by Layla Reyne
Charlie remembered that day with the same kind of fondness Sean had just looked upon Trevor with. She’d been unpacking crates in Cal and Trevor’s dorm room when Sean had barged in. A dangerously high armload of boxes blocked his face and his view of the rolled rug in the middle of the floor. Racing across the room, she’d stretched out her arms and yelled for him to stop, but it was too late. Caught in the avalanche of falling boxes, she’d tumbled backward, headed for the floor, but at the last second, a strong arm banded around her waist and cushioned her fall.
Pinned beneath an attractive stranger with messy dark hair and bright blue eyes, she’d found herself at a loss for words. But only for a moment. Once she got her breath back, she smiled up at him and asked, “Anderson Hale?”
“Sean Hale. Leave my father out of it.” He’d raked those captivating eyes down her body, hotter than any fumbling high school fooling around she’d done with guys. When his eyes returned to hers, they were several shades darker, and a blinding white smile split his handsome face. “Or you can just refer to me as your future husband,” he’d declared with complete confidence.
The absolute arrogance of his statement had prompted her to respond with an equally absurd rebuttal. “I hope you like handcuffs.”
He’d growled playfully. “Kinky. I like it.”
“I’m your roommate’s sister, the other one’s best friend, and the police chief’s daughter,” she’d said. “Keep making ridiculous declarations and either they’ll beat the shit out of you or my dad will have you in cuffs.”
His eyes had widened comically. “Friend zone for you.”
“Probably the safest place for you,” she’d said, biting back laughter.
Sean hadn’t, laughing out loud, and then so had she, the two of them cracking up on the dorm room floor, which was exactly how Trevor had found them. Sean had stayed in that friend zone for almost a year, even as he’d become more with Trevor. But the following summer, before their sophomore year, they’d become more, all of them together, and four years later, Sean’s prediction had almost come true. And damn it all to hell, the disappointment that it hadn’t happened still stung.
Sean didn’t give her long to dwell on her lingering heartache. He shot out of his chair and stood in the middle of her office, sniffing the air like one of the K-9 shepherds. “Where’re the goods?”
“The goods?”
“Barbecue, fried chicken, and hush puppies if I’m not mistaken.”
“You’re not mistaken,” she replied, amused at his single-minded focus.
“Corner fridge,” Trevor said, and she shot him a glare for conspiring with the enemy. He waggled his brows at her. “I call a drumstick.”
Sean had the door of her mini-fridge open before she could stand. “This is perfect.” He settled back in the visitor chair with the bag of leftovers and jug of tea. “Mark this one off the list.”
“Do I even want to know what list you’re talking about?” Charlie asked.
He took a slug of tea straight from the jug and hummed in pleasure. “The Hanover gastronomical tour. Still need to hit Krispy Kreme, Bojangles, and find fried okra.”
“You said you were back in the States.” Trevor moved to the chair beside Sean and swiped the drumstick from the box in his lap. “Where are you, California?”
Sean choked on his tea, then recovered and split a glare between them. “It’s not the same, and you know it.” He popped two hush puppies into his mouth at once. “Really,” he mumbled around the mouthful of food. “I’m disappointed in both of you. Bad, bad Southerners.”
Charlie tossed a stack of napkins at each of them to hide her smile. “I was saving that for tomorrow. It’ll be a miracle if there’s any left.”
“I’ll tell you what’ll be a miracle,” came a third voice, and Charlie looked beyond Sean and Trevor to Jaylen standing in her doorway. The officer’s step faltered at seeing Trevor there, and Diego, behind him, nearly ran into his back.
She waved them both in. “It’s fine. He’s read in,” she said. “Now, what’ll be a miracle?”
“If we can get a hold of Sarah Barnett’s phone records,” Jaylen said as he and Diego claimed the couch Trevor had vacated.
“She’s not cooperating?” Sean asked, setting aside his food.
Diego ran a hand through his hair. “She’s willing to cooperate.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“She’s on her parents’ cell plan.”
Charlie shrugged. “So they have to consent. It’s nothing we haven’t run into before.”
Sean leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “But will Duncan Barnett allow that?”
She hung her head and cursed. “Back into the sea of politicians we go.”
“You might be on to something,” Sean said.
She righted her face. “You’ve got a theory?”
“Hold that thought,” he said. “First things first, I can swing the phone records.”
“FBI?”
“Marsh is a cyber legat. Best hacker I know and has a knack for trouble.”
Charlie shook her head, not at all surprised. Sean had already hinted at not being the most straitlaced of agents, and it sounded like his friend was no better.
He twisted in his seat toward Diego and Jaylen again. “How long were Sarah and Julian sleeping together?”
Trevor growled and munched on his drumstick.
Jaylen snickered and Diego fought not to as he answered Sean. “About a month. She’s in his summer Intro to Mythology class.”
A fifty-year-old married man seducing nineteen-year-old girls. Julian was handsome, powerful, and had a way with words, but anyone with half a brain would recognize him for the philandering bastard he was.
Swallowing her disgust, Charlie asked her detectives, “Did she have any connection to Professor Marshall?”
Jaylen shook his head.
“What about her parents if they found out about the affair?” she asked Sean.
“Can’t be dismissed.” He adjusted in the chair and crossed an ankle over his knee. “But I think you were right yesterday. Easier to let the affair run its course. And I’d be surprised if Duncan had anything to do with Jeff’s murder. They were both GOP, but I don’t think they knew each other personally. I’ll ask Marsh, though I don’t think it fits the pattern.”
“And we’re back to your theory,” Charlie said.
He grinned wide, something she was getting more used to, for better or worse. The better part—that despite what was going on for him with Saul, with her and Trevor, and with the gruesome case, Sean’s confidence and humor were bubbling to the surface. The worse part—said confidence and humor had always been a fucking turn-on, had always kept her and Trevor from being too serious.
Seeing that confidence in a professional context was even sexier. He held up the yellow book, a ragged CliffsNotes guide for Shakespeare’s Four Tragedies. “Bought it off a kid on campus.”
Trevor tossed the cleaned drumstick into the trash can and wiped off his hands. “You know I have like ten of those in my office.”
“He’ll have a nice dinner out.”
Trevor’s eyes widened. “How much did you pay him?”
“Boys.” She crossed her arms and waited for them to settle. “Sean, what did you learn from Mr. Cliffs?”
“What Trevor said about Shakespeare’s Four Tragedies earlier got me thinking.” He flipped to a dog-eared page in the book. “The clue from Jeff’s crime scene and the way he was killed pointed us to Cordelia’s death in King Lear. Cordelia was falsely accused of treason.” He flipped farther in the book to another dog-eared page. “And Desdemona was falsely accused of adultery.”
“Nothing false about Julian committing adultery,” Trevor said.
“Exactly,” Sean concurred. “And after your trip to Apex, sounds like there might be something to Jeff being guilty of academic treason. So, assuming the numbers before each clue represent Shakespeare’s Four Tragedies, what if the
killer is avenging what they perceive as the wronged heroines from those four plays?”
“Four,” Jaylen said, following the train of thought she, Trevor, and Sean had worked out earlier in the day. “Two more to go?”
“Ophelia in Hamlet,” Trevor replied. “Falsely accused of conspiring with Hamlet.”
“And Lady Macbeth,” Sean said. “That one’s the rub.” He tossed the CliffsNotes on her desk and braced his forearms on his knees. “Lady Macbeth is guilty. She goads Macbeth into killing the king. She’s ruthless, ambitious, power hungry. I can’t figure out how that one fits, but Ophelia is obvious.”
“Let’s start there.” She kicked off her heels, stood, and paced the area behind her desk. “We’re looking for someone actually guilty of conspiracy.”
“The victim would be a man,” Sean said, “if the pattern holds.”
“Makes sense,” Trevor said. “Killing men who are guilty of crimes the women unjustly died for. Pretty fucking poetic actually.”
“And the killer?” Jaylen asked.
“Still up in the air,” Sean answered.
“Jeff was a skinny fella,” Diego said. “But he was strung up good. And Julian wasn’t a small guy. Either would be hard for a woman to handle.”
“There was a pulley for bales of hay in the barn,” Charlie reminded them. She paused in her circuit and slid the case file across her desk to Sean. “And Jeff’s tox screen was positive for Diprivan, a fast-acting anesthetic. Maggie suspects the same will show up in Julian’s panel.”
“So focusing on the potential vic,” Jaylen chimed back in, “likely a male, guilty of conspiracy of some sort. Where do we go from there?”
“The common threads between Jeff and Julian,” Sean replied.
“HU,” Trevor said.
“The iffy political connection,” Charlie supplied.
“Duncan could be Ophelia,” Sean said. “According to Saul, he’s crooked as sin.”
“Can we talk to Saul?” Trevor asked. “Might be he gives us something to go on.”
The investigative high Sean had been riding popped like a bubble, his face falling along with his chin, a hand skirting up to his nape.
Charlie stepped in with the rescue. “Saul’s not really an option.”
Trevor opened his mouth to no doubt question further, but after a sharp shake of her head, he caught on, moving to the next possibility. “Craig too,” he said. “After the incident with the cheerleaders last year—”
Diego huffed. “You mean how he covered up the date rape of those three young women by his buddy Teller’s football players?”
Charlie nodded. “Conspiracy.”
“Same way,” Trevor said, “he and Teller covered up slipping you a Mickey and trying to do the same to you our senior year of high school.”
Sean lurched to the end of his chair. “He did what?”
“He didn’t succeed,” Charlie said, though the fallout from the attempt—the tragedies that had ensued—made bile churn in her stomach. That night had included Trevor’s fist in Craig’s face, Craig busting his nose, and Teller, who’s dad was the HU baseball coach, threatening to torpedo Trevor’s baseball scholarship.
And her mother’s death.
As if sensing the direction of her thoughts, Trevor helpfully brought the conversation back to the present. “It fits for Ophelia.” He yanked his hair back into a bun with the rubber band from around his wrist. “Plus, Craig’s younger brother is at HU, barely hanging on by his D average, and Craig guest lectures from time to time.”
Charlie choked out a bitter laugh. “On what? How to be a dick?”
“Local government.” Trevor framed his head with his hands, then made an exploding motion complete with sound effects. “Feeds his enormous ego. Only makes him a bigger dick.”
“There’s another possibility,” Sean said. He wore an expression similar to the one he’d worn in the alley last week. He didn’t want to say the thing he had to say.
She braced. “Out with it.”
“Trevor.”
The room instantly went wired. Trevor scraped back his chair to stand, looming over Sean, and Diego and Jaylen bolted up from the couch to form a solid, threatening wall of muscle behind him. Charlie appreciated the show of support for one of their own, but Sean was only giving voice to the troubling connections she’d also made. The connections that had led her to keep Trevor at the station all day. “Guys,” she said, “let him finish.”
Trevor’s betrayed glare stung, but then Sean lifted his hands and drew an even icier one his direction. “Obviously you didn’t do this. You weren’t even in town last night. But the facts can’t be ignored.” He lowered one hand and began ticking off fingers with the other. “You’re a professor at HU, Jeff held out on your tenure, and Julian stole your wife. We might want to think about protective custody for you. Officially.”
“You think he’s a potential victim,” Charlie surmised, at the same time Diego asked, “Guilty of conspiracy? Accessory to murder?”
As soon as the words left Diego’s mouth, Charlie’s eyes shot to Trevor. He knew the truth about her mother’s death. Was that enough to make him guilty of conspiracy? And who else would know that?
It took a half second for Trevor to make the same connection, and he deflated instantly.
Ignoring Sean’s quizzical expression, Charlie addressed the others. “Tell Wallace he’s been upgraded to protective detail on Craig. Put him in a room at The Sand Dollar Inn. Book one for Trevor too. Should be vacancies now that the tourists are gone for the week. And keep digging into Jeff and Julian. Focus on the HU connections and note any other potential victims. Wally can help us there too.”
Jaylen and Diego nodded, then booked it out the door.
“I’m going to go help,” Trevor said. She opened her mouth to protest, but his pleading eyes stopped her. “Let me do something. Kill some time. If I have to spend all evening in a room next to Craig, you’ll have another murder on your hands.”
She circled her desk and clasped his hands. “I need to keep you safe.”
“We both need to,” Sean said from behind them, his voice full of the same alarm and concern as Charlie’s. “As a precaution.”
Trevor leaned forward and kissed her cheek, a bright flare of warmth zinging through her. His warm hands squeezing around hers magnified the effect. Until they were gone and cold rushed back in. He turned for the door and shot Sean a smirk over his shoulder. “You can drive me to the motel when you’re ready to go. Safe and sound.”
“I guess that leaves me to follow up on the Barnetts,” Sean said, once it was just the two of them left in her office.
Charlie rested back on the edge of the desk. “Do you think Marie might know something? About Duncan?”
“Maybe. If she doesn’t, I’ve got no problem confronting that asshole myself.” His voice had an edge to it that made her think he wasn’t just talking about Duncan’s possible connection to the case. “But promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Have bail money on hand,” he said, grin returning.
“I can do you one better.” She dug in her pocket and withdrew a set of station keys. “I have the keys to the cell.”
“Well, all right then,” he drawled. “I’ll call if there’s trouble.”
“You do that.” She chuckled, turning around to gather the files on her desk. “Oh, Sean.” She waited for him to stop and turn back to her over the threshold. “I didn’t get to ask the other night. Where are they? Saul and Marie? I’d like to send a care package, but Paxton has offices all over. I didn’t know which—”
He locked eyes with hers. “DC is the home office.”
“Are you serious?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he turned his back, took a step, then paused. And dropped a bomb that would’ve taken her legs out if she weren’t still leaning against the desk. “I moved there last week.”
Chapter Twelve
Trevor yanked his
hair into a knot and glared across the cab of his own fucking truck to the smug bastard in the driver’s seat. “Tell me again why protective custody requires you to drive me, in my own ride, to the motel.”
Sean shrugged. “You’re the one who offered.”
“I didn’t mean it literally. Is this payback for not calling?”
Sean slapped his shoulder. “Now he’s getting it.” Trevor batted him away, and Sean put both hands back on the steering wheel. “You had to know it’d freak Charlie out.”
It hadn’t sounded like only Charlie was freaked out earlier—sure as hell didn’t feel like it with Sean crowding him against that hallway wall—but Trevor didn’t call him on that half-truth. He rolled down the window and propped an elbow on the ledge, head in his hand. “It wasn’t intentional, and I didn’t know Julian was gonna turn up dead.” They hadn’t yet made the Four Tragedies connection when he’d left. Maybe if they had, he would have pegged Julian for the next victim, but he sure as shit wouldn’t have pegged Julian as having an affair, already, with a nineteen-year-old. He shivered, despite the hot and humid night air blasting his face. He shifted the conversation in a less unpleasant direction. “And Charlie was supposed to be in Wilmington this morning for that interview. I thought I’d be back—” Trevor cut short his explanation when Sean hung a right three streets too early. “Did you suddenly forget where the motel is?”
“Nope,” he said. “Just remembered where something else was.”
There wasn’t much else on this road at all. There was only one place Sean could be headed. Face back toward the breeze, Trevor closed his eyes and tried to woosah himself to chill, to build a wall against another barrage of memories that were sure to pummel him when they reached their destination.
A barrier between him and the too-tempting man to his left.
Together with Charlie, Sean had expertly calmed him in the hallway when he’d learned of Julian’s death. Then this evening in Charlie’s office, Trevor had woken to the sound of much-missed laughter and fallen into the easy, familiar banter that had been a hallmark of their time together. With those old feelings primed, being out here with Sean now was like throwing a lit match at gasoline. One spark and all his good intentions—to protect Charlie, to protect himself, to move on—would go up in flames. And Sean Hale was always that damn spark.
