Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,35

of months ago."

Susan raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

I filled her in on Brig, and Jack told her what he'd discovered.

"We didn't want to bother you with it if it turned out to be nothing, and it did, so…" I shrugged.

Susan nodded, but she didn't look happy. "In the future, maybe tell me about any suspects you come up with, and let us do our job."

Jack gave her a flat stare. "We had a personal stake in this one, considering it's Tess that this lunatic has taken such an interest in."

She sighed. "Yeah. I get that. But, still, at least let me know too, okay? We have resources you don't."

"Andy was going to go look at the grove of palm trees," I said, interrupting them before they started to arm wrestle over jurisdiction or something equally ridiculous. "Nothing there?"

"Unfortunately, no. Just a lot of tree stumps where they got carried away harvesting for the festival." Susan's phone buzzed, and she headed for the door. "Call me if you think of anything, Tess. And Shepherd? You too, okay?"

"Same right back at you, Sheriff," he said.

She paused but then nodded and pushed open the door, answering her phone as she went. "Gonzalez."

Now that it was just me and Jack in the shop, memories of the date and the kiss flooded into my brain, and I could feel my cheeks heat up.

Jack grinned. "You have the most amazing tendency to blush that I've ever seen."

"Argh. It's embarrassing. I'm a grown woman."

"I remember," he said, his eyes flashing with heat. "What are you doing tonight?"

"Very busy. I have that thing to do." I avoided his gaze and picked up the discarded mugs. I wasn't quite ready for another date with Jack until I had time to analyze my feelings and discuss them with Molly.

"That thing?" He followed me into the back. "What thing? And you have donuts you didn't tell me about?"

"Um, the thing. Take an entire box of donuts, if you want. Susan forgot hers."

He took the box I shoved at him and then pinned me in place with a steady look. "What thing are you doing tonight, Tess? Will you be with other people? Somewhere safe?"

"She has plans with me," Eleanor said from her place at the file cabinets. "We have a date to, ah, do goat yoga."

Both of us turned to stare at her.

Jack spoke first. "What the heck is goat yoga?"

She bit her lip and looked everywhere but at him. "You know! Goat yoga. We saw it on the news and wanted to try it out, right, Tess? It's that thing where, ah, the goats do yoga. And we watch! Right. Goat yoga."

I closed my eyes. This was not helpful.

"Repeating the phrase 'goat yoga' over and over does not explain to me how goats do yoga or why you'd want to watch such a thing," Jack said dryly.

"No, Eleanor," I said. "Remember, the baby goats run around and do cute things while we do the yoga?"

Jack looked at me, then at Eleanor, and then back at me.

"You're making this up."

Now I was on safer ground. I Googled, and then held out my phone to show him the video. "See? Goat yoga?"

Jack watched a few seconds of the clip, his eyes widening. "That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. They have this here? In Dead End?"

"Sure, absolutely, we're going tonight right after work, see you later, we have plans to make," Eleanor said, practically babbling.

This was pitiful. If I ever committed a crime, Eleanor would not be one of my alibi witnesses.

"Jack," I said firmly. "Busy. Work and then goat yoga. Go do some detective things."

His eyes were filled with laughter. "But I want to go too. I like goats."

"We're not eating the goats!" I had a sudden vision of Jack, in tiger form, chasing a bunch of baby goats around a yoga studio, and I almost couldn't keep a straight face.

"Eating them makes more sense than doing yoga with them."

He wasn't wrong, exactly, but I didn’t have time to debate the issue. First, I needed to find out what was going on with Eleanor, whose face was bright red. She looked like she was going to start crying, and she would be horrified to cry in front of Jack.

"Okay, whatever, let's discuss it later." I gestured to him to follow me.

When we were back in the shop, he frowned down at me. "Is she okay? Do I need to call Dave?"

Jack and Eleanor's son Dave had been best friends