Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [4]
“They’re from your new best friend in Washington.”
Charlie Neal, Jo thought. That little bastard had the gall to send her flowers.
She contained her reaction and said tightly, “Take them inside if you would. My hands aren’t exactly free.”
Elijah tugged open the rickety screen door. “Did you pick this cabin for old times’ sake?”
It was the cabin where they’d made love night and day after her high-school graduation. He had graduated the year before and spent the year working at Black Falls Lodge—long before A.J. took it over—and avoiding arrest by Jo’s father, the local police chief.
“This one has the best heat,” Jo said, neutral.
“It also has bats. I see them flying in and out at dusk.”
“It’s too cold now for bats.”
“They’re snug in their beds up in your rafters,” he said, entering the cabin.
Jo stepped inside and set her box on the rough wood floor next to her duffel bag, which she’d already hauled from her car. She wasn’t that sure what all she’d packed. Frustrated, aggravated, anxious to get out of Washington as fast as she could, she’d tossed together clothes, reading material and leftovers with little thought to what she’d need.
Elijah put the flowers on the small drop-leaf table near the window overlooking the lake. Three of her colleagues who’d stayed in the cabins in October had referred to the decor as early junkyard, but they’d enjoyed the setting—the woods, the lake, the hills. They’d hiked, fished, gone canoeing, read books in the quiet.
That was before Jo’s bad week. She doubted any of her fellow Secret Service agents would head to Vermont anytime soon, even if she did fix up the cabins.
She avoided looking at the iron four-poster bed in the alcove—it was the same bed she and Elijah had found so useful fifteen years ago.
“How long are you planning to stay?” he asked.
“Until the dust settles in Washington.”
Jo bent down and grabbed the bananas from the top of her box. How long would she be here? As she stood up straight again, she tried not to wince in front of Elijah, a matter of personal pride, but she knew she’d failed.
“Still hurting?” he asked with no detectable amusement or sarcasm.
“Not really.”
“Baking soda and water might help.”
Now she detected a note of amusement and sarcasm. “Thanks. I’m fine.”
She had heard every conceivable homemade remedy in the past seventy-two hours, ever since she’d fallen victim to a prank orchestrated by the sixteen-year-old son of the vice president of the United States. Charles Preston Neal was a notorious handful. He had invited his cousins and friends over to the madhouse that was the vice president’s residence for an elaborate simulated firefight with realistic-looking fake weapons. Jo was assigned to Marissa Neal, the eldest of Charlie’s four older sisters, who lived nearby and was there for a visit.
Five minutes into their firefight, Charlie had pointed at his cousin Conor, who was about to shoot, and yelled, “I think it’s a real gun!”
Jo had reacted instantly, jumping into action to save Charlie and his friends from possible injury or death. But the “weapon” turned out to be another of the authentic-looking toy pistols and rifles in the boys’ extensive arsenal. She’d intercepted a barrage of airsoft pellets zipping toward Charlie and took the dozens of tiny, fake rounds meant for him.
Trying to live down the spray of pinprick welts on her left arm, side and hip would have been bad enough, but Charlie had collapsed in hysterical laughter, and that was it. Jo pulled him up by the ear and gave him an uncensored piece of her mind.
That was what one of his cousins or friends—no one knew which one—had secretly captured on video and put on the Internet.
Hence, today’s drive up to Vermont.
Vice President Neal had mandated the boys all take a police-sanctioned safety course if they were to have any more simulated battles in the backyard, and he’d personally sat them down at the kitchen table and had them write notes of apology to Jo. There was no telling how many of them were in on the prank, but Charlie clearly was the ringleader.