved you once. I’m not sure what to call what you did.” His tone blasted more heat than he’d intended.

She lowered her head. “I need to see about Mama Jean.” She brushed past him. He ought to chase her down and apologize, but he stood firm as she practically trampled a nurse to get away.

He met the questioning eyes of Eric when he slumped into the passenger seat. “Okay, so we knew each other.”

Eric continued to stare.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just gonna do that thing I do.”

Luke buckled his seat belt. “You mean where you eyeball a person of interest until they shift under your scrutiny and cough up information?”

“Yep.” He drilled Luke with intensity.

“Not gonna work on me.” Luke stared back. “Fine. I was twenty-one when I met her. She was eighteen. We had a thing.” He swallowed hard.

Eric broke eye contact and cheesed. “I’m a Jedi.”

“No.” Luke laughed. “I don’t have time for a staring contest. We have a homicide to investigate.”

“A thing. I’d say you had more than a thing. I saw the way you looked at her. The way she didn’t look at you.” He slowed at the stoplight. “She beat you up and bruise your ego?”

Something like that. Exactly that. Luke flipped open his notepad.

“Your silence says so much.” Eric chuckled. “For the record, she doesn’t seem like the kind of woman to be messed up in something like this.”

Luke grunted. “Let’s take the evidence to the lab, and then we need to get some more information on this Boone person. I’m interested to see what kind of winner he is.”

“I’m more interested in what the killer wanted out of some sweet old lady’s house. I’m not convinced the guy staying there didn’t bring in trouble of his own.”

Piper might not be directly related to Christopher Baxter’s and Tyson Baroni’s murders, but she was in the middle of it somehow.

“What are you thinking?” Eric asked.

“Just running down scenarios in my head.” Trying to untwist the knot in his gut.

“You think Piper offed Christopher Baxter and Baroni?”

Luke stared at the car ahead of them. “No. But based on Piper’s entanglement with Chaz Michaels and his crew, I think she might have hidden something that he or someone wants. Baxter and Mama Jean got in the way. And maybe Tyson Baroni.”

“Mama Jean?” Eric smirked. “Like I said, more than a thing if you’re calling Jean Kennedy Mama Jean.”

Luke expelled a heavy breath. “Okay, it was more than a thing. But it’s squashed. She’s nothing more than a person of interest in our homicide investigation.”

“Okay.”

Silence permeated the atmosphere.

“I’m a Jedi.”

Luke frowned. “I wish you were a Jedi. It’s gonna take that kind of force to get Piper to back down or at the very least stay somewhere safer.” Didn’t matter why or how she was connected—the fact remained she was in serious danger.

And Luke had no intention of letting a single thing happen to her.

THREE

Mama Jean had been moved from ICU to her own room now that she was stabilized. Piper had sat by her bedside as she slept. A few times she woke, but was disoriented and didn’t realize Piper was near. She’d left to have a bite of lunch in the cafeteria, read a few boring magazines, then called to check in with Braxton. Classes were running smoothly.

Opening the door to Mama Jean’s room, Piper pasted on a happy face. “You’re awake.” She strolled to her bedside.

Mama Jean pushed a cup of Jell-O away and gave a thin-lipped smile. “Am I dreaming, dear one?”

Piper planted a kiss on Mama Jean’s wobbly cheek. “No, ma’am. I came as soon as I heard. How are you feeling?”

“Like I fell and hit my head, broke my arm in two places and broke my leg.” Her voice sounded garbled. “The police were here a spell ago.”

Had Luke swung back by while she was in the cafeteria? “And?”

“I told them what I remembered. It happened so fast.” Mama Jean’s hand shook underneath Piper’s. “I was asleep, but a commotion in the basement, where Christopher stays—stayed—woke me.” Tears flushed her gray eyes and dripped down the wrinkly cracks on her face. “Poor child. He was doing so well.”

Now wasn’t the right time to reiterate Mama Jean shouldn’t be taking in strays. Piper had been a stray, too. Nothing but an unwanted burden not worth the effort it took Mom to love her. But Mama Jean had done her best.

Piper clamped down on the rising ache inside. “I’m so sorry this happened. Did you see who it was?” Piper held her breath, hoping it wasn’t someone from old times. Guilt seeped into every vein and overloaded her brain. She bit down on her lip.

“No. Just a dark blur. I got up thinking Christopher had the TV up too loud. I came downstairs and saw him struggling with a man— I tried to run back up but...he grabbed me and I hit my head on the stairs when I fell. The next thing I know, I’m here.”

Piper pressed Mama Jean’s hand to her cheek and willed herself to pull it together. “I’m sorry,” she whispered through a choked-up voice. For not being everything she should have, for getting mixed up with Chaz and for her stupidity during her teenage years.

“Dear one, you have nothing to be sorry for. This wasn’t your fault.”

If Mama Jean only knew. She had more than her share to be sorry for, and she was. Piper had asked God over and over to forgive her. But she wasn’t certain that He had. How could He?

Piper would make up for her mistakes and find who did this. She’d start with Christopher Baxter. “Did Christopher ever have any friends over? A girlfriend?”

“A friend of his came by a few times. Nice young man. Big.”

Mama Jean thought a smile and a polite voice that used “Ma’am” and “Sir” constituted nice. “You remember his name?”

Mama Jean tilted her head. “Ron— No, Rick— No... Riff?”

Blood drained from Piper’s head. Riff wasn’t a person. Riff was a place. One Piper knew well. “You sure that wasn’t a place they talked about playing pool in?” Riff’s was the woodwork that roaches crawled out from. Didn’t look as though things had changed in a decade.