Nothing but Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.”

  Boone glanced at her, a sideways look that she decided not to oblige. “I checked on Jack,” he finally said. “And Tucker, although don’t get your hopes up.”

  But PJ grinned. “Really? Does he have a motive?”

  “He might. He was in the bank a couple weeks ago trying to get a loan. They turned him down.”

  “So you don’t think Jack’s guilty?”

  “I didn’t say that, now, did I? Just because I’m asking around doesn’t mean I buy your theories.”

  Uh-oh, she’d stirred the old troublemaker in Boone, the one who argued with her just because he could.

  “But you think I might be right. Something inside you feels it.”

  “I feel something, that’s for sure.”

  Ho-kay. PJ got up and walked out into the cool grass, running it between her toes, cleaning off the sand. The lawn needed cutting and curled around her bare feet.

  “Okay.” Boone rose from the front steps, hooking his keys into his pocket. “I might have a few questions. Like, there was no sign of a struggle, even though the house was ransacked. So if it was Jack, he would have had to blindside him—Ernie was strong enough to fight back. The ME says that Ernie’s neck was broken cleanly but that bruises on his knees indicate that he fell, probably after being killed. If Jack killed him, he’d have to have been on top of him on the table, and Ernie wouldn’t have fallen.”

  In the moonless night and from this distance, she couldn’t clearly read Boone’s face, especially with his back to the porch light.

  “Then there’s Jack’s confession about why he attacked Ernie at the club.”

  “Oh?”

  “Ancient coins. Ernie bought and sold them on the Internet. He convinced Jack to let him invest his money for him—and Ernie emptied out his bank account.”

  “Hence Trudi’s account being empty.”

  “Jack was panicked, thought maybe Ernie was taking him for a ride.”

  “Which gives him motive.” She turned, settling herself into the curve of the cottonwood in the front yard. “So he had opportunity and motive . . . but can he break a guy’s neck?”

  “He’s a physical therapist. I’d say . . . yes.”

  PJ nodded.

  She could hear Boone moving silently through the grass like a panther. She caught the scent of a clean Boone: soap and that aura of fresh air and freedom that had always hypnotized her lifted from him, heady and going right to her common sense.

  For a second she didn’t care why he was here or even if he believed her. Just that he wanted her back.

  Why was it so hard for her to be the girl she longed to be whenever Boone entered her airspace? It was like, despite her best efforts, the old PJ—the nothing-but-trouble PJ—took control of her thoughts, her heart, and made her do things that, in the light of day, she might run from. She didn’t want Boone. Really. She wanted a nice guy, the kind who would go to church with her and see in her the woman who longed to live by faith instead of by her passions.

  But that kind of guy didn’t want her, exhibit A being Matthew “it’s not working for me” Buchanan.

  Clearly she didn’t know what she wanted. Which left her where?

  “I can’t go for a walk with you, Boone,” she said, her voice catching on her own longings. “I have to go back inside. Davy is upstairs.”

  He closed in on her, his arm touching the branch above her head. “Maybe I could come in.”

  Yeah, and they both knew where that would lead. “I don’t think so. The Russians are here.”

  “You make it sound so Cold War.” His hand touched her chin, lifting it. “Incoming.”

  C’mon, PJ, pull yourself together. “Really, Boone, you can’t stay.”

  She was going to have to do better than that. There was a part, way deep inside her, that clucked with disgust.

  “You know, I could say I’m here on official business. Protecting you.”

  “Protecting me?” PJ stared into his eyes, caught in their magnetic pull.

  “If Jack didn’t kill Hoffman, then there’s a murderer out there.”

  Oh.

  “Oh! You’re right!” She ducked out from under his arm, and for a long moment he just stood there, as if a beat behind, trying to catch up. But she’d already paced away from him. “The murderer is still out there!”

  Boone turned, and the porch light caught his wounded expression. “Peej, what does a guy need to do—”

  “I’m serious! You need to be looking for him.” She pointed to the great “out there,” her breath quick in her chest.

  “There’s no murderer—”

  “There is, and I’d start by looking at Ben Murphy and where he was on Monday morning!”

  “You are kidding me! Have you completely lost your mind?” As he advanced on her, she ran to the porch steps. “Ben Murphy, our math teacher? Seriously?”

  “Listen, the guy has a motive—Ernie was after his goat!”

  The second she said it, the second the words left her mouth, she wanted to reach out and snatch them back, tuck them inside for another good perusal before she let that theory out into the light.

  Boone stood a step below her, his eyes even with hers; all humor, all desire vanished from his face. “Really. You are something else.”

  PJ’s throat thickened. “You used to say I was everything,” she said, softly, too softly to cover the quiver in her voice. She tried for a smile.

  Boone shook his head. “I’m not kidding, PJ. I don’t care how much I’ve missed you. If you interfere, I’ll haul you in faster than—”

  “Your father did on prom night?”

  His mouth opened and she clenched her jaw, not sure where that had come from, suddenly unable to look at the sting on his face. His face twitched, and he looked down at his sandaled feet. “You just don’t want to forgive me, do you?”

  PJ swallowed, looking past him, something gritty in her throat. “I . . .” She did want to forgive him—had already, long ago. Hadn’t she?

  “Someday you’re going to get over the past and realize that we all make mistakes,” Boone said quietly. Then he crossed the grass and disappeared into the dark fold of night.

  PJ stood there on the step, the stonework cold on her bare feet, the heat of summer dissipating in the cool night. She wrapped her arms over her shoulders as she watched Boone’s door open. For a moment, the light illuminated him—bronze hair, strong frame, the boy turned man she couldn’t escape.

  He drove away without looking at her.

  She was turning to go into the house when she saw it, illuminated by Boone’s passing headlights. A small white hatchback with a little red sign on the roof.

  Pizza delivery.

  The engine turned over and the car pulled out from the curb, the driver’s cap low over his eyes.

  PJ ran inside and locked the door behind her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dear Ms. Nicholson,

  Please forgive my recent outburst about the missing library book—

  Dear Fellows Director,

  I know that attire sets an example for others, and I apologize—

  Dear Fellows Hall Monitor,

  Okay, I can agree that maybe lateness is a metaphor for disrespect, but I promise that David is not the instigator—

  PJ took the stationery, wadded it into a hard ball, and threw it at the chrome basket in Connie’s sleek office. It ricocheted off the neat black credenza, the tall bookshelves stacked with smart books, and landed on the white Berber carpet. She glared at the formal picture of Connie and Davy on the computer screen—Davy in a black three-piece suit, his wavy hair tamed into place, sitting up straight and grinning while his mother cupped his shoulder and offered a sweet, chaste smile.

  All evidence of her deceased husband had vanished. An intimate photo of Sergei, standing bare-chested with a towel around his wide neck, grinning, perched in a five-by-seven frame next to the leather pencil ho
lder.

  PJ turned it facedown, feeling too much like an intruder. In the next room, Vera was trying to coax some sort of deep-fried bread into Davy’s mouth while he pinned it shut and made noises like a wounded animal.

  Boris sat outside in a Speedo, with his goat.

  Dear Fellows Highbrows—

  Math homework, in kindergarten?

  Dear Connie,

  I’m really sorry. But . . . seriously . . . Fellows?

  PJ gathered up the debris of her thoughts, dumped the lot into the garbage, turned out the light to the office, and left. “Time for bed, Davy.” She held out her hand.

  To her surprise, he slid off the stool and took it. “Horton?”

  “You got it, little man.”

  She read the story and two others before finally tucking him in. A light rain this evening had diluted the heavy summer heat and stirred the sweet syrup of flowers and fresh grass into the air. She’d left his window open, and now the crickets enriched the darkness with their song.

  “Auntie PJ, can we go to church again?”

  PJ brushed his hair from his face. “Do you and your mommy go to church?” The fact that he’d waged very little war this morning when she’d packed him up and brought him to the Kellogg Praise and Worship Center suggested he knew what he was doing. Then again, she’d slunk into the back and kept him supplied with a candy bar she dug out of her bag to keep him quiet.

  “Grandma brings me to her church sometimes.” He rolled over onto his side. “I saw Daniel and Felicia at church today. They want me to come over and play with them. Can I?”

  PJ hadn’t expected to see Maxine, nor to receive the hug that Trudi’s friend gave her. How she appreciated the way Maxine steered the conversation wide around their friend’s current pain. PJ had called Trudi that afternoon and been updated on her despair. Jack still sat in jail. They were still broke.

  And PJ still believed that Jack was innocent. Despite the mounting evidence against him. She had to believe her instincts—they were about all she had left.

  “Did you like church?” PJ gathered his dirty clothes and gave another cursory look for the library book, this time under the DVDs.

  “It’s loud,” he murmured, his voice drowsy.

  “Yeah.” PJ kissed him on the forehead as he closed his eyes.

  She took a bath, then put on her pajamas. From her window, she spied Boris limelighted by the outside spot, dressed in his scary blue nylon workout pants. He poured feed from a bag into a bucket. Yeah, right, get a clue, pal. Dora the Goat—Davy’s choice of names—was going to be hiccuping gladiolas all night.

  After cracking the window open, she turned off the light and climbed into bed, listening to the house groan in the darkness. The water from her empty claw-foot tub in the bathroom plinked, and the smell of the lilac bath oil she’d used scented her sister’s white cotton sheets as PJ flopped back onto the pillows. Connie was going to take her head off when she saw the damage in the garden. Or when she found out Davy hadn’t learned long division by the time she got home.

  But . . . he had gotten his shoulders wet and learned to trust her, hadn’t he? Auntie PJ. She could quickly fall in love with the singsong of her name in his little voice.

  And what to do with the goat? Tomorrow she’d have to get serious about disposing—er, adopting it out. But what if Boris took it as a personal insult? Worse, would the consumption of Connie’s gladiolas mean a rough start to her new married life?

  Not to mention the fact that Jack still sat in the Kellogg lockup and that Trudi was losing her home and future right before her eyes.

  Lord, a little help here?

  Instead of a calming voice, she heard Boone’s words from last night: “You just don’t want to forgive me, do you?”

  She had forgiven him, hadn’t she?

  She closed her eyes, seeing his broken, pained expression. She hated how it created the smallest ball of satisfaction inside her chest, how she clung to it. Even before she became a Christian, she knew that a person had to forgive to move on. It seemed pretty easy to forgive, or at least think she’d forgiven, when sitting in a pew surrounded by praise music. But in the real world, that’s when forgiveness got gritty.

  Maybe, despite the miles she’d put on her Bug, she hadn’t left Kellogg at all.

  PJ pulled the covers up to her chin, staring at the ceiling. Watching the fan whir in the shadows.

  Okay, so she hadn’t forgiven him. Because . . . then what?

  Her unforgiveness lay like a boulder in the center of her stomach, heavy and taking up too much room. Maybe it had kept her tethered to Boone or at least to the past. Kept the blame on him for everything that had gone wrong in her life—from the night she left Kellogg, through all her travels, her job changes, her crazy whims that some might call mistakes, to a warm beach in Florida, throwing a shoe at Matthew. Maybe not forgiving Boone just made it easier to live with herself and her own failures.

  PJ sat up, turned on one of the bedside lamps, and stared at herself in the mirror across from the bed (which, by the way, was a horrible place for a mirror). In this light she looked tired, her dark red hair hanging in long tangles around her head after her bath. She touched Boone’s name on her shoulder. She probably could have turned it into flowers or something else long ago.

  “You just don’t want to forgive me, do you?”

  No, she just didn’t want to face the truth. That maybe the past ten years weren’t Boone’s fault at all. That once she made the decision to leave Kellogg and not look back, everything she did—every choice, every action, every mistake—had been hers alone. She was the only one responsible for the person she’d become today.

  And frankly, she didn’t know if she liked that person.

  What might it feel like to be free of the stone inside? to forgive Boone? take back her life? start over, a true new creation?

  The thought took her, filled her, pressed tears to her eyes. “I want to forgive him, Lord. Help me to forgive.” She covered her eyes with the heels of her hands, listened to her breathing. “Help me to start over.”

  “Lord, help me understand the person I’m supposed to be here.” The prayer she’d spoken in the shadowed hush of the sanctuary filled her mind now. She thought she was supposed to help Trudi . . . but maybe Boone was right; maybe she was just interfering. Except it had felt right, even good, to be doing something for someone else. To finally be the friend that Trudi deserved.

  She got out of bed, the floor chilly to her bare feet, and dug around in her duffel for her Bible, then paged open to the verse from this week’s sermon . . . 1 Peter 1, was it?

  “To God’s elect, strangers in the world . . . who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying of work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus . . .”

  Sanctifying work. The pastor today had suggested it might be more than just being a better person. That it meant becoming a servant for Christ. Someone different, set apart.

  PJ knew all about being different, but maybe she could be set apart for God to use. The kind of person who stood up for the innocent. Stood up for those who couldn’t find their voice.

  Starting with Jack and Trudi.

  She closed her Bible and tucked it next to her pillow, then turned off the light.

  She had to get inside Hoffman’s house. Maybe she could find some of those coins, sort out if they had something to do with his murder.

  But how, exactly?

  “I could use some help, Lord.”

  The sweet smell of evening and the sound of crickets harmonized her into sleep.

  * * *

  She knew it was a dream, knew that she couldn’t change a thing. Still, she tried—tried to change the wine-red dress she’d had tailor-made, with the empire waist, V-neck, spaghetti straps, and shirred front. Tried to change the look on Boone’s face when he picked her up, scrutinizing her with those approving eyes.

  PJ settled into the dream, feeling royal as she step
ped from Boone’s father’s Cadillac, floating into prom on his tuxedoed arm. Roger Buckam stood near the door and nodded toward them. His eyes tight, he shook Boone’s hand, his gold pinkie ring glinting under the light of the torches that lined the walkway.

  Couples strolled the golf course just outside the halo of light pushing through the club windows. Boone winked at her, then ushered her into the dance.

  She hadn’t been much of a drinker even then, but when Trudi slipped her a taste of the liquid she’d poured into a medicine bottle in her purse, well, she hadn’t been able to eat strawberries since without thinking of schnapps. She laughed too loud, danced hard, flirted well, and by midnight, Boone pulled her tight and offered an invitation that, even in her mood-heightened state, made her blush.

  She’d agreed to meet him on the fourth tee, and he disappeared. “Boone? Boone?” She heard her voice, wondered if she spoke aloud, but then found herself at the pond, high heels swinging from her fingers. Overhead, the night sky played along with Boone’s plans, stars winking at her, a slight breeze sullying a nearby willow, a golden near-full moon stealing her breath as well as any last remorse.

  He loved her. Boone loved her.

  And tonight, she’d love him back. A swirl of anticipation tightened inside her.

  She heard laughter—Boone’s, husky and deep—from the country club, and it lured her near enough to find him sitting on the back steps with his football cohort and Trudi’s date, Greg Morris. Boone held the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, and when he saw her standing barefoot in the shadows next to the dripping air conditioner, he looked up at her like a deer in the headlights.

  Yes, that’s right; she’d heard him.

  She vaguely heard him tell Greg to get lost as she yanked the cigarette from him. He found his feet. “PJ—”

  “Don’t even try, Boone.” She stared at the cigarette, her entire body shaking. “You totally cheapened our . . . wrecked—”

  A group of boys walked by—football buddies—and Boone lifted his hand in greeting. They laughed, and one gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Does the entire school know?” She had the urge to fling the cigarette to the ground, but she was barefoot and not about to put it out with her pedicure. “Here.” She handed the smoke back to him. “That’s the most ‘fun’ you’re going to have tonight.”