Jackrabbit Junction Jitters (28 page)

The sound of footfalls on the steps made both of them look
at each other.

Claire mouthed, “Mom,” and pretended to zip her lips closed.
She dropped the boot in her lap and leaned forward to hide it from view.

Gramps tiptoed out of view from the crack under the door.

Someone knocked lightly on the door.

“Claire?” The door muffled Jess’s voice.

Whew! Just Jess. “Yeah?”

“Can I come in? I need to talk to you.”

Claire raised her eyebrows at Gramps.

“We’ll reconnoiter in an hour.” He pulled open the door.

Jess jumped at the sight of Gramps standing in the doorway. “Oh!
Um, hi, Harley. Can I talk to Claire alone for a moment?”

“Sure, kid.” Gramps ruffled Jess’s hair as they switched
places.

After shutting the door with a quiet click, Jess leaned
against it, her gaze glued to her pink toenails.

Claire slipped the boot next to the other one in the box,
then kicked it under the desk.

Lacing her fingers, she rested her arms on the desktop and
waited for Jess to speak. When the girl remained silent for several seconds,
Claire prodded her. “What’s up, Jess?”

It wasn’t like Jess to be so quiet.

“Mom told me you didn’t tell her my secret.” Jess’s eyes
still drilled holes into her toes. “She said she got a call from my dad a
couple of weeks ago, and he read her the letter I sent him—the one where I told
him I’m moving up there this fall.”

Claire winced. “Wow. That really sucks.”

“Yeah. I can’t believe Mom’s known all of this time and
never yelled at me about it.”

Claire could. Ruby was no idiot. She had to handle Jess like
old TNT. One wrong word and Jess would blow the roof off the place.

Over the last fifteen years, Jess’s dad had made an ugly
habit of stepping on Jess’s heart. From the start, he hadn’t wanted to take
responsibility for Jess and only paid child support after Ruby dragged the
courts into the ring for a tag-team match and put a Full Nelson on his sorry
ass. Now that he had a whole new family, including a couple of kids, he’d added
razor wire to the wall he’d built to keep Jess out of his life.

“I’m sorry, Jess.” Claire pushed back from the desk.

Jess shrugged. “It’s no big deal. He just got confused and
thought I wanted to live with him again, but I don’t. I’m just going to live in
the same town.”

Claire took a breath, releasing it slowly out her mouth. The
girl refused to see the truth, and it wasn’t Claire’s job to take off her
blinders. “Are you still searching for the money?”

“Yeah. Why? Have you found it?”

“No.”

Jess’s shoulders slumped even lower. “Anyway, I came down
here to tell you that I’m sorry I yelled at you and told everyone your secrets.
That was really stupid of me. I should have known you wouldn’t blab.”

“No worries, kid.”

“If there is any way I can make it up to you, let me know. I’ll
even do your research for free from here on out.”

That was big of Jess, considering she was scrambling for
every penny these days. “Cool. Thanks.”

“Just don’t tell Kate. I charged her double the research fee
you paid.”

Claire grinned. “I’ll keep my lips sealed if you fill me in
about what was on that paper you slipped Kate yesterday after we returned from
Yuccaville.”

“Oh, that?” Jess meandered over to the bookcase and pulled
out one of Joe’s first editions. “Nothing major. She had me look up Butch in
the
Yuccaville Yodeler
archives. The only thing I could find was a
picture of Joe and him.”

“Together?”

Jess nodded, flipping through the book pages, glancing up at
Claire. “They teamed up for some kind of fishing contest and won. At least I
think that’s why they were holding up all of those dead fish. It was pretty
gross.”

Working to keep her face unreadable, Claire smiled blandly.
She hadn’t thought about Butch being buddies with Joe, but with Butch being in
Jackrabbit Junction for close to a decade, it made sense.

Although Kate probably looked at the picture, added two and
two together, and came up with nine again. She just didn’t have good instincts.
She never had.

Kate needed to stick to questioning Porter. He was the
rotten apple in this bin. Jess’s search for him on the Internet yesterday had
turned up absolutely nothing, as in:
We did not find results for Porter Banks
.

That in itself made Claire’s shooting hand twitchy.
Something wasn’t quite right about Porter, and it wasn’t just that his teeth
were too white.

“What’s this?” Jess asked, turning the book upside down.

“What’s what?” Claire joined Jess in front of the bookcase,
catching the fruity scent of the kid’s perfume—or gum.

“This.” Jess held the book out to Claire.

Claire stared down at the faded, messy pencil scrawls jotted
on a yellow Post-it, her brow tightening. Those were Joe’s chicken scratches. She’d
scrounged through enough bits and pieces of paperwork in his office to know his
sloppy slant.

She flipped to the spine …
Treasure Island
. Her eyes
narrowed. This was the book Jess had caught Porter reading.

Turning back to the page with the writing, Claire moved over
to the desk and clicked on the lamp. She noted the page number in case it
played some significance before pulling the Post-it free, leaving the first
edition’s page unmarred.

“What does it say?” Jess whispered when Claire handed the
book back to her.

“Claire?” Ruby called from the top of the stair.

Jess froze, giving Claire a “we’re-busted” look.

Cracking open the office door, Claire answered, “Yeah?”

“That damned toilet is floodin’ again. I know you’re busy,
but can you run on over there and fix it? I don’t want anybody slipping and
breaking a hip.”

“I’m on my way.” Claire pocketed the piece of paper. She’d
have to decipher Joe’s hieroglyphics later.

She made a shushing gesture at Jess.

After crossing her heart, Jess followed Claire up the steps.

* * *

Mac opened the General Store’s front door and stepped into
the cool interior.

His aunt looked up from the paperback she’d had her nose
buried in and smiled wide. “Hey, darlin’. Boy-howdy, am I glad to see you.”

Skirting the counter, she hugged him tight, like he had just
returned from the moon. She smelled sweet, like cookies, which explained the
white dust on her shoulder.

“Where is everybody?” he asked as she stepped back.

His lunch meeting had been rescheduled at the last minute,
so he’d jetted out of work early only to get bogged down in typical Friday
traffic, which had thinned to a trickle as soon as he reached the city limits.

As he’d sped over the asphalt toward Jackrabbit Junction,
his thoughts had bounced around, from Ruby’s predicament with the Lucky Monk
mine to his own sticky situation with Claire, which included dealing with her
mother.

“Oh, here and there.” Ruby said, flippantly.

Mac’s stomach growled loud enough to draw his aunt’s gaze.
In his haste to get back to Claire, he’d skipped lunch.

Ruby grabbed the jar of beef jerky strips from the counter
and held it out. “Hungry?”

“Thanks.” He ripped open the plastic. “How are the wedding
plans coming? Is the bachelor party still on for tonight?” He tore a bite from
the beef strip.

Her smile wavered. She set the jar back on the counter. “There
isn’t going to be a weddin’.”

Mac froze mid-chomp. “Come again?”

“I called it off.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

The last time he’d talked to Claire, shit had hit the fan,
but the wedding was still on. “Why?”

She shrugged and rounded the counter, sliding onto the bar
stool. “Things just weren’t workin’ out.”

Mac chewed on her words and the beef jerky for several
seconds, noticing that Ruby still wore the engagement ring Harley had bought
her. “What happened last night?”

“I realized a future with Harley wasn’t in the cards for me.”

“Then why are you still wearing his ring?” Mac nodded toward
the ring on her left hand.

Ruby glanced down, then crossed her arms over her chest,
hiding her ring finger under her right forearm. “It doesn’t matter why. I’ve
made up my mind.”

Mac shot her a squinty-eyed glare. “What did Jess do?”

“Jess didn’t have anything to do with my decision.”

Then it had to be Claire’s mom. “What did Deborah say to
you?”

Ruby’s cheeks reddened. “Nothing she hasn’t been saying
since Harley and I got engaged.”

“You want me to take her to the mine and shove her down a
shaft?”

That earned a laugh from his aunt.

“What can I do to help you?”

“Ah, honey. You’ve always been my knight in shinin’ armor.
Thanks, but I have to handle this one all by myself.”

If he couldn’t find the paperwork proving she owned the Lucky
Monk, his knighthood status would be revoked.

Glancing at the curtain, Ruby leaned forward and whispered, “What’ve
you found out about the lawyer? I’ve tried to get some news from Claire, but her
lips are sealed up tight.”

“Nothing.” Which unfortunately was pretty much the truth.

“Damn.” Ruby sat back. “Well, now that I’m not going on a
honeymoon, I guess I’d better take over from here and get me a lawyer. I
appreciate you fixin’ to help me on this.”

No! Not a good idea. “Why don’t you let me work on this over
the weekend? Do you know where Joe kept the records on the mines?”

“What kind of records?” Ruby’s gaze was sharp, searching.

Trying to hide the truth behind a smile, Mac answered, “Maps,
claims, patents, permits. That kind of stuff.”

“I’ll have to go up in the attic. Joe was a pack rat, and
there are a bunch of unlabeled boxes up there that I haven’t had a chance to
look through.” She raised an eyebrow. “Why do you need those records?”

“I just—”

The bells over the door jingled. Mac looked over his
shoulder as Kate and a gust of hot air swept into the room.

“Hey, Ruby.” Kate did a double-take when her gaze landed on
Mac. “You’re back, good. You need to do something about Claire.”

He grinned. What was Slugger up to now?

Out the plate-glass front window, he saw the taillights of a
familiar Chevy S10 pickup as it rolled out of the R.V. park.

“Was that Butch’s truck?” he asked Kate.

“Sure was,” Ruby answered. “Kate’s datin’ him.”

“I thought you were dating Porter.”

“She’s datin’ him, too.” Ruby said.

Kate’s forehead reddened.

“Wow, two men in one week.” Mac chuckled. “What did you do?
Tape your business card to the condom machine at The Shaft?”

Kate jabbed Mac in the ribs as she walked past him. “That’s
none of your business. You just worry about Claire.”

Again with Claire. What kind of trouble was she in now?

Gramps walked out through the curtain just as Kate reached
for the fabric.

“Katie, you’re home. Good.” Harley grabbed her by the wrist.
“I need to talk to you for a minute.” He glanced over at Ruby, who was suddenly
busy inspecting her nails, and then Mac.

“Welcome back,” he said, and dragged Kate through the
curtain.

“What was that about?” Mac asked his aunt.

“Beats me.” She avoided eye contact. “Now finish telling me
why you need those records.”

“I want to—”

“Why can’t Claire do it?” Kate’s raised voice came from the
rec room.

Mac couldn’t hear Harley’s reply, just some low-toned
murmurs.

“Fine! But you two keep forgetting that I already served my
time when I drove her down here.” The sound of footfalls bounding up the steps
followed.

A look at Ruby earned him a shrug. “Family problems, I
guess,” she said.

Harley stuck his head through the curtain. “Mac, will you
come here a second?”

“Uh, sure.”

Harley stood by the bar where Mac joined him.

“What the hell is going on around here?” Mac hoped Harley
would fill in the gaps in his aunt’s cryptic story.

Sighing, Harley rubbed his bald head. “Ruby called off the
wedding.”

“She mentioned that. Why?”

“Because I didn’t do what I should have.”

“Which was what?”

“Lock Deborah in the tool shed until after the—” Harley
paused at the clomp-clomp of footfalls across the wood floor in the upstairs
hall. Holding his finger to his lips, he motioned for Mac to join him in the
kitchen.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, Mac asked, “Where are
Claire and Jess?”

“In the men’s bathroom.” Harley nudged Mac aside and peeked
out through the kitchen doorway. “Did you bring my package?”

“It’s in my pickup. Why are they in the men’s bathroom?”

“It’s complicated,” Harley whispered over his shoulder, then
stepped back quickly. Muffled footfalls followed.

Peering around the doorframe, Mac saw a glimpse of Deborah’s
blonde hair before Harley grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back.

Two seconds later, the back door slammed.

“Listen, Mac, I need a favor from you.”

“What?” he said warily.

“Gramps?” Kate called from the rec room.

“We’re in here, Katie.”

Kate appeared in the doorway. “It’s all clear.”

“Good.”

“You owe me for this.”

Harley’s brows lowered. “You’re forgetting about those
speeding tickets I found under your dresser when I helped move it.”

Kate sighed. “Christ. Will you ever forget about those?”

“Probably not.”

“Whatever. I’m going to get Claire.” She turned to leave.

“Don’t forget about Jess.”

“I won’t,” she called over her shoulder and then followed
her mother’s path out the back door.

“Get Claire for what?”

“Operation Ditch Deborah.”

“What?”

Harley dug a piece of paper and a wad of bills out of his
front pocket. “Here’s a list.” He grabbed Mac’s hand and slapped the paper and
money in his palm. “When you get back, dump the goods in the tool shed. Claire
will make sure it’s unlocked.”