Nothing but Trouble (7 page)

She certainly didn’t appreciate the look Rosie the desk clerk gave her as Boone escorted her in, his hand cupping her elbow, as if she might be the suspect.

Boone closed his mouth, but a ghost of a smirk remained.

“He’s not family.” PJ peered past Boone to Boris, wearing a towel
 
—and little else
 
—and sitting on a chair in Boone’s office, his bare feet planted. “Can’t you give him your jacket or some pants or something?”

Boone raised an eyebrow as if she’d asked him to hand over the keys to his motorcycle
 
—did he still have a motorcycle?
 
—or perhaps his beloved Mustang convertible.

“He looks cold.”

“He should. He’s in his birthday suit.”

“Maybe he was hot. It’s a hot day out.”

“Is that your excuse?” Boone ran those pale eyes over her again and she tugged at the bottom of her T-shirt.

“How much for bail?”

Boris lifted his head, as though just hearing her voice, his chiseled face stony, revealing nothing. She guessed that he’d already revealed too much for the day. Oh, she shouldn’t be laughing. This cut way too close to her own greatest fears.

“He’s not officially arrested yet.” Boone lowered his voice to gossip level. “Actually this is the third time we’ve hauled him in. I think Mrs. Cartwright must be standing at her bathroom window, her thumb poised over the speed dial to the station. The guy was still chanting when we got there. Hadn’t even gotten to the baptism part.”

“Baptism?” PJ’s voice matched Boone’s, and Rosie shot them a look.
Yeah, look out, Kellogg. Boone and PJ are up to their old tricks
 
—someone get a fire extinguisher.
She resisted the urge to stick out her tongue.

She could admit, however, that the old electricity sizzled just under her skin, especially when Boone bent close and whispered into her ear, jump-starting her heartbeat.

“After the first arrest I went online, did a little research. Evidently there’s a Russian religion that requires all their members to douse themselves with cold water every morning
 
—”

“In the nude?” PJ valiantly attempted to purge from her mind any accompanying mental picture.

Boone raised his eyebrows.

PJ stepped away, crossing her arms. “I don’t know Mrs. Cartwright yet, but I’m thinking I’m going to have to make
a neighborly visit with homemade cookies. Seriously, though, don’t we have some privacy in our own backyard?”

“Maybe you can put up a little beach umbrella?”

“Oh, very helpful.” PJ ran a hand around the back of her neck, squeezed a tight muscle. Her skin felt hot and greasy from the sun. “Is he under arrest? Do I have to post bail?” Restocking Connie’s barren pantry had taken her pocket cash, and she was still waiting on her final check from the Shrimp Shack. If bail was more than $37.53, then Boris was going to have a nice long sit in the pokey.

Maybe, however, jail was the safest place for him.

“No, you can take him home. Just no . . .”

“Sunbathing?”

Boone nodded, too much humor in his eyes for her good as he opened the door for Boris. PJ averted her gaze as the man strutted past her, his chin up. Oy, as Vera would say.

“By the way, he seemed pretty upset when we brought him in. Kept repeating the word
kid. . . .
Is David okay?”

PJ stared at him, shaken as much by his tone as his question. “Yeah. I mean . . . how do you know Davy?”

Boone’s eyes gentled. “I was on duty when they found your sister’s husband.”

Oh. The cold floor radiated through her flip-flops as she stood there, contemplating all she’d missed. “Boris was surfing the net last night. . . . I thought he was looking to buy . . .” Her own stupidity grabbed her around the throat, tightening it. “Obviously he wanted a present for Davy. I guess I owe him an apology.”

She turned to go, but Boone reached out. His touch on her arm sent a jolt of warmth, a hot mix of danger and exhilaration she thought she’d left in the corridors of Kellogg High.

“I’m going to call you, you know.”

She swallowed, caught in Boone’s heartbreaking expression.

Her lips parted to say no, but nothing emerged.

PJ shook herself free and ran out after Boris.

* * *

Cheese Nips could be counted as grains and proteins. At least that’s what PJ told herself as Davy turned his nose up at the chicken nuggets she heated for him. She’d managed to negotiate three into his stomach before ransoming the crackers into his possession. He grabbed the box and sat down on the floor.

“I know your mother doesn’t let you eat like this, Davy. We’re going to have to come to some understanding here.” She could be speaking through a wall of ten-inch glass for all the acknowledgment he gave. She had held on to a vibrant hope that they experienced a breakthrough that morning. Not only had she awakened some sort of affection from him
 
—after all, he’d been trying to rouse her from her nightmare when she bashed him in the head
 
—but they’d gone the entire ride to school without him screaming once.

But he’d kicked her twice when she picked him up at Fellows, once in front of Ms. Nicholson, who did nothing to hide her smirk. And when he arrived home, he tossed the contents of his briefcase on the floor of the front room, stomping on the Rice Krispies Treat that PJ had packed him for lunch. She spent a half hour digging marshmallow from the carpet.

She had to wonder what had happened. Yes, she’d been slightly late picking him up, what with paging through a
Russian dictionary for a good portion of the afternoon, spelling out rules in Cyrillic for Boris and Vera. Starting with no landlocked skinny-dipping.

Seemed like a simple request.

Still, fifteen minutes late wasn’t an eternity. Wasn’t worth being kicked in the shins. Twice.

She’d found Davy in his classroom playing with building blocks. He’d made a castle with a moat, and she’d crouched behind him, watching him stack one block on top of another. He wore a slight smile, as if he might be daydreaming, and with the late afternoon sun caressing his curls, his uniform rumpled, he looked like every other four-year-old tot. Any moment he might see her, grin, and launch into her arms.

She’d held her breath, afraid to move.

When he eventually spotted her, he gave his castle a destructive kick before he trudged out of the room.

He’d refused to remove his uniform for dinner.

PJ lowered herself next to him. “Whatcha doin’, pal?” He’d taken a sheet of paper from his briefcase and now ran a red crayon over it in wide, violent sweeps that caught on the edges and striped the travertine tile floor. PJ reached for the sheet, but he snatched it from her.

“Mine!”

She quickly backed off. “No problem. Just wanted to help.”

He smoothed the paper, pursed his little lips, and resumed his coloring attack on the paper.

She peered over his shoulder and grimaced. Math problems. Or rather, connect the dots. “Is that for school, Davy?”

He said nothing as his red crayon demolished the paper.

“Buddy, listen, I’m not any good at math either. English,
drama, journalism
 
—I get those. Imagination skills. Math is all about rules and logic, and frankly I’m just not a logic girl. I dig the red scribbling. But that’s probably your homework, so what do you say you start at the one . . .”

He threw the crayon. It exploded against the dishwasher.

Outside, the smell of grilling burgers laced the air, and warblers sang in an evening serenade.

PJ blew out a breath.
Help me here, Lord.
“Hey, wanna go to the beach?” After all, she hadn’t exactly completed her tan.

Davy looked up, as if she might be speaking French.

“The beach? Sand, sunshine?”

A slow smile creased his face, the same smile she’d seen that morning.
There you are, little man.

Abandoning his crayons, he leaped to his feet and disappeared up the stairs. PJ cleaned up the crayons, and moments later he returned, his swimsuit lumpy and backward over his suit pants, his shirt and tie untucked, his black socks shoved into a pair of swim shoes. He picked up his briefcase and walked over to PJ.

She resisted the urge to duck. “Okay, pal, I can work with that.”

She grabbed her keys off the counter, and just like that, a memory ricocheted off her. Standing at the window, watching it pour down rain, muddying the backyard, her umbrella open over her head, red galoshes on her feet. And her mother putting away the contents of their picnic basket.

PJ braced her hand on the cool granite counter. The Como Zoo. Mom had promised, just PJ and her. PJ had watched her dreams dissolve with the tears sliding down the glass door.

Davy stared at her, wearing that same mysterious, stolen
look he’d given her this morning over his Cap’n Crunch. As if she could see something inside him he wasn’t quite ready to reveal.

She fought the crazy urge to reach down and lock him in an embrace. She’d collected enough bruises for one day.

Grabbing her towel, she banged out the front door, Davy on her heels, and nearly knocked over the key-jangling, dark-eyed Russian standing on the stoop. Freshly barbered, with high cheekbones, he wore a silk shirt open to the third button and enough cologne to qualify for a biological weapon.

PJ took a step back. “Can I help you?”

“Boris ee Vera,” he growled.

Ah, Cousin Igor. She should have guessed. She moved aside, and he brushed past her like she might be the doorman.

For Connie’s sake, she would not leap to any conclusions.

The sun hung low, dipping into the waves, glazing the advance of twilight with hues of gold and bronze as they motored down to the beach. PJ ran a hand through her hair, letting it tangle, supposing the beach escape might be an old habit returning from dormancy
 
—as a teen, when math or other problems seemed overwhelming, she’d floored it straight to the cool sand and easy lapping waves of the beach, where her mind cleansed, her thoughts calmed. With the expanse of freedom spread out before her, the parameters pushing against her seemed less suffocating.

It didn’t help that Connie had embraced math with the passion of a true Sugar, the family legacy filled with CPAs, nurses, doctors, and investment bankers.

Davy piled out of the car and skipped across the parking lot, swinging his briefcase. PJ followed with two towels and a
lawn chair. Squeals of laughter preceded little bodies running across the beach. A kite floated overhead, its tail friendly in the wind.

“PJ!”

The voice lifted above the laughter, followed by a hand waving furiously over the encampment of families on beach towels.

“Trudi!” Next to her, Jack
 
—now dry and less menacing when not throwing old men into the pool
 
—sat on the beach blanket, cradling a baby in a water diaper. The baby
 
—Chip, PJ assumed
 
—tossed sand into the air by pudgy handfuls, laughing as it rained down on his head. Jack didn’t look in the least riled by the grit in his hair.

PJ called to Davy, and they navigated their way to Trudi’s blanket.

“Hey,” PJ said. Jack showed no hint of recognition. So this was what it felt like to be on the other side of gossip.

“This is Jack.” Trudi gestured to her husband. He seemed nice. Innocuous. Sandy blond hair, brown eyes, an easy smile.

Not in the least a wife-bashing, country club–brawling attacker of history teachers.

Or a murderer. The fact that Hoffman now lay in the Kellogg morgue seared her brain like a brand, and she nearly yanked her hand from his strong grip. “He . . . hello, I’m PJ.”

“The infamous PJ Sugar. Nice to finally meet the other half of the Trudi and PJ duo.” His words were accompanied by a warm grin.

“Hey now, I think I get to tell my side of the story. Except, I want to meet Mike
 
—is he here?”

“Summer camp for the week.” Trudi picked up baby Chip, wiping sand from his hair. He toddled off toward Davy and
sat next to him, patting his briefcase. “He goes every year to play football. He’s hoping to play for the Vikings.”

PJ smiled, the words
like father, like son
on her lips, but she caught them. Probably Greg Morris was the last person Trudi wanted her son to emulate.

Trudi leaned back against Jack, and they appeared so happily-ever-after that something painful twisted inside PJ. Trudi, more than any of them, deserved to be happy. Few beyond PJ knew the challenges she’d lived through at home, with her agoraphobic mother, her workaholic father.

PJ would do nearly anything to revisit those years and rewrite them with a heroine who knew how to be a true friend.

“So, let’s hear your side,” Jack said. “All I know is that the country club caught fire
 
—”

“I didn’t set it.”

Trudi jumped in. “She has to start at the beginning. With Boone.”

“How long do you think we have, Trudi?”

Trudi laughed.

PJ spread out her towel, sat down, stretched out her legs. “There are some men who should have the word
trouble
tattooed on their foreheads. Boone Buckam is one of them.”

PJ glanced at Jack, again searching for a sign of recognition. Jack’s gaze was affixed to his son, now scooping up more sand.

“Anyway, I met him in fifth grade, and he just wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Really, that’s how you’re going to put it?” Trudi laughed. “Try, PJ and Boone were made for each other. Both were bred to be straight A Ivy Leaguers, with scholarships. But the min
ute they got together, it was like the entire world lit up. Bang. Flames
 
—”

“Do you have to use that metaphor, Trudi? Flames? Really?”

Trudi grinned. “Absolutely. It was like they each saw that little smoldering fire deep inside and knew exactly the kind of fuel to throw on it.”

“Seriously, enough with the fire.”

“PJ wasn’t necessarily a bad girl
 
—it was more all good fun than real danger. Like the time we filled the phys ed teacher’s car with toilet paper. And TP’d all the football players’ houses.”