The Sweetheart Kiss

by Cheryl Ann Smith

  Jess made a face. “That’s a stretch.”

  “It was either that or he’s sipping margaritas in Puerto Vallarta. Good old Harry was a wanted meth cooker who blew up his garage,” Summer said. “I vote that he made a run over our southern border.”

  Sam leaned on the table and rubbed his eyes. “What about the rest of the family?”

  “Let’s see.” Summer clicked. “Albert is in a nursing home and Larry is currently locked up in Stillwater for auto theft. Prudence is married and living with her family in St. Paul. It looks like no one is living at the cabin.”

  Summer paused, cupped her hand over the phone, then came back. “Jason wants to take me to a movie. I gotta go.”

  “Thanks, Summer,” Jess said and hung up. She looked at Sam. “It looks like another road block. What do we do now?”

  Sam smiled. “Road trip.”

  * * *

  Unfortunately, Sam’s pilot friend couldn’t make the trip until Sunday afternoon, so Jess picked up after Spike and then cleaned the kitchen while Sam mowed the grass. It was all very domestic. She would have offered to mow, but grass clippings made her eyes water.

  Calvin was in his tent, meditating over the placement of the moon and Jupiter while Spike kept him company. A row of six women, all wearing We Love Calvin tee shirts lined the fence hoping for a glimpse. He was naked on the front with round smiley faces covering his package, likely in deference to the possibility of underage children in the neighborhood.

  “Good grief,” Jess muttered and closed the blinds to the back deck. “Don’t let Sam see that.”

  Calvin’s presence was already treading a fine line. If he saw the circus going on, he’d blow a gasket.

  She’d just mopped the floor around Spike’s water bowl when Sam came in, went for the fridge, and pulled out a beer.

  Uh-oh. He only drank a beer when stressed.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked and wondered if now would be a good time for top removal. Getting naked seemed to soothe him.

  He started under lowered brows. “Did you know that our street has a new neighborhood watch program, and it isn’t for criminals?”

  Crap. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh, yes.” He chugged. “Several men carrying torches and pitch forks vowed to run me out of town if I didn’t do something about the naked guy in my back yard.”

  “That’s harsh.” She tried to sound supportive while trying to think of a solution to all this without running Calvin off. She was kind of attached to the guy. “Torches? Truly?”

  “Rakes and hedge clippers,” he grumbled. “Same difference.”

  Walking over, she put her hand on his arm. “What did you tell them?” She braced herself for an argument.

  “I told them he’s staying so file a complaint with the city if they don’t like it.” He sat down the empty beer.

  “Are you serious?”

  “I did,” he pulled her into his arms. “I also advised them to pay more attention to their overheated wives.” He kissed her neck. “My sex life has improved one hundred percent since he’s been living here.”

  This was all true. “You are very bad, Detective Wheeler.” She felt his hand move over her left breast. He teased her nipple through her shirt.

  “And you like it.” Her bra strap popped open. “If you don’t want Calvin walking in on us doing it on the kitchen table, you’d better get yourself upstairs. Now.”

  Laughing, Jess ran.

  * * *

  The aircraft was a small Cessna that was no larger than a Small Car on the inside, at least it felt that way to Jess as she sat crammed in the back seat with several years’ worth of junk on the seat and under her feet. If the plane went down, they’d never find her body in this mess. They have to bury her in the wreckage.

  Why had she volunteered Sam for the front seat? She didn’t do well in the backseat of a car.

  Oh, right. Their pilot was a high school friend of Sam’s, who talked slowly as if he’d taken way too many drugs and drank way too many cocktails during his formative years. She figured they’d want to catch up.

  The two of them sat side-by-side, talking up their high school glory days playing baseball while Jess sat with a churning stomach, trying not the barf and digging around beneath mountains of trash looking for a parachute.

  She only needed one. If Chuck drove the plane into the side of a mountain, the two men were on their own.

  Chuck obviously worked the air shows in his other life. The plane bobbed and dipped and swayed back and forth like a turkey vulture on crack. Death was within reach and Jess started a mental list of all the things she’d have to atone for during Pearly Gate check-in. There were more than a few incidents in her past she’d have to explain to St. Peter.

  Skinny dipping in St. Benedict’s Academy pool.

  Impure thoughts about her high school math teacher.

  Stealing an eraser from Polly Sims in kindergarten.

  The list went on.

  “Dude. Remember Jackie Howe and those short skirts?” Chuck said, interrupting her list making. “I’m surprised we won a game with her sitting in the front row of the bleachers.”

  Sam turned back to Jess and grinned. Bone heads.

  “I don’t remember that,” Sam said, oozing innocence.

  From the look on his face, Jess knew he remembered every detail of Jackie and her short skirts. When she scowled, he chuckled. If she threw up, he was her target.

  The plane dipped, her stomach flipped, and she resumed the hunt for a parachute. How Chuck could find anything in the mess was an unanswerable question.

  Sadly, there was no sign of parachute. So she whipped out her phone and sent I Love You texts to her family and friends. She wanted her last words to her loved ones to be positive. It would offer comfort at her memorial.

  Since they were out of the service area, they’d get them after she passed. Satisfied she’d covered everyone, she closed her phone. Chuck whipped his head around and smirked.

  Oh-no.

  “Almost there!” Chuck tipped the plane sideways as they missed an Empire State Building tall pine tree by about ten feet. “Woo-hoo!” he yelled and Jess whimpered.

  The airport was about the size of Brash’s parking lot and the runway the length of a football field. Chuck aimed straight for the ground like a bomber pilot, Jess screamed, Sam laughed as if he was on a coaster ride at Cedar Point.

  Just when she thought they were going to die, Chuck pulled up, hit the runway with a big bounce, and stopped the Cessna just before they hit a pair of deer grazing at the edge of a stand of giant oaks. The deer bolted for cover.

  Jess kicked open the door and jumped out, dropped to her knees, and clutched her stomach to keep down her lunch.

  Footsteps moved up on either side of her. “She’s not much of an adventurer, is she?” Chuck said and laughed heartily. The bastard had done this on purpose.

  Jess rewarded him with a boot covered in a breakfast burrito.

  * * *

  Sam bit back a chuckle and helped Jess to her feet as the cursing Chuck ran off to wipe off his boot in the tall grass beside the landing strip. He kind of deserved what he got. Jess had told him before they left that she wasn’t the most confident flyer. Chuck had given her one hell of a ride. “You okay?”

  She was pale and shaky. “Do I look okay?” she sniped.

  “You look like hell.”

  “Thank you for that.” She walked around, sucking in the fresh air and got her color back. Chuck scowled at her as he climbed back into the Cessna and drove it off to park near another plane. When Sam turned back, Jess was grinning evilly.

  She noticed him looking, and her face went blank.

  “You did that on purpose. Aimed for his boot.”

  Her nose went up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jess knew exactly what he was saying. Chuckling, he watched her pull a bottle of water and
a travel toothbrush and paste out of her tote bag and walked off towards the trees. And in that moment, he realized he’d fallen hard. Very hard.

  “Oh, hell.” The last thing he needed was to get his heart engaged in whatever this was between them. After his first love, Kaitlyn, had all but ruined his life, he’d been careful to keep relationships light. And he’d only known Jess for a short time. How could it be the pain-in-the-butt PI had shocked him out of his emotional dead zone?

  He needed a beer. Maybe some steak and sports on a TV. Emotions had no business in this situation. They worked together and had sex. Leave it at that.

  The owner of the airport—if it qualified to be called that—offered them his motorcycle, for a price, since the closest car rental franchise was fifty miles away. The old Yamaha coughed and blew black smoke out of the tailpipe as they put on their helmets and let it warm up.

  The likelihood that they’d end up broken down and eaten by the same bear that ate meth-head Harry Grimes seemed pretty high. But what choice did they have? They weren’t knee deep in options.

  “Once she gets a going, she’s a hell of a ride,” Ross said and wagged his brows at Jess. The implication was not lost on her. Sam caught her by the waistband before she could sock him on the eye, or kick him, whichever. She wasn’t fully recovered from the plane ride and not in the mood to dodge sexual innuendoes from a guy with brown teeth and a hunk of chew in his lip.

  “Ignore him.” He nudged her to the bike. He’d offered to let her drive but she’d never driven a bike before. After settling on the ripped seat, they were off.

  The dirt road led through the woods to a narrow highway. They turned north. The cabin was about fifteen miles out and set back in the trees. It couldn’t be seen from the road.

  Several signs promised death for trespassers, but Sam drove in anyway. According to a text from Summer, and thanks to satellite imaging, there was no sign of life on the property. This limited their chances of falling victim to the person who’d posted the sign.

  He eased off to the side of the two-track dirt driveway and parked. They pulled off their helmets and had a look around

  The one story white house squatted in a patch of weeds and grass on the narrow plot of yard. The woods surrounded the clearing and a narrow path lead out from the back of the house into the trees. A fox took off from somewhere in the back of the house and vanished under a fallen oak.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone ever lived here,” Jess said and stepped around a rusted camp chair next to a fire pit.

  The green shingled roof sagged in one corner and the blue tarp nailed over the crack between roof and wall didn’t inspire confidence that it would stay put in a storm or keep the occupants dry. The porch was screened in, though a tear in the screen left little doubt that they’d find signs of animal life inside.

  His mind flashed to another dilapidated property and how well that had turned out for her. From the look on her face, he suspected she was thinking the same thing.

  “Let’s have a look.” Sam walked over and pulled the screen door open. A panicked squirrel ran out from under an old gray couch, darted around the porch, and took off through the hole in the screen.

  Jess snickered. “At least it wasn’t a skunk.”

  “There’s that.” He crossed to the house door. The place was locked up. He examined the knob and twisted it. The door popped open. “They aren’t much for home security out here.”

  They stepped inside. Jess made a face. “There’s nothing to steal, that’s why.” She moved into the wide open room that was a combination living room and kitchen. The furniture was old and dusty and probably picked from garage sale discards. A mouse darted under the stove. She put her hand on her gun.

  Sam flicked a light switch. A pair of ceiling blubs clicked on, though one flickered, popped, and went out.

  “Don’t you find it strange that the electricity is on?” Jess walked over to an old dial-up phone on the small kitchen counter and picked up the receiver. “And the phone works. If no one lives here why pay for service?”

  “That is odd.”

  Walking to the back of the house, Sam found a bathroom and a pair of bedrooms while Jess checked out the kitchen. The room on the left had four bunk beds with matching ugly orange and blue tiger print bedspreads.

  He passed the bathroom and opened the other door. Surprised, he called back to Jess. “Hey, come check this out.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Compared to the rest of the house, the bedroom furniture looked in decent shape and the room was decorated with photos of hunting expeditions tacked onto the walls, and smiling faces all around. The bedspread was pink and green camouflage, with matching curtains on the walls and a pair of stuffed bears leaned against fuzzy pillows on the bed.

  It was the Pepto-pink walls that caused Jess to blanch. “I think we’ve found our sniper.” She stepped into the room, careful not to trip over a crossbow case on the floor. “The question is how she got from Minnesota to Michigan and why?”

  Moving to the photos, she began examining the pictures. There had to be dozens of them. The faces aged and people came and went, but the content remained the same. They documented years of family togetherness.

  “Young lady, where did you go wrong?” she whispered and stared at a pair of young women with their arms around each other. Obviously, if one of them was the sniper, she had a family who loved her and a life. Why then had she turned bad?

  Sam picked up a handmade bracelet. “Bubba RIP?” he read. “I wonder who Bubba is?”

  “Maybe he’s in these pics.” She pulled one off the wall and turned it over. “Me, Kobe, Drew and Pop. 1999.”

  Taking the photo to the window, she pushed open the curtains. The foursome was standing by a campfire, smiling and decked out for hunting. The young woman looked like a teenager, with wide hips covered in too tight camo pants, shirt, and an orange hat. She had straight brown hair down to her breasts and a gap between her upper front teeth. Still, she was cute in an outdoorsy way.

  “Do you think this is her?” she asked.

  Sam joined her. He took a good long look. “The body type fits but no one has gotten a good look at her face.”

  “Maybe Summer can run facial recognition.” She went back to the photo wall and began taking them down. The woman was in most of the pictures. Several of the men looked alike, and one had some of her features. Her father? “These guys must be family and friends. The photos go back decades. They are serious outdoorsmen.”

  Giving the older photos only a cursory glance, she focused on the newer prints.

  “I don’t see any Bubba.” She laid the photos on a nearby dresser. “It’s probably a nickname.”

  “Or the dog,” Sam said from the narrow closet. “It’s a nickname for ‘friend’.

  She retrieved the first photo and took another look. In the background was a Springer Spaniel with brown speckled ears. “You are a brilliant detective.”

  “I know.” He shoved hanging clothes aside and dug around on the shelf over his head. “It’s about time a Brash Girl gave me the recognition I deserve.”

  There were many things she admired about him, the way he filled out his clothes, his intelligence, how he challenged her. She also liked his humor.

  “I’ll buy you a plaque.”

  She thought he said something about finding another sexier way to reward him for his mad skills, but she chose to ignore him, even though her body heated with the idea of seeing him naked again. She’d sort of become obsessed with his body.

  But standing in the room of a crazy sniper was not the place to get all warm and fuzzy. So she did a conversational one-eighty back to the investigation.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “You’ve never asked permission before,” he said. “Shoot.”

  She inhaled and let the question out on a rush. “Why did you give up your professional baseball career?”

  A thunk fo
llowed. “Dammit!” He backed out of the closet, rubbing the top of his head and glaring. “That’s none of your business. Don’t dig into my personal life, Jess.”

  Wow. It was a deep dark secret. Her curiosity amped up into the red zone. “I wasn’t digging.”

  Their eyes met. He ran the invisible Detective Wheeler lie detector over her face. “You’ve already snooped.”

  “I-ah, well-” Stuttering was a sure sign of guilt. She stopped before she dug a bigger hole.

  “Dammit, Jess. Leave my past alone.” He turned back to the closet. She wanted to apologize but wasn’t sure if she had anything to be sorry for. What was the point of internet search engines if you couldn’t find out if the people you let into your life were sketchy, and possibly dangerous?

  “Fine.”

  She was 100% positive he’d searched her past, for the case, if nothing else. She’d been a suspect. Everyone at the wedding was. So how could he fault her?

  Turning back to the picture wall, she vowed to discover his secret. If he had skeletons in his past, she wanted to know what they were before she got in too deep.

  As if she wasn’t already knee deep into this, whatever it was. She liked him. Mostly. And she loved the sex.

  Minutes ticked by and nothing from the grumpy detective. Finally, she’d had enough. The house was too quiet.

  “Find anything?” she asked and reached for another photo. Whoever this woman was, she did like hunting. All of the photos revolved around shooting stuff. Heck, her life seemed like a nature show, without a grizzled host and a video crew.

  “A couple of shotguns and a buck knife.”

  After searching the last of the pictures, Jess took the one with the clearest image of the young woman, shoved it into her back jeans pocket, and moved on. Other than the odd color scheme, the room was fairly normal, if not kind of girlish for a woman in her twenties.

  Sam moved on from the closet and closed the doors. He went to the bed and tipped up the mattress. Underneath was a journal. Since it was on Jess’s side, she claimed it and flipped through the pages. There was text, an occasional drawing, and for several pages, hearts with Olive + Hughie forever written in red ink. Interesting.