Double Trouble (17 page)

But knowing, for sure, their truth.

“You don’t love him?”

PJ reached for the pitcher and poured lemonade into her glass. “I didn’t say that. I . . . I’m not sure he loves me.”

“Of course he does.”

“No, he loves the
past
me. The girl who too eagerly climbed on to the back of his motorcycle. The girl who was over the moon just because he walked into her life. But I’m not sure he really loves the current me. Or perhaps the me I want to be.”

Connie leaned a hip against the counter. “And what ‘me’ is that, exactly?”

PJ stared at her glass, watching the ice cubes melt, and said nothing.

“I am not without my own PI resources, and don’t forget that I’m part Russian now. Ve have vays of making you talk.”

PJ allowed a soft smile. Then shrugged. “I just can’t make another mistake. I seem to be tripping over my own bad decisions every direction I turn, and I can’t trust my own instincts anymore. I can’t seem to pull myself out of this spiral to get clear and hear my heart.”

“You know what they say about the heart.”

“Follow it?”

“I was thinking along the lines that it’s fickle and lies to you. You might need to use your head on this one.” She tapped PJ on the temple. “That, I trust.”

PJ closed her eyes. “Why?”

“Let’s see. You solved a murder, bonded the Russians with my son, and figured out a way to get Boris a job. Yep, you have a working noggin.”

Davy’s laughter drifted in from outside. PJ watched through the porch as Vera pushed him on the swing. They’d freed the goat to roam about the yard, and she stood watching Sergei work the grill, as if she might be a beef eater.

No, not
she.
The first goat had been a
she.
Until PJ had
surreptitiously swapped it for a
he
goat under the unsuspecting noses of the Russians after the
she
goat had perished from hosta poisoning.

Aw, the entire thing knotted her brain.
She
worked just fine. After all, the goat did respond to the name Dora.

PJ touched her forehead to the cool granite counter. “Then read my mind. Tell me what to do.”

“Have a hamburger.”

PJ looked up to see Sergei stepping through the door with a plate of juicy burgers.

He put them down on the counter as Connie turned and grabbed plates from the cupboard. Behind them, the doorbell rang. PJ slid off the stool and padded to the door.

Boone stood there, dressed in his detective clothes and wearing a dark detective expression.

PJ hung her head. “Sorry I didn’t call
 
—”

“I’m here on official business, Peej. But yes, we’ve got a conversation waiting in the bull pen.” He stepped into the house. “Is Sergei here?”

Sergei tossed his apron over a kitchen chair.

“Sorry to tell you this, Sergei, Connie, but . . . I arrested Boris tonight for car theft.”

“I am entirely too familiar with the inside of the Kellogg police station.” PJ sat on one of the orange molded chairs and rubbed her arms, trying to clear the gooseflesh. She didn’t know if she should blame the arctic blast of the air-conditioning in the waiting room, the memory of her own not-too-distant night spent in a clammy cell in this very building, or perhaps Boone’s icy tone as he drove her down to the station, followed by Connie, Sergei, and Vera in Connie’s Lexus while Grandma Sugar watched Davy.

PJ hadn’t had the courage to ask Boone where the Crown Vic might be. Not in his current state.

“Kidnapped, PJ?” His knuckles had whitened on the steering wheel and he’d looked over at her twice, something wretched written on his face. “You can’t imagine what it might feel like to be me when I hear words like that associated with the girl I love.”

Woman
. Last time she looked, she was nearly twenty-nine. But she’d pillowed her head back on the seat, exhaustion rippling through her, saying nothing.

He’d abandoned her here in the lobby of the station, next to Sergei, who lasted roughly 2.3 seconds in the chair before he was up and pacing the floor. Vera shuffled away to visit Boris in an interrogation room. Connie silently fumed, shooting dark, lethal looks at PJ, occasionally shaking her head.

“I would agree with that statement,” Boone said, following up on PJ’s police station comment.

PJ opened one eye, stared at him hovering above her.

“Let’s talk.”

“Boone
 
—”

“About Boris.” He held out a hand as if to help her from the seat. She hesitated, then took it, relishing the warmth in his grip. He glued his other hand to the small of her back while he led her to his office. He closed the door behind her and gestured to a seat.

“You’re sorta freaking me out.”

“I’m sorta freaked out.” He sat down at his desk, a space with a tidy pile of papers in an in-basket, a clear blotter, and pens lined up side by side. She felt as if she might be sitting in the principal’s office. “Remember when I told you about Allison Miller? How she’d been working undercover for me?” He didn’t look at her, his hands folded tight.

PJ rubbed her palms along her shorts, suddenly hot. “Yeah . . .”

“She was working to expose a group of car thieves. I . . . think Boris is working for them.” He looked up then, as if to add bang to his accusation.

Boris, a car thief? “I doubt it, Boone. Boris is a good guy, and he was a cop back in his homeland. He’s not going to flip that easily.”

“I’m not sure he knew. He said he was ordered to repo the car, but Rusty denies that he sent Boris the order.”

“Figures . . .”

“Which means it’s Rusty’s word against his.”

“Consider the source.”

“Consider the green card. Boris is a man on shaky ground here. At the least, we can revoke his visa and send him back over the pond to the motherland.”

PJ ran her fingers across her eyes. Perfect. She’d turned her distant in-law into a carjacker. They should award prizes for her stunning ability to find trouble. “I swear to you that he hasn’t been stealing cars.”

“He claims he’s been doing repo work for Rusty, and yes, Rusty has a number of cars he’s repoed. Just not this one.” He leaned over the desk. “Has Boris got a little private enterprise on the side?”

“What? No. I’m telling you, he was thrilled to get this job. . . . He wouldn’t
 
—”

“Listen, Peej, we don’t want to put Sergei’s dad in jail, but he’s not talking and my hands are tied here.”

“I think I found your truck, Boone.” She sighed as she said it, feeling suddenly like a spy ratting out her contact. “I took a ride with Igor today. I found your . . . CD.”

Boone leaned back, folding his hands over his chest. “My CD? My mix CD, the one I left in my truck? But it was stolen with the CD player. And the insurance agency hauled my
truck away just a few days ago when they declared it totaled. How could it possibly be the same truck?”

“I know. And Igor has a legitimate paper trail
 
—or what looked like it. He has proof of ownership. Bought it from
 
—”

“Rusty’s Real Deals.”

“Bingo.”

“So, I don’t get it. How did it get to Rusty’s?”

PJ lifted a shoulder. “Maybe Rusty bought it from the insurance company?”

“Without an engine? wheels?”

“I have an idea about that too.”

Boone’s eyes narrowed, pale blue lasers that seemed to be trying to pierce her brain. “Okay
 
—I’m willing to listen for five quick minutes to your theories, but that’s it.”

She was too tired for this. But she
did
have a theory, at least a loose one, still taking shape. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Do I ever?”

“Boris just can’t go to jail, Boone. Connie’s already on shaky ground with her in-laws, and the last thing she needs is a convict in the family.”

He hid a smirk.

“Stop. I was never convicted. In fact, I remember the charges being dropped.”

“Did I speak? I don’t remember speaking.” He palmed the desk. “Just tell me.”

“What if . . . Boris, unbeknownst to him, is repoing cars
 
—only they’re being listed as stolen. Like yours.”

“But I didn’t get mine from Rusty’s Real Deals.”

“Doesn’t matter, just listen. Like I said, it’s just a theory.”

“Okay, so someone’s been stealing the cars
 
—like mine . . .”

“And they get stripped and then returned to the owner.”

“Like mine . . .”

“And the insurance agency says it’s totaled . . .”

“And sells it to a wrecking company.”

“Then the thieves buy the car from the wrecking company as a legitimate sale, dirt cheap, maybe after a tip from an inside man.”

Boone leaned forward in his chair, folded his hands atop his tidy desk. “Giving them a clean title. Then they put it back together with the same parts they stripped off it and resell it through Rusty’s.”

“At a profit. And yet, still at a discount.”

“And it looks legit.”

PJ pointed at him, the chill now gone from her skin. In fact, she could nearly feel the old, hot swirl of excitement, the one that started in her stomach and filled her heart, the kind that Boone used to be able to conjure up with just the rev of his motorcycle engine.

Boone smiled. “Okay, I’ll bite. How do we prove it?”

“Well, we need to find out if any local insurance agencies have listed any stolen vehicles as totaled like yours, and then investigate their
 
—what are they called, those numbers for each car
 
—”

“The VIN number
 
—vehicle identification.”

“Right
 
—check and see if the car was resold.”

“Doesn’t Jeremy investigate insurance claims?”

She could hardly believe her ears.
Jeremy
and
investigate
in the same sentence. From Boone’s mouth. But . . . “Yes, actually, and I remember a number of open files investigating insurance
fraud. What if the insurance investigations are linked to the car thefts?”

He gave her a familiar look, and she knew what was coming
 
—the words to which she could never seem to say no.

“Boone . . .”

“Wanna go for a ride?”

* * *

“I don’t want to know how you learned to do this, do I?”

Boone perched on the top of Jeremy’s office steps, the smell of musty carpet and moldy cement rising from the stairwell, holding a flashlight against the lock that PJ was currently picking.

“It’s nof harr,” PJ said.

Boone reached up and took the lock-pick wallet from her mouth. “What’s that?”

“I said, it’s not hard. Calm down. I learned it when I worked for a locksmith. You’d be surprised at what I can open.”

“That’s too much information for me. In fact, let’s just forget that we’re here having this conversation. I can’t believe I’m an accessory to breaking and entering. Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t have a key?”

“You didn’t ask.”

He closed his eyes, ran a hand down his face. “What am I doing here?”

“Helping clear Boris’s name and earning my family’s undying gratitude.”

“And yours?”

Maybe. It certainly helped that he’d taken her home,
allowed her to shower, fed her a sub sandwich, and then driven her in his Mustang, top down, to Jeremy’s dark office in Dinkytown. And he’d done it all without mentioning the kidnapping once.

It only cemented the idea that he
didn’t
want to know what happened. Just like he didn’t want to know this side of her.

When the tumblers clicked, she turned the dead bolt back. “Yes.” Then she moved to the doorknob.

“You know, I think you actually like this kind of thing.” Boone had moved behind her, directing the light over her shoulder as she inserted the pick and the tensioner and went to work.

She said nothing. Twenty seconds later, the lock clicked.

“That was way too fast.”

The door swung open. She crept inside and flicked on the light. “What can I say? I’m gifted.”

He harrumphed behind her. “Does Jeremy know you can do that?”

“We’re not that far into our relationship.” She started a slow loop around the perimeter of his filing system, searching for anything that might point to an insurance company.

“Relationship?” Boone started on the other perimeter.

“Business relationship, Boone.” But her words emerged sharper than she intended.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and sighed, took two more steps in silence, then: “Okay, I have to tell you something.”

PJ glanced at him before kneeling beside a file folder, picking it up, and paging through it. A house fire investigation. She put it back. “If you’re going to tell me that you don’t want me working with
 
—”

“I did a background check on Dally.”

What? PJ turned toward him. He’d collapsed onto the sofa, his pale blue eyes on her. “And no, I don’t like you working with Jeremy. Or impersonating this woman. Did you know that she has a rap sheet from her wild days in Chicago? It’s long enough to wallpaper my apartment. Who knows what kind of enemies Dally has in her past.”

“Boone
 
—”

“Don’t
Boone
me. I’m not dreaming all this up. I’m a cop; I’ve seen what kind of trouble a person like Dally attracts, and now you’re in the thick of it with her. What if her past tracks
you
down instead and you get hurt, Peej? Or even . . .” A muscle flicked in his jaw.

She looked at him, at the worry on his face, and tried to put confidence into her words. “Nothing is going to happen to me, Boone.” But her voice held the slightest tremor.

She moved over to the sofa and, kneeling again, put her hands on his knees. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you last night. I dropped my phone or you would have been the first.” This time, she meant it with everything inside her.

He leaned forward and took her face in his hands, running his fingers into her hair. “I don’t recognize this girl I see, this one who scares me so much.”

“Maybe that’s the problem between us, Boone.” She hooked her hands over his wrists. “I like this life, this job. I like helping people. People like Gabby, whose daughter wants to put her in an old folks’ home just because she’s misplaced some jewelry, even though I’m pretty sure Sammy’s in on it, although I have to admit, it looks like he loves Morgan, but with all those muscles I think he’s on steroids, which would give him motive
 
—not to mention the fact that he also
overhauls cars, which maybe makes him a person of interest in your grand theft auto ring, although I admit maybe that’s a stretch
 
—”

“I’m confused.”

“And then there are the Rockets, who need to win their next game, and since Morgan’s out of the picture, I have to learn to really call the pitches instead of guess, which I’m pretty sure I can do. Thanks to Igor’s help today, I was able to change the locks on Dally’s house, so I should probably go back tonight
 
—”

“Igor?”

“Yeah, poor Igor. I mean, the guy went out and bought a truck, probably your truck, just because he has a crush on me
 
—”

“He has a crush on you?”

“Don’t panic; he just thinks I need a Russian man.”

“Do you want a Russian man?”

“And then there’s Connie, who’s overwhelmed with the Russians and needs Boris to find a job, mostly because of the goat and the potatoes in the backyard
 
—”

Boone pressed his hand to his forehead.

“But Boris won’t work at Walmart, and I can see why because of his past as a cop, and he’s trying so hard to fit into this world, and he was so thrilled to get a job, but now he might be mixed up with car thieves too
 
—”

“See, sometimes I don’t even think we should talk, Peej. It just hurts me
 
—my head and my chest too, because I might be having a heart attack. And frankly, although I see your lips moving, I’m not sure you’re even speaking English.” Boone
put a hand over her lips. “Stop talking. Just . . . stop. You’re in way, way over your head.”

She moved his hand away. “That’s not fair. Yes, I might sort of have issues with jumping to conclusions
 
—”

“By that, do you mean seeing trouble where there’s not any? Why do you have to find a mystery everywhere you turn?”

“Maybe I do. But I like who I’m becoming. I like helping people and learning what I can do. I like the me I see tomorrow. And . . . Boone, I need you to like her too.” She took a breath and met his eyes. “Can you do that?”

He stared at her a long time, apparently out of words. Then he touched his forehead to hers. “Let me simplify all this for you. Gabby is losing her mind as well as her jewelry. Boris is a car thief, and one of Dally’s exes is out to kill her. And Igor can’t have you. Enough craziness. I want you to turn in your lock-pick case and that crazy wig, wash off your tattoo, come home, marry me, and be the girl I know and love.” His voice softened. “Who I know loves me too.”