Trouble in Blue
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Beverly Long
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17,3K
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23
Chapter 1
Erin stood in the dark alley, shifting from foot to foot, fumbling with the unfamiliar keys in her hand. Nerves. Scared for her sister, Morgan, who had been hospitalized two days ago. Twenty-six weeks along, much too early to have a baby. Scared, too, that she wasn’t up to the task of running her sister’s beautiful store for the foreseeable future.
She knew nothing about retail, nothing about the Pacific Northwest and the little town of Knoware. Other than it really was nowhere.
And that it had taken her more than twelve hours to get here.
What if she screwed it up? Morgan had assured her she wouldn’t when Erin peeked into her hospital room. But who really knew? She had a history.
She’d left her sister to sleep and accepted the keys to Tiddle’s Tidbits and Treasures from Brian. Her brother-in-law had told her to park in the alley and enter via the back door.
She tried a key. Then a second. She really should have listened to Brian’s explanation more closely. Put the third key in. Oh, good grief. She only had one more. Fortunately, that was all she needed because the lock clicked. She pushed the door open and walked inside. She’d been in the store only once before. And it had been at least a year. But she knew the back hall led to a storage room, a small kitchen and a restroom. The rest of the storefront was devoted to merchandise. She walked that direction.
A light was on above the cash register. The change drawer was open. That didn’t surprise her. Brian had told her that they took all the cash out every night. Everything in excess of a hundred dollars would be dropped in the night depository at the bank. The hundred, hopefully mostly in ones and fives with just a bit of change, would be left in a money bag and hidden in the tea cabinet in the kitchen.
She was hours too early but there’d been little to do except drop her suitcase off at Morgan and Brian’s house. She hadn’t even considered sitting down. Wasn’t going to risk falling asleep and opening late on her first day. Fortunately, she’d caught a few hours of rest on the first leg of the trip, but once she’d hit the States and caught a connecting flight that took her from New York to Seattle, she’d been too keyed up to even close her eyes.
Now she absolutely yearned for a cup of tea.
Marcus Price had been on duty for more than ten hours. Another two and he should be off. Should be. Not going to happen. It was the middle of June and the tourist season was in full swing. That always necessitated some extra shifts. Now, because he’d been named interim chief after his boss’s recent heart attack, he was pulling extra upon extra.
He had a whole host of new things on his plate. Certainly hadn’t needed the call from Homeland Security yesterday advising that law enforcement across the country needed to be on high alert. There was a credible threat about an impending terrorist attack on US soil.
Unfortunately, the actual target was unknown, which greatly complicated things. Meant that everywhere had to be watched at all times.
He wasn’t a novice when it came to responding to domestic terrorism. Ten-plus years of work experience in the Los Angeles Police Department had ensured that. And while much smaller and quieter Knoware, Washington, was unlikely to be a target, still, he had listened carefully to their direction. Be watchful. Extra diligent about following up on odd things. Overcommunicate information up the chain of command. Pay attention to strangers.
It was that last bit of advice that had him shaking his head. Knoware had about 1,500 year-round residents, but that tripled in the summer as tourists poured in. That meant that most of the people he saw were strangers.
Speaking of strange, he thought as a call came over his radio. The alarm at Tiddle’s Tidbits and Treasures had gone off. Calls had gone out to the store owner and there had been no response. Per protocol, the alarm company had notified the local police for follow-up.
He couldn’t recall that ever happening before. Just months ago, Marcus might have been less concerned. But then Gertie’s Café and Feisty Pete’s bar had been broken into and robbed. Those businesses sat on either side of Tiddle’s. The perpetrator had not been captured.
He left his lights and siren off. It was early enough that he didn’t need them to prompt traffic to get the hell out of his way. There was hardly anybody moving about in Knoware yet. He pulled into the alley. One car behind the three-story building. Tiddle’s was on the ground floor. Apartments on the second and third. He knew the residents parked in the corner lot, same place the help at Gertie’s parked. He got out, approached the door. No sign of damage. He put his hand on the knob.
It turned easily. That wasn’t good. It should have been locked.
He pulled his gun and stepped inside a dark hallway. He listened. Heard something in the room up the hall and to his left. Dim light spilled out into the hallway. He approached, hugging the wall. Rounded the corner.
And the woman in the middle of the room dropped her teacup. It hit the floor hard, but it did not break. Black tea spilled widely, including some splatters on her bare legs.
“Keep your hands in the air,” he said. He was confident that he’d never seen her before. She would not be easy to forget. Her reddish-gold hair hung to the middle of her back in ringlets. Her eyes were green and her skin was fair with a dusting of freckles. “Are you the only person in the building?” he asked.
“I’m not at all confident about the whole building. In this shop, yes, I’m fairly certain.”
He assessed her.
“Are you here to arrest me?” she asked, not sounding terribly concerned.
“That depends. Did you break in?”
“Absolutely not.”
“The burglar alarm rang. The police were called.”
“You responded to the wrong address,” she said, sounding satisfied. “No burglar alarm here.”
Gun still in hand, he motioned for her to follow him. Then he pointed to a panel on the wall, near the cash register.
“Well,” she said, her lips pursed. “I believe this is a salient detail that Brian neglected to impart. Understandable, you know. Has his mind on other things.”
He was generally pretty good with faces and the puzzle pieces started sliding into place. He slipped his gun back into his waist holster. “You’re Morgan Tiddle’s sister?”
“Guilty. Erin McGarry.”
“I’m Officer Marcus Price, Knoware Police Department. What are you doing here at barely six o’clock in the morning?”
“Can we have this conversation while I mop up my spilled tea?”
“Of course.” They returned to the small kitchen.
She grabbed paper towels from the counter. First she patted at her bare legs. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m not wearing pants,” she said.
Good, indeed. She had great-looking legs. Nicely shaped, very tan. She was wearing a blue-and-white-striped skirt, a white shirt and flat blue shoes. She wasn’t very tall, maybe five-three, not skinny but rather nicely proportioned.
She squatted down. Her thick hair fell in front of her face. She handed him the now-empty teacup. “Thank goodness this was made of sturdy stuff. Would hate to start breaking dishes on my first day.”
“Your first day?”
“Yes. My sister has been confined to bed rest for the duration of her pregnancy.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. He liked Morgan Tiddle. Could always count on her store for a perfect gift. Her husband was also a nice guy. “I know both your sister and brother-in-law. In fact, my path crosses with Brian at city hall sometimes.”
“He told me once that he actually likes crunching numbers. Accountant extraordinaire, Morgan likes to say. Not that she isn’t pretty great herself. And if you know Morgan, you’ll know this to be true.”
“You’re filling in for her now?” he asked.
“Well, in Morgan’s generally unflappable and efficient way, she had secured someone to watch over the shop for a few months once the baby was born. But said person was anticipating mid-to late September, not early June. And she’s not available at this time. There’s a part-timer. Jo Marie. Perhaps you’ve met her. Anyway, she’s not interested in more than fifteen or twenty hours a week. Thus, I’ve been drafted, if you will, to steer the ship.”
She had a slight accent, but he couldn’t pin down the geography. He thought of the counsel he’d received just the previous night. Pay attention to strangers. “Where are you from?”
“That, my friend—can we assume we’re friends since you didn’t shoot me?—is a long story that I’m sure you do not have time for.”
“There would have been a lot of paperwork to do if I’d shot you,” he said.
She smiled and her face lit up. “Well, there is that.”
“It was good you could come,” he said, having some empathy for anybody suddenly asked to take on a new role. “Not easy I suspect for you to suddenly leave your job and your home. That’s quite an interruption to your life.”
She stared at him. The smile faded and her eyes looked sad. After a long pause, she answered. “Indeed. All kinds of interruptions in my life lately. But then again, those are stories best told over cocktails and a dinner that includes dessert,” she said with a wave of a hand.
“Tonight?” he asked.
“What? Oh my, I wasn’t angling for a dinner invitation. Erin McGarry can feed herself, thank you very much.”
“I did put my gun away,” he reminded her.
She cupped her chin in her hand and considered him. “This is a bit of a conundrum.”
“Conundrum,” he repeated.
“A difficult question, to which there is no easy or right answer,” she explained.
“I know what a conundrum is,” he said, slightly amused. “I’m just not used to having my dinner invitations labeled as such.”
“I’d like the day to think about it,” she said finally. “I’ve had no caffeine, no real food of any substance for more than twelve hours, and I’m a bit thrown off by my new responsibilities. I can’t make any more decisions.”
It stung a bit. “I’ll need an answer by four. It’s a Friday night, we’re in season and reservations are required at most restaurants.” It was a stretch. He could generally get a table most places, but there was no need for full disclosure.
“Four is adequate,” she said. “Shall I ring you?”
“Sure. Ring me,” he said. He pulled a business card from his pocket. Picked up a pen that was on the counter. He added his cell. “What’s your number?” he asked. “So I can recognize it when the call comes in,” he added.
She rattled if off and he entered it into his cell phone. “When you come in, make sure you lock the door behind yourself. In the last several months, we’ve had a couple break-ins on this block.”
“Morgan never mentioned that,” she said, looking concerned. “But it does explain the addition of the security alarm.”
“I don’t think there’s a need to worry. But it’s always good to be cautious.”
“Of course,” she said.
“If you need something to eat,” he said, “Gertie’s Café next door has the best breakfast in the area.”
“That is something that Morgan chatted on about. A meal sounds like a fine idea.”
“Dinner is a meal,” he said.
She said nothing.
He decided that he’d pressed hard enough. “Goodbye, Erin McGarry. Good luck on your first day.”
“Goodbye, Officer Marcus Price. Lovely to know you’re here to serve and protect.”
Two hours later, Marcus sat in Gertie’s Café, sipping his hot tea. Thinking about another hot tea that had been spilled next door. The door of Gertie’s opened and he found himself looking for a redhead.
Instead it was his friends Blade Savick and Jamie Weathers. They slid into the booth. Within seconds, Cheryl, their favorite server at Gertie’s, brought over two coffees. She had a cream pitcher for Jamie.
They placed their order and settled in to catch up. They’d been friends since kindergarten, but had all gone their separate ways after high school only to reconnect back in Knoware a few years ago. There’d been times over the years that they were out of contact for months. Now it seemed odd if they didn’t talk every couple of days.
It had been a week since he’d seen either of them. “How was the conference, Jamie?” Marcus asked.
“Good.”
“Did you present, Dr. Weathers?” Blade asked. “Brag about the emergency medicine department at Bigelow Memorial?”
“Not this time. The people who did were good and the weather in San Diego was, of course, wonderful. Got some sailing in.”
“I miss California,” Marcus admitted.
“Too many people,” Blade said. He liked small towns.
“How is Daisy feeling?” Marcus asked him.
“Sick every day,” Blade said. “But she’s a trouper. Wakes up, throws up a couple times, and then showers for work.”
“She’s just ten weeks along, right?” Jaime said. “Another month and she’ll likely be easing out of that phase.”
“That’s what she tells me,” Blade said. “She takes it in stride, but it’s driving me crazy. I wish we could have waited on the house, but it was perfect and we didn’t want to lose it. Plus, I had a buyer for my duplex.”
“With twins coming, you’ll need the space,” Marcus said. “Plus, you’re going to love the neighborhood.” Blade’s new two-story brick home was just two streets over from the house Marcus had been fixing up for the last two years. It had great character, beautiful woodwork and a chef’s kitchen that was as nice as his own and totally wasted on Blade.
“I know. It was good to have a week off for the move. Back to work tomorrow. What’s been happening in our fair city?” Blade asked as Cheryl dropped off the food and refilled coffee cups.
“We live in a city?” she said. “I thought it was mass confusion.” She looked at the window where outside at least twenty people were waiting for a table. She hurried away.
“Well?” Jamie prompted, reminding Marcus that he hadn’t answered Blade’s question.
“Busy, you know.” He leaned forward and spoke quietly. “Confidentially, I heard just yesterday that there’s chatter that is getting picked up about an upcoming attack on US soil. Homeland Security thinks it’s credible.” He could trust his friends to keep the information to themselves. Plus, they were in jobs where they were either out and about in the community or seeing a steady stream of strangers in the emergency room. It wouldn’t hurt to have more watchful eyes.
“At least a third of our sessions at the conference had something to do with responding to terrorism,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “It’s a crazy world right now.”
“Yeah. I doubt Knoware, Washington, is the target but still, aware and watchful beats the alternative. Anyway, closer to home, I answered an alarm call at Tiddle’s this morning.”
Blade put down his fork. There’d been reason to think that the break-ins at Gertie’s Café and Feisty Pete’s had been the work of a group that had nearly killed Daisy just a few short months ago. But they’d never been able to successfully tie them to the break-ins. Blade was interested in anything that might lengthen the already-lengthy prison sentence that the three individuals were serving.
“False alarm. Set off by Erin McGarry, Morgan’s sister. She’s taking over for Morgan, who’s been put on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy.”
“I don’t think I knew she had a sister,” Blade said. “Does she look like Morgan?”
“Every bit as Irish. Not blonde like Morgan. A redhead. And...well, she’s...um...not really all that tall. She drinks tea.”
Blade and Jamie looked up from their plates. Then at each other. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say about her?” Jamie asked.
“Yeah. She’s...fine.”
Blade put down his fork. “I think I have a sudden need for chocolate.”
“No way, you got the last girl who came to town. And you married her. This one is mine,” Jamie said.
“Dibs,” Marcus said, using his cop voice.
“What?” Blade and Jamie said together. Dibs hadn’t been uttered since Marcus and Jamie fought over the senior prom queen.
“I already asked her to dinner,” Marcus said.
“Where are you taking her?” Jamie asked.
“I don’t know,” Marcus admitted. “She...hasn’t exactly said yes. She wanted the day to think about it.”
“Oh my God,” Blade said. “She didn’t say yes right away. This is great. It almost makes up for having to paint every room of my new house.”
“So you really don’t have a date yet,” Jamie clarified.
“Dibs,” Marcus said again. “Listen, she’s a stranger in town. We were told to pay close attention to strangers.”
Blade pointed at the people waiting outside. “You plan on taking all those people to dinner, too?”
“I called it,” Marcus said. “That’s how dibs works.”
“That was how it worked twenty years ago,” Jamie said.
Marcus said nothing.
“Oh, fine,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “But I’m still buying chocolate today.”
“I’ll go with you,” Blade said. He looked at Marcus. “Perhaps you could benefit from a character witness. Want us to put a good word in for you?” he asked innocently.
“No. What I really want is for the two of you to shut up.”
Erin drank her tea and thought about the very handsome police officer who had responded to the silent alarm. He’d been polite and professional until they’d cleared the air that she was Morgan’s sister. Then he been a bit flirty. Not in a sleazy way, but in an I’m very good at this way.
He wasn’t used to being put off, that much was clear. But as charming as he’d been, she hadn’t come to Knoware to meet a man. She’d come to help her sister. There was no one else. It hardly seemed possible that their parents had been gone for almost ten years.
Morgan had been the rock. Steady. Settled. She’d been the rolling stone, moving from place to place, shaking off any moss that had the tenacity to attempt to cling to her and slow her down.
Nothing had changed. She would only be here as long as Morgan needed her. Next stop, unknown. She’d enjoyed saying that over the years. Now, oddly, not so much.
Perhaps the stone was simply tired. Perhaps it was bruised from the unpleasantness that had precipitated her leaving her last position, or rather, being told in no uncertain terms not to come back.
Her pride was hurt. No doubt about that. While she’d been a rolling stone, she’d been a valued contributor according to every one of her former employers. Until her last position at Preston’s Automobile Exchange in Paris had ended badly.
But that was a worry for another day. Today’s task was to open the store, delight every customer, and sometime along the way, make a decision about dinner with Officer Price, who had caused her to spill her first cup of tea.
She’d just turned when he came around the corner, not a sound betraying his arrival. And she had very good hearing, which meant that he was pretty quiet on his feet. She’d seen the gun first, thus dropped cup and spilled tea.
She’d seen the police uniform next, which had quieted her racing heart. Not quite still a believer that those in positions of trust can always be trusted—an arrest and a brief stint in a South American jail three years ago had forever destroyed that illusion—she had recalled her sister saying that the police in Knoware were quite nice.
She noticed the man then. He was handsome, with perfectly symmetrical features. Dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin. Tall, but then everybody was tall compared to her. Maybe six feet. Lean and muscular, the uniform had hugged him in all the right places.
He was really one of the sexiest men that she’d encountered in a long time. And for some reason, even though the gun had still been pointed in her direction, she had not been afraid.
She truly had not been angling for a dinner invitation. Just trying to put off any more questions about leaving her job. That was still a little raw. But he’d been so quick to offer that she hadn’t had time to dance her way back from the awkward gaffe. She wished she could call up Morgan, bend her ear a bit, and casually inquire about Officer Price. But her sister had more important things to think about now.
Erin would have to go this one alone. But then again, wasn’t that what a rolling stone generally did? Even when there were other stones, rolling along, they were generally never going at exactly the same pace or positioned on exactly the same path.
She wandered about the front of the store now, familiarizing herself with the merchandise. Morgan had found herself a cadre of local artists and she used their work strategically through the storefront to create depth and texture. There were paintings and prints and mixed metal sculptures. Interesting jewelry popped up in unusual places, and a lovely selection of scarves tossed over an antique sofa likely made shoppers think about sinking in.
She rubbed her hand across the stack of Irish sweaters and smiled at the Irish proverbs hand-painted on glass frames. She passed by the chocolate case and made a resolution to limit herself to one per day. Morgan had been sending her chocolate for years. She could recommend it unconditionally.
She retrieved the money that was hidden in the kitchen and got her cash register ready. Then she walked to the front window and flipped the lovely hand-painted sign to Open for Business. She would watch over Morgan’s store and would not give her sister any reason to, once again, be disappointed in her. Morgan could rest easy with her decision to reach out for help. Erin would be the steady rock this time.
The two men sat on their beds in the cheap hotel room. The television was on, but neither of them watched it. The younger man finished his food, crumpling up the wrapper into a ball. He tossed it toward the garbage container in the corner. It fell short. He did not get off the bed to fetch it.
The older man sighed. “Pick up your mess. Were you raised by pigs?”
Ivan didn’t answer. It didn’t matter. They both knew who had raised him. But he did get up and toss the garbage into the can. “This is stupid. We’re wasting time. She was a bad choice.”
“She was a good choice and a necessary one,” Gasdrig said. He’d been confident that the flight attendants were studying him, and he’d fully expected that he and Ivan would get extra scrutiny when going through customs in New York.
“But you said it would be easy to retrieve once we were in New York,” Ivan whined.
“I was wrong. She protected her bag too closely. We couldn’t cause a spectacle.”
“So we chased her across the whole damn country only to lose her because of a train.”
“That was unfortunate,” Gasdrig said calmly. The previous night he’d cursed the freight train that had gone on forever, allowing her to get so far ahead that they lost her. “But she’s not gone far.” He pointed to the map that was spread out on the small table in the corner. They’d purchased it at a gas station after they’d lost the woman. “The road only leads to a few places. We’ll find her.”
“It delays us.”
“A delay is not bad. Bad would have been the information being seized. The whole operation is contingent upon those plans.”
“So now what?” Ivan asked.
“We start looking for her and we retrieve what is ours.”
“What if she’s discovered it? What if she resists?”
“She won’t have found it and she is but one woman, easily disposed of. And then we will do what we came for. America will pay,” Gasdrig said, closing his eyes. “We will keep our promises.”
