Licensed for Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  “Princess, there are simply some mysteries that only you can solve. . . .”

  Storm clouds blackened the sky, the air leaden with incoming rain as PJ drove back to the mushroom house. She’d hung around, waiting for Davy to ask her to read to him, finally landing a gig as Horton and Maisy, too.

  How she missed the hubbub of Connie’s house.

  She’d sort of like to have a hubbub someday. She could see little dark-haired SEAL wannabes running around the house. . . .

  She stopped at the bottom of the drive, opened the gate, and puttered her Bug through to the house. Rain had begun to dribble from the sky, a fog rolling in from the lake. Max had closed up shop and left the place gloomy. She wished Dog would launch from the bushes, greeting her sloppily as she let herself into her quiet, dark mansion.

  Cold seeped in, holed up in the corners, and radiated off the tile floor as she padded to her room, finally finding the light in the kitchen.

  A crumpled bag of bagels from the deli near Jeremy’s office lay on the counter. She looked inside. Two poppy seed and one cinnamon.

  Good man. He’d obviously stopped by to check on Max. She half expected him to step out of her bedroom. Waited for it, even. Nothing but the gurgle and hum of the hungry fridge, the whisk of wind ushering in the storm over the lake.

  No Jeremy.

  Well, perhaps it boded well for a quiet evening. Just PJ and Joy, reliving old times.

  Solving whatever mysteries they could.

  Chapter Thirteen

  June 1959

  I always knew it would be Hugh I would love. Even from the days when I would see him walking home from school on the railroad tracks, swinging his lunch pail, he’d look up at me, whizzing by in my father’s Roadmaster, and I’d see it in his eyes. So tonight, when Hugh told me he didn’t want me to finish my sixteen years without being kissed, I let him.

  PJ lay on top of her bed, bundled in her Superman pants, a sweatshirt, and a pair of nubby wool socks, reading by only the splash of a bedside lamp she’d unearthed in the belongings on the other side of the house—which, with the rain pinging against the windows and the wind trying to whittle its way inside, felt like it might be in the next county. She had shut her door to conserve heat while diving into Joy’s diary.

  He played me our song afterward. Betty and Chuck went out to the lagoon, probably to kiss, and Hugh put on the Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You.” We were dancing and almost didn’t hear my parents come home. Luckily, Hugh got out through the service entrance. One of these days my mother will hear the door squeal and know. I lay in bed for a long time after he left, still feeling Hugh’s lips on mine. . . .

  His lips on hers. PJ rolled over on her back, staring at the ceiling, at the ornate crown molding around the hanging milk-glass light fixture.

  Boone had also kissed her at sixteen. Stopped his motorcycle at Kellogg Park, sat sideways on the seat, and pulled her close. She could still remember the expression on his face—so few times did she actually see him nervous, but the question in his eyes as he tugged on her hand, then lowered his face to hers, made her entire body tingle. When he’d kissed her, she slipped into his arms as easily as the waves on the sand, and with that one touch, he’d reached right down to her soul, wrapped his fingers around it, and taken it into his hands.

  No wonder she struggled to see herself without him. But maybe she was just learning to disentangle herself from his grip. Because she could only taste Jeremy on her lips, his last kiss sweet and filled with teasing. Jeremy turned her body electric, his kisses intoxicating and mysterious. And with one touch, he too could touch her soul. Yet he stirred it to life.

  Jeremy had awakened a PJ that she wanted to be, a PJ she would someday recognize.

  September 1959

  My mother came in and informed me that she spoke with Hugh’s mother on my account. She told her that Hugh wasn’t to see me anymore. She sat there in her Chanel suit, fingering her pearls, fresh from the symphony, telling me that Hugh wasn’t the “right kind of boy” for me. She says he looks like trouble, a rebel without a cause, with his jeans and his leather jacket, his slicked-back hair. I think she only sees his father driving his milk truck in from their dairy farm. She doesn’t know Hugh like I do. I don’t think she knows me, either.

  Outside the door, in the bowels of the house, something thumped. Heavy and loud, making the entire house tremble.

  PJ sat up, set the diary on her bedside table. She held her breath, trying to listen over the thunder of her heart.

  Clearly the expanse of the house, and reading a dead woman’s diary, had—

  Another thump. Then a slow, mournful squeal.

  She caught her breath.

  A door—opening?

  Okay, it might be Jeremy, coming back to check on her. He had a tendency to let himself in. She picked up her phone and checked it for messages. Nothing. She hit his speed dial.

  He picked up on the second ring, sounding sleepy. “What’s up, Princess?”

  “You’re not sneaking through my house, are you?” she asked in a tight whisper.

  “What?” She could imagine him sitting up, turning on the light. “Did you say that someone’s in your house? Hang up and call the police this second. No, forget it; get out of there. I’ll call the cops—”

  “It’s raining out.”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re not going to melt, Sugar. Oh, why isn’t there a lock on your door? Why didn’t I put one on? Okay, I’m coming over there. Just get out.”

  Another high-pitched squeal. This one short, followed by a voice or something that sounded like muffled talking. “I think there’s more than one of them—”

  “Get out of the house!”

  “But who would break in? It’s not like I have anything of value.”

  “You’re freaking me out here—ow! Where’d I put my shoes? Just, please, get out! I’m on my way over.”

  “Jer—”

  But he’d hung up.

  Fine. She blew out a breath, then turned off her light. Maybe she should leave, but that would require a trip through the kitchen and into the gale-force storm outside.

  She slipped out of bed, crawled to her bedroom door, and cracked it open.

  On the other side of the kitchen, near the basement, light strobed across the bottom crack in the door.

  Her heart climbed to her mouth. Okay, maybe running wasn’t such a bad idea.

  She groped around in the dark, found one shoe, shoved it on over her woolen sock. She had the other in her hand when she heard footsteps . . . coming closer.

  Blocking her exit.

  Hide . . . hide . . . maybe the bathroom? She brailled her way across the carpet, banging her face on the doorframe. “Ow!” Her hand found the door; she pushed it open. Too hard. It slammed into the wall next to the tub.

  Resounding through the house.

  She’d have to hone her stealthy-hiding techniques. Scrabbling into the bathroom, across the tile floor, she found the tub, dove inside, and pulled the curtain with a swish.

  She held her breath. And maybe she should hold her heart, too, because it made enough racket to betray her in the middle of a sold-out Vikings game.

  She closed her eyes, listening.

  Low voices. Coming from the . . . kitchen?

  Then someone cracking open her bedroom door. Her light flicked on, flooding the adjoining bathroom, melting through the flimsy shower curtain. She reached for the soap, nearly a full bar, and pulled off her sock. Shoving the soap inside, she found her feet and slowly stood.

  She held her breath. Gripped the sock by the end.

  Steps into the bathroom. PJ’s pulse drowned her hearing.

  The curtain drew back. “Are you in here, P—”

  PJ slung the sock weapon with everything she had, connecting with the jaw of her attacker.

  “Ow! PJ, what in the world?”

  Boone. Oh . . . Boone! She braced her hand on the wall, her breath huffing out. Her legs just mi
ght collapse on her. “Haven’t you ever heard of knocking? Or how about calling first? Since when do you let yourself into my house?”

  “I didn’t,” he growled. She’d left a welt on his unshaven chin. He gave her a look of annoyance, and she matched it.

  She stepped out of the tub, the tile cold on her bare foot, the other overheated and crammed into her tennis shoe. “I’m confused. Are you in my house or not?”

  Boone cast a look over his shoulder.

  Max stood in the bedroom, holding a flashlight like he might bean someone atop the head with it. “Hi.”

  Oh, good grief, was she operating an all-night café? “What are you doing here?”

  “I found a secret passageway when I was down in your basement yesterday. I wanted to see where it ended, so tonight, after work, Dog and I went exploring,” Max said, flipping on the bathroom light.

  Boone turned to examine his chin in the mirror. “Sheesh, PJ, you pack a wallop.”

  That’s right she did. No apology here.

  “I didn’t see your car here when I came back.”

  “I went to Detective Buckam after I discovered the secret passageway to the carriage house.”

  “A secret passage? Oh, puh-leeze. Was it behind the bookshelf in the library? Did you have to say the secret password and click your heels three times?”

  “No,” Max said, his tone clipped, a spark of annoyance in his dark eyes. “It was in the basement. The door which, by the way, you so lovingly referred to as Capone’s Vault.”

  “Hey, it had an epic look about it, like I should call Geraldo.”

  “Just one hour inside your brain would fuel Stephen King for a year,” Boone said, touching his jaw where it had begun to swell.

  “There is a secret passageway, and more, if you’re interested,” Max said. “We parked there and followed it up.”

  “And it couldn’t wait until the morning?” PJ came close to Boone, reaching out to touch the welt. “Want some ice?”

  “No, it couldn’t, if you’d just let us explain!” Boone pulled away. “And yes, I think I need ice.”

  She shook the soap bar from the sock and dropped it into the sink. “I need pizza.”

  “Did you learn the soap trick during your stint at Sing Sing?” Boone asked, trailing behind her.

  “That and other tricks, smarty-pants. It worked, didn’t it?” She toed off her one shoe, then pulled her sock back on.

  Max had already opened the freezer. “No ice.” He opened the fridge and retrieved the carry-home box from Hal’s. “The pizza fairy will need to stock us up soon.”

  Uh-oh. The pizza fairy was probably on his way over at the speed of sound. Oops.

  “I should call Jeremy.” PJ found the phone on her bedroom floor. The call flipped to voice mail. “I’m fine. You don’t have to come over,” she said to his cell phone, which would probably be lodged in his back pocket during the chilly ride on the bike from Minneapolis.

  Clearly her midnight fun and games had only started.

  She pulled out a slice of pepperoni and faced her sulking intruders. “So tell me again why you emerged from my basement like a couple of moles?”

  “Remember that cellar you fell into a few days ago?” Boone said, picking up a piece of pizza, then making a face of disgust and dropping it. “It was a midpoint entrance to the tunnel.”

  “What tunnel?”

  Max had no such reservations about the pizza. “Like I said, I opened the door, then followed the passageway. It’s a brick tunnel with a rock floor and thick black electrical wires attached to the walls that light ancient bulbs about every ten feet, encased in these old metal cages. It did, by the way, feel very Al Capone.”

  “See?” PJ angled Boone a look. Nodded in triumph.

  “There’s more,” Boone said, folding his arms over his chest.

  “So,” Max said, finishing off his piece of pizza, “I followed it all the way to the end and came out inside the carriage house.”

  “I’ve been inside that house—where?”

  “In the entryway. It’s made to look like a closet, but there are stairs that go down, under the house, and then up to the big house.”

  “But that’s not the troubling part,” Boone said. He braced his hands on the counter. “Someone’s been living in the carriage house. We found blankets and food wrappers and bottles and evidence of the fireplace being used. We did a search through the house, and I think it’s all clear, but I’m not comfortable with you staying here.”

  PJ put down her pizza, no longer hungry. “Are you telling me that someone, besides you guys, could get into my house?”

  “There’s no lock on the servant’s door. So yes, if they knew where the tunnel was. But you’d have to actually lock your door, PJ, if you wanted people to stay out. You’re entirely too trusting.” He chased his words with a little shake of his head.

  PJ leaned against the counter. The wind moaned outside. Lightning flashed, revealing the vines clasping the window, like fingers trying to pry their way in.

  “Maybe that’s how Joy was murdered. I found a bunch of memorabilia, and in it was Joy’s diary. What if someone got into the . . . Hey, what if it was Hugh? her old boyfriend?”

  “Are you still on that? I thought we agreed you’d drop it.”

  “Did we?”

  “It’s a cold case.”

  “Not to me. But listen, what is glaringly important here is that someone could have gotten in or out of the house anytime that night that she ended up in the lagoon. Didn’t you say that her husband claimed he never left the house all night? Well, no one saw him leave the house . . . but what if he did? Through the service entrance!”

  Boone drew a breath. “Okay, that’s about enough excitement for one night. What I see that is glaringly important here is that you aren’t staying in this house one more second.”

  “What? This is my house—”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Max said.

  “I’m not moving out of my house because of a pile of clothes and a few empty bottles. They could have been left there months ago. Talk about overreacting. I’ll just lock all my doors.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I haven’t begun to overreact with you. You attract trouble like bees to nectar. It’s like trouble can smell you.” Boone moved closer to her as if he might grab her and make a run for it. Something he claimed he’d wanted to do most of her life. “You can’t get away from it.”

  “Yes, I can! I’m not trouble anymore.” She inched away from him.

  “I don’t want to disagree, but there are so many places for me to begin to argue, I have a hard time choosing. The bottom line is, I’m not letting you stay here.”

  “You’re not letting me stay?” PJ closed the pizza box on Max’s hand. “Get out, both of you.”

  Boone glared at her. Max frowned, yanking his hand back.

  “You heard her.” Jeremy materialized from the screened porch, Glock first. Water dripped down his face, soaked through a black sweatshirt. His hard eyes took in the situation in one swoop, finally landing on PJ, and he lowered his weapon. “What’s Boone doing here? Did you call him, too?”

  Ouch. “No—I called you. Boone is my intruder. Shoot him.”

  Jeremy tucked his gun away. He turned to Max. “What are you doing here?”

  “We weren’t really intruding. It just felt that way,” Boone said.

  “You snuck into my house!”

  “To keep you safe,” Boone growled. He stepped between Jeremy and Max. “There’s a person squatting in the carriage house. And Max found a tunnel leading practically to PJ’s bedroom.”

  “Oh, brother. I’m perfectly safe. I have my cell phone, and—”

  “Your lethal sock ball?” Boone pointed to the wound on his face. “She made a weapon out of a sock and a bar of soap.”

  “It worked on you, didn’t it?”

  Jeremy moved over to her. His feet squished on the tile floor. He shot a look behind him, then bent close to her ear and
cut his voice low. “Are you okay, Princess?”

  “Hungry, but yes, otherwise. I’m fine.”

  “She won’t be fine if she stays here. Not until we at least get a lock on the door.”

  PJ peeked out at him. “Stop being so paranoid, Boone.”

  Jeremy stepped back and gently took her hand as if trying to infuse some of his legendary calm.

  Boone, however, had reached a ragged edge. “I’m not paranoid; I’m realistic! I see people all the time who think they’re perfectly safe—”

  “He does have a point,” Jeremy said quietly.

  “What?”

  “You have to be careful. Especially when you’re chasing down old mysteries and dangerous secrets.”

  “What kind of dangerous secrets?”

  Jeremy, whether he meant to or not, glanced at Max.

  Max’s eyes widened. “Hey.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, but you have to admit, Max, the last twenty-four hours haven’t looked so good for you.” Jeremy said it without apology in his voice.

  Boone glanced at Max. “How is that?”

  Max’s jaw tightened. “Thanks a lot.” His gaze landed on PJ, though, and she picked up his defense.

  “I told you, Jer, Max is innocent—”

  “Innocent of what?” Boone said.

  Jeremy lowered his voice just for her. “You have to stop investigating with your hopes and dreams and take a look at the truth.”

  “What truth?” Boone thundered.

  Jeremy closed his mouth, raised a dark eyebrow. PJ sucked in a breath and turned to Boone, trying to figure out where to start.

  Max opened his mouth first. “I might have killed some woman and set fire to her house.”

  Silence pulsed in the room, a beat of shock, inside which PJ realized she was doomed. Boone looked murderous, glancing first at Max, then at Jeremy, and finally his stare landed straight on PJ. “Come again?”

  “It’s just speculation,” PJ said, slipping over to stand in front of Max, a sort of shield between him and the two men who both suddenly turned into a couple of alpha male wolves, fur up, eyes slitted. A shard of pity shot through her for Max. “We tracked down someone who had a picture of a couple of guys—one who looks like Max—and a woman who died in a suspicious fire. But today, we followed the lead on this woman, and she might be Max’s girlfriend, so I seriously doubt that—”