Bait & Switch (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 1) by Jerusha Jones Page B
Authors: Jerusha Jones
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where I’d found it while he flipped pages. I couldn’t read his face, but he didn’t seem surprised. He slipped the journal into his shirt pocket and pushed away from the table.
“You have a gun?” he asked.
“No.” My face must have registered my disgust.
“I don’t like leaving you here alone, but I have to get the finger to the lab. Chain of custody — can’t just drop it in a mailbox. I’ll be gone at least twenty-four hours. Block the doors. Check the windows. Keep your phones with you. The local sheriff’s name is Des Forbes. I talked to him yesterday — good man. His people would be the ones responding to a 911 call.”
Matt rose, grabbed Clarice around the waist and bussed her cheek. “Thanks for dinner.”
“Well,” she huffed and shoved him away. “Get out of here.” She latched the door behind him and rammed the table against it.
oOo
I don’t suppose I slept the sleep of the righteous — more like the dreamless repair mechanism of the utterly exhausted. And it wasn’t enough, not even close, but daylight — I won’t say sunlight because the cloud layer acted as a spectrum filter — streamed through my uncovered window. It had been my first night in a real bed in longer than I had groggy brain cells to count.
Given the circumstances of last night, I shouldn’t have been able to sleep at all, but absolute necessity trumped squeamishness and worry. Apparently no one had tried to kill us while we were unconscious because syncopated snoring emanated from Clarice’s room across the hall.
I snuck down to the kitchen and opened a new package of Oreos while coffee brewed. Breakfast of champions, at least when Clarice isn’t around. She must have washed the window over the sink, because a shaft of light backlit my ring lying on the sill and cast rays of sparkle across the ledge.
I picked up the ring and bobbled it in my palm. It was inordinately heavy for its size, a small but meaningful bond between Skip and me. Matt’s comments from last night rattled around in my head. I thought I knew Skip. How could anyone be so good at separating his two lives that the one side (me) would have no suspicion of the other (a life of crime)? The warning gift last night was a clear indicator that the crime side knew about me. What if Skip had three lives, or four?
I smacked the ring back on the ledge. Entirely impractical to wear outside the cushy environment of my old life. Besides I might need to pawn it for cash if things became desperate.
Who was I kidding? I’d already reached desperate.
I scribbled a note for Clarice and slid the table away from the door for enough gap to wriggle through.
I set off on a ramble, sticking to the tire-track lane that wound deeper into the property and wondering if I’d collect a companion.
Sure enough. The kid seemed to have a sixth sense about any kind of interesting activity. Eli joined me within fifty yards, which made me wonder if he’d been watching the mansion, and for how long.
Maybe he’d seen something last night, and I itched to ask him. But the soft, twinkly dew on grass blades and dripping trees demanded silence and contemplation. And for all his curiosity that bordered on prescience, I worried that Eli was also fragile.
He had not endured any grooming ministrations this morning. His hair clumped in tufts and stuck out in short wings above his ears. There was a trace of something reddish and crusty about his lips — I guessed from a tomato sauce based dish for dinner last night, chili or spaghetti. He crunched along the graveled ruts beside me, one sneaker trailing untied laces.
Thinking Eli would disappear again if I got too close to the bunkhouse, I chose the other branch of the road at the first fork. He needed time to reveal what was on his mind.
The trees closed in, arching over us, and an intense quiet enveloped me like a balm. It was the kind of quiet you feel in your bones — a deep hollowness that isn’t empty, just
“You have a gun?” he asked.
“No.” My face must have registered my disgust.
“I don’t like leaving you here alone, but I have to get the finger to the lab. Chain of custody — can’t just drop it in a mailbox. I’ll be gone at least twenty-four hours. Block the doors. Check the windows. Keep your phones with you. The local sheriff’s name is Des Forbes. I talked to him yesterday — good man. His people would be the ones responding to a 911 call.”
Matt rose, grabbed Clarice around the waist and bussed her cheek. “Thanks for dinner.”
“Well,” she huffed and shoved him away. “Get out of here.” She latched the door behind him and rammed the table against it.
oOo
I don’t suppose I slept the sleep of the righteous — more like the dreamless repair mechanism of the utterly exhausted. And it wasn’t enough, not even close, but daylight — I won’t say sunlight because the cloud layer acted as a spectrum filter — streamed through my uncovered window. It had been my first night in a real bed in longer than I had groggy brain cells to count.
Given the circumstances of last night, I shouldn’t have been able to sleep at all, but absolute necessity trumped squeamishness and worry. Apparently no one had tried to kill us while we were unconscious because syncopated snoring emanated from Clarice’s room across the hall.
I snuck down to the kitchen and opened a new package of Oreos while coffee brewed. Breakfast of champions, at least when Clarice isn’t around. She must have washed the window over the sink, because a shaft of light backlit my ring lying on the sill and cast rays of sparkle across the ledge.
I picked up the ring and bobbled it in my palm. It was inordinately heavy for its size, a small but meaningful bond between Skip and me. Matt’s comments from last night rattled around in my head. I thought I knew Skip. How could anyone be so good at separating his two lives that the one side (me) would have no suspicion of the other (a life of crime)? The warning gift last night was a clear indicator that the crime side knew about me. What if Skip had three lives, or four?
I smacked the ring back on the ledge. Entirely impractical to wear outside the cushy environment of my old life. Besides I might need to pawn it for cash if things became desperate.
Who was I kidding? I’d already reached desperate.
I scribbled a note for Clarice and slid the table away from the door for enough gap to wriggle through.
I set off on a ramble, sticking to the tire-track lane that wound deeper into the property and wondering if I’d collect a companion.
Sure enough. The kid seemed to have a sixth sense about any kind of interesting activity. Eli joined me within fifty yards, which made me wonder if he’d been watching the mansion, and for how long.
Maybe he’d seen something last night, and I itched to ask him. But the soft, twinkly dew on grass blades and dripping trees demanded silence and contemplation. And for all his curiosity that bordered on prescience, I worried that Eli was also fragile.
He had not endured any grooming ministrations this morning. His hair clumped in tufts and stuck out in short wings above his ears. There was a trace of something reddish and crusty about his lips — I guessed from a tomato sauce based dish for dinner last night, chili or spaghetti. He crunched along the graveled ruts beside me, one sneaker trailing untied laces.
Thinking Eli would disappear again if I got too close to the bunkhouse, I chose the other branch of the road at the first fork. He needed time to reveal what was on his mind.
The trees closed in, arching over us, and an intense quiet enveloped me like a balm. It was the kind of quiet you feel in your bones — a deep hollowness that isn’t empty, just
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