Small Town Murder: Midwest Cozy Mystery Series Page 4

  He’d look deeply into her eyes and say, “I’m here, darling. I know you’ve been waiting for me. I came as soon as I could, my love.” Then she’d collapse onto his chest with heaving sobs. He’d put his hand in her hair and say, “I’m sorry, my darling. I wanted to come sooner. But I am here now, and I will never leave you.”

  Julian got up from his desk and decided to take a shower. He scrubbed every single inch of his body, to make sure he smelled the absolute best he could for Jay. He wanted to cleanse away the past – every thought he’d ever had about another woman, every impurity in his own character – so that he could be the perfect knight in shining armor that she so desperately needed.

  He dressed in a simple outfit – gray slacks and a white shirt. He considered slipping the envelope into his pocket, but immediately scolded himself. It would get crumpled. Instead, he slipped it into a clear plastic folder, which he tucked under his arm. He stared at himself in the mirror and smiled with confidence. He could barely believe that this special day in his life had finally arrived. The first day of his new life! Later that night, Jay would return home with him, he was sure of it. He smiled at the apartment as he left, and said, “See you soon,” before he turned off the light.

  It took two hours to drive to the theater, but it passed in the blink of an eye. Julian navigated the roads with an eerily calm smoothness. What was two hours, compared to a lifetime? He would travel across the world just to get a glimpse of Jay. He would walk barefoot over blazing hot sand or through shards of glass, if that’s what it would take to prove his love for her was true.

  When he eventually pulled into the parking lot of the theater, he was still three hours early for the event, just as he’d planned. He got his ‘props’ out of the back – a thick notepad and pen, and a book called ‘Writers 101’. Of course, he was actually a writer of sorts, but mostly of poetry, which the event wasn’t geared towarda. It was more for novelists.

  He thought the props made him look the part. In truth, though, he even thought he might learn something from listening to the lectures. Perhaps he could write a book with Jay about their past life experiences together, and how it all came to fruition in the modern day. That would surely be a gloriously refreshing bestseller.

  He entered the theater quietly. There were a few kids hanging around in the lobby, but the place was otherwise empty.

  He approached a teenage girl and said, “Hello.”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, but then smiled. It was a little forced. “Hi, sir. Are you here for the event? You’re pretty early.”

  “I know,” he said. “Can you let me know where the dressing rooms are, please?”

  “Oh, are you a speaker?”

  He paused. “I’m with a speaker.”

  She didn’t look entirely convinced, but seemed too polite to argue with him. “Okay, sure thing, sir. You just go straight through the lobby, and eventually you’ll come around to a security door on your left.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and headed in the direction she had indicated.

  His heart was starting to beat faster. He wiped his sweating hands on his slacks. He had dreamed of this moment for so many months, but up close, the dream was pretty intimidating. He hadn’t expected to feel so incapacitated by his nervousness. He clutched his folder under his arm and tried to pull the security door open, but it didn’t budge. So he just hovered there awkwardly, waiting for someone to show up.

  Before long, someone did. A large, attractive African American woman in a deep purple pantsuit strutted in her high heels toward the door, looking like she meant business. She raised the card hanging from her neck toward the door, then stopped, looking at Julian. She frowned. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Yes, please,” he said. “I’m Jay Talbot’s… friend.” That so pained him. He wanted to say king, prince, savior, rescuer, lover, husband. “I have a letter of good luck to give to her for tonight’s performance. Would you give it to her please?”

  The woman looked him up and down. “I’m not sure I can, no.”

  Julian felt a rush of anger flash through him. Who on earth was she to prevent him from getting this all-important, earth-shattering message to the love of his life? But he was careful not to let any of the rage he felt show through. He smiled. “Please be reasonable.”

  The woman looked around the lobby quickly, then stepped a little closer to him. “Are you some kind of superfan?” she asked.

  “No!” Julian said, completely and utterly offended. “I’m…” He was about to explain all about the past life business, but then stopped himself. This woman didn’t look like she’d be receptive to it. Hardly anyone was, after all. As much as it pained him, he said, “Okay, yes. I am a superfan. Her absolute number one super fan!”

  The woman’s face stretched into a smile. She shook his hand. “I’m Monique. Nice to meet you. Now, of course I can get your letter to Jay Talbot. It’s just… well, I’m not really supposed to do that. But I could forget the rules, if, you know…” She raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Money?” he asked.

  “Hate to ask,” Monique said.

  “No problem,” Julian said, and rushed to get his wallet out of his pocket. He’d prove that money was no object – he’d spend his whole life savings if it meant he could have an audience with Jay. “How much do you want?”

  Monique tried to sneak a peek as he opened the wallet. “How much have you got?”

  Julian counted out his money. “Four hundred dollars.”

  Monique put her hand out with a smile. “That will do just fine, I suppose.”

  He handed the money over without a second thought. Then his mind whirred into gear. “Wait,” he said, as she began to go through the door. “Can I come with you? I really want to meet Jay.”

  Monique shook her head. “Sorry, honey. Only authorized people can come through here.”

  “What if… what if I pay you more? Much, much more?”

  Monique paused. “How much more?”

  “Two thousand? Three?”

  She looked him up and down again, looking a little concerned. “And you promise you won’t do anything strange?”

  “Of course not!”

  She didn’t look convinced. “I’ll think about it.”

  CHAPTER 6

  EJ Lewis was a monster of a man, and he loved it that way. Heck, he had made it that way, with long sessions at the gym, and extra-long sessions with his mindset coach. He was as savage in mind as he was in body, and he felt incredible.

  It was the morning of the conference, and EJ was not about to slack off. He knew he’d be exposed to a huge new audience of people who weren’t his normal demographic, and he was pumped up to ‘build his tribe.’

  And, in true EJ style, he’d left it until the day of the conference itself to decide what his ‘killer move’ would be. This wasn’t because he was disorganized. Far from it. EJ was so hyper-organized his every breath seemed to be scheduled into his daily timetable.

  No, the reason he left things to the last minute was that it kept a fresh energy about them. He liked to be agile and pounce on ideas as soon as he envisioned them. If he planned two weeks in advance, the plan would feel so stale he’d only disregard it on the day it was to take place, so he always made his plans on the day itself.

  His right hand man (well, woman in this case), Marie Claire, joined him at his private gym. She didn’t work out at that time as per his instructions. It was her job to follow him around with an iPhone that was set on ‘record’ and a note pad, and challenge him, probe him, and provoke him until “all my greatness comes spilling out.”

  It was a role Marie Claire, ambitious and intelligent as she was, took on with great relish. EJ had headhunted her from Stanford. That’s what he told people, anyhow, as it sounded impressive. It was somewhat true. She was only twenty-four and had just graduated from Stanford with an MBA, having done a business undergraduate degree at the same school.

  The truth was he’d
first noticed her because she was drop dead gorgeous, with thick dark hair down to her waist and large brown eyes. She was half Iranian, half Irish-American, and somehow gave out the impression that she was about to take over the world. They were both sitting on the front row at an internet marketing conference when they first met.

  EJ made his usual aggressive ‘smash your targets and crush your goals’ kind of talk, and she made a passionate address about some genius sales ideas she’d created, that mixed advanced persuasion psychology with what she called an ‘emotional uncovering’ technique.

  He pretty much fell in love with her right on the spot and offered her $50,000 to work for him as his strategist. She laughed and said $80,000 would make her consider it. After a few phone negotiations, she’d managed to wrangle that up to $100,000. They’d signed a contract and here she was.

  EJ always started on the treadmill, and today was no different. Marie Claire stood next to it.

  “Tell me your rough plan,” Marie Claire ordered. “I’m listening!”

  EJ had to get into ‘the mindset’ first. This was his ‘beast’ mindset, one where anything and everything he wanted to achieve looked possible. It was the same mindset he’d created to build up his internet business empire at lightning speed. At twenty-six, he was broke, obese and had just had his heart broken.

  Now, at twenty-nine, he was totally ripped, had millions in the bank, and could sleep with a different girl every day of the week if he wanted. He wanted Marie Claire, though, but she bluntly rejected him, saying the only thing that turned her on was work.

  To get into the mindset, EJ did affirmations, as all the gurus recommended. Only, EJ shouted them at the top of his voice.

  “I tear challenges to shreds!” he hollered, enjoying the pound of his feet against the treadmill as he ran faster and faster. “I seek out challenges and pound them into oblivion, so I can get stronger and stronger!”

  Marie Claire nodded, scribbling down copious notes on her notepad.

  “I decide how I feel!” EJ shouted. “And I choose to feel like a beast! I choose to feel indestructible! I choose to feel like the king of the world!”

  Marie Claire kept scribbling, her eyes lighting up as clearly another genius idea popped into her head.

  “I create my reality!” he shouted. “I choose how my life turns out. I make things happen. I am the creator of the future!”

  He jumped off the treadmill and stormed over to the mats where the weights were all lined up. He picked up a barbell and began to heave it up above his head. “Marie Claire, I’ve got it!”

  “Shoot.”

  “We’ll make something terrible happen,” EJ said. “Something to get all the news crews in the state out to that conference.”

  Marie Claire didn’t look as impressed as he wanted her to look. “What will you do?”

  “Some kind of prank. Something that’ll make everyone talk about this conference, and talk about me.”

  “Great,” Marie Claire said. “What?”

  “Let’s do a mock shooting!” EJ said, excitedly. “I’ll be up on stage, and then blam! A bullet flies into my chest and I lie on the floor dying. Except of course I’m not dying, and it’s just a big prank.”

  Marie Claire frowned. “Yeah, but why?”

  “To get press attention, of course! You can bang out some press releases, can’t you? ‘Famous influencer shot dead on stage’. The newspapers around here, the online gossip sites? Everyone will be all over it. Maybe even the national news. Come on!”

  “Okay,” Marie Claire said. “But what’s the reason you’re going to give the audience for the prank, and how long can you keep the prank going to make sure it gains traction? I mean, if you just collapse on stage for two seconds and get back up everyone’s going to think you’ve lost your mind, and then it won’t make the press. We need to do this smart.”

  “Well, you’re the Stanford MBA, aren’t you?” EJ said teasingly. He hauled the barbell above his head and held it there, straining and sweating, then brought it back down with a huge thud on the mat. “Get your thinking cap on.”

  Marie Claire strode up and down the gym. She loved to do that, bouncing on her toes, and letting her brain whiz through some kind of vortex until it landed on an idea.

  “Aha!” she said, her eyes lighting up.

  *****

  The other habit of EJ’s that set him apart from a regular entrepreneur was his tattoo habit. Some people see tattoos as pretty pictures they use to decorate their bodies with. Others see them as a mark of being ‘edgy.’ Yet others ascribe a deeper meaning to each one, perhaps connected to their loved ones, or struggles in life that made them stronger.

  For EJ, though, tattoos were like a running tally of his successes, visualized for himself to see and for others to marvel at. EJ’s identity was so tied into his success that he’d even given his body over to it.

  As such, each move he made that he considered to be a success, he had to get a tattoo to commemorate the event. It wasn’t usually ‘events’ that EJ considered successes, although he did get a ‘$1,000,000 is nothing’ tattoo across his back when he made his first million dollars. Usually, EJ measured success by his ‘mindset shifts.’

  He considered that success came as a result of a conditioned and well-oiled mind. He was constantly seeking to ‘up-level’ his thought processes, and tinker with his consciousness until it produced results in the outer world.

  So, the day of the conference, EJ’s achievement was being bold enough to pretend to die. In his mind that meant, “Prepared to subvert all expectations of me, in order to build my brand and make everyone know my name!” This is what he repeated over and over to himself and wrote down in his ‘success’ journal.

  But, of course, that’s not the only place the achievement would be recorded.

  Marie Claire was tasked with staying in the office and writing up all the press releases that would go pinging out to different news outlets about his ‘death.’ Their plan was put together masterfully, and she’d be the one to prepare everything before his genius ‘execution.’ There was another part to the plan, too, a part he hadn’t even told Marie Claire about. He loved to catch people by surprise.

  In the meantime, EJ and his assistant Craig went out on the town. They hit Starbucks to grab frappuccinos and donuts, then it was straight to the tattoo parlor.

  “Yeah,” EJ said to the receptionist as he strode in.

  She immediately wheeled her chair across to the open space that led into the back, where they did the tattoos and piercings. “Alison! It’s EJ!”

  “Come on in!” Alison hollered back.

  But EJ and Craig were already stepping behind the counter – they weren’t the type of people to be polite and wait. “Life waits for no one,” EJ always liked to say. He had another tattoo saying ‘STREAMLINE’ with a picture of an arrow.

  Alison, a tall slender African American, had just finished with a client and was cleaning up her work station. She was the best tattoo artist in all of Kansas, as rated by ‘TAT’ magazine, and EJ never chose anyone less than the best. “Hey, Craig. So what are we getting today, EJ?”

  EJ was already jumping into the tattoo chair. “I want a bullet.”

  Alison rocked back in her chair, laughing. “I know each of your tattoos represents some kind of achievement. What have you done today, EJ? Killed somebody?”

  EJ grinned. “Not yet.”

  Alison screwed up her face in confusion. “Say what?”

  EJ loved to provoke a reaction. He tapped the side of his nose in a sign of secrecy and grinned. “That’s for me to know, and for you to find out. And you will find out, everyone will.”

  Alison looked at Craig, laughing nervously. “Should I be calling the cops right about now, or…?”

  Craig sipped his Frappuccino and gave her a look to show he was just as confused as she was. “That’s what I was thinking! Only Miss Stanford MBA was let in on the master plan.”

  “Ha!” Alison said.
“So, EJ, where’s this bullet going?”

  “On my forehead,” he said, deadpan.

  Alison gasped.

  EJ grinned again. “Just kidding. I want it on my chest, like it’s going into my heart, and the word BULLETPROOF written underneath it, the same width as the bullet. Just something small. I have a conference to speak at tonight, and I’ve gotta’ get going.”

  “Okay,” Alison said. She grabbed her pen and made a quick sketch on a pad of paper. “How’s that?”

  EJ nodded. “Perfect.”

  “And I’ll make the bullet look properly shiny and metallic,” Alison said. She glanced at the clock. “We’ve got just enough time. Get that shirt off and let’s just do it,” she exclaimed with a fist pump.

  “Eh eh!” EJ said, pretending she was flirting with him. “Easy, Alison. Is it getting hot in here?”

  Alison swatted him on the back of his head with her notebook. “Man, you’re annoying.”

  He grinned and took his shirt off. Then Alison washed the area on his chest where he’d get the tattoo and rubbed it dry with a towel. “So, how is Miss Stanford MBA doing?”

  “Marie Claire is great,” EJ said. “It’s rare I find someone who can keep up with me, but she is on point, I tell you. She’s sharp as a razor. She’d kill to get to the top.”

  “You business people use so much violent terminology,” Alison said, mixing her black and white inks to make various shades of gray on a palette. “Crush this, kill that, murder these targets.” She shook her head. “I sure hope it’s all figurative!”

  EJ chuckled. “Not this time,” he said under his breath.

  “Huh? I didn’t hear you.”

  EJ smiled to himself. “Nothing.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Kat flitted between excitement and nervousness all day. The time before the makeup artists and hair stylists arrived seemed to drag on forever. Lennon was rushing about like a headless chicken, putting the final arrangements together. Kat asked if she could help, but Lennon told her to go relax. Kat was not at all sure that was possible, given she was about to give a talk to around four hundred people.