15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Maggie
I drained my second coffee and took my empty cup to the sink. I was still in my robe, but I couldn’t get motivated without caffeine, and two cups were the sweet spot. Ginger, my cat, weaved around my feet, meowing for her breakfast. Reaching down, I ran a hand along her back and right up her fluffy tail.
“Hungry?” I grabbed a can of food out of the cupboard.
A brisk knock sounded on the door. Who was here at this ungodly hour? Seven in the morning wasn’t exactly a normal time to have a visitor. Drawing the ends of my robe a little tighter, I checked the peephole.
“Lila?” I opened the door, surprise coloring my voice. “Why are you here so early?”
She slipped past me and then plugged her nose. “God, I hate the smell of cat food. Is there a worse smell?”
I laughed. “There are lots of worse smells. Seriously, why so early?” I ran a knife around the open tin of food and plopped the mush into a bowl, setting it on the ground for Ginger.
“Tyler hasn’t called you yet?” Lila leaned against the island and then sprang off it, grabbing a cup from the cupboard. “Coffee! You’re one of the only people I know who makes a pot in the morning. Right now, I love you for it.”
“Why would Tyler be calling me this early? You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“We were at the gym this morning, and he told me what was going on.”
With a sigh, I eyed Lila. I loved her, and I was well-versed in these half conversations, but whether it was too early, or Lila was being particularly cryptic, I wasn’t following. “Just tell me.”
“Someone,” she paused, waggling her eyebrows before heaping spoonfuls of sugar into her mug, “is a thief.”
“Okay, Lila. I need to get ready to go to the pharmacy for my Saturday regulars. When you have more information, call me, or stop in there, or maybe just keep the information to yourself. That sounds like a problem for the police, not me.” I headed around the island for the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
“The thief is Sabrina Kim, and she’s stealing your campaign signs.” She put a piece of bread in the toaster and pushed down the handle.
“What?” I retied my robe and wandered over to Lila. “Sabrina Kim is stealing my campaign signs?”
“Yep.” Lila sipped her coffee and sighed with pleasure. “In the middle of the night. God knows who is watching her kids. I know women shouldn’t judge other women, and that’s like your mantra or whatever, but man, that woman is a fucking mess.”
I pursed my lips to keep from agreeing. Of all the women in town, Sabrina and I had the most contentious relationship. I’d never been able to put my finger on why. Years ago, I had hated Sabrina for the way she drifted so easily in and out of Grady’s bed. But my dislike of her had lasted long after he was gone. Seeing Sabrina in a crowd was enough to raise my hackles. My mother would say Sabrina and I were chalk and cheese. We couldn’t be more different.
“What’s she doing with them?” Visions of Sabrina selling them on some black market campaign website to make enough money to feed her kids popped into my head.
“According to Tyler? Putting them in Grady’s back shed.”
My eyes felt like they bulged out of my head at the revelation. Fumbling for a chair, I sank into it. Grady and Sabrina . My stomach rolled, and coffee sloshed around, souring. If they were back on, I’d need a sick day to lie in bed and contemplate my life choices.
“You okay?” Lila bit into her toast.
“Processing.”
“Even if he’s sleeping with her, it probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“It probably means she’s pregnant.” I slapped a hand over my mouth and turned wide eyes to my best friend.
Lila laughed and then choked on her toast. With a sip of her coffee, she grinned. “Ah, I love it when Catty-Maggie comes out to play. Such a rare sighting.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Whatever. You know you don’t need to play the politician in front of me.” She tipped her mug and took a long drink. “Besides, I think Grady’s the only man Sabrina has slept with and not gotten pregnant. He’s probably shooting blanks.”
I groaned. “Please, don’t. Okay? I can’t.”
Lila frowned and leaned forward to peer closer. “Oh, shit. You like Grady. It’s not just some scorching sexual chemistry. You have feelings .”
With a shake of my head, I went to the sink and rinsed out my coffee cup before pouring another cup. The last thing I needed was more caffeine. Adrenaline was already pumping. “No, that’s not it.”
“Yes, that’s it.” She let out a whoosh of air. “How did I miss this?”
Her gaze was like hot coals as I stirred my coffee.
“Have you made out with him yet?”
Heat rose to my cheeks, and I wished Lila wasn’t peering at me quite so closely.
“Oh my God. You have! When?”
“It’s not what you think.”
Silence draped around us. Expectation practically vibrated off Lila while she waited for me to cave, to explain, but I planned to hold strong. This was the piece I hadn’t told her about the night Trent was arrested. After months of Grady and I dancing around each other, he’d come home drunk to find me in Trent’s room. Like so many other times, I’d gone to the Castillo house knowing Trent was out. It hadn’t been him I’d wanted to see. When Grady had seen me sprawled across Trent’s bed, he’d flirted from the doorway and then invited me to look through his bookshelf.
In his room, I’d moved the conversation from books to his songwriting. When I’d taunted him, he’d given me a wry look and dug his guitar out of his closet, settling on the bed, patting the spot beside him. I’d sat, watching him strum away while he walked me through how he came up with lyrics and melodies. Intoxicating. Being there, with him, seeing him do it. A secret unfolding right in front of me. When I’d glanced up, his look had been raw with hunger, and without thinking I’d stretched up and pressed my lips to his. Trent and I aren’t what you think. Those words had hung between us for a beat before sending us spiraling out of control. His guitar sliding to the floor, me falling into his arms.
“You’re really not going to tell me?” She huffed.
My phone rang in the living room, and I left Lila to answer it. One of my loyal supporters from Grady’s street was so irate, I could barely understand her. I half listened as Mrs. Hernandez complained about the two campaign signs which had gone missing, and how Tyler needed to get her another one, but he wasn’t answering his phone. That meant she’d called Tyler and me at seven thirty in the morning. Some people had no boundaries.
After I’d appeased Mrs. Hernandez and hung up, Maggie turned to Lila. “Do you think he knows what Sabrina is doing?”
She shrugged. “You know Grady better than I do.” She smirked.
“No point in guessing when I can just ask him in person.” I headed down the hall toward my bedroom.
“Do you want me to come?” Lila called.
“No!” I didn’t need her to witness the sinking of my stomach if he knew what Sabrina was doing and didn’t have a problem with her taking the signs. We’d been starting to thaw. This next conversation might lead to another cold snap, possibly even frostbite.
I slammed the obnoxious brass knocker on Grady’s door and then rang the doorbell right away. Patience was a virtue I usually possessed. Sabrina’s car was in the driveway, and it made me want to tuck my tail between my legs and leave. Cowardliness wasn’t my style anymore, and the realization Grady could make me feel that way, that Grady’s actions mattered, fanned the flames of my rage.
The only thing I cared about was getting my signs back. Whether he was sleeping with Sabrina Kim or not was none of my concern. The coffee in my stomach swirled.
The door swung back, and he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Maggie? Is someone dead? Why are you here so early?”
“I’m feeling a bit murderous, but no one is dead yet.”
“Grady?” Sabrina’s high-pitched voice sounded from behind him. “Come back to bed. It’s too early.”
“I know you don’t have a job, but doesn’t she have one?” I hissed. “Or, I don’t know, three small kids she needs to get to school?”
He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “It’s Saturday. Why are you here?”
“Some of my campaign signs have gone missing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But you should probably be knocking obnoxiously on Tyler’s door. He’s the one who orders those, right?” He stepped back from the door to ease it closed.
“Someone has been stealing them.” I shoved my heeled foot in the entryway, cringing at the thought of it getting caught in the door. The two dogs poked their heads into the gap, helping my cause.
“Grady!” Sabrina whined from inside the house. “Tell them to go away.”
He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, and the movement made my heart squeeze in my chest. Such a familiar pose, and it never failed to make my insides flutter. At one time, seeing him like this had churned my insides to butter. I gritted my teeth, and the beat of sexual attraction throbbed between us, unwanted, at least by me.
Hate. That was all I felt.
“All right, I’ll bite, Maggie May. Who’s been stealing from you?” There was a tenderness in his gaze I tried to ignore, as though he found me more amusing than infuriating. One of his hands strayed to stroke the dog beside him. Clearly, he had Sabrina Kim in his bed, and that told me all I needed to know.
“You know the thief quite intimately.”
He chuckled and rolled off the door to stretch his arms along the top of the frame. “Doesn’t exactly narrow it down.”
“Gross.”
Amusement played across his features. “Quit playing games and spill it.”
“It’s Sabrina. Your neighbor’s cameras caught her carting my campaign signs into your shed every night this week.” I was particularly queasy at the thought of Sabrina spending every night in bed with Grady. I shouldn’t care. I didn’t want to care.
Confusion marred his face, and he glanced over his shoulder. “Sabrina?” He frowned.
“I need to talk to her.” I tried to step into the house.
He shook his head and barred the door. “You’re not coming in here, Maggie. I’ll talk to her.”
“Fine. I’m going to your back shed, which I see is locked. I want my signs back.”
“I’ll be out in a minute.” He swung the door closed.
I stood on the doorstep, tempted to listen in, to see if he congratulated Sabrina or kicked her out. Staying would mean I cared enough to listen, and I didn’t. Not at all. Anger, which had been my companion all morning, propelled me to the back shed where I paced and tapped my foot until I saw Sabrina beside the driver’s side of her car. We stared each other down, time stretching between us, elastic and tension-filled before Sabrina slid into the driver’s seat and backed out of the driveway.
It was official. I hated her.
He ambled down the side of the house once Sabrina was gone, his head down while rooting through a set of keys. “I’ve never locked or unlocked this goddamned thing.” He tried two or three keys while I looked on.
“You should have asked Sabrina which one before she left.”
With an annoyed glance, Grady slid one last key into the lock, and it flipped open. “She says she doesn’t know anything about it.” He eased open the double doors, and signs of all sizes poured out, landing at his feet. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Right,” I said, drawing out the word. “Nothing about it. That means this is all you, correct?”
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “No, I didn’t know this was happening.”
“That’s a lot of signs. Sabrina must be losing weight or out of breath or something carting all those around.” I surveyed the pile. In spite of myself, I was impressed with Sabrina’s commitment to the task. With a sigh, I realized I was going to need to redistribute these to whoever had them taken, assuming they’d even noticed.
“I’ll talk to her.” He picked up a sign from the ground and propped it against the door.
“Don’t bother. I’ll call Mike and let him know what’s been happening.”
“There’s no need to get the police chief involved. Your signs are here. I’ll help you take them to your car.”
“This is espionage. Stealing campaign signs is a felony, especially when you’re sleeping with a candidate.”
He stared at me for a moment, frustration pouring out of him. He wanted to say something and was holding back. I wondered if I pushed him just a little further if he’d come out with it. Perhaps then I wouldn’t be the only one irrationally angry.
“You’re not getting Sabrina arrested. She’s got three kids.”
“I’m sure she takes really great care of them while she’s servicing you.” Inside, I cringed as the words left my mouth. This wasn’t like me. Why was I saying these things?
His jaw tightened. “What Sabrina does or doesn’t do with her kids is no concern of mine.”
“It will be when baby number four is on the way.” I needed to put a lid on my temper. I sounded like a jealous, out-of-control fool. The neighbors were probably watching this exchange on their cameras while eating popcorn.
“You’re not giving me much credit.” He grabbed a bunch of signs from the ground and propped them under his arm.
“Oh, please. If you’re sleeping with her, you don’t deserve any credit. You’re following the wrong head.” I snatched a sign off the ground and stalked toward my vehicle at the curb. It was a small SUV. There was no way all the signs Sabrina accumulated would fit in the back.
“Tell me how you really feel.” Grady threw his armload into the back. “You jealous, Maggie? Is that what this is? There’s no way you’re this pissed off about a bunch of campaign signs.”
I tossed my sign into the back. “Did you see how many signs were in your shed? It’s not one or two, it’s probably somewhere between fifty and a hundred. She did it all on her own, and you didn’t notice?”
“I was busy admiring other things.” His gaze raked over me.
Another burst of anger and annoyance surged through me. I slammed the back of my SUV closed and stalked to the driver’s side. “I’ll send Tyler to get the rest. Tell Sabrina to expect a visit from Mike. I’ll suggest he check your bed before looking elsewhere.”
He let out a whistle and then chuckled. “Maggie, come on.”
I was done listening to Grady, and I peeled away from the curb, desperate for some distance. He hadn’t denied my comment—not once. His reply merely made it seem like I was being irrational. My blood hummed with rage and an overwhelming desire to either rip Grady’s clothes off or beat him to a pulp. He was one of the few people who could inspire such drastic feelings. When I was younger, I’d found that magnetism exhilarating. Being around Grady made me feel alive in a way no one else did. Now, I wasn’t sure I wanted that feeling. Far, far too volatile and out of control.
I was being irrational, and I hated him for noticing and for being the cause of it. Had anyone else stolen my signs, I would have given them a stern talking-to and threatened legal action, but I wouldn’t have done it.
Outside the police station, I put my SUV in park and stared at the steering wheel. Remembering Emily’s advice about deep breathing, I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly.
This wasn’t right. Turning Sabrina into Mike, even if she only got a slap on the wrist, wasn’t just. Whether she was a good mother or not, those kids didn’t deserve to have her arrested for this. A foolish, dumb prank. Grady inspired foolish behavior. I knew that better than most.
It was already 9:30 a.m. I was half an hour late to open the pharmacy, and I was lucky none of my customers had called me yet to complain. Putting the car in reverse, I steered toward my storefront and tried to clear Grady from my mind. Tyler would get the signs. I could forget about the whole thing.
If only it was that simple.