Venus in Blue Jeans (27 page)

“He has.” Docia scooped him off the counter and deposited him on the floor. “Scat, you.” Nico gave her a brief, resentful meow, then slunk off to the back door.

Pep, ensconced in Uncle Ollie’s rocker, watched the cat with wary eyes.

Cal leaned back in his chair at the kitchen table, his coffee mug in his hands. “Nico was shot in the backyard too, wasn’t he?”

Docia looked up briefly, then down at her coffee again. “What do you mean,
too
?”

“Well, that’s where Margaret…”

She nodded quickly. “Right. You think it’s the same person?”

“I don’t know.” Cal rubbed the back of his neck. Something tickled in his memory. “Where was he exactly when he got shot?”

“In front of the storeroom window. The bullet must have gone on through his jaw and cracked the glass.”

“Cracked the glass.” Cal sat forward, frowning. “But he was shot from above. The bullet entered his muzzle and came out his lower jaw.”

Docia glanced up at him and then down again. “Maybe it ricocheted.”

“So glass was in the storeroom from the bullet hole?”

“Glass? No, not in the storeroom. Some glass was outside, but nothing…” Her head snapped up, and she stared directly at him for perhaps the first time that morning. “That’s wrong. If the bullet broke the corner of the window when it hit Nico, there should have been glass in the storeroom.”

Cal felt the tickling again. “The glass was outside?”

Docia nodded. “But it should have been inside…” She sat very still, her eyes wide.

“If the shot came from outside,” Cal finished.

Neither of them moved for a long moment. “Someone shot him from inside the shop,” Docia murmured, finally.

“Someone who wasn’t you or Janie.”

She shook her head, fingertips to her mouth.

She looked so stricken Cal had to fight the impulse to pull her into his arms. Somehow he got the feeling she didn’t want that right now, probably because of last night. “Who else has a key to the shop?”

Docia closed her eyes, thinking. “Janie and me. The cleaning service.” She sighed. “I never changed the locks, though, when I took over the building. The realtors gave me the previous owner’s keys, but I suppose there could have been others nobody knew about.”

Cal rubbed the back of his neck again. “Nothing’s been stolen? You haven’t missed anything?”

Docia shook her head. “We take the money to the bank at the end of the day, more often than that if it’s busy. Besides the money, nothing in the store is worth stealing unless you’re into books. And even then…” She stopped, her mouth thinning.

“What?”

Docia rested her elbows on the table. “Dub Tyler. He wanted me to hold something for him. Maybe he broke in.”

“And shot Nico?” Cal tried to remember Dub Tyler. He had a vague image of a cagey-looking little old man.

Docia shook her head. “He wouldn’t have any reason to. And Dub’s never struck me as the type who’d shoot an animal for fun.”

They sat for a moment longer, hoping for a revelation that didn’t come. Cal finally got up, gathering his coffee mug and plate and heading for the sink. “You should pass this along to Chief Brody. It might help him figure out what happened to Margaret.”

Docia nodded absently. She was back to silence again. Cal sighed. “Let’s go to work.”

All the way in to town Docia debated with herself over whether she should ask Cal about the page with the specs from BK Enterprises. What would he say? Donnie always had an excuse, an explanation. But it was always full of crap.

Cal probably had excuses of his own. Right now she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear them.

Finally, as they turned up Spicewood, she cleared her throat. “Are you and Horace looking to expand? I saw the specs for the lot next door.”

Cal grinned slightly. “We’re working on it. That first price is way out of line, but I think we can get it down. We’ve got a good negotiating point, anyway.”

Docia’s hand closed into a fist. She should tell him who BK was. No, she should think of a way to find out if he knew already. A dull ache began to throb in her chest. Drama. She hated drama. She really needed to avoid drama.

When Cal pulled his truck up behind the shop, Docia quickly backed out the door, without stopping to work out how to say what she was going to say. “I think I should stay here tonight,” she blurted.

His brow furrowed in concern. “Why?”

“I just…” She took a deep breath. “I think it’s time I moved back home.”

“Well, I guess, if you really…” Cal stopped suddenly. “What about Nico? He’s still at the barn.”

Damn.
She’d forgotten all about him. “Could you keep him a little longer? Would that be okay? I can pick him up tomorrow.”

Cal nodded, face blank, eyes dark. “Sure. I can hang onto him if you want.”

“Well, okay then, thanks. It’s been really…great.” Docia almost leaped away from the truck, moving quickly to the back door.

She stood inside the doorway, staring after Cal as he turned his truck back up the street.
It’s been really…great. Thanks so much for all the fantastic sex. I’ll send you a nice box of soap or something.
Oh God, she really was an idiot—and a coward. She should have asked him about it. She should have told him what she was worried about.

And gotten her heart broken all over again.

Cal spent the better part of the morning trying to figure out exactly what had happened at Docia’s back door. One minute everything was going along fairly well. He’d felt closer to her than to any woman he’d ever known before. The conversation about families last night had brought them together, although, now that he thought about it, he’d had a lot more to say about his family than she had about hers. Hell, he’d even told her how he felt about her, something he’d never said to any woman before.

Then this morning Docia ran from his truck as if he were Jack the Ripper.

He must have done something wrong, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what. Even after checking back through everything he’d said to her last night and this morning, he still couldn’t think of anything blatantly stupid he’d said or done.

Particularly last night.

Docia had glowed white in the lightning. Thunder added special emphasis to everything, rumbling through his body along with the electric charge of her warmth and wetness.

Mind-blowing. Nothing wrong there he could see.

Nothing wrong anywhere, in fact. Cal was under no illusions about his own general prowess, but he couldn’t think of anything he’d messed up this time. In fact, he’d never felt quite this right with a woman before. And he’d told her so.

Which meant the problem was with Docia. Which meant he’d have to find out what was bothering her and fix it.

Because no way was he letting her go again.

Docia sent Janie home early. Once the curiosity seekers had stopped coming in to check her out as a potential murderess, business had dropped back to its normal midweek slump.

She sat disconsolately behind the cash register, watching the last pair of tourists work their way through the Texas mysteries section.

Leaving Cal this morning was definitely the right thing to do. She needed some time by herself to figure things out, and she’d left before she’d really gotten hurt, unlike Donnie. She told herself that several times during the day. Now she could think about everything without being distracted by Cal and his non-stop animal magnetism.
No harm, no foul, everything back the way it was.

And each time, five seconds later her heart was being torn out with red-hot pliers.

Just what was she afraid of, anyway? He might have a reason that made perfect sense. Why hadn’t she let him at least try to explain?

For a moment, Donnie’s face flashed through her mind, smiling that professional smile of his. “I didn’t lie, Docia, just exaggerated a little. Everybody does it in business. It wasn’t like I was trying to cheat you or your father.” Only somehow her money had disappeared just at the same time she and Donnie began to have problems. Donnie’s explanations usually just made things worse.

But Cal isn’t Donnie.

Cal’s voice floated through her mind again.
I think I’m in love with you.
But Donnie had said he loved her too, usually right before he hung up.
Love you, kid. Bye.
It didn’t feel the same.

Docia sat at the front counter, watching a woman whose fuchsia toenails matched her earrings, and thought about Donnie. She’d loved him, hadn’t she? She’d thought so, anyway.

Or had she?

Had she loved the real Donnie Branscombe, with his slick PR kind of smile and his conversation that always sounded like he was channeling some motivational strategy speaker? Maybe she’d loved the idea of loving him more than the real him. After all, the real Donnie was the jerk who’d once tried to get her to ask her father for his seats in the Houston Texans Director’s Club so that Donnie could sell a few more lots to his clients as they watched the game.

She contemplated the other men she’d been with since Donnie, although she hadn’t spent much time with them, now that she thought about it. A few days, maybe a couple of weeks or so. Then, goodbye, good luck, it’s been fun.

But it hadn’t been fun. Not really. Not the way it was with Cal.

Ms. Fuchsia Toes bought a self-help book on weeding out the destructive impulses from your life. Docia thought about checking the shelves to see if she had another copy for personal use.

She could hear the occasional drumming of rain against the windows, the splash of car tires through puddles in the street. Not many customers on a rainy day.

As she thought about it, since Donnie, she’d always been the one to end her relationships. Before they got messy. Before her feelings were really involved. Before she got hurt again.

An ache throbbed deep in her chest. And a prickling across the bridge of her nose threatened to turn into tears.

You call this not hurting?

Too late this time. This time her feelings were already deeply, deeply involved. So deeply involved she wasn’t sure she could pull free of him.

Do you want to pull free of him? Why?

Didn’t Cal deserve a chance? Didn’t she?

Docia sat up straight at the counter, her heart hammering.

Didn’t she want to at least try this time?

Why did you just walk away this morning? What were you thinking?

Coward! You love him!

She was afraid of what he could mean to her, so afraid that she’d run rather than face the possibility he might do her wrong. She’d never been a quitter, not about anything. But she’d quit Cal before she’d given him any chances at all.

Docia took a deep breath and shook her head.
Too late now.
She’d already walked out.

She turned the lights off in the shop, turning the lock on the door, then went upstairs to fix some dinner. But instead of cooking, she sat in the darkened living room, staring into the gathering twilight outside and wondering how she could have been so stupid, so gutless.

Her palms itched, and the ache in her chest was making it hard to breathe.
Do something, damn it, do something.

Call him. Right now!

She stood, digging in her pocket for her phone.

Downstairs in the shop there was a dull thud as something hit the floor.

Docia was halfway down the stairs before it occurred to her to slow down. Whoever was in the shop might have a gun. He’d already shot Nico and probably attacked Margaret. Rushing in on him would not be a great idea.

She slipped back up the stairs into her living room, punching numbers into her phone, then heard a man’s voice say, “Konigsburg police, Brody speaking.”

“Chief,” she murmured, “it’s Docia Kent. I’m in my apartment. There’s someone downstairs in my shop. I just heard a noise.”

“Okay, Ms. Kent,” Brody’s voice rumbled reassuringly, “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Stay put. Don’t go down there alone.”

Stay put.
Good advice. Docia sighed. She wasn’t going to take it, of course. Not when some jerk kept breaking into her shop. She needed to at least see who it was.

She slipped down the stairs into the storeroom, eyes moving around the room, looking for something that could work as a weapon if she needed one. The only thing she saw was a heavy three-hole paper punch. Grimacing, Docia picked it up.

She peeked through the narrow door opening, keeping herself flat against the wall so that whoever was in the shop wouldn’t know she was there. The back of the shop was still dark, the front lit only with reflected light from the street.

Docia sensed movement in the back. Outside, thunder rumbled across the sky. A sudden rasp of drops against the glass was followed by a ripping flash of lightning, illuminating the room.