Licensed for Trouble (11 page)

“Blonde, actually.”

“In my mind, I'm a redhead. And I'm hardly tall.”

“You're just right.”

“Not for a Sugar.”

Okay, really, she hated how pitiful she sounded. She took a drink, then licked her lips. “You know I've always felt different. Strange.”

“Like an alien, I know.” Connie responded to the buzzer again, taking the cookies out to cool. “But it's not because you weren't accepted.” With the spatula she began to scoop the cookies onto the cooling rack. “It's because you didn't really want to be.”

Didn't want to . . .
“Excuse me, I spent most of my life trying to fit in. Of course I wanted to be accepted.”

“No, you didn't. Because then it meant you had to be like us. ‘Fit in a box,' I think I remember you saying once. It's why you liked it so much when Boone called you NBT.”

“I didn't like it.”

“Of course you did. You thrived on it. Because if you were trouble, then no one could expect more from you. No one could make you be a Sugar or anything else. You liked being trouble.” Connie handed her a cookie on a napkin.

She liked being trouble. PJ stared at the cookie. Maybe she did. Then. Not necessarily now. “What if I don't want to be trouble anymore?”

“Then don't be.” Connie refilled her milk. “But then who are you going to be?”

PJ raised her glass. “I thought I might try on Kellogg for size.”

Connie finished unloading the cookies, turned off the oven, and scooped up her car keys. “Show me the house. I want to be a Kellogg too.”

The sun had already tipped the scales toward the back half of the day as PJ pulled up to the gate, unlocked it, and then drove up the long, cracked drive to the mushroom house. She noticed the cavern in the lawn where she'd plunged into the ground only the day before, but in the daylight, the house again marched off the pages of a storybook, and for the first time since Boone had declared it uninhabitable, a future panned out before her. Flowers in the boxes hanging below the leaded windows. The ivy cleaned off, the wooden garage doors painted a cherry red. The lawn mowed, and the flower garden reseeded, overflowing with lily of the valley and roses and perhaps a row of variegated hosta.

“Wow. It's pretty rough, isn't it?” Connie said, getting out of her car, parked behind the Vic.

“It'll clean up.”

PJ walked to the door, opening it with her key. “Brace yourself.”

The house didn't flummox Connie. She wandered the length of it like PJ had yesterday, and PJ watched her catalog the disrepair. Yet, in Connie's eyes—a woman who had taken her Craftsman home and restored it, one fixture at a time—PJ saw the potential, the hope.

Finally Connie came outside and stood on the flagstone with her. “I think you can do this.”

Most likely to be amazing.

PJ slipped her hand into her sister's. “Really?”

“Well, you'll always be a Sugar. But live here? Yes. Fix it up?” She turned to PJ. “Of course.”

They watched the lake, the way the ripples caught the sunlight. A few fishing boats motored through the water.

“I need to pick up Davy. But tell me . . . when are you moving in?”

“How about now?”

Connie turned to her, and for the first time, her smile dimmed. “Right now? Without electricity? or decent plumbing?”

PJ led the way back through the house. “Connie, trust me, I've lived in worse.”

Connie stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I don't want to know. Listen, if you need to move back into my place for a while, until you fix this place up . . .”

“Nope. It's my creepy house. I'm going to live in it.”

“Of course you are.”

PJ stood in the drive watching Connie pull away, feeling a surreal ownership. The wind moaned in the slatted cedar boards and rustled the dead foliage clutching the house.

Oh, hush.

Opening her trunk, PJ pulled out a box of memorabilia —mostly mismatched dishware, some bedding. She'd pick up her duffel bag from Jeremy's place tonight. Closing the trunk with her hip, she carried the box inside.

“I'm
home
.”

Her voice echoed through the barren rooms. Hiking through to the end, she nudged open the door to the maid's quarters. It overlooked the side yard—and the pond where Joy had died. A slanted roof gave it a cozy lean-to feel. The blue carpet was rutted in places, yet it matched the baby blue–tiled bathroom, with the cracked silver-plated mirror and the claw-foot tub.

A single bed with a bare mattress and a weathered French country frame jutted like a pier into the center of the room. A matching bureau took up the nook in the inside corner.

Home, sweet home.

“Hello?”

PJ dropped the box on the bed. Barely held in a little scream.

“Hello?”

It didn't sound like Jeremy or even Boone. Oh, where was her pepper spray when she needed it? She opened the box and fished around for something heavy, lethal.

Her hands landed on her hardcover Bible. Well, they did call it a sword. She scooped it from the box and held it like a two-by-four over her head.

“Hello? Anybody here?”

Footsteps. PJ tiptoed out of the room, then flattened herself against the doorframe. The steps echoed down the main hall.

She crouched down and slunk across the kitchen, under the counter. Peeked out along the side.

He looked harmless enough.

Wiry, tall, and solid, in a brown canvas jacket and a pair of very faded blue jeans, work boots, a Twins baseball cap that hid the color of his hair, her intruder had shoved his hands into his pockets, as if he had been out for a stroll on the beach and accidentally found his way to her living room. Clean shaven, and about her age, he wore a faraway expression on his face. Especially when he stopped to stare out the bank of windows to the lake, as if, for a moment, he might not actually be in the room.

She pounced out, holding the Bible over her head. “What do you want?”

He whirled around. Emotion flickered in his eyes, not surprise, but something else—a wariness, a reaction she couldn't pinpoint before surrender took its place. His hands went up. “Whoa there. I come in peace.”

PJ kept her distance. “Then what are you doing trespassing?”

“Uh . . .” He glanced around, as if searching for her reinforcements.

Sorry, bub; it's just me and the Word of God.
Should be enough.

But just in case, “I called 911.”

“Aw, you didn't have to do that.” He made to lower his hands.

She gave him a look and raised the Bible.

He put them back up. “Fine. Really, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just looking for someone. PJ Sugar.”

“What do you want with her?”

“Are you PJ?”

“Maybe.”

This time, he did lower his hands. “My name is Max Smith. And I . . .” He advanced toward her a half step, then stopped and wore an expression so morose, so desperate, she let the Bible fall to her side.

“What?”

“Well . . . I need you to find me.”

Chapter Seven

Max Smith looked like a guy not easily lost.

“I'm sorry, could you say that again?”

“I need you to find me.”

Yes, he definitely looked like he knew his way around . . . life, perhaps. Over six feet tall, he stood with his hands once again pocketed in a demeanor that bespoke casual. But with the hard yet earnest brown eyes and the coiled energy radiating off him, he reminded her of . . . well, Jeremy. The eye inside the storm.

Especially when the sunlight sided against her and crept behind a cloud, shutting off the earnestness in his eyes. The room turned brisk.

PJ stepped back, moving the Bible in front of her again. “I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Mr. Smith.”

He closed his eyes, and it was the way he rubbed his hands down his face, his shoulders rising and falling with a deep sigh, that made her decide to listen.

“Are you lost?”

He breathed again heavily, then took his hands from his face. “I think so. Because after four years of wandering Kellogg, trying to piece my life together, I haven't the faintest idea who I am.”

Join the club.
Only, she had ten years at that game. But as a beat pulsed between them, PJ measured his face, and every impulse inside her told her he meant his words.

She set the Bible on the counter. “You don't know who you are?”

“I made up Max Smith. I don't know my real name, where I'm from, or who I am.” He said it without flinching, his dark eyes holding hers, not a hint of a teasing smile.

Okay. “How'd this happen?”

“Dunno, exactly. Apparently I appeared one day on the Kellogg beach, naked and nameless. First thing I remember is the smell of the hospital and the cops standing at the end of my bed.”

PJ narrowed her eyes. “And how, exactly, am I supposed to help you find . . . you?”

“You're a PI, right?”

Yes.
Yes!
“I am.” She didn't elaborate.

“Well . . . see, I got a call from someone at the church who said you needed some help with your house.” At these words he did a small look-see around the place. “I did a little sniffing and found out you were a PI . . . and I thought we could trade.”

“Trade what?”

“Services. It seems I can handle a hammer, and more. And apparently you need someone with . . . uh, various handyman skills to bring life back into this place.”

“I . . . Who sent you?” Her thoughts tracked to Jeremy and warmed her. So the Bix failure hadn't derailed him. He still believed in her and her ability to—

“A Connie Sukh—I can't read my own writing.” He stared at a crumpled piece of paper. “She left a message on my cell phone, told me something about a mushroom house and how you needed help. Once I figured out what the mushroom house was, I thought I'd swing by. Sorry if I startled you.”

PJ tried to imagine Connie leaving a rambling message on this man's phone—probably right after PJ had left her house yesterday. “How do you know my sister?”

“Connie is your sister?”

PJ raised one eyebrow.

“I think she must go to my church—I have a little ad up in the foyer for my handyman services.”

Handyman. Yes.

“Please? I've exhausted all my resources.”

There was something about a grown man, his voice gentle, his eyes desperate, saying
please
that did strange things to her brain. Like make her nod. And suggest that they get a cup of coffee and talk about his case. And even offer to pay for the coffee.

As if she might be rich or something.

“Listen, how about I get the power running so you don't have to stock up on candles? Then we'll see about coffee. Or maybe food.”

Food. Now there was a thought. She could use a pizza about now.

She followed him out to the car—a red Olds Cutlass that looked surprisingly comfortable next to her Crown Vic. He opened the trunk—in which she noticed a rolled sleeping bag and canvas tote—and reached for a large toolbox the size of a suitcase.

He hauled it out and closed the trunk.

A large furry head rammed itself against a backseat window. Then a fuzzy yellow-brown jaw tried to push through the three-inch opening. A tongue darted out.

PJ jumped away. “What's that?”

Max opened the back door of the car and out bounded what could probably pass for a small pony. A brown and white pony with floppy ears, a short snout, and brown eyes that gave her a split-second warning before the beast launched in her direction.

She caught his front paws. “Oh, oh.”

“Dog, get down.” Max pushed on the animal's head, grabbed his collar, and pulled him off PJ. “Sorry.”

“This is your dog? Or should I say your
lap pony
?”

Max smiled, keeping his hand curled around the dog's collar. “Closest I can figure, he's part Saint Bernard, part Labrador. Friendly, protective, playful. Obsessively afraid of storms. He climbed in with me one night during a summer thunderstorm, and we've been pals ever since.”

Climbed in with him . . . in his car? PJ shot a look at the backseat. It looked clean despite the dog hair. Still, her heart gave a small twist.

PJ crouched before the animal and cupped him around the ears, looking him in his golden brown eyes. “What's your name?”

“Dog.”

PJ looked at Max. “Dog? You named your dog
Dog
?”

“I can't settle on anything. I tried Hank. And Rip. Pete, even Ace. Doesn't seem to like any of them. So it's Dog until he can decide what he likes.”

PJ rubbed behind Dog's ears. “Dog, you're getting a real name.”

Max regarded her with a strange look. “Be my guest. If you can figure out his name, you can name him.”

PJ considered him for a moment. “Jack?”

Dog gave her a lick, then bounded away.

“Not Jack.”

“Keep trying.” Max's toolbox rattled and thumped against his leg as he followed her inside to the electrical closet.

“So how did you come up with Max?”

“I don't know. Felt right. They fished me out of Maximilian Bay. So, Max?”

Again, she found herself beaming a flashlight on the fried electrical panel. Dog explored the house, his paws thundering upstairs, toenails clipping against the tile floor in the great hall.

“Are you an electrician?”

“Sometimes.” Max opened the panel, then angled her flashlight at the porcelain knobs. She couldn't help but notice the scars that webbed his hands, his fingers, as if his skin had been taken off, crumpled, and ironed on wrong. Her eyes pinned to them too long.

“I think I was in a fire.” Max opened his toolbox and took out what looked like a small meter.

“You think?”

“It happened before I woke up in the hospital. Before I washed up onshore at the Kellogg beach.”