Licensed for Trouble Read online

  It was the way he said it, dark and husky, that reminded her that she knew very little about Jeremy Kane. Other than the fact that he always seemed to appear when she needed him, like the first time—dressed as a pizza deliveryman, hiding in the garage in just the right place to save her skin. He also had more faith in her than she deserved.

  But she couldn’t take his money, and she met his hard look with one of her own. “We need clients, and now.”

  She crouched next to the pile of fugitive recovery subjects messengered to them by Liberty Bondsmen and picked up the top file. “Bruno Dirkman.”

  “I’ll take care of that one, PJ.”

  She glanced at him, then opened the front cover. Attempted murder. Bruno glared into the camera as if hoping to take out her heart and chew on it. “Right.” She’d let the guy who’d done time as a Navy SEAL handle Bruno. She closed the file and picked up the next one. “Brad Knightly. Armed robbery.”

  “Him too. Just put him in my pile.”

  PJ put the file aside. “Keith Dennis. Assault—”

  “Mine.”

  She closed the file, angled a look at him. “Excuse me, but what are all those self-defense lessons for if not to apprehend fugitives?”

  Jeremy’s past gathered in his eyes for a moment; then he pasted his mouth into a grim line. “Self-defense is just that—defense. There’s a difference between defending yourself and apprehending someone. You need to be ready to follow through when you’re on the offense. You’ve walked into the fight with the goal of finishing it. Defense is about getting away to fight another day.”

  She opened her mouth, case in point already forming in her throat—

  “And I definitely want you alive to fight another day. You’re not going anywhere near those kinds of people.”

  “So let me get this straight. I can do fugitive recovery, but only the nice criminals.”

  One side of his mouth quirked up. “That about sums it up.”

  “I’m going to start calling you Boone.”

  His smile disappeared. “I’m not Boone, PJ.” He said it so softly it made her heart skitter. “I’m far from Boone.”

  Oh yes, that couldn’t be truer. Jeremy, with his steely demeanor, a man of few but poignant words, a tightly knotted control about him that she’d seen unravel only when he’d thought she might be hurt. Jeremy had a mysterious, breathtaking allure about him, the feel of autumn, like riding down a leaf-strewn road, churning up the fragrance of tomorrow in her wake. Yes, Jeremy was a dangerous mix of something sweetly familiar and the enticing scent of change. Boone, however, his presence woven into every high school memory, entwined with every future she’d envisioned, was a Saturday afternoon in the summer, the husky remnant of a sun-baked day still lazy in the wind. Easy, expected, comforting.

  In a way, she loved them both, needed them both. And in that, perhaps, she saw their alikeness.

  “His warning got to you. That bit about me getting hurt and his suggestion that you don’t deserve me.”

  “Oh,” Jeremy said, his eyes softening along with his voice, “I know I don’t deserve you.” He took a breath, and his tone contained an edge when he continued. “And Boone’s words were more to the tune of I’m going to get you hurt.”

  She wasn’t sure what sentence to address first. He didn’t deserve her? His whispered words, spoken before the first time he’d ever kissed her, chanted in the back of her brain. “I’m not ready for this.” And now he didn’t deserve her? It didn’t take her PI instincts to recognize a man fleeing the scene of the relationship, and fast.

  That settled it. She’d move her gear to the Vic starting tonight. She swallowed back the pain rushing into her throat. Wow, she had really duped herself this time.

  She managed an easy shrug. “I’m a private investigator. Getting hurt comes with the job.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Not necessarily? Do you mean the not-getting-hurt part or the fact that I haven’t gotten my license yet?”

  “Both, Sugar. The last thing I need is you getting hurt on my watch and having the Minnesota board yank my license. You still need hours of weapons, self-defense, legal, and first-responder training.”

  PJ tossed the files onto his lap. So that’s what all the babysitting was for . . . safeguarding his license.

  She got up and shuffled to the window, staring down at the college students hiking to class at the University of Minnesota campus, their messenger bags thumping against their backs. She’d never actually made it all the way to college.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t even be here.” She closed one eye in a cringe, wanting to pull back the leak of self-pity.

  She heard rustling behind her and jumped a little when Jeremy slid his hands over her shoulders. “Give it time, PJ. You can’t be a PI overnight.”

  She didn’t lean against him, but he didn’t remove his hands, either. She swallowed, palmed her hand against the cool glass, seeing her fingerprints as she pulled it away. “I just want to solve one amazing case without the answer sneaking up on me.”

  “You did.”

  She turned, expecting him to move away. But he didn’t. Just looked at her with those dark eyes, his strong hands now moving down to catch her wrists.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Fine. Name one.”

  “You found Gabby’s so-called stolen jewelry.”

  Gabby? The next-door neighbor of her previous client? “Oh, brother. You can hardly call that a case. Her cat was pushing her jewelry behind the furniture. Any housekeeper would have discovered the truth.”

  “You still solved it. And if you hadn’t, Gabby’s daughter would have convicted the old woman of losing her mind, and poor Gabby would be in an old folks’ home today.”

  “Jeremy, open your eyes!” She twisted her hands from his grip. “I nearly got her and myself and about four other people killed. Not to mention pushing my sister’s father-in-law into the middle of a carjacking ring, and let’s not forget nearly getting my nephew murdered by an assassin.”

  He hadn’t moved and now slid his hand around her neck, rubbed his thumb along her face. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a smidge?”

  She met his eyes. “Name one real crime I solved. Really solved. Me.”

  And then maybe it didn’t matter, because he kissed her. Sweetly, with nothing of the reluctant, desperate urgency of before—first her top lip, then her bottom, finally kissing both of them, gently nudging them open. She sighed and let herself curl toward him.

  See, she wasn’t much of a PI.

  Because she hadn’t seen that coming at all.

  Jeremy slid his other arm around her waist, pulling her closer to his chest.

  “Hello?”

  Jeremy moved her away from him so fast she thought she might fall over. He whirled around, holding her behind him, and she had to peek out at a . . . lawyer?

  The interloper standing in the open doorway looked like a lawyer, anyway. Tall and pinched, blond, and belly-white pale, as if he hadn’t seen the sun in over a decade, he wore a black suit and blue tie and clutched a briefcase. He approached them, his bony hand stretched out in greeting.

  “Michael Finch. I’m with Tyler and Finch, Attorneys.” He had to pick his way around Jeremy’s filing system—manila folders positioned like a mocked-up battlefield on the wooden floor.

  Jeremy met his hand. “Jeremy Kane. What can I do for you?”

  “Actually, I’m here to see Miss Sugar.” He nodded toward her, and PJ emerged from behind Jeremy.

  Finch shook her hand. His was cool and felt freshly lotioned. “Can I talk to you privately?”

  “Uh . . .” PJ shot a look at Jeremy, who raised an eyebrow. Clearly, he wasn’t budging. “I think we can talk in front of my boss.”

  “Fine. I represent the estate of Agatha Kellogg.”

  “Kellogg? As in the town of Kellogg?” Jeremy asked. He motioned for Finch to sit down. The lawyer negotiated his way to a blank space on the sofa. Jeremy lea
ned against the desk, his arms folded over his chest. PJ joined him, moving a cup of coffee to slide onto the desk.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Wow.” PJ turned to Jeremy. “I did a report in school on the Kellogg family. They were wealthy beyond imagination. Owned half the town, lived in this huge estate on the lake near Maximilian Bay. It sat on a hill above the lake and had this rolling thatched roof, right out of one of Grimms’ fairy tales. I used to imagine what it would be like to be a princess in that amazing house . . .”

  Finch wore a strange expression as he stared at her.

  “Agatha was one of the oldest surviving family members,” she finished quickly. “Boone mentioned something about her passing this summer.”

  “Six months ago, actually,” said Finch, who continued to regard PJ with a look that made her feel as if she might still be wearing the hot dog. “It took us a while to sort through the paperwork, and then we tried to track you down. . . .” Finch’s gaze trekked over to the Gazette lying on the floor. “I should have noticed you the first time you made the rounds in the paper. Thankfully, I noticed this today.”

  “Find me? Why?” Oh no. “I’m not being sued, am I? I mean, you’re not here because of the Kellogg Harvest Days incident? Listen, I was doing my job—Bix was bail jumping.”

  “No, actually, I’m not here in that capacity.” Finch seemed to study her one final moment, a question in his eyes. Then finally he sighed and opened the briefcase on his lap. He handed her a sheaf of papers. “I’m here because you are the lone beneficiary of the personal estate of Agatha Kellogg.”

  PJ scanned the top page of the ream of papers, her gaze focused on the photocopied handwritten letter. To . . . her?

  She looked up at Finch, over to Jeremy, again to the letter. “I . . . don’t . . .”

  “You, PJ Sugar, have inherited the Kellogg family fortune.”

  Chapter Three

  “You inherited the mushroom house? I can’t believe it. I always loved that house.” Connie sat at the center island of her kitchen, smoothing the papers onto the recently redone black granite counter.

  PJ couldn’t quite wrap her mind around her sister in a pair of green striped pajama pants and a pink T-shirt in the middle of a Monday afternoon. Connie usually packed in five hours of work by this hour of the day but today had answered her cell phone at home when PJ called at lunchtime. “Sick day,” Connie had explained and invited PJ and her Big News over. If the newly pregnant woman wasn’t sick now, at the rate she was foraging through the kitchen, she would be by dinner.

  “The mushroom house?” PJ opened a can of diet soda and sat down next to her sister on a tall leather stool in the middle of Connie’s restored Craftsman home, with its polished oak, soft leathers, and jewel tones. The furnishings of a well-honed life. “Please tell me why you named that beautiful Tudor after a fungus.”

  Connie picked up the eight-by-ten black-and-white glossy of the home included in PJ’s file. “The way the thatched roof rolls over it, curling over the edges—it reminded me of a mushroom.”

  “I thought it looked like the dwarfs’ house.”

  “As in the seven dwarfs? And who were you, Snow White?”

  PJ sipped her drink, reaching for a bowl of yogurt pretzels in the center of the table. “Sometimes. Other times, I was Cinderella.”

  “Of course you were.” Connie set her tea beside the file, picking up the handwritten letter. “Do you even remember this woman? Because she obviously remembers you.”

  PJ had spent all morning digging into the vast history of the Kellogg family, finally focusing on ninety-eight-year-old Agatha, belle of Kellogg, philanthropist, railroad baroness, and PJ’s benefactor. “Vaguely.”

  Outside, the wind stirred the piled leaves in Connie’s backyard, tossing them against the screens of her enclosed porch. The few chrysanthemums that had survived Boris’s potato-planting crusade bloomed a fall palette in the cold garden. The gardener worked silently outside, covering the flowers one by one with Styrofoam forms. He occasionally glanced at the house, meeting PJ’s eyes once with a smile.

  Boris’s snores buzzed from under the closed door just beyond the kitchen, and Baba Vera sat at the table reading a Russian magazine, her orange hair tied up in a scarf.

  “Agatha Kellogg used to sit in the front row of the theater,” PJ said. “I remember her hats most of all. They had feathers and velvet bows, looked like something out of a Chanel millinery on the Champs-Élysées. She would peer at us through cat-eye glasses, wearing a ratty mink stole. She went to nearly every rehearsal that I can remember, would say nothing, and then leave without a word. I think she might have been the benefactor of the Kellogg theater scholarship. She reminded me of the old woman searching in that Christopher Reeve movie . . . what was it called?”

  “Somewhere in Time?”

  “Yeah. She always seemed to be looking for something, waiting for it to appear.”

  “She used to watch you on stage?”

  “Well, I was only in that one play. But yes, she was there most of the time.”

  “Did she ever talk to you?”

  PJ shook her head.

  “So you had no contact with her?”

  “What is this, Law & Order? Should I get a lawyer?”

  “You came to me, remember?”

  “Okay, well, I’ve been racking my brain, and I remember something—I was in her house once.”

  “You’re kidding. Wow, I can’t believe you got to see the big house.” Connie reached for the bowl and began collecting all the broken pretzels.

  “No, actually, I only dreamed of going inside that one. I have to admit, I longed to explore it. All those tiny windows, the nooks and crannies. It had to have a million secret passageways, probably hidden doorways.”

  “Seriously, PJ, you read too much.”

  “C’mon, don’t tell me you never imagined what it was like inside.”

  Connie had created a small pile of broken pretzels and now began to nibble each one. “Nope.”

  “What it might be like to live in that family?”

  “Nope.”

  “You never wondered what your life would be like if you were somebody else?”

  Connie finished off the last of the cashews mixed in with the pretzels. “Never. I’m a Sugar—or at least, was a Sugar. I’ll always be a Sugar at heart. How could I ever be anyone else?” She pushed the closed file toward PJ. “I like my life. Why would I want a different one?”

  PJ reached for the file, flipping it open to the eight-by-ten. “The carriage house gave me a little glimpse into their world. The floorboards creaked with every step, and it smelled like one of Dad’s old books, the kind with parchment pages. It had these cedar beams running the length of the ceiling, and white walls, like that wattle-and-daub look in old historical Williamsburg.”

  Connie gave her a blank look.

  “You know, the place where they dress up and pretend they’re from Colonial times? Remember our school trip to Washington, D.C., my junior year?”

  “I didn’t go to D.C., remember? I went skiing with the Carlisles in Vail. Please tell me you didn’t break into the Kelloggs’—”

  “C’mon—I wasn’t always in trouble. Mom insisted I raise half my ticket for the trip to D.C., which I did through the school fund-raiser. People bid for students to help them with home projects, and I got the Kellogg mushroom house.”

  Connie smiled at her.

  “Okay, it does sort of resemble a mushroom.”

  “And now it’s your mushroom.”

  Her mushroom.

  Her mushroom.

  Connie tilted her head down and spoke the words that had pricked PJ’s brain since the lawyer’s visit that morning. “Are there no living Kellogg relatives? That’s really hard to believe.”

  “I know. Or at least, if there are, Mrs. Kellogg didn’t want them to have her house.”

  “Why would socialite Agatha Kellogg give you her house?”

  “I . .
. don’t know.” She reached for the letter, reading it again.

  To Miss PJ Sugar:

  Among all my assets, the Kellogg name has been the most treasured. I carried it with pride after my beloved Ort shared it with me. But it has come to ruin and is without rescue. So I must turn to my next best hope. Carry on, Miss Sugar, and know that the blessings of your inheritance are also your destiny.

  Regards,

  Mrs. Orton (Agatha Brooks) Kellogg

  “Your inheritance is also your destiny?”

  Connie took a sip of her tea. “They say a woman loses a thousand brain cells with every pregnancy.”

  “I think that’s ten thousand.”

  “I’d need a lot more than that to figure out what she means.” She set down her cup. “Have you even seen the house yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “I think it’s been empty for a while.”

  “She only died six months ago.”

  “I’ve driven by there. The place is a wreck—overgrown yard, and I think there might even be a hole in the roof. Don’t tell me you’re going to keep it.”

  PJ put the letter back in the file. “I don’t know. There’s only enough money left in escrow to pay the property taxes for the rest of the year. I have to decide by January if I’m going to dump the place. But the will says that if I keep it, I have to live in it.”

  “Sounds like a money pit to me. What are you going to do with an eight-thousand-square-foot house?”

  PJ glanced at her. “The old me might have said, ‘Hold the world’s largest kegger’?”

  Connie wrinkled her nose at her. “And the new you?”

  PJ lifted a shoulder. “Move in with the Vic?”

  “I’m sure you and Vic will be very happy. Until it snows and you need to heat the place. And you probably need a handyman. On retainer. Hey, there’s a guy who does that at our church—I saw his ad on the bulletin board.”

  “I’ve got just enough to pay for gas and maybe a few pizzas, Connie. What would I pay him with? my witty banter?”

  “I think you’d owe him.” Connie got up and opened the fridge, apparently not done with her binge.