Licensed for Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  “Yes,” she finally said quietly.

  “Where are you staying these days? Please tell me you’re not in your car.” Connie bore genuine concern in her eyes.

  “Hey, the Crown Vic has enough room for the entire family.”

  Connie didn’t smile.

  “Jeremy’s office. On the sofa.”

  Connie stared into her cup.

  The sun had started to slip into the dusky October horizon, the heat of the day moving with it. A slip of crisp breath dried the sweat around PJ’s face. How she longed to remove her sauna dog.

  Still, Connie didn’t move.

  PJ had sort of expected something like “Well, those days are over. Please move back in.” Or at least “That has to be awkward.”

  But nothing. Until . . .

  “I’m pregnant, Peej.” Connie brought her gaze up, wearing a hesitant smile. “I’m pregnant.”

  Oh. Oh. Well. “That’s great!” PJ’s voice sounded strange, though. Too high, too happy.

  Connie didn’t seem to notice. “Yes, I think so.” She again glanced past PJ. “We think so.”

  We. As in Sergei and Davy and Boris and Vera, and probably also their mother, Elizabeth Sugar, strangely absent from today’s activities.

  “Congratulations.” There. Now her voice sounded normal. She leaned forward and wrapped Connie in a one-armed hug. “That’s wonderful.”

  Connie returned the hug, but when she stepped back, she still didn’t meet PJ’s eyes.

  “Okay, what’s the deal?”

  Connie shrugged as she looked out into the fields of pumpkins. “You can’t move back in, Peej. We need the room for the baby, and besides, it’s time for you to set up your own home.”

  “Oh, I . . . I knew that, Connie.” Except there went that strange voice again. Happy, happy PJ. “Of course you need the room.”

  Connie glanced at her fast as if testing PJ’s words.

  PJ took her hand. “Really. I need to find my own place anyway. I’ll be fine.” Really. Fine. Just. Fine. “In fact, we need to celebrate the good news with some pumpkin cookies, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I am eating for two.” Connie slid her hand over her stomach.

  Right. Cookies, pronto.

  A crowd had formed around the dunking-for-apples trough, and as PJ approached the cookie stand, a cheer went up from the ensemble. Boris broke through the crowd a moment later, an apple clutched in his golden teeth, water dripping down his wide, grizzled face and onto his sopping shirt.

  Vera applauded behind him, dressed as . . . well, a Russian babushka, in her curly lamb’s-wool jacket, a blue polyester housedress from the early seventies, and a pair of flat boots. She took the apple from her husband and handed him his leather jacket. “Maladyets!” she said, taking a bite of apple.

  And right behind them appeared Bix the Raccoon, laughing at Boris’s heroic performance, clutching her pumpkin with one hand, her six-year-old Tinker Bell with the other.

  She locked eyes with PJ. For a moment, everything went silent as PJ read Bix’s face, those conniving eyes, those tight, budded lips, and deciphered two things.

  Bix knew PJ had been hunting her.

  And after today, PJ wouldn’t have a prayer of capturing her.

  “Meredith,” PJ said, and that’s all it took.

  Bix whirled, dropped her daughter’s hand, and took off as fast as her paws would carry her.

  Which turned out to be considerably faster than PJ, who sort of half ran, half bounced after Bix. “Stop! Stop, Bix!”

  But Bix wasn’t having any part of stop. She shoved past the gawkers in front of the Great Pumpkin cutouts, past the bluegrass band, and through the split-rail fence out into the parking lot. Then she turned and hurled her pumpkin at PJ.

  And PJ, encased in a giant foam pillow, couldn’t dodge it. It thumped her hard in the thighs and she went down like a bowling pin, spinning out on the dirt.

  “What in the world?”

  Jeremy. All seven feet of ketchup, looming over her and then peering after her prey.

  “It’s Bix!” PJ said, pointing above her head. “Help me up.”

  Jeremy tossed his cup of hot cider and held out both hands. “Who?”

  “Meredith Bixby!”

  Recognition registered on his face as PJ bounded to her feet. But she didn’t wait for him to catch up, just turned and watched as Bix skidded to a stop beside a shiny yellow Vespa scooter, threw a furry leg over, and inserted a key.

  She wasn’t getting away—not on PJ’s watch.

  PJ heard ripping as she threw herself at the raccoon in an all-out tackle. She took her out just as the bike lurched forward. They flew off together, rolling into the ditch with a bell-ringing landing that huffed the breath out of her.

  Ow.

  “Get off me!” Bix slammed an elbow at PJ’s face. It landed on the bun.

  PJ wrapped her arms around Bix, trying to roll on top of her. “Meredith, you jumped bail—”

  “Of course I did, PJ. I’m not going to jail!”

  PJ finally got ahold of Bix’s wrist, both hands fighting for control. “You . . . should . . . have . . . thought . . .” She groped for the cuffs, curling her fingers around them just as Bix rolled out from under her.

  Then, in a move that both Boone and Jeremy should have been cheering, she whipped out Davy’s handcuffs and managed to snap one cuff on Bix’s wrist.

  But instead of giving the snarl PJ expected, Bix looked at PJ with an expression of horror, her black-rimmed eyes filling. Her voice dropped, low, desperate. “You have to listen to me. I’m not the person they’re saying. I’m not a thief. It was an accident. I meant to pay for the wallet. I just slipped it into my pocket while I was looking at a pair of earrings. I swear it was an accident. My lawyer is trying to sort it out, but until he does, I can’t go to jail.”

  PJ hovered above her, her hand searching for Bix’s other wrist. “What about the other three charges?”

  “Years ago, when I was a mess. I’m not that person anymore. I swear it. Please.” A tear rolled into Bix’s ear. “My kid is watching, PJ.”

  Her expression whisked PJ back a decade, to the humiliating moment when the Kellogg police hauled her away in her grass-stained prom dress, the smoke from the country club kitchen inferno blotting out the starry night. The false arrest had driven her out of Kellogg, put her on the run for nearly ten years, and kept her under suspicion until Boone had come clean and cleared her name.

  PJ found the woman’s eyes, pinned hers to them. “I don’t want a scene either. If I take off the cuffs, do you promise to come in quietly? You can even call your lawyer on the way, and he can meet you there. And then neither one of us will make the papers.” She gestured toward the crowd behind them.

  “Really?” Bix wiped her eyes with the back of her free paw, smearing makeup into her ear.

  PJ nodded. “Promise?”

  Bix nodded.

  PJ rolled off her, and Bix offered a paw to help her to her feet. PJ handed Bix the key to the handcuff.

  “Sorry. It’s just a misunderstanding,” she said to the crowd. She searched for Jeremy, but he seemed conspicuously absent.

  Tinker Bell ran and embraced her mother, who crouched beside her and whispered in her ear. The little girl skipped away, her thin legs barely able to stretch out, thanks to the slim green skirt. She must have hiked it up past her knees to ride behind her mother on the small . . . one-person . . . Vespa. Wait—Bix couldn’t have ridden here with Tinker Bell. Which meant someone else was taking care of her daughter. Which meant she probably wasn’t going home. . . .

  Oh no.

  And then, as all her instincts fired off like little explosions in her head, Bix slapped a cuff around PJ’s left wrist. She had the other wrist caught and the cuff snapped on before PJ could turn.

  “Bix! Don’t—”

  “Stop following me, PJ, or you’re going to get hurt!” Bix snarled as she pushed her, hard, into the dirt.

  PJ ro
lled onto her back, trapped, her eyes closed, listening as the Vespa roared to life and whizzed away with a high-pitched whee!

  And from somewhere beyond her periphery, she heard a camera click. Oh, perfect.

  “Problems, PJ?” Boone said, his voice over her. He grabbed her by both sides of her bun and pulled her to her feet. “What was that?”

  She’d torn a hole through the costume at the knees, and her dirty legs poked through between bun and dog. “She jumped bail. Were you serious—you don’t have a handcuff key?”

  Boone’s silence made her look up.

  “What?”

  “Jeremy has you skip tracing now? A couple solved crimes and suddenly you’re tracking down fugitives?” A quiet anger simmered in his expression.

  “Listen, I know you’re still worried about me, but you can stop now. I’m fine. I just need to get out of these cuffs.”

  “You think just because you don’t want me in your life that I’m going to suddenly stop caring? that I’ll stop waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, afraid that someday you’re going to get yourself hurt—really hurt?”

  Oh. “I do want you in my life. Just not . . . as my boyfriend.”

  He took a long breath.

  “Please, Boone, I miss your friendship.” And the cuffs had begun to pinch.

  He shook his head slowly, then turned away. “Boone!”

  As if she might really be in some sort of B movie, Jeremy swaggered up, a convenient entrance, wearing a black baseball cap backward, and minus his ketchup costume. “You okay, babe? What’s with the cuffs?”

  Boone stopped. Rounded. One second too late, PJ recognized his expression.

  “Boone, don’t—”

  “You’re going to get her hurt,” he said, advancing on Jeremy, who took a breath. PJ winced at the cold, calm look in his eyes.

  Boone’s voice stayed low and lethal as he stopped just in front of Jeremy. “You don’t deserve her, and worse, you’re going to get her hurt.”

  “You’re overreacting. I’m fine. I just . . . I shouldn’t have believed Bix.”

  Boone shook his head, his eyes hard on hers. “People don’t change, PJ. You should know that by now. Just try and stay alive.”

  He strode away, his tails flapping as he loosened his tie and dumped it in a garbage barrel.

  PJ watched him go, her throat burning. She turned to Jeremy, scraping up her voice, any voice. “And where were you, Mr. Ketchup? Did you not hear me? Meredith Bixby, bail jumper, remember?” She indicted her still-cuffed hands. “A little help would have been appreciated.”

  But Jeremy’s gaze had trailed after Boone. “I knew you could handle it. Besides, I wasn’t going to do you any good trapped inside a tube of tomato paste.” Finally his eyes met hers. “Why’d you let her go?”

  “Because she had a hair appointment. I didn’t let her go! Clearly, because I’m wearing handcuffs. Do you happen to have a key?”

  He gave her a small smile. “Somewhere inside that hot dog beats a heart of compassion. Don’t worry; you’ll get her next time.” Jeremy ran a hand down her arm. “I’ll track down a key. And then I need something to eat. Seeing you in that hot dog costume is making me hungry.”

  Chapter Two

  “You’re very photogenic. This is the second shot of you in handcuffs in four months.”

  Jeremy folded the Monday edition of the Kellogg Gazette in half and tossed it toward PJ, who sat on his black leather sofa. It landed with a plop at her feet. She didn’t even glance at it. Not again. She’d already scanned every last grainy detail in this morning’s mail delivery, read every last jot and tittle about the fiasco at Kellogg Farms over the weekend.

  “Thanks for bringing that up. I feel so much better.” She’d have to track down—she leaned over and read the photo credits—Lindy Halston and strangle her for the fabulous shot of PJ as she stood, scuffed-up and alone in the parking lot with the setting sun behind her, a torn, unhappy, handcuffed hot dog, while Jeremy tracked down the handcuff key.

  “I can’t wait for my mother to see it. She’ll probably have it framed.”

  Jeremy leaned back in his desk chair and smirked at her. “Have you heard from her yet?”

  “No. I left a number of messages at her house and a few on her cell, although she barely knows how to turn it on. My mother has the technical acuity of a gecko. Still, she should be able to answer her phone. I might need to do a drive-by today.”

  “She’s probably just out playing Bunco or something.”

  “For three unaccounted-for days?”

  “She’s single. Give her a break.”

  “My mother is not single. She’s widowed. There’s a big difference.” In fact, in many ways, Carl Sugar was still very much a presence in her mother’s life: his clothes still hanging on his side of the closet, his golf clubs on the hook, even his green Jag taking up space on his side of the garage. Not that her mother lived in the past—she simply felt it disrespectful to erase him from the life he’d worked so hard to build.

  “She’s probably lonely, PJ. Give her some room to fill her life with friends.”

  The morning sun pressed into the windows, gilding the wooden floor into a sea of amber. Downstairs, the smell of freshly baking sub sandwiches ribboned through the paned front door of Kane Investigations and found her stomach. A half-eaten sesame bagel, the two halves glued together by cream cheese, lay wrapped in a napkin and balanced on the arm of the sofa.

  PJ nudged the paper away from her with her toe and finished off her latte. “I should give up on finding Bix. I’ll never see her again. She’s probably over the state line by now, halfway to some spa in Brazil.”

  Jeremy got up and walked over to the sofa. She loved how he looked in the mornings after his workout—freshly showered, his dark hair cut close to his head, neatly shaven, smelling like clean laundry and soap, and today in a button-down dress shirt over a gray Navy tee and blue jeans. It appeared like he eased into every day without effort and expected it to be glad to see him.

  Not PJ, who had wrestled herself off the sofa at 6 a.m. and eked out of her body two miles on the treadmill at the gym while trying to ferret from the crevices of her foggy brain an idea as to where Bix might be hiding. Think like a criminal. Where would PJ go if she were a fugitive?

  Uh, South Dakota. Or at least that’s where she’d headed ten years ago. Today? She hadn’t a clue where she might lie low while ducking from the law. Nor would she want to. She’d gotten painfully used to having her family—Davy, Connie, even the crazy, fish-frying, vodka-consuming Russian federation—in her life.

  Connie’s pregnancy news throbbed inside her like the ugly scrape down her arm. She hated when her longings snuck up on her and pounced, filleting open old wounds.

  She was happy for Connie. Really.

  Jeremy sat on the end of the sofa. She was still barefoot, and he surprised her by picking up her foot, setting it on his lap.

  “Listen, Princess. Stop beating yourself up over Bix. A good PI doesn’t give up. You have to have confidence and a positive attitude. But you have to be empathetic, too. In order to think like your subject, you need to understand her. And although you usually have pretty good instincts, you may have let your heart sympathize just a little too much with Bix. In hindsight, it might not have been the most savvy of moves.”

  PJ couldn’t take her eyes off the way his thumb moved over her foot, sweetly, almost absently.

  “The truth is, I’m not sure I would have done any differently. It’s not like she murdered anyone. She stole an expensive wallet. She’s not exactly a menace to society.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” His touch tickled a little, but she wasn’t pulling away.

  Just like she hadn’t last night when he’d bandaged the scrape on her elbow.

  The stiffness in their relationship seemed to crack at the harvest event, a freshness to his demeanor that spilled over into the evening, when he’d rented an old Gregory Peck movie and watched it on the sofa, poppin
g microwave popcorn long after his bedtime. As if he hadn’t . . . wanted to leave?

  Or maybe he just felt guilty about trapping her inside a large, puffy advertisement while the entire town convulsed into hysterics. Another spectacular moment for her wannabe-PI scrapbook.

  “So you said you talked to Connie. You didn’t tell me what it was about.”

  PJ pulled her foot away and stood, collecting her uneaten bagel, his empty cup. “She’s pregnant.”

  She didn’t know what she expected, certainly not the way his eyes twitched as he watched her throw away the garbage.

  “Really. That’s . . . very exciting news. Isn’t it?”

  She’d let the conversation simmer inside her since yesterday and had emerged with two truths. First, she might really have to start living in her loft-size Crown Vic, especially if Jeremy took on any more cases and his horizontal filing system started engulfing the rest of the office. More than that, though, Connie’s news screamed the glaring truth. At least one of the Sugars was moving on with her life.

  “I’m thrilled for her. She and Sergei will make great parents, and Davy needs a sibling.”

  Jeremy still wore that strange look, as if he might be trying to peel back her words, searching for a hidden meaning.

  Okay, fine—“I can’t move back in.”

  He nodded, real slow.

  “They need a room for the baby, and I have to find a place to live.”

  “You don’t like my sofa?” He smiled finally, something teasing in his dark eyes.

  “I can’t live on your sofa forever, boss. Besides, I know how you like to work late. I’m throwing you off your game.”

  “I’m not sure I’d put it quite that way.” He pushed one arm out along the top of the sofa. “But you’ve certainly changed the rules.”

  His smile had vanished, and with it went any words she might have conjured. So he hadn’t forgotten their kiss.

  Then he sighed. “Listen, I can advance you some money, if you need it, for rent.”

  “I do your books. You don’t have any money to advance me.”

  “Ouch. Not everything is on the books. I might have a few personal resources.”