Troublemaker (23 page)

With his move upstairs to the guest room, the sofa had ceased being a bed and returned to seating. Morgan sat on one end, she sat on the other, and Tricks on her special blanket snoozed contentedly between them. She always rested her muzzle on Bo's thigh and turned her butt to Morgan, but he was okay with that; he knew where he was in Tricks's hierarchy of affection.

On the day she got home and found he'd cut the grass for her, she could have hugged him. She didn't because she was smarter than that, but the impulse was there.

Damn it all, she wasn't just attracted to him; she
liked
him.

Now that he was stronger, Morgan made it his mission to walk the
hills around Bo's place, getting the topography set in his mind. He wanted to know all the possible routes anyone could take to approach the house; the surrounding hills and mountains were rough going, which was reassuring. There were bluffs, impenetrable underbrush, streams and rivers. From a strategic point of view, he liked that.

He knew it was unlikely anything would actually happen here, but his training said to prepare for the unexpected. He was the bait in the trap, but the rat was never intended to actually get the cheese. The act of looking for his location would trigger the trap.

Still . . . shit happened.

If it were just him, he wouldn't mind, but he had Bo to consider.

The simplest approach usually had the highest degree of success. The more complicated a plan became, the more details could go wrong. In this case, the simplest approach would be to come up the driveway. The very length of the drive itself was part of what made it the most likely; anyone could get far enough from the road to be out of sight from both road and house.

He couldn't turn the house into a bunker; it simply wasn't feasible to bury the entire house, or reinforce walls and windows and doors. Nor was it feasible to dig an underground escape tunnel, not when weighed against the likelihood of anything actually happening, how long it would take, how much it would cost.

There were real-world, more reasonable approaches he could take.

He didn't talk it over with Bo because he knew she'd kick up a fuss—either that or come to the not unreasonable conclusion that he hadn't told her everything she should know about the level of danger. He and Axel had definitely downplayed that part of the situation, but neither of them had exactly lied.

Logically, the townsfolk would be fine. Only an idiot would try to take him out in town, where there would inevitably be a bunch of witnesses and someone to interfere. No, if trouble came, it would come here, to Bo's house.

There were commonsense measures to take that wouldn't involve turning the house into a bunker. He called a security company and made an appointment for a salesman to come out, listen to what he wanted, and give him a price. Because he wasn't stupid, he waited until the day of the appointment to tell Bo.

She was working at her computer, but at his words she swiveled her chair around to face him. “You did what?” she demanded, annoyance in both expression and tone. “Don't you think you should have talked this over with me first?”

“No,” he said baldy. “I knew you'd balk, just like you're doing now.”

“I already have a security system.”

“You have an alarm on the doors and windows. You need more.”

Some of the things he liked best about her were that she was logical and reasonable and organized. Unfortunately, that meant she immediately came to the logical and reasonable conclusion he hadn't wanted her to reach. “What aren't you telling me?” she asked, her dark eyes narrowed. “If you can't be traced here, why do I need beefed-up security?”

“Because things can always go wrong. What I'm thinking of is stuff you should have anyway, such as security cameras. You live out here by
yourself; you need to be able to see what's in the yard before you take Tricks out at night. You need motion-sensor lights. I'm paying for this, and I'm putting it in. If you don't like it, after I'm gone you can have it taken out.”

She glared at him and finally muttered, “Don't be so damn reasonable. Give me something I can argue against.”

He knew better.

She had to leave for town before the salesman got there, which frustrated her to no end. She was still scowling as she drove down the driveway. At least Tricks was smiling at him from her normal seat in the front of the Jeep.

The security salesman was the usual sales type: friendly, gregarious, with a knack for overselling. It was his bad luck that Morgan was immune to overselling.

He took the guy on a walk around the property, telling him exactly what he wanted, and where: cameras that covered all of the house exterior, no blind spots, with monitors in the most-used rooms of the house; motion sensor lights; driveway alarm. The driveway alarm was problematic; the best was a buried sensor probe, and that worked on a line of sight, which meant that putting it at the beginning of Bo's driveway, close to the road, simply wouldn't work. There were too many hills, trees, and curves in the way. If he had unlimited time and money, and government resources to work with, he could get something that worked, but he didn't have those three things, so he had to settle and have the probe located at the farthest line of sight, which unfortunately was about seventy-five yards. It would have to do. If anyone approached at night—again, the most likely scenario—they could well turn off their headlights and drive close enough to set off the alarm.

He ignored the salesman's efforts to sell him a maintenance and service contract. He wanted the system, not their monitoring—and he wanted it installed as soon as possible.

Installation was an all-day project, which meant Bo was there for the first part of it. The cameras were installed first, and she was impressed
by the clarity of the images on the monitors; he let her choose the location of said monitors because it was, after all, her house, and he wanted her involved so she'd stop glaring at him.

Then she had to go to work, which pissed her off all over again.

He was grinning as he waved to her on her way down the driveway.

“You think you're so smart,” she muttered when she got home, still disgruntled. The fact that he was cooking supper—nothing fancy, just grilled steaks and baked potatoes, with a stab at a salad for her—evidently held no sway with her.

“Want me to drive down far enough to set off the alarm, so you can see how it works?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation at all.

So he drove down far enough to set off the alarm, then reversed back to his usual parking spot. When he got out of the Tahoe, he could hear Tricks barking her head off.

He went back inside. “Impressed?”

“It's loud, I'll give you that. Tricks went nuts.”

“She'll be a good backup alarm, then, in case we both happen to sleep through it—not likely, but I guess it could happen.” No way would either of them sleep through the ruckus Tricks was raising, running around the house looking for the very loud intruder.

Morgan wasn't completely happy, but he definitely felt better prepared in case the shit hit the fan.

Three days before the Heritage Parade, Bo said, “The divorce goes
before Judge Harper today. Fingers crossed there's no problem.”

Morgan thought seriously about going to town with her, just for the entertainment value, but he had something he wanted to do, so he said, “Want to leave Tricks here with me, in case you get tied up dealing with the Goodings?”

She looked at the golden with regret. He knew she liked having Tricks with her, and God knew the dog was always happier with Bo, but there were practical matters to consider such as Tricks's need for regular
outside trips. He was a handy dog-sitter, and Tricks would be more comfortable.

“Okay, thanks. I'll call if I'm going to be late.”

She left, and Tricks did the staring-out-the-window-and-looking-forlorn routine. Leaving her to it, Morgan opened the door to the storage area beneath the stairs and spotted the treadmill Bo had mentioned to him. It was folded up, had wheels for ease of moving it, and wasn't blocked by too much other junk. He moved some boxes around and rolled the machine out. The activity pulled on the scar tissue in his chest but—not much. As soon as he built up his stamina some more, he'd start with the weights.

The treadmill was a decent one, electric, had an incline; he could get a good workout on it. Going up and down the hill with Bo and Tricks on their walks was good, but he wanted more.

Intrigued, Tricks came over to inspect the machine, giving it a good sniffing, then she got her ball, went to the door, and stood there looking from Morgan to the door and back again. He didn't obey her hint fast enough, so she went to him and swatted his knee with her paw, which was her signal that she really really needed to pee and he'd better hurry.

“You're a pushy little shit, you know?” he said conversationally. She didn't care as long as she got what she wanted. She bounced out when he opened the door, dropped her ball, and took off running.

He was anxious to get to the treadmill, but he was well aware that Tricks had to have her fun time before she'd consent to pee, so he threw the ball. Then he threw it again. And again. On the fourth time, he said sternly, “Young lady, you're going to be in a lot of trouble if you don't take a piss this time.” He didn't know what trouble she'd be in, but it sounded good. He threw the ball, and Tricks went after it. He could have sworn that she kept a weather eye on him as she retrieved it. She trotted back, still watching him, then paused and bumped her butt on the ground. If she'd held the pose a little longer he might have bought it, but all she did was a quick bump, then she was up again, trotting to him with her tail jauntily waving, certain she had fooled him.

A laugh exploded out of him. All he could do was pet her and praise her, laughing the whole time, because, holy hell, she'd just
pretended
to pee. And she was so gleeful that she'd fooled him, as if she'd played the best joke ever.

Evidently she'd been lying about needing to pee too; all she'd wanted was to play.

He gave up, surrendered, mentally waved the white flag. He was seriously in love with this dog.

He took her back inside and finished setting up the treadmill, then went upstairs to put on his running shoes. Maybe he was being too optimistic to think he'd actually be running much, but he sure as hell was going to find out.

Going back downstairs, he stood on the side rails of the treadmill and attached the safety clip to his shirt. He set the workout he wanted; nothing fancy this time, just a steady fast walk on a few degrees incline, to see where he stood now so he'd know what he needed to do. Tricks came to lie down beside the treadmill, resting her muzzle on her paws.

He turned on the treadmill and stepped onto the moving belt, found the pace.

As soon as the belt started moving, Tricks lifted her head, her ears perked up and her eyes bright with interest. Then she got up and trotted away; evidently she was already bored.

Morgan monitored himself: Legs, good. Breathing, good. Heart rate, good. Of course, he'd barely gotten started, but overall . . . not bad.

Tricks reappeared, tennis ball in her mouth. Damn it,
now
she wanted to go outside. He said, “Sorry, princess—”

She all but danced to the front of the treadmill, and let the ball go.

It shot between his feet and across the room, and she darted after it.

Morgan swore at the top of his lungs as he tried to avoid the ball and keep his balance on the moving belt. For a split second he felt like one of those cartoon characters slipping on a banana peel, with feet and arms going in four different directions. He grabbed the bars and caught himself just before his head made contact with the control panel, but his
feet kept going. He gathered himself, braced his weight on the bars, and did an in-air half-jack. His feet landed on the side rails.

Having retrieved her ball, Tricks trotted back to the front of the treadmill while he still stood there spread-eagled over the moving belt, and let it go again.

“Shit! Fuck!” he growled in exasperation and shut the machine off.

When the belt slowed to a stop, he got off the machine and glared at the dog who was back at the front, gently waving her tail as she gave him a quizzical look. It made no sense to her that he'd stopped her new game almost as soon as it started.

Morgan sat down on the floor, and she immediately came to him to be petted. The bad news was that he obviously wouldn't be able to get on the treadmill if Tricks was anywhere in the house.

The good news was that at least he hadn't killed himself.

T
HE CALL CAME IN LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, RIGHT
before time to go home. Listening to it over the radio, and to Loretta's responses, Bo muttered, “Shit,” and dropped her head into her hands. They'd been so close to making it through the day without any drama.

It was Jesse's day off; Officer Patrick Jones was in the station. He said, “I'm on it, Chief,” and was out the door. That was the fastest she'd seen him move in the entire time she'd known him.

Loretta said wistfully, “Man, I'd like to see this.”

Bo wasn't of the same opinion. She'd been
this close
to going home. She could feel a headache coming on, precipitated by the drama and long hours she knew were coming at her. “I was hoping everything would go smoothly and the whole town could move on.”

“Yeah, but you're not a Hobson. We live for shit like this.” Loretta paused. “Want me to call Jesse in? Not that Patrick can't handle it, but Jesse has a way of settling people down.” That was because Jesse had perfected the cop's “don't mess with me” stare.

“He'll be on a date with Kalie,” Bo replied, but they both knew Jesse would be monitoring his radio anyway, and he was probably already on his way with Kalie beside him. No one would want to be left behind in tomorrow morning's gossip, not even Jesse.

For herself, she'd like to pack it in and go home, but that option was off the table now.

She got her cell phone and called home. Morgan picked up on the third ring.

“Anything wrong?” he said by way of greeting, getting straight to the heart of the matter.

“The divorce proceedings didn't go well. I'll probably be several hours late. Go ahead and eat whatever you feel like eating, and feed Tricks. I'll grab something here when I have time. How's Tricks?”

“She's fine. She nearly killed me, but she's fine.”

“Okay, good,” she said absently, and hung up. After a few seconds she realized what she'd said and started to call him back but gave herself a little shake and forgot about it. With Tricks, it could be anything. She'd find out later.

Within twenty minutes, the police station was a mob scene. She'd expected to see Emily and Kyle brought in, or at least Kyle, but that wasn't the case. Patrick arrived first, with Melody Gooding handcuffed in the backseat of his cruiser. She was yelling and cussing at Patrick, kicking the seat, and generally raising hell. Then Jesse rolled up, as predicted, and of all people he had Miss Doris in
his
cruiser—handcuffed in the back, while Kalie Vaughan sat in the front passenger seat wide-eyed and shocked.

Miss Doris was spitting fire, yelling at Melody as soon as the officers had gotten the two women out of the cruisers. “I'll kick your sorry ass all over this town!” Miss Doris bellowed. Her normally sweet round face was fiery red and not looking sweet at all, while her mild blue eyes were sparking fire.

Oh, holy shit.

Other people began showing up, crowding into the small police station: Emily and her mother; Mayor Buddy; a few members of the town council; the two lawyers who had been representing the divorcing parties; a couple of the volunteer firemen and a paramedic; Miss Virginia Rose, who must have been in the courtroom sightseeing; Sam Higgins, the school-bus driver; then Mr. Gooding and Kyle came in, with Kyle looking furious and sullen.

Kyle gave Bo a menacing look but then remembered where he was and quickly looked away. No, she thought, he did not want to start mouthing off in here and demanding she release his sister. He'd barely escaped being charged the last time, and that had led to his being forced to sign the divorce papers as Emily wanted them.

Last but not least, Daina arrived with her for-now boyfriend, Kenny Michaels. What on earth were they doing here?

The noise of all the raised voices was deafening, with everyone shouting and no one able to hear what anyone was saying. At least half these people had no business being here, Bo thought, though the paramedic might come in handy.

Daina slipped over to her and said, “I thought I'd come get Tricks, get her out of the way so you don't have that worry.”

“Oh—thanks,” Bo said in relief. “But I kind of had a feeling this might happen, so I left her at home with Morgan.”

“You're good, then?”

“I wouldn't go that far.”

Daina smothered a laugh. “We'll get out of the way. Call me when it's over. I want the scoop.” Then she and Kenny left, with Kenny giving a small wave as they went out the door.

There were still far too many people.

Bo climbed up on her desk, clapped her hands, and yelled, “
Hey!
” She didn't like confrontation, but, damn it, she was the chief, and this situation couldn't be sorted out with this many people in the way.

Silence fell, even between Melody and Miss Doris, who had continued cussing at each other the whole time. Bo was kind of stunned Miss Doris knew those words. Everyone in the crowded station turned to look at her.

“I want everybody out,” she said. “Even you, Mayor Buddy. Everybody except my two officers, Miss Doris, Melody, Loretta, and me. If you aren't one of the six people named—
out
.”

“Now see here—” Mr. Gooding began hotly.

“No, I won't see here. We can't get this mess straightened out with everyone in here yelling at each other. Emily, Kyle, take your lawyers
with you. If they're needed after we talk to Miss Doris and Melody, they can come back. Out. I mean it. Anyone who is still here in sixty seconds will be arrested.”

Mayor Buddy beamed at her in pride and said, “I guess I know better than to go against you when you're riled,” as he headed out the door. He paused just long enough to give her a wink. He was followed posthaste by Sam Higgins, the firemen, and the medic. It took an additional glare from her and threatening looks from both Jesse and Patrick to get everyone else out. Miss Virginia Rose wore a stubborn expression, as if she wanted to be a holdout, until Loretta stood up and cleared her throat. “All right, all right,” Miss Virginia grumped as she went out the door.

As soon as the door closed and silence fell, Loretta humphed. “For a minute, I thought she would deliberately get herself arrested so she could see what all goes on.”

Bo jumped down from her desk and shook her head as she stared at the two miscreants. “I can't believe this,” she muttered.

“It's this old bitch's fault,” Melody said, sneering at Miss Doris.

Miss Doris erupted again, her soft round body bristling with outrage. “I'd slap that stupid look off your face if it didn't go so deep bleach and sandpaper wouldn't take it off!”

Jesse turned his head into his shoulder and managed to turn a laugh into a cough.

“Okay, let's get their statements. Jesse, Patrick, take them into separate rooms so they can't hear each other, and, ladies”—when she paused, both Miss Doris and Melody looked at her—“remember, there are a lot of witnesses to what happened, and we'll be talking to them all. What you tell us should be pretty damn close to what
they
tell us, because you don't want to add making false statements to the list of possible charges.” If everything went the way she hoped, they wouldn't need to talk to anyone else, but these two didn't have to know that.

Miss Doris looked horrified at the idea that she might be charged with a crime, while Melody just looked contemptuous. Given that her father had been bailing her out of scrapes all her life, she likely didn't expect this time to be any different. Nevertheless, both she and Miss
Doris were obligingly silent as Jesse and Patrick took them to the tiny but separate interview rooms, which were side by side and had only drywall dividing them, which necessitated each officer turning on the noisy box fans in each room that had been bought to prevent eavesdropping. The solution was low tech, but it worked.

The statements didn't take long. Patrick came out first, leaving Melody in the interview room. Bo and Loretta both looked expectantly at him, and he cleared his throat. “The gist of it is, the court proceedings were over, had gone off without a hitch though Kyle didn't look too happy about any of it. On the way out, Emily and her mother and Miss Doris passed by a bunch of the Goodings, and Melody said, quote, ‘I'll be glad when this is over and my brother can get a real wife instead of a whore' unquote.”

As badmouthing went, that was typical of what was said in a lot of divorces, and not even original. Bo could think of a couple of her mother's divorces that made Melody's trash talk sound like the stuff of Sunday school classes.

“Emily and her mother didn't pay any attention,” Patrick continued, “but Miss Doris blew a gasket. She got right up in Melody's face and started yelling, ‘You keep your filthy mouth shut about my granddaughter or I'll stuff my fist down your throat,' again, quote and unquote.”

“Ouch.” Bo winced. Miss Doris was definitely guilty of assault—a misdemeanor, but still.

“Melody admitted to then saying, ‘I'll wipe the floor with you, old lady. You won't be so full of yourself when your house burns down.' Which evens out the assault charges if we're keeping score.”

Loretta grunted. “Huh.” She looked displeased that someone besides a Hobson was using house-burning as a threat.

Bo felt somewhat relieved. Things were looking up. With both of the women having committed the same misdemeanor, that gave her a place to start negotiating. If only one party was guilty, the other would undoubtedly press charges, which would keep this mess going likely for the rest of their natural lives—and beyond, because West Virginia didn't breed people who easily forgot slights.

The trick was getting them both to not press charges because right now they were still fighting mad. There would be lingering resentment, of course, but at least there wouldn't be rap sheets.

Jesse came out, and they all compared the two statements. At least Melody and Miss Doris had been truthful; they were almost word for word what each woman had said to the other.

“What do we do now?” Jesse asked, taking a peek out the front to where Kalie still waited patiently in his patrol car. At least she'd had the sense not to come inside and add to the crowd. Bo thought about reminding Jesse that he wasn't supposed to have unauthorized ride-alongs in his patrol car, but they had more important fish to fry. Besides, she wouldn't be telling Jesse something he didn't already know, and she wasn't going to carp about rule-bending when he'd bent a big one regarding Morgan.

Maybe she wasn't any good at being a police chief because she seemed to have problems sticking to the rules. Well, that was a thought for another time because right now she had to deal with this.

“Why don't you take Kalie home, and we'll let those two sit and think for a while,” she suggested. “Half an hour, an hour—they need the time to cool down.”

There was a general nodding of heads; cooling down could only be good. Jesse took Kalie home; Patrick took his supper break. Loretta decided there wouldn't be any more excitement and went home to cook supper for Charlie and bring him up to date. Bo sat at her desk and began catching up on the day's paperwork. There wasn't a peep from either of the two interview rooms.

The phone rang once. She prayed it wasn't a call that the remaining family members on both sides were in a brawl. The caller was indeed a Gooding, but she lucked out on the purpose of the call. “I need to know what's going on,” Mr. Gooding barked. “Do I need to send our lawyer in?”

“I'm trying to talk both of them into not pressing charges so everyone can walk away clean,” Bo said calmly. “Just be patient.”

“Oh.” He sounded surprised by her position. He paused. “Thank you, Chief. If it'll help, tell Melody I said to go along with your suggestion.”

“I will. Thanks for checking, Mr. Gooding.” If he could be polite, so could she.

Then she waited some more. Finally she got up and went into the interview room where Melody sat, probably bored to death because there was no TV, no magazines, nothing to look at other than her manicure.

The pretty young woman had a sullen expression, but beneath it all she was also beginning to look tired. Burning that much adrenaline took a lot out of a person. Bo pulled out the only other chair in the room and sat down. She waited until Melody looked up at her before saying, “Here's the deal. Miss Doris won't press charges if you don't. You can both act pissy if you think it'll get you anywhere, but I can tell you up front that all it'll get you is a rap sheet. Your dad called a while ago and said to tell you to take the deal.”

Melody opened her mouth, likely to say something smart, but then she closed it again and considered her options. “Okay,” she finally said, no arguing, no threats.

Well, hallelujah. Relieved that it was so easy, Bo said, “Where's your car?”

“At city hall.”

“You want to walk? I can have one of the officers drive you if you don't.”

“I'll walk.”

As Bo was showing Melody out, Jesse arrived back at the station from taking Kalie home. He stayed silent until Melody was gone. “Everything work out?”

“Halfway there. I still have Miss Doris in the other room, but Melody's agreed not to press charges.”

He sat down. “I'll wait and take Miss Doris home. I know she didn't drive because Kalie said that Emily picked her up.”

How on earth had Kalie known Emily was picking up her grandmother? Even though Bo had lived here seven years, small-town ways
still sometimes baffled her. Everyone knew everyone else's business. Was the information passed on by some weird osmosis?

“Kalie and Emily are Facebook friends,” Jesse explained with a grin, having noted her expression. “Emily posted about it.”

Social media to the rescue; at least that made sense. She didn't do Facebook herself, figuring her life was no one else's business. It wasn't as if she had a ton of relatives who kept track of her or were interested in what she was doing.