Double Trouble (16 page)

Connie, who looked tidy as usual, her dark hair in a high ponytail, drew back the loose curtain and fitted it into its holder. “Does it have something to do with the smelly softball clothes?”

PJ flung an arm over her eyes where the sun roared in. “Not really.”

“Is that another tattoo?” Connie stood above her, eyes on PJ’s arm. “You didn’t
 
—”

“It’s paint, Connie.”

“Oh, good. The last thing you need is another tattoo. You know you’re going to have to live with Boone’s name on your arm the rest of your life.”

Thank you for that reminder, Connie.
That was the very issue she couldn’t seem to get out of her brain.

“And how long are you here? Are you still on a
work vacation
?”

“Just long enough to sleep. Which, at this rate, might be a week or so.” PJ yawned. “Tell Boone that I don’t want to see him until 2020.”

“It’s not Boone.” Connie sat on the bed, grabbed PJ’s arm, and pulled.

“You do a great Elizabeth Sugar impersonation.”

“Where do you think I learned my tricks? Now get up and do something with your hair. Igor is a really nice guy.” She patted PJ’s leg, rose, and closed the door behind her.

PJ didn’t move, staring at herself in the wide mirror. Igor? Sergei’s cousin? Uh . . . “Connie?” But her sister was gone
 
—along with her mind. Because in what world did Connie ever think that she wanted to see Igor?

She was about to flop back onto the bed, dream this nightmare away, when Connie’s voice passed by the door. “I know where you live. Comb your hair and get downstairs.”

PJ tumbled out of bed, thankful for the cool wood of the floor on her bare feet. Splashing some water on her face in the bathroom, she let it trickle down her chin, staring at the woman who looked suddenly eighty. Or maybe just felt like it.

Eighty. Gabby.

Gabby!
Who would be waiting for breakfast or at least her breakfast date. What if PJ didn’t show up? Would Gabby call the cops? or worse, Sammy? She didn’t know why that thought ran an icy finger down her spine.

She dragged her bag off the bedroom floor and plopped it
on the bed, digging out her cell phone. Dialing information, she tracked down Gabby’s number, then connected through. The phone rang and rang while PJ padded into the hallway and past Davy’s room. She stopped, noticing through Davy’s window what looked like Boone’s black pickup. Oh, swell. Now she had two men to contend with downstairs.

Worse, her Vic seemed to be missing from its parking place in front of the house. Boris, working overtime?

She closed the phone, trying not to panic. What if Gabby had fallen? or maybe gone over to Dally’s to find her, right into the waiting arms of PJ’s assailant back to finish the job?

And what about the chinchillas? Had she fed them before leaving? What exactly would Dally do if her chinchillas expired?

And what if Gabby saw the house in its current condition? She’d be worried, horrified . . . What if she had a heart attack?

“PJ!”

“I’m coming!” She gripped her cell phone as she padded down the stairs. Maybe she should go over there . . .

Except she didn’t have a car.

She did, however, have one tidy-looking mafia boy standing in the foyer, holding . . . were those roses?
red
roses? A half dozen, by her quick count.

Igor grinned, his ebony eyes sparkling with delight. “Khello, Peezhay.”

She lifted a hand and glanced at Sergei, who perched against the back of the sofa, his arms across his overly muscled chest, grinning like a proud father. Where was Boone? Maybe she’d imagined his truck.

Oh, wait, Boone’s truck had been stolen. Or totaled. Or something.

Still shaking off sleep, she took the roses.
“Spaceeba.”

Igor smiled wider, approving her use of Russian.

She buried her nose in the flowers, not sure what else to do.

“I khave something to show you,” Igor said, reaching out as if to grab her arm.

She stepped away but nodded. “Sure, Igor.” She glanced toward the kitchen for help, but Vera sat with Connie at the table. They both grinned like a couple of teenagers.

Igor opened the front door, stood back, and gestured outside.

PJ led the way out to Connie’s front porch.

“I bought a truck.” Igor was all smiles, nodding as he spoke. “Just like American man,” he said while rolling his
r
’s.

Oh, so the black machine outside belonged to Igor.

Lifting the keys, he dangled them. “Vant a ride?”

Good grief. This proved it
 
—men were the same worldwide.

“Uh, Igor, I dunno . . .”

“Just short ride.”

What on earth had given this man the idea that she might be interested . . . ?

She turned back to the house and saw Connie and Vera with their noses pushed up to the window. And then she got it.

Bonding. Connie, desperate to get Vera to like her, had fixed up her single sister
 
—aka prey
 
—with a fellow Russian. PJ sighed and gave a tiny wave.

Connie waved back. Vera clapped.

“Please?” Igor asked in the pleading tone she’d heard Boris use on Vera, not unlike a kid begging for a Popsicle.

“Okay, just a zip around the block.” Or . . . “Actually, I could use a ride into the city. Okay?”

Igor just about did a jig right there on the sidewalk.

PJ had a moment of remorse. She didn’t want to lead the man on. But if Connie needed her . . .

“Let’s go.” PJ hustled down the walk before she could change her mind, threw the roses into the front seat, and climbed in.

Igor woke up three steps behind her and had the truck revved in seconds.

“Nice wheels,” she said as Igor turned the corner. She ran her hand over the sleek black dash, the leather bucket seats. “Really nice wheels.”

Igor grinned like a ten-year-old.

It had that artificial new-car smell, and PJ used the recliner to put her seat back. “It reminds me of Boone’s truck, the one that got stolen.”

“Is my truck.”

“I know that, Igor.”

But he looked at her, a sort of wounded expression on his face. “I pick up this morning. Uncle Boris find for me.”

She clasped her hands between her knees. “Why did you get this truck? I thought you had a car.”

“I sell it for truck.”

“Why?”

He stared at her then, an inscrutable expression on his face. “Because of you, Peezhay.”

She stilled. “Me?”

“Because you like big truck. I see you in it.”

“In Boone’s truck.”

“Now my truck.” He grinned. The sun glinted off a silver tooth. “Now maybe you like me too.”

Oh no. PJ took a breath. “Boone and I are sorta . . . dating, Igor.”

He said nothing, but his smile fell.

“You know what that means, right?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe you want Russian man, like Connie.”

PJ looked out the window, trying not to wince. Oh, boy.

They were through Kellogg and turning onto the highway. “Take 394 to Highway 100,” she said.

They rode in silence. PJ stared out the window, wondering what she would say to Connie and if Jeremy would buy a truck for her, and hating that Boone wouldn’t use his insurance money on new wheels so he could instead give her a house, and wishing she had her Dally wig so she could go back to pretending a life that at the moment seemed monumentally less complicated than hers.

She needed more sleep.

“Can we listen to some music?” PJ leaned forward and without thinking
 
—probably thanks to the familiar make of the truck and her still-woozy mind
 
—she hit the Play button on the CD player. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” came blaring out of the speakers.

“I love the Beatles,” PJ said, leaning back.

“Me too,” Igor said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

The song ended and a Guns N’ Roses song began.

Just like Boone’s mix CD.

She glanced at Igor. “Where did you get this truck?”

“Casey sell to me.”

“Casey . . . from Rusty’s Real Deals sold it to you?”

“Give me a . . . deal. Very cheap.”

Yeah, she bet very cheap. What if Boris’s black eye and Igor’s new wheels had something in common?

Like PJ and her overactive ability to jump to conclusions?

Yet her gut continued to tighten into a hard knot. “Igor, I think this is Boone’s truck.” But how could it be? Boone’s truck had been stripped and totaled less than three days ago.

“No, my truck.” He palmed his chest, looked at her, and smiled. “I have paper.” He leaned over the seat and opened the glove compartment.

“Igor, look out!”

He swerved back into his lane and flicked out an envelope, handing it to her.

Inside were a bill of sale
 
—he
did
get a deal
 
—and a green title, signed over from Rusty’s Real Deals to Igor Smurnoff.

“Sorry.”

“My truck.”

“It’s just . . .” She forwarded the CD to the next song. Sure enough, a Nirvana tune. And the next would be back to the Beatles.

Igor followed PJ’s directions into Dally’s neighborhood, cutting down the alleyway.

Probably she should stop overreacting, seeing crime around every corner.

She was a professional, and a professional didn’t jump to conclusions. A professional gathered evidence, scrutinized every
angle, researched every lead. A professional looked past threats like Karla’s or Missy’s vengeance to the real perpetrators.

Like, for example, the burly-chested young man climbing into the back porch window of her . . . er, Dally’s house.

PJ rarely backed down from a fight. That probably accounted for at least half of the trouble she’d landed in over the years
 
—the words
double-dog dare
being among the most dangerous phrases in the English language. However, most fights didn’t involve opponents with biceps the size of her thighs and a snarl that made her blood turn to icy shards.

Hence, when Igor rolled to a stop in the alleyway, his gaze on the young man entering her house (and after three days, she’d begun to feel proprietary), she hesitated before turning down his suggestion that he go in and perhaps extract some answers, Russian mafia–style.

She did, however, accept his offer to stick like glue in her shadow as she entered the house via the back door and crept into the living room.

And there stood Sammy, holding one of the chinchillas
in his massive hands, cooing to it in sweet, dulcet tones. He looked at PJ. “What are you doing here?”

She let Igor bump up behind her. “Seriously? You’re going with that?” She clamped her hands on her hips, mostly to stop the shaking.

His glare dissipated to annoyance. “I was looking for the cat.”

“You can do better than that.” She pulled out her cell phone and opened it. “One more strike and you’re
 
—”

The cat appeared on the sofa, took one look at Sammy, and leaped for the open chinchilla cage.

“No!”

But PJ’s shout couldn’t compare to the screech of the chinchillas as the cage tumbled forward. PJ dove for it, managing to divert the landing, and the cage bounced against the sofa, scattering chinchillas across the room.

They scampered for cover, little spitting fluff balls.

“Catch them!”

PJ hit her knees, scurrying after one of the rats that had dashed under the sofa. When she stuck her hand under, teeth clamped down on her finger. “Ow!”

Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Igor, foot raised over a cowering chinchilla wedged into a corner. “
No!
Igor, don’t kill it!”

“Iz a rat
 
—”

“It’s a pet
 
—grab it!”

He gave her a dubious look, and she gestured to the animal with a don’t-test-me expression.

He crouched, opened his hands, and advanced on the animal. She heard him howl as it found flesh, but her own quarry was making a run for the television console.

She bounded after it
 
—and saw Sammy standing there, holding his animal, watching.

“The cat! Sammy, it’s drooling!” She pointed at Simon crouched on top of the cage, pawing inside at two terrified chinchillas. The animals spit and screamed, dodging the paw.

Sammy picked Simon up by the scruff of its neck. Showing no partiality, the animal took a swipe at Sammy, then at Sammy’s catch.

“Lock the troublemaker in the bathroom,” PJ said to Sammy, meaning the cat, but maybe, yes, she could just hide with it. Indeed, hiding seemed entirely appropriate at the moment.

Igor righted the cage and plunked his chinchilla back inside. Sammy dropped his and now PJ rounded on her quarry. “C’mon, little chinchin, come to Mama
 
—ow!”

“They bite,” Igor offered.

She shot him a look and he lifted a shoulder.

Oh, Jeremy had better not be enjoying one second with Dally. . . . She lunged again and her hand closed around the animal. It screamed and squirmed and dug its needlelike claws into her hand as she dragged it toward her and closed her other hand around it. The animal gnawed at the inside of her hand, and she leaped a couch cushion on the floor and barely refrained from hurling the creature inside the cage. She slammed the door shut.

Her accomplices stared at her, as if they’d all survived a stampede of wild rhinoceroses. No one spoke for a long time. Then finally PJ mumbled, “Not a word to Dally.” She pointed at Sammy. “And I’m not done with you yet.” She leaned against the sofa, catching eyes with Igor.

Sammy seemed to measure the distance. Igor smiled, shiny silver tooth showing. Even to PJ it seemed more of a dare.

“Okay, fine. I’m looking for something that Dally has
 
—something that belongs to me,” Sammy said with a dour look.

“And it’s buried in the chinchilla cage? By the way, if it is, it’s staying there forever. Sorry.”

“Maybe.”

PJ swept up her phone from the floor and punched in a nine.

“Okay, I don’t know where it is, but I asked Dally to hold on to something for me and, well, with her being gone, I started to worry, so I came over to get it back.”

He certainly looked sincere. And sounded it, with the slightest edge of pleading in his voice. PJ closed the phone. “I’m waiting.”

He didn’t look at her. “It’s a ring. An engagement ring. For . . . Morgan.”

“Convince me
 
—why exactly would you give Morgan’s ring to Dally?”

Sammy went to the sofa, began piling the cushions back into place. “What happened here? This place is a mess.”

“No, don’t change the subject. Why was Dally holding Morgan’s ring?”

Behind PJ, Igor had struck an appropriate henchman pose. He looked a lot like he might want to rip out Sammy’s lying tongue. That, or cram him in with the chinchillas.

PJ glared at him in warning. “Down, boy.”

Igor grunted.

Sammy shoved the last cushion into place. “Because I live
in a houseful of morons who are constantly having parties. My mother hates Morgan, and at my grandma’s house things keep disappearing.”

“Your mother seems to think Dally’s behind that.”

“She doesn’t know Dally like I do.” He headed for the kitchen and grabbed a broom.

PJ followed him, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. “Like . . . ?”

“Like the fact that she goes over every morning to check on Grandma.”

Okay, PJ appreciated that too.

“So where is Gabby’s missing jewelry? Is your grandma losing her mind?” She winced with one eye to say it like that. But the Frank Sinatra comments, the costume room story . . . Evelyn’s low-toned insinuation that she’d created an elaborate backstory from her lost dreams . . .

Sammy paused his sweeping, meeting her eyes with a tight-lipped expression. “I don’t think so. . . . She’s still pretty sharp.”

“Then what’s with your mom’s accusations?”

“My mom wants the house pretty badly. She’s deep in debt, thanks to all her plastic surgery. Thinks Grandma should be in an old folks’ home.” He stopped short of accusing his mother of fabricating the accusations, but there it lay, like the sugar dumped out onto the floor.

“Here’s what I know for sure. Dally might look like a character in a teenage horror flick, but she didn’t steal from my grandma.” He swept the sugar into a dustpan and dumped it into the garbage can. He stopped then, looking like he might be ready to say more. Finally he sighed. “I trust Dally. She
introduced me to Morgan. And I need to talk to her. Do you know when she’ll be back? She’s not answering her cell.”

PJ picked up the Cap’n Crunch box, lamenting for a moment its lack of contents, then crushed it and stuffed it into the garbage. “I hope soon.”

“I miss her.”

PJ nearly believed him. Nearly bought into the texture of his voice, the one that begged her to trust him.

But despite Sammy’s performance, she’d seen his familiarity with Dally’s house. He knew his way around . . . probably even in the dark. Still, maybe the ring accounted for the cryptic, almost-frosty look he’d given her at the pizza shop.

Only, what if Evelyn had sent him over to sniff around, maybe do some pawing through Dally’s vacant house to find the so-called missing jewelry?

Or
 
—and PJ had to consider this also
 
—maybe it was all an elaborate setup. What if he’d been the one stealing the jewelry and Dally had discovered the truth?

It wasn’t beyond the scope of her suspicions to consider that he might also be the mysterious
R
. As in Sammy
Richland
. What if he’d been here looking for the note, hoping Dally didn’t suddenly spoil things with Morgan?

Her stomach turned inside out at her final thought. Maybe Sammy, for any of the previous reasons, had gotten his hands on an old Impala
 
—after all, he did work at a garage
 
—with the intent of removing her from the equation. A guy who worked out as much as Sammy appeared to might have an old gym bag in the back of his car. He certainly had the biceps to wrestle a gal into the back of a vehicle.

PJ’s head had begun to throb; she pressed a hand to her
queasy stomach. She wanted to throw her arms around Igor in gratitude that he still stood sentry behind her.

Sammy put the broom back in the corner and brushed past her. “Maybe the ring is in her room.”

PJ connected a look with Igor, who moved to block the door, his obsidian eyes glittering.

Sammy stopped, bristling. “Move.”

PJ laid a hand on Sammy’s arm. “How about I try and get ahold of Dally?” Code for
back away quietly and no one will get hurt.

Sammy looked at her, then back at Igor, as if measuring him.

PJ decided right then and there that the date with Igor and his big truck had been worth it.

Sammy turned toward the door. “Fine, but if it’s disappeared . . .”

“Tell your grandma that I’ll call her.”

Sammy gave her a look that might have turned a lesser woman, or perhaps one without personal backup, to cinders.

The back door slammed behind Sammy.

“He doesn’t like you.” Igor closed the side window, his eyes on Sammy as he crossed the yard.

“Thanks, Igor,” PJ said quietly.

He gave her a smile. “Now you like Russian man.”

She couldn’t deny a grin.
“Da.”

* * *

Jeremy needed to pay her more if he expected housekeeping services. PJ closed the back door, listening to Igor talk in
Russian on his cell phone. He’d run her to the hardware store and helped her install new locks on Dally’s house.

She sank down on the steps, aware that Sammy’s Charger had stayed in front of Gabby’s house all afternoon. As if, what
 
—he might be standing guard over his grandmother?

She hated the turmoil inside that told her Sammy wasn’t all he seemed. Or perhaps he was
exactly
as he seemed: intimidating.

But
 
—she glanced at Igor, now pacing Dally’s weedy backyard
 
—she’d been known to misjudge people before. She would have never guessed Igor might spend the day helping her put Dally’s house back together, including straightening her closet, mopping the kitchen floor, and even airing out the chinchillas.

She couldn’t yet tell if anything was missing from Dally’s possessions, not having taken an inventory prior to being shoved into the trunk. However, when she’d stared at Dally’s bedroom, she felt it. Something . . . amiss.

Igor closed the phone, pacing back to her, his shadow long over her. “
Vso
okay?”

Yes, everything was okay. For now . . . She let him help her up from the stoop, feeling she owed him dinner at least. She was about to offer when he pulled out his keys.

“I have . . . business. I vill take you home.”

Business. Right. She didn’t want to ask.

Casting a long look at Gabby’s as she climbed in to the truck, PJ thought she saw the curtain fall.

Twilight had begun to blanket Kellogg as Igor drove her through town, then pulled up at Connie’s. A refreshing breeze stirred the fragrance of lilacs blooming in front of the house.

“Spaceeba,”
PJ said as she slid out.

Connie sat at the kitchen table reading a decorating magazine. The aroma of hamburgers grilling on the deck outside breathed into the house through the open windows. PJ glimpsed Sergei on the deck in an apron, brandishing a pair of tongs.

“Did you have fun with Igor?” Connie asked, not looking up.

“I should probably hurt you, but yes. He’s a nice guy.” PJ slid onto the stool next to Connie, reaching for one of the potato chips piled in a bowl on the counter.

“I know. I’m sorry. It was Vera’s idea, and I
 
—”

“I get it.” PJ reached for another chip. She’d forgotten how hungry she was. “It’s just that . . . I have enough complications in my life.”

“Boone?”

PJ lifted a shoulder.

Connie closed the magazine, studied her. “Or that other guy?”

PJ pulled the bowl into her embrace. “The other guy’s name is Jeremy, and no, he’s not into me. It’s just . . .” She picked around the bowl for a chip with crispy ridges that could crackle in her mouth. “Okay, the truth is, Boone asked me to marry him.”

“Really? Wow. Okay, I expected more excitement. Haven’t you always wanted this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, he’s definitely pined for
you
.”

“I doubt he was pining, Connie.”

“Okay, so yes, he had that thing going with that reporter
woman, I can’t remember her name, but we all knew he was holding out for you.”

“Reporter woman?” PJ put the bowl back on the counter. “What reporter woman?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? He loves you. And he asked you to marry him! That’s wonderful! When’s the wedding?” Connie got up and retrieved the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge, setting it on the counter.

“I haven’t said yes.”

Ice clinked into two glasses from the ice maker. Connie stared at her over her shoulder as cubes overflowed onto the floor. “What? Why not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s what you said
 
—too soon, too fast.”

Connie scooped up the runaway cubes and tossed them into the sink. “Listen, Peej. You’ve always known you’d end up with Boone. He’s your true love, isn’t he?” Of course she had to put her hands over her heart, add a little swoon to her words.

PJ threw a chip at her.

“Seriously
 
—why the hesitation?”

“Just because he was my first love doesn’t mean he’s my true love.” The words fell from her mouth without a thought and lay there on the granite countertop, hard and unflinching. She stared at the marbleized surface, not sure where they’d come from.