Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,24

the cart.

Surely not. There is no possible way that Pastor Nash is my stalker.

Or—worse—Mrs. Nash. Does she hate my singing enough to leave me amputated body parts?

I realized my thoughts were growing more and more ridiculous.

"Um, doing some early Halloween candy shopping?" I pointed to the peppermints, as if she might be confused and think I was talking about the chicken noodle soup.

"What?" She glanced down and laughed. "Oh, no. Those are for Caleb. He gets such a dry throat giving those sermons. I've told him maybe he could talk just a little bit less, but he says Jesus deserves our full attention, and if he only has an hour and a half each week, he's going to make the most of it."

"For the pastor," I echoed weakly, my mind going to all those movies where the nun was a psycho serial killer. Nuns, pastors, there wasn’t that much difference, right?

Argh.

"Yes, he eats them like, well, like candy, I guess. Goes through a few bags a week. Anyway, Tess, it's nice to see you, but I need to find the children's cold medicine and get home to the kids. See you next Sunday, I hope?"

She smiled again, and Southern manners compelled me to tell the possible wife of a finger-chopping-off lunatic that it had been nice to see her too.

And then I just stood there, frozen, trying not to believe that our church pastor was sending me amputated fingers.

When I started walking, my phone rang, startling me so much I jumped, and I fumbled it out of my purse.

Jack.

"Hey, Jack. I may have a suspect," I whispered, although I'm not sure why, since I was alone in the condiments aisle. Not a lot of interest in pickles and mustard today, apparently.

"That's good, because I ruled one out. Brigham Hammermill the Fourth is definitely not your stalker."

"I didn't think he would be. But how do you know for sure?"

"He's dead. Died two months ago in a freak squall that capsized his yacht. Evidently it was great timing, if you can ever say that about someone's death, because he was drowning in debt and his business was failing."

I rolled my eyes, even though Jack couldn't see me. "Yacht accident and drowning in debt? Really?"

"Sorry. I didn't even plan it. But what about you? Who's your suspect?"

"I don't want to talk about this over the phone. We can discuss it this evening. Where are we going on our date? I need to know what to wear."

"We're going out to dinner."

I sighed.

Men.

"Yes, okay, but where? McDonalds? Beau's Diner? Somewhere fancy where I can dress up? A food truck?"

He laughed, and the low, sexy sound gave me shivers. "Definitely somewhere fancy where you can dress up."

Ah ha. The green dress would be perfect.

"Where? Orlando? Not Carlos's club, though, I'm not in the mood for a vampire dance club tonight."

"No vampires, I promise. Well, unless Daniel and Serai are visiting."

"Where, Jack?"

"You don't want it to be a surprise?"

"I hate surprises."

"Okay, Tess. We're having dinner in Atlantis. See you at six."

7

He hung up before I could demand details, like how and why and how and what?

Dinner in Atlantis. Wow.

It wasn't even possible, unless he had a plane ready to take us to the official ships that were the only way anybody was allowed to travel to Atlantis. Since the lost continent had risen from the depths of the ocean in the area formerly known as the Bermuda Triangle a few years back, everybody in the world had wanted to visit.

But the Atlantean royal family had quickly set guidelines and strictly limited visitors. Mostly historians, linguists, artists, and ambassadors at first, and then they'd slowly allowed a small amount of regular people—tourists, really—to visit.

The king, who was rumored to be hundreds of years old because of Atlantean magic but looked like a hot thirty-something, had even married an American!

But, no.

Surely Jack had been joking.

He knew I had to work in the morning, and that Susan would be coming by the shop too. Surely he didn't think I could just hop on a plane and a boat and be gone for days, even if I knew he could probably arrange it, since he was a friend to the Atlantean royal family and had helped them with dangerous missions in the years when Jack had been a rebel leader.

"Move out of the way, girlie!"

I blinked and realized I was still standing in the same place, and a very tiny woman who was maybe eighty going on a hundred and fifty