Mistletoe and Murder

Chapter Eight

Romana couldn’t recall ever spending a more chaotic three hours in a mall, and that included the time one of her brothers had released seven gerbils in a busy department store. It had been Christmas then, too, and there’d been shrieks and squeals and a great deal of running by sales associates and customers alike.

But those had been small, terrified animals. This was a fire, or rather several fires, lit in trash cans throughout the complex. It was also, she discovered sometime during the first hectic hour, no less than seven smoke bombs, set off with crude timers near the outflow air vents.

Shoppers didn’t squeal so much as scream and stampede. In rushing for the exits, the more hysterical ones knocked down and injured a number of those who were somewhat more bewildered.

Mall security did its collective best. So did Jacob, Romana and three off-duty officers who’d been endeavoring to chip away at their Christmas lists.

Two of the doctors they found refused to help due to possible malpractice suits. Two others sighed and rolled up their sleeves.

Firefighters arrived and evacuated the mall, but of course that took time with a number of the exits shrouded in smoke and only a brave few willing to dart past the blazing cans to access them.

It took until midnight for the smoke, flames and screams to subside. The wounded, thankfully none seriously, had been transported to the hospital, disgruntled storeowners congregated in the parking lot, and Jacob was talking to the fire chief near one of the main entrances.

As the last of the ambulances pulled away, Romana spotted Shera Barret clicking across the parking lot with no regard for the ice under her designer boots.

“You.” She stabbed a gloved finger. “I know you, don’t I?”

“My father knows your father.” Romana took shelter from the wind behind one of the fire trucks. “TriBel Productions makes global travel documentaries. My father produces them. Yours is part of the media conglomerate that airs them.” She held out her hand. “I’m Romana Grey.”

Three tiny shopping bags hung from Shera Barret’s thin wrists. She had two broken fingernails, her hair was rumpled, and a streak of black marred her cream cashmere coat.

She worked the hair from her face. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a very long train. What happened in there?” She waved Romana off. “Not a question really.” Her eyes sharpened. “It isn’t through your father that I remember you. You’re that police officer who stopped Warren Critch from shooting a man. Detective Knight. Handsome, sexy and stupid to have been involved with a woman like Belinda.”

Romana’s interest kindled. “You knew Belinda?”

“Of her. We spoke twice. Once, I picked up the telephone and she asked for James. The second time, she was sitting in a car across the street from our house. As you might expect, I had a few choice things to say.”

Romana envisioned the fireworks, but remained silent and let Shera vent.

“She told me she had business with James.” Shera scoffed and slashed a finger across her chest. “Of course I bought that whopper with her wearing a dress cut down to here. Stupid woman. Did she think I’d just fallen off the turnip truck?”

Her insecurities were showing, Romana reflected. Off tranqs and on a verbal tear, who knew how informative she might become?

“Did you talk to your husband about the incident?”

“Apparently it’s a rather crowded turnip truck.” Unable to claw her hair back into place, Shera settled for sweeping it out of her face. “Yes, I talked to him. He said Belinda Critch had been coming on to him since he met her. A case of wanting the one thing she couldn’t have, I imagine.”

Romana turned up her collar against the rising wind. “When did this confrontation take place, Ms. Barret?”

“Shera’s fine. Shortly before she died, in mid-December.”

“Before Belinda died, but after Ben Brown passed away.”

“A month after Ben’s death, yes.”

“And you’d been married to your husband for how long at that point?”

“Eight months, three weeks, five days.” Shera plucked at the bulge under her glove that was undoubtedly her engagement ring. “My family is very wealthy and even better connected. I knew I’d land a big fish from the marriage pond, but I have to say I didn’t expect to fall in love with it-him. Most unsettling.” Her eyes ran the length of Romana’s body. “You’re very pretty, Officer Grey. Are you married?”

“Not anymore. Were you surprised by Ben Brown’s death?”

Shera shrugged. “Surprised, but not upset. His death bothered James, but I suppose when you’re partners with a man, even one as stoical as Ben, you’re bound to feel something when he moves on.” She flicked at the broken fingernails on her right hand. “Such an annoying night. I had more shopping to do. The early whisper is that the fire might have been a prank. For the alleged prankster’s sake, I hope that’s not the case. I have excellent lawyers and a great deal of animosity for people who inconvenience me.”

An influential daddy didn’t hurt either, as Romana well knew. With Jacob starting toward them and her lips going numb, she got to the point. “Do you like mistletoe, Shera?”

Something glinted in the woman’s brown eyes, but vanished a moment later.

“I hang it in the house during the holidays. A kiss at odd moments never hurts, don’t you agree?”

“That would depend on who you’re kissing.”

“I have to think Detective Knight would be quite proficient in that area. If I weren’t married…” She set a hand on her throat and gave it a considering pat. “Never mind, James is more than enough for me, and he’s wonderfully faithful.”

Like a cocker spaniel. Romana smiled. “You’re a fortunate woman, Shera. More fortunate, I think, than Warren Critch.”

“Yes.” Shera’s expression faltered, but she brushed the lapse aside. “I’ve always had luck on my side. Have a nice evening, Romana. Tell the detective who’s closing in that I think he’s hot enough to burn.”

A cryptic remark from an unfulfilled and likely unhappy woman. Romana watched her click away on those impossible six-inch heels, amazed that she didn’t so much as wobble on the icy pavement.

She glanced up. A ring of clouds circled the moon. Romana recalled countless nights like this when, as a child, she’d longed to ride with Rudolph across the face of that moon.

Now she longed for a different sort of adventure, with a man she barely knew, in a world she hadn’t expected to visit again.

Funny how life never worked out as planned. Unless you were Shera Barret and had the ability to rewrite whatever scripts didn’t suit you.

As she continued to stare at the sky, Romana sensed Jacob’s approach. His features, mesmerizing and mysterious, drifted through her mind. She felt his mouth on hers, remembered the way his hands had explored her body, drawing her closer until she almost couldn’t breathe. Certainly couldn’t think.

Not about Warren Critch, or dark alleys or Muppet frogs. And only for a moment about the image of herself in death, with mistletoe leaves floating in the pool of blood that surrounded her.

“IT WAS A PUNK PRANK,” Dylan Hoag maintained early Thursday morning. “Happens all the time, and there’s not a thing your people can do about it. Apparently.”

Jacob saw O’Keefe’s lip curl. They were gathered in his former partner’s cubby, volleying theories and getting their facts straight.

Dylan had dogged Jacob through the front door earlier, with the claim that since he had clients whose security systems had been damaged in the chaos, he had a right to be part of the investigation. He didn’t, but Jacob had let him tag along anyway.

“The smoke bombs were rudimentary,” he noted now as he flicked through the preliminary report. “A kid of fifteen could have constructed them, with or without help from the Internet. The trash-can fires were even less complex. Smoldering cigarettes in four of them, smoldering rags in the rest. But the starting sequence of the bombs was timed and charted. It ran a circle around The Toy Box, where Romana and I just happened to be having a chat with a man who knew Warren Critch.”

“What are you saying?” O’Keefe poured himself a glass of water. “That Critch knew you’d be at the store and set everything up prior to your arrival?”

Jacob continued to scan the report. “More likely he followed us in, saw where we were headed and set it up then. I walked the route, Mick. Five minutes is all it would have taken to plant the smoke bombs and ignite the cans.”

“To what end?” Dylan challenged.

“The one he achieved, I imagine. A bunch of injured shoppers intended to engender guilt. A message sent to Romana and me that he’s watching, and he can take us out any time he chooses.”

Dylan sipped his latte. “Why doesn’t he, then? Why not off the pair of you and beat it out of the country?”

O’Keefe arched an eyebrow at Jacob. “Torment?”

“That’d be my guess.”

“So all the damage to my clients’ businesses is your fault?”

“And you get nothing out of it, right?” Jacob countered Dylan’s charge without looking up. “No clients suddenly deciding they should upgrade their security systems to allay shopper panic?”

“There are systems that do that?” Momentarily impressed, O’Keefe downed his water. “You know, one day we’ll all be replaced by robots, just like that life-size Santa standing next to Lieutenant Markham’s desk.”

“It was a figurative question, and Santa has an electrical short.” Setting the report aside, Jacob glanced at the murky dregs in his friend’s coffeepot. “Word is, Dylan, that you and Belinda were steps.”

O’Keefe swung around. “Seriously? Man, how’d I miss that?”

“You didn’t. Stubbs and Canter did. What’s the story, Hoag?”

“No story.” But both his jaw and his shoulders tightened visibly. “My dad married Belinda’s mother when I was ten and she was seven. Like punk pranks, it happens all the time. Our parents died within a few months of each other, and we were all we had left.”

Starved for caffeine, Jacob gave in and poured a cup of the thick coffee. “How old were you when your last parent died?”

“This is irrelevant, Knight. And invasive.”

“You wanted to join the party.”

Dylan hissed out a breath. “I was twenty-three.” At Jacob’s steady stare, he growled, “Okay, I was eighteen, just. Old enough to work and take care of my sister. We had money. We were fine. She went to college and came out the other end a damn fine lab technician.”

“While you washed out at the Police Academy.”

“I was older than most of the other prospects. I had my own ideas. I didn’t fit in.”

“That’s what we in the biz call a major attitude problem,” O’Keefe remarked.

“Sell it to Rudolph.” Dylan’s eyes went cold and flat. “This isn’t about me. It’s about smoke and fire and pissed-off clients, and…”

“It’s about Warren Critch.” Jacob speared him into silence with a look. “It’s about revenge for a crime I didn’t commit and Romana had no part in. You want to chase punks, go ahead, but what happened last night was executed by someone with a plan.”

“Well, that someone’s flying solo, Knight. Tap my phones if you want to. Except for that two-minute conversation I told you about, I haven’t spoken to Warren. I don’t know where he is or how he’s getting by. I do know he loved Bel, and so did I. Am I sorry he’s taken it upon himself to go after you? Not especially. Do I think it’s right? No. Do I think he’ll succeed? I’d say the odds are in his favor.”

“Such faith in us cops,” O’Keefe scoffed. “It’s no wonder they cut you loose from the Academy.”

Dylan tossed his empty cup into the wastebasket. “No one cut Romana loose, and yet she’s gone, too, isn’t she? Makes you wonder about misplaced faith and expectations placed just a little too high on humans who, like the rest of us, are often a little too low for the positions of power we seek.”

“Now he’s a philosopher,” O’Keefe muttered.

“What I am is observant.” With a derisive swagger, Dylan started for the door. “You’re overthinking that fire and giving Warren too much credit for cleverness. He used to shoot fish in the Amazon. Hardly ever missed, I’m told.” Outside the door, he turned. “My question is, why would he bother to be clever when all he wants is to kill the pair of you? Bang, bang, two shots, you’re gone forever. And once he’s safely tucked away in the South American rain forest, so is Warren Critch.”

JACOB FELL INTO BED AT 1:00 P.M. He felt like a zombie and hoped his mind would let him sleep like one. But the dream came as it often did. It played out to the point where the blood appeared, then suddenly veered off course.

In the blink of an eye, he traded his parents’ living room for a grungy downtown alley that smelled strongly of human waste. Shaking hands pointed a gun at his head. Red-rimmed eyes bulged at him.

“You want her to die,” Critch accused. He cocked the gun.

“Finally-finally, it’s all good, it’s all right, and you want to take her from me. To kill her because you can’t have her.”

Jacob had made the usual attempt to placate him. Why would he want Belinda dead? Someone might have threatened her life, but it hadn’t been him.

The quiet click had surprised him as much as it had startled Warren Critch. He hadn’t seen Romana slip into the alley. She’d moved with the shadows, used them, caught them both off guard.

“Put the gun down,” she’d ordered Critch from behind. “Toss it toward the trash cans.”

“He wants to kill my wife,” Critch had insisted, stiff-lipped. “I won’t let him do that.”

“Drop the gun,” Romana had repeated. Not once had her eyes flicked to Jacob’s face. “Do it, Critch. Now.”

Critch’s arms had trembled. He’d made a low, agonized sound. His entire body had seemed to vibrate. Then the sound had ended, and his weapon had clattered to the pavement.

“Kick it away,” Romana had instructed.

“Belinda told me she’s been threatened. I know they had lunch. They argued. Knight was angry with her. He wants to kill her.”

“It’s up to the police to investigate that allegation,” Romana had replied. “It’s not your job or your right to execute vigilante justice…”

The scene changed with an abrupt sideways slash.

Belinda Critch was dead, and Jacob was talking to his captain. The captain wanted answers he didn’t have. O’Keefe knew the truth about the blackouts, but for his partner’s sake he had kept silent.

They stood like the points of a triangle around the captain’s desk while Kermit sang a silly Christmas song in the background.

A hand touched Jacob’s arm. He whipped his head around. Romana stood behind him. She wore a white coat with a long red scarf.

“Look in the mirror,” she said.

He didn’t want to do it, but his eyes were drawn to the glass, magnet to metal. He saw his father’s face staring at him and felt hollow inside, like the void his mind had suddenly become.

Dropping his head back, he stared at the white ceiling tiles. He wasn’t his father, please, God, never his father, and yet his father was in him. Some of his father’s traits lived on through him. Romana needed to know that, to understand.

It was past time he told her the truth.

When he turned to her, she set her hands on his chest. Before he could speak, her eyes widened in alarm. He caught her arms, tried to keep her from falling. But it was too late. He could do nothing but watch in horrified disbelief as the tails of her red scarf turned to twin ribbons of blood.

And the light that was life drained out of her stunning winter-lake eyes.

JACOB SHOT UPRIGHT IN BED, again, pried his clenched teeth apart, again. It took several seconds for the worst of the nightmare to fade. Once it had, he reminded himself that these images came from him. From his very deep feelings of guilt.

An ambulance raced past on the street below. Horns blared as the rush hour began.

A shower helped, hot at first to relax his tight muscles, then cold to counter the effect Romana continued to have on him. She hadn’t been naked in his latest dream, but it made little difference. When he thought about her, his body reacted. He could only imagine what actually seeing her naked might do.

The phone rang while he brewed coffee. With his hair dripping and his mind distracted, he picked up.

“Knight.”

The response was immediate, whispered words that blew across his soul like an evil north wind.

“You’re a dead man, Detective Knight, at my whim. You and the exquisite Romana Grey. She won’t be so exquisite when I’m finished with her. In fact, she might not be exquisite already. I’m holding a sprig of mistletoe, Jacob. But do you think the leaves are on the sprig where they belong, or on the ground beside her?”