Gilda’s work life invaded her dream world, where all the black belts made special guest appearances. All of the wrongs. All of the secrets. All of the lies. They all swirled into a suffocating fog. Walter. Erik. Xavier. Razi. Mick.
She sat and opened her eyes with her heart beating like she’d run a marathon.
Mick said he loved her before she kneed him in the crotch and quit her job. Not her finest moment. She pulled her pillow over her face and groaned. He’d hold her to her word, which meant she needed a new job, a new school to train in, and new friends. She might even have to leave Sandstone Cove. Maybe Gary had a contact who could help her create a new identity and disappear. Either that or she’d have to move in with her mom.
After a shower and breakfast, the world didn’t seem any brighter. She slid on her sunglasses and decided to walk to the corner store to buy a copy of every newspaper on the shelf to begin her job search and apartment hunt in Erie.
She opened the front door of her house and froze. “What happened to you?”
Mick sat on the top step wearing the same clothes he had on the day before. His hair rumpled, he handed her a coffee and averted his eyes. “You.”
“I see.” She took the cup, comforted by the notion he needed her too much to bother adding poison, and sat next to him. “You still think it’s a bad idea for me to look for Walter and Erik’s killer.”
“I think it’s a bad idea for you to team up with Thayer, for one.”
Gilda hesitated. “And for two?”
“I was serious,” Mick said. “I think I love you.”
“You think you do?” Her heart seemed to hover in her chest, waiting breathlessly for a punch line. “Were you drinking again?”
“No. Once I sobered up, I poured the rest of the scotch down the toilet.”
When the lid on Gilda’s cup popped off and coffee splashed her hand, she relaxed her grip and refastened the lid. “You’re with Chloe.”
“No, I’m not,” he said. “Chloe placed a large bet with Gary on my behalf, lost a ridiculous amount of money then locked me out of my condo. She also posed as my wife and changed my phone number.”
“How could she do that?” Gilda resealed the cup lid. “Isn’t that theft or something?”
Mick smirked. “Only until I cancel the phone and sell the condo.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Ooh, devious. I’m impressed.”
“Glad I could make you smile.” His face softened as he took her hand. “Forget about her. Can we get back to the problem at hand? I told you I love you, remember?”
Her heart fluttered. How could she forget? She remembered from head to toe. “You’re on the rebound. It was the scotch talking.”
“Maybe, except it was morning and I was sober.” He entwined his fingers with hers and inched closer. “You’re the one person who’s always there to watch my back when I make a mistake then have to pick up the pieces and start over. Maybe it’s time to move on.”
“What is it you want?” She swallowed hard and inched away.
He met her gaze. “To be with you.”
Gilda blew out a breath. “What if it doesn’t work out? What if we figure out we really can’t stand each other? You know I can’t work for you then.”
“I know.” He picked a rose Thayer hadn’t destroyed off the bush.
She wiggled away from him. “Then you’d be off to your next mistake before I reached for a tissue and the help wanted ads.”
Mick raised his eyebrows. “You don’t think I’d be upset too?”
“Maybe for a minute.”
“Show’s what you know.” He nudged her right to the edge of the step. “I’d give up women completely and become a monk.”
Gilda laughed. “That I can’t picture.”
“To be honest, me neither.” Mick tucked the rose into her hair then dropped his head onto her shoulder. “You’re the only person in my life I can count on, Sherlock.”
“Even if you’re at the top of my suspect list?”
“Especially if I am,” he said. “That means you have no illusions about me, which is a pretty good place to start, considering everything.”
She sipped her coffee, with no idea what to say.
“It’s a lot to think about.” He sat up and gave her hand a squeeze. “I just wanted you to know I was serious. I’m going to take a shower and do some paperwork. If you want to talk, you know where to find me.”
Gilda frowned. “Where are you going to shower?”
“At the school. My clothes are in my car. At least it’s still my car until Chloe gets her hands on the keys.” He stood and rocked his head from side to side like he had a stiff neck. “Do you get nervous when you go to the school now? If I were you, I’d be a basket case.”
“That’s why I haven’t been there since Erik died. And because I quit. I’ll come in later to pick up my personal things.”
“You didn’t quit because of me, did you?” he asked.
“Not until now.”
“Fair enough.” Mick bowed his head. “Rather than quit, why don’t you take a couple days off? I’ll deal with things at the school. You deserve that much.”
She muttered beneath her breath. “I deserve a lot more than that.”
“Yes, you do.” He threw his arms around her and gave her a hard hug. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll make sure you get exactly what you deserve.”
Her stomach turned a somersault with a double twist. What did he mean she’d get what she deserved? While she worked in the yard later, elbow deep in a blue hydrangea, a thought occurred to her. She needed to talk to Mick again. One sentence continued to coil around her brain while she washed her hands, changed her shoes, then ran to the karate school. The front door was unlocked this time and voices echoed through the front lobby.
“I do not think you understand how serious this situation is.” Yoshida shouted from Mick’s office. “Someone stole a thousand dollars in merchandise. That could ruin my school.”
Gilda’s scalp tingled. Missing merchandise? Why had no one said anything to her? She hid behind her desk to listen.
“Two men are dead and we’re missing merchandise. I get it. It’s my business too.” Mick’s anger was palpable. “You were the one who said not to go to the police about the thefts, so I’m looking into it. What more do you expect me to do?”
“Get rid of that woman,” Yoshida said. “She must have helped steal everything. There is no way one man did this alone.”
“I haven’t found proof anyone stole anything,” Mick said. “Besides, what would she have to gain?”
Yoshida snorted and his voice raised a full octave. “A job at his school. She is the only one here all the time who had access and I want her gone.”
The she in question had to be Gilda.
“She’s not the only one who had access to the missing merchandise. You and I have keys. Hell, all the black belts have keys.” Mick closed his office door like he knew she was there.
Gilda slid into her chair with her hands shaking. If only she’d stopped to grab a coffee, she would have missed hearing how much Yoshida doubted her. Hated her. No wonder he gave her those odd looks every time he saw her. No wonder he attacked her. Mick stood by her. There was no way he would let her go without a fight. Not unless he was dead. Of course, the odds of that had risen significantly in the past week. There were still two kanji left.
From Mick’s office came the reverberation of muffled, raised voices. She leaned forward and strained to at least get the gist of what they were saying. No such luck.
Once the office door opened, Yoshida stomped around the corner and stopped short. His dark eyes widened. “Miss Wright.” Curt, but he remembered her name. Did he have access to a hit man?
She bowed her head slightly, not taking her eyes off him. Her arms tensed, ready to block if he threw a punch like he had in class. Instead, he left the building. She stared after him, not quite sure what to do.
“For the record,” Mick leaned on the desk to block her view of the door, “you didn’t hear anything we said.”
“Actually, I didn’t hear much,” she said. “I just got here.”
He grimaced. “I thought you quit and I told you to take a couple days off. Do I have to start telling you the opposite of what I want you to do?”
“You also told me where you’d be if I wanted to talk to you.” Gilda studied the faint lines etched into his face. “You never told me merchandise was missing.”
“I thought you didn’t hear anything?” Mick seemed to have aged five years over the past week. “It wasn’t something you needed to know. You’ve had enough on your shoulders lately.”
“Is that why Yoshida is here?” she asked.
“He thinks you and Erik stole all the missing items to pawn so Erik could start a new school. “Now that Erik’s dead, he wants me to fire you and close down the school. I stopped listening after he started to sound like a teenage girl at a concert.”
“I never stole anything and I’d never jeopardize you or this school.” Gilda struggled to catch her breath. Yoshida despised her more than she thought. “What’s missing?”
“I have a copy of the list.”
The hairs on her neck stood. “You’ve already done an inventory and have a list?”
Concern flickered across Mick’s face. “Yoshida noticed we didn’t have as many sparring gloves and gis as usual. He thought it was because our stock was low for the summer.”
“It is,” she said. “I always keep minimal stock until late August, then I do inventory and refill the shelves. As a matter of fact, Yoshida was the one who drilled the idea into my head for the past year.”
“Really?” He flinched. “That’s interesting. He also told you to keep a running inventory list on the computer, right? Can you print me a copy?”
“Of course.” She paused. “Do you think Yoshida fudged the list?”
Mick shook his head. “I don’t think anything. So far, I’ve gone on his word. Now that you’re on my side, I want proof.”
“I’ll print two copies and do a physical recount,” she said.
“Just print off a copy for me and I’ll worry about counting while you grab coffee.” He met her gaze. “Please. Make mine a large. This could take a while.”
She was reluctant to leave since she wanted to know what was going on just as badly as he did. After printing off the list, she ran up the street for two coffees and cinnamon buns, hoping to sweeten the deal and bribe him to let her stay.
When she returned, he set his coffee and pie on the counter then steered her toward the door. “Go home. You’re already nosy enough and I don’t want you getting hurt or...”
“Killed” hung unspoken in the air between them.
She sat on the floor, blocking the doorway. “If you want me out, you’ll have to pick me up and throw me out.”
“You’re a stubborn little thing, aren’t you?” Mick looked at her then at the coffee and cinnamon bun. “Okay, babe. You count. I’ll dig out Yoshida’s list.”
Considering she’d done inventory in June and no stock had come in since, a recount would be easy. She already had a mental list of what was in stock. Armed with her coffee and a copy of her list, she walked into the backroom. There were twenty belts where there should have been forty. Six gis sat in the drawer, all in different sizes. She’d counted twelve last month and had only sold two. All the T-shirts were accounted for, but five pairs of sparring gloves and ten mouth guards were gone. She hadn’t sold any.
“Yoshida’s right.” She leaned in Mick’s doorway and handed him her marked up list. “We have a problem.”
He swore and crumpled up a page on his desk. “What the hell’s going on, Gilda? You’ve yelled at all of us not to touch any stock without letting you know.”
Organization was her biggest strength, or weakness, depending on how you looked at it. Mick and Erik knew she kept meticulous records. Yoshida might not have been as aware.
She slumped onto the thin plastic chair, flimsy to ensure his private meetings were short and sweet. “Why would anyone steal from the school?”
“Erik wasn’t the brightest bulb in the socket,” Mick said. “Someone either put him up to it, or set him up.”
Gilda stared at the floor. “Someone like Yoshida?”
Mick frowned. “You keep saying that. Do you really think Yoshida would steal from his own school? I think it would have to be someone who has no idea how good you are at tracking inventory.”
Until lately. “All he has to do is walk in and take a few things. No one would think twice about stopping him.”
“Do you know how long it took Yoshida to arrange my candles?” He waved to the wall behind her where a pyramid of five yellow meditation candles stood on a narrow shelf by her head. “Ten minutes. He used that ruler to space them exactly an inch and a half apart like it was its own meditation. When we opened, everything in this school had to be placed just so. Pictures had to be hung certain distances apart. Things needed to be clustered in fives. He’d lose his cool if they weren’t. If they’re moved when someone cleans, he notices.”
“Maybe he’s obsessive-compulsive.” Gilda leaped from her chair and returned to her computer to figure out the significance of the number five to a Japanese martial artist. The four possessions she understood. The number five was a mystery.
“What did I say this time?” Mick followed her to her desk. “Was it about the stacks of five? Maybe he’s OCD, like you said.”
“That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? I thought it was just because of all his training,” she said. “Is there something about the significance of fives in karate?”
Mick moved around her desk. “No idea. Can you look it up?”
Before he crouched beside her, she’d pulled up a website and summarized. “OCD. A personality disorder. Control. Perfectionism at the expense of relationships. Preoccupied with details and rules. Stubborn, self-righteous, uncooperative. Unable to complete tasks due to their desire for perfection.”
“That’s Yoshida in a nutshell.” He grimaced. “Do you think he’s capable of setting someone up to go to jail just to take a few things that already belong to him?”
“Capable? Yes.” She glanced over at him. “But why bother? Like I said, he could just walk in and take what he wanted. He owns the place.”
Mick moved around to the chair beside her. “As long as he told you first.”
She scowled. “Like I’d yell at him. He’s scary.”
“Well, you yell at me.” He coiled a strand of her hair around his finger. “Aren’t I scary?”
Gilda bit her lower lip. Mick scared her on so many levels she didn’t know where to start. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. You like me.”
“You’re my boss. It helps.” Her face grew so hot she probably could have pressed linen with her cheeks. “What are you going to do about Yoshida?”
“Ignore him.” Mick leaned so close his cheek brushed hers. “I think that’s my best option. He’s too stubborn to compromise. I’ll wait until he brings it up again.”
“What if he doesn’t?” Gilda asked.
“Then I’ll assume he has a split personality and run for the hills.” He pulled up the calendar icon in the corner of the screen.
“Sounds reasonable enough for now.” She sighed. “You surf the net. I’m going home.”
“I have a thought,” he said. “There might be something to this whole five thing. Isn’t Friday the fifth day of the week?”
A chill ran down Gilda’s back. “If you consider Monday the beginning of the week, then yes. That means the murders happening on Fridays is no coincidence.”
“Which also means if he’s following the list of the four possessions we have an idea when someone else might die and why. Sort of.”
“Told you I hated Fridays.” She blew out a long, slow breath and stared at the next Friday on the calendar. “Does this mean we have new evidence for Fabio? Maybe we should call Fabio to let him know about the missing merchandise.”
“Not yet,” Mick said. “Let’s talk to Razi and Xavier first. Maybe they know more than they’ve been saying. I’ll call Fabio later.”
“When do we do that?”
“We don’t. I’ll arrange a meeting. You’re taking time off.”
Gilda wanted to give him a hug and make all the scary thoughts disappear, but she had a feeling the fear wouldn’t end anytime soon. Not until the killer was caught. “What do you want me to do in the meantime?”
“Keep your eyes and ears open.” He took her hand as he turned to face her. “And if you see Yoshida, run and hide.”