Double Trouble (12 page)

Boone stared at her, eyes wide. “Good grief, PJ, are you undercover as a debutante?” He took her arm. “Is that a tattoo? What in the world . . . ?”

“It’s paint,” PJ said, pulling out another towel.

“Paint? What kind of person are you impersonating?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t want to talk about it? You came after me with a pair of heels! Is the neighborhood that rough?”

She was a little more vigorous than she intended cracking the ice tray on the open towel. Cubes flew across the counter, hit the toaster and a rack of mugs. “You have no idea.”

“Apparently not.”

She folded the towel, then opened a drawer and sifted through the utensils, unearthing a meat mallet. “How’d you find me? Did you track me here? Do I have a homing beacon pinned to me?” She gave the ice a whack, breaking it into little shavings.

“I’m a little afraid of you right now.”

She rounded on him and held up the mallet.

“Your cell phone. It has GPS, and I used the police computer to find you.”

“That’s unbelievable. Simply . . . completely . . . You don’t trust me at all, do you? What did you think, I’d take off, disappear into the wind?” She gave the ice another pummeling and chips flew off the counter, onto the floor.

Boone took a step back. “Well . . .”

She glared at him. “Seriously? You want to go there?”

“No, of course not. The GPS is part of your phone system. And frankly I’m just a little relieved to know that if you got attacked in the middle of the night, you’d inflict some damage.”

“I’m not going to feel bad about your bleeding.” Only she did, a little. She folded the towel and handed it to him, taking the other from his grip and tossing it in the sink. Just imagine if she’d connected with his eye? The thought turned her weak, especially when she caught a glimpse of the blood dripping down from where she’d gouged him. “What were you doing sneaking in here anyway? I could have killed you.”

“Your door was open and I heard you scream
 
—or at least yell. Scared the wits out of me. I thought someone was in here beating you to death.”

“It was the neighbor’s cat. And that wasn’t me screaming; that’s the chinchillas.”

“The what?”

“Don’t ask.” She wiped up some of the ice debris and pushed it into the sink. “How’d you get in here?”

“I told you
 
—the back door was open.”

“I know I closed it.”

“Do you think I broke in?”

PJ grabbed the door handle, examined it. Closed it. Sure enough, it didn’t latch. She put a hip into it. Now that tidbit of information might have been more useful than chinchilla tips from Dally. Frustration flushed into PJ’s voice as she turned back to Boone. “Please, why exactly are you here?”

“I . . . wanted to see you.”

She stared at him in the kitchen light, seeing how as usual he looked pressed and put together, not at all frayed at the edges, the blue in his shirt deepening his eyes. And it was probably a crime to smell freshly laundered this late at night. “It’s only been a day, Boone.”

He looked sheepish and lifted a shoulder. “I missed you.”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that. “You look like you’re going to church or something.”

“Yeah, well, you look like you’re going to a cotillion.”

“We touched on that.” She peeled off her gloves and lifted the ice pack, then winced at the wicked scrape above his ear. “Sorry about . . . No, wait. I take that back. I’m not sorry. Serves you right.”

“I’ll have to admit, you are pretty tough, even in a dress.” He touched the lacy gown. “Don’t get me wrong. I like it.”

“It’s Dally’s
 
—the woman I’m standing in for. Apparently, as
well as being a biker chick, hotshot catcher for the Rockets, an avant-garde hairdresser, and best friend to her eighty-year-old neighbor, she’s also a seamstress. Has an entire room full of pretty dresses to accentuate her all-leather-and-fur attire.”

“Really?” He stepped back and ran his gaze over her. “I’d like to see some on you.”

“You’re not even supposed to be here. What will the neighbors think?” She feigned gossip, putting a hand over her mouth. “Dally’s got a new guy.”

His expression darkened. “Does she have an old guy? someone I need to worry about?”

She went into the living room. “Uh . . .” The last thing she needed was Boone worried about someone who may or may not be an old boyfriend. “Supposedly there’s a mystery man, and Gabby seemed to know him, but he hasn’t been around
 
—”

“Who’s Gabby?”

“She’s the eighty-year-old neighbor lady.”

“I thought you were supposed to just lay low, pretend to be sick or something.”

“She came over last night when she heard the screaming.”

She stopped on
screaming
, realizing she’d gone too far, especially when Boone’s hand fell away from his wound, his smile fading. “Please tell me it was the chimichangas?”

“Uh . . .”

“What was the screaming for, PJ?”

She made a face. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“Explain the screaming.”

“There might have been a prowler
 
—”

“I knew it! I knew Jeremy would leave you here, and then
you’d get hurt. I don’t like it. I’m taking you home.” He’d already tossed the towel in the sink.

“Stop, Boone. I’m fine. I’m not hurt, and as you can see, I can inflict damage when I need to. Besides, I promise that Gabby is on high alert. And I can’t leave. Now that I know Dally’s right, that she’s in danger, I have to complete my mission.”

“You aren’t in the Marines, for pete’s sake.” Boone took a deep breath. “Do you know who it was?” He looked like, if she said yes, he just might do some prowling of his own.

“No. It might have . . . been an old boyfriend. Maybe. Or not. Whoever it was, he smelled really bad, like ointment, or medicine, and garlic.”

Boone wore something akin to horror in his expression. “I don’t even want to know how you got close enough to smell him. But that settles it; I’m staying.”

“Boone . . .”

“Don’t think I’m moving off the sofa until I know you’re safely tucked into bed, the doors locked like Fort Knox. I might even sleep in the car.” As if to put a point to his words, he plopped down on the sofa and patted the pillow as if checking its suitability.

Boone’s vehemence touched her. Only last night she’d longed for him to be here, for his aura of strength to permeate the house. “You really shouldn’t be here. My mother would be over here with my father’s golf clubs if she knew.”

He relaxed his posture a fraction. “I know. But your reputation is safe with me.”

Now. It certainly hadn’t been ten years ago.

As if Boone read her thoughts, he smiled. “Especially if you try on another dress for me.”

PJ narrowed her eyes at him. “Not a chance, pal.”

She went to the attic and changed, rehanging the dress. Boone lay, eyes closed, breathing deeply when she returned downstairs. She sat on the coffee table and nudged him awake.

Boone opened one eye and took in her T-shirt and yoga pants. “That’s much better.”

“You’re so unromantic.”

“Oh, I’m romantic, honey. I just like the plain old PJ, the one I know and love. The one who can’t stay out of trouble.”

She wasn’t sure why those words made her throat tighten. She managed a smile though. “I did miss you.”

“Even though it’s only been twenty-four hours?”

“Yes. Now give
 
—what are you doing here anyway?”

Boone suddenly looked tired, his hair as mussed as she’d ever seen it. “I got my truck back.”

“Already? That’s fast work for the Kellogg cops.”

“Hey, now.”

“Present company excepted, of course.”

He sat up. “They found it this morning just down the street from the health club. Only thing was
 
—it was stripped, right down to the wheels. My insurance company is totaling it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Boone.”

“I’m not.” He ran a hand down her arm, met her eyes. “You know I was thinking maybe I wouldn’t replace it. I’ll buy a junker to drive around town.”

“But you love your truck.”

“Not as much as I love you. What if I used the insurance money for us? You know, put a nice little down payment on a house
 
—like this one. You’d like that, right?”

PJ closed her eyes, hating the burn in her chest, the painful pleading in his voice. “I don’t know what I want, Boone.”

He pulled his hand away, stared at her a long time without moving. “Did I say something wrong, PJ?”

No. Yes. She didn’t know.

“Why do you want to marry me?” Her question came out so softly, she wasn’t sure he heard her.

But the frown on his face said that he had. “Because I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. And because you love me too.”

When she didn’t answer, he added a small “Don’t you?”

His question made her want to crawl into his lap and take him in her arms. She nodded, her vision blurring.

He said nothing for a long time, but finally, gently, he took her chin and turned her face to meet his. He brushed the tear from her cheek with his thumb, but his voice wavered slightly. “Okay. I get it. I won’t rush you.”

She rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled and very, very tired. “You’d better go. But I don’t want to wake up and find you camped out in the Mustang outside.”

“No promises,” he said as he kissed her on the cheek. “Make sure that door latches when I leave.”

Boone had evidently opted out of sleeping on the streets or in his car. PJ stood in her Superman pajamas drinking milk from the carton, having slept hard, the crease of the cell phone now embedded like a road map to frustration in her cheek. If Jeremy didn’t start answering her voice mails . . . well, she might start thinking that she’d have to rescue
him
.

Her stomach growled and she glanced through the living room to see if she could detect a light or perhaps movement over at Gabby’s house. What time was it, anyway? Her stomach growled as if she hadn’t eaten for a week. She could sure use some breakfast. Eggs, bacon . . . especially since she’d finished off the Cap’n Crunch.

At least her door had remained latched and locked the entire night. Not a prowler to be seen or smelled.

She wrapped her painted arm in saran wrap and took a shower, then stood before the bedroom closet and tried to
think like Dally. Big. Expressive. Outrageous. She chose a pair of orange and black leopard pants, a red shirt, and a pair of black-and-white Vans that she felt sure Stacey and Dally would approve of. Then she braided her long wig into two pigtails, added a green Army hat, and pronounced herself sufficiently Dally-ized.

She might even fool Gabby.

She’d definitely fool Boone.

And she couldn’t deny a sort of intoxicating freedom in being this other person, as if she could say or do whatever she pleased
 
—without consequence.

PJ sprinkled some food into the chinchillas’ cage. They didn’t move from their pile of slumbering fur. She’d heard a few yips and growls last night before dropping off in hard-stone slumber.

Exiting out the back door, she went around the alley and through Gabby’s backyard. A T clothesline
 
—four lines deep
 
—suggested the bygone era of crisp, sun-dried sheets, and under a gnarled maple the scars of a rope swing had never grown over. A slanted cellar door evidenced the first incarnation of walk-out basements, and the white metal furniture on Gabby’s tiny patio had weathered a thousand storms, the green print on the cushions faded into a faint hue of lime over grimy white. She would have liked seeing the overgrown flower boxes under the picture window in their glory days. She could picture Gabby’s family here
 
—like the Brady Bunch
 
—grilling in the backyard, Sebastian in plaid shorts and a green shirt holding a fork in barbecue mitts, Gabby in her print day dress bringing out cookies and lemonade as a pigtailed Evelyn swung in the tree swing.

PJ knocked at the door. “Gabby?”

No answer, but she heard music, something big band and lively, with saxophones and trumpets, and it conjured hazy images of the
Lawrence Welk Show
. She knocked again and this time tried the knob. It turned, so she stuck her head inside and then entered the kitchen. “Gabby?”

“In here!” The voice sounded muffled, and for a second PJ thought maybe Gabby had fallen. What if she’d broken her hip? As she passed the family room, she spotted an LP spinning on the old console, the sounds crackling even as
 
—oh, Frank Sinatra
 
—crooned something sultry.

“Gabby?”

“I’m in the bedroom.”

PJ passed the guest room and found Gabby in the back bedroom.

Her room had been transported straight from Nixon’s era. Green shag carpeting, blond furniture with prim lines, a bureau with a large mirror, and matching side tables with green opaque lamps. The bed had already been tidied with a white chenille coverlet, and two appliqué pillows featuring brown owls with orange beaks lay propped against the headboard.

It could have been taken from a vintage seventies magazine page, Twiggy stretched out on the bed.

Only instead, Gabby was stretched out halfway
underneath
it.

“Gabby!”

The scenario before PJ seemed a slap of reality after her previous image of pit bull Gabby, the neighborhood enforcer. This version was elderly and frail, dressed in a green housecoat,
her blue-veined legs sticking out the bottom, ghostly appendages of their former elegance. Pink velour slippers cast from her feet sprawled near the side of the bed and one end of the white spread had been tossed up over the pillow.

“Are you okay? Did you fall?”

“No.” Gabby winced as she wriggled farther under the bed, her face upturned against the frame, her arm extended as far as it could go.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m such a silly,” she said, her voice slightly muffled under the tomb of her double bed. “I was reading last night, and I’d forgotten to take off my earrings, so I set them on my night table. And wouldn’t you know it, this morning Simon jumped up on the table and the earrings went flying. One is way back there.”

Gabby wriggled herself out and slapped off dust accumulated on her hands. “I wouldn’t worry so much, but Seb gave them to me, and if I don’t wear them, I’m afraid they’ll go missing. I seem to put my valuables down places and then forget . . .”

PJ bent down and pressed her cheek to the floor
 
—it smelled like some perfumed powder one sprinkled to freshen old carpet
 
—and peered into the shadows. Sure enough, Gabby’s emerald earring lay in the center of the darkness, right beyond fingertip reach. “Let me see if I can reach it.”

“I’ll get a broom.” Gabby climbed up off the floor and then, to PJ’s surprise, did a brief soft-shoe right there. “Oh, I just love Frank, don’t you? When he looked at me with those baby blues, I would have promised just about anything.” In that moment, she wasn’t a woman who wore years in the lines
on her face, dressed in clothes more appropriate for a senior center, but a young and fresh girl, her eyes shiny and full of something bright only she could see in her rearview mirror. “I loved the way he laughed. He just made a girl feel beautiful.”

“You knew him?”

But Gabby was lost, caught in a memory, waltzing out of the room.

PJ turned over onto her stomach, stretched out, closing one eye. Her fingers nicked the earring, and she used her middle and pointer finger like tweezers to pull it toward her. Finally her hand closed around it. She sat up, holding it in her hand.

She got up and went to the jewelry box, open on Gabby’s dresser. It sat atop a long rectangle doily next to a picture of Sebastian in thick seventies glasses.

PJ dropped the earring into the box, then sifted through the collection of clip-on earrings and other jewelry. A sapphire brooch in a gold setting and a pair of three-drop pearl earrings, a cocktail ring with tiny rubies, and the emerald pendant on the chain Gabby had worn yesterday. She held it up to the mirror.

“I knew it.”

The tone, more than the words, made PJ shift her gaze toward the doorway.

While Gabby had a natural elegance even at her age, this woman clearly worked for it with her coiffed golden brown hair, ivory pants, and brown sweater with a touch of gold at her ears, neck, and wrists. PJ had the sense of speaking to a very expensive bar of Godiva chocolate.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t give me that lip, young lady. I know exactly what
you were doing.” She strode forward and grabbed PJ’s wrist with a manicured hand, shaking it until the necklace dropped into her open palm. “I knew that one of these days I’d catch you red-handed.”

“What are you talking about? I was just looking.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s exactly what you were doing pawing through my mother’s jewelry. Good thing for her I take an inventory. I know exactly what pieces have gone missing, and now I have reason to go to the authorities.” The woman said the word with a crisp airiness that conjured images of English bobbies.

This certainly couldn’t be . . . “Evelyn?”

“Oh, brother.” She dropped the jewelry into the box behind PJ and closed it with a click. “You can drop the ‘who are you?’ act. You knew I was having work done. I am sure my mother could talk of nothing else.” She changed her tone of voice, imitating Gabby. “‘In my day, a woman aged gracefully.’ Well, in her day, there weren’t younger women throwing themselves at her husband.”

“That’s what you think, Evelyn. There were plenty of young ladies who would have liked to take Seb home, but he wasn’t the kind of man to wander. Besides, back in my day, men and women pledged themselves for life.” Gabby stood at the bedroom door, holding the broom. Whatever song had been in her expression earlier had died. “Maybe you should consider spending more time at home and less time trying to get me to sell the house and move into an old folks’ home.” Gabby entered the room holding the broom out to PJ. “Oh, did you find it?”

PJ smiled at Evelyn. “Yes, I found your earring, Gabby.” She
took the opportunity to accentuate every word. And smiled again, showing lots of teeth.

“Thank you, Dally.”

Dally.
PJ glanced at Gabby, who gave her a quick wink before Evelyn turned on her.

“Mama, you know you can’t take care of this place. Who knows what could happen to you here all alone?”

Clearly the “what could happen” had everything to do with Gabby’s tattooed neighbor.

“Oh, fiddle-dee-dee. Sammy’s here almost every night. And Dally keeps an eye on me, don’t you, sweetie?”

“I’m sure she does.” Evelyn pursed her lips.

Gabby ignored her and leaned the broom against the wall. “We were just talking about the old days of Frankie and Gregory.”

“Gregory?”

“Peck,” Evelyn said under her breath. She caught PJ’s eye and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Don’t encourage her. She thinks they were close personal friends. They took her dancing.”

“I should make you a Cobb salad. I got the recipe straight from Sally at the Brown Derby. We would go there sometimes, all of us, after shooting
 
—”

“C’mon, Mama. I’ll make you some brunch.” Evelyn put her arm around her mother, guiding her to the hallway.

PJ began to follow, but Evelyn rounded on her. “My mother is not in her right mind, and you should know better. The last thing she needs is you encouraging this Hollywood nonsense.”

“She wasn’t in Hollywood?”

“My mother was a housewife from inner-city Minneapolis. Do you seriously think she lived the life of a Hollywood starlet? Look around you.”

PJ saw a home filled with love. The height marks of Gabby’s children and grandchildren were etched in the woodwork near the kitchen. Evidence of a life invested in cookies and cleaning and caring.

“I don’t know. There is that one picture
 
—”

“It’s an agent shot. Her only one. She’s had it there for as long as I can remember, a constant reminder of her empty dreams. She never knew Frank or Gregory or Rita
 
—”

“Hayworth?”

“Of course. Apparently, she was one of Rita’s favorite makeup girls.”

“Maybe it’s good she has such a vivid . . . uh . . . past. If only in her mind, then.” Only PJ didn’t think Gabby seemed the type to invent a past. “How do you know she made it up?”

“I’m her daughter. Don’t you think I would know if my mother had been a Hollywood starlet? Even a small screen one? Besides, she didn’t start conjuring up actual stories until after my father had passed. It’s like she wants to re-create the romantic life she wished they had.”

“Your mom seems pretty content with her life.”

“Dallas, I know she likes you, but don’t pander to her. It’s because of you that she won’t go to the home. She thinks you’re . . . a sort of granddaughter.” Evelyn poked her finger toward PJ. “But I’m not fooled, missy. I’m watching you.” She turned and strode down the hall.

PJ followed, listening to Frank sing “Pennies from Heaven,” seeing Gabby now swaying to the music as she pulled out
her cast-iron pot. Evelyn reached out to help her, and Gabby wrestled it from her hands.

Was Gabby losing her mind?

Which meant, what? If she wasn’t, then where was her jewelry disappearing to? Or if she was, had she imagined seeing Dally’s boyfriend? Maybe she did belong in some senior living apartment.

Suddenly Gabby looked up, mouth open, and said, as if seeing her for the first time, “Dally, what are you doing here?”

“I’m, uh . . .”

“You have a softball tournament. Right now!”

* * *

The last time PJ had played softball, it had been against the Minnetonka Blue Devils in the last round of division championships, and she’d played shortstop. Sometimes she could still smell the cut grass in the outfield, feel the scrape of diamond gravel beneath her cleats, hear the buzz of early evening gnats around her head. In her memory, she saw Boone astride his bike in the parking lot, distracting her from the game.

That night, two outs, bottom of the sixth, two on base, they were up by one run. She saw him go around the fence and perch in the stands. Tonka’s star was up, a home-run hitter who had been PJ’s nemesis for three years. But prom was only a week away, and she had breathy prom night promises on her mind.

She glued her eyes on the batter as the first pitch went wide.

Boone waved.

She ignored him as the batter swung at the second. The ball popped up for a foul.

The third dropped inside, another ball.

And then Kacy Olson sat down next to Boone.

Cute Kacy Olson.

She’d had her jealous eyes on Boone since sixth grade.

The fourth pitch connected just as PJ’s gaze went to the little tramp trying to steal her man. The ball flipped up high, too deep to be an infield fly, but PJ wasn’t going to let it out of her reach.

She backed up, glove high, feet scrubbing through the dirt, into the outfield. “Mine!”

Behind her, the left fielder was running hard to dig it out. “Got it!”

She had her eye on the ball, her glove up, backpedaling
 
—

She slammed into the left fielder just as the ball ricocheted off the top of her glove, bounced on the grass, and rolled toward center field.

Tonka won by three.

She rewrote that moment over and over, sometimes late at night, seeing herself jump and nab the ball or, better yet, letting it pass over her head, trusting her left fielder.