Troublemaker

CHAPTER 8

MORGAN WAS HALF-ASLEEP WHEN HE HEARD THE JEEP return; he’d already learned its sound, but there was a second car following close behind. He sat up, glad he’d made the effort to get dressed. He didn’t have on shoes, but at least he had on pants, socks, and a tee shirt. Through the windows he saw her and the dog, followed by a guy in a police uniform. This must be the famous Jesse, come to check him out.

Fine. He’d expected it, they’d prepared for it. He wasn’t worried about the cops; he knew his forged background would stand up to inspection. He’d play his part, though God knows acting weak and sick was reality, not acting-and it grated.

The door opened and the dog dashed in, straight to him. She gave him a lick on the hand, then turned her attention to the half-eaten sandwich on the coffee table. At least he’d slid it back into the sandwich bag, so she couldn’t wolf it down. He leaned over and retrieved the bag, zipped it up. If he let the dog have the sandwich, he imagined his hostess would tear him a new one.

She closed the door and turned around. “Jesse, this is Morgan Rees,” she said. “Morgan, Jesse Tucker.”

She kept the introduction tight and brief. Morgan glanced at her to see if he could read anything in her expression and immediately saw the swelling bruise on her cheekbone.

Alertness zinged through him, adrenaline sharpening his gaze, straightening his spine, tightening his muscles. He found himself on his feet, though the process of getting there was slow enough that it chafed. “What happened?” he demanded, his tone rough.

She looked briefly puzzled, then realized where he was looking and touched her cheekbone as if she’d forgotten about it. “Oh, that. There was a fracas in the bakery. Much fun was had by all.”

“Bo-I mean, the chief-helped me subdue a suspect,” Jesse supplied. Morgan had already made a swift appraisal; the cop looked like the prototype for “straight arrow,” in good shape, posture military-erect, eyes clear and direct. He’d just made a tiny slip, one that Morgan immediately caught. So she was called “Bo” instead of “Isabeau?” Good thing he hadn’t used Isabeau, or the cop might get the idea they didn’t know each other very well at all, and that could open up a can of worms. Why hadn’t she told him that? Because he hadn’t called her by name when they’d talked, after first asking if she was Isabeau Maran. She wasn’t accustomed to subterfuge, so the difference between her given name and the name she used simply hadn’t occurred to her.

“I hope the jerk paid for it,” he growled, directing a piercing look at Jesse.

“He paid, and he’ll pay some more.”

He gave a brief nod. His ire was reluctant but it was real. The bruise on her face wasn’t bad; he got worse on almost every mission. But he was trained for it, and he was built to take physical punishment. She wasn’t. She was an ectomorph, long arms and legs without much muscle mass, her bones thin. There was no extra weight on her and never would be. Her facial structure was faunlike, with big brown deer eyes and a delicate jaw; fracturing it would be easy, and his hands curled into fists at the idea of some jerk punching her.

“It’s just a bruise,” she said and looked at the sandwich in his hand. “Want me to take that? Jesse, you want something to drink?” Meaning the subject was closed, and she didn’t want to be fussed over.

“I’m good, thanks.”

Morgan gave her the sandwich bag and she went over to the kitchen, leaving the two men alone, though since it was all one big open space he guessed “alone” was stretching it a bit.

Jesse’s stare was unwavering. “The chief says you guys are old friends.”

That part could be a little sticky. He had to make it sound as if they’d known each other well enough that he could show up at her house and reasonably expect her to let him crash here while he healed, but not so close that they’d kept in touch or knew everything about each other.

“Yeah, we met years ago, had some mutual friends. No relationship or anything like that, just friends.”

“But you know each other pretty well.”

“If you’re asking were we close enough that I could just assume she’d take me in, the answer is no. I wanted out of the hospital and didn’t want to go into a rehab facility. Enough was enough.” He scowled. “After a month-God almighty. I’d have crawled out if I had to.”

“So you just decided to come here.”

In a flash Morgan saw the fabricated background wasn’t going to hold up under this cop’s nosiness. He’d dig deeper than most, and the logic wasn’t there. Other people might accept the glossed-over version, but Jesse Tucker wouldn’t. He gave Jesse a shrewd look, sizing him up. Maybe the best thing was to come clean-not completely clean, not his real name or the full circumstances, but enough to have the cop back off. That wasn’t what he and Axel had agreed on, but he’d always had autonomy in the field, so he could make any adjustments he thought were warranted.

“I got shot,” he said baldly.

From the kitchen Bo said, “I thought you weren’t going to tell that.” Her tone was both interested and absent, which was exactly the right note to hit. Maybe she was better at this than he’d assumed. Her little comment let Jesse know that she wasn’t being lied to, that her eyes were open and she didn’t need protecting.

“He needs to know,” Morgan replied. “So he doesn’t do any digging that might give me away.”

Jesse was standing ramrod straight, his gaze hard and level. His hand was resting on the butt of his service weapon, a completely automatic move he probably wasn’t aware of making. “Give you away to who?”

“Whoever did the shooting,” he said tersely, which wasn’t the truth but close enough. They knew who’d fired the shots; they just didn’t know who had aimed the shooter. “That’s why I couldn’t stay in my own place.”

Jesse mentally chewed on that a minute, then said, “Why don’t you tell me exactly what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you as much as I can. Do you mind if I sit?” He hated to admit his weakness, but it was either do that or start wobbling on his feet. Without waiting for the answer-what did he care anyway?-he eased down on the sofa, using his right arm to brace himself so no sudden movement pulled on his chest muscles. “First, I’m government. That’s pretty much all I’m going to tell you. If you start digging and trip any electronic wires, you can get me killed.”

“But you brought your trouble here without thinking about the danger to my town?” There was fire in the cop’s eyes, fire that was justified. But Jesse also sat down, and that was progress. He was at least willing to listen and, because of Bo’s response, was already inclined to believe what he was told.

“You think I’m stupid?” Morgan shot back. “There are layers of protection. Rees isn’t my real name. We went out of our way to make sure Bo is in no way linked to what happened. My backstory is solid, I’m off the grid. No one digging from the other end is going to find me unless you blow my cover by making inquiries from this end. What we’re waiting for is whoever was behind the shooting to trigger their own alarms by trying to find me. Then we trace it back, identify, and handle.” He didn’t say how the situation would be “handled,” but he didn’t have to.

“I’ve already asked all those questions,” Bo added as she rejoined them. “Jesse, I wouldn’t have let him stay if I hadn’t satisfied myself it was safe. I talked to his… supervisor, I guess. The way this was handled, without any kind of electronic or paper trail, there’s no way he can be connected to us. His supervisor, him, me, and now you-we’re the only ones who know.”

Except that wasn’t quite true, Morgan thought, though he kept his expression veiled. The connection to her was going to be difficult to find, difficult enough that no one would think they were meant to find it, but the whole point of this was that he could eventually be located. Then the shit would hit the fan, for the guilty party at least, and afterward he’d get back to his real life kicking terrorist ass.

Jesse didn’t like it, didn’t like anything about it; that was plain. He looked back and forth between Morgan and Bo, weighing, considering, but finally his trust in Bo outweighed his reservations. “If you’re satisfied, boss,” he said.

She rocked her hand back and forth to indicate she hadn’t one hundred percent bought in. “I’m satisfied enough, for now. But I know for certain Morgan isn’t in any shape to leave, so that’s that.”

That too was a good note to hit. She was aware of the possible danger, but also of reality. If Jesse thought she was being reckless, that could tip the scale the way they didn’t want it to go, but she’d just reassured him she was on guard.

“I wouldn’t have come here if I thought there was any danger to either Bo or the town,” he said, putting a thumb on the scale to tip it even more in his favor. “If it helps, I’m armed.”

“Got a permit?”

“One that covers every state. But I also have one issued by West Virginia, so I’m covered there.”

“Mind if I see them?”

Axel had covered that too, getting him concealed carry licenses in the Morgan Rees name. He hitched his left hip up and retrieved his wallet from his back pocket, extracted the permits and handed them over.

Jesse’s eyebrows rose as he looked at them. “They’re issued to a Morgan Rees. I thought that wasn’t your name.”

“It isn’t; if you thought you’d find out my real name by this, it won’t work. I do this shit for a living, and the agency paperwork behind me is solid. These will stand up.” They weren’t legal, but they’d stand up.

Morgan could see the ire and frustration in the cop’s eyes; he knew what Morgan was admitting and didn’t like not being able to investigate something his instincts told him he should. He had no reason to believe anything Morgan was telling him, but he also realized that it could be true. Jesse glanced at Bo, and once again his trust in her was the deciding factor.

“If you’re okay on this, boss, then I guess I am too.”

“Even though I think it’s okay,” she replied, “I also think we should be smart about this. We won’t let our guard down.”

That seemed to settle the matter. After a few minutes Jesse left, not satisfied but reassured anyway. Bo immediately put on her coat and took Tricks for a walk. Morgan watched out the window as she and the dog disappeared into the tree line, the dog all but bouncing around her as she chased the tennis ball Bo tossed underhanded-and with her left hand, which struck him as odd-and brought it back to her with a happily wagging tail and an eager expression that was easy to read even from that distance.

He clicked into analysis mode, going over every nuance of Jesse’s tone, exactly what he’d said. He thought the cop would be a good ally despite his misgivings. To cover the bases he needed to let Axel know exactly what had been said and that the cop had been partially read in on the situation, but he wouldn’t call again unless it was an absolute emergency because he had no way of knowing where Axel was, or with whom. Any contact would have to wait until Axel initiated it.

He got to his feet and walked around, knowing he had to start pushing his body to do a little more each day. The hours of driving the day before had unexpectedly knocked him flat, telling him he still had a long way to go before he reached full recovery. He could wait patiently in ambush for days at a time, but this physical incapability was maddening. There was no way of knowing when whoever was behind his shooting would find his location, so he had to be ready.

Bo and the dog returned in about half an hour. The dog looked happy, and Bo’s cheeks were flushed from the cold. She used her left hand to open the door.

By then he was back on the sofa. He said, “What’s wrong with your right arm?”

“Shoulder,” she corrected, her tone matter-of-fact. “I banged it in the fight. It’s just bruised.”

“Did you have it checked out?”

“It’s just a bruise. I’ll ice it down before I go to bed.”

“Is it swollen?”

He saw a flash of annoyance in her eyes, then she smoothed it away and pulled her emotions back, hid them. “No, just sore.”

She did that a lot, he thought. Most women were naturally more open with their emotions than men, but not her. She battened down the hatches and let very little show-except with the dog. She was as open as a book when she was dealing with her pet. Her expression both lit up and softened then, and her voice took on a subtle croon. With people-or at least with him; she might be more open with her friends-she was brisk and businesslike.

Maybe she didn’t like being fussed over. Maybe she had a hard time admitting to any weakness. He could understand that because he was right there with her. He was so damn tired of being fussed over he sometimes thought he’d punch the next person who tried to plump his pillow or adjust a blanket over him. Thank God Bo didn’t seem to have any instinct to fuss, such as when she’d simply put a sandwich in a Ziploc bag for him, along with a bottle of water, and left him alone for the day. The solitude had actually felt good.

Despite her reserve there had been an ease between her and the cop, one that said they worked well together, and, yes, a real friendliness. Morgan supposed he couldn’t blame her for any reserve, given the situation and that they had just met.

“Let me see what I can scare up in the way of food,” she said, changing the subject. “I bought some guy food today. I’m not much of a cook, but I can do basic stuff like spaghetti.”

The mention of spaghetti made his mouth water. His food for the past month had been so bland he’d had a hard time working up any interest in it. Where was the logic in trying to stimulate someone’s appetite with food that tasted like paste? “Spaghetti? With garlic bread?”

She actually smiled. “I guess that’s the answer to my question. C’mon, Tricks, let’s get you fed before I get started on the people food.”

He wasn’t surprised that the dog came first.

She went through some weird routine with the dog while she was feeding her, something that involved a lot of sweet talking and a couple of “Let’s try this ones.” He didn’t turn around to check it out. She was feeding the dog-how interesting could it be? Not very.

She slapped the spaghetti dinner together pretty fast, but from what he could tell, she opened a jar of sauce and didn’t bother fancying it up with extra meat and spices.

Trays were another thing he was ready to do away with, so he made his slow way to the small table and sat opposite her. She poured a glass of real milk for him. He’d have preferred a beer or even a glass of sissy wine, but at least the milk wasn’t skim. The pasta was a little chewy. The spices and the garlic bread, though, were like heaven. The only thing that came close in taste was the fast-food hamburger he’d stopped for on the way down to West Virginia. He’d managed only a couple of bites, but, hell, the ketchup and pickles and onion had almost made him moan as the taste exploded on his tongue.

“You’ve had a rough twenty-four hours,” he finally said after they’d eaten in silence for a few minutes. The truth was, he was already full, but maybe if he wasted a little time in small talk, he’d be able to eat some more. Besides, he was reluctantly curious about her. This whole setup she had, the chief-of-police thing, was interesting.

She looked up, mildly puzzled. “I have?”

He ticked the items off: “Choking, hurting your hand when you punched me, getting punched in the face, hurting your shoulder.”

“Oh.” Her face cleared. “Also banging the back of my head on the floor. I have a knot back there.”

“That type of thing happen very often?”

“Brawling in the bakery? First time for everything.”

“I’d expect the police force to be small enough that you’d be called in on almost every arrest.”

“I’m administrative, not enforcement. I was hired as someone to do the paperwork and handle the work schedule.”

He frowned, forked up another bite of spaghetti. “But you had to have training to qualify for the job.”

“Not in West Virginia, you don’t. It’s a small state with a small population, so I guess there had to be other options or half the towns wouldn’t have adequate staff. The position of chief can be purely administrative. Jesse didn’t want to deal with the paperwork or headache of scheduling, so Mayor Buddy worked out something else. He knew I’m fairly tech savvy because I do technical writing, and he offered the job to me. I took it. It’s part-time, and it’s a good deal for both me and the town.”

He grunted. That meant she’d thrown herself into a fight without any idea how to protect herself; she was lucky to have come out of it as well as she had. Part of him was appreciative of the guts, while another part of him was a little pissed off she’d been put in that position. None of his business.

No sooner had he told himself that than he asked, “So you jumped into a fight without any training?” He tried to keep the pissed-off out of his voice but a little bit leaked through.

If she heard it, she ignored it. She shrugged. “Dumb, huh? Jesse insisted on teaching me how to shoot, some, and showed me a few basic self-defense moves, but that’s about it. I know I took a risk. It worked out okay, but I’ll sure think twice about trying that again.”

She was so damned reasonable about it that he was frustrated in venting his unreasonable ire. He had to tell himself again that it was none of his business. On the other hand, if she landed herself in the hospital, he’d be in a touchy situation, so he’d rather she stayed hale and hearty. That made it very much his business.

“I can teach you more,” he said.

“You can barely move.”

The accurate assessment pissed him off even more because it was so true. “I’m better today than I was yesterday. I don’t have to be in great shape to show you how to disable someone.”

“We’ll see,” she said, but he got the feeling the noncommittal reply meant she had no intention of following through.

Yes, they would see.

Having someone else in the house was an ongoing irritant, like hearing a mosquito buzzing but not being able to locate it to smash. Regardless of that, over the next few days Bo found them settling into a kind of routine. She didn’t go into town on the weekends, so she spent most of those two days working on her tech-writing projects, and doing her regular stuff with Tricks.

She didn’t put in any time at the station, but she heard plenty from both Jesse and Daina about the Emily/Kyle situation. The judge had conveniently-and probably deliberately-been out of touch, so Kyle’s bail hadn’t been set until Saturday afternoon, meaning Emily had time to do whatever she wanted to do. What she wanted to do was file for divorce (which she had), get a restraining order against Kyle to keep him away from her and her family (which she had also done), and pack up Kyle’s clothes and personal effects and take them to his father’s house (which she’d also done, with Jesse’s presence to make sure all went well). Emily was acting with a purpose, getting things done and forging ahead.

The entire Gooding family was occupied in trash-talking Emily and her family. Her uncle on her daddy’s side, Harold Patterson, owned the barbershop and of course the barbershop was a hotbed of gossip. The Emily/Kyle scandal was going hot and heavy, with half the town taking sides as Bo had known would happen. Most of them were on Emily’s side because Warren Gooding had never endeared himself to anyone, but there were a few who thought Emily was being a bitch.

From Daina came the information that Mrs. Gooding had been in and said that she suspected Emily was running around on Kyle. Also from Daina was the report that the whole bakery incident had started because Emily found out Kyle was cheating on her and told him to get out.

There was going to be bad blood over this for a long time to come, Bo thought. She might have to arrange a police presence at athletic games and such, anywhere members of both families might come into contact with each other.

But that would remain to be seen; maybe Kyle would move away. Emily might meet someone, and she could be the one who moved. Life happened. Bo had enough on her plate at the moment without looking for more.

The weather cooperated by turning sunny, if still cool, so she and Tricks had their long walks and plenty of playing. Spring was finally showing signs of coming to stay, and just in time; she and everyone else had had all of winter they could stand. The trees spent the weekend exploding in buds, as if they knew something humans didn’t. The air was filled with a kind of vibrancy as if every plant was humming with activity.

Morgan wasn’t a demanding patient. He didn’t ask for anything extra, and he wasn’t exactly a patient. He didn’t have much strength and he still hadn’t attempted the stairs, but he could get himself to the bathroom for his needs, take a shower without aid, and she kind of got a kick watching his laser focus as he watched her approach with the morning’s first cup of coffee for him. He stared at that cup as if willing it into his hand. He was walking around more. He slept, he read, he watched some TV but not much. On Sunday afternoon, for the first time he went outside, onto the concrete slab porch. He moved one of the chairs into the sunshine, where he sat for a while.

That threw Tricks into a tizzy. Someone was outside who could throw the ball for her, even if that someone wasn’t Bo, but she wasn’t outside to take advantage. She went from window to window, to the door, got her tennis ball and went to Bo, then back to the door. She dropped the ball and barked, then picked up the ball and started the whole rotation again.

Bo was trying to work, and knew how relentless Tricks could be in getting her way. Giving in would be a tactical mistake. She checked the clock, but it wasn’t quite time to take Tricks out so she said, “No,” and kept working.

Tricks trotted over and butted her leg.

“No.” This time she said it sternly, and raised a warning finger. Tricks huffed, dropped the ball, but gave up for the moment and curled on the rug by the desk to pout.

That was all Bo needed, for Tricks to give up for just a minute so she wouldn’t think she’d won. She let a couple of minutes lapse, saved her work, then stood up and said, “Let’s go outside.”

Tricks jumped up, grabbed her ball, and raced to the door. She was dancing with excitement, whirling with her feet patting up and down.

A couple of days of rest and the application of ice packs to her right shoulder had done wonders, and Bo was able to throw the ball without pain. As soon as she stepped outside, she wound up and let it go, and Tricks took off in joyful pursuit.

“Good arm,” Morgan commented.

“I’ve been doing this almost nonstop for two years, as soon as she got big enough to get the ball in her mouth.”

Tricks caught the ball on the second bounce and brought it back for a replay, dropping it at Bo’s feet and racing off. “Cheater,” Bo said, bending down to retrieve the ball. She threw it over Tricks’s head, but this time it was caught on the first bounce. Tricks stopped, posed, and Bo said, “Good catch!” in an admiring tone. One tail wag, and they did it all over again.

Then Tricks took the ball to Morgan, dropped it beside his chair.

Bo started to go after it, but he leaned down and got the ball, gave it a sidearm toss. He got good distance on it-too good, because it rolled to a stop before Tricks could get there. The dog gave him a disgusted look and took the ball back to Bo.

She had to laugh. “You failed the ball-throwing test,” she said.

He scowled. “It was a good throw.”

“It went too far. She likes to catch it on the bounce.”

“She told you that, huh?”

The mild skepticism in his tone put her back up a little. “Watch her. A two-bounce catch is acceptable, but she likes the one-bounce catches. She’ll stop, pose, and wait until I praise her. She gave you the honor of throwing her ball and you failed.”

He snorted.

Bo threw the ball, and Tricks caught it on the second bounce. She brought it back, dropped it, took off again. Bo picked it up and heaved it over her head. It was a one-bouncer, and as soon as Tricks caught it, she froze in a proud, head-high pose. Bo let her hold the position for a few heartbeats before she said, “Beautiful catch!” Tricks acknowledged the praise with a quick tail wag, and brought the ball back.

Bo laughed. “I don’t know if I’ve trained her or she’s trained me, but I’ve learned not to underestimate her ego, vanity, persistence, or intelligence. She’d be a pain in the butt if she wasn’t so happy and loving.”

He just shook his head. He looked as if he thought Tricks was a pain in the butt regardless of how happy she was, but so what? Tricks would be here long after he was gone.

“She’s two years old, then?”

“About two and a half, now. She was originally bought-and registered-by old Mrs. Carmichael. I couldn’t have afforded her. But about two weeks after Mrs. Carmichael got her, the old lady had a heart attack on the way to visit a friend and crashed the car. Tricks was with her, in a travel crate, thank God. Mrs. Carmichael died from the heart attack.” Bo watched as Tricks sniffed around, found a suitable place, and finally deigned to empty her bladder. “The puppy was terrified and trembling. I took her with me to the station while Mrs. Carmichael’s son was notified and just held her in my arms. Then it turned out Mrs. Carmichael’s son didn’t want her and told me to give her away to anyone who wanted her.”

“That would be you.”

“Yes, indeed,” Bo said ruefully. “I didn’t know anything about puppies, I’d never had a pet, but by then I’d been holding her for a few hours and I suppose she’d imprinted on me. The son went to his mother’s house and gathered up all Tricks’s food and toys and brought them to me. He was sleepwalking from shock, but he knew his wife didn’t want a dog. I brought Tricks and all her stuff home with me and did some panicked research on how to take care of a puppy. She was still terrified, in a new place, and wouldn’t stop shaking unless I held her. When I put her in her little crate that night, she cried. It broke my heart. So I got her out and let her sleep curled against me. That was that.”

“Pushover.” His mouth quirked with humor.

“You think you could have resisted a little ball of white fur? She looked like a baby’s stuffed animal, or a cotton ball with big feet.” A demonic cotton ball, at that. The first year had been hell on wheels until Tricks decided she had to defer to the human who controlled the food.

“We always had pets when I was growing up,” he said, which didn’t really answer the question. Then he shrugged. “Now, I’m not at home enough to take care of a cactus.”

“Didn’t you say you’re from Florida?” She thought he had, but she’d had other things on her mind that afternoon.

“Yeah. What about you? That isn’t a West Virginia accent.”

“All over. I was born in Arizona, but I don’t remember it. Mom moved a lot.” And married a lot, hence the moving. Morgan was good, spotting the difference between her accent and Jesse’s. Over the years, she thought her speech had modified. In the rare instances when her mother got in touch-both times-she’d said something about how “hick” Bo sounded now. Maybe the accent was a good mother-repellent because she hadn’t heard from Rebecca in a few years now. She loved her mother, but she loved her best at a distance.

“How long have you been here?”

“Seven years.”

That seemed to dry up their small talk for a while. He sat quietly in the sun, looking at the greening grass, the budding trees. Whatever he did for a living was obviously hazardous, so Bo guessed he wasn’t accustomed to either the quiet of country living or his current state of inactivity. She threw the ball some more for Tricks, who joyously retrieved for a good forty-five minutes before going to the bowl of water Bo kept outside, getting a good drink, then flopping down on the concrete to pant and bat the tennis ball back and forth with a paw.

After watching Tricks for a minute, Bo said, “You must be getting a little bored.”

“I’m feeling better,” he replied, which she supposed was an answer. If he was feeling better, of course he was bored. While he hadn’t been able to do anything much more than eat a little and sleep a lot, boredom hadn’t factored in.

“I can’t offer you much to do. Some books to read, the laptop computer. I don’t usually need the laptop for work, so you’re welcome to it.”

“Computer,” he instantly replied. “Thanks.”

She stretched her legs out, rubbed Tricks’s back with her toe. “Afraid they’d be girl books?” At the touch, Tricks rolled over on her back and lay there with her legs in the air and her tongue lolling out, the very picture of canine bliss.

“I wouldn’t care about that.” He paused, and she saw a glint of blue as he slanted a cautious look her way. “Are they?”

“Some. But I also have some mysteries, some suspense, a couple of Stephen Kings. They’re upstairs in my room. I’ll bring a few down, and you can let me know when you need more.”

She didn’t think she’d ever before been able to satisfy a man with some books and a computer, she thought, and hid a smile as she got to her feet and went inside, Tricks at her heels.