fine. Just shaken up.” Ellie crossed her arms over her midsection and shivered.
“I checked out the shop and the storage area. Whoever was there is gone.” Johnny watched Ellie’s face turn pink.
The officer strolled toward the door. “I’ll check things out.” He unfastened the cell phone from his utility belt. “Let me call it in. Maybe someone’s seen something.” He disappeared into the shop at a slow saunter. The words big fish, small pond floated to Johnny’s mind.
Ellie turned to follow the officer into the shop. “I need to close up.” She went inside and turned the key in the drawer of the register.
“No sign of anyone.” Mickey emerged from the back room and tapped his palm on the counter. “You got a mess on the floor with that paint.” Leaning heavily on the counter, he lifted a foot, then the other to check the soles of his shoes. “I’ll write this up and we’ll keep a lookout for this guy. Anything stolen?”
“Not that I can tell,” Ellie said as she bent over and slid her purse and sweater out from under the counter.
Mickey pointed at her. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see she gets home,” Johnny said.
“I walked. I’ll be fine. I’ll clean up the mess in the morning.” She glanced around uneasily. “I don’t live far.”
Johnny took a step closer, refusing to take no for an answer. “Then it won’t take me long to walk you home.”
* * *
A soft breeze blew in over the lake as Johnny and Ellie headed for Eagle Street. Ellie unthreaded her gray sweater from around her purse strap and slipped one arm into it, hoping the paint on her T-shirt had dried. She reached for the other sleeve and Johnny helped her, his knuckles brushing the back of her neck, flooding her with memories. She had had such a crush on Johnny Rock. Who wouldn’t? He had been the new kid in town. A senior. The all-American high school student. An athlete. She had been the not-so-popular artsy middle school kid.
When they turned onto her street, she slowed. “I can make it the rest of the way from here.”
“I’d feel better if I escorted you all the way home.”
Inside, her fourteen-year-old self was squealing with delight. Johnny Rock is walking me home! Johnny and her brother, four years her senior, had been friends. The best of friends until it was revealed that Johnny was a narc. Her stomach knotted at the harsh reality of that painful time in her family’s lives.
“My mom won’t be pleased to see you.” Anxiety nipped at her fingertips as she sensed the futility of trying to shake him.
“Even after all these years.” Johnny’s even tone was hard to read.
“Even after all these years,” she repeated. Unlike Johnny, Ellie couldn’t hide the emotion from her voice. “You ruined my brother’s life. You accused him of selling drugs.” Her heart pounded in her ears. “You think ten years is long enough to forget that?”
The sound of Johnny’s even steps on the gravel made her frustration grow. She was ready to spill over like a Coca-Cola can after it had been shaken.
“Greg didn’t go to prison,” Johnny finally said, his voice ice and steel.
Ellie grabbed his arm to get his full attention. Johnny stopped walking and looked at her coolly. “My parents spent every last dime on the very best lawyer to prove his innocence.”
“Not guilty.” Johnny had the nerve to correct her. “There’s a difference.”
“What are you saying?” She took a deep breath, focusing on controlling her anger, fearing that if she didn’t, her loud voice would attract unwanted attention from the neighbors. Her family had been the source of gossip once and she didn’t want to go there again. “Still a sore loser after all these years?” Only Roger Petersen, the other teen arrested, had served any jail time. From what Ellie had heard, Roger had maintained his innocence for the duration of his five-year sentence and the five years since his release.
Johnny seemed to catch himself. “The only losers are the kids who get caught up with drugs who then become adults tied up with drugs. There are no winners there. I’m not happy about any of this.”
The reality of what Johnny said diffused some of Ellie’s anger. “I know. Drugs are a horrible thing. There was a senior who overdosed a few weeks ago. It’s tragic.” She ran her hand down her ponytail as her eyes tracked a car traveling down the lonely street. “Maybe they should put another narcotics officer in the high school.”
“I’m a little too old to go undercover in the high school again.” A corner of Johnny’s mouth curved into a grin.
“Of course. I’m not suggesting you go undercover.” The memory of seeing Johnny—the boy who had befriended her brother, the boy she’d had a crush on, the boy she’d thought was a high school senior—standing on the town hall steps dressed smartly in a police uniform announcing the arrests of the key players on the Williamstown High School baseball team still sent icy dread pulsing through her veins.
Her brother’s life had been ruined that day by Johnny’s careless accusations. Ellie had never allowed herself to ponder the fact that Roger had actually gone to jail. Had her brother gotten off because of a high-profile lawyer—one whose price had come at the cost of both her and her brother’s college educations? She quickly shook away the thought. No, Greg had been innocent. She didn’t know one way or another about Roger. But her brother had been.
“So, you’re an FBI agent now?”
Johnny nodded. “Seemed like a good career move.”
“Hmm...” Ellie couldn’t help but wonder if his career advancement from a small-town cop to an FBI agent came at the expense of others.
“Do you have a problem with that?” Ellie detected amusement in Johnny’s tone.
“No,” she said, quickening her pace, unwilling to let him crawl under her skin. She had spent a lot of emotion over the years blaming Johnny for the sudden turn her life had taken after her brother’s arrest.
A few houses away from her own, Ellie stopped and squared off with Johnny. She gestured with her thumb down the road. “You don’t think that...that incident back at my shop was random?”
Johnny gently touched her elbow and coaxed her forward. “He mentioned a package when he attacked you?”
“Yeah. Do you know what that means?” Her heart beat wildly as the soles of their shoes crunched the gravel on the edge of the road. A distant sound of footsteps echoed in her ears. Was someone following them?
Ellie glanced over her shoulder. A long row of arborvitaes straddling two properties rustled in the wind. A chill crawled down her spine.
Johnny hesitated as if he didn’t know what he wanted to say. “The FBI has been tracking a shipment of drugs to your gift shop.”
Ellie pressed a hand to her throat. Cold fear washed over her. “My gift shop? I don’t understand.”
