Stirring Up Trouble (12 page)

Maddie cut the last
of her white-chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake bars. She was about to slip them into their paper wrappers when she heard the front door of the bakery chime. She pulled off her gloves and went out front to tend to her customer.

Standing at the counter was Lydia. It was her second visit in a week, which made Maddie wonder why she was there now. Likely, she had something that she wanted to gloat about, or she'd heard about Maddie's date with Emmett. “Hey, Maddie.”

“Hey, Lydia,” she said, coming out from behind the counter to give her a hug. “How have you been?”

She shrugged and turned her attention to the bakery case. “Good. The restaurant has been crazy, as usual. I keep telling Daddy we need to just contract you to make some of our desserts, but he likes to be able to say it was all done in-house. Just one more thing to do.” She bent down to eye something in the display. “What is that?”

Maddie went back behind the counter and peered in at what Lydia was pointing at. “It's a Bavarian cream-filled horn dusted in sugar crystals.”

“Lord,” she said, taking a step back. “I don't know how you can stand to be around all this junk food. It's a wonder you don't weigh more than you already do.”

Maddie bit the inside of her cheek to avoid responding. She was the same size eight she'd been since graduation, so she wouldn't let her friend get a rise out of her when it wasn't true.

“So, word is that last night you and Emmett were spotted looking quite chummy on your front porch. What,” Lydia said with a mix of interest and disgust, “was that all about? I thought you two were fighting.”

“We were. And now we're not.”

An amused smile crossed Lydia's face. “So, now you're dating a bartender? Really? How very blue-collar of you, Maddie.”

Maddie tried not to frown at her. “For one thing, he isn't a bartender. He owns the bar.”

“The guy brings me drinks when I order them,” Lydia said. “Same thing.”

“And for another thing, I don't really want to talk about it.”

Lydia leaned against the counter. “You don't want to talk about it? Was it really that bad?”

“No, it was wonderful. I had a great time. So really, I don't want to talk about it because you're just going to pooh all over it and ruin my buzz.”

Lydia ignored her, narrowing her gaze. “Did you sleep with him?”

“It was our first date, Lydia! No, I didn't sleep with him.”

Lydia shrugged and strolled down the counter to the small container with cookie samples. For all her money and their years of friendship, she'd never come into the shop to buy anything. She ate a sample or whined until she got something free. Sometimes she went as far as to walk into the kitchen and just take something off the cooling racks without even asking. But she never bought anything, claiming she didn't need the calories.

Before now, that hadn't bothered Maddie. Lydia was her best friend, right? Of course she didn't have to pay for a cookie. But something had changed, even just in the last few days since they went to lunch. Maddie had changed, without realizing it. Lydia was the same as she'd always been. That didn't leave them with a lot in common anymore.

“I would've slept with him,” she said. “He doesn't have a pot to piss in, but he's hot. He'd make an excellent lover on the side, I think. Those rough carpenter's hands . . .”

Maddie tensed as she thought of those same hands on her body. She didn't like the idea of Lydia imagining them. With her stunning good looks, most men fell over themselves to get attention from Lydia. More than one crush in high school had been lured away by her stunning best friend. But Lydia couldn't have Emmett. They might have had only one date, but he was hers until Maddie said otherwise.

“Well,” Lydia continued, ignoring her friend's silence and casually flipping the long strands of blond hair over her shoulder. “If you do sleep with him, let me know all the details. I don't have a lot of excitement in my own love life right now, so I'll take whatever I can get.”

Maddie wasn't surprised that Lydia was having a dry spell. Not even her good looks could erase the reputation she'd earned. The whole town knew about how she'd gotten so insanely jealous over Blake. The things she'd done to Ivy in an attempt to win Blake back had been despicable. Even Maddie had been surprised her best friend could stoop so low. After Lydia was publicly outed for throwing a firecracker into the Fall Festival parade and spooking Ivy's horse, her social calendar had shriveled right up. She'd even had to buy a Valentine's Day date at the fund-raising auction, winning Simon when no one else would bid on him. Maddie hadn't asked how the date had turned out, because frankly she didn't want to know.

“Who's the weirdo I saw in the shop last week?” Lydia said, shifting the topic.

Maddie felt her hands clench at her sides. “What?”

“Some girl was working the counter when I came by and said you weren't there.”

“That's my new employee, Gertie.”

Lydia wrinkled her nose and Maddie braced herself. She couldn't do anything about their past together and the people they'd hurt, but she wouldn't allow Lydia or anyone else to stand in her own shop and insult Gertie.

“That girl looks like a cast member of
The Walking Dead
. So thin and pale. For a minute I thought she might be an albino. Where'd you dig her up?”

“Gertie came highly recommended from the high school. She's a sweet girl and a very talented baker. I'm lucky to have her, and I'd appreciate it if you were respectful of her.”

Lydia flinched. “What? She's not even here.”

“It doesn't matter. I don't want to hear it.”

“What's going on with you, Maddie? You opened up this hoity-toity shop and now all of a sudden you're too good for everyone.”

“Actually, Lydia, it's the opposite. I've realized that I'm not better than anyone else. I'm trying to be more mindful and kind. I know that's hard for you to grasp.”

“Kind? You're not doing a very good job. You're my best friend and you're being really bitchy to me.”

At this point, Maddie desperately wanted to tell Lydia to go to hell. Unfortunately, she knew that wouldn't be the end of it. Lydia's vindictive streak was a mile long, and with everything going on, Maddie didn't have time to deal with whatever drama she would dish out in retaliation.

“I'm sorry,” Maddie said, smoothing her hand over her dark hair. “I'm stressed out and just feeling a little touchy about Gertie. Don't take it personally.”

Lydia eyed her for a moment and then smiled. “Okay, good. You were worrying me, there.” She went into the kitchen, coming out with one of Maddie's limited white-chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake bars hanging out of her mouth. “We should do something this week. All we do is work,” she managed between chews. “What about tomorrow evening? I'm off.”

“I have community service with Emmett.”

Lydia frowned and took another bite of her pilfered treat. “What about Saturday morning? I've been dying to drive down to Birmingham and go to this new boutique.”

“I have community service on Saturday, too. And even if I didn't, the bakery is open. You know Sunday is my only day off.”

“And you spend it with your family,” Lydia said with a sigh. “Have Ivy or Pepper started coming to Sunday dinners yet? I can't imagine your grandmother sitting across the table from both of them. Such disappointing choices in brides for Blake and Grant. Not at all who she would've picked, I'd guess. Say, what does Granny think about you and old Emmett?”

Maddie hadn't really talked about her date to anyone. Her grandmother knew about the fighting, of course, but she hadn't spoken to her about him since then. “I don't think she knows. Or cares, really.”

“I don't know,” Lydia said. “I'd be careful about letting Emmett get too chummy with your family. You know how guys can be with you, Maddie, and this guy could use a few bucks. He's been around Rosewood long enough to know about your family.”

“We've gone on one date,” she reminded her.

“I know. I'm just saying be careful. I don't want another guy hurting you in his attempt to make business connections with your family.”

Maddie stiffened. Lydia was one of the few people who knew about Maddie's sad dating history, including the truth about what happened with Joel. Her brother's friend had gone a step further than the other boys looking to get an in with the Chamberlain family by dating her. Joel had won her heart, then slipped a date rape drug in her drink on graduation night in the hopes she'd get pregnant and have to marry him. She'd been saved from that unfortunate situation, but it was a tender subject and one she wished her friend hadn't brought up. “I don't think Emmett is remotely interested in my family.”

Lydia shrugged it off. “Okay. But don't say I didn't warn you if all of a sudden he's building bookcases for your grandmother or something. He might not be trying to marry into the family like Joel, but he'd probably be happy to get a couple of high-paying customers out of it.”

Maddie's jaw dropped at Lydia's cold assessment. She didn't understand why she would think so poorly of Emmett, although she shouldn't be surprised. Lydia thought poorly of everyone.

“Well, thanks for the treat,” she said. “If you ever find time in your schedule to hang out with your best friend, let me know.”

“What about Thursday night?” Maddie offered. She hated it when Lydia got pouty.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “I'm working at the restaurant,” she said as though it was so obvious. “Just . . . never mind. You're too busy with the bakery and the bartender. I get it. I'll talk to you later.”

Before Maddie could even respond, Lydia slipped out the door. She hated how easily her friend could get a rise out of her. One ten-minute discussion had been a roller coaster of emotions for her. The insults rolled so fast and furiously off Lydia's tongue, Maddie almost couldn't keep up with them. And the stuff about Emmett . . .

She wasn't going to let her friend plant seeds of doubt about her new relationship. She was happy and Lydia was jealous, that was all. Emmett wasn't interested in having anything to do with her family. Emmett was different, he didn't care about the money or the family reputation. He'd barely blinked when she'd picked him up in her Mercedes. None of that impressed him at all, and she liked that.

Then again, maybe she was wrong and he was just a really good liar.

Chapter Twelve

Maddie felt stupid.
It was Saturday night—technically Sunday morning, around two thirty—and she was standing outside the electronics store with a flashlight and her binoculars. Emmett had insisted she meet him tonight to continue their stakeout and catch the
Pen
—vandal.

“My car is still in the shop,” she'd argued.

“We don't need it,” he'd said.

So here she was, waiting on Emmett's arrival. The street was silent. Woody's had closed a half hour earlier. Rosewood was a ghost town, especially near the electronics store, which faced away from the square. It overlooked the Methodist church and cemetery, not exactly late-night hot spots.

No one had vandalized the town since the incident with her car. Even though the vandal had managed to make his point on her hood, Maddie wondered if their pursuit of him had scared him off. Their Wednesday night community service session had been spent picking up trash at the park. Emmett was certain he'd strike again soon, so tonight, they'd try again.

“Sorry I'm late,” a voice said from behind her.

Maddie jumped and spun on her heels, finding Emmett on the sidewalk heading in her direction. “Lordy,” she whispered as her heartbeat slowed. “Don't sneak up on a girl in the dark.”

“Sorry,” Emmett said, leaning in to rub her shoulder and give her a reassuring kiss. He fished into his pocket and took out a key. “Come on,” he said as he gestured toward Green's Electronics.

“Why are we going in there? And why do you have a key?”

“Brian gave it to me,” he said, unlocking the door.

Brian had gone to high school with Maddie, and his father owned the local electronics store. She wasn't sure what that had to do with their stakeout, though.

“Come on,” Emmett said. Once inside, he locked the door behind him.

“Why are we here?”

“You'll see.” Emmett took her hand and led her through the aisles of flat-screen televisions and accessories to the back of the store.

There, he opened a plain white door marked
NO ENTRY
and ushered her through it. To the left was the stockroom, stacked high with computer boxes and Blu-ray players. To the right was a staircase.

“We're going upstairs.”

Maddie followed him up to the second floor similar to what she had at her bakery. Upstairs, there was a living area that looked like it was used as a break room, and a desk piled with receipts and ledgers. On the far wall, a ladder was mounted, leading to a locked panel in the ceiling.

“We're going up one more level to the roof.” Emmett climbed up the ladder and unlocked the door, pushing it open and stepping through. “Come on,” he said, offering his hand.

Maddie hung her binoculars around her neck and nestled her flashlight into the purse slung over her shoulder before she started up the ladder. “I thought you were afraid of heights.”

He took her hand and helped her up. “This isn't too bad. We get a great view of town, and no one, not even the Penis Picasso, will expect us to be up here watching.”

Maddie smiled and shut the door to the ladder. “That's brilliant. Unless, of course, Brian is the vandal.”

Emmett chuckled and shook his head. “He's much too busy playing on his computer to go out into the real world. It was his idea to use the store. Since the roof stretches all the way over the antiques shop and Good Soles shoe store, we can see around the square.”

He was right. This shop was the perfect vantage point to see almost anything going on, and no one would be able to see them. As much as she hated to admit it, her big white Mercedes hadn't been the most subtle vehicle for catching this guy. Now this . . . this might work.

Peeking over the side, Maddie spied a fire escape that ran down the edge of the building. “Why didn't we just climb up this way?”

Emmett got near the edge, looking over without getting too close. “I've had enough rickety metal ladders to last a lifetime. Besides, it's a fire escape. To keep people from climbing up here, it ends seven feet off the ground and you have to unlatch the extension and let it drop. The stairs through the store seemed more civilized.”

She supposed that was true.

“I'll take this side,” Emmett said, pointing to the southeast side of the building. “Do you want to take the other side?”

“Okay. Text me if you see anything.”

Emmett nodded and walked to the far corner to crouch down and watch. Maddie went to her side, although she didn't imagine much would happen there. She had a view of the police station—which would be bold of the vandal to try marking—the fire station that had already been hit, the Methodist church where he'd burn in hell for defiling the temple of the Lord, and the hardware store.

She crouched down and pulled up her binoculars. The streetlights were bright enough to highlight anything in the distance, and a car with headlights would be pretty obvious. She spent a good half hour watching and, once again, seeing nothing. Then she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Coming up Magnolia Way past the Methodist church was someone on a bicycle. The dark shape didn't have a light or any reflectors on it the way someone exercising in the dark should wear.

Grabbing her phone, she texted Emmett.
I've got a guy on a bicycle headed this way. Turning onto Rosewood Avenue.

She slunk low along the edge of the electronics store, following the bicyclist as he passed the building they were in and rounded the corner onto Main Street. Whoever it was, they were heading toward the square and away from the police station.

I see him,
Emmett replied to her text.
He's turning down First Avenue, like he's circling the building.

Avoiding the police station, Maddie thought. She crept to the front of the building, where she met Emmett. The guy peddled his bike over to the sidewalk just outside her bakery, then he stopped.

“Oh no,” Maddie said. “He can't.”

“Just wait,” Emmett said, reaching out to hold her arm. “We're not sure what he's doing yet.”

Maddie knew exactly what he was doing. She watched as he slipped off his bag and set it down, unpacking cans of paint.

Before she knew what she was doing, she was running across the roof, heading straight for the fire escape. She climbed down, jumping onto the Dumpster beneath it, then to the ground. She ran down Magnolia Way as fast as she could. It was stupid. Dangerous. The guy could be armed, but she didn't care. He might've damaged her car, but she'd be damned if he was going to put one drop of pornographic paint on the wall of her bakery.

Stopping on the other side of the street outside the hardware store, she reached into her purse and pulled out her pistol as the man raised his arm to start his painting.

“Don't! You! Dare!” she shouted.

Startled, the man turned around. His eyes grew large as he realized he'd not only been caught but that he was staring down the barrel of a gun. He raised his arms in surrender, a can of garish orange spray paint in his hand.

“Maddie!” Emmett's voice rang out in the distance, but she didn't care. She wasn't going to blink for a second and give him the chance to vandalize any more of her property. She certainly wasn't going to let him get away, either. She had this little creep in her sights.

“Drop the paint,” she said.

The vandal dropped the can in his hand, letting it clatter to the ground and roll across the sidewalk.

She still couldn't see the guy's face. The streetlights were casting shadows across most of his features. “Step back into the light.”

When he didn't move, Maddie took a step forward into the street. “Don't think I won't shoot you. I'm a southern girl, born and raised, and I know how to handle a firearm. I'm not going to miss.” She let a wicked grin spread across her face and lowered her arms just enough for the gun to point at his crotch. “You seem really obsessed with men's genitalia. Maybe that's what I'll aim for.”

With a gasp, the man covered his crotch and scrambled into the light. “P-please don't, Maddie. It was just a prank. A little excitement for a sleepy town.”

She recognized his voice before she saw his face. It was Clark Newton, the owner of the newspaper.

“A little excitement?” she shouted, ignoring the sirens behind her. “Are you going to pay for the excitement you left across the hood of my Mercedes?”

“I wasn't hurting anyone,” he argued. Both his hands were still cupped firmly over his goods.

The police car pulled around the corner then, separating Maddie from her target. She lowered her gun once Simon and Sheriff Todd leapt out of the cruiser and pinned Clark against the still-pristine bakery wall.

“What the hell was that?” she heard Emmett say from behind her.

Maddie shrugged and slipped the small pink pistol back into her purse. “What was what?”

“That!” he said, pointing at her bag.

“This?” Maddie pulled the pink gun back out. “This is Sprinkles, my handgun.”

“Sprinkles?” he said with a look of incredulity. “Your gun is pink and you named it Sprinkles?”

“Yes. I own a bakery, come on. Anyway, it's not a big deal. I have a concealed-carry permit. And it's just a .22. It wouldn't have killed him, not from this distance. I wasn't aiming for his head,” she said with a wicked chuckle.

Emmett shook his head and buried his face in his palms. “You know, I know we never discussed what we'd do if we actually caught the guy, but you leaping from the roof and pulling a gun on him wasn't what I'd anticipated.”

Maddie felt a sheepish blush come over her cheeks. She slipped the gun back into her purse and sat it by her feet. “I know, and I'm sorry. If he'd been about to spray-paint it on the car wash or the hardware store, we could've just called the cops and let them handle it. But I couldn't let him ruin my bakery.”

“We know how to clean it off, Maddie,” he said, taking a few steps toward her and wrapping his arms around her waist. “It wouldn't have been the end of the world.”

“Not for you, but I didn't want my bakery tainted. I would always know it was there once, even after we cleaned it off. I couldn't stand the idea of a pe . . .
thing
on the wall of the business I'd worked so hard to start.”

Emmett looked down at her with a quizzical lift of his eyebrow. “Fancy, say the word ‘penis.' ”

She flinched and wrinkled her nose. “No. I don't like that word.”

“Say the word: ‘penis.'
Pee-nisss
,” he hissed.

Maddie rolled her eyes. “Ugh. No, no, I'm not going to say it.”

“Come on, Madelyn,” he urged. “You can do it. Say it. I'm not going to let this go until you say it.”

Maddie looked around her with a wary eye. She had a hard time saying no with Emmett's hypnotizing green gaze fixed on her. “Okay, fine. I don't know why this is so important.” She took a deep breath. “Penis. Okay? Penis, penis, penis.”

With opportune timing, Maddie noticed that her brother Simon had approached them. He was a couple of feet away with a confused and suspicious look on his face. “Um, are you done with whatever is going on here?”

“Yes!” she insisted while Emmett laughed. Maddie had no intention of ever saying that word aloud again.

“Okay, then. Sheriff Todd is going to take Clark back to the station to book him. I'd like to get your statements.”

Emmett nodded. “Is it okay if we do it back at the bar? It's gotten a little chillier than I was expecting it to be tonight.”

“Sounds fine.”

All three of them turned in time to see Sheriff Todd load Clark Newton into the cruiser. He climbed into the front and the squad car disappeared around the corner headed back to the station.

“It's a shame, really,” Simon said.

“What is?”

“Well, this is a hell of a story, but there's no one at the newspaper to write it up.”

Simon didn't stay long.
Emmett got the feeling he wanted to get back to the station so he didn't miss out on Clark's story. He understood. There had to be a damn good reason why the owner of the newspaper was running around creating penile art all over Rosewood, and everyone was probably waiting to find out what that was.

By the time he cleared out, it was almost four in the morning. “Can I get you something to drink?” Emmett asked once they were alone in the bar. “I think I could use a little something.”

She shook her head. Despite her bravado with the gun, he could tell she was a little rattled. The adrenaline rush of climbing down the side of the building and apprehending the Penis Picasso was wearing off. She looked tired and anxious.

Emmett understood. He'd hesitated long enough to call the cops on his cell phone while his scaredy-cat ass had to go back downstairs through the store, unlock the front door, relock it, and run to catch up with her. By the time he got there, the cops had arrived and he felt like the last to the party.