LITMIR.BIZ

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to spark a response, considering the carnage he’d witnessed and lived through during two wars. Yet there it was.

      “I suggest, Ms. Emerson, that you make a list of missing goods and get it to us. Rest assured, I will find the culprit or culprits, retrieve your stolen property and bring the perpetrators to justice,” he promised, glancing at the other couples before he spun on his boot heel and strode back to his car.

      Koot, slower to react, muttered goodbye and rushed to catch up to his rapidly retreating boss. “Chief, have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind? Why on earth would you give our word that we’ll solve a crime that’s virtually impossible to solve?”

      “Because the lady’s right. It’s our job.” Sky opened his car and tossed the clipboard inside. Following it, he slammed his car door and drove off. He didn’t tell Koot he intended to dig into this case on his own, in his spare time. Anything he could find would give him a legitimate reason to go back and check on Annie Emerson. He was bothered by a look she had about her that suggested she might take matters into her own hands—making her a lamb in this den of jackals. She ought to return to California for her own good. And his. He’d growled at her for no good reason other than he found her attractive and that bugged him.

      Perhaps if he went back when he was in a calmer frame of mind, he could convince her that this community wasn’t safe for a woman like her, especially a woman who planned to live alone in that big, old ramshackle house. Presuming she lived alone. She hadn’t said so, but then he hadn’t asked, either. That bugged him, too. Although, of course—as she’d likely point out—it was none of his business.

      * * *

      ARMS CROSSED, ANNIE stared after the arrogant cop’s car until it disappeared around the corner.

      George Gilroy watched her. “I believe you hit a sore spot with Chief Cordova, Annie. He’s right, in one sense. This town’s gone to the dogs. Peggy and I could sell and move. Our son wants us to come to Dallas, but this is home. We have good memories of raising our boy here—well, he’s over forty now—and moving to a big city at our age is kind of frightening,” he lamented with a sad shake of his head.

      Annie commiserated with the couple who’d been good friends to Gran Ida and to her. Peggy Gilroy, younger than her husband by ten or so years, had taught Annie how to cook, and often looked after her until Gran Ida got home from work.

      Still in a bad mood, Annie negotiated with the locksmith and the glass company for her repairs. While they did them, she wandered along the sidewalk, studying the homes that had once looked so much nicer. All needed paint. Yards were weedy and several houses had tattered drapes in the windows. Annie remembered that Gran had mentioned neighbors losing their jobs when the glove factory closed.

      Walking back home, Annie saw a battered bike at one house, and a rusted wagon outside another. It struck her that her old neighborhood had become similar to the ones she served in L.A. Maybe Gran Ida was right to suggest she stay and try to help. Gran was gone, but Annie’s roots were sunk deep in this neighborhood.

      As Mr. Manchester had pointed out, Gran Ida was well past middle age when she’d taken on raising a baby alone. He’d said Gran had fended off Family Services in order to keep Annie. She imagined the trials and tribulations an older woman would have had to navigate. At fifty-six, Gran had stood at a crossroad, her choices either to give her errant daughter’s newborn up for adoption, or devote her later years to nurturing an energetic child. Gran Ida had chosen Annie.

      Back at the Victorian, Annie paid the workmen and went inside to meander through the rooms. She ran a hand over a scarred table where she’d done her homework, and where Gran set up a sewing machine to teach her to sew. Gran read to her by the light of the fireplace on wintry nights when Annie was frightened by ice storms that knocked out their power. She must have done that after coming home exhausted from tedious sewing all day on delicate lingerie fabrics.

      Going into the vintage kitchen, Annie filled the teakettle, and while water heated, she considered Gran’s legacy—a stately old house with worn contents, but a flush bank account...and dreams. Big dreams. Glancing out the window, as lights came on in houses along the street, Annie felt she, too, stood at a crossroad. She could abandon this house after donating its contents and use Gran’s money to enhance her life in L.A. Or, as Gran Ida had frequently stressed in her final days, Annie could stay and try to restore the neighborhood. Try to return it to the happy place it had once been.

      Chapter Two

      IT TOOK SKY over a week to track down some of the goods stolen from the trio of families on Rose Arbor Street. By tracing serial numbers, he found the two TVs at an obscure pawn shop across the border in Indiana. The broker brought out a cherrywood chest filled with silverware for twelve, which he said he’d also taken from the man who’d pawned the TV—a regular-looking guy claiming to be down on his luck. That was always the standard story. Sky didn’t have any silver on his list, but he redeemed the ticket in case it belonged to one of the couples.

      As he left the pawn shop with the merchandise, he admitted it felt good to have made progress via old-fashioned legwork. It had been quite a while since he’d felt like this—good about his job. Maybe he’d let too much slide lately. Granted, he didn’t recognize the pawnbroker’s description of the guy who’d pawned these things, but Sky assumed the actual thieves were local kids who turned over the wares to gang leaders. The leaders were known to stay in the background during robberies or other crimes. It burned him to have a gang like that operating under his nose. Any gang. The one called the Stingers needed to be stopped. It was a particularly notorious one that had come to his attention numerous times.

      Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, Sky pondered the steps his small department could take to start rooting out these sleazy leaders. It shouldn’t have been possible for three families to be burgled so openly in the middle of an otherwise normal day.

      Entering his neighborhood, he started to wonder if Annie Emerson had packed up and gone back to California. He’d avoided her street since the break-ins for reasons he didn’t care to examine. Now, thinking she might have been a one-time blip on his radar, he felt a small sting of regret. If he was honest about it, their brief encounter had been scintillating—and intriguing. Yet he deliberately hadn’t looked her up since then, because he’d closed off that part of his life. He hadn’t let himself feel anything for a woman since his marriage fell apart—through what he believed was little fault of his. It represented a failure all the same.

      Sky turned at the traffic light at the corner of Rose Arbor and Dusty Rose. Ah, Annie Emerson hadn’t gone anywhere. Approaching her old Victorian, he saw her at the front of the house as she sanded peeling paint from the lower siding. He parked, got out of his cruiser, and as he headed up the walkway to speak to her, he realized her noisy electric sander blocked the sound of his footsteps. Reaching out, he tapped her shoulder to announce his presence.

      Annie yelped and flung the sander down.

      It struck Sky on the shin. In the corner of his mind that wasn’t registering pain, he was thankful the sander had an automatic shutoff, or it would’ve have done serious damage to his leg. With that thought whirling in his head, he wasn’t aware that his grip on Ms. Emerson’s shoulder had tightened, and he wasn’t at all prepared when, without turning, she grabbed his wrist, jabbed her pointy elbow into his solar plexus and sent him flying. Even as he flipped through the air, Sky had no idea what had happened until he found himself lying flat on his back, staring into the blinding sun without his sunglasses. Then his world blurred as the toe of Annie’s sneaker on his throat cut off his blood supply. The pretty face he remembered swam before him. Today, her arresting gray eyes were obscured by the bill of a Dodgers baseball cap.

      In martial arts fighting stance, Annie peered down into the stunned blue eyes of the police chief. “For heaven’s sake, what were you thinking, sneaking up behind me like that?” she demanded, yanking out earbuds attached to an iPod tucked into her shirt pocket.

      Hearing him gasp for air, she lifted her sneaker from his neck. As he continued to blink up in confusion, she extended a hand to help him to his feet.

      Sky

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