A Dose of Murder (39 page)

“Fabio ever pay you?”

“That's how I finished my Christmas shopping. He was pleased, well, as pleased as Fabio would admit to, about the extra fraud I'd discovered. He also said he'd give me a new case—”

Jagger groaned.

“I'm learning.”

“Then you need to learn not to go into empty buildings alone, unarmed—”

“Hey, I shot that elevator—twice.”

“Let's just say you've grown as an investigator, since you didn't get yourself killed.”

I smiled. He'd just about admitted that I had done all right. Knowing him, though, that was the best I'd get as far as compliments went.

He shook his head. “The DA has the case now. Seems your buddy Vance, the Macalusos and Charlene will all be spending Christmas in jail, courtesy of the state.”

“Vance is not my buddy,” was all I could say.

Jagger once again shook his head, then turned to my father's old rolltop desk. He picked up a pen and took my arm. Then, he wrote a doodle of Spanky on my cast and his cell phone number.

“I memorized it.”

He covered my cast. “Go ahead.”

Shoot. “Um . . . five . . . two . . . two . . . I know there's a two in it somewhere.” I pulled free. “Senior moment.”

“Auntie Pauline,” my nephew Charlie stuck his head in the door. “Babci said to come into the living room for grab bags.”

Jagger pushed past me and followed Charlie.

I stood there and smiled. He was actually excited about something. How cute. He'd never done grab bags in his life, I assumed. But from what I knew about Jagger now, he'd never admit it.

I'd come to see a gentle side of a man who would hate to hear that—and would deny it vehemently. A man who would make a point to give an eighty-year-old man a ride. Who would throw a bone seventeen times for a five-pound dog. Or a man who would make me feel safe, even when I couldn't see him.

Suddenly it really didn't matter whom he worked for, why he was so driven or what went on in his and Nick's past. Right now, I could care less.

After the presents were exchanged—and I stopped complaining that I'd gotten a folding shovel, because that's what I'd put in—Jagger motioned for me. I followed him to the fireplace, where he reached into his bag. One box was left in it. He took it out and handed it to me.

I began to say something, but he touched his finger to my lips. Then he leaned forward and kissed me—on the lips!

A warmth headed down to my insides, stopping just short of my panties when I reminded myself that I was in my parents' house.

“Merry Christmas,” he whispered into my ear.

I'll never wash that ear again.

I started to drop the box, but caught it before making more of a fool of myself.

“Open it,” he said.

My fingers shook. I kept trying, but they wouldn't work. He reached over and touched my hand. Then he pulled one end of the paper to start it for me. My heart did a Christmas jig of its own. Soon I had the paper torn and read on the box, “Motorola wireless? But I have a cell phone.”

“Comes with
two
chargers, Sherlock. One for your house. One for your car.”

I looked at him and laughed.

“And if you don't use it, I'm going to have a microchip put on your tooth. As a matter of fact . . . say ah.”

Photo by Sal Avocato

After serving in the Air Force as a registered nurse,
LORI AVOCATO
decided to give up nursing to write fiction. Lori lives in New England with her husband and two teenage boys and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.
A Dose of Murder
is her first mystery novel.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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EPub Edition July 2013 ISBN 9780062310286

A
DOSE OF MURDER
. Copyright © 2004 by Lori Avocato. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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