Troublemaker Read online

  “For goodness’ sake! When will that be?”

  “No definite date, everyone heals differently. He has pneumonia now and that’s a setback, but the docs say he’s already getting better. I’m thinking a few months, most likely, before he’s back to normal.”

  “That must be difficult, being grounded until then. I don’t know him as well as you do, but I suspect he isn’t a good patient.”

  “Understatement,” Axel said.

  “I’m so glad he’ll be all right. We’d all be devastated if anything happened to him. Give him our best when you see him.”

  “I will,” he replied, holding back the information that he wouldn’t be seeing Morgan at all until and if his trap was sprung. He’d spread these seeds of information in several venues around town; now he had to wait and see if any of them sprouted. Morgan had been targeted for a reason; that reason had to be rooted in something he’d seen or done that day. Maybe the threat he was looking for was several layers deep, not Congresswoman Kingsley herself, or Brawley, or even Kodak, but someone who knew them. He wouldn’t know until someone acted.

  CHAPTER 3

  CHIEF OF POLICE ISABEAU MARAN LOOKED UP FROM AN annoying pile of paperwork as the door to the police station opened, letting in a brisk dose of early spring air. Her golden retriever, Tricks, was snoozing on a comfy fleece bed on the floor beside the desk, but at the disturbance the dog opened her eyes and lifted her beautifully shaped golden head. She didn’t thump her tail in welcome because this was Tricks, and she didn’t know who was coming through the door; therefore, she wouldn’t waste the effort until she knew whether or not the new arrival was worthy of a welcome.

  Bright sunshine glared on the worn tile and Bo narrowed her eyes against it as Daina Conner carefully stepped inside. The intruder’s identity established, Tricks gave her tail two thumps, which signaled a moderate degree of pleasure but not enough to bring her to her feet, then lowered her head back onto her paws to resume her nap.

  “What’s up?” Not that Bo wasn’t glad to see Daina, because there weren’t that many unattached women roughly her own age in Hamrickville, West Virginia, but they usually did their socializing outside the police station. They looked like polar opposites: Daina was curvy and blond and blue-eyed, Bo was dark-haired and dark-eyed, and the only curves she owned were in her driveway. But they both enjoyed the same type of movies, liked the same jokes, and had each other’s back.

  “I had one beer too many at lunch,” Daina announced, plopping her butt into the cracked and duct-tape-patched chair across from Bo’s desk. Her stylish blond hair flopped over her eyes and she carelessly pushed it back. “I don’t have another appointment until three, so I thought, what better place to sober up than here? I can have some coffee, chat with you, then you can give me a Breathalyzer after a while and tell me whether or not I’m okay to drive.” Daina owned the local beauty shop, The Chop Shop, a couple of miles out on the main road into town. It was a short enough drive that Bo thought it wasn’t fear of driving while tipsy that had brought Daina by, but rather a way of killing time until her next appointment.

  Which meant she could kiss good-bye the idea of making any real headway on the paperwork, Bo thought as she pushed back from her desk and went to the Mr. Coffee sitting on top of a double-drawer filing cabinet in the corner, which was located there for the sole reason that there was an electrical outlet behind the cabinet. There was about half an inch of dark sludge left in the carafe from . . . this morning, maybe. Hard to tell. It had been there when she arrived a little after noon, so for all she knew, it could have been there since yesterday afternoon.

  She took the carafe into the bathroom, dumped out the sludge, rinsed, then ran fresh water. Coming back into the main office, she began the process of making coffee. “So who were you having beers with?” she asked, not bothering to point out that if she were a real stickler about things, she’d arrest Daina for public intoxication because obviously she wasn’t a stickler. From her point of view, it wasn’t as if Daina was staggering drunk, and she’d done the responsible thing by not driving and electing to come here instead. Bo’s philosophy was don’t bitch about what works.

  “Kenny Michaels. I’ve decided to go ahead with remodeling the kitchen, and we were going over what I want, paint colors—my gawd, I think I’ve looked at a gajillion paint chips. Stuff like that.”

  “So what colors did you decide on?” While the coffee was brewing, Bo stepped into the so-called break room—it was originally just a large closet—stocked with a refrigerator, microwave, tiny table, and two chairs squeezed into the space. She opened the top freezer compartment of the avocado-green refrigerator, which of course refused to ever give up the ghost the way any decent-colored refrigerator would have, and took out a pint of ice cream. Well, it had originally been a whole pint, but now it was down to half that. She didn’t know if Daina liked vanilla ice cream; tough cookies because it was all she had. She levered off the top, found a spoon, stuck it in the ice cream, and set the cardboard carton in front of her friend. “Eat.”

  Absently Daina obeyed, her thoughts elsewhere. “A sort of pewter-ish gray, with a grayish blue,” she replied, still on the color theme. “Not very kitcheny, but that’s the whole idea. I don’t want anything that stimulates my appetite or makes food look good. I want something calm and soothing . . . you know, so I’ll stay away from it.” She stopped, pulled the spoon from her mouth and stared at it. “The hell? This is ice cream,” she said, frowning down at the carton as if she had no idea how it had come to be in her hand.

  “Five points for observation powers.” Bo resumed her seat. “Kenny Michaels, huh? He’s kind of cute.” And he was, in a construction, hammer-hanging-from-a-loop-on-his-pants kind of way. Not tall, but not short, a muscular kind of stocky. Divorced, late thirties, one son who was a senior in high school. She didn’t know anything bad about him, which meant there probably wasn’t anything bad to know.

  “Of course. Why else would I renovate my kitchen? And why am I eating ice cream?” Daina still looked perplexed, but she dug the spoon in and lifted a bite to her mouth. “Not that I’m complaining, but I just had dessert at lunch.”

  “It helps sober you up.”

  Daina’s eyes went wide. “No shit.” Awestruck, she lifted the carton and stared at it again. “A legitimate reason for eating ice cream? There is a God!”

  At that moment Tricks was evidently struck by the abrupt realization that someone in the room was eating, and it wasn’t her, because she surged to her feet and planted herself directly in front of Daina, her extravagantly plumy tail gently swishing, her dark gaze locked on the carton of ice cream.

  Daina froze with another bite halfway to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she breathed, as motionless as if she were being confronted by a cobra rather than a golden retriever. “What do I do?”

  Bo hid her amusement. “Tell her no. She can’t have ice cream.”

  “No?” Daina said weakly, her tone of voice making it more of a question than a statement. Tricks sensed an advantage and moved closer, laying her head on Daina’s knee and giving her the full, soulful stare that had turned rough men, much less a half-drunk friend, to putty in her paws.

  Bo sighed. You couldn’t give in to Tricks because she then concluded that if she just kept after you long enough, you’d eventually give in, and she was relentless in her efforts to get what she wanted. “Tricks, no,” she commanded. When Tricks didn’t move, she said, “Young lady, I said no.” She clapped her hands twice. “Go back to your bed right now.”

  Reluctantly, Tricks moved away, her expression as mutinous as that of a thwarted toddler, but she padded back to her bed and lay down with a huff . . . and with her back turned toward Bo to show her indignation.

  Bo barely swallowed a snort of laughter. Dealing with a canine diva—moreover, a very intelligent diva—was never boring and definitely kept her on her toes. She was the only person Tricks would obey when it didn’t suit her, which meant Bo pretty much had