Perilous Poetry Read online

  “Is that why you didn’t want to shut down the app?”

  “Yeah, I mean, I’m not the only one who’s invested everything he owns into this app. My crew has too.” Jamal wiped his hand across face. “But that’s not all…”

  “The donor,” my dad said. “He won’t let you shut it down.”

  Jamal looked devastated. “No…he won’t.”

  “And you have no idea who it is?”

  Jamal shook his head. “He told me if I wanted the money, I couldn’t stop. I had to move forward with the app at all cost.”

  “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “He said it would cost me dearly…and that I needed to think of my mom.”

  A lump built in my throat. I knew what it was like to lose my mom. But I’d lost her to cancer; losing her to a murderer because of my own drive to succeed would be unbearable.

  “Have you had any further contact with the guy?”

  “Just a message that said, ‘Keep up the good work.’”

  I shook my head. My cousin tended to be dramatic and could be construing tough, don’t stop messages from his donor into vague mob-style threats that would turn into real violence. “That’s not exactly threatening.”

  “It came after the first murder.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you believe there was a hidden meaning behind the message?” My dad wasn’t convinced.

  Jamal scoffed. “Wouldn’t you? I’ve been following the clues. Waiting for people playing the game to come by and collect the books for their library. Trying to convince myself none of this had anything to do with my app or my benefactor. I’m still not convinced it’s not some sicko who needs to be stopped. But if I take down the app, he’ll go somewhere else and start anew or target my mom. Tonight…I was too late to save that man. Too late to know if it was my app or something else entirely.”

  I couldn’t help the disbelief from leaking into my tone. “You were trying to catch the killer?”

  Jamal tried to act cool, but as he shrugged his shoulders, his gaze traveled to the door. “If that happened, all the better.”

  Jamal ran his fingers through his curls before meeting my gaze. “Look. I’m responsible for this mess.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Charli, this is my mom’s life we’re talking about.”

  “Then I think we need to get Mateo involved.”

  “And if this is the mob? Don’t you think that’s the exact opposite of what I need to do?”

  A knock on my door stopped me from answering. We all turned and looked at Mateo through the window on my door. His arms were crossed and he looked slightly ticked. Which was saying a lot. I’d only seen him angry when I got mixed up in his cases, and if the slight narrowing of his eyes was any indication, Mateo was fuming on the inside.

  I opened the door and Princess left the room. She knew it didn’t pay to mess with Mateo. So did I.

  “I was just getting ready to call you,” I said.

  He nodded and walked into my apartment without another word. Anger was rolling off him in spades, but my cousin couldn’t see it. To Jamal, Mateo looked calm, cool, and collected, and I knew he was thinking he could play off anything I said as being unimportant to the sheriff’s case. I knew better. When Mateo was quiet, he was dangerous. Instead of looking at me, his eyes traveled to Jamal’s muddy boots next to the door before he stepped forward and shook my daddy’s hand. The lack of eye contact with me also said Mateo didn’t believe me. Which meant he was probably glad that almost kiss had been interrupted.

  Fuzz buckets.

  “Thanks for the heads up, Bobby Ray,” Mateo said.

  “Thanks for coming. I appreciate you letting me get Princess out of there. Would you like a glass of sweet tea?”

  Mateo shook his head. “No, thank you.” He turned to Jamal. “I don’t believe we’ve officially met. Mateo Espinosa.” Mateo held out his hand, observing every minute detail of my cousin’s behavior: the slight quiver of Jamal’s hand before they shook. Jamal’s clothes—specifically the mud splattered on the edge of his pant legs, and lastly, Jamal’s socked feet.

  If all that wasn’t bad enough, Jamal’s stance was as stiff as the paddle I’d felt on my behind in grade school when I got caught checking out the boy’s bathroom because I wanted to see what a urinal looked like. I’d made sure the restroom was empty before I went in, but Principal Evans didn’t believe my explanation when he caught me hiding in the stall.

  That paddle was hard despite the holes drilled in it. And Jamal’s posture screamed I’m hiding something! almost as loud as I screamed when that paddle connected with my backside. That was the last time Principal Evans got to use corporal punishment in Hazel Rock. When my mom found out why I was easing into my chair for dinner, she led the successful fight to get the man removed from the job. He took his paddle with him.

  Jamal’s voice cracked as he said, “Jamal Harris. Nice to finally meet you, Sheriff.”

  “Please, call me Mateo. After all, your cousin and I are…friends.” Mateo looked back at me and smiled. It wasn’t that melting-women-to-mush smile he’d used the last time he visited my apartment. No, this one said, whatever you’re up to, I will find out, Charli Rae.

  Too bad he didn’t know that I was the one wanting to confess everything and let him take it from there…but it was Jamal’s decision to make, especially if he believed his mom’s life was hanging on the line with only one clothespin keeping it from ending up in the dirt.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Based on the conversations I’d had around town, very few people had known Eduardo Rodriguez. He’d been hired by Dean at MacAlister’s Auto Shop the previous week, but he’d lived out in the county on FM 1520 on the other side of Oak Grove. He’d gone to Oak Grove High School but hadn’t been involved in anything beyond shop class. He lived and breathed cars…and books. He was an avid reader but had been a creature of habit. His main habit seemed to be going to the Book Grove to purchase several books a week. Apparently, Eduardo only worked to buy books, and more books.

  “You need to go to his funeral,” Scarlet said as she cut my hair.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Eduardo Rodriguez’s funeral. You need to go.”

  “I didn’t know the man.”

  “No one did. That doesn’t mean the funeral won’t be packed,” Mary, one of Scarlet’s beauticians, added from across the beauty parlor.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Scarlet answered before Mary had the opportunity. “Dean has told all of his employees that they will get overtime pay for attending, and Joe and Leila asked everyone from the Shed to attend. Everyone wants to pay their respects to Eduardo’s family.”

  “More like, everyone wants to know who killed him and why. Talk around town is that he was killed with your paddle.” Mary’s raspy voice spoke more truth than I wanted to hear.

  “It’s an oar,” I answered, but no one in the shop seemed to notice.

  “I heard there was a moon painted on the dumpster in the victim’s blood,” Betty added from Joellen’s manicure table.

  I pictured the moon on the dumpster. It’d been paint…hadn’t it? I shivered with an unexpected chill. Scarlet stopped cutting and looked at me in the mirror.

  “O.M.W. You saw that, didn’t you?”

  “No, of course not,” I lied. “Your scarf is tickling my neck.”

  Scarlet’s British flag scarf went with the theme of her hair. She’d embraced the look of Geri Halliwell’s Ginger Spice Girl, with golden bangs and the rest of her hair a deep auburn color with copper highlights bumped up at the crown of her head and flipped at up at her shoulders. She wore her typical stiletto heels, but today they were red leather ankle boots with skin tight blue leggings and a matching blouse. The woman knew how to dress to impress.

  She also knew w
hen I was lying. She tugged one of my curls and resumed trimming my hair. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re my best friend.” Scarlet continued snipping away at my hair.

  “I mean, why would we go?”

  “I think the answer to that is obvious.” Again, our eyes met in the mirror. Scarlet knew the truth. Everything. My cousin may have held his own last night with Mateo—he hadn’t told him about the anonymous donation—but I had no doubt his appointment at the sheriff’s office today would be a different story. By then he’d be a nervous wreck. His ranting throughout the night started to make me believe his mob theory. Jamal had been trying to trace the computer IP address of his donor since the first homicide with absolutely no luck. I was skeptical the police would be able to do what he couldn’t. Jamal’s donor had been smart enough to use a Virtual Private Network, or a VPN. It worked by connecting a computer to the private network when it was turned on and then routed all the traffic from that computer through the VPN, effectively concealing the user’s IP address. Only computer savvy users knew how to do it.

  Jamal’s donor was one of those people. That didn’t mean there weren’t ways for Jamal to get it, it just took time—and hacking. Which the police wouldn’t want to do. My cousin found himself in the unlikely position of wanting to do what he’d thought was the worst crime a person could commit—hacking—until he witnessed how horrible a murder could be. Now, I was beginning to worry if his donor was responsible, my cousin was going to tip his hand and get caught eating out of a mob computer cookie jar.

  I thought about what they’d do to his long boney fingers and shuddered again.

  Scarlet paused. “Are you finished? I don’t want to be responsible for your next bad hair episode.”

  “Guess who’s also going to be there?” Mary asked as she looked out the front window of the salon.

  “Who?” Scarlet and I asked in unison.

  “The Mystery Moms. They’re on their way in right now.”

  “What? No, they’re early! They’ll ruin my nails!” Betty said from Joellen’s table. Scarlet turned my chair so we could both look out the front window of the shop. A group of the mystery aficionados, all wearing Mystery Moms T-shirts, were making their way toward the front door with Reba Sue, my main competition for Cade’s affection, leading the pack.

  She was decked out in designer jeans and boots that complemented her figure. Her blond hair was big, and her makeup was perfect. Detective Youngblood’s wife, Isabella, and the elderly Daisy flanked her. Isabella’s fresh-faced look with her brown hair in a ponytail, leggings and running shoes, with a sweater tied around her neck, screamed soccer mom. Especially with her youngest, seated on her left hip. She was the personification of wholesome.

  Probably the scariest of the three was Daisy Mahan. I wasn’t quite sure of her age, but I knew she’d been married to her husband, Jessie, for over fifty years. Her hair was salt-and-pepper, and despite her smaller stature, she reminded me of Dorothy on the Golden Girls. She was a woman of few words and a very dry sense of humor. She also had a don’t mess-with-me look that could stop you dead in your tracks.

  Behind them were three more women whom I knew from the monthly Mystery Mom’s meeting that was held in the Barn the first Tuesday of every month. The group included Penelope Calloway, who’d surprised me by taking a back seat in the leadership of the group. Cade’s mom took charge of everything—except the Mystery Moms. The group had been ecstatic when I broke the news about Lucy Barton’s book signing in an email and had gone as far as to plan a special Mystery Mom’s night out.

  The new addition to the group, however, shocked me. It was Sugar. Her Mystery Mom shirt fit snuggly across her ample chest and showed off her pierced bellybutton with her low-rise jeans and cowboy boots.

  “Why is Sugar with the Mystery Moms?” I asked.

  Betty didn’t hesitate to answer. “She’s constantly mothering Dean and his kids, so it seemed natural that she join us.”

  “Can I join?” asked Joellen.

  “No!” Scarlet answered. She could smell trouble coming, and it was the last place she wanted her little sister, even if she was a grown adult. Scarlet turned to Mary who was opening the door for the women to enter. “You asked her to join because she had the inside scoop to last night’s murder, didn’t you?”

  Mary shrugged. “You have to be a member to know the inner workings of the Mystery Moms, Scarlet. When you and Dalton have a little one, maybe you can join.”

  Scarlet turned her back to the women walking in and rolled her eyes as she angrily clipped my bangs.

  “Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead,” I suggested to Scarlet. She ignored me and continued to snip away.

  Once the women were inside and greetings were exchanged, an impromptu meeting started in the back breakroom that was a storeroom and wash-room combination.

  “Are you going to tell Mateo?” Scarlet asked.

  “What would I say? The Mystery Moms are having a secret meeting at Beaus and Beauties? He’d laugh.”

  “He wouldn’t laugh,” Scarlet insisted.

  “Inside he would. You just wouldn’t see it.”

  That made her pause for a moment, and then she continued cutting my hair.

  “I heard you and Cade were leaving the bar together when Sugar came across the body.”

  I sighed. Word was bound to travel; I just didn’t think it’d travel that fast. “Yeah, we were.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. We spent the night at a crime scene.”

  “What did Mateo think of that?”

  “Nothing. There was nothing to think about. Cade and I went for a walk to talk, and never got a word out.”

  “So, you weren’t holding hands?”

  Guilt and frustration hardened my tone. “Are you studying to be a cop?”

  Scarlet laughed. “If I didn’t make you think about your actions, who would?”

  I didn’t think the question warranted an answer so I left it hanging in the air between us as she stepped back and surveyed her work. “As usual, it looks perfect. In fact, it looks good enough to go to a funeral.”

  “You’re not going to give up, are you?” I asked.

  “Never do. Neither do you. The viewing is scheduled for Friday morning. I’ve already rescheduled my appointments.”

  Scarlet waggled her eyebrows and I succumbed to her will. It was a losing battle, yet at the same time, I thought of a new way how to handle my cousin and his mob donor. “Let’s do it. I think I owe it to Eduardo to attend his funeral.”

  Scarlet smiled. “I knew you’d see it my way.”

  “You were that sure I’d agree to go?”

  “I was that sure you already planned to attend and needed me to back you up.”

  I smiled at my best friend. I had been contemplating whether to attend, but when she’d pushed, I’d recognized the need to do it.

  Scarlet took off the cape from around my neck. “I’ll pick you up out front of the Barn at eight thirty sharp.”

  I nodded, paid for my haircut, and glanced in the back room before heading out the door. From the tight huddle and the soft voices circling the break table, I had no doubt the Mystery Moms were up to something. What it was, I had no idea. But I knew they were going to be up a creek without a paddle if they got in the middle of Mateo’s investigation.

  Then again, maybe that’s exactly the diversion I needed. If Mateo had to focus his attention on the Mystery Moms, he wouldn’t have time to wonder what I was up to.

  I smiled, but part of me was disappointed he’d have his hands full with other women and not me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My cousin had indeed buckled. Mateo had let Detective Youngblood conduct the interview, but the whole time Jamal had suspected someone else was behind the glass, feeding questions
to the detective. I thought his deduction was a pretty solid conclusion. I knew firsthand how Mateo worked.

  Since his interview two days ago, I’d seen very little of my cousin who was busy babysitting his mother. He was certain he’d put her life in danger by telling the police everything about his donor. I was sure my aunt would think she needed to protect him, not the other way around. Aunt Violet, however, was used to her freedom; not a six foot eleven baby attached to her hip. She’d begged me to take her out for happy hour at the Tool Shed Tavern later. It was the last place Jamal would look for his mom.

  We set it up with my dad, who asked Jamal to look at the computer inventory program, which was actually working perfectly. While my dad occupied Jamal at the register, my aunt and I snuck out the side door near the tea room. We made our way around the back of the store, through the backyards of my neighbors to the parking lot of the bar. Then we stomped off the mud from the constant drizzle that had plagued us for the past week.

  “He’s driving me crazy.”

  “It’s because he loves you.”

  “His behavior has little to do with his love for his mother. What’s going on?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Holy schnikes. If I’d known Jamal hadn’t told her about his donor, I would have begged off from taking my aunt out. I would have used that inventory excuse in a totally different capacity: Sorry, Aunt Violet, I have to do inventory before the big signing.

  It was the wrong time of year, but I was betting my aunt didn’t know that. Aunt Violet was a retired cop; she knew nothing about retail. Instead, I was stuck trying to get out of a pickle of a spot I’d gotten myself into.

  “Look, Aunt Violet—”

  “Is your sheriff trying to get Jamal to shut down his app? I won’t stand for that. This is my baby’s opportunity to make it. It’s his dream, Charli, you know that.”

  I knew Jamal wanted to go into the gaming industry, but I hadn’t known about his app before I’d moved back to Texas. I shook my head. “I can’t—”