The petite calico cat perched comfortably on Heather’s shoulder while looking down at the pit bull, Hunny, trailing alongside them. When Heather reached Chris’s car, she stopped and opened one of the back doors.
“Go on,” Heather urged the dog, who eyed the cat suspiciously. After gentle urging, Hunny jumped into the back seat and walked all the way to the other passenger door, putting extra distance between her and the cat. Heather shut the back car door and then opened the passenger door. Just as she was about to get in, her cellphone rang. She tossed the cat onto the front passenger seat, dug her hand into the purse that hung from her shoulder, and retrieved her cellphone.
“Hello?” came Brian’s familiar voice when she answered the call. “Have you started home yet?”
“I’m just getting in the car. Chris is still in the office. He forgot something. Why?”
“I’m stopping at Beach Taco and picking up something for dinner. Can I bring you something? I can pick up something for Chris, too.”
“Sounds great. Only thing, we’re stopping at the pharmacy real quick. My allergies are kicking my butt.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you at your house. What do you want me to get for you and Chris?” By the time Heather ended her call and tossed her phone back in her purse, Chris was getting into the driver’s seat.
They carpooled to work more frequently these days. Heather tossed her purse on the floor by the passenger seat. She leaned into the vehicle, picked up Bella, sat on the seat, and then put the cat on her lap. After closing the door, she buckled her seatbelt. Once comfortably situated, she said, “Brian called. He’s picking up some food at Beach Taco and going to my house. You’re welcome to join us.”
A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of the pharmacy and parked. Heather was about to get out of the vehicle when two women walked out of the pharmacy.
“Holy crap.” Heather slouched down in her seat.
Chris looked over at Heather from the driver’s seat and frowned. “What is it?”
“It’s her. Brian’s ex. She just walked out of the pharmacy.”
Chris looked toward the front entrance and spied two women. “Which one?”
At that moment, the two women looked their way, and by the expression on one of the women’s faces, he suspected that was Brian’s ex, and she had definitely spied Heather.
“The one staring daggers at me.” Heather sat up straighter in the seat. She figured the woman had already noticed her, so no use sulking down like she was afraid.
“I expected her to look older,” Chris noted.
* * *
“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked her sister when she realized Camilla had stopped walking.
“It’s the little savage,” Camilla said, still staring at Heather. She looked over at the car’s driver. “The savage gets around. I wonder who the hot guy is.”
Lucy turned to look at what had captured her sister’s attention. They stood just a few feet from a vehicle, where the driver and its passenger stared back at them. “Well, this is awkward.”
Lucy started walking again, but when Camilla did not move, she stopped and looked back at her sister. “Come on. You can’t just have a stare-down with her.”
“Yes, I can.” Camilla smiled.
The next moment, the passenger door opened, and Heather stepped out of the car. She tossed something on the seat, picked up her purse, and closed the door. When she turned around, Camilla was still standing in front of Chris’s car, staring at her.
“Do you want something?” Heather asked.
“I’m curious. Does Brian know about him?” Camilla asked with a smirk. “Or are you really dating Brian?”
“My relationship with Brian is none of your business. What is your problem?”
“You hit me,” Camilla accused.
“I did not hit you. But, whatever.” Heather walked toward the pharmacy entrance, keeping a wide berth from Camilla, while the driver rolled down his driver’s door window and watched from inside the car.
After Heather entered the pharmacy, Camilla turned her attention to the driver. She smiled at him and walked to his side of the vehicle. She stopped by the driver’s door while her sister stood some distance away, watching curiously.
Camilla leaned toward the car and said, “You can really do better than her. And she’s not exactly exclusive. Or do you and she have some other business arrangement?”
Before the driver could respond, a pit bull jumped up from the back seat, leaned over the driver’s shoulder, stuck its head out the window, and barked. Camilla lurched back from the pit bull’s sudden appearance. She turned and hurried away with her sister.
* * *
Clay pulled the police car in front of the pharmacy and parked two spaces down from another vehicle. When he got out of the car and started for the pharmacy, he spied a pit bull sticking his head out of the back window of the other car. In the front seat sat a man who appeared to be talking to his lap. The dog barked, and the man looked his way. The dog barked again.
“Is that dog on a leash?” Clay yelled at the man.
“On a leash? The dog’s in the car.” The man flashed him a smile and didn’t sound the least intimidated, which irritated Clay.
“And the window is open. That dog could jump out of the car and rip some kid apart,” Clay snapped back. He approached the vehicle, his right hand resting on the gun in his holster. Clay smiled when the back window rolled up. That’s better, Clay thought. “If I see that dog around town, he’d better be on a leash or properly restrained. I’m not opposed to shooting it.” He turned and made his way up to the front door of the pharmacy.
* * *
Clay strolled into the pharmacy. He had spent the last hour visiting businesses in town and introducing himself as the new police chief. There had been changes since he had left town a decade earlier. The Hayman jewelry store, which had practically been a landmark, was now a shoe store. Presley house had burned down, which wasn’t a bad thing from his perspective. He remembered how that place had been a magnet for every local teenage troublemaker during Halloween. Marlow House was no longer vacant, and he had met its new occupants. He wasn’t impressed. He read about the tunnel found under Beach Drive, but what had him the most concerned was Frederickport’s soaring capital crime rate. Clay attributed the rise in crime to Edward MacDonald’s ineptness.
Clay figured he had three months to identify the defects in MacDonald’s leadership, which shouldn’t be too difficult since he had been on the job less than a day and had already witnessed how they played fast and loose at the police station. Anyone could walk into the back offices and take the staff hostage. If things worked out as Clay planned, MacDonald would take an early retirement instead of returning to the job.
Walking toward one aisle, he noticed a suspicious-looking young woman heading in the opposite direction. She dressed like a Satan worshiper, with pale skin and long jet-black hair. She wore black nail polish and a black long-sleeved lacy dress with a flowing skirt over black high-heeled boots. The only thing she wore that wasn’t black was her red lipstick.
Clay followed the woman, careful not to get too close. She stopped by one section of the over-the-counter medicine aisle, picked up a bottle of medicine, looked at it, returned it, and then grabbed another. He noticed the open purse hanging over her shoulder. He watched as she pulled another bottle off the shelf, looked at the label, and then started to drop the bottle into the open purse. Without hesitation, he rushed to her side and grabbed her purse off her shoulder while saying, “Let me see that!”
* * *
Heather let out a scream and tried jerking back her purse but stopped when she saw the person holding it was an angry-looking cop. At least he dressed like a cop. Maybe not like Brian’s uniform, but it looked like the uniform Chief MacDonald wore.
Still holding onto her purse’s strap, she asked, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Clay jerked the purse from her grasp, opened it, and said, “What do we have here?” From her purse, he pulled out an unopened bottle of medicine. “Shoplifting, huh?”
“I’m not shoplifting, you idiot. You just knocked that bottle in my purse. And you ripped my purse’s strap! And my shoulder doesn’t feel terrific either!”
“You’re coming with me, young lady.” He reached for her wrist, but she responded with an unholy scream, sounding more like an off-key opera singer trying to hold a note indefinitely while piercing all nearby ears.
The scream had its desired effect, and the next moment Cherry, the pharmacy manager, rushed over and asked, “What’s going on?”
Before responding, Clay took a silent note of the pharmacy employee’s name tag and the fact she was the manager. “I’m afraid I caught this woman shoplifting.” He held up the unopened bottle of medicine.
“I was not shoplifting!”
Cherry looked at the officer and asked, “Who are you?”
He smiled. “I’m Police Chief Bowman.”
Cherry looked confused.
“I’m replacing Police Chief MacDonald,” he explained.
“I didn’t know Police Chief MacDonald left,” Cherry said.
“He didn’t leave. He’s getting his knee replaced, and he’s going to be out for a couple of months.” Heather flashed a glare at Bowman. “And I guess this is the Bozo who’s standing in for him.”
Bowman looked a little taken aback at Heather’s words. Instead of asking how she knew about MacDonald’s upcoming surgery, he said, “None of that matters at the moment. I caught this woman shoplifting, and I assume you want to press charges.”
Cherry turned a confused look to Heather and asked, “What happened, Heather?”
“I came in to get some allergy medicine. I wanted to see if that bottle had the same ingredients as the last one you sold me, because it’s a different brand. So I was comparing them. My old bottle was in my purse. And then this Rambo grabs my purse and knocks the bottle out of my hand, into the purse, and accuses me of shoplifting.”
“That’s a good story, but I don’t think anyone is buying it.” Clay snickered.
The manager smiled weakly, took the bottle from Clay and handed it back to Heather. “As I am sure you know, even if Heather here was shoplifting, we couldn’t do anything to her until after she left the store with the stolen item. And she’s still in the store.”
Clay glared at Heather and reluctantly released hold of the purse before telling her, “I know what you were trying to do. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”