Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(232)

To her relief, he didn’t protest, and she fled. But she had just descended the outside stairs when a white Range Rover roared into the lot. Her heart sank. Of all the people she didn’t want to see right now, Gabe’s big brother headed the list.

Cal jumped out and stalked toward her. “What’s going on? And where’s Gabe? Tim Mercer heard on his police radio there was trouble out here.”

“Gabe’s not here. I don’t know where he went.”

Cal caught sight of the drive-in screen. “What the hell happened?”

“Someone vandalized the place last night after we closed.”

He cursed under his breath. “Any idea who did it?”

She shook her head.

Cal caught sight of Odell and rushed up the steps. She made her escape to the ticket booth.

As soon as she got there, she fastened the chain across the entrance, then dragged the sawhorse with the Closed sign into place. She’d painted that sawhorse herself. The same purple as the ticket booth.

When she was done, she stepped inside the ticket booth and stared out at the highway. Had it only been six weeks since she’d come to Salvation? Images began to flip through her mind like a music video of all that had happened.

A shadow fell over the doorway. “Odell wants to talk to you.”

She whirled around and saw Jake Armstrong standing there, looking even more insolent than the day he’d tried to arrest her. She felt a prickle of foreboding, then dismissed it. “All right.”

Jake was standing too close to the door, forcing her to turn slightly so she could pass through without touching him. She’d barely taken three steps before she realized that the police chief, Cal, and Tom were all standing around her Escort, and the hatchback was open.

Her first thought was that they had no right to be poking around inside her car, but then she remembered the car belonged to Cal’s wife. Still, she didn’t like it. Her uneasiness increased, and she picked up her pace.


“Is there a problem?”

Cal turned to her, his expression vicious. “There’s a big problem, lady. I guess you wanted a little revenge before you left town.”

“Revenge? What are you talking about?”

Odell ambled around the hood of the car. In his hand, he held a crumpled white paper sack, the kind they used in the snack shop. It was smeared with what looked like melted chocolate ice cream. “We found the hundred dollars missing from the register. It was stuffed in this sack under the front seat of your car.” He jerked his head toward the boxes in the backseat that were filled with her meager possessions. “Tom’s small-screen TV was under one of those boxes and that radio you told us was missing.”

Her heart kicked against her ribs. “But . . . I don’t understand.”

Tom looked hurt and confused. “It was the TV my wife gave me for my birthday. Remember I told you? So I could watch baseball while I was working.”

Realization struck. They thought she was responsible. Her skin prickled with alarm. “Wait just a minute. I didn’t do this! How could you even—”

“Save it for the judge,” Cal snapped. He turned to Odell. “Since Gabe isn’t around, I’m pressing charges.”

She lurched forward, grabbed his arm. “Cal, you can’t do this. I didn’t steal these things.”

“Then how did they get in the Escort?”

“I don’t know. But I love this place. I could never destroy it like this.”

She should have saved her breath. With a sense of unreality, she listened as Odell read her her rights. When he finished, Cal stared down at her, his gaze hard-eyed and condemning. “Jane liked you from the beginning,” he said bitterly. “And you’d just about won over Ethan. He was starting to believe you really cared about Gabe. But all you’ve ever cared about was his bank account.”

Her temper flared. “I could have his bank account if I wanted it, you idiot! He asked me to marry him.”

“Liar.” He ground out the words through clenched teeth. “So that’s why you did it. Marriage is what you’ve had in mind from the beginning. You knew he was vulnerable right now, and you—”

“He’s not half as vulnerable as you think!” she cried. “Damn you, Cal Bonner, you’re—”

She gave a gasp of pain as Jake Armstrong grabbed her arms and wrenched them behind her. Before she could react, he’d snapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists, securing them behind her in the same way dangerous criminals were restrained.

Cal frowned. For a moment she thought he was going to say something, but then Odell slapped his back. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Cal. I wouldn’t have thought to look in her car.”

She was going to cry. She blinked back her tears and stared at Cal. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”

For the first time he looked uncertain, then his expression hardened. “You deserve everything you get. I tried to make it easy for you with that check, but you got too greedy. By the way, I’ll be stopping payment on it first thing Monday morning.”

Jake Armstrong put his hand on top of her head and pushed her toward the backseat of the squad car more roughly than necessary. Her shackled wrists made the movement awkward, and she stumbled.

“Watch it.” Cal caught her before she could fall and guided her into the backseat.