Lainey Quilholt Mysteries Collection

Chapter 2-2

“Really?” A chill raced up my back. Those startling blue eyes of the man who held the door for me moments ago, came back to me. Now I had a name to go with the face. Hal Lassiter. Ex con. I had to rethink my being attracted to him.

“Yes. He"s a dangerous guy. Steer clear of him.” Weeks" warning sent a shiver through me again.

Moving slowly passed them, I deposited my purse under the counter on a shelf. On second thought, I pulled it out and held it in my arms, wondering where to hide it. Somehow placing it in the normal place seemed too careless. Anybody could come in, go around the counter and grab it. My legs were shaking. I could use something sweet. Maybe I should have gotten a pop out of the machine outside. I might still. I debated what to do, and found I couldn"t move.

“Lainey, what"s wrong?” Aunt Jessica said, looking at me with concern. I darted my gaze between both my aunt and Weeks.

“I—uh—I saw him,” I said, finding my throat was suddenly dry. Why was I so unnerved? The guy merely opened the door for me. Smiled at me, too. Maybe it was the tight smile, or the large, bright blue eyes, my strange attraction to him, and now knowing that he"d been involved in a robbery.

“You saw who?” My aunt asked.

“That guy,” I said.

“What guy?” Weeks said.

“The one you were just talking about!” My words came out more forcefully than I"d intended. “Lassiter, wasn"t it?”

“Where?”

“At the bar and grill. He was with two other guys.”

“Oh, this is great. He"s hooked up with his pals, no doubt.”

The sound of Harleys exploded down the quiet street. All three of us looked out the window to watch the three men on their Hogs zoom by, making a grand and exceedingly loud exit.

“That was them?” Weeks asked, head nodding in the general direction. He never wore a tie on his brown sheriff"s shirt, unlike the rest of his men and women of the force.

I nodded. The thought of all of them drinking beer and then driving a motorcycle gave me pause. Glad I wasn"t on the road right now.

Weeks moved his hand to his collar mike, and spoke to someone. “Williams, three Harleys just headed south out of town, check their plates. I wanna know if any of them have any outstandings. Got it?”

“Right, Sheriff,” came the response.

“They were drinking,” I put in, and felt ill as though I were tattling on a big bully.

Weeks spoke into his mike again. “Check for DUI, too, just to be safe.”

“Will do.”

“Call for backup, if you need it. I"m on a J-four, but I"m available if you need me.” I knew a J-4 was cop-speak for “meal break”.

Weeks lowered his large hand bringing it down on the counter. “Anyway, Jess, you ready to go to lunch?”

“More than ever. I"m starved!” She shouldered her purse and looked back at me. “You"ll be alright, Lainey, dear?”

“Sure. I"ll be fine.” Maybe if I lock the door and hide in the back. Still feeling on edge, I shoved my purse behind a large stuffed bunny that needed his ear repaired, under the counter. I felt that if anyone would be trying to steal it, they would have to get past the large bunny, and Poe. Maybe if Poe growled, hissed and swatted his paw at them, they would think twice about looking there. He wasn"t de-clawed.

Maybe if I lock the door and hide in the back.“You"ll protect me, right, Poe?” I scratched Poe"s chin as my aunt and the sheriff went out the door.

“I"m going to call his parole officer and make sure he knows where this guy is…” Weeks" last comment echoed as the door closed.

There were two people in the store browsing. I could handle customers. I couldn"t handle robbers, and ex-cons. But my afternoon went by smoothly. My aunt would have a nice lunch with her honey. I was sometimes very glad that my aunt dated a cop. You automatically think of protection being close at hand. After all, my aunt had Weeks" personal phone number, and we weren"t but three and a half blocks from the police station up on Main, plus Weeks lived at the edge of town, about four blocks away.

My cell phone rang, I checked the readout. My friend, Nadine Shaw was calling me. Usually I wasn"t supposed to take calls while at work, but I wasn"t busy. And if she was calling from work, she might only have a few minutes of break time as well. If the two people in the store decided to buy instead of browse, I"d say goodbye and hang up.

“Lainey. You still going?” Nadine asked, sounding breathless. She and Wendy Fant had become my very first friends since coming to this town. Nadine and Wendy were welded at the hip. I felt more like a third wheel in the relationship. But we often did things together, shopping, going to movies, or hanging out at each other"s places.

“Yes. Tonight. Seven o"clock,” I said low, watching my customers still browsing.

“At the Huddle. Right?”

“Yep.”

“Did you see his picture?”

“What picture?”

“In the paper,” she said. “It was an ad for tonight. Had a really cool picture. He is totally hot! I can"t believe you know him.” She was speaking in a slightly more excited note than was normal for her. Nadine didn"t usually get all flustered, didn"t hyperventilate, and didn"t squeal like a fifth-grader, especially about guys. But somehow Brett Rutherford had brought that out.

“I didn"t see the paper yet. I didn"t know it was out,” I said, pushing my glasses up my nose as they"d slipped slightly. Tonight I would definitely wear my contacts, and some make-up—just a little on the eyes.

“Oh. Right. It"s not out yet,” she said in answer to my question. “I went to my dad"s office before coming to work, and got to see what was coming off the press.” Her father was Editor-in-Chief of the Montclair Herald, so she had inside scoop on anything that was happening in town. Or out of it, for that matter.

“Oh. So, it"s a good shot of him?” I wanted to see it. Did he still wear glasses? Or had he ditched them? However, considering she was talking about Brett, I would have to say Brett would look hot with or without glasses. The paper wouldn"t come out until 2:00, so I had a long wait. We got a stack of them and sold them here in the bookstore.

“He looks really good. He"s seated, with his guitar, sort of leaning over it, you know?”

“Yeah.” We talked about Brett until that subject was exhausted. She wanted to know what I was wearing. I was going with a nice, summery top and jeans. Nothing special. She was going to do the same. Said she"d had her hair cut. Really? How much? She told me, “Short. To my jaw!” This was big news. She"d been letting her light-brown hair grow for years, and it had been down to her waist. She said she decided to cut it off and donate it. I commended her and wondered how she would look with hair bobbed to her shoulders.

“Oh, AJ came by again, today,” I mentioned.

“AJ? Really? Why?”

“Don"t you remember? I told you he"s been hounding me to go out with him.” I chuckled. “Something we can talk about later, maybe tonight.”

“Oh, no, Lainey,” she said in a very serious voice, which caught me by surprise. “Don"t ever mention this to, or in front of, Wendy. Not ever.”

“Why?”

“Because it"ll take a butt load of pharmaceuticals to calm her down.”

“I always turn him down,” I said with a shrug.

“Won"t matter. It"s a sore subject. Just don"t say anything about him asking you out if Wendy is in the room, or can over hear it.”

“Well, okay, but I don"t understand all the cloak and dagger.” Someone strode through the door, ringing the little bell above.

“I"ll explain another time.”

“Okay, see you later,” I said.

I had to get off the phone anyway, because I had two customers lining up waiting to be taken care of. The guy who had walked in I gauged to be about eighteen, six-two and had a scruffy, bad-boy appearance. He waited patiently while I handled my customers. After finishing up, I turned to him and smiled. “Hi. Can I help you?”

I locked eyes with him, and their deep blue color caught me off guard. Rimmed with black lashes, he looked both dangerous and handsome. The kind of guy who probably had to beat the girls off with a bat, as my aunt would say. Not literally, of course. Dark hair—nearly black—a little too long for styling, he had to brush it all back with a broad hand, and with a disarming crooked smile said, “Sorry to bother you, but I don"t know this town. I just need directions.”

“Where to?”

He had an address scribbled on a piece of paper. The Chandelier Apartments was scribbled underneath the address. “You know where that is?” His finger tapped the piece of paper. I noticed his fingernails looked dirty, like a mechanic"s. He also had a tattoo at his wrist of a snake that seemed to wind around his arm, the snake head extending over the back of his hand.

The Chandelier Apartments“The Chandelier? It"s on Mississippi Terrace.” I gave him detailed directions and added, “It"s right before Tom"s Burger Joint. The building is white with gray shutters.”

“Aw gee, thanks.” He left and I wondered who he could know that lived there. It was expensive to live there. My friends had been looking for apartments to move into and said they wanted $800 per month. That was steep for college students who had minimum wage jobs.

After the scruffy guy who needed directions left the store, and I took care of more customers, I was into the anticipation mode. My stomach tumbled a little more thinking about seeing Brett after two years. Nerves made me move around the store. I straightened anything slightly out of their spot when the doorbell chimed. I popped out of where I was among the stuffed animals, and spotted the wild white hair floating above the stacks. Uncle Ed"s eyes darted to me, and his smile went wide, like I was the brightest spot in his heart right then. I knew him to be 68, but at that moment I couldn"t guess his age; at times he looked seventy, and other times, anywhere between fifty-five to sixty-eight. Today, I guess he looked a young fifty-five with deep crow"s feet around his eyes, the smile framed by a big white mustache, wild caterpillar-sized eyebrows arched as though on verge of making an important announcement. He was the only man I knew who could make a great apple pie (he"d told me with a wink he used lard for the crust like his mother had). I"d never met Uncle Ed until I came to live here with my aunt. He was actually my grandfather"s brother. He claimed to be young at heart, and didn"t want to be reminded of his actual age and shunned birthdays like the plague.