A Box Full of Trouble

by Carolyn Haines

  The empty bottle, I scream at her, but she doesn’t understand. I jump to the floor and roll the bottle toward her.

  At once Abby picks it up, and still holding the tire gauge, she jumps out of the car. In one swift move, she pulls back her arm and throws the bottle at the assailant and points the tire gauge at him. She holds it in both hands like a gun, screaming, “I’ll shoot, I will.”

  The bottle bounces off the assailant’s shoulder and he jerks from the hit. Layla jams her heel down hard on his foot. Not the toes, but the instep. Good girl, she’s obviously taken some self-defense courses. I launch myself out of the open door and land, claws out, on the attacker’s barely exposed face under the hoodie. I catch a whiff of body odor, stale and offensive.

  As I mark the attacker’s face with my sharp claws, he yells out and drops the shiny thing he held. It hits the concrete with a little ding. Without pausing in my own attack, I glance down for a split-second to realize it’s only a plastic knife. The assailant knocks at me with frantic hands until I drop to the ground. Free of my claws, he runs out of the alley. The panic button continues to scream, and somebody slams open the back door of the office and shouts, “Shut that damn thing off.”

  “Help us,” Abby calls back.

  I take off after the fleeing marauder, eager for an even better look at this malefactor with his pathetic plastic knife. But as I race around the corner of the alley out onto the street with the assailant a few yards in front, a crowd comes out from a building between me and the running felon. Not even one of them gives chase to the assailant, though they do manage to block me in my pursuit.

  The assailant is lost to me. There’s nothing else I can do. I dart back to Abby and Layla. The young man who came out the rear door of the building is ranting into a cell phone and Abby is holding Layla in her arms. Neither of them is crying, and I purr, “Good girls.”

  “He wanted my backpack, that’s all,” Layla says as she pulls away from Abby. “Just a mugger. Don’t be so melodramatic.”

  “He wanted to kill you,” Abby says. “I saw the knife.”

  “You saw a plastic knife.” Layla suddenly laughs. “This whole thing was like a dumb high school skit, really. Him with his dinky plastic and you with the tire gauge. Nobody with a real weapon.”

  “This isn’t funny. Stop laughing. He wanted to kill you.”

  “If he’d wanted to kill me, he’d have killed me.” Layla says it with a certain sense of finality, as if she no longer wishes to talk about it.

  I must admit, she has a point.

  A police car drives into the alley, lights flashing but no siren, and a young officer steps out. Everyone talks at once, even the chap from inside the office, who didn’t see a thing but seems to believe his opinion is as valid as if he had. Abby calls him Emmett in a tone that suggests they are not going to be exchanging Christmas cards. I give Emmett a hard look—he’s chubby, dark-haired, dressed in white shirt and gray canvas pants and wears thick glasses. He strikes me as one of those all-mouth-no-trousers types, and I turn back to Abby and Layla.

  After making sure no one is hurt, the police officer rattles off the obvious questions. Layla insists that her attacker was looking for drugs or money to get drugs and it was nothing personal.

  Everybody’s attention soon focuses on a Mercedes sport car that speeds into the alley. A lean, elegant man steps out, his thick black hair streaked with silver. Definitely toff and stylish even in his casual clothes, the man looks like someone off a movie poster.

  “Layla, are you hurt?” As he speaks, the man moves toward Layla, his hands lifting and opening as if offering to hold her.

  She turns and run into his arms.

  “Who’s that?” the police officer asks.

  Exactly what I am wondering too.

  “That’s Phillip Draper, the named partner in the law firm.” Abby glances back at Layla, then turns her attention to the officer. “Emmett here called him.”

  Emmett pushes forward, offering his hand to the police officer. “Emmett Winchester Layton, sir. Third-year law student, working late. Totally devoted to this law firm and these young ladies. Glad to be of service. I felt a senior partner needed to be apprised of the situation.”

  The cop shakes Emmett’s hand but then ignores him.

  Abby continues as if Emmett had never spoken. “Layla is Mr. Draper’s law clerk and assistant and they work together closely.”

  I scamper up on a trash can for a better look at Layla and Mr. Draper.

  Very closely, it would seem.

  Chapter Five

  “Well, at least the cop was cute,” Layla said.

  “How can you possibly joke?” Abby was driving Layla’s car at a considerably safer speed than Layla had earlier, and they were nearly back to her house.

  “Oh, come on, lighten up. The guy only had a plastic knife. I mean, his breath was more of a deadly weapon. And I wasn’t joking. The cop was cute.” Layla twisted a loop of her black wavy hair around a finger. “And, unless I can’t read the signs anymore, he was interested in you. Even flirty.”

  Yes, the cop had been flirty. But Abby hadn’t felt even the slightest inclination to flirt back. Besides, they’d met at a mugging—how could that be a good start to anything romantic?

  Thinking about bad ways to meet men made Abby remember how she’d met Jason, the man who officially broke her heart. She’d met him at a funeral. That should have told her something. After a hot, intense, six months with late night whisperings about moving in together, she’d caught him cheating. And he’d had the nerve to defend himself by blaming her. She still remembered how crushed—almost suicidal—she’d felt after he’d rationalized his actions by saying she was boring and dull and played it safe all the time, while he needed excitement and passion.

  If Jason hadn’t been bad enough, there was that huge crush she’d had on her law professor, Miguel Angel Castillo. Or that date with the tax attorney who explained in exquisitely painful details the tax regulations pertaining to her 401(k). Or that highly placed government official that Delphine set her up with—the man might have headed an important state agency, but he’d put on so much self-tanning lotion that he looked like a sweet potato and he kept touching her inappropriately. Or—

  Layla’s voice cut through Abby’s bitter memories. “No offense, but you live like a nun.” Layla held Trouble in her lap as the car crept around a turn. “You work all day, go home and tend your little garden and your potted plants and that aquarium, then you work some more and go to sleep.”

  “That’s not fair. I do other stuff too.” But Abby’s mood sank lower. First the mugging, not even getting started on Delphine’s trial brief, reliving Jason’s taunting, and now Layla was needling her.

  The cat—Trouble—stretched over toward her and rubbed his face against her hand as she slowed the car nearly to a stop at the round-about on Killearny Way. He purred, and Abby suddenly felt like the cat understood how she felt.

  “Okay, what other stuff do you do exactly?” Layla stared at Abby.

  As Abby glanced over to Layla, Trouble reached up and tapped Layla on her jaw with his paw. He was telling her to shut up!

  Suddenly Abby knew she wasn’t going to put that lost-cat notice on Craigslist, any more than she was going to post notices around the neighborhood. She wanted to keep this fellow. If she wasn’t fated to have a great love, she could have a great cat.

  “Yo, you listening to me, or what?” Layla sounded snappish. “What other stuff do you do?”

  “I cook, I exercise…I …” Abby floundered to a sputtering stop. Jogging and going to the gym and sautéing cod or salmon with broccoli hardly counted as a life.

  “Oh, come on, you don’t even eat ice cream.” Layla sounded vaguely disgusted.

  “And you can eat it. I can’t.” But at that last, a little note of pity sounded in her voice.

  “I’m sorry,” Abby said. “Let’s not fight. You take your insulin or whatever you need to do when we get home and
we’ll drink that wine. It’ll help you relax after what you went through. And tomorrow I’ll stop and get some sugar-free ice cream for you.”

  They pulled into Abby’s street and neither of them spoke. Abby thought back for a moment to the harrowing scene in the alley and how brave Layla had been. Trouble purred and head-butted her hand softly as if to remind her that she’d been brave too, though no one could have really thought the tire gauge was a gun. But Trouble himself had been the bravest of all. That stunt with the panic button was awesome. Abby wondered if it was accidental or somehow the cat had known what he was doing. And Trouble’s full-fledged attack on the mugger made the assailant drop everything and run.

  Yes, this cat was something special.

  The policeman had finally agreed that the mugger was just a mugger. Not a stalker or a rapist or a serial murderer. The raggedy clothes, the plea for drugs or money to buy drugs, the back alley and the fact Layla said the man smelled like someone who hadn’t bathed in days. It all fit—just a sad, pitiful homeless substance abuser looking for drugs, cash, or something to sell.

  And Mr. Draper coming all the way back from his house to see about Layla, how sweet was that?

  Abby rounded the curve on her home street and put on her blinker to turn into her driveway even though no other car was on the road. But as the Honda’s lights swept the area, she saw a strange pickup parked at the far edge of her wide driveway. There was room for Layla’s Honda to fit beside it, but Abby parked on the street and checked to see if the automatic locks had indeed secured the doors.

  “It’s all right.” Layla sounded tired. “It’s just Victor from law school.”

  While Abby had never met Victor, she’d heard Layla arguing with him on the phone. Abby assumed Layla and Victor had one of those turbulent, hot romances where fighting was part of the passion—that would seem to fit Layla’s personality. But now Abby was worn out and didn’t want to be caught up in a scene. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Who knows?” Layla glared at the pickup. “Since getting out of the Navy, Victor marches to his own drummer, if you know what I mean.”

  No, Abby didn’t know what Layla meant. She didn’t unlock the car doors and she didn’t switch off the lights. Instead, she watched as a man stepped out of the pickup. In the high beams, she could tell he was maybe five-ten or so and had sandy-colored hair, worn longer than convention or current style. As he walked toward the Honda, she took in the drape of his T-shirt against a flat stomach and muscled arms.

  She stared in appreciation. Layla definitely had good taste in men.

  When he got to the car, he drummed his fingers on Layla’s window, but Layla turned her face to the front and didn’t open her door or power down the window.

  Victor walked over to Abby’s window and tapped on the glass.

  Abby stared up into his square jaw, saw the one dimple on his cheek near his full lips, and she thought of Robert Redford in The Way We Were. Not a movie for her generation, but she, her mom, and grandmom had watched it so often on the DVD player when she was growing up she could recite parts of the dialogue.

  Layla assured her again that the man was totally harmless, so Abby powered down her window. When she noticed the furrowed forehead and the squint lines around his blue eyes, Abby was certain that things had not come too easily in this man’s life.

  “Hello,” he said. “My name is Victor Rutledge. I’m Layla’s friend.” He paused, glancing past Abby to Layla. “At least I hope I still am.”

  Beside Abby, Layla crossed her arms tightly across her chest and stared forward. Trouble arched up and purred.

  Abby thought the best thing she could do was leave them alone and let them work out this lover’s quarrel. She pushed the car door open, said a firm goodnight to the man, and hurried toward her front door.

  Chapter Six

  Victor eased into Abby’s house, keenly aware no one had invited him inside and no one seemed to want him there except maybe the cat. But Layla had been attacked and he wanted to be sure she was all right. And maybe he’d like to try to make a better impression on the redhead.

  As he pushed an irritating lock of his shaggy hair out of his face, he gazed around the house. Might as well take a good look since no one was talking to him. The redhead and Layla had marched into the kitchen, where they were busy warming up some left-over baked cod for the cat.

  Neat, clean, and well-organized. That was his initial impression of the house, though as he walked further into the living room, he reassessed. It was like a jungle. Potted plants everywhere, some on the floor, some on stands, some hanging from brackets on the wall. Interesting groupings of flowering scrubs and tropical-looking things in one corner with what he assumed was a grow light pointed at them. Then he saw the aquarium.

  “Wow.” Victor said it aloud, though no one was listening. The aquarium was twenty-five gallons and filled with brightly colored neon tetras, dashing about in their seemingly frantic way, well balanced by a few calm black mollies. The water was sparkling, and a high-tech pump hummed on the side. Snails, aquatic plants, a couple of bottom feeding catfish—a perfectly balanced and healthy aquarium. He should know. He had one too. Only smaller. After all those years in the Navy, where a potted Christmas cactus was about all he could handle as he moved about, he’d been hungry for a tank of fish, a cat, and a dog. So far, he had an aquarium.

  The redhead came out of the kitchen and gave him a curious look.

  “I’m sorry I barged in, but I want to be sure Layla is really okay.” He brushed his hair back again and admired her shiny red mane. Thick, shoulder-length, kind of a chestnutty red. “I’m Victor,” he added, though he’d already said that.

  “Abby,” she said.

  “I love the fish. I’ve got a tank too. Someday I’d like to try a saltwater aquarium.”

  “Oh, me too. I’ve been studying about it for years.” Abby’s voice lifted and there was no mistaking her sudden enthusiasm. “I want sea horses. Did you know the male raises the young and—”

  “Okay, so you two are bonding over fish. Trouble the cat is gorging on fish, and I’m ready to take a shower and go count fish to see if I can sleep.” Layla stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, casting her gaze back and forth between Victor, Abby, and the aquarium.

  Victor refrained from mentioning one counted sheep to encourage sleep. If Layla wanted to count fish, or toads, or whatever, that was fine with him.

  “Layla,” Victor said, his voice soft and mellow. “I’ve—”

  “I’m not—”

  The cat sauntered out of the kitchen, licking his mouth, and let out a plaintive meow. They all stared at him. He scampered to the door and scratched on it.

  “Litter box,” Abby said. “I don’t have one.”

  “Let him outside,” Layla said.

  “What if he runs away?” Abby knelt and petted the cat.

  Victor glanced at the clock on Abby’s mantel. After nine, but the Publix on Thomasville Road would still be open. “Give me half an hour, I’ll be back with a litter box.”

  Nobody objected and he hurried to his car.

  As he drove to the store, he thought about Abby. What a lovely young woman. He couldn’t help but be attracted to her slim, petite figure and her big eyes. But besides being cute, she obviously had a green thumb and a nurturing spirit. And taking in both a stray cat and a temporarily homeless Layla—that told Victor that Abby was generous and kind-hearted.

  Even so, he might as well forget her. He was so damn busy studying and trying to stay afloat in law school, there was no way he had time to date. Besides, his forced resignation from the Navy was sure to come up. He didn’t want to face accusations and rejection, especially from a woman who seemed so fundamentally decent and sweet.

  As he hurried into the store, thoughts of Abby drifted to his concern for Layla. Her kitchen caught fire—even though she wasn’t home at the time and the landlord had the fire out before too much damage. She was mugged—tho
ugh it appeared to be a random act and nothing personal.

  Was it just a run of bad luck? Or was there more to it?

  Maybe she was mixed up in something worse than he’d first suspected.

  Or maybe she really had left a greasy skillet on a hot stove like the fire inspector claimed. Maybe it was just coincidence a homeless person grabbed her backpack at the law firm.

  But as he picked up a large bag of cat litter and a litter pan, he couldn’t shake the growing unease he felt.

  Chapter Seven

  Abby glared at a pile of affidavits scattered on the rosewood table in front of her in the plush conference room at the law office, and pulled her jacket closed. Outside, the September sun might be sending the temperatures soaring, but in the conference room, the air conditioning kept the room just shy of freezing.

  She glanced at the teak-framed clock on the wall. The court reporter, her client, and the opposing attorney should be there any moment. She didn’t feel at all ready for taking a deposition, especially with only a couple of hours of sleep. What with the mugging and the new cat, her mind had whirled with anxiety most of the night.

  Not just anxiety either. To make matters worse, she’d kept thinking of Victor, his shaggy hair, that dimple, and how helpful he’d been. She kept reminding herself that he was Layla’s boyfriend, even if they were fighting at the moment. But she couldn’t deny the tingly feelings she had when she thought of him. Even now, a flush of warmth swept over her as she sat in the cold conference room.

  It had been a long time—a very long time—since any man had awakened such arousal in her.

  And, damn it all, he was somebody else’s boyfriend. More precisely, he was her temporary roommate’s lover, which made it all worse somehow.

  The conference room door opened and she shifted toward the sound. Instead of her client, Miguel Angel Castillo and Phillip Draper stepped into the conference room, with its silk wallpaper, lush plants, and fresh flowers. She was semi-hidden by a large peace lily in a brass pot, a thriving plant she’d been nurturing for years. Mr. Draper and Professor Castillo paused just inside the door and stood chatting about FSU football.