Suspicion

This certainly fell into that category.

If it turned out to be nothing, she’d feel totally stupid. But if it was connected to the mugging, and she didn’t call the cops, then they might be missing a potentially crucial clue.

Steph sighed. She had to call the PD.

Again.

A few minutes later, the pop of Mimi Larson’s ever-present bubble gum came over the phone. “We’ll have someone out there right away,” the Loganton PD’s dispatcher said. “It doesn’t sound like much, Steph, but I guess I can have the officers check it out for you.”

In spite of Mimi’s dismissive assessment, Steph couldn’t deny the uneasiness in her gut from the moment Jimmy had handed her the torn box. She knew the store’s true rate of attrition. Six items in four weeks wasn’t it. And such neat, surgical destruction?

No way was that normal. Even if it didn’t make any sense.

This was her little world, everything she’d worked so hard for. She’d overcome all the issues that came from her attention deficit disorder so as to finish her schooling. Then she’d had to work hard to raise the seed money. The licensing tests had posed a monumental challenge, and all the other hurdles she’d had to jump in order to open her store had nearly gotten the best of her. But she’d stuck it out. She wasn’t about to let some dishonest crook tear down her efforts now.

When the CB radio in Sheriff Hal Benson’s department cruiser crackled, he listened, even if it was only to eavesdrop on one of the police departments in his county. Like now.

“Delta-202,” Mimi from the Loganton PD said.

“Go ahead,” Wayne Donnelly answered.

“Steph Scott at the pharmacy’s reporting what might be vandalism…but it’s kinda weird.”

Hal bolted up in his seat. Steph? Vandalized?

He turned the cruiser around on the side road and listened more intently.

“10-4. It’s kinda quiet today. I’ll go check it out.”

“10-4, Delta-202. And thanks.”

Hal was tempted to turn on his siren, but who in his right mind used a siren for a vandalism call? Especially when the local police could and would handle it just fine. Still…

It was Steph who’d called. And she’d been mugged last night.

While it was just too pathetic to still be carrying a torch for the little blond girl three desks down from his in fourth, fifth, even tenth grade, Hal knew how he felt. He’d never found a woman who made his heart beat faster than the way Steph Scott always had.

If someone had hurt her, he had to help. Two calls in two days to the pharmacy were unheard of. And two too many, period.

He reached Scott’s in less than ten minutes. He didn’t want to think how many speed limits he’d obliterated to do so. But when he strolled in, he realized how foolish his rush had been. Wayne had everything under control, talking to Steph while Maggie inspected the store.

Well, everything except for the two tiny lines between Steph’s eyebrows. Which prompted Hal to speak. “Anything I can do to help?”

Steph and Wayne spun.

“Oh, hello, Sheriff Benson,” she said.

Wayne frowned. “Any problem, Benson?”

Hal shook his head. “I was near—” the county wasn’t that big “—and I heard the call on the radio. Just thought I’d stop by and see if you needed a hand. After all, Steph was mugged yesterday, and the radio call just caught my attention.”

Wayne jutted out his chin. “Don’t know that there’s much to see here. Just six messed-up boxes in four weeks. Maybe one of the seniors at The Pines was clumsy checking out the merchandise more’n Miss Scott would like when they come shopping. Maybe they thought trimming the damage they did might make it look like less.”

When no one agreed, he shrugged and went on. “Doesn’t look like much to me, even if Miss Scott here thinks it might have something to do with the mugger. I say folks are careless. Sometimes they’re just plain crazy, too. Either this is someone’s idea of a prank, and it’s downright mean, if you ask me, or stuff fell and got shoved around in the store.”

“That’s never been my experience,” Hal said. But at Wayne’s deepening frown, Hal hurried to add, “Still, it’s just like I said. I was close…but of course, I’m sure you have everything under control.”

You’re the one who doesn’t have anything under control, his conscience taunted with right-on-the-money accuracy.

On his way out, a thought occurred to him. “Did you get those security cameras yet?”

Steph gave him a look of disbelief. “When would I have had the time?”

“You might want to hurry things up. It might help you keep things under control.”

Control. One little word, but, oh, how much it encompassed. The PD had things under control. He was suggesting ways for Steph to keep things under control in her store. He sighed. The only thing not under control was him.

What was he doing here? No one needed him. He had a job to do.

He glanced at Steph again. There was just something about her that inspired him to leap tall buildings, stop speeding bullets—all the clichés. With a quick salute, Hal stood to the side, letting the efficient cops do their job. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make himself leave.

Irritated, he called himself the biggest fool in town.

Yet another cliché: he was a fool in love. Still, how could it be love when he hadn’t shared much more than passing greetings with Steph?

What kind of crazy am I?

TWO

“Before you go…” Maggie Lowe said as Steph stood to leave once the three law enforcement officers were done with their questions. “I suspect you’ll want to know what we just found inside the blood pressure cuff box.”

Steph shoved her bangs off her forehead then rubbed her palms, one against the other, and laced her fingers together. “A blood pressure cuff, I hope.”

The officer gave her a wry smile. “It was there. But you already knew that. It’s what we found behind the cuff that’s so interesting.”

Sheriff Benson crossed his arms. “You found something in the box?”

Officer Donnelly faced the other man. “Crazy as it sounds, there was a twenty-dollar bill shoved behind the cuff.”

“Huh?” Great! First she came across as the weak little victim who got knocked down, and now she sounded dumb. “I mean, money? There was cash inside the box?”

Maggie nodded. “It was an old bill, so when we check it for prints I’m sure we’ll find plenty of them—too many, actually. And then, when I called Dawn Stallman from The Pines, thinking one of the seniors might have…oh, I don’t know, felt guilty and stuck it in there to make up for the broken box, she says no one would fess up. She did ask all the seniors who came in today.”

“That is strange,” Steph said.

The sheriff uncrossed his arms. “I don’t think the twenty’s a case of conscience. The folks out at The Pines wouldn’t do that. They’d take the box they broke right up to the counter and face Steph—er…Miss Scott.”

“It wasn’t broken,” Steph said. “Someone cut into that box with a very sharp blade. Deliberately.”

Maggie nodded.

Sheriff Benson turned to Steph. “Who else came into the store today?”

She groaned. “I can’t begin to remember. Let’s see…Miss Tabitha picked up her prescription, and I remember Mr. Holcomb stopping in for his little girl’s insulin…” Steph frowned, concentrated and eventually came up with a list of about ten customers. Then she shook her head. “I’ll have to check my records to see who else picked up prescriptions. We can look at the checks and credit-card slips in the deposit bag, too. That’ll give us a better idea who was in the store.”

“Sounds good to me,” the sheriff said. He turned to the two police officers. “How about I follow her home? I can look at that bag. She—” he faced Steph “—you can make the deposit in the morning, right?”

As strange as it seemed, Steph felt relieved to know the sheriff, even though practically a stranger, would come home with her. She just didn’t relish walking into her little carriage house behind the Farmer’s Supply Store alone. The local farmer’s co-op had turned the town’s century-old livery stable, a lovely, historic building, into the wire-and-feed-and-more store, but by this time of night it was also dark and empty. For the first time she realized how isolated her home, the original livery owner’s home, was all the way out on the edge of town.

“I’ll stop by the bank on my way to work tomorrow morning,” she said, heading for her car. “And if it’s okay with all of you, I’d like to close up shop now.”

Damp from the rain and shivering from an excess of nerves, Steph couldn’t wait to be rid of the whites she wore to work. Fortunately for her, Loganton was small. It only took seven minutes to get home. In no time, she pulled her car into the garage, snagged her purse and deposit bag and locked up her gas-efficient compact car. She waited for the sheriff just inside the garage door, then, once he met her, used her garage-door remote to lock up behind them.

“I’m sorry to keep you so long,” she said as she went up the steps to the inside door. “This whole thing is just unbelievable…very unusual. But you can go on home now. I’ll get the list of customers to you in the morning.”

He gave her his brief but sincere grin, which lit up his brown eyes and deepened the crinkles at their corners. “Don’t worry about it. We’re partners in the battle against drugs, remember? Partners help partners.”

Steph stepped into her tiny kitchen, much too conscious of the tall sheriff’s presence at her back. What would he think of her home? It was, after all, an ultrafeminine nest by design.

She shivered and her teeth chattered. Were the tremors the result of the dousing she’d gotten outside? Or did the adrenaline from her natural fight-or-flight response, to first the mugging and now the theft, get the better of her? Or was her sharp awareness of her companion’s striking presence to blame? She took a deep breath then gestured toward her glass-topped iron bistro table and the two chairs with their heart shaped backs—all she could fit in the small space. “Have a seat. Can I get you a glass of water? Iced tea?”

“Iced tea sounds great.” He pointed to the deposit bag. “And I’ll get started with that list of customers while you change into dry clothes, so I can get out of your hair as soon as possible.”

Steph handed over the blue simulated-leather pouch, poured the sheriff a tall glass of tea and then ran to change. She couldn’t stand another second in her clammy clothes. Five minutes later, she was back, dressed in dry khakis and a cream-colored sweater.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “How many names did you come up with?”

“Here.” The sheriff turned his notebook so she could read it. “It’s not a particularly enlightening list.”

Steph scanned the names. “I see what you mean. I can’t picture any of these people vandalizing anything, much less beating me up.”

Her thready voice must have betrayed her exhaustion because he gave her an appraising stare. “Are you sure you don’t want to go stay with your parents? Will you be okay here by yourself?”

“I’m fine—tired, and sore from last night’s mugging, but that’s what ibuprofen is for, and I hear Scott’s Pharmacy has a good supply.” She smiled. “I’ve got an in there, so I don’t need to worry Mom and Dad. I’m okay.”

An awkward silence descended on the room. Steph studied the list of her customers’ names, the most convenient place to keep her gaze. She’d never had a man in her home before. This felt very strange, especially since she didn’t really know Hal Benson very well, and even though he’d come in his official capacity.

True, she remembered him from back in school; they’d graduated the same year. He’d been the class brain, while she’d been the one who stared out the window when the slightest thing distracted her, the one who made teachers despair. Then, after high school, she’d gone to UNC at Chapel Hill, where a kind and wise learning disabilities counselor worked with her, while Hal had headed for Princeton. How and why he became a sheriff after all that, she didn’t know.

“Umm…I guess I’d better get going.” He pushed away from the table, making his chair’s metal feet screech against the ceramic tile underfoot. He winced. “Sorry about your floor. I’m outta here. You do need to rest.”

She waved away his concern. “Oh, don’t worry about that. Tile is pretty tough stuff. But you’re right. I do need to rest.”

He stood in place, looking around the room, his cheeks reddening, clearly disoriented.

Steph chuckled. “Follow me. You don’t have to go out my back door. This is a funky little place, but it suits me just right.” She headed to the front. “Don’t try to tell my parents that, though. They’re convinced I should still be living at home.”

His laugh warmed her almost as much as her dry clothes had. “Family around these parts has long strings, doesn’t it? My parents stopped guilt-tripping me only when they decided to buy one of the cottages out at The Pines. I’m too young to live over there.”

At the front door, Steph turned and met the sheriff’s gaze. “Thanks again.”

He dipped his head. “It’s all in a day’s work.”

It struck Steph how shy Hal Benson really was. That explained a lot, like how they’d managed to go through school together and she still knew practically nothing about the man.

The earlier awkwardness returned. A hunted look crossed the sheriff’s craggy features. Steph’s natural response was to reach out, to say something to put him at ease, but she realized this wasn’t the right time.

Next time she saw the appealing sheriff, she’d make sure to reach out and make an extra effort at friendship. He seemed to be one of the truly good guys.

“Well,” he said when the tension grew tighter than the wire the Farmer’s Supply sold. “I’ll be in touch. As soon as we know something…”

“I look forward to hearing from you. I’m sure you’ll catch the mugger. And figure out this box-slashing thing, too.”

And she was. Hal Benson struck her as a man who wouldn’t give up until he’d met his goal. With his natural intelligence, she doubted much ever got the best of him.

“Thank you for your trust, Miss Steph—”

“Now, really.” She cut in with a smile. “You’ve known me since I wore that sloppy braid that never stayed tight back in school. I think you can drop the miss. I’m just Steph.”

His eyes twinkled. “Good night, just Steph. I’ll see you soon.”

“Good night, Hal. I’m sure you will.”

Steph locked the door behind the sheriff. After the echo of his footsteps melted into the rumble of the rain against her roof, the overwhelming silence shrouded her.

Funny how she’d never noticed the profound quiet of the area around her home. She loved the small home with its angled rooflines and nooks and crannies, but tonight, since the home did sit on the edge of town, she really felt alone. If someone tried to break in, no one would hear her screams.

Her only means of contact would be her cell phone.

She hurried back to the kitchen, leaving the living-room light on, the thud of her footsteps louder than she’d ever heard them before. The thought of eating nearly made her sick. Supper was not in her immediate future.

A quick rummage through her purse produced her phone. Clutching the device to her chest, Steph turned on even the small-wattage light over the kitchen sink, before hurrying to her room. She flicked on the overhead light, turned on the bedside lamp then headed to the bathroom, where she did the same with the last unlit fixture in her home.

She made a face at her reflection in the mirror. “This is so stupid.”

If anyone was planning to break in, they already knew she was home alone. Lights wouldn’t deter a dogged intruder. Still, they made her feel marginally better, and she wasn’t about to turn a single one off.

Sleep? Maybe. Maybe not.

In a handful of minutes, she’d washed her face, brushed her teeth, debated whether to don pj’s or stay fully clothed and shoed in case someone did try to break in, opted for the pj’s and crawled into bed. Her fluffy down blanket felt as light as the feathers that filled it but would offer the warmth she’d craved since she’d stepped out of her store.

A second crawled by. Another…three dozen more.

What was going on? Why would someone ruin a number of products on her shelves? And who had tried to break in? She was sure the mugging had been an attempt to get inside the store.

Had it been a run-of-the-mill robber, he wouldn’t have left her purse and the deposit pouch behind.

A car drove past on the road out of town, the hum of its engine and the splash of tires over the wet surface a frightening sound for the first time ever.

Steph scanned her bedroom, the cozy haven she’d made for herself. She’d only given her closet-romantic heart free rein in this room. A white-painted antique dresser sat at the right side of the window, while a wicker chair flanked the other side. The bed, also painted white, wore carved floral embellishments at the crest of the headboard, and she always piled it high with pillows and cushions, all of them decorated with embroidery, delicate vintage fabrics, ruffles, ribbons and lace. A white-on-white embroidered coverlet finished the bedding, and she’d always found the room soothing and welcoming.

But not tonight. Her safe little world had taken a blow. And she didn’t know how to make things right once again.

Before she went off the deep end and gave her lively imagination the chance to run away with her common sense, Steph reached for her Bible. With experienced hands, she flipped through it to her favorite verse. She took a deep breath, and as always, read Jesus’ words out loud.

“‘I will never leave you; never will I forsake you.’”

No doubt about it. He was a clumsy oaf when it came to women.

Hal pulled into the driveway of the sturdy old home he’d bought last year. It was a comfortable place, with large rooms, beautiful wood floors and leaded windows, but it was also a lonely place. That’s why he’d rescued a greyhound. Pepper was the best idea he’d ever had.

Maybe she was the only girl for him.

In college, he’d envied the guys with the smooth lines, but he hadn’t been able to imitate them. The stuff they came up with had always felt so fake. Sure, he’d dated, but not often, regularly or for long. Plus, he’d never forgotten Steph Scott. Every girl he’d met had started out with that strike against her.

After today, seeing Steph’s courage, her strength and her sweet gentleness, he was more certain than ever that all females he met always would.

Hal loped up to his front porch. On the other side of the door, Pepper’s nails tapped out an urgent SOS. She’d been locked in far longer than usual today.

As soon as he opened up, the sleek animal shot past him and straight to her favorite corner of the side yard, not ready to listen to his apology, not ready to forgive his slip. Then, when she trotted back inside, she graced Hal with a disdainful glare and shook herself within inches of his already soaked uniform pants’ legs. Hal knew many pet owners believed their animals had human traits. But when it came to Pepper he didn’t just believe it, he knew it.

She was uncannily human.

“All right, your royal highness.” He chuckled as he headed for the tall aluminum trash can where he stored Pepper’s kibble. “Forgive me, please! I am only a mere mortal and was detained by work.”

Hal scooped out a healthy serving of the crunchy chunks.

Pepper sniffed, unwilling to even lick his hand, her usual form of love-filled greeting. She burrowed into her meal as if Hal weren’t in the room.

He walked out of the former larder he’d turned into a first-floor laundry room, and then called back, “What’re you going to do when I do land a date with Steph?”

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Yeah, well. Maybe Pepper had it right, and he was dreaming. The way he’d acted at Steph’s hadn’t won him any awards. Suave, smooth and leading-man savvy, he wasn’t. But he was a decent, hardworking Christian and even more attracted to Steph now than he had been back in school, or more recently, from a distance.

She’d blossomed into a lovely woman.

In the large living room, Hal turned on his stereo to a Charlotte classic jazz station. As the sassy sound of Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a la Turk” filled his home, Hal felt his energy return. He had paint to strip from molding upstairs, and Blue Rondo’s beat should work to kick-start him into gear.

But before he made it to the stairs, his cell phone rang, and he had to turn down the sound. “Hello?”

“It’s Maggie Lowe. Sorry to bother you in the evening, Hal, but the guys at the lab just called. They did lift some prints from the blood pressure cuff box. I figured since you’d responded twice to calls to the pharmacy, you’d be interested in what they found.”

“Let me take a stab at it. You tell me how close I come. They found Steph’s prints, those of the skinny kid who fills her shelves, and nothing else.”

“We weren’t surprised, either.” Maggie fell silent for a moment. “Don’t know what it means—or whether it means anything at all.”

Hal sat in his wide leather armchair then propped his feet on the matching ottoman. “What’s really important here is whether the mugger is connected with the…I don’t know what to call Steph’s vandal. But that’s what I want to know.”

“That is the question. And just so you know, we’re going to drive around the pharmacy a little more often until we get this figured out.”

Good. “We’re sorta strapped for manpower—budgets, you know—but I’ll get my deputies to make a couple of runs by the pharmacy a time or two a day.”

“We appreciate the help. Two of our officers got new jobs, one in Atlanta and the other in Phoenix, during the summer. We’re down to just Wayne and me, and we’re looking to hire a pair of experienced cops. Well, we do have the chief, but you know his limitations.”

“Bruce is a good man.”

“But with tough limitations.”

Bruce Zacharias had been one of Charlotte’s best two decades ago, but these days his biggest battle was against worsening rheumatoid arthritis. He handled all of Loganton’s administrative work, directed Maggie and Wayne and was rumored to be about to announce his retirement.

“We all have our limitations, Maggie. That’s why I wish Steph had cameras in and around that store. They would catch what all of us, out of necessity and because of other assignments, miss.”

Hal stared at the stacked logs in his fireplace. His home always gave him a great deal of satisfaction, but tonight, nothing seemed to ease the knot in his right shoulder or the one in his gut. Maybe it was just hunger. He’d picked up his dinner from Granny Annie’s just as the woman was about to lock up.

Maybe it was Steph’s situation.

“I think we’ll get further on this one if we team up,” he told the police officer. “I’m sure you guys want this stopped, and I don’t want to see Steph Scott hurt again.”

“10-4, Sheriff Benson, 10-4.”

They hung up after brief good-nights, and then Hal went to ignite the pile of kindling he’d set out that morning before leaving for work. Soon, he had lively flames dancing in the fireplace, but instead of “Blue Rondo,” he’d put a moody Miles Davis CD into the player. The woodwork could wait another day.

He zapped the meal, and at the microwave’s ping, he took a fork, his plate and a glass of iced tea to his leather armchair. He began to eat his belated supper, not tasting a single bite.

If nothing else, he would keep Steph safe.

The next day, when Hal walked into Granny Annie’s for lunch, he almost turned right around without even pausing for a drink. Just inside the door, he came face-to-face with Ed Townsend, the other contender for his job in the upcoming election.

The freshly minted lawyer had been giving Hal headaches with his legalese-laced diatribes, and Hal preferred to avoid meeting the man in public places. Ed never missed a chance to attack Hal.