by Stormy Glenn
“Bless you.”
Boone glanced up to see Jackie in the doorway. He quickly stood. “Did you hear anything or see anything else out of place?”
“No. The paint is still wet, so it couldn’t have happened that long ago, but I didn’t notice anything until I found it.”
“Have you had any problems with your neighbors or anyone in town?”
“Oh gosh, no.” Jackie smiled brightly. “Everyone has just been wonderful.”
Boone raised his eyebrows. Gosh? Had Jackie actually said gosh? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard someone use that word. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard anyone use that word.
“What about before you moved here?” Boone asked. “Were you having problems with anyone who might have followed you?”
Boone was shocked by the swiftness with which Jackie’s friendly face closed up.
“No, no one followed me.” Jackie whirled around and disappeared back into the building.
Boone stood there, stunned. That had been rather abrupt. It also got Boone’s curiosity burning. Jackie Lee was hiding something. Boone wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with the vandalism, but Jackie was definitely hiding something.
Boone wanted to ask, but for right now, he needed to finish processing the scene. He was pretty sure Jackie wasn’t going to give him the answers he wanted, which meant he’d have to find them on his own.
Boone took a couple of paint-chip samples, a few more pictures, and a bubblegum wrapper. By the time he’d grabbed everything he could think of, an hour had gone by.
Jackie had never come back out.
Boone gathered all the evidence up and slid it into an envelope, which he then sealed. Potter’s Creek might not be a big city, but Boone still knew the trail of evidence needed to be followed.
He wiggled his nose as he walked back inside the store. His nostrils still stung, and his sense of smell was shot to hell. All he could smell was paint. It was a bit disconcerting. Boone was used to using all of his senses. Having one out of commission didn’t sit well with him.
Jackie glanced up when Boone walked back in, but Boone could see the wariness on his or her face. And he was getting damn tired of not knowing if Jackie was a male or a female, especially since his libido went into overdrive every time he looked at the sexy store owner.
“Is there anything else you think might help my investigation?”
Jackie shook his or her head. “I can’t think of anything.”
“I’ve collected the evidence, and I should have some results back in a few days. Unfortunately, Potter’s Creek is pretty small. We don’t have a crime lab, so I’ll have to send this upstate.”
“I’m sure it’s just some kids goofing around or something.” Jackie pushed a strand of hair out of the way. “I really don’t want to make a big deal of this.”
“Threats aren’t something to take lightly, Jackie.” Boone frowned. “You don’t mind if I call you Jackie, do you?”
“No, I don’t mind.” A smile appeared on Jackie’s face. “Please do.”
God, Boone wanted to see that smile stay on Jackie’s face, but he didn’t know how to do that and continue to investigate whatever was going on here. That was going to make things dicey.
“If you find anything else or hear anything, anything at all, give me a call.” Boone held out his business card. “My cell phone is on the back. If you have any problems, give me a call.”
Jackie’s smile broadened. Fingers ghosted over the surface of the business card. “I will. Thank you.”
“Welcome to Potter’s Creek, Jackie Lee.”
Chapter Two
Boone groaned as he rolled over and felt around on his nightstand for the ringing cell phone. When he caught a glimpse of the clock and realized he’d only been in bed for a couple of hours, he had half a mind to throw the damn cell phone across the room.
He felt as if he’d been steamrolled. Sometimes, being the sheriff of Potter’s Creek just wasn’t worth it. It certainly wasn’t worth getting a busted nose from breaking up a bar fight. And it definitely wasn’t worth phone calls in the middle of the night.
“Hello?” he asked in a groggy voice.
“Sheriff Marshall?”
“Yes?”
“This is Jackie, Jackie Lee.”
Boone was fully awake in an instant. “What’s wrong, Jackie?”
“I think someone followed me home,” Jackie whispered. “And now I’m hearing noises outside. I thought you’d want to know in case it’s the same kids who vandalized my shop.”
“I’m on my way,” Boone said as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his jeans. “Is the door locked?”
“Yes, I checked everything. The doors, the windows, the garage, everything.”
“Okay, stay inside and away from the windows. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”
Boone slid his jeans up his legs and then stepped into his boots. He pressed the phone between his ear and shoulder as he grabbed the edges of his boot and pulled it up. He went to the dresser and grabbed a clean shirt. “Jackie? Did you hear me?”
“Yeah,” Jackie whispered in a low tone. “I’m in the butler’s pantry. It’s off the kitchen. I figured it would be safe here since it doesn’t have any windows.”
That was actually pretty smart.
Boone grabbed his gun, car keys, wallet, and Bluetooth and then headed for the door. “Do you want to stay on the line with me?”
“If you think it would help.”
“Okay, give me just a minute,” Boone said as he left his room. “I’m going to get some backup.”
He paused down the hallway from his room and knocked on the door. It took more knocks before the door was wrenched open and an angry—and tired—looking Neumus stood there glaring at him.
“What?” the man snapped.
Boone pressed the cell phone to his chest. “I need your help.”
Neumus blinked for a moment before nodding. “Let me get dressed.”
“Hurry. I’ll be in the truck.” Boone continued down the hallway after Neumus closed the door. He ran down the stairs and then outside to his truck. He climbed in and started it, warming up the engine. He wanted to take off the second Neumus joined him.
Boone connected the Bluetooth to his vehicle and then slid his phone into his pocket. “Jackie, you still there?”
He hadn’t heard anything.
“Yes,” Jackie whispered.
“I’m bringing my brother-in-law with me to help. He’s the one I told you about, the one with Kye.”
“Why?”
Crap. He couldn’t very well tell Jackie he was bringing Neumus because the guy was scary big and had a better nose for sniffing out trouble. “He’s done this sort of thing before.”
“Okay.”
Boone tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he glanced toward the house. Come on, Neumus, hurry the hell up. Boone’s gut was telling him that Jackie was in true danger. He just didn’t know where that danger was coming from.
Boone raised his hand to hit the horn, but then he saw the front door open and Neumus step out. He growled at the man when he climbed into the truck. “Took you long enough,” he said as he peeled out, stomping on the gas until the tires caught traction and the truck shot forward.
“Well, excuse me for sleeping in the middle of the night.”
Boone’s eyebrows rose when he heard a giggle come through the phone. “Neumus, I want you to meet Jackie Lee, the owner of—”
“JJ’s Crafts.” Neumus nodded. “We met yesterday when Kye took in some quilts.”
“You’re that Neumus?” Jackie’s voice rose a little bit.
“Not too many of us out there.”
Jackie giggled again.
It really was an odd sound. Boone wasn’t sure how he felt about the tingle that formed in his gut every time he heard it.
“So, what’s going on?” Neumus asked, pulling Boone away from his deep thoughts.
/> “Jackie had some vandalism at the shop earlier this week. I’m still waiting on tests to come back from the lab on the paint chips I took.”
“Paint chips?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Boone said. “Right now, we’re headed to Jackie’s place. It’s about halfway between our place and town. There’s some noise outside and Jackie wants us to investigate.”
Neumus raised his eyebrows at Boone. “And you needed me for that?”
“I needed your…skills.”
“My…skills?”
Boone rolled his eyes before pointing to his nose. “Your special skills.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
When Boone heard a crash come through the phone, he jerked the wheel and the truck swerved. “Jackie?”
“They’re inside.” Jackie’s voice was a mere whisper. “You need to hurry. I don’t want to hurt these guys if it’s just a bunch of kids.”
Boone thought that was an interesting statement considering Jackie looked as if a stiff wind would blow him…her…over.
“Hide, Jackie,” Boone said as he stepped on the gas. “Hide somewhere. I’ll find you.”
Boone didn’t like it when the line went dead.
It was a good thing he was the sheriff in the area because he was breaking every speed law there was. He would be going in with sirens blaring if he didn’t think that would cause more problems. He wanted to catch whoever was terrorizing Jackie, and then he wanted to make them pay.
Boone knew that wasn’t a very good thing for a sheriff to think, but he was also a lion. Shifter law was more absolute. Punishments for crimes were severe. They had to be when dealing with an entire species of wild animal, and shifters might walk on two legs like humans, but they were still wild animals.
Boone made the twenty-minute drive in ten. As he reached Jackie’s house, he slowed the truck down and turned into the driveway. When he pulled to a stop in front of the house and his headlights lit up the porch, Boone just sat there staring.
“I thought this was a rescue mission,” Neumus said.
“I did, too,” Boone replied.
He certainly didn’t expect to find Jackie pacing back and forth behind three teenage boys, all of whom were kneeling on the porch with their hands locked behind their heads. They were shaking and pale.
“Well, we’d better go rescue them before they pee themselves.”
Boone nodded absently as he turned the truck off and grabbed his keys. He was a bit mesmerized by the sex-on-a-stick pacing angrily behind the three teenagers. Jackie was magnificent, and Boone knew he really needed to figure out if Jackie was a guy or a girl before his growing desires overcame his common sense.
Boone climbed out of his truck and made his way to the bottom of the steps. He glanced at each of the boys, smirking when he saw them shaking. He recognized all three of them as wannabe hoodlums from town. Not a single one of them was over the age of fifteen.
“What have you got here, Jackie?”
The spray paint on the wall behind Jackie didn’t bode well for the three teens.
“I caught them breaking into the house. They started out here on the porch and had gone to work on the walls inside.” Jackie nodded toward the house. “They dropped their paint cans inside. I’m sure you’ll find their fingerprints all over them.”
“Breaking, entering, and vandalism?” Boone raised his brow at the boys. “You three are bound and determined to do serious time, aren’t you?”
“One of them had a crowbar, sheriff.”
“A weapon, then?” Boone made a tsking noise as he shook his head. “Boys, boys, boys. What am I going to do with you?”
He saw Jackie’s lips twitch.
“He said he’d pay us fifty dollars if we spray-painted the place,” Bobby said.
Boone stiffened, all amusement leaving him in an instant. “Who said?”
“Shut up, Bobby,” Travis snapped. “Keep your fucking mouth shut.”
Jackie popped the kid on the back of the head. “No swearing.”
Boone squatted in front of Bobby and looked the kid right in the eye. “Who paid you to vandalize Jackie’s place?”
Bobby visibly gulped as he glanced to the boy who’d snapped at him. Travis shook his head, giving Bobby a warning glare.
“Neumus, would you please come assist me?” Boone called out without looking away from Bobby. When he heard Neumus step up beside him, he pointed to Travis. “Take him for a walk behind the woodshed and impress upon him how swearing and lying to police personnel could be detrimental to his ability to sit down.”
“Gladly.” Travis yelped when Neumus grabbed him and yanked him off the porch.
Boone waited until they walked away before returning his attention to the boys still in front of him. “Put your arms down.”
They looked ridiculous with their hands clasped behind their heads.
“Now, who paid you to spray-paint Jackie’s shop and house?”
Bobby gulped again. “He didn’t give us a name. He just paid us twenty-five dollars to do it. We were supposed to get the other twenty-five dollars after we spray-painted the shop and house.”
“I see.” Boone glanced up at Jackie, who looked even more confused than Boone was. “So, you basically got paid twenty-five dollars to spend the next two years in a juvenile detention center?” Boone shrugged. “Sounds to me like this mystery man got the better end of the deal.”
“Whoa, what do you mean two years in juvie?” Bobby babbled as pure panic came to life in his eyes. “We just sprayed some paint on the wall. That’s it.”
“True, but you broke into Jackie’s house with a crowbar and vandalized it. That’s breaking and entering with a deadly weapon. That’ll get you two years in juvie.”
“Oh man,” Bobby said with a groan, “my parents are gonna kill me.”
Boone pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. He had no doubt they weren’t there to hurt Jackie, just paint the walls, but that was still damage to private property plus breaking and entering.
“Here’s what I think you should do, Bobby. Tell me everything you know about this guy who paid you and apologize to Jackie, and maybe, just maybe, he won’t press charges for the breaking and entering. You’ll still have to do some community service for the vandalism, but it’s better than two years in the slammer.”
When Boone glanced up, Jackie raised an eyebrow at him. Boone shrugged. Travis, Bobby, and Sean weren’t really bad kids, just kids with too much time on their hands. They were young enough to be turned around before they ended up criminals for life, but they needed direction. Hopefully, community service would do that.
“But I don’t know anything,” Bobby insisted in a high voice. “I told you, he never gave us his name.”
“True, you did.” Boone stepped over to lean against the porch post. “But you can tell me what he looked like.”
That would be a good start.
“You can tell me where you met him, what he was driving, what he was wearing, if he had any type of accent. Stuff like that.”
Boone really wanted to know what this guy looked like.
“Um, well.” Bobby glanced at Sean. “He wasn’t as tall as you.”
Not many people were.
“Was he taller than you?”
Bobby’s hair flopped across his forehead when he nodded. “I had to look up at him.”
“Okay, so between five foot six and six foot six.”
Well, that was as clear as mud.
“Yeah.”
“What did he look like?”
“He stayed mostly to the shadows,” Sean said with a bit of eagerness in his voice. Boone was pretty sure he was hoping to keep his butt out of trouble, too.
“Can you hazard a guess?”
“His hair was dark.”
Great, his hair was dark and he hid in the shadows.
Perfect description.
“He drove a two-door sports car, one of those fancy ones,” Sean said quickly. “It was re
d.”
Now, they were getting somewhere.
“Did you see if it was a convertible or not?”
“No, but…” Sean frowned.
“But what?” Boone asked.
Sean reached for his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He slid his finger across the screen several times and then held the phone out to Boone. “It was a really cool car. I kind of took a picture of it.”
Hot damn.
Boone glanced down at the phone. Interesting. It was a red BMW two door. Had to be from overseas. It had an English license plate. Boone sent the picture to his own phone and then handed it back to Sean.
“Did the guy have an accent?” Considering the car was from another continent, it was a legitimate question.
“No, but he talked all proper like.” Sean shivered. “It was weird.”
Boone had no doubt.
“Okay, boys, here’s the deal. I’m going to talk to Jackie about not pressing charges, but I expect to see each of you down at the station tomorrow morning, not later than ten o’clock. Understand?”
Bobby’s eyes rounded. “In the morning?”
“Yes, in the morning.”
“But it’s already three.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have tried to goof off so late at night.”
Bobby mumbled something as he looked away.
“What was that?” Boone asked.
“It’s Saturday.”
“Yes, and every Saturday for the next three months, your ass is mine.”
“Ah, man.”
“Now, remember, I know where you live. If you’re not standing in front of my desk by ten, I’ll come looking for you, and you really don’t want me to do that.”
Neumus walked out from behind the woodshed with Travis and headed for the house. His hand was wrapped around the back of Travis’s neck. He had a smile on his face. Travis did not.
“What?” Boone asked when the man was within hearing distance.
“I’m pretty sure you won’t be having any more problems with Travis,” Neumus said as he gave the teen a little shake. “I’d be surprised if he jaywalked. Isn’t that right, Travis? You’re going to be a good boy from now on, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Travis replied as he cringed.