Making It Right (Most Likely To #3)

Wyatt peered longer at the image. “Is this where the play equipment is in the park?”


“Yep. Some asshole thought a playground was better than a place for live entertainment.” The woman obviously didn’t agree. “Every backyard in this town has a swing set or a tree large enough for a rope and a tire. Not sure why this didn’t get rebuilt.”

Mel pushed through the back door, a glass of water in her hand. “Wow, where did you find all these?”

A chorus of male voices said, “The attic.”

“Do you remember the gazebo?” Luke asked Mel.

“Vaguely.” She looked at the picture.

“Looks like there was quite the crowd,” Gill said when the picture made it to his hands.

“Of course. Not a lot happens in this town without a crowd. These outdoor concerts were the best.”

He handed her back the photo.

She leaned over, pointed to a couple. “That’s Joseph and Debora.”

The names didn’t register.

Mel moved to Gill’s side. “Wow, they were so young.”

“This was before you kids were born . . . or right after, I don’t remember.”

“Who are Joseph and Debora?” Gill asked.

“Jo’s parents,” Luke informed him.

Gill looked again with renewed interest. The couple weren’t large on the image, their faces lacked details. But Jo’s mom had her frame and the same color hair. Even in the faded photograph. The second look said that Joseph was wearing tan pants and a belt with a holster. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his shirt wasn’t more than a button-up variety that didn’t scream cop.

“You knew them both?” Gill asked Miss Gina.

“I’ve known everyone in this town.”

He put that information away for another time.

The screen door creaked as it opened. The familiar sound of work boots and leather sliding alongside flashlights and handcuffs made him smile.

“Look who I found,” Zoe said beside Jo.

The woman was beautiful. Even tied up in her uniform and the stress it put on her, he wanted to stare at her all day.

“I see you found Miss Gina’s.”

“Of course he did,” the older woman said. “Had to keep him busy while you play cop.”

Gill wasn’t sure if the comment bothered Jo or not.

Unlike when they were at the diner, Jo moved close and placed a hand on his arm. “Surviving?” she asked.

“This woman is a slave driver.”

“This woman is sitting right here!” Miss Gina protested.

“She had us cleaning out her attic,” Luke told them, still talking in third person.

For a few minutes they discussed the boxes of crap they’d removed and the disturbing doll that hid under the blanket.

Jo leaned close while the others were talking. “You doing okay?”

He kissed her cheek. “You can make it up to me.”

She squeezed his arm.

Apparently public displays of affection were acceptable in this particular group.

Gill rested his arm over her shoulders and took full advantage of the new information.

“So, Luke,” Jo addressed her friend. “I think the shop needs a guard dog.”

Luke blinked a few times. “Oh, no . . . no it doesn’t.”

“I think it does.”

“I take it you’ve been to my aunt’s house.”

Jo sat beside Gill on a porch swing and explained the dog dilemma that had plagued her in Virginia. While it sounded trivial then, it sounded spiteful now. Still, it boiled down to bad politics for a deputy and unneighborly for the town. More than that, it sounded as if Jo was taking on the position of matchmaker for four dogs that needed homes.

“Don’t look at me,” Miss Gina cut Jo off. “I don’t need beefy dogs scaring off my guests.”

“We already have a dog,” Mel said next.

Zoe held up a hand. “Don’t even ask. We leave town too much.”

“You leave town, Luke doesn’t.”

It was Luke’s turn to protest again. “I’m considering a shop dog, which I doubt my dad will go for . . . don’t press two on me. We’ve been dodging Aunt Cherie’s dogs for years.”

Jo conceded. “The puppies are really cute.”

“Puppies are always cute . . . then they grow up.”

Jo groaned. Then her attention moved to her cell phone, ringing in her pocket.

“This is Jo,” she said when she answered.

She stood and moved outside of Gill’s reach.

The others kept the dog conversation going while Jo engaged in something completely different. “He what?”

Gill kept his ear tuned into Jo’s words.

“Hold off. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t make any decisions yet. I know. Yes.” She hung up the phone and turned back to the group.

“What’s up?” Mel asked.

Jo looked directly at Wyatt. “Looks like our distance runner might be taking himself off the team.”

“What? How?”

“Some practical joke at school.”

“We need him,” Wyatt said.

Gill had learned at breakfast that Wyatt was the head coach for the high school track team, with Jo helping in cross-country and distance runners.

“I gotta go,” she told them.

Gill stood. “I’m going with you.”

“You don’t—”

“Strictly professional,” he told her. “Remember that case I’m working on?”

“Fine,” she said, walking down the back steps instead of walking through the house. “We’ll be back for dinner.”

“Who says I’m making dinner?” Zoe called out.

“Ha!” Jo’s comment was met with laughter.



Jo walked through the halls of River Bend High as if she was a parent intercepting her own kid who’d got caught up to no good.

In a way, she was. The kids she mentored on the track team were like her own. Except she wasn’t old enough to actually have seventeen-year-old kids. In this case, Drew Emery was not only a forced recruit from his sophomore year who turned into a kid that ran because he liked it, he also happened to be her deputy’s son. Which made things tricky.

And she liked the kid. He reminded her a lot of herself at that age. He rode the fence on good and bad, tipping the scales on occasion . . . like today.

Jo left her hat in her car and would have liked to remove her belt, too. But that wasn’t going to happen in a high school parking lot. She greeted the staff of the high school by name as she made her way down the hall. Gill kept pace beside her, his face neutral. Here he didn’t try to touch her, hold her hand, or God forbid, kiss her. She walked right up to Principal Mason’s door and knocked twice. Once summoned, she opened the door to find a younger version of herself sitting on the wrong side of the desk.

Drew took one look at her and sighed.

Richard stood when they entered the office, his eyes drawn to Gill.

Jo made quick work of explaining his presence. “Richard, Agent Clausen works with the FBI. He’s shadowing me today.”

“Shadowing you?”

She waved him off without a real explanation. “I’ll explain later.” Drew squirmed under her humorless stare. “Tell me again why I’m standing here?”