LITMIR.BIZ

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sheriff, Bryce Davis, clamped tightly over her shoulder. Lyle Perkins was standing in the doorway of his mama’s general store with a smug expression on his face.

      Jake had been exactly where Tess was a few times himself, though Lyle had been a boy back then, but no less of a bully. Apparently he hadn’t outgrown the tendency. Jake’s hackles rose as he strode toward the group. He couldn’t wait to tangle with Lyle and Emma Perkins now that he was on equal footing with them in the community.

      The instant Tess caught sight of Jake, she broke free and ran straight for him, then turned and shot a defiant look at the sheriff that would have withered a less confident man. She didn’t look at Lyle at all. Fortunately, Jake supposed, Bryce Davis wasn’t lacking in ego. Jake had tangled with the sheriff a time or two himself. It would take more than a fiery eight-year-old to intimidate Davis.

      “Okay, what’s the problem here?” Jake asked, directing the question at the beefy sheriff, while ignoring Lyle.

      “I need a lawyer,” Tess announced before Bryce could open his mouth. She slapped a quarter in Jake’s hand. “Here’s your retainer. It ain’t much, but it’s all I’ve got. I want to sue him for false arrest, police brutality and whatever else you can come up with.” She jerked a thumb toward Lyle. “Sue him while you’re at it.”

      Jake hid a grin at her riled-up declaration. “You’ve been watching too much TV, kiddo. I don’t think you’re under arrest yet.”

      Tess trembled with indignation. “Oh, yeah, try telling that to him. He was about to slap handcuffs on me and take me to the slammer.”

      Jake figured there was another side to the story that he’d better hear before he leaped too trustingly to Tess’s defense. “Bryce?”

      The sheriff didn’t mince words. “Aunt Emma caught her shoplifting. Lyle called me to get over here. He tried to hold her till I arrived, but she made a break for it. I nabbed her out here.”

      Jake turned to Tess. “Is that so?”

      Tess’s gaze met his and never flinched. “I didn’t take anything from the old bat’s store. All she’s got is a bunch of junk, anyway.” Once again she cast a disparaging look toward Lyle. “He probably put her up to it. He’s mean as a snake and everybody in town knows it.”

      “Why, you little punk,” Lyle began, taking a step in Tess’s direction. He backed off at a sharp look from his cousin.

      Since Jake had had his own run-ins with the paranoid shopkeeper and her spoiled son, he would have been inclined to believe Tess, even if she hadn’t just hired him to be on her side. Lyle had always been eager to make trouble for anyone weaker than he was. In those days, Jake’s only weakness had been his lack of anyone to stand by him. He’d settled more than one argument with Lyle with his fists. Fortunately, he had grown out of the habit.

      “What’d she steal?” Jake asked the sheriff.

      Bryce rocked back on his heels and looked vaguely uneasy. “That part’s a little hazy, what with the commotion of catching up to Tess before she got away.”

      “Then I suggest we all go inside and get our facts straight,” Jake said, starting for the general store, where Mrs. Perkins waited in the doorway just behind her son, hands on ample hips.

      “I might have known you’d take the girl’s side,” she said, scowling at Jake with a sour expression before turning an equally sour look on Bryce Davis. “I expected more of you, Sheriff, especially since you’re family.”

      “Nobody’s taking sides, Aunt Emma,” Bryce said soothingly. “We just need to figure out what happened here. What did you see?”

      “She was right over there,” Mrs. Perkins said, gesturing toward a case filled with school supplies. “I looked up and saw her hand go in her pocket. When it came out again, it was empty. She stole some of them pens, or maybe the stickers the kids like so much.”

      “Did you see her with either pens or stickers in her hand?” Jake asked.

      Bryce scowled at him. “I’ll ask the questions, son.”

      Jake shrugged. “Be my guest, but I reserve the right to ask a few of my own if you don’t get at the truth in a hurry.”

      “Well, Aunt Emma, did you see the girl with those items, or anything else, for that matter?”

      “No, but I know what kind of mischief her kind gets into.”

      The hairs on the back of Jake’s neck stood up at the characterization, but he forced himself to deal with one thing at a time. Most important was clearing up whether or not Tess had shoplifted so much as a paper clip from the old bat.

      “Tess, honey, did you ever pick up any of the things Mrs. Perkins mentioned?”

      “Do I look like I play with stickers?” she shot back, giving the storekeeper a belligerent glare. “As for pens, Tex practically bought them by the case because he was always chomping off the end, once the doc told him he had to stop smoking cigars. I sure as heck don’t need hers.”

      Jake hid a grin. “That’s not the issue,” he admonished. “Did you put anything into your pockets?”

      “No. If you want to, you can check.” She shot a triumphant look at the shopkeeper, but when the sheriff stepped forward, she scowled. “Not you. Jake.”

      “That okay with you, Bryce?”

      “I suppose,” he said with obvious reluctance.

      Jake emptied Tess’s pockets, turning them inside out for the sheriff’s benefit. He came up with a candy bar wrapper, a couple of pennies, some lint and a wilting daisy, which he suspected came from Tex’s funeral bouquet.

      “Satisfied?” Tess demanded, eyeing them all belligerently.

      “My apologies,” Bryce said, then looked toward Jake. “I had no choice. You know that, don’t you?”

      “Can I sue him now?” Tess asked. “Her, too?”

      “We’ll talk about it,” Jake said. When Tess appeared ready to balk, he added, “Over ice cream.”

      She followed him docilely enough after that. When they were back on the sidewalk outside, he paused. “How’d you get into town, anyway? And why would you go into that store when you know how Mrs. Perkins is? She thinks every kid in town is out to rob her blind.”

      “I came in with Megan. As for the other…” Tess shrugged. “I guess I just like to see her get herself all worked up watching me every second. That Lyle, though, he gives me the creeps.”

      “Then I suggest you steer clear of the place. Now, where’s Megan?”

      “Beats me. I pointed her in the direction of the new office-supply place, then took off. She didn’t seem real disappointed to see me go.”

      “Did you arrange to meet her someplace?”

      Tess shrugged. “I figured we’d both turn up at the car sooner or later.”

      Jake sighed. Clearly Tess intended to make him work for his answers. She was volunteering nothing. “Where’d she park?” he asked next.

      “A couple of blocks that way,” Tess conceded, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.

      “Let’s go see if she’s there.”

      “I thought we were going for ice cream.”

      “We will, after we find Megan and let her know you’re okay.”

      “Like she’d care,” Tess muttered.

      Obviously things weren’t going smoothly with the bonding. “Don’t you think maybe you should give her a break?” he asked.

      “Why? She doesn’t give a rat’s behind about me.”

      “Maybe because she hasn’t had a chance

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