Undercover in Copper Lake

While Maggie used drugs and drank and neglected her babies.

“Is that it?”

Daisy’s question was accompanied by a tug on her hand, pulling Sophy from her thoughts. She glanced up and saw her church across the street, the redbrick-and-white-wood structure glowing in the morning sun, looking solid and strong and peaceful. She hoped the girls found a measure of peace inside.

Failing that, she hoped they didn’t destroy it.

“Come on, kids, we’re just in time. Let’s get you to your Sunday school class.”

* * *

Sean let himself into Kolinski’s Auto Repair and Restoration, closed the door and walked to the middle of an empty bay before taking a deep breath. Grease, metal, paint, solvents, leather, sweat—it all smelled like home to him. As a kid, he’d spent more hours at Charlie’s Custom Rods than in school, learning the basics of car repair and restoration from Charlie himself. It had been the first practical use he’d found for fractions and the first place he’d felt safe, and he’d known then that working on old cars was what he wanted to do.

Craig had given him the chance to do that and make decent money. This was the best garage in three states for turning old rusted heaps of junk back into the classic beauties they were meant to be, and Sean had pretty much free rein.

Over the legal part, at least. He didn’t mess with the stolen auto parts, and he stayed hell and gone from the drugs. He was a Holigan. He didn’t need cops or pharmaceuticals to screw up his life.

The coated concrete floor softened the sound of Craig’s footsteps, along with the running shoes he wore. He never ran, he joked, but he never knew when the sport might be required, so he was always prepared. “Some people start their days with coffee. You start yours with engine grease. You’re just not happy without it, are you?”

You used to be the same way. When the old man had died and left the broke-down place as his only inheritance, Craig had worked hard to make a go of it. Like Sean, he’d been tinkering with cars most of his life. The work was in his blood.

Unfortunately, it flowed with a good supply of greed. Keeping the garage in the black, building a reputation as the best, making more money than his dad had ever dreamed of—none of that had been enough for him. Once he had a taste of success, like an addict, he’d wanted more.

He had more now. An expensive condo, a collection of restored cars whose value ran into seven figures, a weekend place near the beach, a different gorgeous woman every week, regular vacations to Atlantic Beach, Las Vegas, New York and Miami...and his own secret squad of DEA agents tracking his every move. Would he learn something when he lost it all, or would he somehow manage to skate on the charges and go on with life as usual, if more discreetly?

“Goober said you wanted to talk.” Sean gestured toward the small door in the back that led upstairs to Craig’s big fancy office above. He didn’t need to see the bodyguard to know he was there in the shadows; one or two beefy brawler types went everywhere with Craig. He didn’t bother to see which one it was, either. He called them all Goober to keep from having to learn their names, and Craig kept them from kicking his face in for it.

“I need you to do something for me, man.” Craig tore off a length of heavy-duty paper toweling, scrubbed the surface of the chair behind him, then tossed the paper onto its mate before sitting.

Feeling like a puppet with everyone else pulling the strings, Sean obeyed the unspoken order and sat on the second chair. Damned if he’d clean it like a fussy old maid first. Wadding the paper, he tossed it into the nearest trash can, then laced his fingers loosely together, arms resting on his knees, waiting.

“I know we agreed I’d leave you out of the stolen-parts business. That’s why I never told you about my other, uh, income source. I wouldn’t be telling you now except I’ve got a big problem and it involves your sister.”

Sean had wondered if he’d be able to fake surprise when Craig brought up Maggie, but he didn’t have to fake anything. His eyes narrowed, and he felt the blood leaving his face, turning his skin pale. His lips barely moving, he said, “If you’ve gotten her involved in anything—”

“I wouldn’t do that, man. You’re my family, and she’s your family. I would never have let anything happen. I just didn’t know about it in time.”

Craig dragged his fingers through his hair. He paid a hundred bucks every few weeks for a haircut that always looked as if he’d just dragged his fingers through it. His shirt cost two hundred, his shoes three, his watch five grand. His jeans, on the other hand, looked a lot like Sean’s—old, faded, ragged along the hems. Maybe thirty bucks a lot of years ago.

“Moving auto parts from the South to New York isn’t the only thing that turns big profits. I expanded into the drug market a few years back.” Craig raised his hand to head off any reaction Sean might have. “Don’t preach to me, okay? I knew you wouldn’t go for that. That’s why I kept it secret, totally separate from the garage. Anyway, my guy in Copper Lake obviously isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He hooked up with your sister—did you know she has a meth problem?” He waited long enough for Sean to shake his head grimly. “They started living together—him, her, her kids. Did you know she has kids?”

Sean’s gut knotted, and his hands grew sweaty. That girl’s gonna be pregnant before she’s sixteen, their dad always predicted. On her sixteenth birthday, though Sean was locked up, he said his annual prayer. Don’t let her be pregnant. On her seventeenth, the prayer had been, Don’t let her get arrested. Every year since then, it had been, Let her have a better life than all those bastards in Copper Lake thought she deserved.

A meth head with kids and a drug-dealing boyfriend.

Apparently, God hadn’t been listening.

“Yeah, two girls.” With two fingers, Craig pulled a photograph from his pocket and handed it across. “Pretty little things, aren’t they? Someday I’m gonna have kids. A whole houseful of ’em. I’ll join the PTA and we’ll go to church on Sunday mornings and have dinner together every evening. You know, they say kids who sit down to dinner with their parents regularly get in less trouble.”

Sean took the picture, and his hands began to shake. Two familiar little faces—dark eyes; lank hair awkwardly cut, straight, black. The younger one grinned from ear to ear, while the older scowled, arms folded over her chest, one hip cocked and one bony knee turned out.

They were Maggie twenty-some years ago, happy when she was younger, convinced everyone in the world loved her, sullen and put out when she was older and discovered what a lie that had been. She shone in the little girl’s face and lurked in the shadows of the older one’s.

Craig knew when to talk and when to be quiet, and he didn’t know that Alexandra Baker had already coerced Sean into agreeing to his yet-unasked request. He waited, giving Sean plenty of time to notice every detail in the shot. The house in the background, shabby and well-worn when he’d lived there himself. The yard, mostly bare of grass thanks to the tall pines that covered the ground with their needles. Two rusted lawn chairs, one missing a screw so it tilted drunkenly to one side, the other with a hole punched through it. The carcass of a beat-up pickup, wheels missing, balanced on cinder blocks. Birds had made nests on its dash, and the bed was half-filled with trash.

Trash. That was what the Holigans had been for the past hundred and fifty years. Poor white trash. Drunks, fools and thieves; irresponsible, lazy and worthless, uncaring about the children they brought into the world.

Heat ignited inside Sean, burning outward until his face gleamed with it, until it felt as if it would singe off his ears. It was fueled by anger and resentment and bitterness, but mostly shame. He was so damned ashamed of where he’d come from, who he was, what he was. Yeah, he’d gotten out; he’d escaped the town and his family and made something better for himself, but he’d left Maggie behind to ruin her life just as surely as he would have ruined his.

He’d left her to ruin her babies’ lives.

“So.” Craig leaned forward, hands together. “The thing is, my guy got arrested a couple weeks ago, along with Maggie. I know he’ll keep his mouth shut, but...Maggie isn’t exactly known around town for her discretion. If the D.A. offers her some sort of deal, she might tell him everything she knows.”

After committing the two faces to his memory, Sean looked up and offered the picture back to his boss, but Craig gestured. You keep it. Sean held it carefully in one hand. “So you want me to...”

“Impress on her the importance of staying quiet. She’s a doper, Sean, a meth head, and she’s locked up. She’d sell her soul for a little comfort. She’d sell her kids’ souls. She needs to understand how bad that would be for everyone.” Craig waited a moment before adding, “Especially those pretty little girls.”

His skin that had been burning a moment ago cooled with the chill that exploded through him. Sean had never been any more violent than was necessary. In Copper Lake, it just wasn’t possible for a Holigan to reach eighteen without his share of fistfights, but he’d never let it go beyond self-defense. Even at twelve, fourteen, sixteen, he’d had a plan to get out, and self-control was a part of it.

But right this moment, he wanted to hurt Craig. Wanted to hurt him bad, to smash his face in, to beat the hell out of him for even implying that he or his people might hurt Maggie’s kids.

It took a moment to make his voice work, and it came out rough as gravel with sharp, pissed-off edges. “You want me to talk to Maggie. Convince her that going to jail is the best thing for her now. Make her keep her mouth shut or...”

Craig’s only response was to pointedly look at the picture.

A muffled sound came from the shadows at the back, Goober shuffling his oversize feet, probably moving to stay limber in case he needed to spring into action. Sean and Craig both glanced that way, and Sean muttered, “Freakin’ rat.”

It was hard to tell from Craig’s grin whether he suspected which of them Sean was referring to.

“I know you left Copper Lake for a reason, man, and like I said, normally I wouldn’t ask you to get involved, but when it’s family...we gotta make exceptions for family, right? Little sisters, little nieces... Man, I’m sure you wouldn’t want me sending anyone else, would you?”

Muscles so taut a few were on the verge of spasm, Sean stood. “Yeah, right.” He walked a few paces before turning back. “If she keeps her mouth shut, if she doesn’t roll on you...”

“If she stays quiet and still doesn’t go to jail, I’ll pay for the best rehab around. We’ll get her clean. If she does do time, when she gets out, she and the kids will have a new start. I’ll set ’em up wherever she wants to go. Either way, I’ll take care of her.”

“Okay.” Without further conversation, Sean crossed the bay to the door, let himself out and strode to his car.

Craig’s last words should have been reassuring. I’ll take care of her. I’ll see that she’s safe and healthy and clean and can be a decent mother to her girls. I’ll give her a new life in a new place where no one knows her name or her history. I’ll get her counseling and medical care and help her to live the life she deserves to live.

That was what Sean would have meant by I’ll take care of her.

But Sean wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.

And Craig was.

Chapter 2

As Sophy combed conditioner through Daisy’s silky black hair, the little girl peered up at her. “Are me and Dahlia stupid?”

Startled by the question, Sophy lost her balance and slid from her knees to the floor beside the bathtub. “Of course you’re not stupid. Why would you think that?”

“We played a game at church, an’ the teacher asked a lot of questions. Me and Dahlia didn’t know the answer to any of ’em, and this kid named Paulie said we were stupid. I think any boy named Paulie is stupid.”

Sophy sighed internally. Paulie Pugliese’s father was a deacon, his mother the choir director. They loved their authority in the church and their spoiled brat of a little boy better.

From the far end of the tub, hidden beneath a dress and cap made of fragrant pink bubbles, Dahlia deigned to join the conversation. “Miss Jo said you can’t know a subject you ain’t been taught. She asked Paulie to count to ten in French, and he couldn’t do it. She said he wasn’t stupid and we weren’t stupid. We just needed to learn.”

“Un, deux, trois.” Sophy smiled awkwardly when both girls scowled at her. “Counting in French. Miss Jo’s right. If you’ve never been to church or read the Bible, how could you know what’s in it?”

“It don’t matter.” Dahlia stretched one leg up and fashioned a bubble high heel. “Mama’ll be home soon, and we won’t have to go again.”

“I kinda liked it.” Daisy anticipated her sister’s censure and didn’t wait to respond, “Sorry! But they sang songs, and they had pictures to color, and there were doughnuts. I like doughnuts.”

Sophy pushed to her feet and dried her hands. “You guys get rinsed and dried off and put your jammies on, and maybe we can have our bedtime snack outside.”

Dahlia almost drowned out Daisy’s cheer. “Sitting on dirty wooden stairs? Oh, boy.”

“It may have escaped your notice each time we’ve gone into the shop, but there’s a lovely porch downstairs with flowers and chairs and everything. Go on, now, and help your sister.”

The last wasn’t necessary, she acknowledged as she left them in the bathroom. Dahlia was always quick to give Daisy whatever she needed. Maybe part of it was just being the big sister. Probably a larger part was that their mother had rarely been in shape to help the kids herself.

In the kitchen, she pulled out the industrial-size blender that used to make margaritas when she had friends over but now mostly turned out fruit smoothies. Listening to the up-and-down of the girls’ voices, the words indistinguishable, she spooned in ice cream, milk, a little vanilla and three crumbled chocolate-chip cookies her mother had sent home from dinner with them.

By the time the girls shuffled in, she’d divided the milk shakes between three tall cups, added straws and long spoons, and placed them with a pile of napkins on a tray painted with sunflowers.

Used to her inspections, Dahlia had brought a towel and the wide-tooth comb. Neither of them minded water dripping down their backs from wet hair, Daisy had earnestly explained to her, and Sophy had just as earnestly explained that she did. She gave both heads a quick rub, combed their hair, made sure they wore flip-flops, then picked up the tray of shakes.

After securing the front door behind them, Sophy led the way down the stairs and around to the front porch. With the flip of a switch, two ceiling fans came on, one above each side of the porch. The glass-windowed doors in the center looked in on the dimly lit quilt shop, all bright colors and endless possibilities, and a path led across the tiny yard to the picket fence and the sidewalk.

The evening was relatively quiet. Most church services were over. All the bars were closed. An occasional car passed on Oglethorpe Avenue, and a few couples strolled around the square, their destination A Cuppa Joe or one of the restaurants still serving customers. It was her favorite time of day, a time to reflect, to unwind, to set her worries to rest and consider the next day.

Or to answer questions.

“What is this?” Daisy asked. Dressed in ladybug pajamas, she ignored the rocker and crouched back on her heels, holding the drink in both hands.

“A milk shake.”

She jiggled it. “It doesn’t shake.”

“No, but it can make you shake. It’s cold.”

“What’s in it?”

“Milk, ice cream and a surprise. You have to taste it to find out.”

Hesitantly Daisy put her mouth to the straw and sucked until her jaw puckered. “I can’t get any.”

“It’s got to melt a little first. Use the spoon.” Sophy took a large bite of hers, savoring the richness of the ice cream and her mom’s incredible chocolate-chip cookies.

“Where’d you learn to make it?”

“My sister taught me.”

“Miss Reba?”

“That’s the one.” Sophy used one foot to keep her rocker moving. To Reba’s kids, Daisy and Dahlia had just been two more kids to play with after Sunday dinner. Their mother hadn’t been so accepting.

You brought Hooligan kids into your house? You’ll wake up one morning trussed like a hog with all your money and your car gone.

They’re five and six years old. Where do you think they’re going to go?

Reba had scowled. I see TV. I read the news. The little one works the pedals while the big one steers. Besides, my friend Linda is a foster parent, and she said they couldn’t pay her enough to take those kids again. Her friend Tara fosters, too, and she said they set her house on fire. They climb out windows, they jump off roofs, they run away, they steal. Neither one of them’s ever spent a day in school.

Sophy had given her a dry look. Then they’ll keep me alert and aware and on my toes.

Reba had sighed. Oh, Sophy.

Sophy knew what that meant: poor, childless, clueless Sophy. Overprotected, overoptimistic, all sunshine and rainbows. Reba had forgotten the Christmas when Sophy had been threatened by two armed killers in the back room of her shop. She wasn’t Mary Sunshine. She knew bad things happened in the world, and if she could keep a few from happening to Dahlia and Daisy, she would be happy.

“Miss Reba doesn’t like us.” Dahlia sat cross-legged in her chair, all skinny limbs, her usual scowl fading only when she took a bite of ice cream. “She called us Hooligans.”

Heat flooded through Sophy. She’d thought the kids were occupied in the family room with Reba’s kids and her father when her sister had started that conversation. She should have known better. Know-it-all mother-of-four parenting-expert Reba certainly should have.

“She shouldn’t have said that,” Sophy agreed. “It was rude, and it’s not true.”

Dahlia shrugged. “’Course it’s true. Mama says most people don’t like us, and that’s okay because we don’t like ’em back.”

Sophy didn’t know what to say to that, because sadly that was the case. Way back in middle school, when some kids had been giving Maggie a hard time, she’d overheard one teacher ruefully tell another, Everyone has to have someone to look down on. Maggie, it seemed, had gone out of her way to give people reasons to look down on her. Where someone else might have taken it as a challenge to prove them wrong, she’d been in their faces, flaunting every bad decision and behavior.

Granted, she’d never been taught anything different. Her brothers, her father, her uncles...Holigans had made an art of reveling in their reputations.

“I like you,” Sophy said. “And Mom and Dad, and Mr. Ty and Miss Nev and Miss Anamaria.” Lord, it was a short list. It made her heart ache.

Dahlia responded with a disbelieving snort before taking a huge bite of ice cream. On the floor, without lifting her gaze from an ant crawling across the boards, Daisy asked, “What’s a hooligan?”

“Remember, Mama told us. It’s someone who runs wild and breaks all the rules and misbehaves and acts like a heathen.”

“I like running wild and making people shake their heads and say, ‘You ain’t nothin’ but trouble, Daisy Holigan.’” Daisy grinned. “I like being a hooligan.”

Wondering which neighbor or irresponsible family member had told her that, Sophy forced a smile. “You like acting that way. But the secret is, you and Dahlia are clever and smart and capable little girls who can be anything you want to be.”

Another snort from Dahlia, and she’d lost Daisy’s attention completely. The girl had risen to her feet and was avidly staring at the sidewalk—rather, at the dog being walked there.

“Good evening,” the man at the other end of the leash called.

Sophy repeated his greeting as Daisy moved to the second step. “What’s your dog’s name?”

“Daisy! We don’t talk to strangers!” Dahlia whispered fiercely.

“But he’s got a dog.”

Sophy made a mental note to talk to the girls about strangers and ruses involving pets.

“Her name is Bitsy,” the man said. “You want to meet her? If it’s okay with your mom.”

The girls’ voices drowned each other out: “She’s not our mom,” from Dahlia and “Please, can I?” from Daisy.

“Sure.” Sophy followed Daisy into the yard as Bitsy pulled her owner through the gate. Wiggling from nose to tail, the dog sniffed the girl, making her giggle. The sound almost stopped Sophy’s heart. Was that the first time she’d heard Daisy laugh?

The man offered his hand. “Hi. I’m Zeke.”

“Sophy.” She shook his hand, his fingers long and strong, his palm uncallused. She still thought of Copper Lake as a small town, but he was one of the twenty thousand or so residents who weren’t a regular part of her life. He was fair skinned with auburn hair, blue eyes and a grin that had surely charmed more than his share of women. Though only a few inches taller than her, he was powerfully built—broad shoulders, hard muscles, not lean but solid. First impression: he was the sort of guy who could make a woman feel safe.

Though she knew better than to rely on first impressions.

“You picked a perfect evening for sitting on the porch with milk shakes.”

She glanced at the glass in her left hand. “The day’s not over until we’ve had ice cream.”

“A woman after our own hearts. Bitsy loves the ice-cream shop, but we’ve got to be careful. Her vet caught us there once and wasn’t happy.”

A glance at the short distance between the dog’s rounded belly and the ground made that easy to believe. “Cute name,” Sophy said while thinking the opposite. All of the dogs she knew had solid names—that they lived up to—Frank, Misha, Scooter, Elizabeth, Bear. Bitsy sounded so fussy for a grown man’s dog.

Zeke winced. “My daughter named her. Bitsy has a digging fixation, and my ex is a big-time gardener, so Bitsy came to live with me.”

So he was handsome, friendly, liked dogs and was single. Sophy was beginning to wonder how their paths hadn’t crossed before tonight. She thought she’d dated every friendly single guy in town.

Every one of whom had wound up married or engaged. To someone else.

Oh, Sophy. Reba’s sigh echoed in her head. It wasn’t a good time to meet anyone new, particularly anyone handsome with a quick grin. She’d taken on a huge responsibility when she’d volunteered to keep Daisy and Dahlia, and that meant putting her social life on hold.

“Your daughter and Bitsy are lucky you were able to take her.”

“There’s not much I wouldn’t do to make my kid happy...besides get back together with her mom. And I’ve kind of grown attached to the mutt, too.”

A car turned onto Oglethorpe at the nearest cross street, and they both glanced in that direction. The engine made a low growl, one that spoke of power tightly reined in. Sophy wasn’t much of a car person, but she could tell the vehicle was older than she was, was meticulously maintained and pretty much defined the phrase muscle car.

And it was painted a gorgeous deep metallic red. Her favorite color.

The air shimmered and the ground vibrated as the car slowly passed. Okay, maybe that was a little fanciful, but it felt that way. When it was gone and she turned back to Zeke, he was crouching on the ground beside Bitsy, head ducked, coaxing her to offer Daisy her paw for a handshake.

When the dog finally obeyed, he stood. “We’d better head home. She always wants a treat when she shakes, and I didn’t bring any. It’s been nice meeting you, Miss Daisy, Miss Dahlia...Miss Sophy.”

“Nice meeting you, too. Maybe we’ll see you again.”

Zeke grinned as he and the dog headed toward the gate. “You can bet on it.”

* * *

Monday was the kind of late-summer day that helped keep Sean in the South. The temperature was in the low eighties, the humidity down for a change, and occasionally when the wind blew across the Gullah River, he could smell the coming of fall, cooler weather, changing leaves, shorter days.