AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“God, no. Don’t do that.” If Maggie’s son was dragged down to the police station, I’d have to leave the country to find work. “I’m fine, really. Chalk this up to wrong guy, wrong time, wrong motivation. I was searching for a spark in a wet newspaper.”
“Ouch.”
“Cold,” I agreed, picking a cobweb off my socks. “But that's the kind of night it is, isn't it?”
“Wouldn't be so quick to spout such woes. Not at your age, Miss Davins.” He wore a half-smile as he turned his hat over. "Might I come inside? I'm downright freezing in this fifty-degree chill.”
“By all means.”
A flash of nervous, giddy tension replaced my relief at Keith’s departure. Sheriff Harlowe would be the sexiest thing inside our home since we'd rented Magic Mike on Blu-ray DVD. But the moment the sheriff crossed the threshold his nose wrinkled. He stopped, stiffened, then sneezed. Frowning, he toed a plush mouse abandoned in the middle of the hall.
“You have—?”
“Two Maine Coons.”
The sheriff’s dismayed, “Two?” knocked his attractiveness off the white picket fence of my imagination. Man of my dreams, he was not.
Disappointed, I plucked a fur off my smock as if there weren't a hundred thousand more needled in. “Would you prefer the porch?”
“With all those spiders?” He hung his hat on the coat rack, then picked up the balled throw and draped it over the banister.
“Thanks,” I said, closing the door. “Hey, you’re a good bullshitter.”
“It’s my job to be good, Miss Davins.” He tapped his notepad. “Now, presuming you feel safe—”
“I do, but standing in my house I realize I haven’t confirmed your ID or why you’re here. If this truly is in regards to my grandmother’s collection, I’m sorry to report she’s two years passed. What limited provenance she left behind I’ve already provided to Interpol. I can offer you the name of my contact there or pull the remaining dolls out of storage, but I prefer not to unlock them after dark.”
He passed me his identification. “Playing house ain’t on tonight’s agenda, Miss Davins.”
“I, uh, oh.” Well, crap. “What then?”
He let me sweat it out until I’d called to verify his credentials. “How well do you know your neighbor, Mr. Stephen Vilkas?”
“Stephen?” The question caught me off-guard. “We're friendly without being friends, as all good neighbors are. He in trouble?”
“Either in or causing it.”
Through the dining room window I glanced toward the twisting ivy of the buttercream, colonial-style mansion at the top of the cul-de-sac. Beginning at their backyard, a high iron fence surrounded twenty acres of overgrown apple orchard for which our street, Pippin Lane, had been named. Every light was off, including the stone lanterns beside their mailbox. The driveway, absent the usual glut of expensive cars and motorcycles, seemed an oiled snake gliding under a copse of young oaks.
I turned back to find the sheriff crouched and staring beneath my dining room table.
A shadow slunk over the scuffed hardwood, wrapped its unkempt tail around its paws and hissed.
“Cats,” I said dismissively, helping him to his feet.
“Cats,” he said with an expression knotted between a grimace and a struggle not to sneeze. “Know your neighbor well enough to recognize?”
“Stephen’s a muscular, tattooed social media god. If the internet should break and you can’t locate any one of his dozens of dealership billboards between here and the New York state line, I suppose I could give your sketch artist an accurate description.”
“Friendly without being friends hold any more meaning than face value?”
“Nope. Grew up neighbors. We both inherited the family homes. Mine from my grandma and him from his parents.”
“Are you friendly with the rest of his family?”
I shrugged. “If I see them out, sure.”
“Would you call Stephen well-liked?”
