Euphoria Lane (26 page)

What if she was right? If Harry was guilty, he would want to get rid of Andi and her sister.

A sense of dread overwhelmed his senses.

“Good luck with the meeting.” Andi said, leaving out the obvious “you’ll need it.”

Meg tossed her a red shirt. “Wear this.”

Luke watched her pull the cotton shirt over her head. Instead of tucking it into her jeans, she let the bottom hem ride along her hips. She almost blended into the crowd. The thought made him wish she could disappear from Harry’s view, even his memory. Maybe then he would leave her alone.

Harry banged the gavel. “I call this meeting to order.”

Andi sat next to Meg and Roxie in the front row as the other neighbors ended their conversations and settled in for the meeting.

The other board members joined Harry at the table. Owens held onto his business-as-usual demeanor while Valerie’s perpetually smug expression reminded everyone who pulled the HOA president’s strings.

Luke chose a seat at the opposite end of the table, keeping his distance from the others. He wasn’t an active participant in the meeting. The job of the property manager was to answer questions if the board or homeowners directed any his way.

“I’d like to address the board.” The cowboy stood, his eyes narrowed.

“Too bad. We aren’t taking comments from the floor.” Harry banged the gavel again. “I called this meeting to take a vote of the board. I make a motion that we give the current property management company thirty days’ notice and contact three new companies for bids.”

“I second the motion,” Valerie promptly replied.

Doctor Owens didn’t look surprised.

He knew ahead of time. But was he in on it?

Luke tightened his jaw, not saying a word.

Harry shot Andi an evil glare.

They were firing Luke because of his relationship with Andi. She met his gaze, her eyes wide with anger.

Luke mouthed, “It’s okay.”

“All those in favor say I,” Harry stated loud and clear.

“I,” all three board members answered in unison.

Luke resisted the urge to respond, despite the growing murmur in the crowd. He wasn’t surprised by the board’s actions. He only wished he could have helped remove Harry from his position before he had the chance to fire the company. Luke lifted his phone to text his boss. They needed to talk.

Andi borrowed a spiral notebook from Meg and ripped out a blank piece of paper.

“Harry is making a fool out of you!” she mumbled the words as she scribbled them down on paper. Thanks to their father’s childhood obsession, every Stevenson girl could make an impressive paper airplane. Before you could say, “You aren’t going to get away with this,” her plane sailed over the empty space between her row of seats and Valerie’s table.

Just as the crowd began to point and whisper, it hit its target: Valerie’s nose.

“What in the . . .” She wasted no time in opening the note. Her eyes grew wide as she ripped the paper several times and then tossed the remains at the crowd. “You witch!”

Andi crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. “And you’re being used!”

Harry glanced at Valerie, but continued to address the audience. “Next, I would like to address the violation situation.”

The cowboy jumped to his feet. “We would like to discuss those violation letters as well!”

The crowd roared their agreement.

Harry pounded the gavel. “Many of you are late in paying your fines. You owe us thousands of dollars.”

“You mean the association,” Luke corrected. “They owe
the association
thousands of dollars.”

The word “embezzlement” repeated in the crowd like a broken record.

Harry cleared his throat. “We’ve been generous in not taking your homes to compensate for the money you owe, but that may soon change. In the meantime, we can prevent you from using anything maintained by the association. If you owe us
anything
, and I don’t care if it’s a nickel, you
cannot
use the pool. We have hired a guard. If you insist on swimming after he tells you to leave, you will be arrested for trespassing.”

“You can’t do that!” a teenager in the back of the room yelled what most of the crowd was thinking.

“Watch us.” Harry’s evil grin distorted his face. “Also, if you owe money, you cannot use guest parking for your visitors. In fact, you cannot drive your vehicles over the roads paved by the association.”

“Then how are we going to get home?” Roxie yelled.

“Drop your car from the sky onto your driveway for all I care.” Harry narrowed his gaze at Meg. “If you owe money, your code will be removed from the entrance gate.”

Anger turned Meg’s face scarlet. She gripped her soda can, wound up like a baseball player, and threw it straight toward his forehead. He ducked just in time. The caramel-colored soda splattered against the library’s faded white wall.

Andi’s stomach clenched as she watched the turmoil percolate.

Harry laughed like Santa’s evil twin. Valerie peered over her shoulder at the mess on the wall, then at the threatening crowd rising to its feet. She quickly slipped out the side door. The security guard followed. Andi hoped he intended to get backup and not flee the scene like a coward.

Watching his girlfriend abandon him, Harry stopped laughing and clenched his fists again. “If you park in your driveway, instead of the garage like you’re supposed to, your car will be towed at your own expense.”

Roxie screamed obscenities and grabbed a skein of yarn from the lap of the woman sitting next to her. With perfect aim, she tossed it to the cowboy. “Hog-tie him!”

The cowboy tugged long strands out of the skein and wrapped each loop around his leathery hands. Pulling it taught, he threatened bodily harm with each silent move.

The board president backed away from the table. When his shoulders bumped into the soda-splattered wall, he turned to Luke.

“Do something!”

“Who, me?” Luke answered calmly.

“You still work for me for thirty days.”

“No, I don’t. I quit this account hours ago.” Luke wasted no time reaching Andi. He gently held her hand and guided her toward the aisle. “Let’s get out of here.”

Andi had seen friendlier crowds in zombie movies. A sense of urgency took over. They needed to get out of the library before a riot broke out.

“Come on!” She urged Meg to join them.

Meg followed reluctantly. “Roxie, we’re leaving!”

“Not me! We’re going to have ourselves a lynching.”

Luke followed Andi back to Euphoria. He wanted to make sure she arrived home safely after the heated meeting, and he wanted to sit and talk about their relationship. Now that he was no longer working for the board, he could date her without worrying about the complications.

He watched Andi ease her Mustang up to the gate and punch in her code. She waited a moment and tried again. Suspecting the worst, Luke climbed out of his convertible. He hurried up to the gate and read the rectangular screen, “Access Denied.”

“Harry removed my gate code before the meeting even began,” she spat.

He entered his own code. “Access Denied. Harry erased my code, too. So much for the thirty days’ notice.”

“That evil little man!” Andi slammed her car door and rushed up to the metal gate door available for walkers. She tried her key. It slipped in, but wouldn’t turn. “He rekeyed the lock. I can’t even get in on foot!”

“I’ll take care of this,” Luke said. “He can’t lock people out. There are children who live in this complex. They need access to their homes regardless of whether their parents pay their dues.”

Andi stood on the sidewalk as he popped open his trunk. Meg crawled out of the backseat of the Mustang and joined her. Both women exchanged surprised looks when he revealed a crowbar. He pushed it beneath the gate, then scaled over the top and jumped to the asphalt ground on the other side. His knee ached on impact. Ignoring the pain, he marched on.

Within minutes, other homeowners arrived and parked behind them. All of their codes had been removed as well. The gate wouldn’t open for anyone. The growing crowd reminded him of why they left the library. He needed to get that gate opened before the mob took control of the situation. Luke examined the box containing the gate’s motor. He inserted one end of the crowbar into the slight opening behind the lock and pulled.

Mr. Decker, the cowboy, kicked the pole holding up the keypad with the heel of his boot. It barely budged. He turned to a tall man about twenty years his junior. “You should have let me hog-tie that weasel back at the library.”

“Next time.” The man patted him on the back and pointed to Luke. They both scaled the gate to join him. The cowboy needed less help over than one would have expected for a man his age.

When Luke finished prying open the box, he noticed that the cowboy’s friend held a pair of wire cutters in his hand. He stepped back to let the man do his thing. He watched him snip away the way a beautician would with scissors, but nothing opened the gate.

Ready to lend a hand, several men said they’d be right back and scaled the gate as well. They returned shortly from their homes with blowtorches, sledgehammers, and drills. They ran an orange electrical cord from the closest neighbor’s porch and strung it over the wall for any tools that needed to be plugged in to obtain electric power. The small army of men not only managed to remove the gates from their hinges but totally destroyed them. Harry should be thankful he hadn’t shown up before the task was complete. They might not have stopped at destroying metal.

The cowboy eyed the mangled mess. “Maybe we should put it back on the hinges and tie that varmint up to it spread-eagle. The kids could take turns pushing the gate back and forth like one of them there amusement rides.”

“The older kids could throw tomatoes at him,” his friend added. “Or baseballs.”

“It would be better if we find a nonviolent way of dealing with Harry—and one that doesn’t involve children,” Andi said, the protective teacher in her taking over.

“Missy, you do things your way and I’ll do things mine,” the cowboy snarled.

Luke thought about
his
way of doing things. “I was impressed with the way you scaled the gate,” he told the older man. “I almost took out my knee on the landing.”

Andi studied Mr. Decker. “How’s your back feeling?”

“I was so mad, I didn’t even think about my back.” The cowboy stretched and groaned. “To tell you the truth, I wish you hadn’t reminded me. It feels like nails stabbing at me again.”

Luke watched Andi. Something was going on in that pretty head of hers. He made a mental note to ask about it later.

The group headed back to their cars at a leisurely, content pace—the way dockworkers might after putting in a long day.

After parking in her garage, Andi leaned toward his open car window. “Are you going to be okay? I feel bad that you lost the account.”

“Don’t. I already feel like a boulder has been lifted off my back.” He glanced up at the night sky. The expanse of tranquil blue reflected his mood. “Whatever life has in store for me, it has to be better than working for Harry.”

“I hope I’m going to be a part of that future.”

“The best and biggest part of my life.” He touched her cheek with the palm of his hand and then kissed her full on the mouth. “It’s been an
interesting
night. I better let you get a good night’s sleep. Your fight with Harry isn’t over yet.”

“True,” she answered, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

“How about dinner tomorrow night?”

He wanted to cheer when her face lit up like the stars above.

Still unable to sleep, Andi stayed up watching television. The late-night movie,
Harper Valley P.T.A.
, reminded her of the anti-board and the Euphoria Homeowners’ Association. In the movie, a single mother sought revenge against the school board that treated her and her daughter unfairly because she dressed provocatively. Harry treated her and her sister unfairly because he assumed Jessie was a drug-dealing hooker. He had appointed himself the morality police of Euphoria at the same time he was pursuing a married woman.

“About time!” Andi shouted when Jessie entered the kitchen through the garage.

Her sister strolled through the condo to the living room. Old movies must have been on the minds of many: the theme at the restaurant that night was
Star Wars
. Jessie wore a short white dress with gold ribbon trim, white go-go boots, and the famous Princess Leia hairdo with buns pinned over each ear.

“I noticed the front gate. Looks like a tornado hit the complex.”

Andi recounted the events of the evening, starting with the homeowners’ meeting and ending with the rougher men in the neighborhood waiting out front of Harry’s condo with wrenches ready.

Jessie shook her head. “If he’s smart, he’ll stay away until things calm down around here.” She plucked the pins from her hairdo. “Did you tell Valerie her man is not a Rockefeller?”

“I let her know he’s been playing her for a fool. If she cares, she’ll try to find out what he’s been lying about.”

“I have more information,” Jessie said. “I made a call and discovered Harry’s credit cards are maxed out. He also applied for a loan using the equity in his condo. Other than what the man receives from his retirement account, he’s broke.”

“Great detective work.” While Andi watched her sister yank off another boot, her thoughts turned back to Tess and the reverend. “Speaking of detective work, when are you going to wrap up your undercover case so you can run your newly acquired agency?”

The reverend needs a professional to prove his innocence.

“We finally found a hooker at the restaurant who is ready to talk. With her help, we can catch the owner in the act of pimping out the girls. We haven’t been able to tie him to the drugs yet, but if we can make a prostitution arrest, he might hand over his drug connections for a deal. If all goes well, we should make an arrest within the next day or two.”

“That means Harry can’t discover the truth between now and then.” Still sitting on the sofa, Andi pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.