The Scented Cipher (A Nora Black Midlife Psychic Mystery Book 9)

Chapter 11

It was nearly nine before I got home. Treece and Walters had followed me home and were parked on the street at the end of my driveway. I lived on a cul de sac, so I didn’t have many neighbors to complain. I texted Ezra and Pippa to let them know I was safe and mostly sound because they’d asked me to. Afterward, I trudged to my bedroom, feeling the weight of the day’s tension pulling at my shoulders.

The hot shower felt like a long-awaited embrace, and as the water poured over me, the dam I’d built around my emotions finally broke. I cried, sobs racking my body, each tear washing away the remnants of the fear I’d kept at bay while we were searching for the bomb. The reality of what could have happened—the lives that could have been lost—especially Pippa and her family—hit me like a tidal wave. The thought that someone might have targeted the AA meeting, knowing that people I loved were there, gnawed at me.

The meetings were supposed to be anonymous, but anonymity wasn’t guaranteed. I’d sat in on one a few years back while investigating the death of Dolly Paris, with Gilly and Pippa in tow, and that’s when we’d discovered Tippi was attending meetings. Tonight was Tippi’s three-year birthday. Had my nightmare stalker used that information to punish me? The bullets placed in the popcorn stand next to my sales booth had felt like a cruel taunt. Whoever was behind this wanted to prove they were cleverer than I was, and they didn’t care if they hurt the people I loved in the process.

By the time I finished my shower, I felt emotionally drained but somewhat lighter. Downstairs, the comforting aroma of lemon, fresh basil, Italian parsley, and garlic wafted up, drawing me to the kitchen. Gilly, Ari, and Gilly’s husband, Scott, were waiting for me, and their presence was a balm on my frayed nerves.

Gilly had cooked lemon chicken piccata served over fettuccine with a side of pan-fried asparagus for dinner and had brought me a plate over. The whole thing was covered in fresh-grated Romano cheese. Her ex-husband Gio was a renowned chef, but in my estimation, he didn’t have anything on Gilly. Her food was comforting and delicious.

“Eat up,” she said, placing the dish in front of me. “I know it’s one of your favorites, and I made enough to feed an army.”

Scott, who looked like a perfect blend of Harrison Ford and Anderson Cooper, beamed at me. “It’s the best chicken I’ve ever had.” He put his arm around Gilly’s shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. “You’ve outdone yourself tonight, sweetheart.”

Gilly flushed with pleasure, and I smiled. Not to take away from Gilly’s cooking, because, as I said before, she was excellent. But she could smear peanut butter between two slices of bread, and that man would rave about how it was the best peanut butter sandwich he’d ever had.

I took a bite, savoring the sour, bitter, and salty notes of the lemon, wine sauce, and capers. “Mmm-mmm.” I hummed. “No lies detected.” I gave her a grateful look. “You didn’t have to do all this for me, though.”

She gave me the stink-eye back. “You had coffee and a roll for breakfast, no lunch, and you barely ate any of the tacos I brought you earlier. And I know you well enough to know if I wasn’t force-feeding you a meal right now, you would go to bed without eating.”

I smirked. “Guilty as charged.” Reaching over, I squeezed her hand. “Thank you for taking such good care of me.”

“You’d do the same for me.” I dug in, slicing a piece of chicken breast and wrapping it with the pasta before shoving it in my mouth. “God, this is so good,” I said when I finished the bite. “You can make this for me every day.”

Gilly’s grin almost reached her ears. “When you finish, you’ll tell us what happened tonight, right?”

I nodded as I took another bite. Gilly and Ari had been with me when the stinky flowers had arrived. Of course, they wanted to know how it all turned out. I took another bite, then another. How could I tell her that my nightmare stalker was targeting my closest loved ones? I worried for Ezra, but at least he had a gun. I would never forgive myself if something happened to Gilly, Pippa, or anyone in their families.

By the time I finished my plate, there was nowhere left to hide.

When I didn’t say anything right away, Scott asked, “Should I get the murder board?”

Ari’s eyes lit up. “Murder board?” She smacked her palms on the counter. “What murder board?”

I chuckled softly. When we’d stumbled over a body in a vineyard last year in June while celebrating Gilly’s impending nuptials, we’d created a murder board for our investigation. It had made sense at the time since we were unfamiliar with the deceased and the suspects and had no real access to the police investigation since it was out of Ezra’s jurisdiction. “No one’s been murdered, so I’m not sure we need one.”

“Then we’ll call it a suspect board,” Gilly amended.

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

Ari took her phone from her back pocket. It was one of the new foldable phones that opened to a large screen. She slid a stylus out of the end. “Suspect board acquired,” she said robotically.

Gilly giggled. “Excellent. First, what happened tonight? And before you get all, oooo, how much should I tell Gilly, I will say that Pippa called me and told me about the bomb in the church.”

“Then it seems you know everything.”

Ari leaned forward. “How did you figure out it was the church and not the library or bookstore?”

“I didn’t do it alone. The twelve rules from the memory were the twelve steps for recovery. Tolkiens was tokens, like coins or chips.” I stood up, my belly stretched full. “I must’ve heard him wrong in the vision.”

Scott nodded. “Or he was purposefully trying to throw you off.”

“Maybe.” I worried that the real reason I’d heard Tolkiens is because that’s what I’d expected to hear. If he left another message for me, I had to pay closer attention to the exact words. I couldn’t get the stench of the bomb out of my mind. I’d never smelled anything so awful. “The church used to be the library.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Gilly said. “I think I still have my card from there somewhere.”

“Didn’t you say something about Morgan Freeman in one of the visions?” Ari asked.

“Yes, he sang the EZ Reader theme song from The Electric Company.”

“So, it’s a boomer,” Ari said, scribbling on her phone with the stylus.

I frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“No one born past nineteen ninety has heard of EZ Reader. Morgan Freeman as God or Morgan Freeman in the Bucket List would put our suspect at Millennial or Gen Z, but EZ Reader, total Boomer.”

Scott’s mouth dropped open as he looked at his wife.

Gilly shrugged. “Gen X, once again, the forgotten generation.”

Scott’s voice lowered as he announced, “It’s ten o’clock. Do you know where your children are?”

I choked on a laugh. “Even our parents forgot about us.”

Ari arched a brow at the three of us. “Old people are weird.”

“Word,” I said, and Gilly and I bumped knuckles before we both started laughing again.

Ari raised her hands. “Can we just agree that the suspect is probably over forty?”

I nodded. “You’re probably right. The Electric Company ended in the late seventies.”

“But they were still playing reruns in the early eighties,” Gilly said defensively. “I would catch an episode occasionally.”

Ari gave her mom an incredulous look.

“What?” Gilly shrugged. “We didn’t have a gazillion channels, smartphones, computers, tablets, and so forth. We had four stinkin’ channels. PBS had Sesame Street, Zoom, and reruns of The Electric Company, and I was too old for Sesame Street.” She sounded exasperated.

Scott rubbed Gilly’s arm and finished with a comforting pat on the shoulder. “You’ve been holding that one in for a little while, haven’t you, Babe?”

She snickered and shook her head. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said in solidarity. “Reading the back of cereal boxes was how we spent our screen time.”

“Not you, too, Aunt Nora.” Ari grinned as she slid a hair tie over her wrist, ran her fingers through her hair, and then slid the tie over the gathered length to make a ponytail. “That doesn’t change the age bracket. I stand by the assumption that he’s older.” She gave me a quizzical look. “Do we know it’s a he?”

“No. But Ezra says it’s statistically more likely to be a man.”

Ari jotted down, Age – 40+, gender – male? “What about race?”

Good. A question I could answer with one hundred percent certainty. “I only saw his hand briefly, but his skin was light.”

The corner of her mouth quirked up. “So old white dude, huh?”

“Hey,” Scott said with mock offense. “I resemble that remark.”

We laughed again. It felt good to be working the case with my friends, even if the crumbs led us nowhere. And they were making sure I knew that I wasn’t alone. That felt even better.

Ari tapped her phone. “Give all the voices again.”

“Christopher Walken, Dolly Parton, Morgan Freeman, and Ian McKellan. I think you were definitely right about the voice changer app. That’s how I saw the skin on his hand. He had to remove his glove to change voices on his phone.” I dabbed a pepper dot on the center island top with my index finger and flicked it away. “And this person had to have known about me and my scent ability before the letter came out in the Gazette this morning.” The fact that he’d ordered the floral delivery a week earlier was definitive proof. “So it has to be someone connected to the police force or one of the cases I worked on.” I didn’t mention my friends because I refused to believe any of them would casually gossip about my psychic smeller.

“Okay, so let’s list the arrests made with your help,” Gilly said. “Let’s see, there was Carl Grigsby, Lucy Jameson, which also included Big Don Portman, Phil Williams, and Burt Adler.”

“You were the one who took down the self-proclaimed Garden Cove Elite?” Scott asked. “I had no idea.”

That’s what I meant about friends not gossiping. Gilly hadn’t even told the love of her life about my past cases.

“Who else?” Ari asked.

“There was that guy Aaron from the convention,” Gilly added.

I waved him off as a suspect. “I think we can assume the culprit is tied to me locally.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice laced with a hint of reluctance. “There’s Davis Meadows. He was a real creeper.” Davis had been selling stolen art on the dark web, a fact that still sent shivers down my spine. I vividly recalled the moment he’d lunged at me with a knife, the glint of malice in his eyes. Luckily, it was only a glancing blow; I’d managed to fight him off with a metal chair. The man spent a week in the hospital before he recovered enough for jail. His mother closed the art store after the arrest, but she’d stayed in town.

“Let’snot overlook our esteemed ex-mayor,” Scott interjected, his tone tinged with disdain.

That was the situation when Gilly and Scott first started dating, and Scott was let in on my fragrant secret, Aaron Trident. The mere mention of his name sent a chill down my spine. He had taken a life to safeguard his secrets, and when the investigation got too close, he had abducted Pippa.

The memory of that terrifying ordeal still haunted me. Pippa, brave and resourceful as always, had managed to leave me a clue using a scented lip balm she had thrown from the vehicle. She had been the first person to intentionally attach a memory to a scent for me to discover. Did the individual targeting me know she had done this? He would have had to know, wouldn’t he? Additionally, Trident was the one who had leaked the story about a psychic working within the GCPD shortly after his arrest. I wouldn’t discount the possibility that he had orchestrated this malevolent mess. Granted, he was in prison, but he could’ve solicited outside help.

I clenched my jaw as I thought about the man. “Aaron Trident definitely belongs on the list.”

“That covers all the local cases,” I stated, with a finality in my tone.

“Don’t forget about the robbery ring,” Gilly chimed in, urgency coloring her voice.

“They weren’t local,” I reminded her, my tone firm.

“Jane Beets of Beets’ Treats was,” Gilly countered. “If it weren’t for you, she would have collected a significant insurance payout for her place after faking the robbery at her shop.”

“But she didn’t face jail time,” I pointed out, feeling the need to clarify.

“But she did lose her business,” Gilly insisted, conviction in her voice.

“But I don’t think she was ever aware of my involvement in her case. I merely provided a tip to the police.” And by police, I mean Ezra.

“Fair enough,” Gilly conceded. “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t hear rumors.”

“Fine,” I nodded slowly, conceding her point. “Add Jane to the list.”

“And what about the officers who know about your ability?” Ari asked. “We still need to address that group.”

“I honestly can’t say,” I admitted with a sigh. “It could be all of the GCPD by now. It could be anyone.” I hated to acknowledge it, but it was the truth. All it would take is one slip of the tongue, and anyone could find out.

I had put my phone on the charger when I got home, so it startled me when it rang. “Gah. Made me jump,” I said, rising from the stool.

Gilly grabbed the phone from the counter, disconnected the cable, and handed it to me. “It’s Easy,” she said.

I took the phone from her and answered it. “Hey,” I greeted him. “Did you make it home already?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “Some EPA guys showed up with the FBI.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “Especially if the bomb contained toxic chemicals.”

“That’s the thing,” Ezra said quietly. “It wasn’t a chemical weapon.”

“It sure smelled like one.”

“No,” he disagreed. “It smelled like what it was...”

“What was it?”

Gilly gestured frantically, indicating to use the speakerphone.

I rolled my eyes but said, “Hey, I’m here with Gilly, Scott, and Ari. They want me to put you on speaker.”

“That’s fine,” he replied. “I’m not saying anything they can’t hear.”

I placed the phone on the center island and hit the speaker button. “Okay, you’re on speaker. Tell us what you found out.”

“The bomb had barely any explosives, mostly gunpowder for ignition, along with sulfur powder and sugar.”

“What kind of bomb is that?” I asked.

Scott’s nose wrinkled, and he made a disgusted face as he answered for Ezra. “It’s a stink bomb.”

“That’s correct,” Ezra confirmed. “The IED at the church was a homemade stink bomb with a punch. There was some metal shrapnel in the walls of the stairwell from the explosion, but it doesn’t seem to have been intended to be fatal. However, if it had detonated when people were leaving the meeting, there could have been serious injuries and lung damage from inhaling the sulfur gas.”

“A stink bomb,” I repeated. “What is this guy playing at?” My mind went back to Shawn’s description of the bullets in the popcorn kettle, and the prank was starting to sound more like what was happening. But a bomb, even a stinky one, was an escalation. Who or what would he target next? “Thanks for the update,” I told Ezra. “Call me when you get home, and please, be careful.”

“I don’t like not being with you tonight.” There was a pause, and then he said, “Or any night, for that matter. I could come over.”

I appreciated the offer but knew someone else needed him more tonight. “No, go be with Mason. You have officers outside the house, and...”

“Besides,” Ari interjected. “I’m staying the night with Aunt Nora. She won’t be alone.”

I heard his soft chuckle, and it eased the knot in my chest. “Good. Talk soon.” With that, he ended the call.

“A freaking stink bomb,” Gilly hissed. “What the heck?”

“Those are pretty gross,” Scott added. “I made one back in college to prank a friend, and the smell didn’t dissipate for months, even with a thorough cleaning and all the air freshener from the dollar store.”

“It’s all fun and games until someone gets skunked,” Gilly teased.

I forced a smile. “This guy isn’t pulling pranks for laughs. He’s trying to prove some kind of point.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just the beginning of a much darker game, and I could only hope his next stunt didn’t result in someone getting killed.