Free Prairie Gothic by J.M. Hayes

wasn’t like him to try to annoy her. Not on purpose. These days, when she got mad, he seldom showed his own temper. He usually just backed off and let her have the last say. He was trying hard to make it work this time. She loved him even more for that.
    Why would he care where the Taurus was if he didn’t want to use it? She glanced back down at her list of potential sex kittens and suddenly knew.
    She was breathing hard when she picked up the phone. She fumbled, punching in their home number. Had to do it twice to get it right. The answering machine clicked in after the first ring.
    â€œHi!” One of Two greeted her. It wasn’t their usual message. Englishman was on that one. “We’re ill. We’re trying to nap. Please call later, or leave a message and we’ll return your call when we can.” Judy thought she could hear Two talking to someone in the background. And just the hint of a masculine reply before the recording stopped and the machine beeped at her.
    â€œGirls. It’s me. Pick up the phone please.” No one did, not even when Judy repeated her plea a couple of times in an increasingly higher register.
    Before the machine beeped to tell her she’d run out of time, Judy was slinging on her coat and digging in her purse for her keys, already out of the office and on her way to the parking lot.
    ***
    â€œWhere have you been?”
    Stan Deffenbach was hopping around the lobby of the Sunshine Towers like a child in desperate need of a potty break. Lucille Martin took Deffenbach by the shoulder and gently pushed him aside. She looked older than she had earlier.
    â€œWe do have a problem, Sheriff,” Mrs. Martin said. “Tommie Irons’ family came shortly after you left. Becky Hornbaker’s son, Simon, and one of his young brutes.”
    Becky Hornbaker was Tommie Irons’ sister and Supervisor Hornbaker’s wife. Simon was their only child, and his twin sons, Judah and Levi, were a pair of hulking bullies.
    â€œApparently there’s some family heirloom missing and they’re upset about it. Simon went so far as to accuse poor Mr. Deffenbach and the Sunshine Towers staff of stealing it. Simon and Levi are still up there looking. They’ve terrified most of the residents. Perhaps you can make them leave and stop disassembling furniture and searching people’s rooms.”
    â€œWhat are they searching for? What’s missing?”
    â€œThey won’t say.”
    â€œThey won’t tell you what’s missing, but they want you to give it back?” The sheriff found such lack of logic hard to imagine, except of Hornbakers. It was also hard to picture Lucille Martin not getting a satisfactory answer or being disobeyed by anyone, even if she was currently without a ruler.
    â€œPrecisely. It’s something small, I think, from some of the places they’ve looked for it. And from the energy they’re bringing to the search, it must be valuable. I told them they would have to leave, but they ignored me.”
    Was ignoring Lucille Martin permitted?
    â€œPlease stop them,” Stan Deffenbach whined. “They’re ruining my business.”
    ***
    â€œWhy did I let you talk me into this?” Wynn complained.
    â€œâ€™Cause we blackmailed you,” One of Two said.
    â€œâ€™Cause when you caught Gloria Ramirez on the street after midnight and accused her of being the phantom snowballer, you searched her,” Two added from behind the wheel. “Too thoroughly. I mean, who’s going to hide snowballs inside her bra?”
    â€œNow listen,” Wynn swiveled in his seat to fix his most severe look on both Heathers. His seat belt stopped him about halfway and the gesture came off more like petulant. “Nothing inappropriate about it at all. I been watchin’ them reality cop shows on my satellite dish. You’d be surprised where perpetrators hide things.”
    â€œSnowballs? In her