Thirty-Three and a Half Shenanigans (34 page)

“Dolly Parton’s boyfriend.”

“My condolences.”

“Joe! Listen to me! We just found him in his bed with a bullet hole in his forehead.”

“
What?
Where’s Abbie Lee?”

I cringed. This wasn’t going to go well. “I lost her somehow. And Neely Kate and I went back to talk to Dolly’s boyfriend.”

“How’d you get in the house?”

“The door was open.”

“Uh-huh.”

I sighed. “Believe me or not, you need to send someone out here.”

“If you’re still inside that house, get out and wait in the truck. What’s the address?”

I rattled off the address Neely Kate gave me as we walked to the front porch.

“You stay put,” Joe said. “Someone’s on the way.”

Neely Kate’s face was pale, and she looked like she was going to pass out. “I’ve never seen a murdered body before.”

I didn’t want to stop and think about how many I’d seen.

“Why was his hand in a fist like that?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. It looked like he was holding something.”

Her eyes widened. “We have to find out what it was.”

I released a sigh. She was right. “You sit here on the steps and wait for me.” I was surprised she didn’t argue, but she just sank down on the steps while I turned around and headed back inside.

I was scared to death as I crept up on Billy Jack’s body, especially because I felt like his dark, cold eyes were staring up at me. I kneeled on the mattress next to him and leaned over and tried to see what was in his hand. I wasn’t stupid enough to pry it out—it was evidence—but maybe I could get a look at it. It was a business card. I gasped when I realized what business it was for.

Gems. That couldn’t be good. I tried to read the other print on the card, but it was crumpled in Billy Jack’s fist.

I hurried to the front door and gulped big lungfuls of air.

“Could you see it?” Neely Kate asked. I was thankful her face had more color.

“It was a business card. For Gems.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, but the fact that he’s holding it in a literal death grip has to mean something.” I grabbed Neely Kate’s arm and tugged. “Come on. Let’s get you out of the cold.”

I made sure she got into the truck, then walked around to the driver’s side, catching a glimpse of cardboard on the backseat. “Dolly Parton’s box. We plum forgot about it.”

I opened the back door and lifted the lid off the box.

“What are you looking for?”

“Something to tie this together.” I started riffling through the mess, finding clothes, some makeup, a toothbrush, and a book. Stuck to the paperback romance novel was a post-it note with a phone number.

I gasped and looked up into Neely Kate’s face.

“What did you find?”

“This.” I held up the paper.

“A phone number. Should we call it?”

“We don’t have to,” I said, feeling nauseated. “I know who it belongs to.”

“Who?”

“Mason.”

“His office number?”

“No. His cell phone.”

“What was Dolly Parton doing with Mason’s cell phone number?”

I sank back into the seat, tears burning my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“There has to be a good reason.”

I shook my head. “What could it be?”

“Dolly was arrested this summer. Maybe she plea bargained, and Mason gave her his number.”

I looked up at her in disbelief. “His
cell phone?
”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

I dug my phone out of my pocket.

“Who are you calling? Mason?”

I stopped. Something wasn’t adding up. I knew Mason wouldn’t give his number out to a criminal—not that Dolly Parton
was
a criminal—and I’d mentioned her name to him without sensing any surprise or recognition on his part. It hadn’t fazed him at all to know Neely Kate and I were looking for her. “No. Not Mason.” I pulled up my contacts on my phone, and Skeeter answered right away.

“What do you know about Billy Jack Peters?”

“Well, well, an undemanded call from you. We’re making progress,” he said with a teasing tone.

“Cut the crap, Skeeter. I just found Billy Jack dead in his bed. What do you know about that?”

Neely Kate gasped at the mention of Skeeter’s name.

“What are you doing in Billy Jack’s bed?” He sounded sinister.

“Ew . . .” I cringed in disgust. “Don’t insult me. I wasn’t
in
his bed—well other than when I kneeled on it to look at something in his hand.”

“At what?” He didn’t sound any happier.

“A business card. For Gems.”

“I told you to stay away from Gems. And you didn’t answer my question: what are you doing at Billy Jack’s?”

“First, you didn’t tell me to stay away from Gems, only that it’s not part of the plot to kill Mason, and second, you asked what I was doing in Billy Jack’s bed, not in his house.”

“Answer me,” he growled.

“We’re still trying to find Dolly and Nikko, not that it’s any of your business.”

“What you do now
is
my business.”

I wasn’t having this argument right now. “Do you know how he’s connected to Gems?”

“Since I wasn’t clear enough the first few times I said it, stay away from Gems.”

“Why? What’s going on at Gems?”

“
Stay away from Gems
.”

“But what about Dolly Parton?”

“She ran off, Rose. Leave it at that.” Then he hung up.

The hell with that. I got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“What are you doing?” Neely Kate asked. “Joe said to stay here.”

“And wait for Deputy Hoffstetter? I don’t think so.” I turned the truck around and headed for the highway.

“Where are we going?”

I fought back my anger. “To Gems.”

“I thought Skeeter just told you to stay away.”

I turned to her in surprise.

“What? He wasn’t exactly whispering. I heard him.” She paused. “Why on earth did you call Skeeter instead of Joe, anyway?”

“Because Skeeter seems to be the one with the answers, or at least the only one willing to share them.”

“It’s a bad idea, Rose, relying on him. You don’t even know if he’s telling the truth.”

And she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

“Why didn’t you tell him about Dolly having Mason’s phone number?”

“He doesn’t need to know everything.”

“So why didn’t you tell Joe?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Do you think Mason has done something wrong?”

I shook my head.
Mason?
I would believe it of anyone else before I believed it of him. “We don’t even know if he gave it to her. What if someone else did? Also, he
did
have his phone stolen yesterday.”

“You’ve had Dolly’s box in your truck for three days, Rose.”

“I know.” I looked up the temporary number Mason had given me that morning, but when I called him, the phone went straight to an automated message. Tears welled in my eyes, and I fought back a sob. “He wanted to run off, Neely Kate.”

“Who?
Mason?
”

“After the break-in. He was really upset, and he begged me to run off with him on Saturday—tomorrow. He wanted to go somewhere far away, and he seemed desperate to go.”

Neely Kate put her hand on my arm. “I’m sure there’s a rational explanation.” But I heard a hitch in her voice.

“You know something.” When she didn’t answer, I started to freak out. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”

“Rose . . . let’s go get some lunch and figure out what to do next.” She paused. “And I’ll tell you what little I do know.”

I nodded, fighting my tears. Whatever Neely Kate knew had to be bad if she wouldn’t tell me now. “Okay.”

I drove to the diner we’d eaten at the day before and parked my truck behind a big rig so it couldn’t be seen from the highway. Joe was gonna be ticked that we took off, but I’d rather deal with his wrath than be chained to the devil, who in this case happened to be Deputy Hoffstetter.

“What do you know?” I asked after we’d given the waitress our order.

She grimaced. “Some things are better left unknown, Rose. Especially when it’s only bits and pieces.”

“You said you’d tell me.”

“Okay.” She reached across the table and took my hand. “I was up by Mason’s office one day a week ago—I thought you were there with him for lunch, so I dropped in to say hi. His secretary wasn’t at her desk, so I was outside his door when I heard him . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she sounded unsure.

“Heard him doing what?”

She released a heavy breath. “I wasn’t sure what I heard, Rose. I think he was on the phone because he was talking and no one was talking back. Something about money and meeting on a Friday night.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense, Neely Kate.”

“I agree, it didn’t make any sense, but then on Monday I heard Joe talking to the DA. He mentioned Mason’s name, and I heard something about bribes.”

My heart skipped a beat. “You can’t seriously suggest Mason is taking bribes.”

“I didn’t think that’s what it meant at the time, but now . . . I don’t know, Rose. I have no idea what’s going on. But consider this: Mason said he wanted to leave tomorrow because he had something he needed to do tonight. And the owner of Gems is supposed to be showing up at the club tonight. Dolly Parton had Mason’s cell phone number, and now she’s missing.”

I couldn’t believe that Mason would knowingly do something bad.

“Has he done anything else to suggest he’s in trouble?”

Tears burned my eyes. “Mason had a meeting with his boss on Wednesday, and that never happens. Skeeter even knew about it and said it was rare. Then Mason told me he thought he might lose his job.”

“Rose, it doesn’t look good.”

“Neely Kate,” I begged. “This is Mason we’re talking about.
Mason
. He’s one of the good guys.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I agree. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What about Billy Jack? Where does he fit into this? He lied to us the last time we spoke to him.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

The waitress brought our food out, and we were silent for several minutes.

“Gems is the common denominator. It connects them all,” I said. “Skeeter—even if he swears against it—Billy Jack, Dolly Parton . . . Mason. What’s going on there?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going there tonight.”

“Rose! Are you crazy? We need to tell Joe and let him handle it.”

“If I tell Joe, he might arrest Mason and throw him in jail.” I shook my head. “No. If Mason is really going to be at Gems, I have to be there to stop him.”

“This is the craziest stunt we’ve ever pulled. How are we going to explain being there?”

“Not we.
Me.
You can’t go back in there after your audition fiasco.”

She held up her hands. “
No way
. You’re not going in there alone, especially on a Friday night. You could barely handle it last time. Tonight it will be packed with men.”

“I have to, Neely Kate, and I have the perfect in. My job offer.”

“You’re going to
dance
?”

“Shoot, no! Crystal said something about bartending.”

“Do you even know how to make drinks?”

“No, but I’m sure I can download an app on my phone telling me how to make them.”

“Do you have to be topless?”

“No, she said I could wear something low-cut.”

She shook her head. “You never wear low-cut shirts.”

I shot her a glare. “I wore a low-cut dress last night, thank you very much.”

“When you were with Skeeter dressed as the Lady in Black. You can’t hide your face under a veil if you work a shift at Gems. You’ll be lucky if you make it through the night hiding your boobs.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to do for one night if it helps me save Mason. I have to talk sense into him, and I won’t be able to get ahold of him beforehand because Joe put him into protective custody.”

Neely Kate’s mouth twisted to the side. “So Mason’s caught up in
two
messes—the Gems thing
and
someone’s trying to kill him. You can’t ignore that Skeeter’s probably tied to it too. He keeps insisting that you stay away from there.”

Could I be fooled by Skeeter? He had promised to help protect Mason, but I knew he’d do whatever he had to do to advance his business. And he’d made no secret of the fact that he considered me a valuable asset. He might hide things from me on purpose for fear of how I’d react. Plus, Neely Kate was right. I couldn’t ignore how adamant he’d been about getting me to stay away from Gems. As I stared into my best friend’s worried face, there was one thing I was certain of: I couldn’t trust anyone except Neely Kate.

She released a heavy sigh. “So you think you’re just gonna show up and get a job? Then what? What’s your plan?”

I frowned. “I don’t know.”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m helping you.” Her mouth pursed. “After we finish lunch, we’ll run by there, and you can tell them you want the job. Now we just need to figure out how I’m gonna get in.”

I shook my head. “There’s no way you can go back in there after what happened at your audition. They’ll toss you out on your hiney.”

She scowled but didn’t answer. She knew I was right.

My phone rang, and I looked at the number on the screen and groaned. “It’s Joe.”

“You might as well answer it and get it over with,” she muttered, dipping a fry in ketchup.

I cringed as I answered, prepared for yelling. Instead Joe asked in a low voice, “Where the hell are you?”

“Around.”

“But not around the property of a murdered man, where I specifically asked you to stay.” He paused. “It wasn’t a bossy request, Rose. It was an official one. You were at a murder scene. I need your statement.”

“And I’ll give it to you . . . over the phone. I’m not letting that redheaded witch anywhere near me.”

“What’s Hilary got to do with this?” he asked in confusion.

“Not Hilary. Deputy Hoffstetter.”

I could swear I heard him snort. “It’s for your own protection, Rose.”