Licensed for Trouble Page 7

  Stay put? While her mother gasped her last breath?

  PJ stood, measuring the distance from the patio to the screened porch roof.

  She must’ve been some kind of acrobat to think she could scale that, and in a miniskirt and heels, no less. This time, though, she wore a pair of jeans and sturdy, wall-scaling Chuck Taylors.

  She pulled the wire chair under the roof edge, near the drain pipe, and climbed onto the seat, then the arms. Maybe she needed the table, because she barely reached the lip of the roof. She recognized the dent in the drainpipe where her father had nailed it back together. One of his last household projects.

  A ladder. Her mother kept one in the garage.

  Which, of course, was locked.

  But Sugars hadn’t been designed for defeat. Especially when lives could be at stake. PJ pulled the rusty round table closer, then lifted the chair on top of it.

  See, this was probably what her brain had been conjuring, so many years ago. She climbed on the table, then the chair. It wobbled a little, but she righted herself and slowly propped herself onto the chair arms.

  She stood a head over the roof edge. Hooking her elbows onto the roof, she pressed up from the chair. Maybe she should start with a little jump . . .

  She launched herself forward, catching her weight on her elbows, kicking at the screen—certainly she could swing her leg up. The gutter wobbled as she leaned against it. She kicked her foot around it, searching for a toehold.

  With a screech, the gutter unhinged from the wall. It clattered like gunshots against the patio, the sounds sharp in the crisp fall air.

  She stilled, listening. Perfect.

  But she couldn’t stop now. Not with her mother in mortal peril.

  Slipping, PJ swung her leg up again and this time hooked it on the roof. Her other foot swept the chair, knocking it sideways, and the entire contraption teetered over, crashing onto the patio.

  She hung there, left leg dangling in midair, her right barely hanging on to the porch edge, her elbows digging into the tar of the graveled porch roof. Ow, burning, ow.

  Okay, so she’d been a lot younger and more spry and, of course, going the opposite direction last time she’d been in this position.

  She began to slip.

  Ten-plus years ago, Boone had been waiting for her in the darkness, dressed in black from head to toe, ready to catch her as she’d come off the roof, cushioning her landing.

  But not today. Today the wind lifted her jean jacket collar and swirled the leaves gathered on the roof, tickling the bare skin at the small of her back. She kicked, swishing the air, putting stock in momentum to propel her over the edge.

  No, she wouldn’t call for Jeremy. Wouldn’t. He’d clearly decided to desert her.

  Her elbow slipped and she conked her chin on the roof. “Ow!” Her voice emerged more as a moan as she kicked again.

  Her foot went through the screen and caught.

  “Help!” She closed her eyes. “Help, Jer—”

  “Oh, good grief. Can’t you wait one minute for me? I told you I was coming right back. You’re going to have the neighbors calling the cops and reporting an intruder. ”

  PJ craned her head around and caught a glimpse of Jeremy striding up the yard, looking like a hero from some suspense movie as he picked up his speed.

  “I’m slipping!”

  He broke into a run as her other elbow gave out, her leg swung free, and—

  Ooph. She dropped like a stone, clipping her heels on the table, tumbling into space. Jeremy’s arms barely closed around her as they both tripped back onto the patio, toppling over, hard. He cushioned her fall, his breath whuffing out of him, arms still tight around her.

  “Jeremy, are you okay?” She lifted her head, turned, balancing her hands on his chest. He lay there for a second, staring at the stars, then closed his eyes.

  She moved off of him and got to her knees. “Jeremy?”

  “I’m fine.” He opened his eyes. “Sheesh, PJ. I told you I could probably get us in.”

  “You did not. You told me to stay put.”

  He appeared to be processing that information. “Well, I meant . . . I could help.”

  “‘Stay put’ and ‘I can help’ have vastly different meanings.”

  “I think from now on, we should assume they don’t.” Jeremy took her hand as she pulled him to his feet. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m okay. But we need to get into the house.”

  He gauged the distance to the roof, then picked up the gutter. “You do know how to leave destruction in your wake.”

  “Should I break a window?”

  “How about if we, oh, I don’t know . . . use the lock pick kit I got from your car? After all, if memory serves me correctly, you can pick a lock.” He held up a lock pick pack—the one she kept in her glove box.

  Right. Okay, so she’d panicked and simply defaulted to a previous working MO. PJ moved the patio furniture into place, then followed Jeremy around to the front door. He worked the door lock, but the dead bolt wouldn’t budge.

  “Let’s try the basement door,” PJ said.

  As he worked the basement lock, she caught sight of a face in the upstairs window of the Lindgrens’ blue split-level home next door.

  PJ smiled and waved. A curtain fell.

  “Think how boring the neighborhood has been without you.”

  “Just open the door.”

  Jeremy pushed it open and PJ charged inside. “Mom? Mom?”

  She ran up the stairs, hitting the main level and standing in silence—or relative silence, depending on if she counted the thunder of her heartbeat—hearing nothing. She took the stairs to the second level two at a time.

  She skidded to a halt in front of her mother’s bedroom. Slatted moonlight striped the made bed. It seemed emptier, somehow, as if her mother had decluttered. “Mom?”

  Striding through to the bathroom, she passed the neatly closed closet doors, then stood at the edge of the bathroom tile, inhaling the lemon cleanser.

  “Mom?”

  “She’s not in the kitchen,” Jeremy said behind her. He pressed a hand to the small of her back. “I’ll check the basement again.”

  PJ headed toward her father’s den, expecting to find it still attired as if he’d been working in it the night before, his pencils sharpened in their square holder, pictures dusted on his desk. Instead, the pictures had vanished, his ancient computer cleaned away. Finally. Maybe her mother had begun to move on.

  She lingered a moment before she met Jeremy coming up the stairs.

  “Nothing. She’s not here, PJ.”

  PJ wandered through the family room into the kitchen, surveying the dried washcloth hooked over the faucet. The wilting flowers now rotten in their pot on the table.

  Where . . . ?

  Jeremy strode to the garage and opened the door.

  Elizabeth’s gleaming Lexus sat in her spot.

  He closed the door and came over to stand silently in front of her. PJ looked at him, those dark eyes that had, even this morning, seemed so mysterious, so unreadable.

  Now she read compassion in them.

  He touched her hand. “Don’t worry, PJ. We’ll find her—”

  A crash fractured his words. “Get down! Police!” Two officers, their weapons at the ready, burst into the kitchen.

  Jeremy’s hold tightened on her arm, and his grim look swept her face for a second before he put her behind him. “Of course you are.”

  Chapter Six

  “Tell me again why I shouldn’t arrest you for B and E?”

  Boone stood in the kitchen, leaning against her mother’s built-in desk, his arms in a knot as if holding back fury.

  Jeremy had his own arms crossed, in a position just behind her.

  PJ had the sense that really, she wasn’t part of this conversation.

  Except for Boone’s now nearly livid gaze, pinned again on her.

  “I thought she was missing, Boone.” Her eyes went to Mrs. Lin
dgren, dressed in a long overcoat, pulling on her shoes at the door. “Who informs her neighbor that she’s going on a cruise but doesn’t call her own daughters?”

  Boone got up to hold the door open for Mrs. Lindgren. “Thanks again for the call, Judy. I’ve got it from here.”

  Smiling at him, Mrs. Lindgren patted Boone’s arm. Oh, the Boy Scout. PJ wanted to roll her eyes.

  The neighborhood watchdog managed to level another murderous look at PJ before she pushed through the door into the night.

  Boone returned to the kitchen. Thankfully, he’d arrived shortly after the night patrol and begrudgingly released PJ and Jeremy from the subduing handcuffs. Not that either of them had put up a fight, but something lethal had flickered in Jeremy’s eyes as he watched the officer turn PJ, push her against the counter, and secure her hands behind her back.

  And, well, it was a look that went right to the soft, too-vulnerable places in her heart.

  “PJ, certainly your wannabe PI brain could list ten solid reasons why your mother might leave the house and not tell you. After all, you made a point of not landing on your mother’s doorstep when Connie threw your clothes onto the lawn and barred the door behind you.” Boone’s attention again traveled to Jeremy, fixing there.

  “It’s none of my mother’s business how and where I live.”

  “Clearly.” Boone’s jaw tightened. “And your mother is allowed to return the favor.”

  Not in a million lifetimes, bub. But she stayed silent.

  Boone shook his head. “I think we’re done here.” He turned and walked out. But his words drummed into her brain like gunshots. Done. We’re done.

  Four hours later, PJ still heard them as she stared at the darkened ceiling of Jeremy’s office, listening to the hum of late-night street traffic, watching the occasional headlight trace across the window. She turned over Boone’s words, her mother’s sudden itching for a cruise, why God would give her the mushroom house, Connie’s pregnancy, Jeremy’s kiss . . .

  So much for sleep.

  Getting up, she clicked on a lamp and pulled the box with her yearbooks close to the sofa. She’d found the box in the garage, and a quick glance inside revealed not only her own yearbooks, but Connie’s and her parents’ also.

  She’d grabbed the entire box, just in case.

  “Who would she go to in a time of need?”

  Jeremy’s words had stirred old memories. Her best friend, Trudi, sitting beside PJ on her front steps, holding in shuddering breaths as she revealed to PJ that she might be pregnant. And Boone, waiting for her every Sunday afternoon with his motorcycle running, just so he wouldn’t have to spend the day at home, refilling his mother’s bourbon glass.

  PJ flipped open her senior yearbook. People who stuck around their hometown usually kept their high school friends. As did, apparently, people who left town for ten years.

  Bix might have left clues behind about whom she might turn to today to hide her from her crimes.

  PJ’s eyes caught, however, on the inscriptions.

  To PJ. The woman most likely to drive her car into the lake. We did have fun! Trudi signed her name with a curl and a heart over the i. PJ ran her finger over the heart.

  To the girl most likely to earn a million dollars (or steal it?). May all your dreams come true. Heather Whitlock, followed by a smiley face. Nope, PJ barely remembered her. Which said, what—that her reputation had earned her more fans than friends?

  She turned the page and ran her hand over Connie’s neat script. Most likely to amaze us all. Why was it that she could never see the person Connie seemed to see?

  And then at the bottom of the page, a simple Love you best, NBT. Boone.

  NBT. Nothing but Trouble.

  PJ trapped a tear with her thumb. Flicked it away.

  She turned the pages, laughing at remembered snapshots—her at homecoming, with her foam finger and face painted. Boone throwing a pass, another of him in midair, high-fiving one of his wide receivers. The powder-puff football game—the seniors against the juniors. Looking closely, she found her face, Boone’s numbers written on her cheeks.

  She closed the book and picked up her sophomore annual, the one that listed Bix as a senior. She looked up Meredith Bixby in the index and found her in a powder-puff football shot—messy with faces, smiles, index fingers raised. She tried to read the number on Bix’s forehead—Eight? Three? One?

  PJ turned to the team shot of the varsity football players and finally settled on Trey Johnson. Number thirty-one. Fullback.

  She flipped to the back, found the index listing, and discovered that Trey had numerous cameos. Another football shot, one on the homecoming court. And yet another at a dance—with a dolled-up Bix on his arm.

  She found a winter shot with Trey in his hockey gear and another crowd shot. This one included Bix, bundled up, one arm flung around a friend—the same girl as in the football shot. PJ tracked the name to Deena Hayes.

  Trey Johnson and Deena Hayes. That gave her two fresh leads.

  Putting the book away, PJ picked up another.

  Age filmed the creases and it cracked as she opened it. Her mother had written her name in a tight, neat hand along the top of the first page, dating it as her junior year of college.

  PJ found the index, then located her mother throughout the book. Choir. Drama club. PJ peered close, smiling at her mother in a cheerleading outfit. In a montage in the back, she discovered a black-and-white with her mugging for the camera, her arm around a friend, both of them dressed in leggings and long Wheaton College sweatshirts.

  PJ read the identifier. Elizabeth Mulligan and Sunny Barton.

  She finally turned to the back and read the curly scrawls. Mostly one-liners, only one caught her eye. To Lizzy. Thank you for believing in me. PJ.

  PJ? She ran her finger over the letters, then turned back to the index and spent the next hour trolling through names, looking for anything that might condense to a P and a J. Nothing.

  Nor did her mother’s senior yearbook give even a hint of the mysterious PJ.

  PJ slid the books under the sofa and pulled the comforter Jeremy had brought over from his house up to her nose.

  PJ. It throbbed in her head. Her mother had known—gone to college with—someone named PJ.

  Pulling the covers over her head, she finally tossed herself into sleep.

  * * *

  “You look pretty today.”

  Her toothbrush still in her mouth, PJ turned to see Jeremy in the doorway. He froze for a moment, taking in her Superman pajama pants, her thermal shirt and hoodie, then said, “Maybe I’ll go get some coffee.”

  PJ spit the paste out into the sink of the office’s tiny bathroom. She planned on heading over to the gym for a morning shower, but she had no intention of leaving the building with her mouth tasting like the underside of a Dumpster.

  “Goo’ i’ea,” she said, the toothbrush back in her mouth.

  Jeremy cracked a small smile and closed the door behind him.

  Of course, he looked freshly groomed, a full eight hours of sleep behind him, as opposed to her dismal two.

  She ran her fingers through her snarled, almost-shoulder-length red hair. Yep, she’d have to move out, and soon.

  She exited for the health club before he returned, and an hour later, she retrieved her coffee and—score!—found three powdered sugar donut holes sitting in a bag on the sofa.

  “Did you come up with any leads on Bix?” Jeremy sat at the computer, searching his data bank for the last known address on Keith Dennis—the FTA whose file lay open on his desk. A half-eaten bismark soaked grease into a napkin beside him.

  PJ pulled her sophomore yearbook onto the sofa. “When would I have done that—maybe between the hours of one and three this morning?”

  “Someone got up on the wrong side of the sofa.”

  She popped an entire donut hole into her mouth and gave him a dark look. She’d give him the wrong side of the sofa. . . .

  She swallowed, cha
sing it with a swig of coffee. “Can you do a credit header search on Trey Johnson, see if he’s in the area?”

  Jeremy gave her a strange look. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Well, I did manage to dig up a lead.”

  “So you were up. Please don’t tell me you camped out at her house again.”

  “Calm down, boss. I read my yearbooks.”

  “What, you discovered the name Trey Johnson scrawled between the pictures of the band concerts and the science project winners?”

  “Something like that, yes. I’m thinking that Trey, Meredith’s boyfriend, or more likely Deena Hayes, her best friend—see what you can find on her, too—might be helping her now.”

  “That’s a big leap.”

  “But it is a new lead.”

  She matched his smile of approval with one of her own.

  Jeremy turned his attention to his computer. “I have about three hundred listings for Trey Johnson. Let’s start with Deena. Her last name is a bit less common.” He sipped his coffee as the trace ran. “She lives in Kellogg. Runs a store—looks like a clothing store.”

  “Deena lives in Kellogg? What store?”

  “Babies and Baubles. Just off Main Street.”

  PJ got up and pulled her bag over her shoulder.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll be getting another round of coffee while you’re out? I’ll take a double-shot macchiato—”

  “I’m not an heiress!” PJ closed the door behind her, took the stairs down, and climbed into the Vic.

  Traffic traveling west, away from downtown Minneapolis toward the burbs, was thin, and PJ sailed toward Kellogg almost on autopilot, noting the backup of cars jockeying their way downtown. PJ smelled a game of toss-the-pigskin in the autumn air. Maybe she could attend a football game if she lived in Kellogg again.

  Lived in Kellogg again. In the old Kellogg place. Became a Kellogg. The thought sank into her, along with Jeremy’s words. “You won’t even consider moving into the house . . . because you don’t think you belong.”

  Because, well, a girl like her didn’t belong to the fairy tale. No, fairy tales were reserved for real princesses, with real pedigrees. No matter how much she wanted to believe in Cinderella, PJ was a refugee taken in by royalty. She couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t—escape her lineage.