Free Dead on Delivery by Eileen Rendahl

AS I STUMBLED on those damn kitten heels. I knew better than to try to be fashionable. I should leave that stuff to Norah.
    “Why? Why don’t you go first?” I craned around him to see if I could get a license plate or something to identify the young man who was running away. I didn’t hear a car, though. The sun had already begun to set and the light was growing dim. It was often a good thing that I could see like a cat in the darkness, but if there was nothing to see, then it didn’t help much.
    Ted put his hands on his hips and said, “Because I’m the law.”
    I snorted and stood tall in front of him until we were nearly nose to nose or, more accurately, nose to chest. He had a solid six inches on me height-wise. “Not in these parts, you aren’t, Mr. Sacramento PD. I think you’re way out of your jurisdiction, in more ways than one.”
    He looked down at me, not budging, and shook his head. “They’ll understand why I’m here faster than they’ll understand why you’re here.”
    I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Sometimes I could distract him, but not if I went into full confrontation mode. “Fine. I’m willing to make a deal, but first, did you see the kid who came running out of the house ahead of me?”
    “The one who got tossed from the memorial service right before you did?” He squinted a little. It was his deep-thought face. He got the same look right before he picked a flavor of ice cream. Bless his heart, he almost always went with chocolate chip cookie dough, but he gave it serious deliberation before he did.
    “The very one.”
    “Why’d he get tossed?” He relaxed his stance a little. I was going to get my way. I rubbed my mental hands together with evil glee. I figured it was bad form to do it for real.
    “I don’t know. He was ranting and raving about being cursed and they booted him out. They booted me out right afterward.” That little shove on the doorstep had been totally unnecessary. I wondered if Bouncer Boy was the one who’d done it. It seemed kind of petty for the grown men that had been surrounding the door.
    “Oh, yeah. Why did you get the boot?” Ted squinted at me now, as if trying to make his mind up.
    I sighed. “Someone caught me looking under the deceased’s bed.”
    He pivoted toward the street and slung his arm around me. “Is it any wonder that I love you? Now, where are you parked? I didn’t see your car anywhere close.”
    I froze. Unable for a moment to take a step forward, perhaps maybe to breathe. Had he just said what I thought he’d said? Was that a declaration of love?
    In all fairness, the man had literally risked his life for me. And his job. And had been put in doubt of his very sanity. Those are all good indicators that a guy is pretty into you. Still, he had never used the actual L word. Like I said, long-term romantic relationships haven’t exactly been my forte. Did that count as an actual I love you ? Or was that more something a person would say the first time they bit into my mother’s noodle kugel?
    “Are you coming?” Ted looked down at me, bemused.
    I was glad darkness had fallen, so he couldn’t see the expression on my face. Or, at least, I assumed he couldn’t. He did not see like a cat and I was glad of it at the moment. “Yeah, sure,” I said, and stumbled forward.
    “So spill.” Ted kept his arm around my shoulders as we walked.
    A deal was a deal. “You know how Bossard died not too long after I made a delivery to him?”
    “You mean that coincidence thing you mentioned the other day?” His tone was more than a little sarcastic. I knew I deserved it, so I let it go.
    “I was afraid that maybe whatever I’d delivered had caused his death somehow. I wanted to sniff around the situation and make sure I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
    He stiffened but kept walking. “And do you think your delivery did have anything to do with it?”
    “I’m not sure yet. I found the package I delivered for him