With Vics You Get Eggroll (A Mad for Mod Mystery Book 3) by Diane Vallere Page A

morning.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    “Surveillance.”
    “You can’t sit in this Jeep all day staring at the front of a grocery store.”
    “There’s not much else I can do. Reporters are camped out at my house, going through my trash, talking to my neighbors. I don’t know how long I’m going to get away with sitting here, but it’s my only option.”
    “Have you come up with anything? Any leads?”
    “Whoever’s doing this knows something about the way the department works. Could be a cop, a former cop, or somebody with a relative on the force.”
    “Like Dan Tyler,” I said. “He went out of town this morning and then Cleo was abducted. They just bought a second house here.”
    “I’d like to see when they moved here and how it matches up to the abductions.”
    “I have that at the studio. Who else?”
    “If it’s not a cop, maybe it’s a felon, somebody with a grudge. I’ve been going over past cases in my head and one sticks out.” Tex leaned back. “It was my first case after I went into homicide. I was in the middle of a fifteen-hour shift. We’d been going over evidence for so long that I couldn’t see straight. I went for a walk around the neighborhood to clear my mind. To this day I don’t know why, but this one house caught my attention. Lawn was overgrown, trash was overflowing, and the front door was wide open. I called it in and went to the door to check it out. The place was filthy. Hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. I walked through room by room, looking for whatever it was that set off my radar.
    “There was a closet in the middle of the room with a mirror attached to the outside. I heard a scratching sound from inside. I turned the knob and caught the reflection of a guy behind me. He’d been hiding behind the sofa. I turned around and he fired a gun at me. I fired back, four shots. A cat ran out of the closet and startled me. My last shot went cockeyed into the sofa.”
    “What happened?”
    He was quiet for a moment. “There was a woman behind the sofa with him. We think he was hiding her there. That fourth bullet went through the sofa and killed her.”
    “What happened to the guy?”
    “We arrested him.”
    “He’s off the streets because of you.”
    “No, he’s not. The DA couldn’t make a case against him. If he was holding the girl against her will, we’ll never know.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Jacob Morris.”
    “Is he still in Dallas?”
    “Last I checked he moved out of state.” Tex put his hands up and rubbed his face vigorously. “Sometimes I drive past that house as a reminder of her. Looks like any other house out here. I wonder if the people who own it have any idea what happened inside.”
    “It’s probably better that they don’t. Do you have any other theories about who’s doing this?”
    “Couple of things here and there, but nothing big. I gotta get some sleep so I can focus.”
    My thoughts whirled around, potential solutions to Tex’s situation so tangible I didn’t know which way to turn.
    “What if I gave you the keys to Thelma Johnson’s house?” I asked.
    “You’re asking me to move in with you? Night, I’m flattered.”
    “Hardly.” Not counting the abandoned apartment building, there was one other place I could go if I needed to get away from it all. One place that would be available for a few days, at least, as long as Hudson took his time crossing those square states Lyndy had said he was driving through.
    “I need to pack a few things tonight, and I’ll leave the key under the Dracaena plant around back. You can come and go as you wish. But if we do this, it comes with conditions. Number one: you don’t ask where I’m staying.”
    “I figured you’d be staying at your apartment or at the studio. Now I’m curious. Where are you planning on staying?” he asked. He laced his fingers together and rested them behind his head. For the first time since I’d slid into the car, he smiled.
    “Do you not