Eye on the Ball: Tiger's Eye Mysteries

Chapter 1

Tess

The crisis began with a softball rivalry, a pregnant witch, and poisoned popcorn.

Then things got bad.

* * *

Brenda Pennywhistle, CPA, stalked into my pawnshop wearing a severe black pantsuit and an air of fierce determination. Either I’d bungled my books (she was doing my fourth quarter of last year taxes), or she was here to discuss the annual town softball game. She’d been team captain for the past four years, mostly because nobody else wanted to do it.

Brenda liked to be in charge of things.

She had short dark hair, dark brown skin, and serious muscle. I’d always wished my arms looked like hers.

“Hey, Brenda. What’s up?”

She narrowed her lovely violet eyes at me. “Ace Truckman is on his way here right this very minute. He wants to tell us all about how he’s going to build a permanent cabinet for the annual softball game trophy, since they’ve won the past four years in a row.”

Brenda liked to speak in proclamations, with a lot of emphasis on certain words.

(Oh, jeez, now I was doing it. Thinking it. Whatever.)

I shrugged. “They can build whatever they want. When we win this weekend, we’ll just take our trophy, and they can fill their permanent cabinet with whatever else they have handy.”

She grinned and tapped one finger on her pursed lips. “That’s actually true. Huh. Tess, it’s not like you to be the voice of reason.”

“Hey! I’m always the voice of reason!”

“Like the time you wanted to sneak into the Riverton locker room and put itching powder in their underwear?”

“I was sixteen!” Admittedly, not my finest moment, but … teenager brain. I’d also gone through a brief but wholehearted Goth phase until Uncle Mike had remarked mildly that black lipstick made my teeth look yellow.

The all-black clothes and funky jewelry went out and whitening strips came in. Even as a teen, I was adaptable.

“Ace is bringing two of his cousins, not Mutt and Probie, different cousins, and says they get to play by virtue of being his cousins, even though they live in Oklahoma and not Riverton.”

I shrugged. “We’ve always been flexible with the eligibility rules. If they’re really related—and that should be easy to tell, all the Truckmans look the same—then sure. Why not?”

“I don’t like it,” she muttered. “Feels like cheating. And this is the same Ace Truckman who tried to claim totally fraudulent expenses on his taxes, not that I told you that.”

Wow.

For Brenda to even hint at something to do with a client’s confidential tax information, Ace must have tried something really shady. Brenda took her duty to the tax code seriously.

Dead End, our tiny corner of Florida, population five thousand unless we’re evacuating the children because of a threat of annihilation by Fae queen, operates under a special charter that was deeded to Black Cypress County before the U.S. was even a country. That special charter means that we’re not subject to most state or federal laws, but everybody everywhere has to pay taxes.

That adage about death and taxes is even true here.

The chimes over the door rang, and Sapphire Malcolm walked in. I hadn’t seen the Dead End Gazette editor since she’d returned from her most recent travels in Europe. She was in her early thirties and had always seemed effortlessly cool to stay-at-home me, since she’d backpacked around the world for five years after college. When her dad had stepped down from being the Gazette’s owner/editor-in-chief/only reporter because of health issues, she’d cheerfully taken over. She always said that having Dead End as her home base gave her confidence in her travels.

“Sapphire! Nice to see you. How was France?” I walked over to give her a hug, since she was safe for me to touch. We’d been friendly in school before my “gift” had kicked in. I really liked Sapphire, even though she hadn’t yet named Dead End Pawn the business of the month in the Gazette. Clearly just an oversight. Also, it was hard to argue with last month’s pick, Lauren’s Deli, which made the best sandwiches in the state.

She held up a hand when I reached out, her eyes wary. “Still safe? I really don’t want to know how I’ll die.”

Yeah. That was my “gift.” My curse. The first time I touched someone, I could sometimes see how they were going to die.

“Still safe,” I said, trying not to let the twinge of sadness show.

She hugged me back and then waved to Brenda, pushing the spectacular blue hair that matched her eyes away from her face. “Hey, Tess. Hey, Brenda. Good to see you, too. France was fine, but I spent most of my time in Spain on this trip. I have a killer sangria recipe for my next potluck.”

“Yum. So, what’s up? Looking for a cool Dead End Pawn T-shirt?” The shirts were my sister Shelley’s idea, and, to my complete surprise, they sold like hotcakes. “The blue one would look great with your peaches-and-cream complexion.”

Sapphire grinned at me but shook her head. “Thanks, but not this time. I’m here to cover the story of the Dead End and Riverton captains facing off before the big game.”

As if on cue, we heard the roar of turbo-charged truck engines racing into the parking lot.

“I guess the Riverton crew is here,” I said dryly. “The Truckmans always drive such subdued vehicles.”

Brenda rolled her eyes. “Remember three years ago, when they found a camo-painted limo and drove the entire team to the game in it?”

“I don’t think they ‘found’ it. I think they painted one of Truckman’s Limo fleet to look like that,” I said. “Apparently it’s now the most-requested car for proms.”

Aunt Ruby had told me that. She’d always been a fount of all knowledge and gossip, and she knew even more these days now that she was Dead End’s mayor.

“Maybe—”

But we didn’t get to hear the rest of Sapphire’s sentence, because the door flew open.

The Truckmans had arrived.

Ace led the way, as usual, with his two cousins, Mutt and Probie, following. All three of them had pale, almost colorless hair and eyebrows and deeply tanned skin. Ace had a large, square head that perfectly matched his over-muscled, bulky body, and the other two were nearly as big. Ace wore a buzz cut and an air of entitlement that hadn’t changed since I’d first met him in high school when his team would play ours in various sports. Win or lose, Ace could always be counted on to be an astonishingly poor sport.

Now that he was nearly thirty, you’d think he’d have grown out of that.

You’d be wrong.

“Hey, it’s the losers from Team Loser at the Loser Shop,” Ace sneered. Behind him, the cousins snorted with laughter.

“I see your vocabulary hasn’t expanded since high school,” I fired back, knowing it was a mistake to let him annoy me.

But he insulted my shop.

Nobody insults my shop.

Mutt frowned behind his cousin’s back and waved at me. “Hey, Tess.”

“Hey, Mutt.” I smiled at him. He’d had a crush on me when we were kids and had always been nice to me since then when we ran into each other.

“Listen, we’re here to set the practice schedule, flip the coin, etc.,” Brenda said through clenched teeth. “Let’s get on with it.”

Ace, who’d been about to say something to me, turned to face Brenda and gave her one of those rude head-to-toe and back-up-again leers he specialized in. “Hey, Brenda. I wondered if you’d have the guts to show your face.”

Brenda’s face turned so red I thought her ears would catch fire, and I wondered what that was all about.

“Yeah, Brenda,” Probie, one of the cousins, said, and Ace turned around and thumped him on the head.

“What did I tell you about talking?”

“Sorry, Ace,” Probie muttered.

I rolled my eyes, and Probie glared at me.

“You laughing at us?”

“Definitely not. Now, shall we get on to the coin toss?”

“We don’t trust you to toss a coin, Red,” Ace said.

“Don’t call her Red,” Sapphire said before I could. “And we won’t call you Troglodyte.”

Three blank looks.

I sighed. “Sapphire can toss the coin. She’s a reporter, and news people are objective.”

“She’s a reporter for Dead End,” Ace objected. “She’s got bias.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Sapphire said, digging a coin out of her pocket. “Look at this quarter. Regular quarter. Here’s the head. Here’s the tail. Call it, and I’ll toss it in the air and let it fall on the floor, so everybody can see.”

“I get to call,” Ace said quickly.

“Go for it.” I managed not to roll my eyes again and counted it a win.

Sapphire looked at Ace. He looked back at her.

We all said nothing.

Finally, Brenda spoke up. “Then call it already, so we can get out of here.”

Ace shoved his hands in the pockets of his Carhartt overalls. “Oh. Right. Heads. No, tails. No—wait—heads.”

Sapphire waited a moment. “Heads? You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Heads.” All three Truckmans nodded.

Sapphire tossed the coin in the air, and we all watched it turn over and over in the air and then hit the floor and roll a couple of feet toward Ace. He waited until it stopped rolling and then bent down to peer at the coin lying on my sparkling clean floor next to his work boot. Then he whooped and shot a fist into the air.

“Heads!”

Before he could pick it up, Sapphire nudged him aside and took a picture of the coin. I guess for the paper? Must be a slow news week.

Most weeks in Dead End were slow news weeks, to be fair. The annual grudge-match softball game was actually pretty big news for us. Not “Three-Hundred-Year-Old Man Steps Out of Statue and Lives” or “Chemistry Teacher Starts Gargoyle Stampede” big, but big enough.

“Okay, you won. We have two things to decide, so you can pick which one you want to decide,” Brenda said.

“We get to decide both. We won the toss,” Truckman said … truculently.

Heh.

(Okay, I promise I’ll stop now.)

“Come on, Ace, we do this the same way every year. We each pick one thing. Visiting team bats first, we know that. We each practice on our home fields as much as we want until the two official pre-game practice days,” I said, trying to be patient and reasonable when the man put my hackles up. “Do you want to set the official practice days at our field, or do you want to pick whether we play an afternoon or evening game on Saturday?”

“Practice days,” Ace blurted out. “We want first practice. Wednesday … no. Thursday evening.”

“That’s cutting it close,” Brenda complained. “That means we have no choice but to have last practice on Friday. Wednesday evening is the girls’ team practice. Lots of people have other commitments?—”

“I don’t care,” he snapped. “We’re Thursday, so you’re Friday. Game Saturday.”

“Saturday evening?” I looked at Brenda. “There’s going to be a lot of carnival-type stuff going on during the day.”

Sapphire started laughing. “I heard about the pig racing. My money’s on Hogatha Christie. I’m a big fan of mysteries.”

“What?”

She shook her head, grinning at me. “Never mind. I don’t want to spoil Mayor Ruby’s surprise. Okay, Riverton practices Thursday, Dead End practices Friday. The game will be Saturday evening, with a, what, seven p.m. start?”

“Seven is customary,” Brenda said quietly, looking anywhere but at Ace. “I think we’re done here.”

Ace took a step toward her, his big hands bunching into fists. “We’re done when I say we’re done.”

Behind him, even the cousins looked surprised at his sudden escalation of hostility. They glanced at each other and then stepped forward and each grabbed one of his arms.

“Hey, Ace,” Probie said cajolingly. “Let’s get going. We’ve got that new delivery coming this afternoon we need to get ready for.”

Ace shook him off, still glaring at Brenda. “Shut up, Probie. Did you hear what I said, Brenda?”

This seemed out of character for his usual trash talk. I took a quick step behind my counter and grabbed the softball bat I kept there for any unruly customer problems. Before I could say anything, though, the connecting door between my shop and my boyfriend Jack’s private eye firm opened.

Jack stepped through it, his emerald eyes flashing. “If she didn’t, I did.”

Ace flinched and took a small step back, but then grimaced as if realizing he’d given up ground. The cousins both gasped and sidled toward me, ignoring the wooden bat in my hands.

I didn’t blame them. Jack, as a human, was imposing enough: six feet, four inches of lean muscle. But, as everybody in Riverton surely knew, Jack Shepherd in his other form was a quarter ton of deadliness.

Because Jack’s other form was a Bengal tiger.

“Hey, Jack,” Sapphire said, smiling at him. “Ready for that interview on life as the North American commander of the rebel army that defeated the rogue vampire plague? I have the headline ready to go: Tiger Fangs Triumph Over Vampire Fangs.”

Jack laughed. “Nope. Killer headline, but still no.”

Ace, who’d looked like he was screwing up his courage to go after Jack, blew out a breath and reconsidered. It’s one thing to know about Jack’s past in a vague sense. It’s another to be reminded of just how lethal my tiger shapeshifter really was.

“Yeah,” Ace growled. “We need to get going. We’ll see you tonight at the ceremony.”

He shoved past Brenda and then took a subtle but carefully wide circle around Jack on his way to the door. His cousins didn’t even try to be subtle. They leaned as far away from Jack as they could get as they scurried after Ace.

“See you Saturday, Tess,” Mutt said just before he went out the door, turning to flash a shaky smile at me.

I waved, ignoring Jack’s speculative look, and then put the bat back beneath the counter.

Brenda blew out a huge breath. “Well. That … happened.”

“Brenda, what in the world was that about?” I tilted my head. “Has Ace been harassing you more than usual?”

They’d been rival captains for the past three years, ever since Riverton’s previous captain married a vampire and moved to Oregon to get away from our Florida sunshine.

She turned pale and pressed her lips together. “No. Not really. It’s just?—”

“It’s just?”

She glanced at Jack and Sapphire. “Nothing. See you tonight at the ceremony, Tess.”

Brenda practically sprinted out the door, and Sapphire turned to me with a shrug.

“That was weird.”

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “But you won’t put anything about the altercation in the paper, right?”

She laughed. “No, Tess. Just the results of the coin toss. See you at the ceremony tonight.”

She said goodbye to Jack and headed out.

“That was weird,” I repeated.

Jack nodded. “Very weird. What ceremony were they?—”

Just then, we heard brakes squeal, a car door slam, and then footsteps pound up the steps to my shop porch. A woman I’d never seen before threw open the shop door and ran inside. She yanked the door closed behind her and then locked it.

I didn’t like that at all and considered going for my bat again.

Turning to us, she bent over, put her hands on her thighs, and breathed so hard I thought she might be hyperventilating.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Who’s after you?” Jack said, eyes narrowing as he headed toward her.

“Everybody! They’re all after me,” she shouted, still gasping for breath.

“Why?”

She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and straightened. “Because they’re all in love with me.”

I closed my eyes and sighed.

Here we go again.