Free Dead Eye (A Tiger's Eye Mystery Book 1) by Alyssa Day Page A
Authors: Alyssa Day
made money. So it was a win-win-win all the way around.
I put on my cheerful face as Eleanor came out from the back room—just a sweet, neighborly woman who’d been securing the Glock she might or might not know how to use—and we prepared for an hour of small talk, brisk sales, and breathless descriptions of the “real, live alligator” they’d all seen from the boats.
“As if we’ve never seen an alligator before,” Eleanor muttered under her breath to me some time later, when she was ringing up a sale of a taxidermied raccoon for a man and his wife who were wearing matching orange-and-green my-eyes-are-bleeding shirts. Given the way they were talking about him, I wouldn’t bet money against the idea that Rocky Raccoon might have a shirt of his own not long after they got home.
Dead End Pawn: Selling you the things you never knew you had to have. (Note to everyone who has to clean out an elderly relative’s house when he or she goes to the nursing home: You’re welcome.)
The GYST people might be a little over the top sometimes, but they were customers, and we served them with politeness and a smile. For a while, we were so busy that I didn’t have time to think about murders, dead bodies, or fascinating tigers who might or might not be in love with intense-looking rebel leaders.
So I almost missed the small voice calling my name.
“Miss Tess? I have some coins. Do you have time for me?”
I looked down, and my heart sank into the vicinity of my stomach. Shelley Adler was Exhibit A as to why Dead End’s having no state or federal regulations, and only minimal law enforcement, wasn’t always a good thing.
“I always have time for you, sweetheart,” I said, smiling.
Shelley was nine years old, but she was so small and thin that she looked maybe seven. Her mother, Melody, had been a single mom, and she’d died in a freak one-car accident on a cloudless night just a few months back. Melody’s parents had been in the car with her, leaving Shelley alone in the world except for the Kowalskis, who were distant cousins.
There was something about Dead End that seemed to churn out more than its fair share of orphans. Jack, me, and now Shelley, three cases in point. I looked down at the girl’s bright blue eyes staring up at me from her pinched, anxious face, and resolved to quit whining, even to myself, about my aunt and uncle’s overprotectiveness.
She was dressed in what looked like shiny new clothes, and I literally meant shiny. The word FIERCE shone out at me in blindingly pink sequins from her shirt, her pants had pockets made of what looked like reflective tape, and her shoes lit up in little flashes of colored light at the heels and toes as she fidgeted back and forth. An unzipped neon green jacket finished off the ensemble. Her entire outfit looked like it had been picked out by a third-rate stripper after one too many tequila shots—it didn’t fit her very well, either—and I’d never seen her dressed like that before. Either the Kowalskis had let her pick out her own clothes at the store, or some guy who’d never had a daughter or a sister had bought them for her. I looked up and, sure enough, there was Walt Kowalski lurking near the door, glowering at me. Olga, being the massively important witch that she was, must have thought that shopping for a child’s clothes was beneath her and sent one of her hulking, loser sons to do it.
The word that came to mind rhymed with witch , but it wasn’t nearly as charitable.
“Hey, sweet girl, how are you? I haven’t seen you for a while.” I bent down and folded her into a hug, closing my eyes and smelling the sweet scent of baby shampoo in her hair. “What do you have for me this time?”
She bent her head while she fumbled in her pocket, and the sight of the crooked part in her light brown hair nearly undid me.
“Two Spanish doubloons,” she crowed, holding them up excitedly. “I’ve never found two together before.”
Shelley had a
I put on my cheerful face as Eleanor came out from the back room—just a sweet, neighborly woman who’d been securing the Glock she might or might not know how to use—and we prepared for an hour of small talk, brisk sales, and breathless descriptions of the “real, live alligator” they’d all seen from the boats.
“As if we’ve never seen an alligator before,” Eleanor muttered under her breath to me some time later, when she was ringing up a sale of a taxidermied raccoon for a man and his wife who were wearing matching orange-and-green my-eyes-are-bleeding shirts. Given the way they were talking about him, I wouldn’t bet money against the idea that Rocky Raccoon might have a shirt of his own not long after they got home.
Dead End Pawn: Selling you the things you never knew you had to have. (Note to everyone who has to clean out an elderly relative’s house when he or she goes to the nursing home: You’re welcome.)
The GYST people might be a little over the top sometimes, but they were customers, and we served them with politeness and a smile. For a while, we were so busy that I didn’t have time to think about murders, dead bodies, or fascinating tigers who might or might not be in love with intense-looking rebel leaders.
So I almost missed the small voice calling my name.
“Miss Tess? I have some coins. Do you have time for me?”
I looked down, and my heart sank into the vicinity of my stomach. Shelley Adler was Exhibit A as to why Dead End’s having no state or federal regulations, and only minimal law enforcement, wasn’t always a good thing.
“I always have time for you, sweetheart,” I said, smiling.
Shelley was nine years old, but she was so small and thin that she looked maybe seven. Her mother, Melody, had been a single mom, and she’d died in a freak one-car accident on a cloudless night just a few months back. Melody’s parents had been in the car with her, leaving Shelley alone in the world except for the Kowalskis, who were distant cousins.
There was something about Dead End that seemed to churn out more than its fair share of orphans. Jack, me, and now Shelley, three cases in point. I looked down at the girl’s bright blue eyes staring up at me from her pinched, anxious face, and resolved to quit whining, even to myself, about my aunt and uncle’s overprotectiveness.
She was dressed in what looked like shiny new clothes, and I literally meant shiny. The word FIERCE shone out at me in blindingly pink sequins from her shirt, her pants had pockets made of what looked like reflective tape, and her shoes lit up in little flashes of colored light at the heels and toes as she fidgeted back and forth. An unzipped neon green jacket finished off the ensemble. Her entire outfit looked like it had been picked out by a third-rate stripper after one too many tequila shots—it didn’t fit her very well, either—and I’d never seen her dressed like that before. Either the Kowalskis had let her pick out her own clothes at the store, or some guy who’d never had a daughter or a sister had bought them for her. I looked up and, sure enough, there was Walt Kowalski lurking near the door, glowering at me. Olga, being the massively important witch that she was, must have thought that shopping for a child’s clothes was beneath her and sent one of her hulking, loser sons to do it.
The word that came to mind rhymed with witch , but it wasn’t nearly as charitable.
“Hey, sweet girl, how are you? I haven’t seen you for a while.” I bent down and folded her into a hug, closing my eyes and smelling the sweet scent of baby shampoo in her hair. “What do you have for me this time?”
She bent her head while she fumbled in her pocket, and the sight of the crooked part in her light brown hair nearly undid me.
“Two Spanish doubloons,” she crowed, holding them up excitedly. “I’ve never found two together before.”
Shelley had a