Single Elimination: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 4) (13 page)

I snatched my bag and mumbled, “Thanks.”

A couple of kids, about ten years old, poked their heads out the doorway and stared at me. They giggled and whispered. I looked at Jake and tried to fight the heat in my cheeks. “I had to step out for a minute,” I said.

“No kidding?” Jake noticed Will taking my bag for me. Jake looked him up and down. “Who’s this?”

Had he always been this haughty? This pathetically full of himself? Maybe I’d been blind to it. Maybe I’d been so used to Jake that I didn’t notice it. No. This was new. It was just that he’d never felt threatened before, when it came to me. And that meant he still had feelings for me. He felt that I was his in some way. I’d been his athlete for ten years. It was only natural that he’d feel like he had a stake in what happened to me, whether it was really appropriate or not. I could understand that. I could understand caring who I ended up with, even though it wasn’t any of his business. But this was something more.

Just as I opened my mouth to do the honors, Will stepped forward to introduce himself. “Officer Will Riggins.” He shook Jake’s hand firmly.

Maybe I was biased, but to me, unlike Jake, Will came across as classy and confident. My nervousness about the two of them together was replaced by a surge of pride, then sadness and even…shame. If only I could take it back. If only I could change it. There should have been only Will.

Jake said, “What brings you here, Officer Riggins?”

I stepped forward. “Will’s a friend of mine. A
good
friend.”

“Oh?” Jake raised his eyebrows. Then he smirked at Will. “Good luck with that.”

“Excuse me?” Will said. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing against you or Brenna. It’s just that I’ve known Brenna most of her life. She doesn’t
do
relationships.”

Will straightened up. He took a step closer to Jake. “She does now.”

I put my hand on Will’s arm. It was tense, though his tone was cool. Will adjusted his arm and took my hand.

“Good-bye, Jake,” I said. “I have to go.”

Jake shrugged again, then turned and went back into the dojo.

Will said, “Are you in the mood for something hot to eat?”

I nodded. “Soup. Ramen. Let me change first.”

“Yeah, you might want to do that.”

“Thanks,” I said. But my heart lifted a little bit. He wasn’t too mad to tease me. That was a good sign.

Twenty minutes later, Will and I were seated at a little restaurant a few blocks away, sipping ramen.

Will squirted Sriracha hot sauce on top of his ramen. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today, but I just wanted to beat that Jake guy to a pulp.”

“It’s not you; it’s Jake. I want to pulverize him, too.”

“Yes, but at least you know you could. He could bury me, couldn’t he?”

I wasn’t so sure. It had never really been Jake’s role to try to beat me, even in practice. He was my coach, not my training partner. Jake was a former Olympic alternate. And he was a man. If everything else was equal, gender mattered. But that wasn’t the point, and it certainly wouldn’t make Will feel any better.

“You bury him as a man, Will Riggins. He couldn’t handle this.” I waved my hand at myself. “He couldn’t handle being there for me when I really needed it. And then, he wasn’t man enough to be faithful to Blythe.”

“Still, if you could hand him his you-know-what, that would be nice to see.”

“I’m trying to be more ladylike, Will, and you’re not helping.”

“Sorry. I’m not usually such a bad influence.”

I laughed. “No, that’s my job.”

Will’s expression turned serious. “I was so worried about you. Blythe told me you’d be at the seminar, and when you weren’t…I was about to check with Highway Patrol. I know you’re not used to driving in Seattle. And then I saw your name on the sign-in sheet and your truck in the parking lot. I could just see you, following some crazy clue. Running into the wrong people. I can’t believe I ever said anything to encourage you—”

“I’m not a child. You put yourself in danger every day.”

“I have a gun and a badge. Sometimes a bulletproof vest.”

“So…I guess you don’t want to know what I found out?”

Will sighed. “Just spill it.”

I sat back against the couch, a towel around my head, my feet in the warm, foamy water, listening to a voicemail from Harvey. I’d missed his call while I was making a fool of myself in Seattle. Apparently, Harvey had pushed the town council into holding a special meeting about his sidewalk this coming Monday. I got the distinct impression that I was supposed to feel guilty for not securing the everlasting safety of his roses already, or least Gunter Hatton’s demise.

I’d gotten just a tad distracted with this murder thing. But hey, maybe this meeting wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe leaving Harvey to handle things on his own for a few days hadn’t turned out so bad after all.

“Don’t drop your phone in the water, Brenna,” my sister warned me.

I stuck my tongue out at her and set the phone down. I’d taken a long, hot shower, and now my feet were getting some extra attention and cleansing. She’d rested a basin on a towel on our coffee table and ordered me to put my feet in it. Whatever Blythe had put in the water was making my skin tingle. I didn’t complain. I liked to think the tingle was doing something. Preferably killing whatever had survived the Pine-Sol bath and my steamy shower.

“Five more minutes. Then it’s time for the scrub,” Blythe said.

Right about now, removing a few layers of skin sounded like a pretty good idea. While I soaked, I filled Blythe in on my ordeal. Blythe turned bright red on my behalf at all the embarrassing parts, killing any hope I had of kidding myself into believing it hadn’t been so bad.

“What do you think, Bly?”

“I think I should’ve been there to watch you choke the life out of Jake.”

Yeah, I couldn’t help sharing that part of the story. I’d kept the weirdness of Jake’s meeting Will to myself, though. “I meant the investigation. What do you think I should do next? Should I pay Evelyn another visit? Fish around for what she meant?”

“You could just ask her outright.”

“No, I don’t think that would work with her. Should I just start looking into Gunter?”

“No, the police have to be taking care of that already. He was one of the last people to see Mrs. Hermiston alive, and he argued with her.”

“You’re right. I should be pursuing leads that they don’t have time for. But I feel stuck.”

“You’re just tired. You had quite a day.”

“You’re right. Today wore me out. I can’t even think. Tell me what
you
think, Bly.”

“Well, it was a crime of passion. I’m absolutely convinced of that.” She handed me a tube of foot scrub. “It’s time for the good stuff.”

I wasn’t convinced someone couldn’t have tried to make it look like a crime of passion, even if it was well planned out. Wouldn’t that be a smart way to throw the police off your trail? But I kept that to myself for now.
 

Crime of passion. Okay. Maybe it was time to reconsider that possibility. The trouble was, passions were running high that day, for a lot of people. And whether the murder was planned or spontaneous, most of those passions were related to the race for mayor, in one way or another. All but one. One person had been upset that day, and it had nothing to do with the election. But it was someone very close to the victim. Dina Hermiston’s Grandson, Zack. But Dina was on Zack’s side. His sister, Delaney, had made that clear. She coddled him and gave him money. Now, if Delaney had been killed, that would make more sense.

I scrubbed my feet with the gritty, minty stuff, then toweled them off. I felt so much better.

“Brenna?”

“Sorry. I guess I spaced out.”

Blythe hesitated. “Is everything okay between you and Will?” she asked softly.

“What? Why?”

“Well, when I talked to him earlier, he just didn’t sound right.”

“The investigation’s wearing on him. And I guess he wasn’t happy to find out I went to Jake’s seminar.”

“Why would he be upset about that? What did you tell him about Jake?”

It would’ve been so easy just to say I’d told him Jake was a jerk. But that would be a lie. A lie to my sister. Kind of like the lie of omission I’d been living for the past few years. Will was still pretty upset that I hadn’t told him about Jake a long time ago. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to tell Blythe the rest of the story about Jake Fletcher.

19

“Last night, when I went over to Will’s house, we were talking about us—about me and him.”

“And?” Her eyes sparkled and her question was practically a squee.

Oh, no. Did she really think good news was coming? Maybe she thought he’d proposed and I was dragging my feet. Of course she’d talk some sense into me and all would be well. Will and I would start planning a fairytale wedding and everyone would live happily ever after. Why did I have to burst her bubble? Why was this so hard?

“Brenna? What’s the matter? You two aren’t having problems, are you?”

Were we? I wasn’t sure. But I was pretty sure Blythe and I were about to. “No, not really. It’s just that something came up. Will started asking me questions and I wasn’t going to tell him, but he guessed it, and…” My voice was shaking, really shaking.

Blythe grabbed my hand. She was seriously concerned now. “And what? He guessed what? Are you okay?”

I swallowed hard. “He guessed that there was someone else, before I met him.”

Blythe’s forehead crinkled. So did her dainty little nose. “Who else?”

I shut my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. “Jake.”

“Brenna, it sounded like you just said Jake.”

I nodded.

She let go of my hand. “My Jake?”

I opened my eyes. The color had left Blythe’s cheeks. She shrank back, away from me.
Her Jake
. Oh, no. Was I resurrecting the Blythe who loved Jake? It was hard enough to break this to the Blythe who’d moved on.

“Before you two were ever a thing,” I said quickly. “It was just one time.”

Blythe just blinked at me for what seemed like an eternity. Then she said, “And you’re telling me this now because you already told Will.”

“He figured it out. I wasn’t going to tell him. I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“Yes! Otherwise I wouldn’t—”

“Wait! You’re in love with Jake, my ex-husband?”

“No! Will. I’m in love with Will. Not that it even compares to my only sister…Blythe, you’re the most important person in the world to me.”

“Were you ever in love with Jake?”

“I thought I was. For years, I thought I was. But then he showed me who he really was.”

“And when was that? At what point did he show you who he really was? Before I married him, or after?”

“
After
. Please, Blythe. You have to believe I would’ve told you everything if I thought it would save you heartache. If I thought it would make you happier in the end. If I knew what he was going to do.” I could see it all crashing down on her at once. She didn’t know what to be mad about first, what to be mad about the most.

“So, you still thought Jake was a great guy? You were still in love with him when I married him and you didn’t think
that
was something I should know?”

“He didn’t love me back!” My tears spilled out, and I was angry. So angry at myself. So angry at Jake for acting like he had feelings for me today. “He wanted you. I didn’t want to take that away from you.”

Abruptly, Blythe got up from the couch.

“Blythe?”

She walked calmly but quickly to the little bedroom we shared. I hurried after her. She pulled a pink duffel bag out of the closet and began filling it with clothes.

“What…what are you doing?” My voice sounded so small to my own ears. “Bly, please. Don’t go.”

Her eyes were shiny with tears, but she wouldn’t let them fall. “I’m going to Lourdes’s house. I’ll talk to you about this later, Brenna. Right now I just need—I need—” Her voice caught. A tear escaped.

I reached for her, but she held a hand out, gently but firmly. “No. Not now. I can’t now.”

“Okay.” I didn’t try to stop my tears.

That feeling. That awful, awful feeling I’d buried under a ton of bricks in my soul, whooshed out. The bricks flew everywhere inside, like a wall shattered by floodwaters. How could I? How could I keep something like this from her?

One day at a time, step by step, that’s how. I couldn’t speak of it. Of how completely devastated I was. I’d told myself I would, later. That I’d tell my sister eventually, when I was strong enough.

And then it was too late. Jake had asked her out. She wanted to know what I thought. She was so happy, and I was so confused. What happened between us had just been a mistake, Jake had said. We’d both always known it would be a bad idea, hadn’t we? That was why we’d never made any romantic moves toward each other in all these years, wasn’t it? Why should I let a mistake stand between my sister and happiness with a great guy? And at the time, that’s how I still thought of Jake. As a great guy. A guy I was still in love with. A guy who’d made it clear he wouldn’t even consider trying to make it work with me.

I hadn’t even gotten to tell Blythe the details of how it had happened. How Jake had “comforted” me the night I lost everything in the Olympic Games. Jake had been disappointed too, hadn’t he? No one had worked as hard as I had in my quest for Olympic Gold, but Jake had certainly invested a lot in me. All for a heart-wrenching defeat due to a devastating injury. We’d both been vulnerable.

Remembering that, I forgot, for just a moment, to hate Jake. I caught myself trying to understand him again, starting to empathize with him.
No!
That was too close to liking him. Too close to feeling other things for him. Things I never wanted to feel for him again. Things that, until Will Riggins, I hadn’t wanted to feel for
anyone
again.

I picked up Blythe’s pillow pet—half pillow, half stuffed animal—in the shape of a purple platypus, and settled it on top of the stack in her arms. “Here. You might want Platy.”

Blythe sniffed and nodded. She even tried to smile. She didn’t hate me, totally. But she couldn’t stand to stay here with me. And I had no idea what to do with that.