Lisa called just as Jennie went inside to clean up.
“Allison and B.J. invited us over for a swim,” Lisa explained. “Are you up to it?”
“Are you kidding? I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes. Um …” Jennie hesitated. “I suppose I should check with Mom. She might not want to let me out of her sight.”
“Tell me about it. I had to promise to be home at four.”
Jennie chuckled. “And no dates for the next two weeks?”
“That’s about right.” Lisa heaved a long, deep sigh. “Not that I have anyone to go out with.”
Lisa and Brad had broken up shortly before the cruise and Lisa still hadn’t gotten over it. “Cheer up, Lisa,” Jennie soothed. “You’ll have tons of guys calling you this summer.”
“I don’t want tons of guys. I want Brad and he’s at some football training camp.”
Jennie shrugged. “I can honestly say I know the feeling. Ryan hasn’t even written. Anyway, who needs guys? I don’t know about you, but right now a swim sounds much more exciting than holding some guy’s sweaty hand. I’ll call you back if I can’t go for some reason.”
After checking with Mom and getting an affirmative response, Jennie showered, donned her blue one-piece suit and an extra large white T-shirt and shorts. She paused briefly in the living room to give Mom a thanks-for-understanding peck on the cheek and left. Driving away, Jennie waved goodbye to Nick and Hannah, who were trying to dress Bernie like a doll.
With the temperatures inching toward ninety, the Beaumont’s pool seemed like the perfect place to spend the afternoon. It sure beat watching Nick and Hannah play with Bernie or sitting around daydreaming about the boy next door and a mystery that probably didn’t exist.
Besides, the outing would give her an opportunity to see firsthand how B.J. was doing in her new home. Jennie and Lisa had known Allison a long time, but B.J. had only recently moved to Portland.
Talk about your blended families. Allison and B.J. had the same parents but had grown up not even knowing about each other. Their mother left home before B.J. was born. B.J. grew up poor and average looking. Allison rich and beautiful. As a result, B.J. had a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas. She and Mr. Beaumont had nearly come to blows during the first couple weeks after B.J.’s arrival.
Allison—the socially acceptable debutante—and her stepmother couldn’t understand B.J.’s reluctance to become a Beaumont. For a while it looked like they weren’t going to make it as a family. They still had a lot of adjustments to make, but at least now they seemed more willing to work things out.
Jennie pulled her white Mustang into the long curved driveway of the Beaumont mansion and parked behind Lisa’s red Ford Taurus. The air felt oppressive. Was it just the heat?
Jennie raised her hand to knock on the door when it swung open, dispelling her somber mood. “Jennie! Welcome.” Allison pulled Jennie inside and reached up to give her a wimpy hug—the kind snooty socialites bestow on each other at parties whether they liked you or not. Jennie didn’t doubt Allison’s sincerity, just her methods. Some things never changed.
“It’s so good to see you,” she chattered on. “Lisa was just telling us about your cruise. Aren’t they just the most wonderful way to spend a vacation? Of course, I don’t suppose being held hostage by a drug lord was all that much fun.”
“It had its moments.” Jennie didn’t want to talk about the Caribbean for fear she’d say too much, or say the wrong thing. “How are you doing?” she asked, knowing that Allison had been through a traumatic ordeal herself only a couple of weeks before.
Frowning, Allison touched the still noticeable bruise on her cheek. “Okay. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it.”
Jennie should have reassured her. Told her that bruises, especially those inside, take a long time to heal. As it turned out, she didn’t have to respond.
“But I’m doing much better,” Allison went on, her practiced smile back in place. “My counselor, Gloria … By the way, Mom and Dad appreciate you telling them about her. Anyway, Gloria says these things take time.”
Jennie agreed and followed her through the house and out the open patio door to the pool area. “Make yourself at home, I’ll get us some drinks. Pink lemonade okay?”
“Sure.”
“Hey, McGrady,” B.J. bellowed as Jennie stepped onto the deck. “Decide to lower your standards and hobnob with the rich and famous?”
Jennie grinned and tossed back a retort. “My mother always taught me to respect people on both sides of the tracks. Besides, you can’t help it if you’re rich.” Jennie pulled off her cover-up and shorts and tossed her towel on a deck chair next to her cousin’s. Lisa lay on a rainbow-colored beach towel. Her back looked warm and toasty—just waiting for a splash of cold water.
“Don’t even think about it,” Lisa murmured. “I still owe you for the last time.”
“What?” Jennie asked innocently as she walked to the edge of the pool and cannonballed in, purposely sending a wall of water in her cousin’s direction. Lisa screamed.
You are mean, McGrady, she scolded herself as she swam a couple laps. Taking advantage of your poor cousin like that.
It’s the McGrady in you, Mom would have said. Jennie had to agree. Her mother, being a Calhoun, would never have stooped that low. By the time she reached the far end of the pool, where B.J. sat dangling her legs in the water, Jennie had forgiven herself.
“Nice shot,” B.J. quipped.
“Thanks.”
“But I’d watch my back if I were you.”
Jennie raised herself out of the water and twisted around to a sitting position. “Did Lisa go inside for reinforcements?”
“I’ll never tell.” B.J. dipped water from the pool and spread it over her legs.
“You’re still here.” Jennie lifted her gaze to meet B.J.’s. “I half expected to come home and find you’d taken over my room.” During one of B.J.’s difficult adjustment periods, she’d spent a few days with Jennie.
B.J. rolled her hazel eyes in mock exasperation. “I was tempted. But I decided to stick it out. Once they promised to stop calling me Bethany Beaumont, things got better.”
Jennie nodded, remembering B.J.’s insistence on maintaining the name she’d been raised with, B.J. Lewis. “Your room still pink?” In their attempt to make her feel welcome, Allison and Mrs. Beaumont had decorated B.J.’s room—B.J. hated it.
“No, that’s the good part. Pop—”
Jennie chuckled. “Pop? You’re calling Mr. Beaumont, Pop?” Jennie tried to imagine how the middle-aged businessman with his receding hairline and three-piece suits might react.
“He hates it. Why do you think I do it?” B.J. wrinkled her nose.
Jennie had a hunch that under his pompous protestations, Mr. B. loved it. “So what about your room?”
“Oh, yeah.” B.J. leaned back on her hands and kicked a fine spray of water across the pool. “When I told him I wasn’t going to sleep in a pink room, he laughed and said, ‘Can’t fault you there.’ He hates pink too. He told Mrs. B. to take me to the interior design place and pick whatever color scheme I wanted.”
“What did you choose, black and orange?” Jennie teased.
B.J. punched Jennie’s arm. “Just because I don’t like pink doesn’t mean I don’t have class. Wait ’til you see it. I used neutral colors with forest accents and got this huge bear rug. And Pop bought me a six-foot-tall papier-mâché giraffe.”
“Sounds like a jungle. Can I see it?”
“In a minute. First I have to tell you about this guy I met. He is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.”
Allison and Lisa appeared with snacks and a tray holding four tall pink lemonades.
Allison set the tray down on a table at the far end of the pool.
Jennie and B.J. looked at each other and grinned. “Got anything against pink drinks?” Jennie asked.
“Not today. As long as it’s cold and wet, I’ll drink it.”
They joined Lisa and Allison at the table. After taking a long swallow of lemonade, Jennie selected a peanut butter cookie from the snack tray. “You still seeing Jerry?”
Allison nodded. “Not as much as I’d like. He’s really busy with the farm. About once a week we go out. B.J. and I met him and a friend of his out at Lewisville Park Friday afternoon to go swimming. We had so much fun.” Allison glanced at B.J. “Did you tell them about Doug?”
Jennie raised an eyebrow in response. Doug? “Is that the drop-dead gorgeous guy you mentioned?”
B.J. clinked her glass on the table. “Yep. It pains me to admit it, but my dear old sis was right. She and Jerry set up this double date. At first I didn’t want to go, but I figured, hey, why not? It’s a hot day. If the date didn’t work out, I could always hang out in the river.” B.J. broke off a piece of cookie and tossed it into her mouth.
“They’re perfect for each other,” Allison finished, looking pleased.
“So what’s his name? Do we know him?” Lisa asked.
“Doug Reed,” Allison and B.J. said together.
Jennie choked on her cookie, then coughed and sputtered for several minutes trying to clear her windpipe.
Lisa slapped her on the back. “Are you okay?”
Jennie nodded. “I was before you hit me.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know if it’s the same guy, but Doug Reed is my new neighbor.”
“You’re kidding,” Allison and Lisa said together. “I just met him this morning. He’s tall, nice looking, blue eyes, brown hair …” Jennie glanced at B.J. “About the same color as yours. He and his mother just moved from Vancouver a few days ago.”
B.J. frowned. “That sounds like him. Doug said he was from Vancouver. He … um.” B.J. shook her head. “Never mind. It isn’t important.”
Allison’s perfect shoulder-length hair swayed as she leaned forward and placed her elbows on the table. “I think we should tell them. According to Jerry, Doug’s had a rough life. His parents are divorced and he took it pretty hard. Doug got into trouble a year or so ago, but is doing okay now.”
“A person’s past isn’t important,” B.J. blurted in a defensive tone. “I don’t think we should talk about it.”
As much as Jennie wanted to discuss Doug Reed, she acquiesced to B.J.’s wishes, and spent the rest of the afternoon checking out B.J.’s room, swimming, and listening to Allison give Lisa advice on how to get Brad back.
Call it intuition or just plain curiosity, Jennie couldn’t resist checking her new neighbor out. Later in the day, when she got back home, she put in a call to a friend at the police station.
“Hey, Jennie. What can I do for you?” Rocky asked. Dean Rockford had been one of the primary investigators in the Beaumont case. She and Rocky, as he’d called himself then, had gotten to be friends.
Jennie hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“You’re not playing detective again are you?”
“No.” How she’d actually developed a crush on Dean Rockford, alias Rocky, Jennie had no idea. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Rocky was the kind of guy girls dreamed about. Older, more mature, wiser. Too old, she reminded herself. He could also be extremely bossy.
“I take it you didn’t call me just to chat.”
“I called to ask a favor, but never mind, you probably wouldn’t do it anyway.” Jennie bit into her lower lip.
“Try me.”
“Okay. We have a new neighbor. Name’s Doug Reed. I just wanted to know if he had a record or anything.”
“Why are you asking?”
“I told you. Just curious.”
“Jennie, are you sure you’re not playing detective?” Rocky’s voice had taken on an even more patronizing tone. “If this guy is into something illegal, I expect you to tell me about it, not try and take him down yourself.”
Jennie laughed. “You’ve been reading too many amateur detective novels, Rockford. I just have this feeling, you know? Like there’s more going on than what he’s telling his friends.”
“As much as I respect your intuition, we don’t have time to run checks on people because they look suspicious. Why don’t you forget about this detective stuff and go find yourself a nice boy to hang around with? This Reed guy is probably acting strange because he’s head-over-heels in love with you and can’t think straight.”
“Hardly. He’s dating B.J.”
Rocky chuckled. “Look, Jennie, I gotta go catch some real criminals. Take care of yourself. Bye.”
Jennie gave the receiver a disgusted look and hung up. So much for having friends on the police force. Okay, so maybe she was being silly in wanting to find out more about Doug Reed. After all, solving a few mysteries did not qualify her as an expert on criminal behavior. Still, something about Doug didn’t ring true, and according to B.J. and Allison, he had been in trouble. While part of her insisted she leave it alone, her detective side disagreed. What if your intuition about Doug Reed is right? Jennie rationalized. What if he’s using B.J. and Allison and plans to con the Beaumonts out of hundreds of thousands of dollars? She owed it to her friends to check the guy out. And if Rocky wouldn’t help, she’d have to do it herself.