“Hey, Miss Steph,” Jimmy said. “Would you just take a look at this? It’s ruined. Who would do such a thing?”
Steph leaned across her counter behind the pharmacy window and reached for the blood pressure cuff box the teen held out. One corner had been cut away with almost surgical neatness and precision. Her stomach sank.
This was the sixth damaged package they’d found after four weeks’ worth of Pines residents’ Wednesday shopping trips. Problem was, Steph couldn’t imagine any of her seniors in the role of vandal.
She sighed. “Let me have it. I’ll have to check it out.”
When she’d opened for business, Steph had been determined to offer the most reasonable prices possible and still make enough profit to keep the pharmacy open.
In five years of business, she’d avoided all vandalism. Sure, every once in a while she noticed the typical shoplifting kind of attrition, but no actual malicious damage. Until now. These many ruined items in four weeks weren’t typical.
Then again, there was nothing typical about the night before. She’d never felt any danger while at her store, but she’d been mugged. A thought crossed her mind. She stared at the box with its cutout on the side. Could there be a connection between the mugging and the vandalism? Should she report this to the detectives? It didn’t seem particularly important, but they’d told her to notify them if she thought of any detail, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
This certainly fell into that category.
If it turned out to be nothing, she’d feel totally stupid. But if it was connected to the mugging, and she didn’t call the cops, then they might be missing a potentially crucial clue.
Steph sighed. She had to call the PD.
Again.
A few minutes later, the pop of Mimi Larson’s ever-present bubble gum came over the phone. “We’ll have someone out there right away,” the Loganton PD’s dispatcher said. “It doesn’t sound like much, Steph, but I guess I can have the officers check it out for you.”
In spite of Mimi’s dismissive assessment, Steph couldn’t deny the uneasiness in her gut from the moment Jimmy had handed her the torn box. She knew the store’s true rate of attrition. Six items in four weeks wasn’t it. And such neat, surgical destruction?
No way was that normal. Even if it didn’t make any sense.
This was her little world, everything she’d worked so hard for. She’d overcome all the issues that came from her attention deficit disorder so as to finish her schooling. Then she’d had to work hard to raise the seed money. The licensing tests had posed a monumental challenge, and all the other hurdles she’d had to jump in order to open her store had nearly gotten the best of her. But she’d stuck it out. She wasn’t about to let some dishonest crook tear down her efforts now.
When the CB radio in Sheriff Hal Benson’s department cruiser crackled, he listened, even if it was only to eavesdrop on one of the police departments in his county. Like now.
“Delta-202,” Mimi from the Loganton PD said.
“Go ahead,” Wayne Donnelly answered.
“Steph Scott at the pharmacy’s reporting what might be vandalism…but it’s kinda weird.”
Hal bolted up in his seat. Steph? Vandalized?
He turned the cruiser around on the side road and listened more intently.
“10-4. It’s kinda quiet today. I’ll go check it out.”
“10-4, Delta-202. And thanks.”
Hal was tempted to turn on his siren, but who in his right mind used a siren for a vandalism call? Especially when the local police could and would handle it just fine. Still…
It was Steph who’d called. And she’d been mugged last night.
While it was just too pathetic to still be carrying a torch for the little blond girl three desks down from his in fourth, fifth, even tenth grade, Hal knew how he felt. He’d never found a woman who made his heart beat faster than the way Steph Scott always had.
If someone had hurt her, he had to help. Two calls in two days to the pharmacy were unheard of. And two too many, period.
He reached Scott’s in less than ten minutes. He didn’t want to think how many speed limits he’d obliterated to do so. But when he strolled in, he realized how foolish his rush had been. Wayne had everything under control, talking to Steph while Maggie inspected the store.
Well, everything except for the two tiny lines between Steph’s eyebrows. Which prompted Hal to speak. “Anything I can do to help?”
Steph and Wayne spun.
“Oh, hello, Sheriff Benson,” she said.
Wayne frowned. “Any problem, Benson?”
Hal shook his head. “I was near—” the county wasn’t that big “—and I heard the call on the radio. Just thought I’d stop by and see if you needed a hand. After all, Steph was mugged yesterday, and the radio call just caught my attention.”
Wayne jutted out his chin. “Don’t know that there’s much to see here. Just six messed-up boxes in four weeks. Maybe one of the seniors at The Pines was clumsy checking out the merchandise more’n Miss Scott would like when they come shopping. Maybe they thought trimming the damage they did might make it look like less.”
When no one agreed, he shrugged and went on. “Doesn’t look like much to me, even if Miss Scott here thinks it might have something to do with the mugger. I say folks are careless. Sometimes they’re just plain crazy, too. Either this is someone’s idea of a prank, and it’s downright mean, if you ask me, or stuff fell and got shoved around in the store.”
“That’s never been my experience,” Hal said. But at Wayne’s deepening frown, Hal hurried to add, “Still, it’s just like I said. I was close…but of course, I’m sure you have everything under control.”
You’re the one who doesn’t have anything under control, his conscience taunted with right-on-the-money accuracy.
On his way out, a thought occurred to him. “Did you get those security cameras yet?”
Steph gave him a look of disbelief. “When would I have had the time?”
“You might want to hurry things up. It might help you keep things under control.”
Control. One little word, but, oh, how much it encompassed. The PD had things under control. He was suggesting ways for Steph to keep things under control in her store. He sighed. The only thing not under control was him.
What was he doing here? No one needed him. He had a job to do.
He glanced at Steph again. There was just something about her that inspired him to leap tall buildings, stop speeding bullets—all the clichés. With a quick salute, Hal stood to the side, letting the efficient cops do their job. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make himself leave.
Irritated, he called himself the biggest fool in town.
Yet another cliché: he was a fool in love. Still, how could it be love when he hadn’t shared much more than passing greetings with Steph?
What kind of crazy am I?
TWO
“Before you go…” Maggie Lowe said as Steph stood to leave once the three law enforcement officers were done with their questions. “I suspect you’ll want to know what we just found inside the blood pressure cuff box.”
Steph shoved