Jack of Hearts Page 5

  “I’ll pick you up another pair of sneakers,” Alice offered, “and a chew toy for Lady.”

  “You can hold off on the chew toy.” Ted walked back into the kitchen. “Right now, Lady’s working out her aggression on Jack’s other running shoe.”

  “Dad! Did you take it away from her?”

  “Why? Listen, for one thing, I’m not about to try to get it away from her. I like my hands. Besides, what are you going to do with one sneaker? Maybe she’ll think the score is settled after she finishes it off.”

  Jack was about to protest when the doorbell rang.

  Lady started to bark, and Alice shot down the hallway, followed by Jack’s mother.

  While Alice put Lady back into the bedroom, Laura led a man and three older women into the kitchen. All of them looked to be in their seventies. They smiled, nodded, and waved as Laura lined them up in front of the sink.

  Alice slipped back into the kitchen and stood next to Jack.

  “This is my son, Jack, and this is his sweet Alice.” Laura held her hand out to a short man with gray hair on the sides of his head, covered by an obvious dark-brown toupee. “Jack and Alice, this is Carl Wilkerson.”

  Carl nodded curtly.

  She gestured to the woman next to Carl, who was a couple of inches taller than him. She wore a yellow-and-white-flowered dress with a matching yellow hat, and had long, straight hair. “And this is Ellie Harper.”

  Ellie wiggled her fingers in a shy greeting.

  Laura continued down the line. “Ruby Green.” Ruby was a big woman with a thousand-watt smile. When she waved, her bright-plum dress with pale-cobalt flowers shimmered. Her black hair was styled in an elegant bouffant.

  “And Ginny Peek.”

  Ginny looked as if she had just gotten off work from a library in the 1950s: she wore a gray jacket, matching skirt, and white blouse. Glasses dangled from a cord around her neck. Her hair was pulled back in a tight librarian bun, and when she nodded once in greeting, it barely moved.

  Ruby was the first to speak. “Let me just say that we’re all so glad you’ll help.”

  All four nodded and looked at Jack expectantly.

  Jack tensed. “Excuse me?”

  Laura tittered. “Oh, he just got in and I haven’t had a chance to explain the particulars to him.”

  What had his mom gotten him into? Particulars? Jack wanted to say. You haven’t explained anything. But he bit his tongue. He would never embarrass his mother in front of her friends.

  “Oh, boy, here it comes,” Ted muttered. He leaned against the counter next to Jack and sipped his iced tea nonchalantly.

  Jack felt the first beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

  Laura wrung her hands. “Well…at our last meeting—”

  “It wasn’t the last one,” Ginny corrected her. “It was on the eleventh.”

  Laura grinned sheepishly. “Thank you, Ginny. Yes, on the eleventh we got together for a brainstorming session.”

  “At the club,” Ellie added.

  “The club?” Jack repeated.

  “Our book club,” Ruby explained.

  “The murder and mystery book club.” Ginny adjusted the cord holding her glasses until they were even on both sides.

  Ellie stepped forward. “And we need your help.”

  Jack sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.

  “I told you he’s too busy.” Carl crossed his arms. “We’re close to solving it ourselves anyway.”

  “Solving what?” Alice asked. “A book mystery?”

  “No.” Ruby shook her head and leaned against the table as if delivering a secret. “We’ve got a real-life whodunit.”

  “A murder?” Alice’s eyes widened.

  “No.” Ellie leaned in like Ruby. “A string of robberies,” she whispered.

  “They’re thefts,” Carl corrected her.

  “Actually…” Ginny stood up straight, as if she were giving a presentation to a class, “they’re burglaries. A burglary is breaking into a building with the intent to steal something inside. A theft is simply taking something that belongs to someone else. And robbery involves violence or threat of violence.”

  Everyone looked at Jack.

  He nodded. “She’s correct.”

  Ginny proudly squared her shoulders.

  “But you don’t need to break in to commit burglary,” Jack added. “Going in through an unlocked window is still burglary. Is someone breaking into homes here?”

  “Someone or someones.” Ellie raised her eyebrows.

  “Someones?” Jack repeated.

  “That’s her theory.” Ruby crossed one arm around her waist while her other hand stroked her chin like a TV detective. “She thinks it’s the work of a gang of retired criminals, but I think the Orange Blossom Cove Bandit is a woman. She’s too cunning and skilled to be a man.”

  Laura, Carl, Ellie, Ruby, and Ginny suddenly all began talking at once, each defending their own theory or trying to poke holes in someone else’s.

  “Hold on,” Jack said. “Did you go to the police?”

  “Several times,” Ellie said.

  Ruby stood with her hands on her hips. “But they’re stumped.”

  “So there’s already a current investigation?”

  “Yes, but they’re not getting anywhere,” Ruby said. “And Laura offered—”

  Ted held up his hands. “Which she shouldn’t have. Jack’s on vacation and here only for a few days.”

  “Told you he wouldn’t help,” Carl muttered.

  “Look, I’m sure the police here can handle a couple of B&Es.” As Jack spoke, he saw his mom’s lips press tighter together like they did when she wasn’t getting her way. But as her eyes softened in disappointment, so did Jack’s resolve. He caved. “If my mom said I’d help—”

  “Nope.” Ted popped the p for emphasis. “You’re on vacation and you deserve it. You’re not getting involved.”

  “But what about the burglar?” Ellie moved closer to Carl.

  Carl put a protective hand on her shoulder. “There’s probably nothing to worry about.”

  7

  I Love You, Lady

  Jack rolled over on the pullout couch. The thin mattress did little to cushion his back from the metal bars that served as a bed frame. The heat only added to his discomfort. He felt as if he were sleeping inside a waffle iron.

  “Central air? Where?” Jack grumbled as he folded his hands behind his head. As soon as everyone had shut their bedroom doors, the temperature in the living room had steadily risen until he was sweating just lying there.

  He tried relaxing into the unforgiving mattress. Keeping his eyes closed, he focused on the beating of his heart. Finally, he began to slip into sleep.

  Lady scratched at the door of the guest bedroom.

  Jack hurried out of bed, worried the noise would wake his parents. He cracked open the bedroom door and Lady shoved her way past him.

  Alice groggily called out from somewhere in the darkness. “I can take her.”

  “I’ve got it. Stay in bed.”

  Lady sat down on the floor, tilted her head, and gazed up at him. He could have sworn she was smirking.

  “You went out an hour ago. You’re just doing this to get back at me, right?”

  Lady set her huge paw down on Jack’s bare foot, her rough pads scraping his bare skin.

  “Ow! Okay. For the hundredth time, I’m sorry. But listen, I got you a peace offering. I was going to show you in the morning, but I’ll give it to you now if you knock it off and go to bed.” Jack headed for the kitchen. “Come on.”

  It was actually his mother who had picked up a “treat” for Lady, but he wasn’t about to tell Lady that. Besides, Jack was the one about to cook it.

  As soon as he took the steak tips out of the refrigerator, Lady began to prance in a circle. She knocked the kitchen chairs against the table and tipped the water dish to one side. It righted itself with a metallic clang.

  “Shh. Wake up my parents
and the deal is off.”

  Lady sat down.

  “After this, we’re even.” Jack put the steak in a large pan. “Besides, it wasn’t my idea to bring you on the plane anyway.”

  At the word “plane,” a low grumble began deep in her chest.

  “You are a freak of nature, dog. I know you understand me. So, get this: Alice brought Lady on the plane. Not me. Alice.”

  Lady huffed.

  “I’m talking to a dog.” He shook his head and flipped the meat.

  Jack cooked the steak to rare, cut it up, and slid it into a ceramic serving bowl his mom had loaned them to use as Lady’s food dish. Lady wolfed it down. After she noisily lapped up half a bowl of water, she pressed against Jack’s leg.

  He scratched behind her ear. “Are we good now?”

  Lady started back down the hallway, and Jack grinned. But just outside the bedroom door, she changed direction and headed into the living room instead.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you want to sleep with me now. No way. It’s way too hot to be next to a walking space heater covered in fur.”

  But Lady passed right by Jack’s bed. She trotted over to the mantel and looked up at the row of knick-knacks. They included a bright-yellow-and-orange crane standing over a nest of speckled mauve eggs, a tire iron in a glass frame—Jack smiled when he remembered giving that to his father—and, of course, the lime-green découpage sculpture of a fat gecko crouched on its back legs. The statue was twenty inches tall and so wide that the base hung an inch over the edge of the mantel.

  Lady let out a long whine.

  “Don’t be a baby.” Jack gave the gecko a little push. “It’s fake.”

  Lady raised her nose, sniffed, and growled.

  “It’s fake,” Jack repeated. He tapped on the large statue for emphasis.

  Lady raised herself up on her hind legs, and Jack grabbed her collar. “Whoa, that doesn’t mean you get to chew it up like my running shoe.” He pulled her back down and rubbed her neck. “Come on. We had a bargain. Back to bed.”

  Jack had to pull her a couple of times to get her to follow, but he finally managed to convince Lady to return to Alice’s room.

  Before the door closed, he caught a glimpse of Alice curled up under her sheet, fast asleep. Jack wasn’t ready to tell her, but he knew she was right to turn him down. In fact, he had known it from the moment he first asked. The words had just tumbled out of his mouth, and though they had come from the heart—he loved her so much it made his chest ache—in some way, that was exactly the problem.

  With love so strong, he was afraid of losing her—like he’d lost Chandler. If war had taught Jack anything, it was weakness. Vulnerability. People wonder why soldiers seem standoffish. Some think it’s cocky pride. Maybe for some it is, but for Jack, it was something else.

  He knew that at any second Alice could be gone.

  He loved her. He’d marry her. But could he open his heart to her, knowing that if something happened to her it would kill him?

  Jack returned to the lumpy sofa bed. He was just starting to fall asleep again when his parents’ bedroom door opened.

  His mother, dressed in a white fluffy bathrobe and carrying an empty glass, quietly shut the door and peeked over at Jack. He waved. She crept to the side of the bed, a worried expression creasing her brow.

  “Can you not sleep? Are you too hot? I’m getting your father a glass of water. Would you like one too, honey?”

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Did you cook steak?”

  “For Lady. I’ll clean the pan in the morning.”

  “Don’t be silly.” She bent down and kissed his head as if he were a child. “Nighty-night.”

  He listened to her slippers’ soft shuffle as she moved into the kitchen. He rolled over and closed his eyes.

  A bloodcurdling scream sounded from the kitchen, followed by the sound of breaking glass. From inside Alice’s bedroom, Lady let out a string of thunderous barks.

  Clothed only in his boxers, Jack sprang out of bed and sprinted toward the kitchen.

  His mother stumbled out into the living room, clutching her bathrobe to her chest. Her mouth was moving but no sound was coming out.

  “Mom, are you okay?” Jack held her arms and scanned her for injury, but she didn’t look hurt.

  The sound of a chair sliding across the tile came from the kitchen, followed by the bang of the lanai screen door closing.

  Jack’s mother grabbed his shoulder with a trembling hand. “There was a man…”

  “Lady, get out of the way!” Alice ordered from behind the door.

  Ted flung open the bedroom door and rushed toward them.

  “Dad, protect Mom!” Jack shouted over Lady’s barking. He shoved open the kitchen door. Light gleamed off the broken glass on the tile. The back door was open.

  Behind him, Alice’s door banged against its frame as Lady pushed against it. He could hear her clawing at the wood and howling.

  Ted shouted, “Jack, stop!”

  But Jack was already running through the open back door.

  Most people run from danger, but not Jack, not now. He ran toward it. He raced into the backyard, toward whoever had dared to enter his parents’ home.

  The gibbous moon offered enough light for Jack to see that the backyard was empty. He pulled up a mental map of the community. The gate and main road were to the right. He ran that way.

  As he dashed across the yard and to the corner of Gladys’s house, he forced himself to slow down. The chase had always been the hardest part of being a policeman for him. Part of him loved it so much that the adrenaline coursing through him gave him tunnel vision. He’d focus on only the target and miss the real danger—like the partner of the guy he was chasing. That kind of inattention can get you killed. So he commanded himself to pause.

  Jack crept forward, keeping to the shadows and listening for any sound of his prey. The walkway lights that had ringed the pond earlier were now off; they were probably on motion sensors or timers. But light from Gladys’s kitchen window spilled into the empty yard.

  Behind him, Jack’s father ran out of the house. Jack motioned for him to go back in, but Ted headed to the opposite side of the house. A second later, Alice and Lady ran out and followed Ted.

  Jack was about to run after all of them when a little dog started yelping in the next house over, past Gladys’s. He raced toward the sound, and when he reached the side of the house, he pressed his back against the stucco and listened. The little dog had gone silent.

  Jack peered across the yard. Thick bushes, a tall air-conditioning unit, and a car provided plenty of places to hide.

  The moon reflected off the still pond. The hot air seemed to thicken as his eyes adjusted to the low light, and he searched the shadows for any movement. He dashed to the next house. The Florida grass was sharp on his bare feet, and surprisingly slick.

  The long outdoor patio of this house had a sun cover that blocked the moon’s light, making the whole area pitch black. As Jack peered into the darkness, he spotted something moving at the next house over.

  “Jack!” his mother called out.

  He glanced back and saw his mother awkwardly jogging across the yards, her bathrobe billowing out behind her. Jack was used to hunting monsters, but the thought of his mother anywhere near a thief blasted more intense fear through him than he’d ever felt.

  Jack ran back toward her. “Mom!” he whispered fiercely. “Go home!” He ran to the edge of the light so she would see him.

  The back door to the house behind him opened, and a bright light shined in his face. The old woman in the doorway started to scream. “Police! Police!”

  Jack held up his hands. “Lady, I’m the good guy. There’s—”

  “Don’t move, you pervert!” she yelled. “Police! Police!”

  Lights started to flick on in every home around the pond.

  Jack thought about explaining that she sho
uld call 911 rather than shout, “Police!” But from the commotion erupting all over the neighborhood, he was sure someone already had.

  He turned to look back at his mother, and pain shot up his legs—as if someone had thrust a needle into his bare foot.

  “Jack!”

  “Stay back, Laura!” the old woman shouted. “It’s a Peeping Tom.”

  His mother jogged closer. She was panting and looked as though she was about to fall over. “No, he’s my son.”

  More needles stabbed into Jack’s feet. He looked down. His feet and ankles looked covered in dirt, but something was wrong—the dirt was moving. And it burned.

  “What the hell?” Jack swiped at his feet.

  Whatever was on him was biting him. His feet and ankles were covered with what looked like chocolate sprinkles.

  “Fire ants!” the old woman called out. “You’re on a mound. Wash ’em off, quick!”

  Jack sprinted down to the pond. He took two steps into the water and then practically tumbled forward as the bottom of the manmade pond dropped off suddenly. He found himself in water up to his waist. He frantically swiped at the ants, and the ones on his feet floated upward—only to reattach to his thighs and start biting him again.

  His hands slapped against his body, and he backed into the pond, splashing as he went. After a minute of flailing about, he thought he’d gotten rid of most of the stinging insects.

  “Jack!” His mother waved her arms like a whirligig in a hurricane. “Get out of that pond! Get out right now!”

  He stopped splashing. “Calm down, Mom.”

  “I’d listen to your mother.” The old woman shined her light on Jack, and then behind him at the pond. “She’s warning you about the gator.”

  “Gator? In this gated community?” Jack glanced over his shoulder. I thought Dad was kidding before.

  “Bertha has a nest right near there,” the old woman called out.

  Bertha?

  The light from the old woman’s flashlight reflected off the water. A long string of little waves stretched out like contrails from a plane—and it was moving toward Jack. Then something surfaced, and the flashlight reflected off two yellowish eyes.