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“Not good. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Just a minute. The kids are watching a Disney movie. I can’t hear.”
A second later, it went quiet on the other end and Janey said, “What were you saying?”
“Where are you?”
“In the bathroom of the hotel room with the door locked.” She laughed. “It’s the only way I can have peace and quiet. About Tom?”
“He overdosed. He’s in the hospital. In a coma.”
She heard Janey gasp. “Oh my God. We’ll come home right now.”
“Oh, no, you won’t. I almost didn’t call because I knew you’d say that, but I had to tell you.”
“But—”
“No buts. Honestly, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Poor Tom. Life has been too hard on him.”
“It sure has.” Shannon changed the phone to her other ear and took a sweater out of a drawer Janey kept packed for her. “I’m staying at your place, okay?”
“Of course, but why are you there?”
“Tom got the drugs in Ordinary. I’m taking a look around.”
“Ordinary?” Janey’s voice held disbelief.
“Apparently the town isn’t the source. It isn’t being made here, but he definitely got it here.”
Shannon’s next bet was on the biker bar Janey used to complain about.
“I’m going to check out the biker bar in Ordinary first.”
“Biker bar? That’s gone. The Sheriff chased them out of town. They’re all over in Monroe now at a place called Sassy’s.”
“Okay, I’ll scope it out.”
“Shannon, be careful,” Janey warned in her big-sister voice.
“I will. I’m good at my job.”
“I know. I worry anyway.”
“I’ll see you when you get home Sunday.”
No matter what her sister said about being careful, Shannon was going to check out that bar. The distance between bikers and drugs was no big leap for imagination.
She hung up and spread her favorite lotion over her skin, then dressed in panties, a bra and a pair of jeans. She had just picked up the sweater when she heard something downstairs.
She stopped and held her breath.
Another noise. A creak on the stairs. Damn.
There was definitely someone in the house.
She finished pulling on her sweater and took her gun out of her purse. Hiding behind the bedroom door, she waited.
CHAPTER TWO
NAVIGATING A MINEFIELD of children’s toys, Cash crept across the veranda to the front door of the Wright house. With the toe of his cowboy boot, he nudged aside the cop car he’d bought for Ben’s third birthday.
Cash’s buddy, C.J., was married to Janey and crazy about his wife. They had a bunch of great kids C.J. adored. Cash was still single—children a daydream—and nothing but an honorary uncle to his friend’s children.
Now Dad was dying and Cash might be the end of the Kavenagh line. He wanted what C.J. had with Janey, a family life instead of the horror show his childhood had been.
‘I was a rotten role model. You never got married and had kids.’ Was it Dad’s fault?
Yeah. Maybe. He didn’t know.
The crisp wind that had arisen with nightfall spoke of autumn running into winter. He inhaled the scent of leaves breaking down on damp earth then exhaled on a sigh. If he had a bunch of kids, he might be in California visiting Disneyland, too, like the Wrights.
Instead he was here, investigating a light on in the upstairs window of what was supposed to be an empty house.
Hailey Hall babysat Janey’s kids sometimes. She would have a key to the house. Cash had caught her and her boyfriend, Jeff, in the weirdest nooks and crannies around town, making out like, well, teenagers.
He wouldn’t put it past those kids to use the place while it was empty.
He opened the front door and stepped inside. Time to teach them a lesson by scaring the wits out of them.
He looked for anything out of the ordinary, treading carefully in the darkness in case the intruders weren’t Hailey and Jeff. His gun sat like a metal backbone, tucked into the waistband of his pants.
This was only Ordinary, but crime touched even small towns. No sense taking chances.
Moonlight poured in through the kitchen window, illuminating groceries on the counter—including a white box from a bakery over in Haven. He lifted the lid and checked inside. Doughnuts.
Damn kids. They had some nerve bringing snacks. A plate, silverware and a mug sat in the drying rack along with one small pot. An empty tin of canned pasta and sauce had been thrown in the recycle box. They’d made themselves at home. He was going to give them a good piece of his mind.
Only one of them had eaten, though. Probably Jeff. Kid was growing like a weed.
Cash heard a sound from the top floor—a drawer opening and closing, maybe.
He climbed the stairs. In the dark, his hand touched a stuffed animal that one of the children had left on the railing. He rubbed the soft fur between his fingers. Yeah, a bundle of kids and a great wife to wake up to every day would go a long way toward dispelling this feeling he’d had lately of…of…holding his breath, of needing…something to happen, even before Frank showed up this evening.
Another noise, softer this time, pulled him out of his reflections. Snap out of it. Self-pity wasn’t usually Cash’s thing, but at the rate Hailey and Jeff were going, they’d have children long before he ever did.
Crazy teenagers. They were going to curse him from here to Memphis because, really, where were a couple of horny teenagers supposed to go when they still lived with their parents?
He strode down the hall and banged his fist on the wall to give them a chance to cover up before he walked in.
Hailey must be wearing that great-smelling perfume.
“You two had better be using condoms.” He stepped to the doorway.
The bed was empty but he had the sense of someone being in the room. The skin on the back of his neck tingled, but before he could react, the door slammed against the side of his face and pain exploded in his forehead. “Son of a bitch!”
He reached for his weapon.
A woman jumped from behind the door with a gun in her hand.
They stared each other down, weapons drawn and aimed, tension as thick as honey in the room.
Cash didn’t glance down to see what kind of gun she held, semi-automatic or pistol. He watched her eyes. If she planned to pull the trigger, she would show it a fraction of a second before with a subtle flinch.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Who am I? You’ve got a lot of nerve, lady, breaking into my buddy’s house. What did you think you could steal?”
“I’m not stealing anything. My sister lives here.”
Then why hadn’t he met her? “What’s your sister’s name?”
“Janey Wilson. At least, that’s who she used to be. Now, she’s Wilson-Wright.”
Okay, so she knew Janey. That didn’t mean she was Janey’s sister.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Who wants to know?”
He had to give her credit. She was cool as a brick of ice. All business. Even with a gun in his hand, he didn’t intimidate her.
“I’m Cash Kavenagh, Sheriff of Ordinary.”
Her eyelids flickered. She knew his name.
“Let me see ID. Slowly,” she said.
He drew his wallet out with careful movements, his aim never wavering and his eyes still focused on hers. Amateurs got trigger happy and people died.
He handed the wallet to her and she double-checked that it was he in the photo.
“Okay, you’re the Sheriff.” She handed it back.
“Now that we’ve got that settled, who are you?”
“Shannon Wilson. Janey’s sister.”
“You don’t look anything like Janey.” Janey was short and voluptuous, a dark-haired Goth with immaculate white angel’s skin. This woman, a cool drink of lemonade on a hot day, had long golden hair, flawless tanned skin and pink lips. Her toned athlete’s body made his libido race double time.
Some of Janey’s attitude shone through. Man, she was gorgeous. And tough. He liked that.
“Your turn,” Cash said. “Let’s see ID.”
Still aiming her gun, she took her driver’s license out of a purse she picked up from the bedside table and handed it over.
Okay, she was Shannon Wilson, but…
“Let me see the permit for the gun.”
She looked like she might refuse, then sighed and passed it to him.
It was legit. What was a woman doing with a Glock 23.40?
“Why do you carry it?”
“Protection. I’m an investigative journalist. Sometimes I get into sticky situations.”
Why carry a semi-automatic revolver instead of a small pistol?
Growing up in the house of Kavenagh, Cash had developed a finely tuned bullshit detector, courtesy of his father. At the moment, it clanged like a fire alarm.
“What are you doing in Ordinary?” he asked.
“Vacationing.”
A lie.
“No way. Janey or C.J. would have warned me if you were going to stay here.”
She shrugged. “I only called Janey to tell her a minute before you showed up.”
“How’d you get in?”
“I have my own key.”
“Why haven’t we met before?”
“We have.” She dropped her permit back into her purse. “At Janey’s wedding. It was a long time ago.”
He had a vague memory of a pretty blonde, precocious and flirtatious. She’d come on to him, but had been eight or nine years younger than he. He’d run the other way.
“Because of my job,” she continued, “I haven’t visited a lot, but Janey and I talk on the phone all the time.”
“You haven’t visited once in ten years?”
“Yes, but you and I seemed to miss each other. You were visiting your mom a couple of times. Once you were on a training course in Bozeman.”
