Thrown Off: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 3) Page 5

  Roberta patted my shoulder. “It was a stupid place to park the power jack. And terrible timing that it happened right after the door shut behind you.”

  Someone shut the door on me, I was sure of it. And what about the light? Was that an accident, too? Why was Roberta so determined to convince me it was all accident and coincidence? Was it more than just wishful thinking on her part? More than denial? Could that have been Roberta’s voice? It had sounded younger, but…

  I had to get out of there. “Roberta, do you think you could just grab that basket for me?” I pointed into the freezer.

  “Sure thing, honey.” Roberta got the basket, and I took it from her.

  “Is it too late to check out?” Suddenly I felt so tired. My mind was muddled, too. Had I imagined that young woman’s voice? Was I going nuts with my suspicions?

  “Well, we’re technically closed, but maybe they haven’t closed out all the registers yet.”

  I followed Roberta out to the front of the store. Every employee I saw, I pictured slamming that door behind me and shutting off the light, then driving the power jack into place to block me in.

  “Does everyone who works here get to run the power jack?” I asked. “I always wanted to play around with one of those. When I was a kid, I used to watch the forklift in home depot for hours,” I added quickly.

  “Oh, I think most of us here have used it once or twice. We need to move it out of the way for something, or they need another hand in the back. Things come up.”

  “Lucky.” I tried to throw off any suspicion about my question with a smile. I’m sure it helped that I really did have an interest in the thing.

  Roberta laughed. “Can’t say I ever really thought about that as one of the perks of the job.”

  There was still one register that hadn’t been closed out for the night. The checker gave me a weary look and hurriedly rang me up. I waved good-bye to Roberta.

  “You sure you’re okay, Brenna?”

  “Oh, yeah. Just fine. Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.” That, and finding the killer and seeing him or her put behind bars.

  10

  I headed home, a grocery bag in each hand, still fighting shivers. The night was quiet, still. The breeze off the ocean felt colder than usual. I couldn’t shake an icy fear in my heart. I tightened my grip on the plastic bags. I was prepared to swing those bags and wallop anyone who attacked me with mint chocolate chip before I abandoned the ice cream and took them down judo-style.

  It wasn’t as if no one had ever attacked me on the peaceful streets of Bonney Bay before. I tried to tell myself the freezer thing didn’t necessarily mean much. Maybe someone was just annoyed about me being there, asking questions. Maybe they just wanted everything to go back to normal. With me dead. I just couldn’t shake that thought, no matter how I tried to rationalize that it was just a stunt. Just a rude gesture meant to send a message—I don’t like you, not die.

  A high sound broke the silence. I felt a pang of alertness, then realized it was just a giggle. A couple, just a pair of kids, stood against the wall behind the post office, in the shadows. The girl laughed, a tinny, fake laugh. Why did boys fall for those laugh-fakers? Were they that desperate to have a captive, adoring audience? Yes, unfortunately, they were. I’d learned that in middle school. Thankfully, a few of them grew out of that.

  I wanted to grab that girl and tell her not to dumb herself down for some boy. But for all I knew, maybe she wasn’t that bright at all. A skinny teenaged boy leaned over her and blew smoke right in her face. Disgusting. What kind of little punk does that? And what kind of girl would go running around with—

  “Sammi!”

  When she turned her head away from the smoke, I knew it was her. The little figure jolted and whirled to face me. For a second, it looked like she was trying to decide whether to bolt. But Sammi knew I could catch up with her even with my bad knee and a grocery bag in each hand. If she had any sense at all, she knew there was no hiding from me, either. But hey, if she had any sense, she wouldn’t be hanging around with that little creep.

  She shouldn’t be hanging around with any boys, not like that. She wasn’t even twelve years old, for goodness sake. I strode toward them and the boy backed away so fast, he just about tripped over his own feet. I got a good look at his face. It was nice and still for me, frozen in terror. It was not a six-grade face.

  I’d developed what you’d call a “presence,” during my years competing with some of the toughest, most ruthless women in the world in a very physical, combat sport. My match face was just a tad intimidating, and it had a tendency to come out when I was in fighting mode, even when the fight wasn’t physical. Not that I would’ve minded it getting just a little physical under different circumstances. If he weren’t a kid, if we weren’t on the street. If I wouldn’t land in jail for making him wet his pants at the thought of coming near Sammi again.

  There were a lot of things that I wanted to say to this little smoke-blowing, Too-Cool-for-His-Own-Good, brat. I restrained myself and stuck with the most important question. “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen.” Now that he was under my Mama Bear Stare, the kid looked a lot less sure of himself. His voice even squeaked a little.

  “Fourteen!” My hands clenched into even tighter fists around the grocery bag handles. I wanted to shake his carefully gelled little head off.

  “Who are you?” the boy asked.

  “Someone you don’t want to mess with. She’s eleven! Eleven!”

  “She told me she was twelve!”

  “Like that’s so much better? Go suck face with someone your own age!”

  Sammi, who’d been glancing anxiously from her little friend to me and back, said, “He wasn’t sucking my face!”

  “Not yet,” I replied. “At least, I certainly hope not yet.”

  “You’re embarrassing me,” Sammi hissed.

  “You’ve got a heck of a lot more to worry about than being embarrassed,” I hissed back. This was embarrassing? She had no idea how bad it could be if I weren’t restraining myself.

  “You.” I jabbed my finger at the boy, grocery bag dangling from my wrist. “You stay away from Sammi, do you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you.” He tried to sneer a little, but he mostly just sounded scared.

  “And you,” I told Sammi, “you’re coming with me.”

  Sammi dragged her feet a little, but she came. She looked back, but she didn’t say good-bye to her little friend. Kind of hard to say good-bye when he’s running the other way, I guess. Good riddance!

  “What are you going to do? Call my mom?” Sammi dripped with sarcasm on mom.

  “No. We’re going to have ice cream.”

  “What?”

  I held up the grocery bag. “Mocha fudge and mint chocolate chip. Hurry up. Blythe is waiting.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  I shifted my bags to one hand, grabbed her arm, and hurried her along.

  After a moment of awkward silence, Sammi said, “You’re not really going to give me ice cream, are you?” her voice trembled a little.

  I couldn’t decide whether I liked that or not. I mean, it was a good thing, that she thought I meant business. But…“What do you think I’m going to do?”

  “Kick my butt?”

  “That’s what I should do. But instead I’m giving you a treat. There’s something wrong with me, Sammi.”

  “Yeah, you’re friends with me,” she shot back.

  I stopped short. I spun Sammi around and made her look at me. “You’re right. You are my friend.” It was true. She wasn’t just a kid. Just some annoying kid with no parental supervision who kept bumbling into my life. “And yeah, there’s probably something wrong with me.” Actually, there was a lot wrong with me. But let’s not go there. “But being friends with you isn’t one of them. You’re smart, you’re funny, and you care. I know you care, Sammi.”

  For a moment, she just looked stunned. Trying to take it in. Fighting it. Then she hurl
ed the statement at me, “My mom doesn’t! My mom doesn’t care!”

  Wow. Where’d that come from? From wherever she’d stashed it all this time, that’s where. The real question was, what was I going to do with it? I couldn’t lie to her. I couldn’t tell her that her mom cared. Sure, she probably did care, to a point. But she didn’t care the way a mom should. She didn’t even care the way a friend would. She had her own life, and Sammi didn’t really fit into it. What made a mother do that? What made her not do what seemed to come natural to so many moms—shape a new life around her kid?

  I looked Sammi in the eye. “She’s making the worst mistake of her life, not making you a bigger part of it. She’s wrong.”

  “But I always screw up. And sometimes it’s not just to make her mad.”

  “Don’t I screw up all the time?” I said back.

  “Well…”

  I nudged her playfully. “No. The correct answer is ‘No, Sensei Brenna. You never mess up.’”

  Sammi laughed.

  “You really like that boy?”

  “I guess…not really. I’m starting middle school in the fall, and all the popular girls have boyfriends.”

  I couldn’t help it. I rolled my eyes. It was that way when I was in middle school, too. It was a status symbol. “You don’t need to be popular. You have real friends. Like me and Blythe and Katie and all the other Battlers.”

  “Yeah…that’s true.”

  But it’s not enough. That’s what she wanted to say.

  How could I convince Sammi that’s what really mattered? I’d never really cared about popularity, but I’d always understood that most other kids did. When Sammi started middle school next year, and Katie was still in elementary, would she ditch Katie? What would happen if she started thinking popularity was so important? I had a feeling Katie wasn’t part of the “in” crowd, even in elementary. I’d have to keep an eye on that. But there was a more pressing issue.

  I looked at Sammi out of the corner of my eye. “So, are you really into boys?” Please say no. Please.

  Sammi shrugged. “I guess not. I think some of them are cute.”

  “What about kissing? Are you into that?”

  I braced myself, but Sammi made a face.

  Thank God. “I think that boy is pretty into kissing, not to mention stupid, nasty things like smoking.” I didn’t bother to ask Sammi if she was a smoker. I knew she didn’t smoke. I spent every day in close contact with her on the mat. The smell would be in her hair, in her skin, unmistakable.

  Sammi looked away. I could tell she was embarrassed now. And not because of what that boy thought. Because of what I thought. Major victory!

  But still, my legs felt like lead as I climbed the steps to our apartment. I was coming home long after Blythe had expected me, with a whole lot that I couldn’t explain and couldn’t tell Blythe about—and Sammi, a kid I didn’t know what to do about.

  There was a long list of things I didn’t know what to do about. My secrets about Jerky Jake, Blythe’s ex, and the man who’d broken my heart. Will, Millie’s murder, getting shut in the freezer, Sammi…

  Blythe threw open the door before I even reached the top. “What took you so long? Oh, hi, Sammi.”

  “Hi,” Sammi said sheepishly.

  Blythe gave me a questioning look as I nodded for Sammi to come inside. We headed for the kitchen and Blythe locked the door.

  “Sammi decided to come over for some ice cream instead of skulking around in the dark with some little loser boy,” I explained.

  “He’s not a loser!”

  Defending him again? Really? Hadn’t we just established that the boy was nothing but an attempt at a stupid status symbol? “He blew smoke in your face! And he’s fourteen. What kind of fourteen-year-old goes after an eleven-year-old?”

  I saw the understanding dawn on Sammi. Her face fell. She’d figured it was cool to have an older “boyfriend,” and it had never occurred to her that him hanging out with her would be very uncool to any other kid his age. She was so young, so naive. I guess that was good, in a way. Better naive than jaded at not-quite-twelve years old.

  “Oh. I guess you’re right.”

  Blythe shot me a look. Warning! Danger!

  “No offense, Sammi,” I said quickly. “But if we’re talking about stupid social status stuff…”

  Sammi plunked down on one of the stools at the kitchen counter. She put her elbows on the counter, chin in her hands. “I know. Maybe he is a loser. I should’ve known.”

  Right, because he was with her. Nice, Brenna. “Look, I’m really terrible at this. Obviously.” And maybe my brain was just a little bit frozen still. “You need to talk to Blythe.”

  “And have ice cream?”

  “And have ice cream.” I handed the bags to Blythe. “I need a hot shower. Don’t ask.”

  “Okay. Come on, Sammi, I’ll fix you up with some ice cream, and you can tell me all about this older loser who blew smoke in your face.”

  #

  After my steaming shower, I put on my flannel pajama pants and my fluffiest, thickest hoodie. There. Now I was toasty enough that I could actually consider enjoying some ice cream. I wrapped a towel around my head and came out to the living room. Sammi was sitting there, watching old reruns of Murder She Wrote. One of her feet was on the coffee table and Blythe was carefully applying purple nail polish to her toes.

  Blythe looked me up and down. “Cozy?”

  “Yep.”

  “Aren’t you hot?” Sammi said.

  “Nope.”

  “What. Ev-er,” Sammi mouthed.

  I ignored it and nodded at the TV “Murder She Wrote, huh?”

  Sammi shrugged. “It’s kinda cheesy and lame, but it’s interesting too. Besides, there’s nothing else on right now that will help me with my goals.”

  “Goals?”

  “I’m going to go to college and major in Criminal Justice and be a detective.”

  “Really?”

  Blythe lifted her chin and smiled proudly.

  Sammi said, “We decided Tyler doesn’t fit with my goals.”

  So, that was the punk’s name. “Neither does smoking in the alley, I hope?”

  “No, smoking kills. And second-hand smoke isn’t much better.”

  Well, well. Here, I’d figured Blythe would be the one to talk to since she knew a whole lot more about boys than I did, but Blythe had managed to steer Sammi toward higher goals. I’d go so far as to my sister bordered on boy-crazy. She was always noticing guys and had always had a boyfriend. Then she’d married my long-time judo coach, Jake, and he’d left her for an even younger woman after just a year. The divorce had only been final for a few months. As soon as we got to Bonney Bay, a local reporter, Ellison Baxter, had caught her eye. But that would-be romance had ended with his murder. And that, along with some other really creepy stuff we’d discovered, had put a damper on the guy appeal for Blythe. She’d gone two months without gushing about a single good-looking guy. Maybe prodding me to get together with Will was helping her cope.

  I couldn’t help wondering if Sammi was playing Blythe. She’d gotten free ice cream, and now a mani-pedi. Hopefully this “change of heart” was real, and would last more than a few days. There’s no easy cure for getting dumped by your own mother. Hey, there’s no easy cure for being almost twelve. But maybe we were on the right track. I was pretty sure Sammi would do plenty of stupid things in the near future, but if we got more involved with her, if we were there to help get her back on track—to help her even see there was a better track—maybe it would work out okay for her in the end.

  11

  I stumbled to the utility closet and got out the sprayer. I put a clean cover on the mop and leaned it against the wall for Blythe. She’d be down here in the dojo to help in just a minute, after she took a shower. I’d kind of accidentally used all the hot water, and she had to wait to take hers. Blythe was pretty ticked off. But even though it was Tuesday, two days since the incident, I still hadn’
t forgotten the freezer. I’d dreamed about it, and then woke up feeling chilled.

  I pumped up the sprayer. We sanitized the mats every morning, as well as before the evening classes started. We were careful to make sure no one walked on the mats with their shoes, but kids were germy creatures. I suspected most of them ran around barefoot in the summer. When germs get tracked onto the mat, people can get all kinds of nasty rashes and infections. The last thing I wanted was a ringworm breakout—or worse, staph. Ringworm is an itchy fungus that’s pretty common among kids. They can even get it from their pets. Usually, it’s not a really big deal, just itchy and unsightly. But in a sport with so much skin contact, with faces often touching the mat, it can get out of control fast. As for staph, that could be very serious. Either one could shut us down and discourage any potential customers from joining in the future.

  Someone rapped on the glass doors. My eyes automatically went to the sign in the window. It was still flipped to closed. Who would be here so early? I looked at the doors. Oh, it was Will. In uniform. I put down the sprayer and waved. He held up a cup from Espresso on the Bay and smiled. I don’t know what warmed my heart more, the dimples or the thought of that delicious cup of coffee. I grabbed my keys from the desk and strode to the door.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning. What’s going on?” I held the door open for him. He had a coffee in each hand.

  “Just stopped by for a minute. Half an hour before your kids come, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Cold or hot?” Will said. In his right hand was something icy and topped with whipped cream and caramel drizzles. In his right, something steamy.

  Hot, I wanted to say. You are definitely hot.

  “I didn’t know which way to go. It’s early, but it’s going to be a warm day.”

  Hmm. The cold coffee did make me think of the freezer a little bit, but that caramel and whipped cream looked really good, and it was already warming up in here. “Cold,” I decided. “Thanks, Will.”