Troublemaker Read online

  “We tried to hide a chair for you to sit on,” one of the boys told Bo apologetically, “but that would make your head stick up out of the decorations, so we put a cushion on the floor for you. Is that okay?”

  She smiled. “A cushion is fine.” Truthfully, she’d expected to be sitting on the trailer floor, so the cushion was a big step up.

  “Want me to take your bag?” Morgan asked.

  The thought of him with a purse hanging from his shoulder was entertaining, but she shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll keep it with me. I’ll be sitting.”

  They all trooped to the float to take their places because the parade organizer had blown a whistle and bellowed “Five minutes!” through a bullhorn. Bo prepared to climb onto the trailer, but Morgan forestalled her by clamping his hands around her waist and swinging her on board as if she were a child. While her heart was still pounding in reaction, he picked Tricks up too and placed her on the trailer because all the tissue-paper flowers meant she didn’t have a clear shot for jumping up. Tricks darted to Bo and indulged in some excited licking because she was going for a ride. Bo found her place on a fat cushion in front of the raised dais where the male and female class favorites were standing. She could even lean back against the plywood dais. The decorations completely hid her from view on both sides though she could still see what was going on directly in front of her. The closeness of the decorations stopped any breeze from reaching her, but she’d asked to be as hidden as possible. The parade wouldn’t last that long anyway, maybe forty-five minutes—an hour if they stretched it out.

  Up ahead came the roar of the Shriners’ motorcycles as they were started. The VFW vets in their mismatched odds and ends of uniforms marched out in precision form, and the parade began.

  Morgan kept pace with the float, walking on the right; the parade was moving at a crawl, with periodic pauses for the marching band to do a dance routine or something. He wasn’t certain exactly what was going on up ahead because his focus was on watching Tricks. The crowd was sparse at first, with most people gathered down the main street, but the dog didn’t care. As soon as the first applause and calls of “Tricks!” started, she began her routine of woofing as she turned her head left and right, a happy expression on her face. Every woof generated more applause, which brought on another woof, so it was self-perpetuating.

  The girls positioned on each side of her were laughing and smiling as they waved, the boys were hamming it up with body-builder poses, the other girls were throwing candy to people. The kids were having a blast, maybe as much of one as Tricks was having.

  As the parade turned down the main street and the crowd became thicker, people lined up four and five deep, sometimes more in places, and with onlookers in the upper-story windows of buildings as well as some on the roofs, Morgan felt himself slip into hyperalert mode. Until now he’d been very relaxed in Hamrickville, but crowds always made his lizard brain nervous. People could get into arguments, or do stupid shit that would domino into disaster. The kids were taking care to keep Tricks from getting too close to the edge of the float, but if something startled them, or Tricks, what could happen? What if she jumped off the moving float? What if Bo made a headlong dive after her? He broke out in a sweat at the idea because he knew Bo wouldn’t hesitate.

  He was just looking for trouble, he knew. The girl on the left had a good grip on Tricks’s shortened leash, and the girl on the right was positioned slightly behind but with her leg touching Tricks’s side. They were both waving at the crowd, but they were also keeping a sharp eye on the dog. Then the one on the left even knelt down and put her arm around Tricks while still waving. The crowd was eating up having a canine “homecoming queen,” judging by all the laughter and applause. The idea was a hit.

  The main drag was about eight blocks long. Morgan hadn’t thought to ask where the parade would end, but the location didn’t really matter because he intended to follow it all the way. He settled into a combat patrol routine, his head moving on a swivel, automatically noting everyone and looking for anything that was out of the ordinary. He cared about both the woman and the dog on that float, and he intended to do all he could to make sure nothing happened to them.

  They were in the fifth block when he noticed the man about twenty yards ahead of him—young, tall, longish brown hair. It was his height that let Morgan key in on him because he was taller than most of the people around him. What set him apart was that he wasn’t cheering and clapping. Instead he was glaring . . . toward the float. Something had definitely pissed him off, and pissed-off people could be trouble.

  Automatically Morgan picked up his pace, threading through and around groups of people, wanting to get closer to the guy in case something happened.

  Then the guy turned and started down the sidewalk toward him. Morgan stepped aside, let him pass. The guy passed within inches of him and never glanced his way. Instead he was still watching the float; he was definitely keyed on that particular float, the one Bo and Tricks were on. And there was nothing good in his expression.

  The guy was wearing a jacket. Morgan’s spine began tingling in warning.

  He wheeled, began shadowing his target, working closer despite the milling crowd. People were jockeying for position so they stepped in front of him without looking, or he had to sidestep a kid. The good news was the guy in front of him had to deal with the same conditions and obstacles, so Morgan was gaining on him.

  Shit. That jacket was all wrong. The weather was too warm for anyone to be wearing a jacket. Everyone else was in summer clothes: short sleeves, shorts, sandals, lightweight stuff. In his world, people wore jackets when they shouldn’t be wearing them in order to hide firearms or bombs.

  The tractor pulling the float went past. Now the float itself was beside them, filled with waving teenagers. Toward the back was a built-up platform with two teens on top of it, and Bo was sitting with her back to the platform, out of sight. Through the profusion of colored tissue paper tucked into the holes of chicken-wire forms, he could see Tricks’s pale golden head lifting with each little bark as she woofed from side to side.

  The parade stalled again, the float stopped, and behind him the marching band swung into a lively tune. Applause burst out, but Morgan didn’t bother looking for the cause. All of his attention was focused on the man who was still pushing his way through the crowd on the sidewalk.

  The guy drew even with the end of the float, where Tricks and the girls were positioned, and he stepped off the sidewalk into the street. His gaze didn’t leave the float as he put his hand inside his jacket.

  Their forward progress had stopped again, but that didn’t matter to Tricks. As far as she was concerned, all the applause was for her. Bo had to laugh because Tricks was so into her role. She would occasionally look back to where Bo was seated, reassuring herself that her human mom was still there, but for the most part she was acting like the ham she was.

  The bright sun beat down on Bo’s head, making her glad for her sunglasses. This would probably last another half hour at the rate they were going. She was actually kind of enjoying it; one of the kids had passed her down a bottle of cold lemonade, and she had nothing to do but sit there, sip her lemonade, and watch Tricks have a blast.

  While they were stopped, one of the girls opened a bottle of water, produced a small bowl from somewhere on the float, and filled the bowl for Tricks to have a drink. The other girl held Tricks’s pink boa out of the way so it wouldn’t get in the water. Bo chuckled and started to take a picture, but Tricks stopped drinking before she could dig her phone out of her bag. She hoped people along the way were taking pictures they could share with her; if she’d thought, she’d have charged Morgan with the job of snapping a few photos. To be on the safe side, when they got to the end she’d take some pictures of Tricks before everyone got off the float.

  She settled back against the plywood dais, glad that this was working out so well. The cushion made a surprisingly comfortable seat, and darned if she wasn’t get