Page 25 of Eye on the Ball
Bill, her fiancé, was a smart man. Eleanor was a menace with that gun. Fluffy sported a big strip of duct tape from the bullet wound where my sweet, genteel, Southern lady employee had shot him.
She’d been trying to shoot Jack, so I wasn’t all that upset she’d hit Fluffy.
The shop was empty, so I took the statement back and filed it in my vault under T for Turner, and Eleanor unpacked the homemade meatloaf sandwiches she’d brought.
I tried to call Jack, but he wasn’t answering, so I texted him to call me as soon as he could. While we had lunch, I told Eleanor about Brenda.
“I heard she was dating him,” she said, handing me a napkin.
“How do I never hear anything? I own a pawnshop! I should be the center of all town gossip!”
“Do you want to be the center of town gossip?”
“No,” I admitted. “Gossip is exhausting.”
“That’s why most people don’t tell you any, honey,” she said kindly, patting my hand.
My phone buzzed.
Jack:
On my way to you. Do you need lunch?
Me:
No, we’re good. Is Brenda okay?
Jack:
For now. It’s weird. Will tell you in person.
By the time Jack arrived, finishing the sandwiches he’d bought on the way, we were busy again. He waved to me and headed for his office. When things slowed down enough that Eleanor could cover on her own, I headed through our connecting door to talk to Jack.
Even after knowing him for more than a year now, sometimes I was struck anew by how incredibly beautiful he was. The thick waves of bronze hair that framed his face and touched the collar of his forest-green shirt. Great cheekbones, a straight nose, and overall bone structure like I’d seen on the ancient Greek statuary I’d studied in an online art class. Those long, dark lashes around the emerald-green eyes that turned to a beautiful amber when he was a tiger. I touched the tiger’s eye pendant he’d given me and smiled at him.
He looked up from the papers on his desk and gave me a puzzled look. “What?”
“You’re just so beautiful.”
His cheeks flushed, and he stood and pulled me into his arms. “I’m not beautiful. I’m a guy.You’rethe beautiful one.”
“Let’s agree that we’re both beautiful.” I said, feeling shy. But then he kissed me, and I forgot about shyness, because I was exactly where I was meant to be.
After so many years alone, I’d found Jack, and he felt like home to me.
“Tell me about Brenda,” I said after a little while, and he filled me in.
“He’s gone? Did they try to track his phone?”
“His phone is turned off or destroyed. I offered to contact Alejandro, since kidnapping can be federal jurisdiction, depending on circumstances. That’s when Sheriff Lawless kicked me out.”
I flinched at the name “Sheriff Lawless,” even though I knew it wasn’toursheriff. Dead End’s Lawless had been complicit in murders and black magic. Everything I’d heard about his cousin, the Riverton sheriff, was almost as bad, though.
“Are you going to call Alejandro anyway?”
Our friend, Special Agent Alejandro Vasquez, of the FBI’s Paranormal Ops division, had helped us out of more than one jam since Jack had moved home to Dead End. The downside was that he kept trying to entice Jack to work at P-Ops with him as his partner.
We got into enough dangerous trouble right here at home. The last thing Jack needed was to go out searching for more. Fortunately, Jack felt the same way. He’d said on multiple occasions that he was done with being anything even close to law enforcement. After all those years running the rebellion with his co-leader, Quinn, I didn’t blame him.