“You’ll feel like an idiot if you make that call.” My feet were in motion, boots thumping across the dead grass in the front yard. “At least take a look around the place before you make a fool of yourself with the police. Nothing’s missing.”
“Yet.” Nevertheless, she lowered the phone and took a tentative step off the porch, right onto the squealing step of doom. It delivered its line with enthusiasm and Penny Dreadful shrieked her surprise. Again.
A low chuckle escaped my lips as my feet hit the sidewalk.
“I better not see you around here again!” she shouted at my back.
“You’re in for a surprise then,” I muttered, as I lifted my middle finger over my shoulder and sauntered away.
Chapter Two
Kennedy
The would-be burglar lurking in my grandma’s backyard had the audacity to shoot me the bird. Like any intelligent almost-victim, I snapped a picture as he climbed into his train wreck of a truck. If I did decide to call the cops, I would need to do better than, “He looked like sex on a stick, but in villainous kind of way.”
Who wore black jeans and a black leather jacket in the Keys, anyway? In July? Someone with criminal intent. Or a low IQ. Either way, his emo rock star attire told me everything I needed to know. What a shame to waste such a gorgeous face on a man like that.
After Captain Asshole scurried away, I perused the grounds as if I, Dr. Kennedy Monroe, had an inkling of what to look for after stumbling on a strange man in my Nan’s backyard. I hemmed and I hawed, pulling at the scruffy ferns out front as if the answers might be hiding under a half-dead plant. After finding nothing out of the ordinary despite my perfect impersonation of a detective, I made my way back to the porch, shrieking for the third time that day as the rotted step squealed under my weight.
Maybe the stair had a point. Maybe I’d been eating too much fast food.
I laughed. There was no maybe about it. My hectic schedule left little time for exotic things. You know, like trips to the grocery. And cooking.
“Maxine’s not home.”
“Shit!” My heart stopped and I spun to find Delores McIntire standing directly behind me, proudly sporting her favorite outfit. She swore the light blue brought out the highlights in her hair while I couldn’t hear over the velour’s screams for mercy. How in the world had she made it up the stairs without sounding the alarm? Maybe the step was right to question my eating habits. My hand went to my belly as I sucked in air.
“Sorry, honey. Seems I’m stealthy today.” Delores pursed her lips and wiggled from head to toe. She reminded me of a Labrador, if Labs came in powder blue and had a history of being overly friendly with much younger men. No one was safe from her wandering fingers. Not delivery men. Baggers at the checkout lanes. Or random strangers who caught her eye. Anyone else would have a sexual harassment rap sheet longer than her arm, but something about her personality kept her safe. Even if the men around her weren’t.
“Maxine’s out to lunch with you-know-who.” Delores lifted her eyebrows and gave them a wiggle, too.
I nodded like I was in on the secret. I didn’t know who, but I didn’t have time to admit it. Asking for info would lead to a three-hour dissertation on the comings and goings of everyone in a four-block radius. “I thought I’d surprise her on my lunchbreak, but I’ll check in again tomorrow.”
I considered asking Delores if she’d seen Captain Asshole on his backyard expedition, because if anyone had the dirt on someone who looked like him, she’d be the one. A check of my phone confirmed I definitely didn’t have time for that conversation. I said my goodbyes and headed for my car, squealing one last time as I stepped off that blasted stair.
Five hours and fifty patients later, I dropped into my car and pressed my head to the steering wheel. The name of the game at Key West Pediatrics seemed to be Get ‘Em In, Get ‘Em Out, preferably with as many prescriptions as I could write. Not exactly what I had in mind when I signed my life away to NYU’s med program, but hey. At least I was helping people.
With exhaustion curling the hair at my temples, I queued up my favorite playlist of Collin