Flirting with Disaster (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 2)

“Duncan,” he answered.

“We got another letter,” Mary said without preamble. “Where are you?”

“About one minute out from the Chandler house. Where are you?”

“Just pulling up,” she said as lights swept over the trees far ahead of him. “Security guards finally decided to go through the Saturday mail delivery at the courthouse.”

Tom cursed. “Didn’t we ask them to bring any mail to us?”

“I guess the weekend shift didn’t get the news.”

“Hold on,” he said, picking up his pace along the packed trail of snow. “I’ll be right there.”

The lights from the judge’s cabin blazed through the trees. Another car pulled up as he got there. Hannity got out. “A threat to the judge’s family,” he said immediately, falling into place next to Tom as he jogged up the stairs.

“Mary already moved Veronica here,” Tom said pointedly, “so that’ll make this easier to address. What else?”

“He mentioned a bomb.”

“Shit. We’re gonna need another team—”

“Already on it.”

“Anderson?”

“Yes. He says he can have a K-9 unit here in three hours.”

“Have a plan drawn up before he gets here,” Tom ordered. “We’ll sweep the area around the house for footprints and evacuate the judge’s home if we find anything. If not, let’s focus on the courthouse.”

Mary was waiting for him with a copy of the letter. He grabbed it and started through the four pages of single-spaced ranting. Things were about to get a whole lot busier around here.

CHAPTER FIVE

ISABELLE SLIPPED ON her sunglasses, but she still squinted against the bright morning light as she walked through town. Well...afternoon light, maybe. Sunlight was brutal at this altitude and even more brutal when it was shining off the snow piled along the narrow sidewalks of Jackson like a punishment handed down by the cruel god of hangovers.

Halfway through their night out, she and Lauren had decided to throw caution to the wind and get unapologetically drunk. That had meant no ride home for Isabelle and a very cold midnight walk from the bar to Lauren’s house, but it had been worth it. Lauren didn’t have to work today, and Isabelle had needed to shake off the last of the fear Tom Duncan had delivered to her doorstep.

She’d shaken off the fear but had acquired a headache, though she’d managed to sleep off most of the alcohol.

Still, the crisp air helped eliminate the last of her lethargy, and she walked a little taller and unbuttoned her coat to feel more of the sun. She wasn’t worried that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn the night before. If anyone noticed and thought she was taking an extended walk of shame, she’d be happy for the gossip. Her “creepy hermit artist” reputation wasn’t getting her any dates. Maybe “creepy party-girl artist” would help.

She smiled at the next person she passed and put a little more swing in her step. Maybe she should wear her heeled boots every time she ran errands. It certainly made walking to the post office feel less like a chore and more like the possibility of adventure.

And funny enough, when she turned the corner, adventure was waiting right there for her. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sexy kind. It was the kind that came with a heavy police presence and a scrum of reporters. She’d accidentally stumbled onto the property of the tiny federal courthouse of Jackson, Wyoming.

For a moment, she just stood there, hand tightening on her little clutch purse and heart ratcheting up her fight-or-flight response.

Funny that she hadn’t thought about this at all. She hadn’t considered what Tom’s job really meant and how much it had in common with her past. She’d been too worried that he was actually here to scout her out.

Her father’s case had never gone to trial; he’d skipped town long before that. But he had been indicted, and there had been hearings and other cases to process, and it had all looked like this, only instead of two satellite trucks, there’d been ten. All the Chicago outlets and a few national ones, as well.

This was an entirely different scene, she tried to tell herself. Nothing like what had happened to her father. Here there were only fifty or so spectators and another twenty press people, and the federal courthouse in Jackson didn’t look much different from the post office. It was a one-story, ugly ’60s structure that evoked none of the gravitas or Greek dignity of the courthouses of Chicago.

So yes, it was a very different scene, but she was still standing there panting as if she were the one in danger. As if that pack of reporters was about to chase her life down and devour it in front of her. Again.

She took a deep breath. Then another.

This had nothing to do with her. It didn’t have anything to do with people she knew. Except Tom.