Chapter Seventeen

 

As soon as the claws dug into my scalp, I knew my friend the cat was the culprit. I flipped on the bedroom light and saw the offending tree limb perched right outside the pane of glass that was missing from the window. 

The first pane of glass, that is. 

Thanks to my furry intruder, a second pane of glass was going to need replacing as well. I looked down at my legs where the cat was weaving in and out of them, rubbing against my bare skin and purring so loudly I could hear him.

“Dude, I can’t keep cactus alive. You don’t want to live here.”

The cat let out a loud meow and sat, gazing up at me with huge emerald-green eyes. I felt myself soften and the cat flopped onto the floor and rolled, rubbing his head on my feet.

Crap.

I’d just acquired a cat.

“I assume you’re hungry, but I don’t have any cat food. I do have some leftover baked chicken. Would that be good?”

The cat sat up and meowed and I narrowed my eyes at him. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear he understood what I’d just said. My eyes widened and he strolled off and headed downstairs. I shook my head and followed him into the kitchen where I started chopping up a hunk of chicken breast. The cat sat patiently next to me, gazing up at me with those big green eyes.

I’d just placed the plate of chicken on the floor when my doorbell rang. I strode to the front door, ready to tell whoever was standing there that unless my house was on fire, I didn’t care. No matter what they had to say. I didn’t care one bit.

I flung the door open and saw an exhausted Carter standing on my porch. Immediately, my heartbeat quickened. What if the house or church intruders had returned and something had happened to Ida Belle? What if that lump on Gertie’s head had been a concussion?

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“You tell me,” Carter said, sounding as exhausted as he looked. “Your neighbor reported gunfire here.”

“Oh crap! I didn’t even think about someone calling the police.”

He raised one eyebrow. “I take it there’s a lot of middle-of-the-night gunfire where you’re from?”

Considering I “lived” most of the time in the Middle East, it was a loaded question, but as long as I concentrated on my apartment in DC, I could answer without lying. “No, of course not.”

“So do you want to tell me why you were firing a weapon inside your house in the middle of the night? Giving gun-shooting lessons now, maybe?”

I rolled my eyes and motioned him inside. “This way.”

I strode off to the kitchen assuming he’d either follow me or leave. Either way, I could get this over with and go back to bed. 

“There.” I pointed to the cat, who’d just finished up the chicken and was now cleaning his face. I couldn’t help myself from smiling. He was awfully cute.

Carter looked at the cat. “You were shooting at the cat? If you’d just stop feeding him, he’d go away.”

“I wasn’t shooting at the cat. Well, not exactly. I heard something moving in the guest room across the hall and thought someone was breaking in. When I went into the bedroom, the cat jumped on my head and startled me, and I accidentally shot out a window pane.”

Carter sighed. “With all the strange things going on in this town right now, why in the world would you leave a window open, especially on the back side of your house?”

“Oh, I didn’t leave it open. He came through another pane I accidentally shot out this morning when I thought the cat was breaking into my shed. I guess my neighbor wasn’t at home to hear that one and report me.”

Carter ran one hand through his hair and shook his head. “I don’t even know where to start, except to say, you need to get some Mace or a baseball bat, or just use that boxing that knocked Gertie out if you come across an intruder. But you are someone who should never, ever own a firearm.”

“In this town, you think I’m the person most likely to have an accident with a firearm? Really?”

“Well, this makes three accidental shootings since I’ve known you—all with your house as the victim. In that same span of time, two accidental misfires is the most I’ve logged on anyone else. So yes, you are the top of the list of most likely.”

“Hmmm.” That was rather distressing. I knew I’d lost some of my edge since I’d been living in Sinful, but I didn’t think I’d topped the locals for stupid behavior with firearms. Hell, I hadn’t even thought it possible to top the locals after seeing some of Gertie’s mishaps.

“Look,” Carter said. “I’m not even going to ask you where you got the gun because quite frankly, I don’t want to have to arrest the person who gave it to you. So just give it back and we can both pretend we never had this conversation.”

I shrugged. “Okay.” I had no intention of telling Carter that Marge had a veritable arsenal behind a secret panel in the master bedroom closet. “Sorry you had to get back out of bed over this.”

“Ha. You’re assuming I’ve been to bed.”

He turned around and strode out of my house without another word. I locked the door behind him, then peeked through the mini-blinds and watched him drive off. As much as I tried to tread lightly around the good deputy, I felt sorry for him. He might possibly have had an even worse day than I did. 

And you feel guilty for withholding information that could help his investigation.

I sighed and mentally gave my conscience the bird. Why couldn’t I have been born a sociopath? I was quite convinced my father had been one, and it had seemed such an advantage. Never caring about another person’s feelings made it super easy to do what was only convenient for oneself. 

Before I came to Sinful, I’d thought I was just like my dad, except for the successful career part, and I’d ceased thinking I’d ever measure up to my golden father’s standards years ago. But since I’d been in Sinful and met Ida Belle, Gertie, Walter, Ally, and even Carter, I was starting to realize that I wasn’t anything at all like my father. 

I’d just been pretending to be.

The cat meowed and rubbed my legs. I reached down to pick him up. “Since you’ve decided you own me, I guess I should think of something to call you.”

He purred and stretched his head out to bump my hand, clearly informing me I was supposed to be petting him. I smiled and scratched him behind his ears.

“How about Merlin?”

He looked up at me with a satisfied expression and meowed again.

“Merlin it is then.” I started up the stairs. “Maybe you’ll work some magic and bring me a solution to this situation with Ida Belle. Think you can do that?”

He looked up at me again, and I swear, he winked.

Or maybe I was sleep-deprived.

###

Despite the fact that I didn’t get to sleep until around 4:00 a.m., I only managed to sleep until seven. Having a rigid mind and a habitual temperament was a real bitch sometimes. I tried to force myself back to sleep, but I lasted another ten minutes that were filled with frantic, horrible dreams before giving up and climbing out of bed. I stretched my arms above my head, then reached down for the floor, trying to limber up all the muscles that had gotten a workout the day before. 

I noticed that neither our late night nor my stretching routine seemed to affect Merlin’s ability to sleep. He lay curled up in the middle of the spare pillow, his whiskers occasionally twitching. If only I could achieve that level of relaxation. 

I headed downstairs to the kitchen and reached for the coffeepot, then decided instead to head into town and have breakfast at Francine’s. Given my friendship with Ida Belle and general Yankee status, I might catch some flak, but I was going to have to go into town anyway to buy cat food for Merlin. And if I was going to be harassed, I might as well get a good meal out of it. One that I didn’t have to cook or clean up afterward.

I hurried back upstairs, tossed on yoga pants, T-shirt, and tennis shoes, and brushed my hair before pulling it back into its standard ponytail. Merlin opened one eye, yawned, and rolled over. I didn’t know much about cats, but it didn’t appear as if he were going to make a good sentry at all. 

It hadn’t gotten ridiculously hot yet, so I opted for a jog instead of driving. Cat food couldn’t possibly weigh that much and if I ended up buying more, I could always have Walter hold the stuff for pickup later. Besides, Sinful had been hell on my waistband. Even my yoga pants were protesting a bit and they were elastic waist. If I wanted to keep eating all the baked goodies that came my way, I was going to have to step up the exercise portion of things.

My house wasn’t much of a jog from town, but I stretched it out by circling around a couple of blocks before heading straight up Main Street. The General Store wouldn’t open for a bit, so I headed to Francine’s, where the smell of cinnamon buns overwhelmed me as soon as I stepped inside.

My friend Ally waved her order pad at me and pointed to an empty table in the corner. The café was usually busy this time of the morning, and today was no exception. That two-seater in the back was the only opening at the moment, but that was perfect for me. 

I noticed an uncomfortable lull in conversation as I walked through the café, and forced myself not to sigh. I slid into the chair, my back against the wall so that I could see all entry points into the building. It was a habit I hadn’t been able to break, even though I was technically a civilian in Sinful. So far, I’d managed to restrain myself from rearranging the living room furniture at my house, but every time I sat in that recliner with my laptop, that window behind me felt like a semiautomatic weapon aimed directly at my back.

Ally slid a cup of coffee in front of me. “Did you hear about the break-in at the church last night?”

“Yeah. Carter showed up at Ida Belle’s to see if we did it.”

Ally’s eyes widened. “What is wrong with him? Ida Belle and Gertie have done some strange things in the past, I’ll give him that, but this is just too weird.”

“Hmmm,” I said and directed my attention to the coffee. I hated lying to Ally, but it was far easier on her if she was left out of the loop, especially as she didn’t know my real identity. I’d gotten comfortable around her so quickly that I sometimes caught myself about to slip into conversation about the real me.

“I can’t talk now,” she said, “and I’ve got the funeral after work, but I’ll try to come over this evening and we can exchange gossip. Do you want breakfast?”

“Absolutely. I’ll have the special, eggs over easy.”

She made a note on her pad and gave me a smile. “Got it.”

As she walked to the kitchen to put the order in, I sipped my coffee and pretended to gaze out the plate-glass windows of the café. What I was really doing was watching the other patrons. It was a difficult skill to learn, but one that was infinitely handy. Most everyone had gone back to their conversations, but it was easy to tell which of the customers had turned their talk toward me. They cast furtive glances in my direction, then immediately jerked their heads around when I locked my eyes on theirs.

Amateurs.

My senses were so well developed that on a mission, I could lock in on a bird staring at me from outside a window. Civilians sneaking glances in an open room were child’s play. I recognized some of them from my visits to the café and the General Store, but didn’t know any of them by name. None of them looked like members of the mob who had incited the riot in front of the sheriff’s department.

It only took a couple of minutes for Ally to return with my plate of eggs, bacon, and biscuits and I dug in. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d sat down to a meal of real food, but I was fairly sure I’d consumed my weight in desserts and coffee the day before. It was no wonder I was craving protein and exercise. My body probably thought I’d abandoned it.

“I like a woman with an appetite.”

The voice sounded above me and I barely kept myself from jumping as I looked up at the man I’d met at the rally…Bobby, I think he’d said. I’d been concentrating so hard on Ida Belle’s current dilemma and focusing on my breakfast that I hadn’t even seen him approach. 

“You think most women don’t eat?” I asked, then popped the last bite of biscuit in my mouth.

He laughed. “Not in front of men.”

I swallowed and took a sip of coffee. “Then they’re stupid.” 

I knew this was his attempt at flirting with me, and he wasn’t a bad-looking guy, but something about his cocky stance grated on me. I knew this guy. I worked with a bunch of this guy, which is exactly why I didn’t date other agents.

“Sandy-Sue, right?”

I blanched a bit at the real name of the woman I was pretending to be. “Everyone calls me Fortune.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Sandy-Sue sucks?”

He grinned down at me. “You are a real piece of work, aren’t you? I can see why ole Carter is having a hard time keeping you under wraps. You got a problem with authority?”

His question hit a little too close to the mark for my taste, and if my boss, Morrow, was there, he’d have yelled “yes” so loud it would have burst people’s eardrums. 

“Only when they’re wrong,” I finally replied. It was as close to honest as I was going to get.

“No wonder Carter thinks you’re trouble. According to the local buzz, he’s setting a record lately for pissing people off.”

I bristled at his insinuation. Carter wasn’t the strictest law enforcement officer I’d ever come across—thank God, or I’d have been sitting in a jail cell practically since the day I arrived in town—but he wasn’t deliberately antagonistic. Sometimes, it might feel like he was giving me grief, but the reality was, I’d always been the one crossing the line.

“I think it’s called ‘doing his job,’” I said.

“Yeah, well,” Bobby shuffled a bit, apparently catching my tone, “the way he’s going about it seems to be making a lot of people unhappy.”

“I don’t think keeping people happy is in his job description, but catching criminals and keeping this town safe is. If people take issue with his methods, then I suggest they live in a country where the police are part of the problem, and then start flapping their jaws about how he ought to do his job.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence.” Carter’s voice sounded behind Bobby. “But it’s not necessary.”