Licensed for Trouble (24 page)

“Matthew? Who's Matthew?”

“An old boyfriend who said I wasn't pastor's wife material.”

Jeremy wore a sad look. “Can I have his full name, please, so I can run a search on him and beat him to death with your soap sock?”

PJ ran her hand down his whiskered face. Shook her head. “He was right. And I've known since I was a kid. Sometimes I would look at Connie and wonder why it was so easy for her to be a Sugar. Perfect and beautiful and smart—”

“PJ, you are all of those things.”

“I'm not, Boone!”

Jeremy blinked at her. Stiffened.

She swallowed. “Uh, Jeremy. I'm not . . . those things.”

He took a breath, then slid his hand out from hers. Nodded. “Yes, you are. But you can't hear that from me, can you?”

Tears burned her eyes. “I didn't mean that. Boone and I are over.”

“Maybe you are. But you're not over the imprint he made on your life. Nothing but Trouble. I'm so tired of hearing that. It's like he branded it on your soul. And the worst part is, it's not Boone calling you trouble anymore—it's you!”

“I don't like being trouble.”

“Sure you do. Because if you're trouble, then no one can hurt you.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about your being your own worst enemy. If you label yourself as trouble, then it's easy to tell yourself that people won't love you. Can't love you. You forgive them for rejecting you before they have a chance to hurt you. Like Peter, running back to fishing instead of facing what he thought was God's rejection. Don't you get it, PJ? You are holding
yourself
captive. But it doesn't matter what I say, does it? Because if you can't see it, if you can't hear it, if you can't believe it, then you'll always go back to fishing.”

His voice gentled. “Princess, I can fight Boone for you, but I don't know how to fight
you
for your own heart.” He put his hand on her cheek. “No matter how much I want to.”

She leaned into his hand, her eyes blurry. “You do want to fight for me?” Another tear dripped down her chin. “Why?”

Jeremy brushed her tear away with his thumb. “Oh, PJ, are you serious? Because you're the furthest thing from trouble. You're smart and brave and funny, and you're incredibly cute, and you take my breath away nearly every day. You are
my fresh start
.”

PJ closed her eyes. “I've never been anyone's fresh start.”

“Yeah. I was kind of hoping I might yours, too. But a guy only has so much fight in him.”

She opened her mouth, hoping to protest, but he put his finger over her lips. “Go to bed, PJ. We'll solve more mysteries in the morning.”

Chapter Fourteen

Someday, PJ would have her own PI shop, with her own one-room office, located on the second floor of a small office building in Dinkytown, carpeted with manila files. Only, she'd take better care of the thirsty spider plant in the window, and she'd never leave cold coffee perched inches from the computer, daring someone to knock it over onto the keyboard.

Tracking down Bekka Layton's mother might be a trick, but she had two bagels, a tall vanilla latte, and enough frustration in her to fuel her for a week.

“It's not Boone calling you trouble anymore—it's you!”
Not anymore. Jeremy's words had looped through PJ's mind for the better part of the night until she finally wrapped her fingers around one solid truth. She had to actually
solve
a case, not stumble upon the answer or let it creep up on her only to figure it out after finding herself—and various family members—held at gunpoint.

Trouble created messes. PJ Sugar, PI, cleaned them up.

No more being held captive by her own low expectations. By calling herself names from the past.

And it didn't so much matter if Max didn't want the details of his past. This wasn't Max's case. Not anymore. Because PJ Sugar didn't quit. Not when the game was afoot.

She'd dig up the truth, then give him the choice of hearing it.

While she booted up Jeremy's computer, she tasted her coffee. It needed sweetener. Outside, the rain had cleansed the sky to a radiant blue. She had gotten up early enough to see the sun rise, thanks to Jeremy's other comment.

“You are my fresh start.”

It still sent a curl of heat through her. She'd never been anyone's fresh start.

Logging in to the PI search database as Jeremy and entering his ID and password, PJ ran a credit header search, cross-referencing Bekka's last known address. A Social Security number popped up from her rental application.

PJ added some sweetener to her latte as the Social Security search ran. The neighbor had mentioned someplace out West, and sure enough, four addresses down, PJ found a former residence listing in Portland.

Running a check on the ownership of the records at the Portland address, she bingoed on another name—Flora Layton.

See, that's what Jeremy might call a fresh lead.

She ran a credit header check on Flora, at that address, and landed pages of hits. Thankfully, Flora wasn't a popular name, and it spit out a Social Security number.

Halfway through her second bagel, PJ found Flora listed near Minneapolis. She'd moved twice since her daughter's death, finally landing in Brooklyn Park.

She had her jacket half-on, holding half of the bagel in her mouth, as Jeremy walked in the door.

“Good morning,” His eyes, however, spoke reserve. As if he'd been recently kicked in the teeth and didn't want round two.

“Morning,” she said, hating that she'd done the kicking.

He blocked her path with his foot. “Where are you going?”

She stopped in the doorway. Took the bagel from her mouth. “Uh, just . . .”

His eyes darkened, the wounded look replaced by the tight pull of his jaw. “You're still looking for Max, aren't you?”

Why was it that she could take on nearly any undercover identity and let lies flow out of her like syrup, but in her own skin, talking to her boss—and the guy that considered her his
fresh start
—she had nothing more intelligent than “Uh . . .”?

“You've tracked down the victim's mother, haven't you?”

She took a bite.

“I thought so.” He pushed her out the door, following her down the stairs.

She swallowed. “I can do this alone, Jer.”

“Humor me. How did you find her?”

PJ outlined her investigation methods as she unlocked her Bug. Jeremy slid into the passenger seat. “Okay, I'm impressed.”

“See, I can be a real PI. And I didn't even cheat and use my instincts. This was pure brainpower.”

“I can feel the energy waves from here.” Jeremy sipped his coffee, looking at her from over the rim of his cup. He wore his black baseball cap today, a grey button-down shirt, untucked over a pair of dark jeans. He braced his cup on his knee as she motored them through Dinkytown and out of the city toward Brooklyn Park.

“Max didn't show up for work this morning,” she said. Not that he'd know, because when she looked out her bedroom window at the crack of dawn, the red bus had vanished.

“No Max. No Dog. I left the door unlocked, just in case.”

“You seriously think he's coming back?” Jeremy shook his head, not looking at her.

“He has a job to finish. My living room looks like the Hulk plowed through it—half the wall is torn up, and there's plaster from one end of the room to the other. And he left half of Home Depot in my front room—an air compressor, a nail gun, a couple sheets of drywall.”

“If he doesn't show, I'll find a new handyman. Or maybe I'll track him down, make him clean it up. While I stand watch; don't worry.”

Which, of course, worried her.

“What's our cover, boss?” he asked, taking another sip of coffee.

“I like that. Keep it up.”

Jeremy smirked, leaned down, and flicked on the radio. Drive-time KQ92 was headlining the news.

“No cover. We're just going to go in straight. PIs on the hunt.”

“Babe, maybe your instincts are misfiring today, but remember, there is a child involved. The grandmother is going to be suspicious if we flash the old picture around. We know that the kid's dad was a soldier, so let's play the Army benefit card. We're insurance investigators looking for Bekka's beneficiaries.”

PJ sighed.

“What?”

“I'm tired of always being someone else. Lying. It feels wrong. I'd just like to be me, asking the questions, helping someone find answers.”

Jeremy said nothing, just looked away from her, out the window.

Flora Layton rented a duplex right on Brooklyn Boulevard, facing the street, a nondescript brown house with a carved pumpkin on the stoop and a cheerful row of red chrysanthemums flanking the front step. A blue tricycle lay tipped on its side in the yard.

PJ rang the doorbell.

Jeremy had left his cap in the car and now ran his hand over his hair as if to groom it. Smiled.

He resembled a panther, grinning at his dinner.

“Let me do the talking,” she said.

A woman came to the door. Bone-thin, in a pair of khaki pants and a patterned sweatshirt, with bottle-black hair and saggy cheeks that stripped the youth from her face, she looked them over with suspicious, tired eyes. “I get my Christmas wreath from the Shop and Save,” she said through the door.

PJ grabbed on to Jeremy's cover story. “We're insurance investigators looking for the relatives of Bekka Layton.”

Something sparked in the woman's eyes. “I'm her mother, Flora.”

“Can we come in?”

Flora nodded, although her gaze shot to Jeremy.

“Stop smiling,” PJ whispered as they followed Flora inside. “You're scaring her.”

They'd entered through a time portal to the eighties: faded mauve carpet, a green and blue plaid sofa, a blue chair, and toys strewn across the family room. A small, round pine table separated the kitchen from the family room.

“I'm Jake Davis and this is Rose Parkins. We're just finishing up our investigations for the death benefit from the Army,” Jeremy said smoothly.

Rose? She looked like a Rose? PJ smiled, stuck out her hand.

Flora shook it. “The Army? You mean they found Owen's body?”

Jeremy shot PJ a look. “Yes . . . that's right.”

“Finally. Only took the military four years.” She lowered herself onto the sofa chair. Sighed. “When he went MIA, I knew he was dead. Bekka refused to believe he was gone, right up to the end, said she knew he'd come back to her. But I knew he was into something dangerous.” Her eyes welled up, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “I kept telling Bekka that she should move on, not wait for him.”

“Did Bekka have someone else in her life?”

“Oh no, she adored Owen. I just thought the entire thing was so fast; they dated less than three months. Frankly, I didn't trust him. Of course, he shipped out before I had a chance to really get to know him. It's hard to know someone over the telephone.”

“You never met your daughter's . . . uh . . . boyfriend?”

“Is that what he put on his forms? that they weren't married?” Her eyes sparked. “I knew it was a line, his wanting her to keep her maiden name. Like there aren't a hundred McManns in the phone book.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, they were married all right. A whirlwind romance. They met in a burn unit—he'd hurt his hands in a grease fire or something. Bekka was a nurse, you know. But he wooed her, and then suddenly they were getting married and moving to Minneapolis. I thought it was strange that he asked her to keep her name. For her own protection, he said. The man was paranoid. Wouldn't even let her keep a picture of them in the house. Said he was afraid they'd bring the fight stateside.”

“Bring the fight stateside?” Jeremy didn't spare PJ a glance. But she wanted to leap off the sofa and pump her fist into the air. Because, yes, she'd known he wasn't a killer. That's right. Another point for her stellar instincts.

“You know, because he was Special Forces. Maybe it was true. My house was broken into after Bekka's funeral—they tore it apart as if they were looking for something. I had taken Tyler to visit relatives, and we came back . . .” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “I thought it was a fluke—dismissed it as being in a bad neighborhood. That's why I moved. . . . But do you think it had something to do with Owen's job?”

“I don't know,” Jeremy said, but a quick look at him told PJ that Max had moved from former soldier to black ops operative in Jeremy's head. Perfect.

PJ schooled her voice. “Do you have any pictures of Bekka and Owen's wedding? I'm sure we have a marriage certificate on file, but it would help to verify their relationship.”

“The Army loses everything. I can't believe it. It took you a month after Bekka died—
two
months after Owen went missing—to get his belongings to us. His last package didn't show up until a month after she died either. And even that was nothing. ”

Jeremy had rid himself of the smile. “You're right, ma'am, and we're very sorry about that.”

Flora's mouth tightened in a thin line of disgust.

PJ couldn't look at the woman, sure her face would betray her. An eight-by-ten picture of the five-year-old, with his short curly brown hair, brown eyes, and a dimple on his pudgy cheek, hung on the wall next to a picture of Bekka.

The little boy had Max Smith written all over his cute little face.

“What was in the package?” PJ asked.

“A teddy bear. Just a cheap trinket he picked up in some airport, probably. But Tyler carries it everywhere, never sleeps without it.” She shifted in her seat. “I'll try to find some pictures Bekka might have; they eloped, so I don't have any of the wedding. And all her boxes are in my storage unit. I packed everything away when I moved. . . . It was just too difficult. But I could look.”