Licensed for Trouble (5 page)

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.

PJ drummed her fingers on the manila folder, the words in her chest fighting their way to her mouth. She took a breath. “What if she—the Kellogg family—was related to me? After all, I'm adopted. They could be my real family.”

Connie didn't react, at least from behind. She simply reached in for a packaged piece of cheese, turned, and slowly unwrapped it, then broke the cheese into tiny squares. Finally she looked at PJ.

Everything inside PJ tightened. She took another sip of soda, then cleared her throat. “What? You know something, don't you?”

Connie put a square into her mouth.

“Connie?”

“It's probably nothing. . . .”

“Connie?”

“Okay, fine.” She put the cheese wrapper on the counter. “First, I'm going to let your comment slide because you know who your
real family
is. But not long after you left town—”

“Ten years ago? After graduation?”

“Yes. A couple weeks later, I was at the country club, playing tennis.”

PJ tried to ignore the jab of pain, realizing how Connie's evenly knit life had carried on in Kellogg while PJ's unraveled mile by mile as she headed west.

“I was coming up from the courts when I heard Mom. She was in the parking lot, on her way to lunch, I think, and she was having a fight. With Agatha Kellogg.”

“Are you sure it was Mrs. Kellogg?”

“Positive. You're not the only one who remembers her. Only in my head she was the woman with the silk scarf wrapped around her head, smoking cigarettes with one of those long cigarette holders like she was Rita Hayworth.”

PJ had to smile. “Yep, I remember that now. She had a convertible Karmann Ghia.”

“Of course you'd remember her car.”

“I miss my Bug; what can I say? But she certainly did like to live out loud.”

“That wasn't the only thing out loud. She was livid that day—one finger in Mom's face, the other hand resting on her cane, wearing one of those looks Mom used to give us when she wanted to threaten us with something dire for whispering in church but couldn't in front of the deaconesses. Only Mrs. Kellogg wasn't biting back her nasty words.”

“Did you happen to hear what she said?”

“Something about letting people down or not showing up for something—maybe a committee meeting? You know how Mom seemed to be on every club board. I remember thinking with your recent disappearance, maybe people should cut her some slack if she wanted to stay at home and pull the curtains.”

“Mom stayed at home and pulled the curtains? Over my leaving?”

Connie stared at her a long moment, eyes squinting, as if trying to see something inside PJ. “You're seriously surprised by that?”

PJ raised a shoulder.

“Wow. Okay, well, Mrs. Kellogg pulled herself together in a blinding moment of society poise the second she saw me. But Mom had turned white. I don't think I've ever seen her so unraveled.”

“No?”

Connie grinned and finished off her cheese. “Well, maybe after our prom when the cops showed up at our door in the middle of the night.”

“Are you sure it wasn't the day I came back to Kellogg?”

“Oh no, PJ. That was the first day in years she wasn't white. I think she'd finally stopped holding her breath.”

“I don't know, Connie. I think she probably went into a full-scale panic. Trouble's back in town.” PJ offered her sister a good-natured grin.

Connie didn't return the smile. She pursed her lips, then slowly turned and pulled a glass from the cupboard, opened the fridge, and retrieved a carton of milk.

“Okay, what?”

Connie regarded the milk for a long moment. “At some point you're going to actually have to figure out what else to label yourself. Because no one is calling you Nothing but Trouble anymore but you.”

Oh. She hadn't noticed that exactly, but a girl could hope, right? “So what does that have to do with me being adopted?”

“I don't know. At the time, I couldn't believe that Mrs. Kellogg could be so cruel. And then I wondered how Mom and Agatha knew each other. They weren't exactly peers. Mrs. Kellogg was about fifty years older than Mom and ran with the Pillsburys, the Fairmonts, and the Hills. Way above our set. So what did she have to do with Mom?” Connie shrugged. “I think I have too much of your PI curiosity. It probably had to do with a blood drive or something.”

PJ caught her smile. “Yeah, probably. But I'll ask Mom about it.”

Connie's smile fell. “How about you let me ask, okay?”

“Speaking of Mom, she hasn't checked in with you lately, has she?”

Connie poured her milk, shaking her head.

“You're not even worried?”

“She's a grown-up, Peej. She gets to be busy if she wants. She'll call if she needs me.”

“Connie, you don't work for a PI. You don't know the darkness out there, what people do to each—”

“I'm a DA. I think I know. But Mom's lived her own life for years. It might actually surprise you to know that Mom and I don't talk every day. In fact—” she leaned over the counter, lowered her voice—“sometimes we go for an entire week and don't call each other.” She widened her eyes, nodding.

“Funny. Okay. It's just that . . . it feels strange to have her so close and not check in.”

“She'll check in when she wants to. She's not a child.”

Vera got up, greeted PJ in Russian, and disappeared into the room with Boris.

“How's your Russian coming?” PJ asked as Connie watched her mother-in-law leave.

“By the time the baby gets here, I hope I can say things like, ‘Please don't feed the baby caviar.'”

“I'll bet Sergei is excited.”

A sweet smile edged up Connie's face. “I admit, he's surprised me. He already has names. We're in negotiations.”

“Negotiations?”

“I want Emily; he wants Luba. Marriage, children—it's all about negotiation. I have to admit, although I've been married before, this time around I'm more careful. I see my words before I say them. Still, it's been harder.”

“You're walking into the marriage fully formed, Connie. You already have your child, your home, your life. And you have to bend that identity around Sergei and his parents to find the new you together. And now the baby? I think you're doing great.” PJ flicked her gaze to Connie as she spoke, moving her hand over to her sister's arm.

Connie's eyes glistened. “I'm sorry I threw you out.”

PJ lifted a shoulder, her words webbed in the knot in her throat.

“I miss you.”

PJ nodded. “Ditto. But it had to happen sometime. You have to start your own life.”

Connie palmed the file. “And you, yours. Although I have to say, I'm not thrilled about the chinchilla you gave Davy. Did you know it screams? and spits?”

PJ grinned. “Just wanted to leave my mark, Connie. Be grateful you didn't get two. I think Dally has more she's trying to get rid of.”

“No thank you. I don't need any more reminders of your crazy past mysteries. In fact, maybe you need some company. It's an awfully big house to be alone in.”

Alone?

Connie must have read her face. “Or . . . not alone?”

PJ considered her a moment. Then, “Okay, I admit, men confuse me.”

“Boone?”

“Jeremy. He kissed me.”

Connie set down her tea. “Really. You're just full of big news today, aren't you?”

PJ dragged her finger through the condensation from her glass, drawing a circle on the granite. “Something happened Sunday. He's going all protective on me. He's pulling a Boone.”

“Speaking of, did you see
him
at the festival?”

“Yes. We talked. Or rather, he snarled. We have a long way to go before we're friends.”

Connie got up and set her glass in the sink. “I have to admit, it's hard to imagine a world without you and Boone together. It's always been that way in my head.”

PJ's too. In her mind, sometimes she still saw herself on the back of Boone's motorcycle, arms wrapped around his waist, heading into the sunset. And it didn't feel quite right to clip him out of the photo and put Jeremy in his place. The cutout lines didn't quite match up.

“I'm hoping we can be friends.”

“Friends. Let's see. Friends. Like, him telling you about his dates? You calling him up after kissing Jeremy? That kind of friends?”

“Funny, Connie. But yes, maybe we can get past what we were to something new.”

Connie shook her head. “That would nice, but he's been waiting for you for a long time. It's not going to be easy for either of you.”

“I hope so. Boone's been my best friend . . . well, at least he knows me better than almost anyone. I can't imagine not being friends with him.” Even as she said it, the words ground into her heart.

Connie touched PJ's arm, her hand warm. “I can't imagine it either. A PJ Sugar world without Boone.”

PJ stared out the window as the gardener covered the remains of the once-beautiful garden with a dark mulch of dirt and leaves and clippings, leaving behind only the memory of the summer glory.

Chapter Four

If a gal had inherited a house, it wouldn't hurt to look around the place, would it?

PJ tapped her brakes as she drove up to the mushroom house on the hill, past the ivy-laced stone walls. The house overlooked the glistening waters of Lake Minnetonka, and the afternoon sun poured over the rolling thatched roof, throwing thick fairy-tale shadows into the overgrown yard. The place could have been read aloud into existence straight from the storybook pages, the ones with witches and goblins and ogres prowling through dark forests.

Maybe she should just keep driving. Maybe, in fact, she should turn the car around and head over to her mother's house. After all, Elizabeth Sugar had bypassed two more calls—if indeed she was at the house and was simply playing hard to get.

But the Vic clearly wanted to check out its new digs. It coasted to a stop just beyond the gate, in a pocket of overgrown weeds on the other side of the road, next to the tiny gardener's cottage PJ had cleaned.

PJ got out. Closed the door. Scrutinized the big fairy-tale house.
Her
big fairy-tale house.

Which meant she wasn't trespassing. Going over to the gate, she gave it a nudge. To her shock, it whined open as if waiting for her to enter the world it guarded. She slipped through the opening and hiked up the long driveway. Fall had littered the yard with scraps of brown cottonwood leaves, pieces of orange oak foliage. A row of overgrown pine dropped grenade-size pinecones on the broken paved drive. Spindly arms shot from the wild and woolly shrubbery near the house, waving at her as if she might be the first surge of storm troopers, here to rescue the villagers.

Ivy had consumed one entire end of the stucco house, hanging down over wooden garage doors, the red paint wrinkled and crackling. Hanging baskets on either side of the colonnaded front entry swung in the breeze, the deceased flowers brown and netted. The roof, made up of millions of ash-gray cedar shakes, flowed over the house like . . . well, a giant mushroom cap that curled under the eaves of the house. The leaded-glass windows, crossed with thick iron bars, winked at her, blinking awake as she trekked over the grass. She stopped in front of a dry, leaf-poured fountain, the standing water in the bottom of the stone bath black with sludge.

Snow White and her dwarfs had obviously abandoned ship, maybe a decade ago. But it was nothing a smidge of Cinderella grease couldn't whip into shape.

Besides, the smell of fall perfumed the air, the leaves crisp and shiny, culling the hues of evening. If she listened closely, she might hear the sounds of children playing in the yard, the smell of barbecue on the porch. Or maybe it would have a terrace? a giant flagstone patio leading out to the lake?

The Realtor had slipped her the key in her package of papers. Now she dug it out of her pocket, approaching the massive front entrance under the overhanging colonnade. The house even had an appropriate castle door, complete with rounded top, crossed with giant iron blades and a doorknob and lock set precisely in the center. She inserted her key, heard it click, and the door eased open.

A hundred years of history haunted the darkened foyer in the smells of age, the creak of the door, the moan of the wind as it snuck in behind her.

“Anyone here?” PJ wasn't sure why she called out—perhaps to alert the spirits that lingered in the nooks of the ornate oak beams partitioning the ceiling and buttressing the doorframes. A wide, dusty staircase ran up to the left. The room before her opened all the way through to the far side of the house and a wall of windows facing the lake. Square panes of leaded glass fractured the light, checkerboarding the dusty tiled floor with pink and amber.

She wandered farther into the murky front room. Dust cloths covered the leftover furniture—a sofa, a highboy, a coffee table—adding to the ghostly aura. A fireplace yawned in one of the walls of the long room, tongues of black soot licking the whitewashed brick. The cloying smell of mouse droppings nested in corners, and an underlying odor of mildew, or perhaps decay, laced every breath.