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
