Crazy in Love (5 page)

Duh.
“Because then you win.”

The sheer ridiculousness of it all seemed to hit them
both at the same time. They shared a smile, and once again, Flynn went all fluttery inside. She took a deep breath and mentally envisioned herself hosing the butterflies down with insecticide.

“
Okay,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “We’ll compromise. You can call me Tucker.”

“
Fine,
Tucker.
Thank you for the ride, but if we’re done here, I’d really like to unpack, pee, and take a nap.”

He chuckled. She raised her eyebrows and looked meaningfully at the door.

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Fair enough.”

He tossed the twenty down on the half-moon table by the door and left. Relief flooded her entire body. Her reprieve wouldn
’t last long, though, she knew. Soon she would have to call a staff meeting and look them all in the eye and lie like a bastard. But for the moment, she was safe.

The hair on the back of her neck rose suddenly, and she got the distinct feeling that she was being watched. She glanced around, her eyes finally landing on the cow creamers. She walked to the shelf and stared them down.
“You guys? Will be the first to go.”

Feeling marginally better, she turned and headed toward the bathroom, working hard to shake the absurd feeling that behind her, the ceramic cows were laughing.

***

There were three messages waiting for Jake when he walked through his apartment door. The first was, predictably, from Mercy, lecturing him on being nice to the niece, lest she sell the place and fire them all, e
t cetera, et cetera…

…
et cetera.
His sister had definitely inherited the Tucker gene for excessive chattiness.

Pfft,
he thought as Mercy rattled on.
Nice to the niece.
Like he needed to be told. He was always nice. And he’d been on his best behavior with the niece, if you didn’t count the badgering, which he didn’t. It was a necessary evil to see what he was dealing with in this Flynn Daly person. If the niece was in it with Chase, Jake had to know that. If it meant pissing off the niece in the process, so be it.

The thing was, even after the badgering, he wasn
’t at all sure what he was dealing with. His gut said she was okay, and his gut was usually pretty reliable, but there was definitely something weird about her. His research had painted a pretty clear picture of what to expect: your basic spoiled rich girl who’s never had to work a day in her life. She’d gone to Boston University, gotten a degree in Liberal Arts with a minor in Theater, and had gone on to be an actress for a while, with mentions peppered in some regional papers outside of Boston. In recent years, she’d disappeared off the radar, with the exception of occasional mentions in the Boston society sections, usually for attending an event for one of her father’s pet charities. Based on all that, Jake had been expecting a spoiled socialite out here to charm the locals while Daddy skewered a deal back at Rich Dude HQ.

Instead, what he
’d gotten was a mass of contradictions with a heartbeat. She was both confident and insecure. She stood straight, but walked with a tentative gait, like a little girl in her mother’s heels. She was sharp, but still easily taken off guard. She had this crazy hair that was tame and wild at the same time, hazel eyes that seemed to
see more than she let on, and a smile that reminded
him
of a Disney heroine—wide, toothy, and with an uncanny ability to knock his train of thought right off the tracks every time.

She
was… weird.

And Jake was pretty sure she was just a spoke in this wheel; he really didn
’t think she was involved with Gordon Chase. Of course, Chase would still be on the prowl—Jake gave it twenty-four hours max before he showed up at the Arms, ready to use Flynn Daly to get his grubby hands on the inn. And she’d fall for his act. Most women were helpless in the face of men like Gordon Chase. Which could actually work for Jake; if he stuck close enough to Flynn Daly, she might be his ticket to bringing the asshole down.

The machine finally beeped—what happened to the good old days when answering machines cut people off after a minute or so?—and the second message started. Mercy, again, announcing that someone seemed to be filching the toilet paper from the executive commode, and she would gladly pay a real private detective to investigate if, alas, only there was one in town.

“It’s a damn shame,” he muttered as he hit the delete button.

Then he listened to the third message. It was from a voice he didn
’t recognize, a woman’s voice so small and mousy he was a little surprised his machine had picked it up at all.

“
Hello? Um, Mr. Tucker? This is Rhonda Bacon, Gordon Chase’s secretary, and I’m calling because…” There was a long pause, and in the background a man’s voice was talking. Finally there was the sound of a door closing and she was back, her voice even lower than before. “I’m calling because I have information I think you might be interested in.” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “Information about Mr. Chase. About what he’s been doing.” There was the sound of a door opening. Jake thought he recognized Gordon Chase’s deep, greasy tones this time, and then the line went dead. The electronic time stamp lady announced that the call had come in on Tuesday at 3:13
a.m.,
which was of course wrong, since it was Monday; Jake had never bothered resetting his machine after the last storm had knocked the power out. Which had been about a month ago. But based on his estimates of when Mercy would have left her messages, he figured the call came in sometime after two-thirty that afternoon, right about the time he was showing Flynn Daly into Esther’s cottage.

Jake stared at the machine for a while after Rhonda
’s message ended, then walked over to the fridge to grab a beer. He wasn’t typically a daytime drinker—wasn’t much of a drinker at all, actually—but this was an occasion that called for a beer.

After all, this just might be his lucky day. How often did the secretary of your sworn enemy call you offering evidence on a silver platter? Jake was no statistics expert, but he figured not often.

He took a swig from his beer and stared at the machine, his brain getting to work on sorting out the stuff that didn’t make sense. For one, why had Rhonda called him? If she knew that Chase was guilty of something, didn’t it make sense to go straight to the police? Why call a disgraced—and prematurely retired—rookie cop? Even if he was still on the force, he’d be little more than a grunt
with the ability to ticket people for speeding and indecent exposure. He was small potatoes any way you sliced it, so it made no sense for Rhonda to be beating down his door.

Unless maybe she was implicated. Maybe Chase had somehow gotten her to break the law without her realizing what she was doing. Jake knew precious little about Rhonda Bacon, but in the months following his termination from the Scheintown Police Department, he
’d done some digging on everyone connected with Chase. From what he’d gathered about Rhonda, she was quiet and easily intimidated, and Chase was just the kind of asshole to use her as a human shield should the circumstance require it.

Jake put the beer down on the coffee table and rubbed his hands over his eyes. He could feel the build happening, the energy pooling under his feet. This was it. This was his chance. He could jump on it, try to take Chase down, and finally end this thing. It wouldn
’t bring his dad back. It wouldn’t get him his job back. It wouldn’t even make him feel better about the night he followed Elaine Placie, her rhinestone flask and her killer legs, out to the parking lot at the police station while that laptop disappeared.

But it would feel really,
really
good.

On the other hand, this was also an opportunity to heed the plaintive advice of Mercy, his three other sisters, and his mom, and just move on. Grow up. Pass Go. Collect $200. This was what his oldest sister Liv liked to call
“a defining moment”, a moment in which you have a choice, and you can either choose the path that leads to growth and enlightenment, or you can continue fucking everything up just like always.

Liv would be disappointed, but he wasn
’t that interested in growth and enlightenment. He was more interested in finding that laptop, which was impossible. It had surely been wiped clean and either tossed or sold. But that was the beauty of fantasy, no reality required, and in his, he would bring that laptop straight to Gerard Levy, dump it on his desk, and let the justice system take care of Gordon Chase. Then the town would throw a big parade, give him the key to the city, and beg him to come back to work. With a raise.

And as long as he was fantasizing, he wanted Elaine Placie back, too. Not
in the sexy con-artist way she’d used to tank his career, but rather in the humble, remorseful, begging-for-forgiveness way. Jake leaned back and closed his eyes, picturing her in an orange jumpsuit, blond hair scraggly, wrists manacled, mascara smudged and running, as she begged the judge not to blame Jake.

“
It’s not his fault,” she’d say. “Do you see these legs? He was only human, Judge. And I’m so, so, so”—here, she’d turn her eyes, welling with tears, to Jake—“so sorry. I was wrong. And naughty. Very, very naughty.”

That, of course, wasn
’t going to happen, either. Less than a week after Jake had traded his career for silky legs and a rhinestone flask, Elaine Placie had cleaned out her apartment and conveniently disappeared. Jake had looked for her for a while with some fantasy of her testimony helping to take Chase down, but the trail had gone cold before he could find her. His best guess was that she was out there somewhere, living under an assumed identity and sleeping on a mattress stuffed full with cash courtesy of Gordon Chase. The assumed identity seemed like overkill to Jake, but if she was the kind of girl who’d distract
a cop on watch for money, who knew what else she had done? And an assumed identity was the only way to explain how there’d been absolutely no blip on any of the radars he’d set up to look for her. As far as the general bureaucracy of life was concerned, Elaine Placie no longer existed.

Well,
he thought, raising his beer in a quiet salute to Rhonda Bacon,
who needs her, anyway?

Three

Th
e old lady sat in the rocking chair in the corner of the room. She was rocking, but the chair was not.

Weird.

Flynn sat up in the bed, but at the same time, knew she was still asleep. She could feel the heaviness in her limbs, the steadiness in her breath. Also, it was late, the sun was definitely down, but the room was filled with a misty, orange glow.

And she was staring at a see-through old lady in a rocking chair.

Definitely a dream.

“
You moved my cows,” the old lady said.

Flynn stared for a moment, her brain moving in fuzzy waves as she tried to connect to what the lady was saying. Cows. She hadn
’t moved any—

“
Oh!” she said, snapping her dream fingers. “The creamers? The ones on the shelf? Hell, yeah, I moved them. They were creeping me out.”

The lady stopped rocking.
“You’re scared of ceramic cows?”

“
Cows in general. I’m not a fan. Actually, most farm animals kinda bug me. And bugs.” She shuddered through an exhale. “I don’t like nature much.”

The old lady chuckled.
“Boy, did you ever come to the wrong place.”

“
Maybe.” Flynn tried to formulate her next question so it wouldn’t make her sound crazy, but then gave up. What the hell? It was just a dream. “Are you, um… are you my great-aunt Esther?”

“
Is your grandmother Elizabeth Daly?”

“
That was my father’s mother. Yes.”

“
That was my sister.” Ghost Lady started rocking again. “Guess that makes me your great-aunt Esther. You can just call me Esther, though.”

“
Oh. Okay. But you’re . . . you know. Dead, right?” Esther glanced up at her, and for the first time, Flynn noticed she was knitting an afghan in various shades of purple. Crazy dream.

“
It would appear so,” Esther said. “Came as quite the shock to me, too.”

All right. This was not okay. It was not okay to be sitting in a strange bed in a strange place that smelled like old lady and having a conversation with a dead woman. Flynn closed her eyes and tried to wake up, but when she opened them again, the room was still all glowy.

She was still dreaming.

Shit.

“Got any Pop-Tarts?” Esther asked suddenly.

“
No.” Flynn swallowed. This was by far the weirdest dream she’d ever had. And that included the one with the duck.

“
Shame.” Esther sighed. “I really miss Pop-Tarts. The strawberry ones with the frosting and sprinkles were my favorite.”

Flynn rubbed her fingers over her eyes, but when she opened them again, Esther was still there.

“Look, not to be rude, but isn’t there a white light or something you need to be going toward?”

“
I think perhaps you need to examine your concept of rude. And, no, to answer your question, there isn’t a white light. There isn’t anything. Just me in this little house, doddering about. No Pop-Tarts.” She shot a ghostly glare at Flynn over her bifocals. “I assume it has something to do with you.”

Flynn felt a rush of panic go through her.
“With me? Why me? We’ve never even met before.”

“
And yet, there you are, sleeping in my bed, moving my cows—”

“
Look, I’m sorry about the cows, okay? Had I known it would upset the dead lady, I would have thought twice.”

Esther let out a martyred sigh.
“Don’t worry about it. I put them back.”

Flynn felt herself roll over in her sleep, and yet there she was, still on the edge of the bed, locked in an awkward silence with a dead woman.

Okay. That’s enough.

“
It was nice to meet you, Aunt Esther. I’m going to wake up now, and you’ll just go away, right?”

Aunt Esther continued knitting.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you give it a try?”

With a deep gasp, Flynn shot up in bed. For real this
time. She no longer felt all fuzzy, and with her hand on her chest she could feel her erratic heartbeat and uneven breathing. She reached over and flicked on the lamp, then looked at the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

It was still.

And empty.

Thank God.

She glanced at the clock. 12:34. She’d been sleeping for six hours. No wonder she was disoriented. Dreaming about dead old ladies. How ridiculous.

She tried to laugh, but it came out all wavery and weak. She felt a chill go down her spine, and shuddered as she tried to talk herself down from the panic welling in her gut.

It was just a dream.

She hopped out of the bed, grabbed her suitcase, and tossed it onto the bed.

There’s no such thing as ghosts.

She unzipped the suitcase, pulled out a pair of jeans and a light sweater.

Even if she’s really a ghost
,
she can’t hurt you.

She got dressed quickly and zoomed out of the bedroom. She snatched her purse from the half-moon table and then froze as she saw something out of the corner of her eye.

She turned.

She looked.

Oh, holy Jesus.

Had she dreamed taking the ceramic cows down and putting them in the closet? She remembered all the details clearly, from the light sheen of dust on the ceramic to the
old musty smell of the closet as she tucked them way in the back.

And yet, there they were on the shelf on the wall, exactly where they
’d been when she’d found them.

Well, then she must have dreamed putting them away, too.

She
must
have.

“
It was nice meeting you, Aunt Esther,” Flynn said loudly as she pulled the front door open. “Now go away.”

***

Jake wiped the inside of a wineglass and hooked it into the holder above the bar. Monday nights were typically dead; the locals who drank early in the week usually went to dives like the Bait and Tackle on Route 9, and guests of the Goodhouse Arms tended to be early-to-bed types. The last customers had left fifteen minutes earlier and Jake started in on closing up, taking advantage of having a few moments alone to think.

But there were really only two things on his
min
d: Rhonda Bacon and Flynn Daly.

Rhonda, because he needed to figure out how he was going to approach her without Gordon Chase getting wind of it. Shiny was a small place; you couldn
’t have a dirty thought without everyone knowing about it. Meeting with the secretary of your sworn enemy? They’d be talking about it in the preschool.

And Flynn Daly,
because Jake needed to find a way to undo the damage from their meeting that afternoon and try to talk her into keeping the place before Gordon Chase swooped in and convinced her otherwise. If Flynn didn’t delay her family on the sale for at least a little
while, there’d be no bright, shiny objects to keep Chase distracted while Jake did his investigating on the sly. If he could just get Flynn to gum up the works for a little while…

Of course, he
’d have to get her to trust him first. He’d thought about stopping by the cottage after work, but it was way too late for a casual social call. She’d think he was there for sex or a raise, and neither assumption would reflect well on him. The wrinkle was, Chase had certainly smelled the niece in the water by now. If Jake was a betting man, he’d put his last dollar on Chase being there first thing in the morning, which meant that in order to beat him to the punch, Jake would have to get to Flynn before eight, and he didn’t have her pegged as a morning person.

So when he heard the door swing open and saw Flynn Daly push into the bar looking like a woman who needed a drink real bad, Jake
’s smile couldn’t have been more genuine. Flynn, however, didn’t look quite so happy to see him.

“
What are you doing here?”

“
My job.” Jake flipped a bar towel over his shoulder. “I’m your bartender.”

“
I thought you were maintenance.”

“
Why would you think I’m maintenance?”

“
Well… you said…” She paused for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“
Okay.” He leaned one elbow on the bar and pulled on the charm smile. It almost never failed. “That’s a good reason.”

She slumped down on a bar stool.
“This is not going well.”

“
You think?” he said, setting a dish of pretzels out for her. “Because I’d have to disagree. My night just started looking up.”

Flynn raised her head up from the bar and glared at him.

“Don’t charm me, Tucker.”

“
Can’t help it. Charm is part of a package deal. It comes with the clever and the good-looking.”

“
Oh, stop it. I know your type.” She sneered and moved her fingers around in the air in front of his face, as though conjuring his “type” from thin air. “I wasted most of my precious college years dating your type. I…” She blinked, and her eyes cleared, and she shook her head. “Why am I talking about this? Jameson’s neat, please.”

Well
, I guess making friends and gaining her trust is out,
Jake thought as he set a rocks glass on the bar and filled it.
This is where a plan B would have come in handy.

He slid the glass to her in silence. She took it and looked up at him with guilty eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she grumbled finally. “I’m usually not this cranky. I’m actually, typically, kind of a fun person.”

Jake perked up. Was she starting to confide in
him
? That could be good. He leaned forward slightly. “I think you’re scads of fun.”

She gave a mini eye
-roll, then sighed. “My family thinks I’m a loser. They sent me here because they don’t think I’ll ever make anything of my life on my own.” She lifted her glass and snorted into it. “The kicker? They’re probably right.”

Jake waffled for a moment, then chose a direction.
“If you think so, then they are.”

Her glass froze in midair, and
she raised her gaze up to meet his. “Excuse me?”

“
I have four sisters and a mother. I know a little something about familial disapproval. The secret is not to let it get to you. They love you, they’re worried about you, they say hurtful things, but it’s just because they want what’s best for you. But only you know what’s best for you, so go ahead and humor them so you can get through Thanksgiving without bloodshed, but don’t believe any of it.” She stared at him in stark silence. Jake held his breath. He’d either just won her over or completely blown it, and he wouldn’t know until she said something.

But she wasn
’t saying anything. She just held his gaze for a long moment, and then, without any change in facial expression, said, “My father has angina.”

Jake broke into a deliberately confused grin.
“Really? Is that possible? For a man to have—”

She huffed.
“Not a
va
gina.
An
gina. It’s a heart—”

“
A heart thing,” Jake said, playfully swatting at her arm with his bar towel. “I know.”

Finally, she broke i
nto a crazy, tremendous, heart-stopping smile, and it felt like all the lights in the room upped their wattage. She lowered her glass, shook her head, and laughed lightly.

Jake grinned. He hadn
’t blown it.

“
So, your dad,” he said. “He’s okay?”

She lifted her head, the smile still playing on her lips.
“Yeah. He’s fine. And now, he’s not worried about me anymore, so that should help.”

“
Ah,” Jake said. “Taking one for the team, are you?”

She looked around the bar, assessing her surroundings.
“Yeah. Guess you could say that.”

The s
mil
e was almost gone. Jake wanted to see it again, see if the entire room brightening was just his imagination, but there were things to be accomplished first.

“
I think you did the right thing,” he said. “And let me tell you why.”

“
You sound like that guy from
The Music Man
,” she said. “Does your reason start with a capital T, which rhymes with P, which stands for—”

“
The Goodhouse Arms,” Jake jumped in. “Let me tell you why I think you shouldn’t sell this place.”

“
Oh, hell.” Flynn lifted her glass and took a long swallow, but that smile played once again at the edge of her lips.