Thirty-Three and a Half Shenanigans

by Denise Grover Swank

  We made it to the truck, and I swung open the driver’s door and jumped in, heaving the box into the backseat as Billy Jack came staggering around the corner, moving faster than a drunk man had any right to.

  “Hurry!” Neely Kate hollered as she leaped into the passenger side and shut the door behind her.

  I dug the keys out of my pocket, shutting the door seconds before Billy Jack reached the truck. He slammed the palms of his hands on the truck hood.

  “You lost my babies!”

  “His babies?” I asked in disbelief as I fumbled to get the key into the ignition.

  “Don’t ask. Just go!”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. I started the engine and jerked the truck into reverse. I floored the gas so hard that the truck shot backward, leaving Billy Jack off-balance with a stunned expression on his face.

  I made it to the end of the lane and backed onto the highway, thankful there wasn’t any traffic to hamper our escape.

  “I’m gonna kill you, Neely Kate,” I muttered as I checked the rearview mirror. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Billy Jack running down the road after us.

  “You can kill me later. You had a vision, didn’t you?”

  I scowled. She was trying to change the subject. “I think Billy Jack was foolin’ around on Dolly.”

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  I told her about my vision, then glanced over at her. “Wait, maybe I saw Dolly. What does she look like?”

  “She’s blond. About my height. Big blue eyes.”

  “So a lot like you?”

  She grinned. “We spent a lot of time together when we were little. People used to think we were sisters.”

  “The girl in my vision definitely wasn’t her. She had long brown hair.”

  “That only confirms that he was cheating on her. That lying snake in the grass.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “It’s a good thing the sheriff didn’t get involved.” She shook her head. “Billy Jack wouldn’t have told him a thing. Especially not what he told us.”

  “And what exactly did he tell us? That she left with the bartender?” I shook my head. “That’s nothing special. Unless the vision means something.”

  “Only that he’s cheating scum.”

  I cast a quick glance at her before returning my attention to the road. “So what are you gonna do? Tell your aunt?”

  “Yeah . . .” She sat back in her seat, lost in thought. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this. If she left Billy Jack’s, why didn’t she call Aunt Thelma? She always tells her when she has a breakup.” She shook her head. “Something’s not right.”

  “Well, like I said, I’m meeting Joe this afternoon. Maybe he can help.”

  “He’s with the sheriff’s department. You’re wasting your time and your breath if you tell him about this.”

  Chapter Seven

  After I dropped Neely Kate off at the courthouse at one forty-five, I had little time to spare before my meeting with Joe. And after trying to eat Neely Kate’s tofu mess, I was starving. I decided to stop by the Burger Shack to pick up something to eat.

  I wasn’t all that surprised to see Eric Davidson behind the counter when I walked in. He was one of the five guys responsible for a string of robberies before Thanksgiving, including the bank robbery in which my deposit bag was stolen. He’d been at the auction, and while I’d been there, too, he had no idea I was the Lady in Black. Still, I hesitated at the counter long enough to get his attention.

  “Hey, you’re that woman from church.”

  My eyes widened in mock innocence. “What?”

  “I thought I recognized you when you came in a couple of weeks ago, but your friend did all the talking.” He looked worried. “You’re the woman who said that . . . strange thing.”

  I shrugged, then shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I hoped I was convincing enough to get him to let it lie. I’d had a vision and blurted out to a group of four malcontents from Jonah’s support group that they were gonna rob another place. Things could have gotten ugly if Joe hadn’t intervened.

  His eyes narrowed. “Yeah . . . I think you do.”

  I considered turning around and running, but two things stopped me. One, I’d look guilty if I ran. And two, I was hungry.

  I rubbed my forehead. “I wasn’t myself that day.” I leaned closer. “I hadn’t taken my medication.”

  He took a step back, wariness on his face.

  I straightened. “I want a hamburger with fries.” I shifted my eyes back and forth a couple of times. “And could you hurry? I’m late in taking my medication today, and I feel kind of strange, if you know what I mean.”

  He quickly rang up my order, staying back from the counter. As he started to bag my food, I suddenly wondered what had happened to Mick Gentry, the large-animal vet who’d killed Norman Sullivan, the Henryetta Bank loan manager who’d been one of their co-conspirators, but had decided to rat them out. Mick had made the news when he disappeared the weekend after Thanksgiving. Had Skeeter disposed of him, or had he really run off as the police suspected?

  Eric handed me the bag, still keeping his distance.

  And that’s when I felt another vision slam me with more force than usual.

  I was sitting in the front seat of an old car. The passenger door opened, but I stared out of the windshield instead of turning toward it.

  “Is it set?” the guy next to me said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me know if you have any problems.”

  “Yeah.”

  The vision faded, and I was suddenly back in the Burger Shack. “Everything is set,” I gushed out.

  “What?” he asked.

  Usually a vision came and went, but a fuzziness had lingered in my head this time, and I stumbled backward. “See? I better go take my medication.”

  I hurried out to the truck and set the forgotten food next to me, then drove the short distance to the nursery, anxious, though for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. I was more upset over my vision than Eric was over me having it.

  Joe’s car wasn’t in the lot, and neither was Violet’s, and no one was manning the few Christmas trees we had left in the lot. I could have gone inside, but I found myself staring out the windshield at the building instead. What had I seen, and why was it so ominous? Lost in thought, I didn’t pay any mind to my surroundings, so I shrieked when someone banged on my window.

  When I turned, Joe’s alarmed face was staring back at me. He immediately opened the truck door. “Rose, are you okay?”

  I considered lying to him, but this felt important enough to share. “No.”

  He grabbed my elbow and helped me slide out of the truck. “What happened?”

  My feet hit the pavement, and a frigid breeze blew my hair around my face. I suddenly felt foolish. I shook my head. “It was probably nothing.”

  “Don’t tell me it was nothing. Something has you shook up, which automatically makes it something. You’re not the sort of woman to react this way over nothing.”

  I took a deep breath.

  Still holding my arm, he tugged me away from the truck and shut the door. “Let’s go inside, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Joe unlocked the door with his own set of keys that Violet had given him and pushed the door open. He led me to the back room, where my potting bench and stool still remained in their proper places. After gently pushing me onto the stool, he squatted in front of me. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I had a vision.”

  His eyes widened. “Was it something bad?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem bad, but I just don’t feel right about it. I guess it left me with the notion that something bad is about to happen.”

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  I relayed everything, which made me feel even more foolish, since it was, on the surface, one of my tamer visions.

  “Don’t dismi
ss it, Rose,” Joe said, standing. “It might be nothing, sure, but it could be something. Who was the person associated with the vision?”

  “Eric Davidson, the assistant manager of the Burger Shack.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You know his name? You make it sound like you know him.”

  I held his gaze. If I wanted his advice, I needed to tell him a bit about the mess I was in. The question was where to draw the line. “It’s not how it sounds. You know when you saw me with those guys at church? He’s one of them.”

  Irritation clouded his eyes. “So you were talking to them?”

  “Not intentionally. I really did want to talk to Samantha Jo about the bank robbery. But I had a vision and told them they were getting ready to rob something.”

  His eyes flew open. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I shrugged. I couldn’t very well confirm his suspicion that Neely Kate and I had been trying to track down the bank robbers ourselves. “You were angry with me.”

  “Rose.” His voice was heavy with disappointment. “Tell me that you at least shared this with Mason.”

  I remained silent.

  “Why would you keep something like that to yourself?”

  “It was a vision, Joe. Neither of you would have been able to use the information.”

  “Rose,” he said, exasperated. “You told a group of men, some of whom had a criminal history, that you knew they were gonna rob something. You could have been in serious danger.”

  “But nothing happened,” I insisted.

  “It was a huge risk.” He sounded so disappointed that it stole my breath. “You were lucky.”

  He had no idea. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

  He waited, his face expressionless.

  “I think I know who killed Mr. Sullivan.”

  “What? How?”

  How was I gonna explain this one? “I figured it out from my vision.” Which was partially true. The killer had confessed his crimes in one of my visions, but it wasn’t until the auction on Thanksgiving that I’d pieced together his identity. Ever since, I’d been trying to think of how to tell Joe or Mason the truth about him without giving everything else away. “He’s the large-animal vet. Mick Gentry.”

  “Did you at least tell Mason about that?”

  “No,” I said, ashamed that it had taken me so long to pursue justice for poor Mr. Sullivan. “I only just put it together. Besides, he disappeared.” I felt bad about lying to him, but I couldn’t help wondering if justice had already been served vigilante-style by Skeeter Malcolm.

  Joe’s gaze pierced mine. “Does he have any way of knowing that you know?”

  “No. I’m certain he doesn’t.” I sighed. “But it doesn’t matter, Joe. It’s like all the rest of my visions . . . it’s not exactly admissible in court.”

  “We can try to link him to it. The fact that he ran off and disappeared doesn’t speak of innocence either.” His gaze softened. “It’s more helpful than you know.”

  “You’re not gonna yell at me?”

  “Why would I yell at you?” He paused. “I’m just thankful you finally shared your vision with me. Are you feeling better?”

  “No. But I’ll be okay.” I hopped off the stool, feeling guilty. “Maybe all this got stirred up because of Neely Kate’s cousin.”

  He stilled. “What about her cousin?”

  “Her momma tried to file a missing persons report on her last night, and the deputy she talked to wouldn’t file it.”

  He stared at me for a moment. “Dolly Parton Parker is Neely Kate’s cousin?” He shook his head, wearing an exasperated grimace. “Why am I not surprised?”

  I grew indignant on my friend’s behalf. “What on earth does that mean?”

  “She has some colorful characters in her family is all.”

  “If you know her name, then why don’t you tell me why the deputy wouldn’t file the report?”

  Joe held his hands up in defense. “Darlin’, this isn’t the first time her mother’s filed a report on her, and it’s not even the third. I looked over the previous instances with the deputy who took her call. She always turns up.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s also got a bit of a criminal record, nothing dangerous. Shoplifting. Solicitation.”

  “Solicitation?”

  “She was arrested this summer and again a month ago, but the charges were dropped.” He rubbed my arm. “Still, I understand you wanting to help your friend. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  I worried that Joe was about to venture into dangerous territory, so I took a step back. “Thanks for the clarification. Now don’t we have some business to take care of?”

  He looked relieved that I was going to let the whole Dolly Parton thing drop. “You wait here, and I’ll go get the paperwork. I was worried about you when I saw you sitting in your truck like that, so I left it in the car.”

  I wandered into the retail space. There were more boxes than before. I found myself wondering what ideas Joe had cooked up.

  After a moment, he came back inside and set a file on the shop counter. “I looked over all the paperwork. Everything looks to be in order. But since you wanted several specific clauses included, I thought we should be together when we signed it so there are no hurt feelings later.”

  “Okay.” I moved next to him. “But are you sure you don’t want to let an attorney—” I stopped as I realized what I was saying. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you went to law school yourself.”

  “I never fit the attorney mold. I found it too suffocating.” He cringed when I stiffened. “Rose, I wasn’t trying to insult Mason. Honest, that’s just how I always envisioned it.”

  I relaxed. “Yeah, I have trouble seeing you as a lawyer.”

  “I told you before that I only went to law school to appease my father.” He clicked his pen, getting ready to sign. “I’ve always wondered how different my life would have been if I’d stood up to him even then.”

  The thought made me sad—not just for him, but for me. “When’s he gonna make you run for office again?” I asked softly. We both knew it wasn’t a matter of if, but when.

  “I don’t know.”

  He sounded wary, and I decided not to push it. We both knew he didn’t want to run, but he couldn’t turn his father down. J.R. Simmons would make me pay if he tried.

  “I heard Hilary moved to Henryetta.” I still had a hard time picturing her living in such a small town, especially one as backward as ours.

  He released a heavy sigh. “I didn’t ask her to do it, but it might make things easier in the long run.”

  “But she’s not living with you out at the house next to my farm?” I asked, sounding more defensive than I’d intended.

  He held up his hands in protest. “I know how it looks—”

  Tears burned my eyes. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Joe. Every time we’re ugly to each other, it takes what we had together and makes it seem pointless.” I looked up at him. “But it wasn’t pointless. What we had was wonderful. You gave me so much to be grateful for. Even so, our relationship is over now.”

  He studied me for several seconds, then swallowed. “I’m not moving out by you to start anything. The house is older and needs some work. Add onto that the fact that the banker’s body was found on the property, and no one else wants to live there now. The owner’s letting me rent the house for next to nothing in exchange for fixing it up.”

  “Why would you do that?” I asked, incredulous. “You can afford anything you want.”

  He shrugged. “Believe it or not, I like to fix up old things. It’s a solid house that needs some attention, and it’s something to fill my time.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Look, it’s taken a while for me to accept that you’re really not mine. And while I’m not happy about it, I have to respect your decision.” His face softened. “I don’t want to fight with you either. You’re the best thing that ever happened
to me, and I don’t want to live without you. If I can only have you as a friend, then so be it. It’s better than not having you in my life at all.”

  I smiled up at him, resisting the urge to hug him. “I’m happy to hear that.”

  He studied my face for several seconds before giving his attention to the stack of papers on the counter. “And what’s more, our effort to get along will be advantageous to the business.”

  We started to go through the papers, Joe reading all of it aloud, asking me if I had any questions when we hit a section containing a lot of legalese.

  “Mason’s already gone over most of this with me, Joe. If you need to get back to work . . .”

  “No,” he insisted. “This is important.”

  After we read the entire document and signed and initialed everything, Joe broke out into a smile, looking happier than I’d seen him in months.

  “Joe Simmons, business partner.” His grin broadened. “I like it.”

  “Well, Joe Simmons, business partner,” I nudged his arm with mine, “tell me about your grand plans.”

  For the next ten minutes, he told me about his ideas for the expansion and inventory, most of which had serious potential. I told him so, but then said, “I don’t want to sink more money into the nursery until it gets going in the spring. We don’t know what kind of fallout Violet’s indiscretion will have on the business, not to mention other things . . . The fact that the whole lot of us are steeped in controversy and scandal won’t help matters.”

  He studied my face. “Are you really worried?”

  “No . . . yes. But not enough that I’d change anything.” I brushed loose hairs from my cheek. “Still, the reason we almost lost it all is because Violet tried to build us too big, too fast.”

  “Rose, I won’t let that happen again.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but there’s no reason to put everything at risk. Let’s just wait and see how it goes.”

  “Sometimes great risk means great reward.”

  He wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t read in my business books. “Maybe next spring I’ll be willing to bet it all and let it ride, but right now I could use a little safe and easy.”