Dial Em for Murder Read online

  Dial Em for Murder

  Marni Bates

  Copyright © 2016 by Marni Bates.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

  Published by

  Merit Press

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

  www.meritpressbooks.com

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-9585-2

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9585-1

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-9586-0

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9586-8

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

  Cover design by Sylvia McArdle.

  Cover images © iStockphoto.com/Peter Zelei, MartinaVaculikova.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Praise for Dial Em for Murder

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgments

  Praise for Dial Em for Murder

  “Bates weaves a fast-paced, heart-in-throat thriller with characters who first skewer you with wit and then punch you in the feels. Start this one early, because you won’t want to stop!” —Mary Elizabeth Summer, author of Trust Me, I’m Lying and Trust Me, I’m Trouble

  “Marni Bates knows how to bring the suspense! Dial Em for Murder kept me up—with all the lights on—long past my bedtime.” —Tracy Deebs, author of Doomed and The Tempest series, and coauthor of The Hero Agenda series

  “Marni Bates’s Dial Em for Murder has it all: quirky humor, pulse-quickening action, and a sassy heroine you’ll love so much you won’t know which of the two hot guys to root for. It’s the perfect beach read!” —Emily McKay, author of The Farm series

  “Dial Em for Murder combines a feisty heroine with enough action, mystery, humor, and romance to keep readers flipping pages well into the night. The main characters are all endearing in their own ways, but I was never sure who I could trust. Each time I thought I had everything figured out, the story spun me for another loop. A funny and engaging read that will keep you guessing.” —Paula Stokes, author of Liars, Inc.

  This book is dedicated to every coffee-shop daydreamer.

  Sometimes those fantasies really do come true.

  (You’re reading this right now! That’s proof.)

  I hope you never stop fighting for your dreams.

  Chapter 1

  She sighed as he moved his lips more firmly across hers. “Oh Josh!” Christine moaned. “Take me with you! I’m not afraid of facing down a drug cartel if it means that we can stay together!”

  Tapping one nail-bitten finger against the Starbucks table, I grimaced as I reread the words that I had just typed on the screen.

  They sucked.

  The characters were flat, the dialogue stilted, and the motivations felt awfully flimsy to me. I mean, any girl willing to die for some random guy—even if they did just share a night of blistering passion—was an airhead in my book.

  Which was exactly why the whole thing belonged in the little trash icon at the bottom of the screen. So much for seeing my name, Emmy Danvers, gracing the cover of a book. At this rate, I’d be stuck with forty manuscripts hidden under my bed that would never see the light of day.

  “Grande mocha Frappuccino for Emmy.”

  I shot one last frustrated look at the laptop screen before grabbing my bag and moving toward the counter. The only benefit to checking out the same ancient high school laptop every week, besides the obvious fact that I couldn’t afford to buy one of my own, was that nobody would be even slightly tempted to steal it while my back was turned. I mentally began to flip through ways to describe my characters’ intense attraction—a passion that wouldn’t be diminished even by the evil drug lord determined to pull them asunder.

  Her heart raced.

  His pulse began to pound.

  I reached for my drink, contemplating the subtle differences between gasping and panting, only to have a wrinkled, age-spotted hand snatch it away from me.

  The old man was painfully thin with a sweater bagging loosely around his slight frame, white grizzled hair, and slightly rheumy ice blue eyes. I pointedly cleared my throat, but instead of catching his mistake and apologizing like a normal person, he winked at me as he sauntered toward his table as if this was all some big joke. As if he had every right to steal my drink without so much as a mumbled apology. As if he hadn’t just taken my caffeine.

  Still, I tried to keep it civil. “Um, sir? That’s my drink.”

  “Sit down. We have much to discuss.” His tone was cultured, the words precise and clipped.

  “We don’t have anything to discuss. If you’ll just hand over my drink, I’ll leave you alone. See, it says ‘Em’ right here and—”

  A strange look crossed his face as if every muscle in his body tightened. It was like I’d tripped over a panic button and put a nuclear missile on standby alert. He grabbed my wrist with his one free hand in a painfully tight hold while I stared at him, too stunned to do anything more than instinctively lurch backwards.

  I had no idea what was going on, but his grip hurt.

  The pressure increased and the small part of my brain that was observing all of this with a detached sense of disbelief pointed out that his strength was pretty damn impressive for an old man who had probably been cashing in his senior citizen discount for over a decade. I tried to flag down a barista by flailing my free arm. But the four Starbucks employees were too focused on the long line of waiting customers to spare a glance for the good-natured old man they probably assumed was holding hands with his beloved great niece.

  Nobody around me seemed to realize that something was seriously off.

  “Em,” he repeated my name roughly. “You need to listen to me. Pay attention, dammit! You’re not safe.”

  No freaking kidding.

  “You’re hurting me, sir.” I began mentally negotiating with whatever higher power that might be interested in getting me out of this situation. If he lets go of my wrist, I’ll make more of an effort in P.E. I’ll stop doing those half-assed pushups with my knees on the ground. Hell, I’ll even try to do a chin-up instead of just dangling from the iron bar.

  “Your father’s in danger.” The old man shook me like I w
as a piggy bank with a reluctant penny rattling around inside. “You’re both in danger and I can’t fix it. Not anymore.”

  No drink was worth this kind of hassle.

  “You’ve got the wrong girl,” I said cautiously. “You need to let me go.”

  His eyes glassed over and his whole body trembled with the effort it took to remain latched onto my wrist.

  “Morgan will know what to do, always was better with the details. And they’re coming, girl. I’d stake my life on it. They’re coming to kill me.”

  Well, okay.

  That explained everything. He was certifiably insane—just like all the other New York City crazies who barged into Starbucks yelling about the Secret Service, Queen Elizabeth, Beyoncé, Jesus, and, on one very memorable occasion, Charlie Chaplin.

  If he hadn’t maintained his grip on my wrist, I would’ve grabbed my laptop and left without looking back. Okay, there would’ve been one backward glance, but only because the level of detail in my romance manuscripts needed work. I tended to skim over the small things; the way his breath smelled slightly of peppermint, the soft nubby texture of his sweater rubbing against my wrist, the surge of strength in his leathery fingers.

  “Uh, I’m sure you’re right, sir. Morgan will know how to help you.”

  Okay, so I was lying to a man who was a single outburst away from joining the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. For starters, my dad’s name wasn’t Morgan. And if my dad had any interest in helping me, he would’ve been there for me back in third grade when I broke my arm on the playground. Considering that my trip to the hospital and nearly three months in a cast hadn’t been enough to snag his attention, I doubted a delusional old man would have any better luck.

  “So you’ll warn him?” he croaked. “Do you really mean it?”

  I nodded, my face solemn. “Sure. Any other messages you want me to give my dad? That 9/11 was an inside job, maybe? The details behind JFK’s assassination?”

  His grin was far more unsettling than his earlier glare. There was something wild and feral lingering at the edges of it. A crocodile smile.

  “Oswald completely botched that job. There’s a reason things went down the way they did, but we don’t have time to discuss it.” He shook his head slowly, but his lips tilted upward into a gentler smile. “Why don’t you go play outside now, Gracie? Your uncle and I have business to discuss.”

  Gracie. Okay, so maybe he was suffering from Alzheimer’s instead of straight-up insanity. Maybe my deception was only making his delusions worse. Guilt jabbed at me.

  “Uh, it’s Em, sir,” I said gently. “Emmy Danvers.”

  I probably should have kept that information to myself. His face did that tightening thing again, but he finally released my wrist and I yanked it back to my chest. My skin felt raw and bruised, but it was the old man who looked pained.

  “Right. Emmy Danvers,” he repeated. “You can’t trust anyone. Do you understand what I am telling you? Trust nobody and stay alert. You won’t survive long in the business if you don’t go for the jugular, girl. That’s how I always did it.”

  I blinked and fought the urge to ask him to explain that rationally.

  “I really just wanted my drink.” I grabbed my drink and stumbled toward my laptop, pausing only when I stood well beyond grabbing range. I don’t know what compelled me to swivel around and meet his gaze again. He probably wouldn’t remember meeting me within the next handful of minutes. Those ice-blue eyes of his were already becoming shuttered once more.

  “I hope you get the help you need.”

  I wasn’t kidding.

  Even knowing that the people trying to kill him were all in his head, well, that didn’t make it feel any less real to him. So maybe the guy was a whack job—I still understood feeling powerless. I’d experienced the acidic taste that it leaves behind in your mouth, a mixture of fear and copper pennies, every time my mom brought home another one of her sketchy boyfriends. Every time she tried to convince us both that she was one audition away from stardom.

  I wondered if Gracie was real. If it broke his daughter Gracie’s heart every time the old man descended into twisted nightmares where killers lurked within well-lit coffee shops. If she was his daughter, frantically searching for him, trying to figure out where he could have wandered this time. Or if Gracie was nothing more than another one of his delusions.

  I wished him luck because I wasn’t sure which scenario was worse.

  Big mistake.

  He tackled me. Right there in Starbucks, in front of all the baristas and the caffeine addicts and the people who happened to glance through the windows as they strolled down Madison Avenue. The old guy leaped at me as if he were a defensive linebacker in the NFL and sent me sprawling across the tile flooring, knocking the air right out of me. The stupid mocha Frappuccino that started this whole mess exploded on impact, drenching me.

  A painfully long silence rocked the room. Each second stretched into something longer, languid, ugly. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

  Maybe if somebody had rushed to my aid, they would have heard him whisper, “Always a caveat. Guard this with your life or you’ll be next. Tell . . . your dad sorry.”

  Maybe they would have seen him slip something into my coat pocket.

  But nobody did.

  Pinning me to the floor and coated with coffee, the old man shuddered, convulsed, and died.

  Chapter 2

  “He died on you? For real? Take-him-to-the-morgue-and-bury-him died?”

  My two best friends, Audrey Weinstein and Ben Tucker, stared at me in disbelief. Correction: Audrey stared at me in disbelief; Ben flat out didn’t believe me. He had also been snickering ever since I’d mentioned working on my latest romance novel. Even if I caved and started letting people read my manuscripts, I would never show them to him. He’d only start quoting the dialogue from Kidnapped by Her Italian Billionaire Lover whenever he was in the mood to mock me.

  I didn’t think that one was my worst attempt at a novel, either.

  My reply stamped out all traces of his amusement. “Yeah, he dive-bombed on top of me right before he went to the great Starbucks in the sky.”

  The euphemism didn’t make me feel any better. I had hoped it would create a false sense of distance in my mind. If I could make an empty joke out of it, then maybe I wouldn’t be haunted by the way his body had tenuously clung to life before he had stilled. I’d mentally replayed it throughout the night, unable to stand even the familiar weight of my comforter. Not when it reminded me of his prone form draped on top of me. I could still hear that last breath rattling out of him, right into my ear, as he apologized.

  To me or to someone else—I had no idea.

  The only thing worse than feeling his final gust of air tickle my neck was being trapped beneath the weight of his corpse.

  Ben’s smile disappeared and I could feel him giving me a slow once-over that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with his overly developed protective instinct that was on full display whenever he looked after his little brother, Cameron.

  “Wow.” Audrey tucked a strand of her pitch-black hair behind her ear and then shot me a suspicious look. “Are you messing with us? If this is a new writing technique, I’m not okay with it.”

  I pointed to the redness rimming my green eyes from my sleepless night, wishing that my skin had the golden undertone that Audrey had inherited from her Japanese-American mother. Whenever I was sleep-deprived or stressed people tended to ask if I was seriously ill. “Does this look like I’m kidding? I’ve been freaking out ever since it happened!”

  “Em’s not that good an actress, either,” Ben said in what I considered a failed attempt to lighten the mood. I shot him my best death-ray glare when he ruffled my hair.

  “Why didn’t you call us?” Audrey gestured behind us at all the students milling around the cafeteria, loading their trays with enough saturated fats to send someone into cardiac arrest. “New rule, Em: I
f someone dies, you don’t wait until lunch to casually bring it up! That’s not okay.”

  “What was I supposed to do? Call you and say, ‘Hey an old dude just tackled me in Starbucks, but I’m fine. Mostly. I’m doing better than he is, which, y’know, isn’t saying much since he’s dead. He’s very dead. And I’ve gotta hang up and give the police my statement now. Bye!’”

  Actually, that’s exactly what I should have done. Audrey and Ben would have bolted to the nearest subway station and kept right on talking to me until the reception in the tunnel disconnected us. They would have been there for me, without any hesitation. Except it was pretty damn obvious that Audrey wasn’t entirely over the breakup with Nasir, her boyfriend of four weeks, and the last thing I wanted to do was dump any of my baggage in her lap. Andrey wasn’t the type to verbally rehash a relationship. Once it was over all she wanted was plenty of personal space. Calling her mid-freak-out had seemed selfish.

  And okay, that reasoning didn’t exactly hold up with Ben, considering that his Thursday afternoons usually consisted of coaching his eight-year-old brother, Cameron, in the finer points of baseball and smiling at whichever girl happened to catch his eye. I didn’t doubt for a second that if I had called in a panic, the two of them would’ve showed up, baseball bats at the ready. As far as Cam was concerned, I’d reached honorary big sister status years ago. Which was kind of disconcerting since I definitely didn’t have any sisterly impulses when Ben grinned at me.

  So, yes, I could’ve called him for moral support, but I didn’t.

  Instead, I’d done my best to answer routine questions for the cops without tripping over my own tongue. Tried and failed. Miserably. The transcript probably read something like this:

  Witness: Emmy Danvers. Sixteen years old. Caucasian. 5' 7". Lanky build. Red hair. Green eyes. Painfully average. Slightly shell-shocked.

  Officer McHaffrey: So, at what time did the altercation occur?

  Emmy Danvers: Uh, I don’t know? I was sort of busy concentrating on my romance novel. It’s called Dangerously Undercover. My heroine gets roped into helping an undercover DEA agent. Although if you think about it, shouldn’t they be called DE agents? Otherwise you’re calling them Drug Enforcement Agent Agents.