Nothing but Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  Boone put down the clipboard, backed her up to his police cruiser, and lowered his voice to a gravelly whisper. “In my book, shooting a PI is close to shooting a cop. It’s serious, Peej.”

  “PI?” Suddenly everything lined up. She could nearly hear the clicking in her brain as she watched Jeremy sitting in the ambulance, stone-faced, cold eyes on her.

  Her mind went back to the shadows in the garage, saw Jeremy hiding from Boone, remembered how he knew exactly where she lived, considered his covert supersleuthing of their list of suspects. Of course he was a PI.

  And apparently she was too. A Perfect Idiot.

  “How did you get my gun?” Boone had taken a step back, and the look on his face made her want to, uh, shoot him.

  “I didn’t take your gun!”

  “It’s mine. And it went missing the night we went shooting together.”

  “I didn’t take it.”

  “I keep running it over in my mind—it was when I went to turn in our equipment, wasn’t it? You slipped it out of the case into that black-hole purse of yours—”

  “Why would I steal your gun?”

  “Where’s the other one?”

  “You’re kidding me, right? Two guns are missing?”

  Boone paced away from her, said something nasty under his breath, then rounded. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  No, and in that second the final vestiges of the boy he’d been vanished, replaced by a man she didn’t know, one with wrinkles framing his darkening blue eyes and a solid, angry set to his mouth and tense, ropy shoulders that carried what he must consider to be his biggest mistake.

  Trusting her.

  “I didn’t think to check until last night, and even then, I never considered you, PJ. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  She sucked wind. “I didn’t take your guns, and I didn’t shoot Jeremy. And I can’t believe you don’t believe me.”

  He held up his hand, palm out, as if to push her words away. “Please, just stop talking.”

  Another cop walked over, this one thin and younger than Boone, holding the gun in a cloth, as if there were any question her fingerprints were all over it. “If we find the bullet, we’ll be able to match it to the gun.” He gestured to the two detectives that roamed the picnic area.

  Boone took the gun and dropped it into an evidence bag. He didn’t look at her when he said, “It’s clear that it’s been recently shot, and there’s a bullet missing from the magazine. We can test your hands for residue. If it’s clear, you’re off the hook.”

  “Please. I watch CSI. I know that it takes more than two days for gun residue to wear off. If you’ll recall, I went shooting with you less than forty-eight hours ago.”

  “I also recall teaching you to load and shoot a gun. Don’t go anywhere.” Boone walked over to Jeremy.

  Like where? South Dakota? She sighed.

  Across the parking lot, Jeremy pushed the paramedics away, arguing with them as he got up and approached her. He still wore the unfriendly tint in his dark eyes, and her stomach gave a curl of pain.

  Why did she care? He’d lied to her.

  “I have to say, you surprise me more than anyone I know.” Venom now infected his normally teasing, warm voice.

  “I didn’t shoot you, Jeremy. I promise.”

  Boone looked up from where he conferred with his fellow cops and met eyes with Jeremy.

  PJ saw it, and her mouth fell open. “You’re in cahoots, aren’t you? How do you know him?” She turned to Jeremy, heat rising in her voice.

  “Boone and I work together occasionally. He asked me to keep an eye on you, try and keep you out of trouble.”

  She locked eyes with Jeremy, hoping to turn him to ash. “Two lies. You told me you were Jack’s cousin.”

  “I am. And a PI. And I was trying to find out who framed Jack.”

  “While babysitting me.” She shook her head. “I don’t need babysitting.”

  Jeremy gave a nasty snort.

  “Did you lie about being a Christian too?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Hey—”

  “Don’t even talk to me.”

  No wonder he hadn’t been afraid of them getting in trouble at the country club. She’d endured a night noosing herself in her bedsheets for nothing.

  Boone came over. “I’m taking you in for questioning.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You shot me,” Jeremy said, like she’d forgotten.

  She ignored his tone and glanced at his bandaged arm. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s bad enough.” Jeremy turned away, as if washing his hands of her.

  Boone grabbed her arm but she twisted out of his grasp. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I can cuff you.”

  “Don’t even think it.”

  Options ran through Boone’s expression, all twisted in a look of frustration. Finally he opened the back door of the cruiser. “Please?”

  “This isn’t fair,” she said, climbing inside. “I’m innocent and you know it. Again.”

  He flinched, a gesture that gave her not nearly enough satisfaction as he closed the door.

  Jeremy was climbing into the ambulance as they pulled away. And behind that, a tow truck began hitching up the wheels of her Bug.

  Boone got into the front seat, his face blank.

  PJ leaned back against the seat, remembering too easily the haunting, oily smell of the backseat of a police cruiser, wondering if her mother would post bail.

  * * *

  “Local Girl Shoots PI.”

  The headline lasered into her brain as Boone led her through the station to the cells in the basement.

  She couldn’t believe she’d been formally arrested.

  With each step she took, past the desk attendant Rosie, downstairs and into the holding cell area, then past a collection of other Kellogg truants, the truth drilled farther into her soul.

  She’d never escape trouble.

  Boone opened the cell door. An overhead light fractured the darkness inside the clean yet barren, solitary, cement-and-metal cell. At the end of the hall, a barred and dirty window tried to barricade even the gaunt sunlight.

  She stumbled into the dungeon, her legs numb.

  “I’m sorry, Peej.”

  “Go away.”

  He sighed and looked like he might cry or maybe send his fist through something. “I want you to know that I . . . I’m not sure you shot Jeremy. It’s just that right now we don’t have a better explanation.”

  “Sorta like you blamed Jack because he was the most logical suspect?” She let her voice drive that point home. “Old habits are hard to break, I guess.”

  His face hardened. “Do you want me to call your mother?”

  “Oh yes, please. She’ll be thrilled to hear from you. Don’t forget to include the part where I stole your guns while we were on a date, and how you arrested me despite the fact that I’m innocent. She’ll be glad to know I’m in really good hands.” She forced every bit of rancor she could into her voice, needing to hold on to her anger. Otherwise she just might crawl under the metal bed, roll into a ball, and scream.

  “Fine then. You can do the calling.” He sounded defeated, his voice without heat.

  She hated the tears that burned her eyes.

  He didn’t move, however. Didn’t close the cell, didn’t reach out to her. Just stood there as if unable to move, as if his world lay on the floor in jagged pieces. “I wish I could get you out of this.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  He winced. “Because . . .”

  Oh. Because if he didn’t bring her in, then the voices would return, the ones from his childhood that told him he was trash. After all these years, he too was caught in time, watching her with tortured eyes as the cops dragged the girl he loved away. Still trapped between honor and his future. I forgive you, Boone. The thought rushed through her and pushed her hand to her mouth, wrenched her breath from her chest. I forgive you.

 
; The years of anger, the blame, the regret, suddenly loosened from her. She reached out for the bed, sat hard on it, and hung her head in her hands, shaking.

  “Peej?” Boone crouched before her, touched her knee.

  “You’re right, Boone. It’s not your fault my life is a mess. I screwed it up all on my own.”

  “I’m right? Did I ever say that it’s your fault? I—if anyone is to blame, it’s me for betraying you.”

  “Maybe you didn’t betray me as much as I betrayed myself. Maybe I’ve been hoping all these years that someone would stand up for me. That someone would believe in me. And when that didn’t happen, I ran. Kept running. But that’s my fault. I should have stood up to my mother and to your dad—to the entire town. But I didn’t believe in my ability to stand alone.”

  He closed his eyes. Lowered his head to touch her knee. “And I only made that worse.” His voice was so soft she could barely hear it. When he looked up, even in the dimmed light, she saw tears in his eyes. “I believe in you, PJ. I always have. And I should have stood beside you. That’s what killed me when you left.” He touched her face lightly, as if seeing it for the first time after years of absence. “And why I thought my life might have started over when you returned. Something about you just makes me think everything is going to be okay. It gives me strength to be a better man than I know I am. You’ve always been the light in my world.”

  Oh, Boone. When would she escape his hold on her?

  “It’s time I figure out who I am and how to stand up for myself. Alone, if I have to.” PJ framed his face in her hands.

  “Boone?” The male voice echoed down the hall.

  “I’ll be right there.” He removed her hands from his face but held them a moment before he shook his head, rose, and walked out.

  The click of the cell door resounded like a trigger.

  Chill seeped into her. She drew up her legs and folded her arms around them, as fetal position as she could get.

  She hadn’t shot Jeremy. She knew they’d eventually figure that out, so she turned to the bigger questions: who stole Boone’s gun, and why would the thief put it in the trunk of her car?

  And why would someone make an appointment for Jack that they didn’t intend to keep?

  The truth landed like a fist in her chest.

  To frame Jack.

  PJ got to her feet, pacing to keep warm. Who would set Jack up for a crime?

  Footsteps scuffed down the hall. She stepped back as Jeremy appeared. He looked grim, with a bandage around his upper arm and eyes that held no humor.

  “Ten stitches.”

  “I did mention that I didn’t do it, right?”

  He nodded to someone down the hall, and her door slid open. After Jeremy walked in, it closed behind him. He pressed his lips together as he sat down on the bed.

  “Not afraid to be alone with me? I might strangle you with a shoelace.”

  “You’re wearing flip-flops.”

  “I’ll—I don’t know—do something villainous.” She let her tone bite despite her lack of appropriate threat. How she longed to be dark and dangerous just once.

  “Stop.” He ran his hand over his head, sighing. “I’m not supposed to be visiting you, but I thought I’d let you tell me in your own words why you did it.”

  “Did what? Shoot you?”

  He considered her with a look that should have scared her. But it couldn’t penetrate her righteous anger. “I finally figured it out while I was sitting in the waiting room. I can’t believe I let you fool me like you did.”

  “Huh?”

  “You roll into town after being gone for ten years, and within two days, one of the men who blamed you for burning down the clubhouse is dead—your history teacher, if I get my facts right. What, did seeing him at the club on Sunday dredge up too many painful memories?”

  Her mouth opened but no sound emerged. Jeremy hadn’t just been babysitting—he’d been investigating her.

  “Did he plead for his life, PJ? Maybe offer you money? this Nero coin collection? After you killed him, did you start to wonder if it was true? Maybe you went back to his house to look again, tore it apart. Good thing Boone drove up or you’d have gotten away with it.”

  “Gotten away . . .” She found disbelief but no words.

  “Then, to throw me off the track, you dragged me to the library and fed me a tall tale, all the time planning to kill everyone who wronged you.”

  “Can you hear yourself?”

  “And then, when you realized I’d figured it out, you tried to kill me. I guess my interrogation touched a few nerves, huh? Like when I suggested it was a crime of passion, even revenge. I have to say, PJ Sugar, you’re good. I guess I should be thankful you don’t have better aim.”

  Oh, she had spot-on aim. Except apparently when it came to trusting the men in her life. “Have you lost your mind? Did they give you painkillers? Because I think you might be having an allergic reaction.”

  He grabbed her wrist.

  She stepped back, snapped it out of his grasp. “You’re serious. Even in your delirium. You actually think that—what, I’m a murderer? That I came back, like Carrie, to enact my prom night revenge? Oh yes, I have kung fu written all over me. The goat—it’s really a killer Doberman in disguise. I meant to take you out in the car, but dear old Fido died on his watch.”

  Jeremy’s eyes tightened into small angry bullets. “You yourself said you had learned every trade in the book. Certainly in there you learned how to break a man’s neck.”

  “Yeah, they taught that in my manicurist’s class. Why would I do that?”

  “Like I said. Betrayal. Revenge.”

  “I’m not here to kill anyone! I just want to hang out at the beach with Davy, get a tan.”

  But that wasn’t entirely true either. She’d wanted more—to maybe murder her lingering reputation as a troublemaker. Find a new one as a rescuer. “Why would I set up Jack?”

  “To hurt Trudi.”

  “I love Trudi. She’s my best friend.”

  “But didn’t she blame you too? I read the police reports. She testified that she saw you with the cigarette that started the fire.”

  “Trudi wasn’t even there—” But her boyfriend Greg had been. And he’d also known the truth. PJ closed her eyes, pressed her thumb and forefinger to her temples. “I didn’t know that.”

  “You purposely brought Boone out to the shooting range so that you’d have residue on your hands.”

  She opened her eyes, wanting with everything inside her to shake his crazy words out of her brain. “I can’t believe you’re actually saying this to me. That you think . . . I didn’t kill Hoffman. Just like I didn’t shoot you. Someone’s setting me up, just like Jack. Someone who wants me out of the way—”

  “Stop. It’s time to confess the truth, PJ.”

  A coldness pressed through her and she ran her eyes over him, saw the strong arms, lethal hands, face chiseled with the grim truth. Jeremy Kane, former SEAL, could probably kill a man with his bare hands.

  “Boone!” She ran to the cell bars, framed her face with them. “Boone!”

  What, was he on a coffee break?

  Jeremy closed his mouth, and she thought she saw real confusion on his face. In her mind she saw everything they’d gone through over the past few days, from the garage to the pizza to the goat, from the B and E at the country club to the moment in the car only hours ago when he’d looked right into her soul and spoken words of truth.

  “What are you doing?”

  She turned, gripping the bars behind her, measuring Jeremy, wondering if she could resurrect any of those fight scenes she’d learned as a stunt girl. “Boone!”

  No Boone to her rescue. But the image of her mangled body in the middle of the cold, undecorated cell dissipated as Jeremy held up his hands as if horrified by her tone. “Calm down, PJ!”

  “I’m not going to stay here and let you kill me!”

  He recoiled as if she had slapped him, his mouth
open. “What—?”

  “I’m not stupid. This is just so . . . predictable. Blame it on me, and then come in here—what, were you going to tell Boone I attacked you? that you had to defend yourself?”

  Jeremy wrapped his hands around her upper arms. “Stop it. I’m not going to hurt you!”

  She launched out with the palm of her hand, connecting with his chin. His head snapped back and she ducked under his arm and leaped onto the bed. “Stay away.”

  Jeremy pressed his hand to his chin but kept his distance. “Get ahold of yourself. I’m not going to hurt you.” He shook his head, as if she’d really rung his bell.

  Good. She balled her fists. “Yeah, there’s more where that came from, pal.” So what if her voice shook. And she was probably lying, because, well, she could do the math, and he had a good fifty pounds on her, not to mention a killer set of muscles. But she was quick. And a little bravado went a long way.

  He ran his hands through his hair, and the anger deflated from his expression, matching his voice. “Put ’em down, slugger. I can concede that maybe I overreacted. It’s just that as I sat in the ER, it made sense.”

  “I told you it was the drugs talking.” Her voice wobbled and adrenaline made her light-headed. She stepped off the bed, bracing her arm on the wall. “A dozen people saw me at the shooting range with Boone on Friday, even my mailman. What if one of those people is the real killer, and they’re trying to get everyone to look at me? Or maybe they were trying to take you out and make me run—”

  Jeremy folded his arms, eyes on her.

  “I’m just saying there are other options. You out of everyone, Mr. PI, should understand that.”

  She could tell she had his attention now, if not his confidence, by the way he sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “I guess, with your history, that’s not so far-fetched.”

  “Yeah, and what if Hoffman wasn’t the Doc, like we thought, but maybe the Doc lives somewhere here in Kellogg, and the assassin tracked him through the Internet? And because Hoffman was selling Nero coins, he thought Hoffman was the Doc, only he got it wrong and—”

  Uh-oh, she was losing him.

  “We’re back to that?”

  “—and now he’s going to get the real Doc while we sit here and argue, and Jack and I are going to go to prison for crimes we didn’t commit.”