You deserve to be crazy about someone.
Sitting in my cruiser, in a rainstorm, on the side of the road while I struggled to concentrate on paperwork, this was the part of my conversation with Charlotte that plagued me the most.
I shook my head for maybe the tenth time in the week since she’d called things off, frowning at my laptop screen while I tried to focus. What Charlotte didn’t seem to realize was that being crazy about someone wasn’t a good thing. It ultimately ended in a world of hurt and heartache.
Love—the kind of love my parents shared, the kind of love I wanted—required work. Charlotte wanted to skip all the work, all the hard stuff, all the foundational glue that held a couple together through thick and thin, and just hope everything worked out because of chemistry.
No.
Anything worth having, any relationship worth keeping, it took time, patience, and—most of all—hard work. Being crazy for someone wasn’t anything but smoke. Crazy didn’t hold your hand when you were sick. Crazy didn’t comfort you at the end of a long day. Crazy didn’t pay the bills and pitch in and ease your burden.
So, yes. She’d been right to break things off with me. We wanted two different things. She wanted crazy and easy, I wanted nothing to do with crazy or easy.
My phone rang, and I glanced at the screen. I didn’t make a habit of accepting calls during my shift, but I always checked the number. Sometimes my father or Florence—that is, dispatch—called instead of using the radio.
Sure enough, it was her.
“What’s up, Flo?”
“Jackson, we got a problem,” she said, sounding grim.
That’s how she always started things when she got me on the phone. On the radio, where everyone could hear, she was usually facts. But on the phone, she was opinions.
“How can I help?” Please don’t let this be another of Daisy’s pie emergencies.
“I know it’s almost the end of your shift, but we’ve had two calls from several bank chains in and around Merryville and as far north as Townsend about a woman stopping by their ATMs and withdrawing the maximum amount of money. The sheriff had me call Mr. Leffersbee in town, and he confirmed from looking at their security footage that a woman matching the same description was also at his place, doing the same thing.”
“Do we have a name on the account?”
“Let me finish. It’s not an account with any of them, some national chain, not local.”
“What about—”
“Jackson, just listen. I’m calling you specifically for a reason, but you need the background first. We got a match on the license plate—she’s not hiding what she’s doing—and the car is your sister’s.”
“Excuse me?”
“The woman is using Jessica’s car. The blue Mustang, the one Duane Winston—”
“Yes, I know the car.”
My sister’s husband had given her the car when they were first dating, but she’d left it behind in Green Valley—years and years ago—when they left to travel the world. If you knew my sister, it would make sense. Anyway, they’d left the car at the Winston Brothers Auto Shop as a sort of advertisement, hoping to lure folks in to check out the other classic cars the shop refurbished and sold.
“Did you call Cletus? Was it stolen from the auto shop?”
“No. Cletus said the car is being loaned out, but he wouldn’t tell us who it’s being loaned out to. He suggested I call you, said you’d know what to do.”
I rubbed my forehead, instantly knowing who was taking out the money from the ATMs and driving my sister’s old car.
I hadn’t seen Raquel since last week, but that just meant I’d been looking for her everywhere I went. A few times I’d caught sight of a random woman with long brown hair and tan skin, and my heart would seize for a moment. But it was never her. I’d wondered if she’d already left.
“Cletus told you to call me?”
“Yep. So now you understand. We got several banks here, waiting for us to make an arrest. Not sure how to tell them that it’s okay, just Raquel Ezra the mega move star making maximum withdrawals from ten banks.”
I sighed. “Why not just call Sienna Diaz?”
“Not sure how that will help. Plus, her number is unlisted. You got it?”
“I mean, have Cletus call her. Then Sienna can call Raquel.”
“No, won’t work. Cletus says Ms. Ezra has her phone off most of the time. It’s been mostly off since she arrived in town Saturday. There’s no calling her.”
“Then how’s she navigating the back roads? She’s got to be using her phone to navigate.”
“I have no answer for you, just what Cletus told me. But listen, from the pattern of banks hit, it looks like Ms. Ezra is moving toward the city.” The “city” meant Knoxville, and they had their own city police force, which meant the banks in Knoxville were not in county jurisdiction.
“Nothing she’s doing is technically illegal, Flo.”
“Yes, I know that, Deputy James. But if the pattern made it onto our radar . . .”
She had a point. Once Raquel started withdrawing money at banks in Knoxville, things might get messy for her with the city PD. At the very least, they’d stop her and question her because who goes to ten ATMs instead of walking inside to withdraw a lump sum?
An easily recognizable movie star with odd logic, that’s who.
Even on a sunny day traveling with five friends, being stopped and questioned by law enforcement could be scary for most people, which I’d always considered a bit ironic—since our job was to protect and serve—but, hey, I definitely understood.
I’d seen enough panicked looks and frightened expressions to last me a lifetime. My father impressed this fact on all his people, telling us to approach every single citizen, no matter the reason, with compassion first and foremost.
“Anyway.” I heard her heave a sigh. “I asked the sheriff if we should do something or just—you know.”
“You know” meant a worst-case scenario of allowing Raquel to be arrested by Knoxville PD, then maybe someone would alert the press once they realized who they’d arrested, then maybe let Raquel’s lawyers clear up the confusion while her publicity people dealt with the fallout. Something like that.
“The way people read only the headlines these days, I can see the papers now.” Florence’s dry comment was followed by a snort. “‘Raquel Ezra caught on video, arrested for fraud. Still sexy as hell, even in jail!’” Florence cackled at her rhyme of jail and hell. I didn’t point out that those two words only rhymed when spoken with our accent.
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh, despite the situation. I’d known Florence my whole life. She and her longtime girlfriend both had a little crush on Raquel Ezra, even though they were old enough to be her mother. I’d discovered this fact one of the times I’d dragged my former fake fiancée—and good friend—to a Raquel Ezra movie on opening night.
Which was why I’d been so surprised when Florence had been cold to Raquel at the station last week. Upon consideration, I’d chalked it up to how protective everyone was of Charlotte Mitchell. Ever since Charlotte and I had started dating, every other woman in Green Valley had given me a wide berth. Charlotte was certainly beloved.