Season of Sisters (26 page)

"No. I'm not going to jimmy the lock and look inside." Holly reluctantly accepted the can of pink paint from the older woman. "Besides, I believe him. I don't think that woman he was with at the Arts Festival is his mistress. If he were guilty, he wouldn't have sicced his boys on their mom when he learned about her stepping out. That was the action of a righteous man."

"And a hurt one. You have a point. Nevertheless, he acted unfairly by involving the children and it hurt Maggie deeply. I firmly believe that marital troubles should be kept between a man and wife. If your hunch is correct and Mike is not guilty of infidelity, then Maggie has complicated the situation by dating."

"To put it mildly."

"At least she's doing something again, getting out among the living again. That's a good sign, even if her actions are motivated by retribution rather than a desire to create a new life for herself."

"I wish Mike would see that," Holly said. "I think he loves her, Grace. Did you see the look on his face that day at Sadie's farmhouse? I think he's as torn up as she is over this trouble. But running out on her, or I should say sailing away from her, doesn't solve anything."

"You are exactly right, Holly my friend." Grace paused, waiting until Holly met her gaze before firing her zinger. "Which is why I hope you'll reconsider your notion to move away from Fort Worth."

"Ouch." Holly winced.

Grace chuckled. "Get to work, dear, or day will break before we're done."

Taking the warning seriously, Holly knelt in the Second
Wind's
bow pulpit, dipped her brush, and got down to business. She didn't want to be anywhere near Lake Texoma when Mike Prescott arrived at the marina.

She doubted he'd be happy to find pink and red hearts painted all over his half-million-dollar boat.

In the end, she couldn't blame Grace for the fate that befell them. Holly was the one who got wrapped up in the creative process and lost track of time. If she hadn't insisted on painting hearts on the windows of the fly-bridge, they'd have been long gone before trouble arrived.

As it was, she had one hand on the wheel, the other wielding a paintbrush, when the voice spoke from out of the shadows on the dock. "Ladies, you're under arrest."

* * *

The ringing of the phone in the middle of the night was every mother's nightmare. Even as her eyelids struggled open, even as her mind registered what had awakened her, Maggie's thoughts flew to her children. Her heart began to pound.

Red numerals glowed four forty-five as she lunged for the phone on the bedside table. Her voice croaked, "Hello?"

"Michael Prescott, please," requested an official-sounding voice.

Oh, God.

Maggie spoke in a rush. "He's not here. This is Mrs. Prescott. Is this about one of my boys?"

A lifetime ticked by during the slight pause before he spoke again. "No ma'am. I'm calling in regard to a fifty-foot Viking yacht registered in your husband's name. I'm Captain Marv Hobbs of the Pottsboro Police Department. We apprehended two suspects in the act of vandalizing a boat named the
Second Wind."

The
Second Wind.
Maggie sat up straight. Every time she heard that name it chapped her butt.

"Look, Captain, that is my husband's toy and he's not in town at the moment. Since I personally don't care if the boat floats or not, I'd just as soon get back to sleep. He can take care of this—"

"Excuse me, Mrs. Prescott, but the vandals claim to know you." His voice rose in disbelief. "The women claim to have your permission to... decorate... the property."

Maggie reached over and turned on the light. "Would you repeat that, please?"

"Yes, ma'am. Two women, a Miss Holly Weeks and Mrs.—"

"Grace Hardeman," Maggie interrupted, relaxing against her pillows, her lips beginning to twitch with a smile.

"Yes, Hardeman. A patrol officer apprehended them earlier this morning aboard the
Second Wind."

"You mentioned something about decorating?"

The captain's voice sounded pained. "It's difficult for me to call it that, ma'am, though that's what those two claim. 'Defacement' is the better word, in my opinion. She's a beautiful boat. Or she was."

"Just spit it out, Captain." Maggie was grinning widely now. She wiggled back into her goose down pillows, getting comfortable.

"They painted her with graffiti, Mrs. Prescott. Pink and red hearts. All over the hull."

A laugh burst from her throat. She slapped a hand over her mouth and tried to turn it into a cough. Pink and red hearts. My oh my, she couldn't wait to get a look at that.

The captain continued. "We caught 'em red-handed. Crazy thing is, the older woman claims they were working for you. That they had your permission to be aboard and to... to... commit that atrocity. I don't believe it, of course. We caught them perpetrating a malicious act in the middle of the night. They were even in disguise. The older lady wore a wig."

"Really? What color?"

"Pardon me?"

"What color wig?"

"Um... blond. The younger one was in a baseball cap."

Grace as a blonde,
hmm? Maggie wanted to see that, too.

"You need not come down to the station, ma'am," he said. "Just confirm that they're lying and I'll take it from there."

I just bet he would.
"Something tells me you're a sailor, Captain Hobbs."

"No ma'am. I run a bass boat." Fatigue colored his tone as he added, "Now about those charges?"

Maggie let the silence stretch as she imagined the look on her husband's face when he got his first glimpse at the pink and red hearts on his dreamboat. Gosh, she hoped she wasn't asleep. It'd be terrible if this were only a dream.

"Ms. Prescott..." the police captain said. He paused for a moment as if searching for just the right words. "I can't imagine any man... well... the
Second Wind,
she's something special. It's ridiculous to think that your husband—"

"That yacht is half mine, sir. I can decorate it as I wish. Now, I have a question for you. If I were to tell you Holly and Grace are telling the truth, that they were aboard with my permission, and that I happen to like pink and red hearts very much, would you release them immediately?"

His sigh was loud and long and filled with disbelief. "I'd have no choice."

"I see. Well, that brings up a problem. No matter what permission I did or did not give my friends, they never should have visited such an isolated spot in the middle of the night. Two women alone out at the lake like that? It was foolish. Dangerous, even."

"I won't argue with you."

"You know, if they were my kids, I'd leave them in jail for a little while. Just to teach them a lesson. Then I'd send their father down to bail them out."

He sighed again and Maggie thought she heard him mutter something about dad-blamed modern women. "Mrs. Prescott, are you pressing charges against Ms. Weeks and Mrs. Hardeman?"

"Well, Captain Hobbs, I can't rightly say. I need to think about it a bit. Search my memory for what I said and didn't say. I'll get back to you shortly. All right?"

He muttered and grumbled and eventually growled a good-bye. Maggie let out a giggle that turned into an honest-to-goodness, roll-around-the-bed bout of laughter. Pink and red hearts. Sounds like they turned it into the Love Boat. What had possessed them?

The answer came to Maggie on a sigh. Friendship. That's what possessed them. Though she wasn't exactly certain of their thought processes, she knew without a doubt they did it out of friendship. "And in that case, one good turn deserves another."

Maggie climbed out of bed and padded to the study, where she pulled a Fort Worth phone book from a shelf. The first number she called was already on speed dial. Ben Hardeman answered on the first ring.

The second call she made was taken by an answering service. Ten minutes later, her phone rang. Grinning, she lifted the receiver. "Hello?"

"Maggie? Justin. What the hell is going on?"

Chapter 12

"I'm gonna get fired," Holly moaned. Seated on the end of her bunk in the Pottsboro city jail, she buried her face in her hands. "I'm going to lose my job, then my car, then my house, and I'll end up living under an overpass picking up aluminum cans off the highway median to sell so I can buy food."

"Oh, Holly, don't be such a drama queen." Grace inspected the bunk for dirt, then took a seat opposite Holly. "You're not going to lose anything. Maggie will take care of everything, just you wait."

"Wait till when? They fit us with orange jumpsuits? Orange is not my color, Grace. It makes me look sallow. I don't want to spend ten-to-twenty looking sallow."

Grace responded to Holly's misery with a laugh. Not surprising, since the woman was laughing at everything tonight. When the officer flashed his light in her face, she'd raised her hands, said "oops," then giggled. When he'd cuffed her wrists behind her back and put his hand on her head to guide her into the patrol car's backseat, she'd chuckled with delight. The capper had come when he'd lifted the radio mike and reported the apprehension of two criminal-mischief suspects. Grace had let out a joyful chortle and said, "Oh, this being wicked is fun, isn't it? I've never been arrested before."

Then she'd launched into a series of questions about procedure, asking them with such excited interest that before long, the policeman started casting puzzled glances into the rearview mirror.

Grace had actually pouted when Captain Hobbs said they wouldn't be fingerprinted right away and maybe not at all, depending on how their story checked out with the owner of the
Second Wind.

"I don't understand you, Grace." Holly looked around the barren cell with disgust. "You're actually enjoying this!"

"Why shouldn't I? Nothing bad is going to happen to us and I feel like I've stepped onto the set of Mayberry. Don't you think the captain looks like Andy Griffith? A young Andy. When Opie was still a boy." She patted her hair and grinned. "Tell me I look younger than Aunt Bee."

Exasperated, Holly shook her head. "This isn't a TV show. It's real life. This is a real jail. We're gonna need real lawyers."

"Poppycock. Don't be such a worrywart. And a spoilsport, too, for that matter. You, as much as anyone, should understand. Aren't you the one who invented the Life List?"

That damned list. "As far as I recall, spending time in jail isn't on it."

"Maybe it should be. This entire adventure has certainly made me feel alive. Don't be such a fuddy-duddy."

"I can't believe this. The last time I took a personal day from work was in December so I could go Christmas shopping. I thought
that
was bad. How can I explain jail time to my principal?"

The door leading to the outer offices opened. An officer escorted Ben Hardeman inside. "Ben!" Grace exclaimed. "You're here. How did you find out? I didn't call. I've been asking when we get our phone call, but no one is telling us anything. Who called you?"

Instead of answering, he folded his arms, sighed, and frowned at his wife. "Gracie, we raised two children. Never once did I get called down to the police station in the middle of the night to bail one of them out of jail. Just what do you have to say for yourself?"

She cocked her hip and flashed him a downright wicked smile. "I've changed my mind about handcuffs. Take me home, handsome."

"Oh, God." Holly massaged her forehead. "That's more information than I needed, Aunt Bee."

"Aunt Bee?" Ben asked, leaning against the metal cell bars and smiling indulgently at his jailbird bride.

The woman simply laughed. A vivacious, excited, full-of-life laugh. "It was so exciting, Ben. My heart never pounded so fast as it did when Captain Hobbs flashed that light on my face. I could see the gun in his hand. He had it pointed right at us! It was a good thing I was sitting down, otherwise I'd have fallen. I went weak in the knees and shook like a tree in a gale, Ben."

At least Ben Hardeman has the grace to grimace at that, Holly thought.

He cleared his throat. "I'd just as soon not hear about any guns, honey. In fact, you might want to keep the most exciting stuff to yourself. I was pretty worried tonight, and well, a man my age needs to watch the stress and take care of his heart. Wouldn't want an attack to take me out before our anniversary."

"Oh, pooh." Grace shot him a false scowl. "You and Holly make a fine pair of sticks-in-the-mud. Now hush and let me tell you about the handcuffs."

Ben chuckled and reached through the bars to take his wife's hand. "Tell me about the handcuffs."

Grace told her story, relaying the events of the night with a voice that bubbled like champagne. She laughed and she giggled and she babbled. She lit up the jail cell, a live wire who brightened the entire office and even had the lawmen grinning in reaction.

A
live wire,
Holly thought. A
live.

Alive. Alive. Alive.
The word throbbed in her head like a mantra. The scene around her altered, sharpened, but at the same time, somehow pulled away. Holly felt insulated and apart. She was an observer, not a participant, and what she saw confused her.