"Oh."

Was that what all the grimness was about? I felt slightly light-headed, wanting to laugh. This terror I was feeling was because they were upset that they'd lost?

My moment of hilarity faded when I considered what this might mean to Keegan's mood.

I heard more footsteps and shus.h.i.+ng, feminine whispers. Thank G.o.d. Maybe these girls weren't exactly my friends, but they sure as h.e.l.l felt like it tonight.

The mood continued to be glum. The scout had brought in the booze and other contraband and was handing out beers and pa.s.sing around a fifth of whiskey. I watched all those mouths tipping the bottle and went into one of my germ "ick" modes. I suspected the bottle wasn't spiked with something nefarious, since everyone was taking a big pull, but I wouldn't put my lips to the rim unless forced. When it came to me, I politely pa.s.sed and no one seemed to care.

I was the only girl not offered a beer. I could feel the question mark forming over my head, so I turned to the nearest guy I recognized. Judd. The horndog. "Can I get one of those?" I asked with a smile.

"Keegan'll take care of you." He sidled away.

I'll bet.

Judd tried to get close to Glory, but she was over him in a big way. She practically s.h.i.+vered with affront when he drew near. I realized she was staring at me, her chin thrust out belligerently. Another girl was giving me a cold look as well. Clarissa, I was pretty sure.

If Dawn were around, she probably would be expressing the same sentiment, but I didn't see her.

How did Keegan win all these girls' undying loyalty?

A few minutes later a murmur swept through the crowd. All hail the king. I tucked my hands inside my pockets. One around my cell, one around the rock. I honestly didn't know what I planned with either one, but it was comforting to have them at the ready.

Keegan stepped inside, his head thrust forward on his neck, his face set and stony. Nope. Not a good night. Everyone remained silent, suspended, unsure of what to do until he suddenly barked that he wanted a beer; then there was a scramble to fulfill the order.

"Those f.u.c.king refs," one of the guys said, dolefully shaking his head. "They were, like, paid off."

"Had to be," someone else said.

"They missed that face mask on you," another murmured.

"Shut up," ordered Keegan, and everyone went silent.

I tried to blend into the background, but it wasn't to be. He caught sight of me and, if possible, his expression grew even stonier. I hadn't called. I hadn't done what I was supposed to. I was as big a spark to his anger as was the lost game.

"So...Ronnie..." he said in a deceptively soft voice.

"Hey," I responded.

He moved into my s.p.a.ce, radiating heat. He grabbed my hand and silently led me downstairs. I was surprised by his bold move. No foreplay this time, such as it was.

Everyone else was still up and I stumbled a little on the steps. He didn't bother helping me and I scrabbled for a hold, ending up clinging to his arm. At the bottom he pulled me to a corner where there was a pile of blankets. This was the great romantic seduction room?

"Wait here," he told me.

"I'm not sure I can stay long," I said.

"Wait...here."

He went back upstairs. I knew he was getting our drinks. I was torn. Once again my urge to run was almost pathological. Maybe I should just call Josh. Or Dwayne. What time was it? I couldn't tell in the dark.

His returning footsteps on the stairs sent little sparks of anxiety through my veins. I rubbed my hands together, then put them back in my pocket. Keegan returned, blocking out the light that filtered through the lakeside window-holes from the houses across the bay.

He held out an opened beer and I had to release my rock and reach for it, holding it with two fingers near its rim. "It's cold," I said.

"Drink up." He clinked his can to mine and we both hoisted our cans. I pretended to take a big swallow, even choking a little.

I've gotta say, his were the weakest, lamest seduction moves I've ever experienced. The guy didn't even try. But I guess that was the point of the exercise. Complete control. No choice. No objections.

"You got your cell phone with you?" he asked, catching me off guard.

"Um...yeah."

"Let me see it."

Reluctantly, I pulled it from my pocket. Keegan turned it over in his hands, giving me the heebie-jeebies anew.

"Keegan?" Dawn's voice sounded from above. "Are you down there?" Her footsteps sounded on the stairs.

"Get outta here," he snarled, whipping away from me and blocking the bottom of the stairs in a fluid movement that revealed his power and athleticism. I edged toward him, as he was in front of the doorway to this room. My free hand wrapped around the doorjamb, my other lightly held the beer can.

To my surprise, and Keegan's, Dawn ignored the order. She clattered to the bottom and said, "I saw her. Across the way." She pointed a telling finger at me first, then toward the back of the house, across the yard and bay, toward Dwayne's. "She was standing on the dock with this guy. He wears a cowboy hat and limps. He sure doesn't look like her dad, but isn't that who she's supposed to be staying with?"

How had she seen me? I couldn't credit it. Did she watch through binoculars like Dwayne?

"The Pilarmos' wolf was just howling," she said, as if she'd heard my question. "And these dogs across the bay were barking. I looked through our telescope and recognized one of them. A pug. Her dog. And then there she was! Standing on the dock, big as life. She's lying to us," Dawn said. "I don't know why. Why?" she asked me belligerently. "That's not where you said your dad lives. Who is that guy? Your boyfriend?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "I thought we were friends."

"I'm not friends with liars!"

The room I was in was framed in, but the s.p.a.ce between the two-by-fours was wide enough for me to squeeze through if need be. I put one foot in the nearest s.p.a.ce. The boards were sixteen inches on center. I could duck under the electrical wiring, edge through and get past both Dawn and Keegan. Maybe.

"You been lying to me, Ronnie?" Keegan asked, flipping on my cell phone. The lighted screen emitted a square of illumination. I hadn't had time to personalize the image on my new phone. An indiscriminate picture of nature, sky, clouds and trees flashed on.

"I thought you were all my friends," I pleaded, leaning hard, inching my shoulder through the s.p.a.ce. "I can't believe this. You're as bad as the popular kids at my own high school!"

"Keegan, I need to talk to you," Dawn beseeched. "It's about Dionne. She's just out of control."

"What's this?" Keegan asked, showing me the screen of the phone. He'd scrolled through my address book and landed on LCPD. My acronym for Josh Newell's cell. "Lake Chinook Police Department?"

Dawn swept in a startled breath.

"You've got to be kidding," I said, but my voice was unsteady. "What time is it? If I'm not home on time, my dad probably will call the cops."

"I trusted you," Dawn said. "I talked to you. You asked so many questions."

Keegan pocketed my phone.

I squeezed through the open wall and ran pell mell for the rectangular light that signified Do Not Enter's back door.

It was the half beat of surprise that saved me. That and the fact that Dawn, in her outrage, unknowingly stepped in front of Keegan at the exact moment of my charge, impeding his chance to s.n.a.t.c.h the back of my sweats.h.i.+rt. I banged my knee into the edge of the door and sucked in a breath at the pain but kept going, limping a little like Dwayne. I ran outside into the night. I was closer to the Pilarmos' yard and zigged that way. This fence was wood. I tossed the beer over and scrambled after it, my knee throbbing. There were shouts and running footsteps behind me. I landed on the other side. Slipped in the mud. Lost precious seconds searching for the can. Keegan was swearing up a storm behind me. A moan of fear tore from my throat. I sprinted for all I was worth toward the stone wall that divided the Wilsons from the Pilarmos. I hit something and stumbled. The can flew from my hand. I slammed into the ground, my cheek grazing something hard. A gnome.

Keegan was over the fence and heading my way with shocking speed. I had to leave the can. I grabbed the gnome and jumped onto the fence, scrabbling for a hold. Ropes of ivy hung down and I wound one hand around one.

His hands grabbed me from behind. He had me by the neck. I cried out as he yanked me from the wall.

From near the house came a low, canine growl. The kind of ggrrrrr that lifts the hairs on your nape.

Keegan ignored it. He was shouting, calling me names. All rage. No finesse. No concern for being caught.

He actually hit me, a haymaker to the side of my face that semistunned me, although I didn't notice at the time. I was a whirling dervish, whipping around, trying to break his hold, intent on saving my life.

"You f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h," he snarled, shaking me hard.

A black form leapt at him, catching his arm. Lobo's teeth flashed white.

I heard a yelp of pain and was released. I fell to my hands and knees. Something fell to the ground beside me: my cell! I s.n.a.t.c.hed it up.

Keegan was screaming. The wolf-dog and the quarterback were duking it out in the mud. Lobo was ripping skin but Keegan had the dog by the throat. In a haze, I suddenly worried about the dog. I grabbed the gnome from where I'd dropped it and hurled it at Keegan, shrieking Lobo's name.

Keegan's grip slipped. Lobo backed off, growling, watching Keegan stagger to his knees and attempt to gain his footing.

The Pilarmos' lights flashed on, and a man yelled, "Lobo! Stop!"

In the illumination, a gleam of metal. The beer can. Keegan, breathing hard and frozen in the dog's glare, watched me gingerly pick it up. He moved but the dog feinted, his lips drawn back in a snarl.

I couldn't climb the wall. I had no strength. It took everything I had to make it to the edge of the dock and fight my way around the end of the stone wall to Tab A/Slot B's seawall on the other side. I had to search with my toe and then make a jump. One foot slipped into the bay but I made it. I crossed their property without incident. On the far side of their lawn, the neighboring property was divided by a tall wooden fence. I could scale it, but I didn't need to because concrete steps, shortening in length from elongated to normal step height, sloped upward along the eastern side of the property. I could get back to Beachlake.

I moved like an old woman, my head aching. In the distance I heard the welcome sounds of sirens. It was after midnight. Dwayne had called the cavalry.

I reached the step that was on level with the main floor of the house. An uncurtained window gave me a close-up view of the living room and Tab A vigorously inserting into Slot B, backlit by s.h.i.+mmery blue water, the home to indifferent redtails, angelfish and a shockingly scary eel with fat, protruding yellow whiskers.

Slot B looked up, saw me, threw back her head and screamed.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

I tried to sneak my bruised and battered body to my car, but the police showed up before I could. They had the nerve to throw some handcuffs on me and tuck me into a police car. I told them very specifically not to touch the beer can unless they wanted to screw up the fingerprints from the rapist who'd doctored the beer with a date rape drug. They looked at each other but were careful with the can.

At some point Josh Newell ducked his head inside and looked at me. I said, "I signed up for my Neighborhood a.s.sociation board. Thanks for steering me the right way."

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Peachy."

One of the other officers called to him and he ducked back out. They both looked in the direction of the road and I swiveled to see Dwayne approaching. You could barely discern the limp, he was so intent on getting where he was going. I would have waved at him, but it's tricky with your hands behind your back. The police used to be a lot more lenient about these things, but a couple of arrests gone wrong, and handcuffs behind the back were now basic operating procedure.

Josh and Dwayne talked a long, long time. I think I heard Larrabee's name invoked at some point. Maybe even my brother's. Josh did not want to let me go. That was clear. I think his nose was out of joint that I hadn't told him I was working as a private investigator.

The Wilsons showed up, yelling, which created its own disturbance. Dionne was with them though they tried to shoo her back home. They were all trying their d.a.m.nedest to get Dawn released, but she'd been scooped up with the rest of the kids from Do Not Enter, Keegan included.

In the end, Dwayne won my release. I was uncuffed and allowed to leave with him. He and I walked to his surveillance car. "We'll pick up the Volvo tomorrow," he said.

"My purse is in there."

"You're lucky you're not at the Clackamas County jail," Dwayne warned quietly.

"What did I do?" Now that I was safe I was starting to feel really put upon.

"Trespa.s.sing. You scared the s.h.i.+t out of Maggie DeLuca."

"Slot B?"

"She called the police right after I did. Complained about a Peeping Tom."

I realized then that Dwayne's shoulders were actually shaking with suppressed laughter. It kind of torqued me at first. I mean, where was all the worry about my health now?

Then I had a remembered image of Slot B screaming for all she was worth. "Okay, it's funny. But the rest of it isn't."

"I had to do some fast talking to explain what you were doing. You're lucky you're friends with Officer Newell because he's 'by the book' in a big way."

"I heard you mention Larrabee."

Dwayne sighed. "Yeah. Had to use his name to increase our credibility. They called him. He vouched for you-and me. We're gonna owe him. So, what happened tonight?"

I told him about Dawn's ratting me out, and my panicked bid for freedom, which wouldn't have happened if not for Lobo. Dwayne listened, then admitted he hadn't waited till midnight. He placed the call to Josh Newell as soon as he heard Lobo's snarling and growling and all the yelling.

We returned to his place. Binkster staggered off the couch and snuffled me, wagging her tail. I was covered in mud. Dwayne invited me to spend the night and I showered and washed my hair, changed into one of his T-s.h.i.+rts and crawled into his bed without a qualm. I woke once in the middle of the night and realized I was alone. He'd taken the couch and The Binkster.

This left me lying there in the dark on my back, reviewing my feelings for him. From personal experience, I knew he generally slept in the nude.

Don't ask. And no, we didn't engage in s.e.xual relations. But now I was kept awake wondering what I would see if I dared step into the other room. I found myself faintly jealous of my dog.

I fell asleep right before daylight, then had to drag myself awake. I staggered into the other room, bracing myself, only to find Dwayne sprawled in his clothes on the couch, Binkster on the floor beside him. I had to hand it to Dwayne. He'd managed to roust her from sleeping next to him, something I can't seem to manage.

He came wide awake and looked at me. I was going to make some comment about sleeping alone and taking his bed, but he stopped me with, "You've got a h.e.l.luva s.h.i.+ner."

This wasn't really a surprise as my right eye was practically swollen shut. I turned to the bathroom to take a look. Purple and black and fat. The blood was seeping into the flesh all around my eye socket.

"How does it feel?" he asked.