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sheriff’s department. She had barely exited her Jeep when she heard yelling. She looked across the street and saw two women standing outside the beauty salon.
    Uh-oh.
    Jadyn recognized the woman in the doorway as Millicent, the owner of the salon. She was always accosting Jadyn and trying to get her to come in for a haircut. Jadyn wasn’t hung up on her looks, but she’d seen enough people with odd haircuts exiting Millicent’s shop to send her to New Orleans for her hair styling.  
    The woman yelling at Millicent cinched Jadyn’s decision to never, ever let the beautician touch her hair. Yelling woman was in her midfifties and had probably gone to get her hair styled and gray covered. It was covered all right, but Jadyn wasn’t about to believe that the bright purple the woman now sported was what she’d asked for.
    “You did this on purpose,” the lady with the purple hair yelled. “You’re a miserable cow, and I swear I’m going to sue if this doesn’t come out.”
    “I put the same color on your hair that I always do. You saw the bottle. The only reason your hair would turn that color is if you put something else on it yourself. And given how cheap you are, I bet that’s exactly what happened.”
    Two insane women arguing on the street wasn’t exactly her job responsibility, but given that Jadyn had sent Helena to the beauty shop, she was afraid she might be ethically responsible for the situation. But as she was about to step off the sidewalk and cross the street, someone jostled her from behind and Helena shoved a bag of popcorn in her hands.  
    “Hold this,” Helena said. “It will probably look weird if the bag was floating on Main Street, but a good show always deserves popcorn.” She grabbed a handful and stuffed it in her mouth, her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. She was still wearing the Hello Kitty pajamas but was now sporting military boots instead of slippers.
    Jadyn narrowed her eyes at Helena. “What role exactly did you play in this show?”
    “Who, me?” Helena did her best to look innocent but she managed to look about as benign as a serial killer.  
    “There!” Jadyn heard a woman yell down the sidewalk and turned to see a large middle-aged woman pointing straight at her. The fact that the woman looked completely deranged and was dragging a small boy as she stomped toward Jadyn was more than a little disconcerting.
    “You evil bitch,” the woman said as she stepped in front of Jadyn, wagging her finger in my face. “How can you steal popcorn from a child? What the hell is wrong with you?”
    “Uh-oh,” Helena said and disappeared through the wall of the general store.
    If it were possible, Jadyn would have followed Helena straight through that wall and shoved the entire bag in her mouth until she choked. Instead, she put on her surprised face and tried to come up with a decent cover story.
    “I’m sorry. Some kid ran by—almost knocked me off the sidewalk—and dropped the bag as he went by. I was going to throw it away.”
    The woman narrowed her eyes, trying to determine if Jadyn was lying. Finally she looked down at the boy. “Is this the woman who stole the popcorn from you?”
    He sniffled. “I told you. It was the Invisible Man.”
    She blew out a breath, clearly exasperated. “You and those damn comic books.” She snatched the popcorn out of Jadyn’s hands and went off in the other direction, the boy struggling to keep up with her pace.  
    Jadyn shook her head. The poor thing didn’t have a chance with that mother.
    The shouting across the street increased in volume and Jadyn turned just in time to see Purple Hair grab hold of Millicent’s bangs and pull her down to the ground. Millicent was up in a second and launched at Purple Hair like she was playing tackle for the Saints. Jadyn hurried across the street, now certain Helena was at the bottom of the hair fiasco.
    She grabbed Millicent’s arm and yelled at the two women, who were now rolling around