Chapter 21

Neighborhood Watch time. Again.

Patrolling the ‘burbs wasn’t nearly as exciting as I’d thought.

Babe and I cruised the neighborhood, wearing our official shirts, of course. My thoughts skittered from Harry to Tiara to Donna to Hillary. There didn’t seem to be a shortage of suspects who could have killed Candace.

“You’re quiet,” Babe said. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“About the meeting tonight. Where were you, by the way?”

“I had a previously scheduled engagement.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really. You have a hot date you’re not telling me about?”

She snorted. “You’re crazy. Now, tell me about the meeting tonight. How was it?”

I gave her a brief rundown.

We ran out of things to talk about after that, and I simply let Babe sing along with Beatles songs over and over.

How did Harry do this every night? I would lose my mind. Street after street of the same thing: nothing. People in this neighborhood went to bed early. There weren’t even any cars driving around.

Boring lived up to its name, proudly.

“Why aren’t you working anymore, Laura?”

My head swung toward her in shock. “What?”

“Working? You know, what you used to do for a living to make money. Why haven’t you looked for a job here?”

I cleared my throat. “That’s out of the blue, isn’t it?”

“I’ve been wondering for awhile. A lot of people have. I mean, you seem like a career woman. You look pretty miserable as a housewife, to be honest.”

“I’m not … miserable. Not really.” I didn’t sound convincing, not even to myself.

“So, why aren’t you looking for a job up in Indy or something?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got all night.”

Suddenly, I felt trapped by the car. I had no way to avoid telling Babe the whole embarrassing story—unless I saw a suspicious activity.

I pointed in the distance. “Was that someone moving over there?”

“It was a tree branch. You’re avoiding my question.”

My shoulders sagged. Why put off the inevitable? I had to start talking about the whole fiasco eventually. “There was this little incident at the firm where I worked.”

“Incident? Keep going.” She rolled her hand in the air, as if telling me to speed it along.

I sighed. “I worked in public relations. I was about to be named a junior partner.”

“Oh, this is going to be good!”

“Babe! This is my life, not a made-for-TV movie.”

The sparkle disappeared from her eyes. “Of course, chickaroonie. I’m sorry for sounding insensitive.”

“One of our clients had this catastrophe of sorts—she was admitted into a mental hospital. We held a press conference, trying to clear the air and do damage control.”

“Why is that a catastrophe?”

“Because the person is famous, a celebrity. The press was all over it, especially since this person had gone on record as saying she didn’t believe in medicating those with mental illnesses.”

“What happened?”

The whole incident flashed back in my head, and I wanted to clench my eyes closed. “The CEO of the company issued the talking points for our press release, and sent me out to present them. I questioned a few of the points. I thought he offered too many details about what happened. I thought it would embarrass our client.”

“And?”

“He insisted that this person’s manager had okayed it, and basically he pushed me in front of a bunch of reporters. I stuck to the script. Later, the celebrity sued us for making that information public. She said her manager didn’t have the authority to release the information.”

Babe grimaced. “Oh.”

I nodded. “Yeah, oh no. Let’s just say that someone had to take the fall for it. And since I was the one in front of the microphone—”

“That’s terrible.”

“What’s worse is that my humiliation occurred in front of everyone in the public relations industry. There’s no one who will hire me after that. I’m a laughingstock.” My cheeks felt warm at the mere thought.

“You just followed your boss’s orders.”

“I should have trusted my gut. It turned out the celebrity’s manager was just trying to keep her client’s name in the headlines. We played right into it. I just felt awful.”

“What did you learn from it?”

Again, my head swung toward her. “Excuse me?”

“Bad things happen in life, no matter who you are. You’ve got to take those lemons and make lemonade.”

“What possible good thing am I supposed to take from being publicly humiliated?”

“You moved here, didn’t you?”

“Oh, and that’s been such a great thing.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve been bored out of my mind, and the only fun thing I can do is try to find a killer, which it turns out I’m terrible at. I don’t know what I’m worse at—public relations or solving murders.”

Babe scowled. “Your move here hasn’t been all terrible, has it?”

“I can’t think of one single good thing that’s come from it!”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized what I’d said. “Oh, Babe. I didn’t mean that. Of course I love my friendship with you. I’m sorry I said that.”

She raised her chin, and I could tell I’d hurt her. “Boring is the best little town I’ve ever lived in. The people are good. They’re hard workers. Maybe they’re too simple for your tastes, but I think the people here are topnotch!”

Shame filled me. “They are topnotch. I’m sorry.”

“You’re too busy feeling sorry for yourself to see it.”

“I don’t feel sorry for myself.” Did I?

“Could have fooled me. All I ever hear about is how awful your life is, how miserable Boring is, how terrible your marriage has become. When are you going to take responsibility?”

I pressed my lips together and silently drove for a few minutes. What did Babe know about my life? Nothing. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand that sometimes life takes you in a different direction than you’d planned, and you can either pout about it or make the best of it.”

I wanted nothing more than to drop Babe off at her house and never speak to her again. Except I really didn’t want to do that. I loved Babe.

She turned the radio up, and we cruised the neighborhood, devoid of conversation for the next two hours. Nothing was happening in Boring, but I couldn’t mention that to Babe or she might think I was whining. I didn’t even know why we were doing Neighborhood Watch Patrol anymore since Donna was behind bars.

Lights in the distance caught my eye. Yes, there was life in Boring. At least one person had ventured out late into the night, a near sin for this town.

I was in a bad mood, with nothing but my thoughts to turn over and over. Thoughts about Babe’s ill-hearted comments, about lemonade and being sour.

“Where’s that car going?” Babe asked, all inflection gone from her voice.

I watched it a moment before turning off my headlights. “It’s pulling onto our street. I think it’s that new family.”

“Cut the engine, too.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

I didn’t feel like arguing with Babe anymore, so I did what she said. We sat in the car in dark silence. I watched as Steele and Gia pulled into their driveway. No one got out from the car, though. I wondered why.

Babe turned off the dome light, opened her car door and slid a leg out.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m getting out,” she snarked. “I can see that. Why?”

“Because whoever is in that car is staying in their car. They’re probably afraid we’re going to see them.”

“I think you’re reading too much into this.”

“Am I?”

“Babe.”

“Come on. What do we have to lose?”

Absolutely nothing except some boredom.

We quietly slipped from the car and then dodged behind the houses until we had better view of the Brunos. Gia and Steele slipped out of their black SUV. They wore all black, and looked around as if afraid someone was watching them.

Babe and I looked at each other. What was going on? They sure didn’t look innocent.

We took the long way to the Brunos’ backyard—first skirting the lake behind Babe’s house, my house, and then Tiara’s. Finally, we hid behind the Bruno’s shed. From our vantage point, I could see right into their living room.

My eyes widened when I saw them pull out something from their duffle bag.

Spray paint.

Now, just what were they doing with that? “We better get back to our car.”

We sprinted back to the SUV just in time for Chief Romeo to pull up.

“Ladies.” He nodded. “Are you on duty tonight?”

“We sure are,” I responded.

“Tiara called and said she saw someone creeping around behind her house. Know anything about that? Have you seen anyone suspicious?”

Yeah. Us. I kept my mouth shut.

“It’s been as boring as ever around here tonight,” Babe said. “We’re just looking for some excitement.”

“No, boring is good.” I remembered Karen’s accusation tonight at the association meeting. This would be the perfect time to ask the chief if he’d heard anything about Hillary.

“Have you questioned Hillary yet?” I blurted.

The chief looked startled at my question. “Excuse me?”

“I heard someone saw her at Candace’s house on the day she died.”

“As a matter of fact, we heard that same rumor and questioned her. It turns out she has an alibi. Several of them, to be exact. She was at a banquet up in Indy. Several people remembered seeing her there.”

For some reason, the news disappointed me.

I got back in the car and cruised. Nothing happened for the rest of the night.

I got home in time to crawl in bed and sleep until the phone woke me up.

It was Chief Romeo.

“Laura, someone ransacked the pharmacy. You and Kent better get down here.”