Paper Bullets

by Reed, Annie

  It was the first time he’d ever compared me favorably to his fiancé. Or at least that’s how I decided to take it, since an argument could also be made that he was saying I was more expendable than the new woman in his life. Look at me, trying not to be bitchy.

  “All I want is a picture of the guy, a license plate number if he’s driving a car,” Ryan said. “Something that will help me identify him.”

  “How about a name? An address?”

  Ryan shook his head. “A name would be great, but I don’t want you tailing this guy back to wherever he lives. If he’s got a car, I can track him down through DMV.”

  I could do that too, but I didn’t mention it. If I spotted the guy driving a car, I figured I’d just use my own resources to get a name and address. Thanks to the work I was doing Norton Greenburger, one of Reno’s best criminal defense attorneys, I’d gotten pretty good at surveillance. The guy would never know I was around.

  “Melody’s got a morning shift at the gym tomorrow,” Ryan said. “You can pick her up there.”

  It was my turn to shake my head. “Can’t tomorrow morning. Jonathan and his mom are driving over from Nevada City so he can spend the day with Samantha.”

  A look of confusion passed over Ryan’s face. “Jonathan?”

  I realized Samantha had never told Ryan about her long-distance boyfriend. Ouch.

  “A friend of hers,” I said. “We’ve been to Nevada City to visit a few times. This is the second time they’ve been here.”

  “Jonathan,” he said again, like he was trying the name on for size. “Is it serious?”

  “She’s sixteen. Everything’s serious.”

  He nodded. “Think I should meet this kid?”

  Jonathan was shy and kind of a nerd. I could just see how well that meeting would turn out. “She’s more focused on getting ready for school than on this boy,” I said. “If you want to meet him, I’ll set it up, but I don’t think you need to. Not right now. You’ve got enough on your plate.”

  He finished off his coffee, and this time when he spoke, he didn’t look at me. “I haven’t been a very good dad, have I?”

  What could I say to something like that? Good was a relative term. Ryan was getting married again—and not to me—which made him the worst dad in the world according to Samantha. But he still saw her two weekends a month, called her every so often just to talk, and never missed a birthday or holiday. That made him a better dad than a lot of dads out there.

  “I’ll start on Monday,” I said instead. “Text me the address of Melody’s gym and her schedule. I’ll clear my calendar.”

  I’d actually said “text me.” Samantha would be proud. I’d said “clear my calendar,” too. I didn’t know who’d be proud of me for that one. Even my mother hadn’t spoken corporate.

  “Thank you,” he said, and I knew he meant it.

  He stood up, so I did, too. He tossed his empty coffee container in the trash. I held onto mine. I still had half my latte left. I wasn’t about to throw it out.

  Ryan gave me a quick smile—good old frugal Abby—but I’d had a lot of practice lately trying to make ends meet. He held the door open for me as we left, both to our separate cars. I won’t lie. I still felt a twinge of regret at that. We’d been married a long time.

  As I left, I caught one last glimpse of the old couple sitting at the little table near the back. He was still working the crossword puzzle and she was still reading something on her tablet. I couldn’t see whether they were still playing footsie, but I wanted to think they were.

  Some silences between people who’d been together a long time were thick with unspoken tension and buried resentment. My own parents hadn’t been that bad, but I could tell when they’d had one of their near-fights over my mother’s constant criticism.

  Even if I hadn’t caught the foot nudge earlier, I wanted to think this couple was different. They looked like old marrieds who’d been together for fifty years and couldn’t wait to get started on the next half century. I hoped they had a huge family that spent the holidays together. I imagined them going to faraway places on vacation just so they could say they’d been there.

  Most of all, I hoped that tragedy had never shadowed their lives, and that the sick bastards of the world never darkened their door.

  CHAPTER 2

  “IT’S GONNA FEEL like I’m in jail, Mom.”

  I nodded, trying to keep my sympathetic expression in place. Not an easy task considering I’d been hearing the same complaint from Samantha throughout the summer. A very short summer from my daughter’s perspective. Mine, too.

  For whatever reason, the school board had decided to start school the third week in August, which seemed ridiculous to me. Nevada’s a desert state, and August is the hottest month of the summer in the north.

  I should know.

  I got married in a church in Reno in August. The church had no air conditioning, and I could still remember standing at the altar in front of a room full of people, only about half of whom I knew, sweating up a storm in my bridal gown.

  Of course, I got divorced in a cold courtroom with only the judge, my attorney, and a resident witness in attendance. I wasn’t sure what was worse.

  But the biggest change at school was the one Samantha was currently complaining about.

  Over the summer, a chain link fence had been constructed around her high school campus. The gates would be locked during the school day, with no one allowed in or out without authorization. Especially not anyone in my daughter’s sophomore class.

  Samantha was taking the whole closed-campus thing personally. Not that she’d ever left campus to go across the street to the grocery store or any of the nearby fast food places for lunch. Last year the high school cafeteria had been too new and exciting for my fresh-faced high school freshman. Apparently sophomores didn’t want to eat lunch at school. It Just. Wasn’t. Done.

  Except now it would be, since they had no choice.

  I had no idea what the juniors and seniors thought about being locked in, but the more my own high school sophomore complained about the new policy, the more I couldn’t wait for school to actually start.

  I blew out a breath and counted to five before I replied to Samantha’s latest complaint. I was still distracted by my meeting with Ryan, and we’d just given the living room a quick once-over with the vacuum and a dust rag that used to be a dish towel in a prior life. I was still hot and sweaty, I still needed a shower, and the remains of my latte were long gone.

  “What time did Jonathan say they were getting here tomorrow?” I asked Samantha in a blatant attempt to change the subject.

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Around eleven. Same as when you asked last time.”

  This was only the second time Jonathan and his mother had driven from Nevada City so the kids could visit.

  I’d blown Ryan off when he asked me if their relationships was serious, but sometimes I had to wonder. They’d become friends in an Internet chat room—not the safest of venues, which I’d discovered last December thanks to a case that had nearly cost me my life—but Jonathan seemed like a nice kid, and I liked his mother. I’d always heard that long-distance relationships were hard to sustain, but so far my daughter and her boyfriend seemed to be doing fine.

  “Okay. Just wanted to make sure.” I grinned. “You know. In case I forgot from the zillion other times you told me.”

  “Please don’t go senile on me, Mom. You’re the only adult I can talk to.”

  Good thing Ryan didn’t hear that. Samantha wasn’t ready to forgive him for replacing me with Melody. I figured she’d get there in her own time.

  “Good to know,” I said, and I meant it.

  I’d never been able to talk to my own mother without getting criticism in response. The last thing I wanted to do was turn into my mother where my own daughter was concerned. I just didn’t know how to be a good single mother at the same time I was learning how to be an independent woman who dated.

  I gu
ess it was a good thing Kyle and I were taking it slow.

  Our cat chose that moment to yell for food.

  Other cats meow. Ours yelps. It’s one of the reasons we keep her dish full, but we’d been busy and must have ignored her for too long.

  Samantha giggled. “She has the best timing.”

  I gestured toward the guest bathroom. “Go get busy, and I’ll feed our starving cat.” I gave Samantha a sideways look. Sure, I was getting tired of the constant complaining, but I still liked spending time with my daughter. Even if it did involve vacuuming and cleaning the toilet bowl. “Maybe we can squeeze in part of a movie before I go out tonight,” I said.

  “Before we go out.”

  Samantha was going to her friend Maddie’s house for an end-of-the-summer party that Maddie’s mother had assured me would be chaperoned. Not that I worried about Samantha—as far as she was concerned, Jonathan was her boyfriend and that was that—but Maddie had developed something of a wild streak over the summer. My reputation as a “cool mom” had tarnished a bit when I’d told Samantha that Maddie couldn’t come over to the house unless I was there.

  “So, movie?” I asked.

  Kyle and I weren’t going to a movie. He didn’t like to go to the movies on a Saturday night. Too many teenagers on dates. He said it made him feel old.

  Whenever we did go out on a Saturday, he always took me to dinner at some restaurant I’d never heard of. Tonight we were going out for Mexican food at a family-owned place where the dad did all the cooking and his son did everything else, from bartending to waiting tables to washing the dishes. Kyle said the food was excellent, and I’d learned to trust his judgment.

  Samantha wrinkled her nose. “If you shower first.”

  I raised my eyebrows, pretending to be offended, but I couldn’t pull it off. I did need a shower. “Okay. You pick the movie while I’m in the shower.”

  Samantha headed off toward the guest bathroom with a plastic tote full of cleaning supplies and rubber gloves. Most kids probably hated cleaning the bathroom, but the guest bathroom didn’t get a lot of traffic. It’s easier to clean than the kitchen, which was next on my hit list before the shower. Samantha had taken her shower while I met with Ryan, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be working up a sweat anytime in the near future.

  The cat yelped again.

  I took a look at the cat’s dish. Almost full, but apparently enough was missing that the cat was worried she’d never eat again.

  I filled up the little hole she’d made in her food. She sniffed at it, ate maybe one bite, and headed off toward the living room couch, content with the knowledge she wouldn’t starve tonight.

  “And my daughter’s worried I’m going senile,” I muttered.

  While I wiped down the kitchen counter, I contemplated life as a spoiled housecat. Food on demand, a nice sunny spot to snooze in, and a soft lap to curl up on. Not such a bad existence.

  Of course, there’d be no Samantha and no movies, and no Kyle and Mexican food and Saturday night kisses goodnight.

  I still had a smile on my face when I got done with the kitchen. On my way to take a shower, I detoured through the living room and gave my confused cat a scritch beneath her chin.

  “I still think I’ve got the better deal, cat,” I told her.

  CHAPTER 3

  JONATHAN BRADDOCK was still tall and shy and gangly, but in the eight months since Samantha and I had first met him in person, he’d filled out a little and the blemishes that had plagued his complexion were almost gone.

  He would never be a heartthrob, but he had a pleasant face and warm brown eyes, and the few times he’d actually smiled without looking down at the ground, embarrassed to be noticed, he looked like the kind of kid any high school girl would be happy to go to prom with.

  I’d only gotten him to smile like that a couple of times. Samantha could do it just by saying hello.

  Jonathan and his mother arrived a little late, but given that the drive from Nevada City to our house in Sparks wasn’t exactly a trip to the grocery store, I didn’t mind. It gave me the opportunity for one last futile attempt to remove cat fur from my couch.

  June Braddock, Jonathan’s mother, tried to get her son to sit down in the living room and talk with the adults, but it was a lost cause. It was pretty clear the kids wanted to be off by themselves. The closest they were going to get to that was Samantha’s bedroom, and only if they kept the door open. Jonathan might be shy, but he was a senior this year, and that meant he was a bundle of overactive hormones. I wasn’t born yesterday. The door was going to stay open, or I’d go down to her room and open it myself.

  When I made the offer, they practically bolted down the hall.

  “I don’t think I was ever that young,” I said staring after them.

  June chuckled. She’d already fished her latest knitting project out of her tote bag and was busy doing things with needles and yarn I couldn’t hope to replicate.

  “I’m sad to say I remember when I was,” she said. “Young, and foolish, too. Isn’t that what teenagers are supposed to be?”

  I’d learned a few things about June Braddock, some from her, and some from the research I’d done before I’d allowed Samantha to meet Jonathan in person. I knew she was speaking from experience.

  June Tolliver had met Harry Braddock her junior year in high school. She’d had to drop out of school before graduation because she was pregnant with Jonathan’s older brother.

  She’d married Harry right before the baby was born, and she’d had Jonathan the year after.

  Harry hadn’t been prepared for life as the father of two young boys. He’d found work in a local garage repairing tires and changing oil, but the family couldn’t make ends meet. They’d moved in with Harry’s parents in Nevada City, a situation June had called “cramped.” I could imagine.

  Then Jonathan’s older brother got sick. June and her husband had no insurance.

  Six months after Jonathan’s older brother passed away, they’d filed for bankruptcy to get out from under the medical bills.

  Things had looked up for a while after that. They’d moved into a small apartment. Harry’s parents watched Jonathan during the day, and June was able to get a part-time job at a local craft store.

  Then Harry left June, nearly a year to the day after their bankruptcy had been discharged.

  “He just never came home one night,” she’d told me. “I did all the normal things. Called the police. Called the hospitals. Called his parents and his friends.”

  She’d been knitting when she told me this story the last time Samantha and I had traveled to Nevada City. The needles never lost their rhythm even though June’s voice had grown strained and quiet.

  “One of his friends finally told me that Harry had been talking about moving to Las Vegas. Striking it rich at the tables. He thought he could be a professional gambler, you see. He used to watch all the poker shows on cable. Practiced his ‘poker face’ when he thought no one else was watching. It got so that Jonathan could imitate that poker face and Harry never even knew it.”

  She didn’t have the money to hire someone like me to find him, she’d said, so she figured he would come home when he was good and ready.

  Instead, she was served with divorce papers from a lawyer in Las Vegas, and two months later, she was a single mother.

  It explained a lot about why she was so protective of Jonathan, and why she’d been nervous about letting him meet someone he’d talked to over the Internet. Someone from Nevada, no less.

  I’d had my own reservations. People could pretend to be whoever they wanted to be on the Internet. The news was full of stories about adult men luring unsuspecting children into hookups—and worse—by pretending to be another kid online. It had taken a lot for me to overcome my natural suspicions to let Samantha meet her Internet friend.

  Of course, in her case things had turned out wonderfully. Jonathan played viola, and last time he and his mother visited, the kids had filled the
house with music—Samantha on piano accompanied by the rich tones from Jonathan’s viola. They really did make good music together.

  June’s knitting needles clacked as we sat in companionable silence. She always brought some type of craft to work on during these visits.

  I normally read or worked on cases while Samantha was busy doing her own thing, but I couldn’t do that and just leave June sitting in my living room. The last time she’d visited, I’d put in a movie, but she hadn’t watched much of it, just concentrated on her work instead, so I’d decided to leave the television off.

  Of course, that left the house quieter than I was used to. If I didn’t keep myself occupied, I’d nod off on the couch, something that had started happening to me more often these days, especially after nights when my insomnia kept me company. Welcome to middle age, Abby Maxon.

  I’d just started planning what equipment I’d need to take tomorrow and how I’d dress for a day of stalking the stalker—anything to keep from thinking about how I’d actually be spending my day watching Ryan’s fiancé; why had I agreed to this again?—when June interrupted my thoughts.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she said, never looking up from her knitting.

  I said sure, even though the way she asked the question made me wonder what was coming.

  “Why do you do the kind of work you do?” She did glance up at me now, an almost apologetic look. “I mean, not that women can’t do any kind of work they want these days, that’s not what I’m saying, but it seems like what you do is dangerous. Don’t you ever worry about what would happen to your daughter if you got hurt?”

  So not the question I was expecting.

  I could have given her a flip answer. I’d certainly done that back when I’d been married and Ryan used to introduce me to his colleagues as his wife, the gumshoe.

  “Most of the time, what I do isn’t that dangerous,” I said. “It’s not like in the movies or on TV.”

  She grinned. “You mean you’re not the female equivalent of Thomas Magnum?”