Jump the Gun by Zoe Burke Page B

in Chicago, or if it was stolen. Maybe Jake couldn’t tell a fake pearl from a real one.
    I found my laptop tossed on the floor behind the couch. It didn’t seem damaged. I turned it on and waited for it to boot up, checked the history of the document files—I keep only a few files on my laptop, just those I need with me when traveling—and noticed that each one of them had been opened the previous afternoon. This was an “Aha!” moment. Files. Jake wanted information I had, or thought I had.
    I started mentally going through my current projects at work, all of the books I was promoting for the current season. Take It Easy: A Thinking Man’s Approach to Life; What, Me Worry?: A Pictorial History of Mad Magazine; My Father, Who Aren’t in Heaven, Harold Be Thy Name: The Irrelevance of Religion in Post-Vietnam America; and The End of Law and Order: How One Show Changed Television Forever. I couldn’t see how any of these would encourage the wrath of thugs, mobsters, old women, or Las Vegas police. In fact, I doubted that much reading went on at all in Las Vegas, what with everyone gambling. Whatever books were available here probably amounted to fifty percent John Grisham and Sue Grafton, forty-five percent romance novels, and the balance, how to’s and cookbooks. Okay, so maybe the Mad Magazine book would find an audience here, but why would anyone hold anything against Alfred E. Newman?
    I shut down my laptop. Mickey was out of the bathroom, in clean clothes, going about the same business of gathering his belongings. He was checking his computer, too. We looked at each other and he shook his head. “He opened my files, but I don’t know what he was looking for.”
    â€œMe neither,” I said, “unless he collects unusual pins.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’m missing a pin from my jewelry case. But it’s not valuable. I probably left it in Chicago.”
    Mickey turned back to his laptop. Luis was still wandering around the room, examining everything like a cop would. He’d squat now and then, pace some more, then look up toward the ceiling at god knows what.
    â€œCassie,” I suddenly said aloud. Luis and Mickey looked at me, waiting for more. “Cassie, my friend. She’s staying at my apartment, housesitting Bonkers, my cat. I should call her, tell her I’m coming home today.” They nodded and continued with what they were doing.
    I got an outside line on the hotel phone and dialed my home number. It rang twice, then I heard a man’s voice answer, “Hello?” My heart jumped. I was unnerved.
    â€œWho is this?” I asked. Mickey and Luis stopped what they were doing, picking up on my weird voice.
    â€œYou’ve reached the Starkey residence. Who’s calling, please?”
    â€œWho are you and why are you in my apartment?” I wasn’t yelling. I was quiet. I was getting used to being scared, and I got scared a lot sooner than perhaps I would have on any other day.
    â€œThis is Beatrice Starkey?”
    â€œYes, yes, it is, where is Cassie?”
    A pause. Oh, the worst pause of my life.
    â€œWhere are you, Ms. Starkey?”
    â€œWhere is Cassie? What is going on?”
    Another pause. Some voices in the background.
    â€œMs. Starkey, this is Sergeant Franklin, SFPD. I’m sorry to tell you, Cassie Hobbs is dead. It appears she was murdered.”
    That’s when I yelled something unintelligible, some animal scream buried deep inside me. Mickey leaped over the coffee table in time to catch me before I fell to the floor.

Chapter Nine
    I was lying on the floor, my head in Mickey’s lap, his face close to mine, his voice repeating my name, and I grabbed onto him for all my life. He drew me up to sit and he held me and rocked me while I cried all over his t-shirt. Luis was on the phone, talking to Sergeant Franklin in a low voice. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I pushed away