Annie's Neighborhood (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Fox, Roz Denny

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY, Sky’s initial plan was to run by his house at the end of his shift, change out of his uniform and sneak into Annie’s meeting. He’d act like a casual observer at the back of the crowd. As with too many of his well-laid plans, things didn’t go quite as he’d hoped. He had a man out sick, and the day presented an endless array of problems. It started with a group of half a dozen kids in the park. They’d skipped their first class, and had all contributed medicine from their households—both prescription and over-the-counter stuff—which they mixed together in a bowl and chugged with beer heisted from one dad’s fridge. Thank heaven someone saw them and reported their activity before they could swallow everything in the bowl.

  Koot had helped transport them to the E.R., where medics checked the kids’ vital signs. A nurse hauled out the PDR and began matching pills to pictures in the book so they could identify the medications no longer in their original bottles. They all winced when an emergency room doctor ordered emetics.

  Sky began the long process of calling parents, some of whom worked jobs they couldn’t leave, others who couldn’t be bothered to collect their little darlings. In between calls, he had to clean their vomit off his shoes. Five o’clock rolled around just as they handed over the last kid to a none-too-pleased stepmother.

  Koot went home. Sky prepared to do the same, figuring he had time to shower and shave, and still make it to Annie’s six-thirty meeting at the library.

  He hadn’t even reached the door when a call came in regarding a carjacking. “I’ll take it,” he told his dispatcher. “Koot’s off duty and on his way home. Notify Morales, will you? See if he can come in a little early and meet me there.”

  Forty minutes later, Sky glanced at his watch as he signed the last report and turned the night shift over to Joe. It was seven-ten. He was closer to the library than his house. Even at that, it’d take him another ten minutes to get there—and he’d be arriving really late.

  Sky drove straight to the library. He was sure he stank of sweat, and maybe still had vomit on the toe of one boot. Too bad. He wouldn’t sit in the back row. He’d stand in a shadowy corner, out of everyone’s way. According to Annie’s flyer, the meeting would end at eight-thirty. With luck he’d be there for the last forty-five minutes—the part with audience questions and Annie’s answers.

  He’d attended a meeting in the community room on a few other occasions. Thank goodness he didn’t need to waste time hunting down the librarian to get directions.

  The door to the room stood open. Sky softened his steps when he drew nearer so as to not disrupt the meeting. It was strangely silent inside the room, although he’d expected a controversial, maybe explosive give-and-take—his main reason for coming tonight. He wanted to make sure things didn’t get too heated and out of hand.

  He peered into the room. A side table held a large plate heaped with what appeared to be homemade cookies. The room smelled pleasantly of fresh brewed coffee. Sky spotted a big urn on the same table. Beside it sat paper cups, cream, sugar and napkins. She was ready for a crowd. At the front of the room Annie rested her forearms on the podium. All around her in half circles stood rows of empty chairs. Not a single soul had come to her event.

  He must have made a noise at the door, enough for her to lift her head. Their eyes met and Sky’s stomach tightened. He found himself deeply affected by the disappointment etched on her face.

  “You must feel vindicated,” she said, indicating the vacant chairs. “You told me this was a foolish idea. What I can’t believe is that everyone stayed away.”

  Sky stepped into the room. “I didn’t come to gloat. I came to keep the peace. After I saw your flyer, I thought you’d have a full house. Maybe it’s the time. Six-thirty is early for people who work downtown and travel by bus. They have to get home, prepare and serve a meal and catch a bus back out to a meeting. That’s why teachers at our schools start open house and parent meetings at eight.”

  “I didn’t know that. So, you didn’t hear a rumor that people were warned off by anonymous phone messages from gang members?”

  Sky tensed. “No. When? Where?”

  “A coworker of Mike Spurlock’s claimed he received one of these calls late last night. Woke him up, he said, and he told Mike it was enough to make him stay away.”

  “Where are the Gilroys and Spurlocks? Why aren’t they here to support you?”

  “They’re already part of the renovation project. But to be totally truthful, they’ve been edgy since the break-ins.”

  Sky felt edgy, too. He didn’t like hearing that the Stingers had issued threats. The leaders—and few gang members knew who they were—had a vested interest in keeping neighborhood kids who did their bidding under their thumbs. They definitely wouldn’t like the fact that one of the objectives on Annie’s flyer indicated that beautifying the neighborhood was part of a larger strategy aimed at renewing family values and banishing gang activity. “It doesn’t look as if anyone’s going to show up, Annie. Why don’t I help you clean up the room?”

  “That’s kind of you, but I see you’re still in uniform. I’m sure you have other duties.”

  “No, I’m off. I intended to go home and get out of the uniform before dropping by here. But a late call tied me up.”

  “Then I accept your offer. I’ll dump the coffee and go see if the librarians would like the cookies. They’re open until nine.”

  Sky snagged a cookie and a napkin. He set it aside with a grin. “Those look tasty. I’ll work up an appetite folding chairs.”

  “Here, take another.” Annie added a second cookie to his napkin. “Do you want a cup of coffee, too, before I get rid of it?” She unplugged the pot.

  “Hold on, that’s hot and it’s heavy. I’ll pour us each a cup, then carry the pot to the sink in the men’s room. You go ahead and deliver cookies to the library staff.”

  “You’re being nice for a man who sounded quite cranky about my ideas a few days ago. Why the change of heart?”

  “Serve and protect is a motto I take seriously. My feelings toward this town are complicated. The other day I wasn’t convinced your plan had merit. Part of my reason for coming tonight was to possibly be enlightened. Now I’ll help you pack up, and then I’ll follow you home. I don’t like what you said about possible gang meddling.”

  “I don’t need you to follow me home. And it’s high time someone stood up to those bullies. That’s all they are. Bullies who use scare tactics to frighten people and get what they want.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s about the size of it. They’re also very good at operating from the shadows. All the same, we’ll do this my way.”

  “Okay, knock yourself out. Since you seem to be keeping track, my next move is to go door-to-door to speak to everyone in the neighborhood. Can they count on your force for quick assistance if I convince them to call 9-1-1 if they see a drug deal going down? Or if they spot gang members shaking down younger kids for school lunch money? I hear that residents often don’t call the cops because your response time is slow or nil—and because of fear of gang retaliation.”

  “We do our best.” Sky filled two paper cups with coffee and set them near his cookies. “I can’t make the promises you want on behalf of my department, Annie. Number one, my small force is already stretched thin. Second, I don’t believe that in most cases it helps to arrest local kids for petty crimes they’ve been coerced into pulling off. It just adds to parents’ misery. Especially poor parents.”

  “How else can you get the names of gang leaders if you aren’t putting pressure on the kids you know are members?”

  “You’re assuming these local kids actually know who the leaders are. I promise you I hauled in a lot of kids when I first took this job. They were too frightened to rat out anyone. Fear is debilitating.”

  “But without cooperation from police,
I doubt residents will commit to even the first small step in taking back our neighborhood.”

  Her dogged determination to go out on a limb to save a neighborhood she hadn’t been part of for quite a few years baffled Sky. If he could sell his house he’d move from Briar Run in a second. “I’ll go pour this out,” he muttered, hefting the urn. “We can talk some more while we drink our coffee.”

  “Sure, but you’re not going to talk me out of continuing. I hope you know that.” Annie ripped open two packets of creamer and emptied both into her cup.

  Sky didn’t say what was really on his mind—that she was the most mule-headed woman he’d met in a long time. When he got to the men’s room, he dumped the coffee and rinsed the pot. He had most of the chairs folded and stored on their carts before she returned from her trip to the main part of the library.

  “Sorry I was gone so long. There weren’t many patrons, and the librarians were chatty.” She boxed the coffee can, sugar and creamer packets and the rest of the napkins. “The librarians think that what I want to do, motivating families to tidy up their homes and streets, is a great idea. But...” She sipped her coffee as Sky wheeled the last cart of chairs to the wall and walked up to claim his cup.

  “But...” he prompted, gazing steadily at her over the rim.

  “They’re like the others, too scared to join in. It’s only one gang, for pity’s sake. In L.A. there’d be a dozen or more out roaming the streets.”

  “In L.A., like in other big cities, gangs fight one another for turf. They display their colors proudly, and cops know the members. They just have to catch them in the act of committing a crime.”

  “The gang here is sneakier, and that’s precisely why I think there’s still hope to wrest local kids from their clutches. In my work in low-income areas, I found parents willing to do whatever it took to give their children more opportunities for a better life. They’d risk a lot to keep them out of gangs.”

  Annie’s fervor, coupled with her knowledge of people stuck in poverty, niggled Sky. “Something I may be able to do is arrange for a direct hotline during daylight hours, one that circumvents our dispatcher and goes instantly to the cell phones of whichever cops are on duty. It might shorten response time. Usually, when the dispatcher manages to get hold of one of us, the perpetrators have done the crime and gone to ground before we even reach the scene.”

  “That would be a start.” Annie smiled at him, and jotted in her notebook. “It’s something I can offer folks. Instead of another collective meeting, I’ll go from house to house and discuss cleanup. If I get people to agree, I’ll provide some incentives—like house paint. We can do one street at a time, ending up at the park. With their homes in shape, I bet everyone will be excited about helping replant the park.”

  Sky drained his cup, crushed it and tossed it in a wastebasket. “This is a darned good cookie. Did you bake them?” he asked.

  “Yes, it was one of Gran Ida’s favorite recipes. Everything I’m trying to accomplish here, I’m doing in her memory. So, I won’t be distracted by compliments about my cookies.” She tossed her empty cup in the basket from farther away.

  Sky chuckled at that and picked up her box of leftovers. “I get the message, Annie. You’re stubborn. Turn out the light, will you? I’ll walk you out and stow this in your car. For the record, once I lay out a course, I follow through. Just sayin’ so you can expect to see my cruiser glued to your bumper until you pull into your garage.”

  She didn’t argue this time. She merely turned off the lights and directed him to the big pickup she’d bought and now drove in place of the compact rental she’d had. Admittedly, her mind sometimes strayed away from the business at hand and she thought about Police Chief Cordova in ways that were personal...and very unwise.

  “Whoa, this is some serious set of wheels.” Sky set the box in the cab after she’d unlocked the door. He walked around, admiring her shiny black Dodge Ram.

  Annie shrugged. “I considered buying a car, but decided I needed something capable of hauling ladders, tarps, paint cans and rosebushes.”

  He whistled through his teeth. “This baby oughta do that and more. Just don’t assume you can ditch me at a stoplight with all your horsepower, though. My cruiser may look old, but it has a souped-up engine.”

  Annie laughed at that.

  He assisted her into the driver’s seat even though it wasn’t necessary. Annie took a moment to reflect on his courtly manners as she saw his lights bob in her rearview mirror. She could no longer say she wasn’t warming up to him. He had turned out to be nicer than she’d given him credit for. Cute, too, especially when his blue eyes grew serious. But he could use a haircut. On the other hand, she couldn’t really dredge up any real objection to sun-tipped brown hair that curled appealingly over his collar. And a dimple. The chief had a deep one in his left cheek, which she’d bet he would deny was a dimple. No matter, she liked the way it softened his harshly masculine face.

  Still considering his other attributes, such as trim hips and broad shoulders on a solid frame, she swung wide to make the turn into her driveway. She punched her remote garage door opener. As the door rose, her headlights and those of the cruiser behind her illuminated horrible black graffiti splashed across the disappearing door. Awful fat letters, along with skulls and wild arrows and curves, also left an ugly trail along the lovely blue siding she’d spent over a week sanding and painting.

  Sky barreled out of his car, flashlight in one hand, his Glock in the other.

  Numbed by shock, Annie was slower to descend from her vehicle.

  Sky waved her back when she started to enter the garage. He uttered a low, angry growl as he flashed his light over the rest of the house. “Get in your pickup and lock the doors. Wait while I inspect the premises to make sure the guys who did this are gone, and that graffiti is the worst we’re dealing with.”

  “What else could there be?”

  “Oh, booby traps. Something set to explode the minute you open your house door. I hope to heaven you’ll reconsider sticking your neck out to pretty up the town. Even if this warning turns out just to be graffiti, next time could be worse.”

  Chapter Four

  HIS FLASHLIGHT CAST a muted yellow halo as Sky plunged straight into the varying degrees of darkness. His orders to Annie had been snapped out with a precision indicating he expected them to be obeyed. Like he’d said back at the library, he took his oath to protect and serve seriously. However, Annie had been in control of her life for a long time. This was her home and her ruined hard work, after all.

  So, in spite of the fact that her legs didn’t feel steady after Sky had casually tossed out the mention of a possible booby trap, she retrieved her house keys, threw her purse back in the pickup, then locked it, and struck out to follow his bobbing light.

  She caught up to Sky in a narrow strip of yard separating her house from the Gilroys’.

  Sky wheeled on her. “What are you doing? I told you to stay in your truck!”

  “My house, my problem,” she shot back in an exaggerated whisper. “If it blows up with you in it, I want to know where to point the fire marshal...and your replacement.”

  “Thanks,” Sky drawled. “I actually doubt the place has been wired. This looks like the work of kids.” He panned his light over a section of graffiti. “The little hoodlums sprayed as high as they could reach, and they can’t spell worth a hoot.”

  Annie followed the light to words under a skull that said, “Leve town or next time dye.” She put a hand over her mouth, but couldn’t hold back a laugh.

  “I’m glad you find it humorous,” he chided. “Crudely written or not, the message is plain. Next time gang leaders might send someone capable of murder.”

  “Must be nervous laughter. And you’re right, the message is clear—clear enough to make me spitting mad. I’m going over to the G
ilroys’ to make sure they’re all okay. They haven’t come out, even though we’ve made no effort to keep quiet.”

  “I’ll go,” he said. “You have a bad habit of forgetting which one of us wears the badge.”

  “You said you were off duty. And Peggy Gilroy used to babysit me. I need to make sure no harm comes to good people through my attempt to fix things around here.”

  “We’ll go together,” Sky said firmly as he shifted the Glock, gave her the flashlight and grasped her hand. “This time, do as I say. Stay behind me. I doubt your friends are dead, but in case I’m wrong about the group that did this, I’d prefer not to have to deal with you fainting.”

  “Brother!” Annie shook her head. “On my job, I saw death far too many times, and never once did I faint.” She waved the light around, shining it directly in his eyes, which made him throw up his gun arm.

  “Sorry.” She managed to sound meek as she swiftly dropped the beam.

  He snarled something Annie couldn’t distinguish, which was undoubtedly just as well, since her companion used his fist to bang loudly on the Gilroys’ front door.

  They heard the shuffle of feet inside, followed by the hushed voices. Profound relief poured through Annie at the confirmation that her friends were okay. “Peggy,” she called, putting her mouth near the door. “It’s Annie. Police Chief Cordova is with me. It’s safe to open your door.”

  The door opened a crack, as far as the chain lock would allow. George pressed one milky blue eye to the opening. “Peggy, it is Annie. Give me room to open the door.” George accomplished the task, even though his wife, who must’ve been plastered against his back, eased out from around him to sweep Annie into a hug.

  “We’ve been so frightened for you, dear. I called the library. Marta Jones said you were there and in your meeting.”