Double Trouble (25 page)

“He’s trying to kill . . . ?” Sammy glanced at PJ, as if asking,
Which name?

“Me,” she filled in.

“Mother, you’re staying the night with me.” Evelyn advanced on her mother. “And away from
 
—” her expression found the word before she did
 
—“this riffraff.”

“Hey!” Stacey said, finally coming to life. “PJ
 
—or Dally . . . both!
 
—aren’t riffraff.”

“Don’t start with me, missy,” Evelyn said, her finger in Stacey’s face. “Whoever that is there has been stealing from my mother
 
—”

“That’s not true!” PJ said, more for Dally than herself.

“Are you saying that my mother is losing her mind?” Evelyn rounded on PJ, cocking her head to the side.

Losing her mind? No more than any of the rest of them, probably. But PJ could recognize a trap when she saw it: either Dally was a thief or Gabby was losing her mind. She opened her mouth, not sure what words should come out.

Behind her, something fell to the floor with a clatter. PJ jerked around, catching Simon in the act as he leaped from the television, having swatted the remote control onto the floor.

“You’re a scoundrel,” Gabby said, scooping him up.

Suddenly PJ looked from Evelyn to Gabby and back. And smiled. “And a thief too, I think.”

Evelyn frowned.

PJ ran a hand down Simon’s body. “I’ll bet if you look behind the television console, and perhaps even the bookshelf, and try behind the bureau, you’ll find Gabby’s jewelry displaced by Simon the scoundrel here.”

Gabby looked at the cat, then at PJ, and beamed.

“PJ!”

The voice echoed into the room a second before Jeremy
appeared in the doorway. Karla took one look at him and moved aside. He thundered past Morgan, past Sammy strong-arming Lee, straight to PJ.

PJ’s adrenaline had reset, but Jeremy was still in the red zone, his breath coming fast, as if he’d run all the way from wherever he’d stashed Dally to get to her front door.

Leaving Dally for her.

She smiled, expecting a hug. Or even an “Are you okay?”

Not “What is your problem?” He skidded to a stop, nearly shaking, his eyes ferocious. Snagging her arm, he pulled her into Dally’s bedroom, kicking the door shut.

“You’re scaring me a little.”

Raking a hand through his thinning hair, he rounded on her, saw her smeared arm. “Is that blood?” If it were possible, he looked even more horrified.

She shook her head. “Paint
 
—it’s body paint. I’m not hur
 
—”

He reached out and pulled her hard against his chest, both hands curling around her back as he bent down and pressed his lips to the top of her head. She didn’t even have time for a breath. She just hung on, wrapping her arms around his waist, feeling his chest rise and fall with relief.

She let herself breathe him in. His strength. The mystery that surrounded him. Even a hint of desperation.

Too soon he moved her away from him. “I swear, you are going to give me a heart attack.” He cradled her face in his hands, searching her eyes with his. The hungry look had returned, ravaged his expression, and he didn’t even bother to hide it. He shook his head, swallowed, then said almost under his breath, “Oh no, PJ. I’m not ready for this.”

Then he leaned down and kissed her.

There was nothing gentle about it, yet she felt the essence of him in his touch
 
—deliberate, protecting, despite the overpowering sense of fear as his mouth moved against hers. Claiming. Devouring.

And she kissed him back, something that surprised her most of all. As if she’d slipped into another persona or maybe one she’d become. She slid her arms up to curl around Jeremy’s amazing shoulders. A feeling rushed through her as if she’d been stirred. Although there might have been some screaming way in the back of her head, a tone that sounded like panic or even betrayal, for this moment she ignored it and let herself kiss him.

Jeremy.

Jeremy!

She caught her breath as he broke away from her, his eyes hard in hers. A beat passed between them.

“Oh no,” he said again, even as he pressed his forehead against hers.

Oh no? She certainly didn’t feel an
oh no
, but then again her world still seemed to be careening . . .

She took a breath and leaned toward him.

“PJ?”

Another voice jerked her away. Boone. For a second she froze, seeing herself caught in Jeremy’s embrace.

The whirring inside her stopped as the door slammed open and Boone filled the doorframe. His face went pale as he scanned between PJ and Jeremy. And back. “PJ?”

Jeremy let her go.

And then it was only her, standing alone, and the rest of her life staring at her from both sides of the room.

CHICAGO DRUG DEALER SENTENCED TO 50 YEARS

MINNEAPOLIS (AP)
 
—Billy Finch, notorious drug dealer and gang leader, was sentenced today to fifty years for possession of fifty kilos of cocaine, accessory to first-degree murder, and the attempted murder of his former girlfriend, who agreed to testify against him at his trial.

“I knew Billy wanted to hurt me. I never dreamed he’d use an inside man to do it,” key witness Dallas Morrison stated outside the courthouse after the sentencing, referring to FBI agent Leroy Simmons, also charged with the attempted murder of both Dallas Morrison and a Kellogg resident. Agent Simmons had served as Ms. Morrison’s relocation agent.

“I guess you just don’t know who you can trust,” Morrison said as she left with her teammates from a local softball league.

* * *

“Ball!”

PJ clapped her hands. “C’mon, Karla; she’s a whiffer! Give her a knuckleball!”

“What’s the score?” Jeremy stepped into the dugout and settled next to PJ on the bench, plopping a white bag onto her lap. “One of those is for me.”

“Six to two, top of the fourth. No outs. Dally is in rare form. Last inning she tagged out a runner who popped up a ball and tried to make it to first.”

“Aw, but she doesn’t have your bullet throw to second,” he said, not looking at her as he took a sip of coffee.

She glanced at him.
Wait
 
—what?
“You saw the game?”

He nodded toward Morgan behind the plate. “How’s her ankle?”

PJ gestured to her own uniform. “She can catch, but I’m her pinch hitter.”

“And a bridesmaid, according to Stacey. She filled me in at the trial. You’re going to look fabulous in peach.”

“Please.” She opened the bag and couldn’t suppress a grin. Two fat bismarks lay side by side. “If I eat this now, I’m liable to hurl as I run to first base.”

“A lovely visual, as usual, Sugar. And on such a beautiful morning.”

She reached into the bag just as he snatched it from her lap. Glaze gooed her fingers, and she licked them one by one. “How’d you know I was playing?”

“I’m a PI. The sofa in the office was empty before noon on a Saturday morning. And I LoJacked your new wheels. In that order.”

“You LoJacked me?”

“How else am I going to keep track of you?” Jeremy took a bismark from the bag, holding it in a napkin as he took a bite. He held the pastry out to her without looking. “Although there
probably aren’t that many vintage baby blue 1967 Volkswagen Beetles running around Minneapolis.”

She took a bite, the custard filling the nooks and crannies of her stomach after a sparse breakfast of an old granola bar she’d found in her bag. She wiped her chin. “I know. She’s a beauty, isn’t she? I couldn’t believe it when Gabby opened her garage and gave me her hidden treasure. Recently restored by Sammy, no less. I tried not to take it, but oh, it makes me feel normal again.”

She grabbed Jeremy’s wrist and took another bite of the bismark before he could take it away.

“So, I was wondering if I could borrow the Vic. I have some surveillance to do.”

“You’re on a case without me?”

“Your life is pretty busy
 
—I mean, you’re a Rocket now. You don’t have time for me anymore.”

“I’m never too busy for a case!”

He took another bite. “No, no. The Rockets need you.”

“Listen, it’s just fun to be a part of something bigger than myself again.” PJ watched as Morgan delivered the signal to Karla.

“You still are. Kane and Sugar Investigations.”

She turned to him, missing Karla’s strike. “Really? Kane and Sugar?”

He grinned at her. “No.”

“Funny. Thanks a lot.”

He nudged her with his shoulder. “But maybe someday.”

Maybe someday . . .

He’d said exactly nothing about their kiss two weeks ago, while she in the meantime untangled herself from Boone.

Not that she’d ever be completely untangled from Boone. Not when he knew her so well, understood her fears, her mistakes. But as she’d stood there in Dally’s house, seeing her past and her future on two sides of the room, the truth hit her like one of Karla’s in-the-pocket pitches.

She’d never be who she longed to be with Boone always reminding her of who she’d been and who he didn’t want her to be.

“We’re not done yet, Peej. I know you can’t live without me.”
That painful conversation, out on the front lawn of Dally’s house roughly an hour after he’d discovered her in Jeremy’s embrace, still burned like an ember in her chest.

He’d shown up on her doorstep hoping to do some damage control after their fight. Instead, he’d discovered his future in pieces.

But couldn’t he understand that she’d never look at him without seeing the PJ who so easily, so carelessly, jumped on the back of his motorcycle and rode off with her hands locked around his waist, right into trouble. And while Jeremy might embody his own brand of trouble, at least she didn’t see her mistakes in his eyes when he looked at her.

Like now. Something deliciously mischievous swirled in Jeremy’s eyes as he took another bite of bismark.

“Maybe someday?” she finally said.

He lifted a muscled shoulder. “You keep working on your PI license, and we’ll see.”

“So you haven’t given up on me, even with the mess I made of . . . well, Dally and Gabby and even Boris.”

“You did save Gabby from the old folks’ home.”

PJ held up a finger. “And located her jewelry. There was brilliance there.”

But the real brilliance had been in the teary look in Gabby’s eyes when they’d pushed aside the furniture and revealed Simon’s stash of jewelry, including the emerald necklace.
“Thank you for believing in me, PJ.”

Jeremy finished off his bismark. “Mmm-hmm.”

“And I helped Sammy propose.”

“You’re seriously taking credit for that?”

She cheered as Karla knocked off another strike.

He took another sip of coffee. “I will admit that the Boris thing turned out. Which brings me back to the Vic. Suppose he’s going to get his own wheels soon? I’d sure like to borrow it.”

“Give him a call. But if I find out you took him on a stakeout . . .”

“No worries there, Sugar. Hey, how are you and Connie doing?”

“Why, do you need your couch back?” She didn’t exactly know where he’d gone to roost after she’d commandeered the office for her temporary lodgings. But yes, she had to find someplace else to stay, and soon.

“Nope.”

Nothing else but a smile. He kept his eyes on the game.

“She’s still mad. But the fact that Boris suddenly found a little of his old self again
 
—the investigator
 
—has her softening. He’s applied for a couple security positions that Boone’s lined up. And I got to take Davy to the beach last Saturday. Under guard, of course.”

“Sergei?”

“My mother.”

He grinned. “Right.”

Karla struck out another hitter. PJ leaned back against the cool cement wall, settling her hand on the cage next to her. The animal inside let out a squeal.

Jeremy searched for the source, made a face. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“It’s a gift from Dally.”

“It’s a punishment.”

“The fact that Dally would part with a chinchilla says a lot.”

“Yeah. Like, ‘I’ll get you, my pretty’?”

The chinchilla spit at him.

“That’s right, Puffy; you tell him.”

“Puffy?”

“We’re trying out names.”

He shook his head and took another sip of coffee, watching as the next batter stepped up to the plate and smacked the ball hard to the shortstop. Stacey snatched it out of the air and peeled it off to first base.

The crowd behind them lit up with a cheer
 
—Sammy and Gabby sitting on the bottom row, Missy and Rick on the end, Missy with a bold new red hue to her hair. PJ hadn’t bothered to wave, to fill her in, to introduce herself. Some identities just couldn’t be explained.

Like this new one, a woman jumping boldly into the arms of her heavenly Father, believing big in His mercy and grace. At least for now, that’s what PJ was trying, one breathtaking day at a time.

Jeremy leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, watching the game. “Listen, I’ve been meaning to apologize.
I should have listened to you about Dally’s boyfriend. When you mentioned that Gabby had seen him recently
 
—and when I heard the desperation in your voice
 
—I knew I needed to press Dally about it. I wanted to kill her the moment Leroy’s name left her mouth.”

He stared at his cup, running his thumb along the edge. “I thought I was going to lose you,” he said softly.

PJ didn’t look at him, couldn’t look at him. Not with the tangle of emotions in her chest, ones she couldn’t
 
—wasn’t sure she
wanted
to
 
—name nearly suffocating her. “Oh no, I was born to be a PI. You can’t shake me that easily.”

“That’s right. The panther. I forgot.”

“Better not,” PJ said, grinning.

The team ran in from the field, flowing into the dugout. Dally settled beside PJ. “Hey there, boss,” she said.

Jeremy lifted his coffee to her.

Karla stepped up to bat. She hit a beautiful line drive into center field on the first pitch.

Stacey took a couple practice swings and stepped into the batter’s box.

“Sugar, you’re on deck.”

“Don’t eat my donut,” PJ said to Jeremy, rising.

“Only if you promise to knock it out of the park.”

She stepped out of the dugout and looked back at him, with his baseball hat on backward, dark eyes brimming with something untamed even as he grinned at her.

“Oh,” she said, trouble in her tone, “I promise.”