Open Season Read online

  “Since you got a welcome mat instead of a guard dog,” he said, with a pointed look at the puppy, “I want you to be especially careful until I satisfy myself there’s nothing to worry about with this tag-number deal. There are a few things I want to check out. Until then, I’ll drive you to and from work, and stay here at night.”

  “Okay,” she said, a little astonished. It sounded as if he planned to move in, at least for the short term. What astonished her was how pleased she felt. She should be out trying to find a husband, but she didn’t feel as enthusiastic about it as she had just a few days before. Of course, a few days before, she hadn’t had a lover, and she hadn’t watched him cradle her puppy in his strong arms to carry it out for a nature call in the middle of the night. Just remembering that made her feel squishy, as if she had turned to mush inside.

  Maybe Jack wasn’t her type, but somehow she didn’t much care.

  “The city council meets tonight,” he continued, “so I’ll bring you home, then go to my house to shower and change clothes, and come back here when the meeting’s over.”

  “Should I wait with supper?” she asked, just as if they did this all the time.

  “No, go ahead and eat. If you have the chance.” He gave Midas a wry glance, then began chuckling. The puppy had dozed off, still on his back with his feet in the air.

  While she was thinking of it, she called her mother to see if she was still willing to puppy-sit.

  “I’ll come over there,” Evelyn said. “As far as I’m concerned, that fenced back yard is priceless. I’ll be over about eight-thirty, so you’ll have plenty of time to get to work.”

  That taken care of, Daisy hung up the phone and immediately began to worry about how she would explain to her mother why Jack was driving her to work. As for explaining his presence—she was, after all, a thirty-four-year-old woman—she didn’t owe explanations about her love life to anyone.

  “You have to leave,” she said. “My mother’s coming over.”

  He seemed to be fighting a grin. “If you feed me breakfast, I’ll be out of here by eight o’clock I’ll go home, shave and change clothes, and be back here in plenty of time to get you to the library.”

  “It’s a deal,” she said promptly. “It doesn’t take long to whip up a bowl of cereal.”

  “Biscuits,” he wheedled.

  Exasperated, she turned on the oven.

  “And eggs and bacon.”

  What was a home-cooked meal, compared to the trouble he was going to on her behalf? He was just lucky she had stocked up on all the necessary things out of habit before she realized she wouldn’t be doing much cooking for herself. Cereal in the morning and a sandwich at night was much more practical when there was only one sitting down at the table.

  She put the bacon in the flying pan, covered it with a screen so the grease wouldn’t splatter all over her new stove, then got out the flour, oil, and milk and began mixing up the biscuit dough. Jack watched in amazement. “I thought you would use the canned kind.”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “You actually know how to make homemade biscuits?”

  “Of course I do.” She stopped to take out her new biscuit pan and coat it with nonstick cooking spray. She didn’t roll out the dough, but did it the way her mother had taught her: she pinched off a certain amount of dough, rolled it into a ball, flattened the ball with a quick pat, and placed it in the pan.

  “Aunt Bessie did it that way,” he said, fascinated. “She called them choke biscuits, because she choked off the dough instead of using a biscuit cutter.”

  “Biscuit cutters are for sissies.” She had made as many biscuits as she, her mother, and Aunt Jo usually ate, but she figured Jack would eat as much as two of them put together. The oven was still heating, so she checked on the bacon and turned it.

  Jack got up and poured himself another cup of coffee, grabbed the Huntsville morning paper off the counter, and went back to the table. Daisy hadn’t had time to even glance at the paper the day before, because of Midas, but she could always read it at the library.

  The oven beeped as it reached the pre-set temperature. Daisy put the biscuits in to bake and turned to get the eggs out of the refrigerator. As she did, a picture on the front page caught her eye. The man looked familiar, though she couldn’t quite place him.

  “Who’s that?” she said, frowning a little as she pointed.

  Jack read the caption. “His name was Chad Mitchell. A hunter found his body Sunday morning.”

  “I know him,” she said.

  He put down the paper, his gray-green eyes suddenly sharp. “How?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t quite remember.” She got out the eggs. “How do you want them, scrambled or fried?”

  “Scrambled.”

  She cracked four eggs into a bowl, added a little milk, and beat them with a fork. “Set the table, please.”

  He got up and began opening cabinet doors and drawers until he found the plates and silverware. Daisy stared absently at the bacon as she turned it one last time.

  “Oh, I know!” she said suddenly.

  “He was a library patron?”

  “No, he was at the Buffalo Club. He tried to dance with me, that first night, and wanted to buy me a Coke, but the fight started before he could get back.”

  Jack set the plates down and gave her his full attention. “That was the only time you saw him?”

  She cocked her head as if studying a scene in her memory. “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean? It either was or wasn’t.”

  “I’m not certain,” she said slowly, “but I think I saw him in the parking lot of the club on Saturday night, before I went inside. He was with two other men; then a third one got out of a car and joined them. He didn’t seem all that drunk when he came out of the club, but then he passed out and they put him in the bed of a pickup.”

  Jack rubbed the back of his neck in an almost angry gesture. “Jesus,” he muttered.

  She stared at him, her cheeks a little pale. “Do you think I was the last person to see him alive?”

  “I think you saw him get killed,” he said harshly.

  “But—but there wasn’t a shot or anything. . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, and she sagged against the cabinet.

  Jack looked at the article, checking his facts. “He was stabbed.”

  She swallowed and turned even whiter. Jack started to reach for her, but she suddenly gathered herself and did what women have done for centuries when they were upset: they busied themselves doing normal stuff. She tore off a paper towel and lined a plate with it, then took up the bacon, placing it on the paper towel to drain.

  Moving that flying pan out of the way, she took out a smaller one, sprayed it with cooking spray, then poured the beaten eggs into it and set it on the hot eye. She checked the biscuits, then got the butter and jam out of the refrigerator and set them on the table.

  Jack looked around. “I don’t want to use the cordless. Do you have a land line?”

  “In the bedroom.”

  He got up and went into the bedroom. Daisy busied herself stirring the eggs and watching the biscuits as they rose and began to brown. After a minute he came back into the kitchen and said, “I have some people checking into some things, but I’m afraid one of the men in the parking lot saw you, and got your tag number.”

  She stirred the eggs even harder. “Then call the mayor and ask him who gave him the number.”

  “There’s a slight problem with that.”

  “What?”

  “The mayor lied to me when he asked me to run the number. He may be involved.” Jack paused. “He’s probably involved.”

  “What do we do?”

  “I’ve already taken steps to make sure no one can find you. Don’t tell anyone you’ve moved; tell your mother and aunt not to mention it—in fact, call your mother back and tell her to make certain no one follows her when she comes over here.”

  She gaped