Nothing but Trouble (20 page)

“What, do you have a get-out-of-jail-free card?” She couldn’t finish her pie.
Thanks a lot, Jeremy.
She’d lost her appetite.

He smiled, took another sip of coffee, then pulled her plate over and picked up a fork. “How’d you get into Hoffman’s place?”

“I found the key.”

He made an
oh
face, and for a moment she was right back in the garage, tasting her fear as his hand closed over her mouth. How had Jeremy so quickly become her partner in crime?

“Hey, I have an idea.” He signaled the waitress. “What about that goat in Hoffman’s neighbor’s yard?”

“Billie.”

“The goat is a personal friend?”

“Another long story
 
—”

He raised a hand to stop her.

She reached over and swiped the final bite of pie. “I think you’re onto something.”

* * *

Friendly lights illuminated the front porch of Ben’s rambler, a duplicate of Hoffman’s next door, and a recently watered pink geranium in a square planter indicated a loving touch. PJ hoped this boded well for the coming conversation.

Don’t panic.
Ben hadn’t seen her
 
—or at least hadn’t recognized her
 
—since the wedding. Still, her hand shook slightly as she knocked on the door.

Footsteps lodged her heart in her throat, and by the time the door opened, she could barely breathe.

Ben stood on the threshold in a pair of dress slacks, slippers, and a pullover golf sweater. “Hello?”

“Uh, hello, Mr. Murphy. Remember me, PJ Sugar? I saw you at Connie’s wedding?” Was she breathing? She sounded like she was going to pass out.

Ben nodded. Was that a flare of recognition in his eyes? He glanced behind her at the six-foot-one guy who stood close enough to catch her when she went down in a heap.

PIs needed to be tougher than this. “I heard . . . through the grapevine, sorta . . . that you have a goat.”

Ben’s gaze came back to her, and he nodded warily.

“That you might be willing to . . . sell? give away?”

Ben sighed, then glanced over his shoulder. She knew a furtive look when she saw it, having employed it herself. He stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. “I do have a goat. How much?”

So given the right incentive, he’d fork over his wife’s prized beast. Interesting. PJ glanced at Jeremy. “How much?”

“It’s your goat.”

She grabbed Jeremy’s collar and pulled him down, her mouth close to his ear. “I don’t have any money.”

“Oh, good grief.” He stepped around her and faced Ben. “Thirty bucks.”

Ben gave a disgusted snort and turned to go inside.

“Fifty.”

He stopped, not looking at Jeremy. “A hundred.”

“A hundred bucks for a goat? Does that come with or without a year’s supply of hostas?” Whoops, maybe she wasn’t supposed to speak.

Jeremy did his own bargaining snort and started to turn away.

“Seventy-five!” PJ added pleading into her eyes, layered it on thick to both Ben and Jeremy.

Ben exhaled, long and loud, clearly put out. “My wife loves that goat. It’s been in the family for nearly five years. The grandkids will be disappointed.”

“They can come and visit.” PJ softened her voice. “It’s for my nephew, Davy. He lives over in Chapel Hills. Your goat will be well loved and cared for.”

“If she doesn’t d
 
—”

She poked Jeremy hard in the gut and he woofed out his last word.

“
Dream
of returning home. Which she won’t because we will keep her oh so happy.”

“It’s a he.”

Oh,
Billy
, not Billie. They might have a problem. But . . . it was either that or create an international incident.

“Is it a deal?” PJ stuck out her hand.

After a beat, Ben met her grip. “Deal.” His hand wasn’t as strong as she would have imagined, evaporating the Ben-as-a-murderer theory.

Jeremy fished out his wallet and peeled off seventy-five smackers to Ben. They went around back to retrieve Billy and loaded him into the hatchback. Thankfully, Ben stayed on the porch and didn’t notice the expired goat in the backseat.

Billy didn’t sit quite as quietly as Dora had. PJ sat with him, arms wrapped around his neck, as he tried to cram her into the tire well. “Drive fast.”

They motored back to Connie’s and unloaded Billy, dragging him around the house. While Jeremy tied him up, PJ raked all the smelly and probably poisonous grass clippings
away from his reach. She picked up an already uprooted hosta plant and tossed it to him. “Welcome home.”

As Jeremy collapsed next to her on the deck, the stars winking overhead, a summer breeze playing in the trees, it occurred to her that they still needed to bury the goat.

Er, goat number one.

“We need to take Dora to the vet.”

Jeremy rubbed his hand down his face. “Isn’t it a little late for that?”

PJ went inside and found an old sheet upstairs
 
—although nothing Connie owned was technically old, besides the furniture, which meant that PJ owed her a sheet.

She wasn’t sure that made them even, however.

Taking the sheet outside, she climbed back into the car, noticing a rank odor.

“The things I do for you, Princess.” Jeremy picked up the goat and wrapped it in the sheet.

Under the circumstances, she let the nickname slide. “I won’t forget this.”

“Oh, neither will I.”

The vet’s office was closed, but they wrestled the goat out of the car and dragged it to the front step. Jeremy tucked a couple twenties into the door.

But PJ couldn’t move. As she stood there, looking at the sheet-wrapped carcass, guilt wove into her chest. “Maybe I should take the goat home, explain that it died of natural causes.”

Jeremy set a hand on her shoulder. “The truth shall set you free.”

“Or it shall cause my sister’s first big marital blowout.” She hung her head. “I don’t know what to do.”

But Jeremy did apparently. “Leave the goat. It’ll get a decent . . . burial.”

She sighed. “Should we say something?”

He didn’t make a sound or break into “Amazing Grace” or “In the Sweet By and By,” so she just stood there in silence, the wind shifting through the trees and raising the hair on her arms.

“That’s good,” Jeremy finally muttered, as if closing the moment.

They climbed back into the car, but Jeremy didn’t turn into the Chapel Hills neighborhood. “Where’re we going?”

“We have unfinished business at the Kellogg Country Club.”

“Seriously, Jeremy.”

But he reached over, patting her arm. “Relax, PJ.”

How exactly were they going to get into the country club without setting off alarms? And what would Boone do if he found out?

She saw herself on the turnpike back to South Dakota before morning.

“You seem a little tense.”

PJ could barely make Jeremy out through the jagged shadows cutting through the viburnum bushes ringing the country club. They’d parked up the hill and special-forced their way through the golf course, sticking to the trees and avoiding, for the most part, the sprinklers.

Now they crouched just beyond the clubhouse outside the pool, in a cubby of darkness that, if she had her way, would suck them in forever, whisk her away to a place where she couldn’t be talked into crazy schemes. She’d lost her mind for sure.

“A little
tense
? I’m about to relive the worst night of my life, the night that derailed every dream, every romance, every hope for a reasonable future, and you think I’m
tense
?”

“Shh, not so loud. There might be a security guard.”

“You mean you haven’t cased the joint?”

“What do you think I am, a professional burglar? You’re the one who brought up the golfing foursome.”

“I don’t know what you are!”

“Shh! You’re going to get us caught.”

“This is the worst idea
 
—”

His hand on her arm, tightening, made her stop. She heard footsteps scuffing against cement and ducked down, trying to make herself the size of a flea.

The steps moved away, dissipating into the night.

“Who was that?” she hissed.

“Looked like someone in charge. He wasn’t wearing a uniform but held a ring of keys.”

Perfect. Probably Director Buckam. Wouldn’t that be poetic? To catch her breaking the law at the country club. Again. Could a girl be banned for life twice? “Tell me one more time why we have to do this?”

Jeremy’s voice was close to her ear. “How many suspects do you have?”

Well, there was Ben, but not so much anymore, and then Tucker, although that, too, didn’t make sense. . . . “Okay, fine. I’m short on suspects.”

“And long on instinct.”

She was relishing the compliment when he moved away and took another peek at the club.

“Besides,” he whispered, “we’re not stealing anything. We’re just taking a look at names. People you, as a member, should know.”

“I’m not a member.”

She felt more than saw his movement in the dark.

“You said you went golfing.”

Okay, see, this was why she’d never make a great PI. Because she couldn’t keep her stories lined up. “I was . . . let’s just say, not myself.”

He was silent, only the breeze intercepting his thoughts, rushing through the poky bushes protecting her. Then, “You scare me.”

“Let’s just do this. My mother probably thinks I’ve abandoned Davy and made a run for the border.”

Jeremy took her hand in his. “Stay with me.”

“Where else am I going, Tahiti?”

He held up his other hand, a fist, like she should freeze or something. So she did.

“Okay, now!”

He nearly yanked her arm from its socket. She gulped in a yelp but took off after him to the back of the building, around the first tee, and up to the entrance to the pro shop, her feet slapping in the wet grass.

“Get down!” He backed her into the shadows as he crouched before the locked door. She crouched behind him and tried to disappear.

Seconds later Jeremy held the door open and motioned her inside. She scampered behind the registration desk and slumped onto the floor, holding her heart inside her chest with her hand. “What kind of guy jimmies open a locked door that fast?”

Jeremy was all work, no play as he produced a flashlight, clamped it in his teeth, and started opening doors. “Whaf hay hid you go gofing?”

She stared at him and for the first time placed it, that thing that made her take him seriously when he said run, that feeling of danger despite his teasing.

He had military written all over him. And not just any military, but the sneak-and-peek kind, the carry-guns-and-set-explosives kind. The kind that knew how to break a man’s neck with a quick twist.

What was she thinking, sneaking out into the night
 
—into a building
 
—with someone she barely knew, regardless of the pizza and even his help with Dora? Maybe she did want Director Buckam after all. What were a couple hours in the slammer
 
—?

“PJ?” Jeremy had taken the flashlight out of his mouth and now crouched before her. From the dim light shining in the shop from the outside lamps, she could see his face, his expression. His . . . concern?

He obviously knew the gig was up. “You okay?”

She didn’t know what to say. Or, rather, couldn’t speak. “I, uh . . .” She looked away.

“What?”

She reached deep for some foothold on indignation or righteous anger or something that would drive out this crazy, unfounded fear. “You’re some sort of special ops guy or something, aren’t you?”

He smiled slowly. It touched his eyes. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Shh!”

Sure enough, more footsteps, this time across the floor upstairs, creaking it. Jeremy clamped his hand over her mouth, pulled her tight to his chest. She could feel his heart
 
—not such a tough guy underneath, huh?
 
—hammering against his rib cage.

She pulled his hand from her mouth and drew away, noting how he now held the flashlight like a club. As if . . . protecting her?

She listened until the footsteps died away.

“Let’s get out of here. What day were you here?” Jeremy asked again. “There’s a notebook in the drawer. Let’s hope they handwrite their tee times. I really don’t want to have to boot up this computer.”

He started to get up, but she turned and grabbed his arm. “Not until you tell me
 
—”

“SEALs. I was with the Navy SEALs. Until a year ago when I blew out my knee. I got a medical discharge.” There was something else in his eyes, but he hooded that away so fast she thought she might get windburn.

“Saturday. In the morning, ten o’clock or so,” she whispered.

He opened the drawer and pulled out a leather-bound book. Trust Buckam to keep up the old ways, to relish anything archaic, but she recognized the book.

Jeremy opened the cover. Ran the flashlight over the page. Turned it, ran the light again, once more turned the page. “Here. Ten o’clock. But I don’t see your
 
—”

“Constance Sukharov.”

“Ah. Yep, got ’em.” He reached above him without looking and grabbed a notepad. She had already unearthed a pen.

He scribbled the names down, closed the book, and shoved it into the drawer.

They were just rising when a light flickered in the hallway leading to the upstairs.

PJ froze.

“Let’s go!”

But her legs wouldn’t work. Simply wouldn’t move . . .

Jeremy picked her up and carried her to the supply room behind the counter, tucking her in the darkness behind a tower
of boxes near the back. He hovered at their edge, his flashlight-club at the ready.

PJ closed her eyes and listened to her heartbeat swish in her ears. Why, oh why, did she do stupid things? They seemed like good ideas at the time. Like motocross. Fun until a girl panicked and forgot how to stop. Then there was pain and screaming and blood.

Please.

Footsteps descended the stairs.

PJ drew up her knees, tucked her head into them, trying to be invisible.

The footsteps clomped across the thinly carpeted floor. Stopped. She saw light come on under the supply room door. She heard humming, then drawers opening, closing, and finally Director Buckam’s voice. “I knew it.”

She would probably look up and see Buckam standing over her.
“I knew it
 
—you’ll never change, PJ Sugar.”

But she did change, could change, had changed. She didn’t want to be the troublemaker. Didn’t want to find herself hiding from her past in dark corners.

The footsteps exited up the stairs; the light flickered off. Jeremy pulled her to her feet. Her legs felt like fire, melting fast.

“On my tail.”

She had no quips for him. Just a crisp nod.

They made it out of the building, across the lawn
 
—she didn’t even flinch when a sprinkler bulleted her with spray
 
—and to Jeremy’s VW Rabbit.

They drove home in silence, PJ shivering in her soaked dress. She didn’t ask him how a guy
 
—a Navy SEAL
 
—became a pizza deliveryman/burglar/bodyguard.

Tonight, she just didn’t want to know.

“Long day,” Jeremy said. “Sorry about the goat.”

PJ stared at him, mouth open, not sure how to respond.

Jeremy pulled up to the house, but as she reached for the door, he said, “What I don’t get is how Boone connected Jack to Hoffman’s death in the first place.”

“Jack gave Hoffman money to invest
 
—in the ancient coin market. Apparently Hoffman took money out of Jack’s account, or maybe Jack just got panicky. Either way, Boone thinks that’s motive enough to kill him.” She tugged on the handle of the door, opening it.

“And who tossed Hoffman’s place? I’ve been rolling that over in my mind. If Jack is innocent, it wasn’t him. So who did it? And why?”

She shook her head. She just wanted bed. Her bed. Connie’s bed. Whatever.

The dome light illuminated Jeremy’s face. He wasn’t smiling; his face wore more of a pained grimace. He put his hand on the passenger seat and leaned toward her, as if trying to figure out what to say. Then finally he sighed and leaned away. “See ya round, Princess.”

PJ didn’t have the energy to correct him. Only later after she stepped into the shower did she realize that he’d taken her list of new suspects with him.

* * *

“Please tell me that you are not just now getting in.” PJ’s mother pulled her reading glasses off her nose and set them on the table, looking up from her Saturday morning crossword.
The other sections of the paper were scattered along the length of the table, which could still seat eight.

A pitcher of orange juice and a basket of muffins lured PJ in to her mom’s kitchen. She took a muffin and put it on a napkin. “No. What do you think, Mom? That I’m still in high school?”

She felt like it. Felt like she’d snuck out of the house and was trying to cover for it. Only she’d lost her skills. Her hand shook and she clenched it in her lap.

It didn’t help that the touch of Jeremy’s hand wrapped around hers, guiding her to safety, lingered on her skin. Like an itch, it bothered her. And his revelation of being a SEAL stirred up more questions, and frankly, unnerved her. She knew in her bones that there was more behind Jeremy’s smoky, hooded eyes. Maybe it was better to stay as clear of him as she could.

Her mother looked back at the crossword. “I’m glad I stopped by the house and picked up Davy’s pajamas.”

Was that before or after Dora lay dying in the backyard?

“Did you have a good time on your date?”

PJ broke open the muffin and spice drifted out. “You knew it was a date?”

Elizabeth penned in an answer to the crossword. “Please be careful.” She sighed, as if the next words greatly perplexed her. She had been doing crosswords so long she probably dreamed in crosswordspeak. “I just don’t understand what you see in that boy.”

Something about her tone brought back Boone’s own label.
Trash.

PJ poured herself a glass of juice. “Did you know the stories about Boone’s mom? that she was an alcoholic?”

Elizabeth looked up, plucked eyebrows raised, as if waiting
for PJ to finish her sentence, elaborate. Finally she said, “Yes, I knew about Boone’s mother. The entire town knew about Boone’s mother.”

“That’s why you didn’t like him, right? That’s why you hated us being together
 
—”

“No.” Elizabeth set down her pen and folded her hands on the paper. “Boone and you were like two sides of the same coin, PJ, but . . . he couldn’t see all that you were. All you could be. You had a light inside you, and I was afraid he’d snuff it out or eclipse it with his own. Which is one of the reasons, I admit, why I wanted you to leave. Not for ten years, of course, but maybe enough to get Boone out of your system. I didn’t want you to end up pregnant . . .”

PJ looked down at her crumbling muffin. “Like my biological mother?”

Her mother sighed. “I just wanted you to have a future that wasn’t influenced by Boone.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You wouldn’t have left, would you?”

Perhaps her mother understood her better than she realized.

“But my actions had nothing to do with Boone’s parents or even the rumors in town. The mistakes of the parents don’t have to be the legacy of the child.” Her mother picked up her crossword, contemplating it again. “What’s a four-letter word for ‘a polite interruption sound’?”

“Ahem.”

“What?” She looked up, her eyes sharp. “I just think a person is who they make of themselves. Like you.” She reached over and patted PJ’s arm. “You never let expectations get in your way.”

“I was actually answering your question. A polite interruption sound.
A-h-e-m.
Ahem
.”

“Oh, right.” She picked up her pen and pressed the letters into the boxes.

PJ worked on her muffin, washing it down with the juice.

“Auntie PJ!” Davy came flying through the kitchen in his Spider-Man jammies.

PJ had to scoot out and react fast to catch him. “Hey there, little man!”

He flung his arms around her, then pushed back and scrambled onto her lap. “Mommy called!” He reached for a muffin.

PJ looked at her mother.

“Last night. She was concerned because no one was home at her house. I let her talk to Davy. Can you believe it’s already been two weeks? . . . What’s ‘an expression of surprise’?”

How could the weeks have passed so quickly? PJ wasn’t ready. She didn’t have a job or a place to live. And what about Jack and Trudi and her investigation? Who would watch over the goat and make sure Boris didn’t offend the neighbors with his sunbathing? And most of all, who would teach Davy to swim?

She’d accomplished nothing of what she’d hoped. She was still jobless and, after last night, just a fingerprint analysis away from jail, considering Boone’s threats. And so much for earning her mother’s respect.