thing to say.”
Turner crawled through the azaleas retrieving socks and shirts. He found a black lace garter belt and stared at it for a moment. “This is yours,” he said, dangling the garter belt from one finger.
“You gave it to me,” Veronica sobbed, “and I never want to see it again.”
“Well, you gave me this tie.” Turner pulled his tie over his head. “Take it back.”
“Never. I don’t want a tie that’s been wrapped around your scrawny neck.”
Turner stomped into the apartment with the tie clutched in his fist. “I said take the tie back!”
“No, no, no!”
There was a deathly silence. Jake and Amy exchanged anxious glances. “You don’t suppose he’d hurt her?” Amy asked.
They crept to the open door and peeked inside.
“Holy cow,” Amy whispered.
“You were right,” Jake said. “Veronica Bottles doesn’t waste time on preliminaries.”
They backed away, quietly closing the door. “This probably isn’t a good time to question Veronica,” Jake suggested.
Amy slunk down in the passenger seat of the car. “I need a glass of lemonade.”
Jake grinned, putting the car in gear and heading for Amy’s house. “I’ve noticed squeezing lemons has a calming effect on you.”
Amy pressed the stop button on her recorder. “What do you make of that conversation? They accused each other of murdering Red, and then they both denied it.”
“I don’t think either of them killed the bird,” Jake said, disappointment obvious in his voice. “I’m having serious doubts about my theory.”
Amy listened to the recording. “They might not have killed him, but they obviously think he’s dead. Notice how they accuse each other of murder rather than bird-napping.”
“Uh-huh,” Jake said, cruising down the street, distracted by a van parked in front of Amy’s house. “Are you expecting company?”
Amy squinted at the van. “There’s someone in the front seat… with a camera.”
Jake pulled into the driveway and helped Amy from the car. The cameraman got out of the van and walked toward them. He was short and very young. His blond hair was tied back in a ponytail.
“Ron Grosse,” he said, extending his hand. “I’ve been sent by Local News to do a follow-up interview with Lulu the Clown. This is Dan Flyn…” He motioned to a second man, joining them from the van. “We do a
“I don’t think I feel like being interviewed today,” Amy said coolly. “I don’t have much to say about all this.”
“Aren’t you the veterinarian?” Dan Flyn asked. “This is a coup. We didn’t expect to find the two of you together. Are you… um, you know, an item?”
Jake leaned forward slightly, stopping inches from Flyn’s nose. “Excuse me? An item?”
Flyn stood his ground. “There had been rumors of this being an inside job, or at least a coverup.”
Jake set his jaw. “That does it. I’m going to rearrange your face.”
“No,” Amy shouted, grabbing Jake by the arm. “Lord, what will my neighbors think? Cameramen and vans and men fighting on my front lawn. You can’t do this sort of thing in suburbia. And besides, we just cut this grass, and now you’re standing on it and bending it. Shoo,” she said to the twenty-minute news team. She made go-away motions with her hands. “Shoo.”
She pulled Jake into the house. “Shame on you. Rearrange his face. Good grief.”
Jake locked the door and closed the drapes. “I’m pretty tough, huh?”
Amy rolled her eyes and reached for the lemons.
“I was surprised you didn’t give an interview. I would have thought you’d want to tell your side of the story.”
“I know those two,” Amy said, slicing lemons. “They aren’t interested in the truth. They just want something juicy. I wouldn’t dignify them with an interview.”
Jake put the cooler on the kitchen counter. “We have a couple chicken salad sandwiches left. What say we eat them for supper?” He set two placemats and plates on the little kitchen table and doled out the sandwiches.
Amy took a bowl of potato salad and a container of pickled beets from the refrigerator. “I have some leftovers.”
“I know this sounds strange, but you make me homesick. My mom is a great cook… just like you.” Jake tasted the potato salad and sighed.
“This is just as good as my mom’s. When I was a kid we had potato salad all summer long. And there was always cold fried chicken. I have two brothers, and I can’t tell you how much chicken we went through during the month of July. My mom is a seasonal cooker. In the winter she makes homemade chocolate pudding. I’d come home from school and walk into the house and almost get knocked over by the smell of that pudding cooking.”
Amy gave Jake his lemonade and sat across from him. “Sounds like you had a nice childhood.”
“I guess it was average. I was always fighting with my brothers, but we really liked each other.” He wolfed down his sandwich and looked enviously at Amy’s.
Amy got the chicken salad from the refrigerator and made Jake another sandwich. “Did you always want to be a vet?”
“Yup. I collected baby birds that had fallen from their nests, and rabbits that cats had maimed, and rescued turtles from the middle of the road. My mom was terrific. She put up with a lot. I had fish and hamsters and lizards and never cleaned my room.”
He took Amy’s hand in his. “I’d like you to meet my family. My brother Nick lives in East Stroudsburg. He has a wife and two kids. My brother Billy lives in Wind Gap with his wife and three kids. And my parents are just down the street from Billy.” His eyes had turned warm, and his thumb stroked across her wrist, causing her to lose interest in chicken salad.
“East Stroudsburg and Wind Gap are in Pennsylvania?” she asked halfheartedly, trying to steel herself against the rush of heat in her body.
He nibbled her fingertips, closed his eyes and pressed a kiss into the palm of her hand. “Mmmm. Pennsylvania.” His voice hummed against her skin.
“Pennsylvania is very romantic. In the Poconos they have honeymoon hotels with heart-shaped bathtubs. And the northwestern part of the state is wilderness with deer and bear and raccoons.”
“Raccoons,” Amy mechanically repeated, watching him kiss her wrist and work his way up her arm.
He skirted the table and pulled her to him. “You make me crazy,” he rumbled in her ear. “I can’t even sit across from you at the kitchen table. I keep thinking about you in bed, naked.”
Amy shivered. She liked the easy, possessiveness of Jake’s touch.
They walked hand in hand to the bedroom and kissed again. Amy turned to close the curtains and gasped in dismay. “They’re still here!”
Jake looked out the window. The van was parked across the street. “What are they doing there?”
Amy gritted her teeth. “They’re waiting for a story. Ugly little scandalmongers.”
“I don’t believe this. This is all over a chicken. The bird wasn’t even healthy.”
Amy made a rude gesture and snapped the curtains closed. “Damn.”
Jake tweaked a blond curl. “Boy, you’re really steamed.”
“These guys could make life very unpleasant. They’ll stick to me like glue until they get something damaging, or until a better story comes along. I’m Lulu the Clown. There are lots of children out there in television land who love and respect me. I have a responsibility to those kids. It was bad enough they blipped me off the air without so much as an explanation, but now my personal conduct is under attack.”
He kissed her nose affectionately. “This is a painful question to ask, but I should go home now, shouldn’t I?”
“Yes. I can’t afford to have you spend the night here.” She touched his lower lip with her fingertip. “I don’t want you to go.”
Jake smiled. “I know. Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”
Amy waved good-bye to Jake and locked all her doors. She drew her curtains closed, took the iron poker from
