Deadly Messengers (17 page)

The café possessed a cozy, early 19
^th
century vibe, with bright imitation chandeliers hanging majestically from the ceiling, while mock gas-lamps dotted the wood-paneled walls. Framed black and white pictures of unsmiling, stern-looking men and women from early last century hung in a jumbled layout.

Kendall felt as though she’d stepped back in time, and she hoped some of the courtesies of the era might find their way into a certain patron. The room possessed a real energy with the place full and bustling, and the buzz of happy diners and clinking china and cutlery. In turn, Kendall felt uplifted. Maybe she
could
pull this off, if the opportunity arose.

As she followed the slender passage between the tightly packed tables to the elevated counter, she reconnoitered the room searching for the two detectives. She was relieved to spy them deep in discussion at a table by the window. By the time she’d reached the glass counter and surveyed the delicious looking cakes and filled rolls and wraps, Kendall realized she was hungry and in desperate need of a coffee.

As she placed her order—buttered banana bread and a mug of coffee—with a woman who clearly wished her shift had ended two hours ago, Kendall was
again
rethinking her plan.

“Eat here or take away?” said the waitress, scribbling the order on a form.

What should she do? She still had no plan, whatsoever. After O’Grady’s reaction to her call, the thought of just walking up to the men and introducing herself as a journalist covering the massacre stories seemed too daunting. Thirty feet away sat a possible story that might not only pay her rent, but look extremely impressive on her resume. The distance seemed more like thirty miles as she calculated how to
bump
into them.

“Hi, I’m a writer. Can I pick your brain about the local murders?”

“Hi, I’m Kendall and you look a lot like Mark Ruffalo. You know the actor who plays The Hulk?”

“Hi, I had a dream about you last night, and I wanted to see if in real life you are …”

She could make a joke about it, but any line she came up with sounded just as ridiculous as these.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, this was plain crazy.

Suddenly Kendall had lost her appetite, not just for the food, but also for everything that lay ahead if she pursued this path. Dampness seeped beneath her armpits, and it occurred to her she might even be sick—or the stress of this was making her sick. A dull, thick feeling had grown in her throat as if she’d swallowed a cup of sand.

“You want that to eat here?” the waitress repeated, sterner this time.

Kendall found herself replying, “I’ll have it here, thank you.” Her decision was made. Then she spent the following minutes panicking as she waited for her coffee to be made, and the banana bread to be placed on a tray.

Kendall picked up the tray, turned from the counter and looked for an empty table. Again, luck liked her. Next to the two detectives, was one of the few vacant tables. She would actually pass right by them to reach it. The closely packed tables made maneuvering, while balancing the tray, difficult. Kendall was also mindful she didn’t want to attract the detectives’ attention until she’d worked out what to say or do. She hoped being this close to O’Grady would provide some inspiration.

Concentrating on just getting to the table was probably why Kendall didn’t notice her bag slip from her shoulder. She’d almost made it to her table, too, when the bag’s strap snagged on an occupied chair pushed back a little. The caught strap unceremoniously yanked her backward, throwing her off balance. Even though she managed to keep hold of the tray, the plate with the banana bread began to slide. When she attempted to stop it by leveling her tray, the coffee cup flew sideways, loudly crashing to the floor. On its way down, half its contents spilled over her shirt and pants. In her surprise, Kendall then flicked the tray. The banana bread and its plate coasted upward like a lobbed baseball.

Everything happened in slow motion. When no sound was heard of the cake and plate hitting the ground, Kendall looked anxiously to see where they’d landed. When she saw, her heart stopped beating for a second.
What were the odds?

Lance O’Grady stared up at Kendall, smiling, her plate in his lap and the banana bread lying in front of him on the table, buttered side down. She was acutely aware as she stared into eyes the deepest brown she’d ever seen, that she’d garnered the entire café’s attention. Her face instantly bloomed the color of embarrassment. She was suddenly boiling in her skin as though she’d stepped inside a sauna.

Kendall instantly bent to the floor and began to pick up the pieces of the broken cup. This did two things: it broke their eye contact, which had felt uncomfortably
good
, and it gave her time to gather herself.

Oh, my God
.
What a mess
!

Then O’Grady was beside her, reaching for the remaining pieces of the cup. She glanced over at him, self-conscious at his proximity. His head was down. All she saw was thick, wavy black hair, so close she could reach over and touch it. Her first instinct was to stand up and move away, which she did. This only made things worse. The sudden movement made her dizzy. Taking a woozy step back. She found herself clinging to the edge of the detectives’ table, waiting for the giddiness to subside.

O’Grady followed her up and firmly gripped her arm.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” His voice was warm and concerned, nothing like how he’d sounded on the phone.

As the faint feeling passed, Kendall surveyed her clothes, still avoiding his gaze. Her shirt was covered in coffee, with the rest of the brown liquid splattered at her feet. Finally, she couldn’t avoid it any longer. Her heart was jumping, as she raised her head to look at him again.

“Oh, my God, I’m so embarrassed. Did I spill coffee on you?”

O’Grady actually laughed. She wasn’t expecting that, the encounter taking on the same surreal sensation as her dream. In her imagination, Kendall heard him say,
I will save you,
before she came to her senses. This same man had called her a
fucking bottom feeder
. She needed to get a grip.

He looked down at his shirt, and then gave her a smile so far from someone who’d call a woman a
fucking bottom feeder
, she almost laughed.

“No, its fine. I’ve had worse spilled on me.”

He indicated toward their table with a nod of his head and said, “It seems your bread likes our table better.”

Kendall looked down at the tabletop. She couldn’t even easily scoop up the bread. It had fallen butter side down—
of course
—and lay in front of the other detective. He also stared at her, looking amused.

Kendall brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh, no, I’m really sorry.”

She really
was
sorry, too, for more reasons than the detectives knew. She didn’t have this in mind when she’d come up with the
bump
-into-O’Grady plan. Now she’d had a minute to gather her wits, she realized it couldn’t be more perfect.

Kendall felt the warm and sticky feeling of the coffee soaked through the material of her shirt to her skin. As much as she wanted to get away from here, from him, and get out of her now-uncomfortable clammy shirt, she couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, even if its name was Fate. The café patrons had returned to their own conversations, the show now over, and she was starting to feel more confident she might just have some success with this encounter.

A waitress appeared beside them clutching a cloth and a dustpan. She started on finishing the cleanup job Kendall and O’Grady had begun.

Kendall stepped aside and gave a little embarrassed laugh, with a sprinkle of flirt thrown in. She reached down and picked up the banana bread slice, holding it by a corner.

“Let me just clear that bread up for you. I’ll take this as a warning to avoid coffee and all things sweet for the day.”

When both detectives smiled at her comment, she was instantly filled with bravado.
Too much bravado.
Suddenly she began talking, saying the first thing that entered her head.

“You’re that policeman, aren’t you? From those terrible murders?”

The words tumbled out, sounding so unnatural to her. The way she’d phrased it, too, made it sound like
he
was the killer.

“Sorry, I mean the investigating detective. Not that
you
committed the murders. I didn’t mean … I saw your picture in the paper.”

Kendall was uncertain if she had actually seen his picture. His name had been there, but she’d actually found his picture on LinkedIn. Hopefully, he didn’t check the papers looking for articles on himself.

Why was he creasing his brow and squinting at her like that?

She had this terrible feeling he was thinking: Is this that crazy journalist who called me yesterday?
Had he recognized her voice?

Blood loudly rushed through her ears; she experienced it like a pulse in her head. Her stomach felt as though it were filled with solid chunks of banana bread, even though she hadn’t yet taken a bite.

O’Grady stared at her, the smile on his lips now fading.

The other detective answered. “Yes, that’s him, the famous Detective O’Grady. I’m also working that case. Trip Lindsay. We’re not meant to share information with the general population.”

Trip was still smiling at her.

Thank God! But why was O’Grady not smiling?

Trip continued. “But since we currently share custody of your bread, I guess that makes us friends.”

He winked at her, and Kendall immediately knew she liked him. Not romantically—he wasn’t her type—but she saw he might be more amenable to talking with her than O’Grady.

When O’Grady spoke, his voice still sounded warm and friendly.

That was good.
She’d just misread him.
Relief swept through her body. When she thought about it later, Kendall realized that’s what caused her to lose concentration, and losing concentration ruined everything.

She suddenly morphed into a silly teenager, throwing caution to the wind. Turning back toward O’Grady, Kendall held out her hand, and, for no good reason, said, “Hi, I’m Kendall Jennings, and I spoke to you yesterday. The writer.”

Even as the words left her mouth, she thought:
What have I done?

A second, and the warmth slid from his face and the sparkle left his eyes.

O’Grady slowly tilted his head to the side and examined her face for what seemed like minutes, but was only seconds.

“I’m sorry, what did we speak about?”

I’m okay. He must get so many calls.

She began to breathe again. The pounding of her heart became a patter. And the churning feeling in her stomach eased.

Then her heart sank as his eyes transformed from a look of confusion to something else as recognition traveled across his face, and his body suddenly tensed.

“Ah, now, I remember. Yes, you wanted details on the Kenworth fire. We don’t give out particulars, ma’am.
Especially to journalists.
I think I made myself pretty clear yesterday.”

“I… Yes, sorry. I’m really,
really,
very sorry.”

She was blathering as though English was her second language.

Now the other detective stopped smiling, his eyebrows raised. Kendall began to panic, thinking maybe she
could
be arrested for making stupid phone calls to the police.

O’Grady addressed her, barely opening his mouth, his lips a tight straight line. “What did you say your name was?”

“Kendall. Kendall Jennings.”

With hope, she moved her still outstretched hand further toward him. Now he’d met her in person, he might reconsider his perception of her as a bottom feeder.

O’Grady glanced at her hand, studied it for a moment, and then returned his poker-faced stare to her eyes. Kendall felt a flush rise on her face, but she tried to meet his stare without revealing her anxiety. And fear.

“Miss Jennings, do you honestly think that because you run into us here and
pretend
to
spill
your food, I’m going to become your buddy and
spill
everything to you. This isn’t a
Die Hard
movie. Real people died. They certainly wouldn’t want details of an investigation, vital information or not, splashed across newspaper pages. You might want to sell newspapers, well,
we save lives
.”

He spat the last few words at her as though they left a sour taste in his mouth.

Kendall stood with her mouth half-open, as she struggled to think what to say. She felt herself shrinking under both men’s glares. The bald partner hadn’t said anything yet, but she braced herself for a berating from him, too. Foolishly, she hadn’t planned an escape route if anything went wrong.

Stupid, stupid, Kendall.

She was a freaking
health and lifestyle
writer, period. In fact, she was a health and lifestyle writer so far out of her depth, she was now considering turning on her heels and running for the door.

In an attempt to save what little face she still possessed, Kendall swallowed a chunk of pride and demurely addressed O’Grady, from whom palpable waves of displeasure were surging toward her.

“Detective O’Grady, I sincerely apologize. I was trying to do my job. My editor assigned me the story, you see. In fact, I don’t do these stories. I’m so sorry. And I’m sorry my food landed on your table, and I’ve spilled my coffee and interrupted you. I was born a klutz or I grew into one, or I don’t really know, I’m just clumsy. Believe me, it wasn’t intentional. At any given time, you can find three or four bruises somewhere on my body.”

Kendall realized what she’d just said and quickly added, “Not that I mean you would check my body. I didn’t mean you should body search me.”

He raised his eyebrows and Kendall corrected herself. “No, I don’t mean you normally body search people. Generally, I was talking, generally.”

Oh, my sweet goodness, she was making this so much worse.

“You know what I mean. Don’t you?” she stammered, before gathering her thoughts enough to stop moving her mouth and shut up.