Sneak And Rescue. Shirl Henke
other, they lay side by side on the pillows. Sam reached up and smoothed one devilish black curl away from his forehead. She always liked this time afterward. The quietness. Just pure relaxed enjoyment, being together with no words necessary. Raised in a big boisterous family, Sam was good at arguing, always had a quick comeback. She’d had to, as the only girl and the eldest of seven Ballanger children. But she’d never learned flowery talk. Didn’t want to. And with Matt she didn’t need to. If only he would come to his senses about Aunt Claudia’s money, everything would be perfect….
Pushing that disturbing thought away, she said, “I should get back to Pat about Elvis. He may have something for me by now.” She didn’t move.
“Yeah, I guess you should.” He didn’t move, either, even though he had two deadlines tomorrow. Just because he’d been nominated for a Pulitzer for his exposé of Russian mafia activities in Miami didn’t mean he could rest on his laurels. Besides, the Pulitzer Committee didn’t meet to decide the winners for four months yet.
They lay quietly until the annoying beep of the bedside phone broke the spell. Matt reached one long arm behind him and groped for the accursed thing, then pressed Talk and grunted, “Granger here.”
Sam recognized Patowski’s cigarette-roughened voice on the line but waited until Matt handed the phone to her. “Speak of the devil and up he pops,” he whispered grumpily, climbing out of bed and grabbing his jeans. She admired the view of his bare buns while he slid worn denim up his long legs and stalked off toward his office.
“Whatcha got for me, Patty?”
“Don’t call me Patty,” Patowski groused, starting their usual ritual of ethnic insults. “I’m a Polack, you’re the Mick,” he added, beating her to the punch.
Sam rolled off the bed and walked into her office, seizing a notepad and pencil as he talked.
“Your pally Elvis P. Scruggs—by the way the P doesn’t stand for Presley—it’s Peter—he had an interesting childhood. A local bad boy from grade school on in some podunk township in the panhandle. Took a joyride in the sheriff’s patrol unit, snuckered to the gills on moonshine.”
“Guess that might tend to piss off the local constabulary,” Sam said dryly.
“Especially since the sheriff was his father.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Old man was a real hard-ass. Wanted to charge him with GTA but since he was still a minor, it didn’t stick. Sealed court records. I had to do some pretty fancy footwork to come up with the bits and pieces I got.”
“That your subtle way of saying I owe you, Pat?”
“You damn betcha you do.”
Sam knew he was right in spite of the recent help she and Matt had given him breaking the Russian mafia murders. As an officer on the Miami-Dade PD, she had been blamed when a hot dog rookie on the force had been killed. Patowski had gone to bat for her, knowing it had been the kid’s fault, not hers. Sam had still been cashiered, but by then she had been ready to move on anyway. Too many of her fellow officers had blamed her for the botched takedown. Besides, her retrieval business had proved to be far more lucrative.
“What’s our boy Elvis been up to lately?” she asked Pat.
“He did some time in a pretty rough juvvie facility up there, then dropped off the radar screen. No record of him until he turned up here a few months ago.”
“Usually that kind of bad actor rides the down bound train straight to hell, but Scruggs has no other records as an adult you could locate?” she asked.
“Maybe he went out of state. Out of the country. Or, maybe wrestling gators in that detention facility scared him onto the straight and narrow. Who the hell knows? Oh, one thing—you said he was twenty-one?”
“That’s what I got from my client, who had him investigated. Not very well, it seems.”
“He could pass for it, but the sucker’s twenty-eight if the records from Tallahassee are accurate. Birth dates aren’t something they usually screw up.”
Sam hummed, doodling on the notepad, talking to herself. “Wonder what went on for those seven years?”
“Track him down and find out, I guess. That’s what they pay you the big bucks for, isn’t it?” Patowski asked sourly.
“Yeah, Patty, it sure is,” she replied cheerfully. “Thanks. I owe you.” Before he could curse at her again, she hung up. “Looks like I’m headed for St. Louis.”
Standing in the doorway, Matt listened to her musing. “I’m going with you,” he said.
“Nix on that. I have work for you here.”
“I have an editor who sort of expects me to turn in stories by deadline. The Herald pays me for that.”
“Then you obviously don’t have time to drive to St. Louis with me.”
She had that gotcha look in her eyes. “Look, Sam, are you sure this kid’s just a Space Quest fan run amok? I mean, he’s not a psycho or anything, is he?” His wife was sometimes selective with what facts she provided him.
“Just a poor geek. Look at his picture, for crying in the night.” She pulled the snapshot from the clutter on the desk and offered it to him.
“That’s a Confederation Ensign’s insignia,” he murmured.
“You know about this Space Quest junk?” she asked, amazed.
“It isn’t junk. It was a great series—still in syndication. And the films have made millions. Five spin-off shows since it premiered.”
Sam burst out with a guffaw before she could stop herself. “You were a Spacie!” she exclaimed.
His look became at once thunderous and defensive. “The term is Spacer and yes, I was a big fan. Anything wrong with that?”
Sam was hard put to find a glib answer. “I never got the chance to find out. All we ever had on television at our house was baseball and boxing. Mostly, I worked part-time jobs growing up. Not much time for television.” Now she was the one sounding defensive, so she shifted the subject. “But dressing up in those crazy regalias and going halfway across the country to conventions. Kinda weird, if you ask me.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with attending a Spacer Con. I always thought it would be fun.”
“Then why didn’t you go?” she asked, puzzled.
Matt cleared his throat, then looked her in the eye and confessed, “Aunt Claudia wouldn’t let me. She didn’t want me doing anything that’d make me more of a geek than I already was.”
“You? A geek?” That was the very last thing she could imagine her six-six sexy husband ever being. “Get outta here!”
Matt could see the humor in the situation as he looked at her amazed expression. “My height was a bigger number than my weight in junior high. I wore braces and needed correctional glasses—though at least they weren’t as ugly as these.” He looked down at the askew horn-rims on Farley Winchester. “I can identify with the kid. Sometimes other galaxies can hold a real appeal.”
“Maybe just being born with a silver spoon doesn’t make up for other stuff,” Sam said thoughtfully. “Your parents died when you were nine, right?” He nodded. “And Aunt Claudia popped in and out of your life like Auntie Mame?”
“Why do you think I went to private boarding schools all those years?”
She sighed. “I thought all Beacon Hill kids just did. Dumb, huh?” She walked over to him and laid her head against the steady beat of his heart. “I’m sorry, Matt.” Before he could reply, her head shot up and she looked him straight in the eye. “But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on Aunt Claudia’s offer. Ten K a month just to stay