Bad Karma

Chapter 16

Daniels escorted Shannon to the interrogation room. Sitting around the table was Anil Paveeth, his lawyer, the DA of Boulder County and a couple of men who Shannon assumed were FBI. Paveeth with his bruised face and jail-issued denim clothing looked small sitting there and had lost all traces of the aura he’d had when Shannon first saw him in his private sanctuary. He also had the look of every scared con who was trying to cut himself a deal. When the ex-cult leader recognized Shannon he started to nod as if the two of them were close friends. Daniels asked his lawyer whether he had any problem with Shannon sitting in. The lawyer traded a few whispers with his client, then said it was okay with them. Daniels shook his head sadly at Paveeth, and said, “Anil, I know you’re saying that you want to cooperate, but I don’t think you’re being completely honest with us.”

“Where have I not been honest? I have told you everything I know.”

Daniels gave him a hard stare, then ignored him and signaled for the DA and FBI agents to join him outside, leaving Shannon alone with Paveeth and his lawyer.

Paveeth sat fidgeting in his chair, scratching himself as if he had fleas. He realized that and folded his hands in his lap. He tried smiling at Shannon. “I-I’m sorry about that woman,” he said, his eyes hopeful as if he were expecting Shannon to say something to let him off the hook for what had happened. When Shannon didn’t respond, Paveeth wilted more in his chair but went on, “There was nothing I could do to help her. Yuri and Dmitry demanded that I videotape what they were doing. I was helpless to go against them. If I did they would have killed me.”

“That would’ve been a shame. What were Yuri and Dmitry’s last names?”

Paveeth smiled apologetically. “I don’t know. I was never told that. Taylor found them.”

Shannon looked hard at Paveeth, then at his lawyer. “Have you had a chance yet to see the videos your client made?” he asked the lawyer.

“I don’t see how that is being helpful to the current situation,” the lawyer replied, clearing his throat.

The door opened and Daniels followed the DA and FBI agents into the room. He dropped a thick document on the table and stood shaking his head sadly at Paveeth. The ex-cult leader glanced at the document and watched Daniels with wide eyes.

“Anil, you’re not cooperating with us as promised.”

“I am so! How am I not cooperating?”

Daniels turned to Shannon. “Bill, do you think Anil’s been cooperating with us?”

“Not if he hasn’t told you about Carver and Gibson.”

“What about Taylor and Linda?” Paveeth broke in. “I’ve told you all about them!”

“Calm down, Anil,” his lawyer advised. He patted his client on the alarm. Paveeth was beside himself as he looked from Shannon to Daniels. “What haven’t I told you?” he demanded.

“Your motive for killing them,” Daniels said.

“Killing them? What are you talking about? Why would I want to kill Taylor?”

His lawyer stopped him, then mustered an indignant scowl as he turned on Daniels. “Where the hell’s this coming from? I thought we were here to discuss what happened at True Light!”

“I thought so too until we found out that your client had a strong motive for killing Taylor Carver.” Daniels picked up Carver’s thesis and opened it to near the end. He pointed out several highlighted passages for Paveeth’s lawyer to read.

“What the hell am I supposed to be reading?”

“A blueprint for everything that happened at True Light,” Daniels said.

“What are they talking about?” Paveeth asked his lawyer. “I never saw that document!”

The lawyer read the highlighted passages, then thumbed through the rest of the manuscript. “You must be kidding,” he said to Daniels.

“What is that document?” Paveeth demanded, his skin color paling to a muddled gray.

“It looks like a book your friend Taylor wrote,” the lawyer said.

“It explains how he was going to expose you,” Daniels said. “You got your hands on a copy, didn’t you, Anil? Is that why you sent Yuri and Dmitry to Taylor’s apartment?”

“Th-This is insane!” Paveeth sputtered. “I knew n-nothing about this book! And I never would’ve hurt Taylor. If Yuri and Dmitry went to their apartment, they did it without me knowing about it.”

“That doesn’t sound like you,” Shannon said. “After all, you like to sit in the corner and watch.”

Paveeth’s jaw dropped. He turned wildly from Shannon to Daniels to his lawyer. His lawyer held out a hand in a stop gesture to Daniels. “We’re done here,” he said. “We’re not going to give you any more chances to sandbag us.”

The DA spoke up then. “Among the other charges we’ve already discussed, we’re adding first degree murder charges for the deaths of Taylor Carver, Linda Gibson, Jane Lowenstein, Leslie Bishop and Candace Johnson. And rest assured that we will be seeking the death penalty.”

“This is ridiculous,” Paveeth’s lawyer argued. “We’re talking about a book, for God sake! And those other women-we’ve already explained how my client had no knowledge-”

“Save it,” the DA said. “I’ve got more than enough circumstantial evidence to convict on all charges. And if I were you I wouldn’t expect a break from a jury. I doubt one exists that could find your client sympathetic.”

Daniels opened the door and a couple of uniformed officers came in and had Paveeth stand while they cuffed his hands behind his back. As they took him from the room, he staggered like a fighter who’d been knocked out on his feet and had no clue where he was. His lawyer followed him out.

The DA stood up, shook Shannon’s undamaged hand and thanked him for what he had done. “I hear you’re the guy who cracked this wide open. I’m going to see if my office can do something for you.” One of the FBI agents nodded to Shannon on his way out, the other stopped to shake his hand also. “I’ve read the Charlie Winters’ case file. Very impressive work, very impressive here also. If you have any thoughts on joining the FBI, give me a call.” The agent handed him his card, and Shannon saw that he was a regional director. He told him he’d give it some thought. After the FBI director walked out, Daniels and Shannon were left alone in the room. Daniels gave Shannon a hard grin. “You’re not actually thinking of joining them?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve gotten used to not wearing a suit the last five years.”

“As a detective first grade, you could dress as casually as you’d like.”

“Is that an offer?”

“Well, no, I can’t make an offer, but I could certainly talk to my boss about you. We could use someone like you in the department.”

Shannon pointed to his right hand. “Problem is, I’m still disabled.”

“We could work around it. So what do you say? You want me to talk to my boss?”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ve got nine to twelve months to think about it. Let me tell you then.”

“But the answer’s going to turn out no, huh?”

“I can’t tell you right now. We’ll see.”

The two men walked quietly through the station and to the adjoining parking lot so that Daniels could drive Shannon back to his apartment. Neither man spoke during the ride, Shannon deep in thought, Daniels suspiciously glancing over at his passenger every few minutes as he drove. By the time he pulled up to Shannon’s apartment building, he had lost all patience.

“Alright, spill it,” he demanded. “What the hell’s on your mind? You’re going to try to tell me that Paveeth didn’t kill those two students? Is that what the fuck’s going on?”

Shannon shook his head. “Something just doesn’t add up.”

“Goddamn it, Bill! We’ve got the sonofabitch dead to rights. The guy’s a manipulator, he can put on a good act and play the innocent victim when he wants to, but he’s the guy behind all this. He didn’t know about Carver’s plans? My ass he didn’t!”

Shannon waved it away. “This is probably nothing more than the last couple of days catching up to me. You ever have that incense analyzed?”

“FBI’s doing it now. According to our buddy, Paveeth, he did doctor the incense and add a mild hallucinogenic, along with mixing in his own sweat-I guess for the pheromones. We’ll see if the FBI finds anything else.”

Shannon left the car and gave Daniels a short nod. Susan was waiting for him in the apartment. Concern showed in her eyes as she asked how his shoulder was. She had him take off his shirt so she could check to see if the wound had started bleeding.

The apartment was for the most back to where it had been. The landlord had already patched the wall by the closet and repainted the living room, while Daniels had recovered his computer for him from the True Light compound and Susan had placed a small throw rug over Emily’s blood stain. That night they heard on the news that Les Hasherford had been found dead in a Colorado Springs motel. According to the medical examiner he’d been dead for several days with the cause of death apparently being heart failure. The maid went three days without touching his room because of a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. The story reported how Hasherford had helped police only a few days earlier locate a missing boy who was in critical condition at the time he was found, but had since recovered from a head trauma and been released from the hospital. A police spokesman credited Hasherford with saving the boy’s life

Shannon could see that the story affected Susan, but she had already cried herself out over the last few days. That night she held him tightly, and at times he could feel her small body sobbing silently and tearlessly.

The next couple of days dragged by slowly for him. He tried reading the PI novels Maguire had left him, and while he agreed with Maguire’s assessment of them, there was something nagging at the back of his mind that kept him from fully appreciating them. Susan sensed something was bothering him, just as he could sense her sadness over Les Hasherford’s death. They tried to comfort each other, but there was a small hole in both of them that they couldn’t quite fix.

Eric Wilson called him Thursday afternoon from Wichita to tell him that French officials had spoken with Linda’s younger sister, Gloria, and that Fred Gibson had been arrested earlier that day for child abuse and rape. Wilson seemed relieved when Shannon was able to tell him that an arrest was pending for Linda Gibson’s murder. “Do you think they have the right guy?” Wilson asked. “I hope so,” Shannon said, but his words sounded hollow to him.

Kathleen Tirroza called him that same night. She’d heard through the FBI grapevine what had happened and wanted to make sure he was okay. “Once again, right in the middle of it. Damn, you’ve got more lives than a cat!” she said, sounding a bit drunk. Her comment brought an involuntary smile to his lips since Kathleen, with her almond-shaped eyes and slender athletic body, always reminded him of a cat. “Yeah, but I think they’re being used up,” he told her. “And I keep leaving little pieces of me behind with each one.” That sobered her up. She asked him to save one of his lives for September 27th so he could drink a toast at her wedding. Before hanging up, she mentioned that she had no luck identifying his Russian. “If his records exist, they’ve been moved to classified files I don’t have access to.”

Friday morning he met Eli at Juiced Up. His shoulder felt well enough for him to walk the five blocks from his apartment without too much discomfort. When he sat down across from his friend, Eli gave him a quick look and mentioned how it would be understandable if he were suffering from depression after what he had gone through.

“I’d have to think seeing Susan tied up like that would’ve flashed you back to Charlie Winters. And you were almost killed. That’s got to be a tough thing to come to grips with.” He hesitated, then added, “Bill, even though it was in self-defense, you still killed two men. Maybe you should consider counseling?”

“About killing those two thugs, I’d feel worse right now if it had been two rats. The world’s better off without them, and I’m fine with what I did. As for Susan, yeah, it affected me seeing her like that, but I can deal with it. I know she’s safe now, and I know that I can get past my anxiety about her being harmed.”

“What is it then?”

Shannon shrugged. “It doesn’t add up that Paveeth was involved in killing those two students,” he said. “And I can’t figure out a way to make it add up. He knew about the hidden video camera. He wouldn’t have left that tape behind-not with the chance of it showing one of his cult members performing on it. I can’t imagine him leaving thirteen thousand dollars behind either.”

“Maybe he didn’t know about the money hidden in the other speaker,” Eli said.

“He’d know something was hidden in it. No, I just can’t see this. Whoever went to the apartment-him or the Russians, they would’ve cleaned out what was in those two speaker cases.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Paveeth’s going to get the death penalty for those three snuff films regardless of whether he gets convicted of killing Carver and Linda Gibson. I could just let it rest.”

“You could. But then whoever killed those two students would get a free pass.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t feel that bad about Carver.”

“But what about the other one?”

A weariness set in around Shannon’s eyes. He shrugged weakly. “I guess I’m going to have to start over from square one and see what I’ve missed.”

Later that afternoon Shannon had a fight with Susan about driving by himself. She was absolutely furious with him.

“How can you do that, Bill? How are you going to control the wheel with one hand? And what if your stitches rip open? Why don’t you let me drive you?”

“I can’t. Not where I’m going. Susie, everything’s going to be fine. We’re both on edge right now, that’s all.”

She stood staring at him, her mouth moving as if she were chewing gum. “Do what you want,” she said at last. “I already had to think once this week about going to your funeral. I can’t deal with that again. If you make me, that’s it, we’re through.”

She left the room. Shannon stood frozen for several long minutes, then took his car keys and headed out to Loveland.

Both Randall Carver and Buttercup were waiting outside the house for him. Buttercup was on her back with her legs in the air while Randall scratched her belly with the toe of his boot. When Shannon pulled up, Buttercup stayed frozen in her position for a few moments, then sniffed in the air, sneezed and flipped herself onto her feet. She stared at Shannon through yellow eyes, but didn’t make a sound. Randall walked over to his car.

“I don’t know why you want to see me,” he complained.

“How about getting in the car and I’ll tell you.”

He eyed Shannon suspiciously and asked him what happened to his shoulder.

“I was shot. Come on, get in.”

Randall hesitated for a moment, but got into the passenger seat. “Ma’s furious with you,” he said. “The police came yesterday. She knows you don’t work for no People magazine. So who do you work for, that guy we’re suing?”

“It doesn’t matter. Your lawsuit’s dead. Why’d you lie to me before, Randall?”

He stared blankly at Shannon while he made sense of his question, then gave a screw-you look and reached for the passenger door handle. “Fuck this and fuck your questions. I don’t have to answer to you. I’m leaving.”

“That’s fine. Leave if you want. It means I’ll talk to the police instead. But you did lie to me. About how often you saw Taylor. And about the porn films you made with your brother.”

He sat back in his seat. “I never made one of those,” he said stubbornly.

“Come on, Randall, I saw them. The ones you made with Linda and those girls from the cult.”

There was no reaction. Nothing but confusion in Randall’s face. Shannon sighed. “You’re going to tell me you didn’t know he was filming you with those girls?”

Randall shook his head slowly. “I didn’t know nothing about it.” He broke into an ugly smile revealing badly receding gums. “You got one of them? It’d be cool to see it.”

Shannon gave him a hard look and decided he really didn’t know about the films. “Why’d you lie to me about the last time you saw your brother?”

Carver’s expression turned sullen. “I couldn’t tell you in front of Ma. She’d want to know what I went there for.” When he saw Shannon’s reaction, a light turned on in his dull eyes realizing what Shannon had been fishing for. “Man, that is so lame,” he said. “You thought I killed Taylor ’cause I found out he was filming me? If that’s what they teach you at Private Eye school you got punked. With the nice-looking hoes Taylor got for me, he could’ve filmed me all he wanted. You think I care?”

Randall showed Shannon a big toothy smirk, got out of the car and laughed softly as he walked back to his house. Even Buttercup stared at Shannon with a look that could only be described as pity.

For the next fifteen minutes Shannon thought about giving up. It would be so damn easy. He certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over Anil Paveeth being wrongly convicted of those murders. But the problem was he kept thinking of Linda Gibson, thinking about everything she had gone through, how she was basically used and disposed of like trash. As much as he wanted to just go home to Susan and give the case up, he knew he couldn’t. Instead he went back to the scene of the crime hoping to find some inspiration there.

With everything that had happened on Saturday, he never told the police about buying one of the DVDs, or had a chance to turn it over to them. He had it with him now in the dead students’ apartment. Fortunately, the police still hadn’t released the apartment as a crime scene, otherwise the place would’ve been emptied out by Eunice Carver. He plugged the DVD into the player by the TV, turned up the volume to the level he imagined it was recorded at, then sat down in the same chair Paveeth had most likely used. He closed his eyes and listened to the DVD, hoping to get a better feel for what went on in that apartment when they made those videos. The damn thing was loud with Metallica blaring away. Carver also made a lot of noise when he joined in. Shannon was thirty minutes through the DVD when he heard a banging noise in the background. At first he thought Maguire was banging on the floor above him, but after stopping and restarting the DVD he realized the sound came from the DVD. When the video was originally made, someone had banged a baseball bat or something like that on the floor of Maguire’s apartment and it had gotten picked up. He went back through the DVD to find where the banging first started and timed it. It continued until the DVD ended, lasting twenty-seven minutes.

Shannon called Susan, read her the phone number Maguire had given him for his wife, and asked if she could get on the computer and do a reverse phone number lookup. Her tone had been icy when she first answered, but worry melted away whatever frost had been in her voice. She asked him what he wanted the number for.

“I think I’ve got this figured out,” he told her. “Christ, the guy just about told me why he killed them. He uses a baseball bat and I’m too dense to make the connection. I’ve got a question about Medhorrinum types. Can you tell me more about their tempers?”

“The thing with Medhorrinums is intense passion. They can have that in their tempers also.”

“So they can just fly off the handle and go into a blind rage?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Susie, call me back after you look up that phone number.”

She told him she would, her voice tense. “Bill,” she added. “If you suspect something maybe you should call the police?”

“I will. I just need a little more information first.”

Susan called him back five minutes later. The phone number was registered to a Mary Connor in Medford, Massachusetts. Shannon called the number. The same woman who had told him she was Nancy Maguire days earlier answered.

“Is this Mary, Mary Connor?”

“Yeah, who’s calling?”

“Bill Shannon. I’m the investigator from Colorado who you pretended to be Nancy Maguire with.”

There was a long hesitation, then she said, “Look, I was trying to help Mike out, that’s all. He said you needed to talk to Nancy and he didn’t know where she was.”

“How about you? Do you know where she is?”“

“He told me she took off a couple of months ago. That’s all I know.”

The phone went dead. Shannon started the DVD again, turned the volume up, then left the apartment and knocked on Maguire’s door. After a minute or so, Maguire answered, his face very pale, his mouth and eyes not quite right. “Hey, buddy,” he said, “what’s going on in there?”

“Remember lesson three?”

Maguire shook his head.

“Never be satisfied until the case is closed.”

“Fuck, you’ve got a good memory. But I don’t getcha? This case is closed. I saw on the news they arrested that Indian dude and charged him with the murders.”

“They arrested the wrong guy.”

Shannon picked up on the slight hitch in Maguire’s mouth, but Maguire caught himself, forced a smile and shook his head. “I don’t know, buddy, it sounds like they got the right guy. But if you want to come up and talk about it, maybe we can come up with some ideas.”

“Sure.”

Shannon followed Maguire up the stairs. Maguire headed straight to the kitchen and took a beer from his fridge. He asked Shannon if he wanted one.

“Nah, I’ll skip it this time. The construction’s not as good here as I would’ve thought. That DVD sounds almost as if it’s playing right here instead of in your neighbors’ apartment.”

Maguire opened the beer bottle and took a healthy swig. “You could turn it off if you want.”

“I’ll leave it on. You play softball, don’t you, Mike?”

Maguire forced a smile. “Why, you looking to join a team?”

“Not really. I was just wondering, that’s all. I’m not going to ask to see your bat. I don’t want to give you any excuses to get your hands on it. But I bet you if I did I’d see one that you bought three months ago. The one you had before that you had to throw out, right?”

Another slight hitch showed around Maguire’s mouth. “Come on, quit joking around. This isn’t funny.”

“I’m not joking. We both know you killed your neighbors downstairs. Wait-don’t bother arguing. You’re not going to change my mind, and besides, my problem is I can’t prove it. I have no real evidence. I wish I did, but you’re probably going to skate on those murders.”

“Buddy, you’re not making any sense,” Maguire said softly, his voice strained. “You know I was at work until three in the morning the night they were killed.”

“That couldn’t have been too hard for you to get around. You borrowed someone else’s badge… No, that wasn’t it? Maybe you got lucky and left with a coworker your first time so you didn’t have to use your badge, then after killing those two kids you went back to work, waited until someone else was leaving so you could slip in again without it being recorded, and then hung around until three in the morning to give yourself an alibi.”

Maguire’s eyes shifted enough to tell Shannon that his second guess was what happened. Maguire realized it too and looked away.

“What kept bugging me,” Shannon said. “Was that of the three cult members you supposedly saw hanging around with Carver and Gibson, only one of them showed up on those DVDs. I kept wondering why that was, but the reason was pretty simple. You didn’t see any of them here. You told me that only to throw me off track, and it was only more dumb luck on your part that it ended up pointing the blame towards Paveeth. I’ve got to give you credit, you’ve had an amazing streak of dumb luck so far-especially not being picked up on that videotape. How am I doing so far?”

Shannon waited for Maguire to say something. When he didn’t, Shannon went on, “Your reason for wanting to tag along was to keep tabs on me, see how close I was getting, and of course, try to screw me up given the chance, maybe kill me if I got too close.”

Maguire took a long drink of his beer and drained it. When he faced Shannon again any resemblance to his former goofy self was gone. His face had become a hard white, his eyes as lifeless as a mannequins. “What’s the point of talking about this,” he said. “As you said, you have no evidence and the police have that cult leader. Why don’t you let this drop?”

“Why? Because you’re my good buddy from Massachusetts? Sorry, not a good enough reason. While I can’t prove you killed those two kids, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble proving you murdered your wife.”

Maguire’s eyes shifted up to meet Shannon’s. He lowered his beer bottle in his hand, holding it like it was a club. “You’re nuts. I didn’t kill Nancy.”

“Of course you did. I talked to Mary Connor. She told me how you asked her to impersonate your wife. I saw your apartment before. It hadn’t been cleaned in months. You probably didn’t clean it once since killing Nancy-at least not until a couple of days ago when I commented about it. What happened, Mike? She wouldn’t keep quiet about you being a double-murderer?”

Shannon waited for an answer. When he didn’t get one, he went on. “I’m sure when the police look into it they’ll find forensic evidence here. And they’ll find out about your wife disappearing off the face of the earth two months ago while you kept up the appearance that she was still living here. It’s more than enough to convict you of first degree murder.”

Maguire edged closer, the beer bottle held at his side. “You should let this drop,” he said.

Shannon laughed. “You’re going to attack me now? Mike, not a smart move on your part.”

Maguire crept closer, his face cautious as he moved. Shannon let himself be walked back into the living room. There was more room to maneuver there. He braced himself. Maguire swung out with the beer bottle and Shannon stepped away from it and kicked Maguire on the back of his knee with a solid roundhouse. Maguire fell to the floor, his knee collapsing under him. With the kick Shannon felt something rip in his shoulder. He also felt a warm stickiness start to spread down his arm and knew something was very wrong with his surgically reconstructed shoulder.

Maguire tried to get to his feet, couldn’t. A siren could be heard off in the distance. Shannon knew it was heading their way-that Susan must’ve called the police. Maguire heard the siren also and knew where it was heading. He looked up at Shannon. “They were killing me,” he said, his voice coming out a mile a minute as he tried to beat the police sirens. “Every night it was like that DVD you’re playing now. I was working twelve plus hour days and then I couldn’t even sleep at night because of their bullshit. I’d try asking Carver to turn it down, and he’d just turn the music louder and make more noise down there. Sometimes it would go on all night. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Work’s killing me, my wife’s killing me by moping around like a zombie twenty-four hours a day, and they’re killing me by not letting me have a second’s peace. I couldn’t sell the place. I didn’t have the money to get out from under the mortgage. So what the fuck was I supposed to do? What the fuck would you’ve done?”

“Something other than beating them to death with a baseball bat. And even if you flipped out with them and couldn’t help yourself, you were rational when you decided to kill your wife.”

The sirens were loud now. Shannon heard car doors slamming, then a police radio going on and officers talking. Someone pounded on the front door. Maguire turned from the noise back to Shannon. “Come on,” he pleaded. “Give me this one break. We could make such a great fucking team!”

Shannon left Maguire to go answer the door.

Shannon was admitted to the hospital later that evening and the next morning underwent surgery to repair his reconstructed shoulder. The following Tuesday he took a codeine tablet and accompanied Susan to Les Hasherford’s funeral. There were more people there than Shannon would’ve expected. After a while he realized that most of the mourners were the parents and other relatives of the children Hasherford had helped save. He recognized the parents of the boy who’d been rescued recently in Colorado Springs. At the grave site when the minister gave Hasherford’s eulogy and talked about the gift he had and how he used it so unselfishly, Susan wept. Shannon put his left arm around her and held her tight to his side. He knew why that got to Susan as much as it did. She knew as he did that it was far more than being unselfish, that he had sacrificed himself to save that last child.

After the funeral, Susan took him back to the hospital and he stayed two weeks before his doctor released him. He didn’t put up any resistance during that time-one look from Susan told him he’d better not even think about it. Eli visited him a lot, so did Eddie to play chess. Daniels came by once.

Whatever distance he had briefly felt with Susan had vanished. As she drove him back from the hospital, she turned the wrong way on Pearl Street and headed towards the Boulder mall instead of their apartment.

Shannon raised an eyebrow at her. “And where are we going?”

She showed him a sly smile but didn’t answer until she pulled into the Boulderado Hotel parking lot. “Last time we were here you didn’t get a chance to enjoy it. Besides, we have some unfinished business.”

Susan had arranged for the same suite they had before. After they checked in and were alone, Susan opened her bag and took a couple of pom-poms from it. Shannon tried replicating Eli’s deadpan stare, knew he was failing miserably with it. “And where’d you get those?”

Susan couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “These were nothing. Wait ’til you see the cheerleader outfit!”

The next couple of days Shannon spent part of the time reading the Zane Grey collection, and the rest of it with Susan and her pom-poms.