by Emily James
“Hey Nicole?”
I looked back over my shoulder at Dave. He passed his pen back and forth between his hands like he was nervous.
Oh good lord, he wasn’t going to ask me out, was he? If he did, at least I could use the excuse that I shouldn’t be dating my employees.
He held up his notebook. “Thanks for showing interest in my writing. Not a lot of people do.”
I held back a cringe. Great. Now I felt like a total jerk, and a self-centered one at that. But I wasn’t about to burst his bubble. I knew what it was like to feel as if no one cared about what you wanted to do with your life. “My pleasure. If that’s your dream, don’t let anyone talk you out of it, okay?”
He grinned. “Okay.”
I ducked out the door while I had the chance and pulled out my cell phone. The question was, did I tell Erik over the phone or suggest we meet up? If we met, I might be able to find a way to let him know there wasn’t anything going on between Mark and me. Right now, he might think I wasn’t interested in going out again, but I’d be much better off dating him than mooning over a married man.
Then again, he also could have found someone else he’d rather date while I was away, and suggesting we meet up would put him in an awkward position.
Grrr. Dating was stupid. It was times like this that I saw the merit in arranged marriages. For other people at least. The last thing I’d have wanted was my parents choosing my husband for me.
I’d call, and if he blew me off, then I’d know.
He picked up on the second ring.
“Hey,” I shifted my phone to the other hand, “I found a few things I thought you might want to know. Do you have time to get together today?”
The silence stretched a longer than it should have if he was only thinking through his schedule.
I wasn’t going to force him to say he wasn’t interested. “Or I can just tell you over the phone if that’d be more convenient.”
“No, that’s okay.” His response was a bit too quick this time, as if he’d picked up on the vulnerability that’d snuck into my voice before I could stop it. “How about coffee? You haven’t been to The Burnt Toast yet, have you? They make a pretty decent cup.”
We agreed to meet in twenty minutes. Since he didn’t offer to pick me up, I called Russ. He couldn’t get away, but he told me where to find the spare keys for his truck. I wasn’t brave enough to tell him I’d never driven anything bigger than my car before.
It took me three tries to parallel park in front of The Burnt Toast Café.
I tromped in, knocking the snow off my boots before stepping inside. Erik was at a table near the door.
He rose to his feet and his gaze flickered over Uncle Stan’s coat. He held a garment bag out to me. “I guess it’s a good thing I brought this back for you. I had it dry cleaned.”
I accepted the bag and peeled the zipper down to peek inside. My coat. I zipped it back up instead of swapping it for Uncle Stan’s. Maybe it was time for a new one.
Erik already had a coffee. That was about as clear as it could get. This wasn’t a date. He wouldn’t be buying my drink as well. And another date wouldn’t be happening.
A waitress came over and took my order. I asked for it in a to-go cup. Erik didn’t owe me anything. We hadn’t even kissed. And if he’d figured out that he wasn’t interested, it was actually honorable of him to stop now.
That left my dating prospects back to nil and took away the buffer he’d provided between my emotions and Mark.
The coffee went bitter in my mouth. Had I only wanted to date Erik because I couldn’t be with Mark? That wasn’t fair of me if that was true. Erik deserved to be someone’s first choice.
“I’m on duty,” he said, dragging me back to the reason for our meeting, “so I can’t stay long.”
I swept my hand sideways in a no-worries move, as if I could wipe away the awkwardness of the situation as well. “This shouldn’t take long.”
In hindsight, I felt silly for pressuring him into meeting with me at all, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I filled him in on what Dave told me. By the time it was out, I felt downright stupid. It wasn’t even a real lead. It was secondhand.
Erik sat without speaking for a beat too long. Then he cleared his throat.
I might not know him well, but I did know what that tic of his meant. Maybe it wasn’t nothing after all.
“I’ll look into it.” His voice was too controlled and formal, like he didn’t want me to read anything into his reaction. “Please don’t pursue this particular avenue further.”
Seriously? That was like putting a piece of bacon in front of a hungry dog. “Where do you think the money was going?”
He gave me a flat stare.
I moistened my lips and pulled my cup of coffee closer. Ouch. Okay. So much for working as a team on this.
Then again, we’d never been a team. I’d used his need for an informant to weasel my way into the investigation, and even now, my motives weren’t entirely pure. If Paul had been involved in something nefarious unrelated to the shelter, I could keep Craig’s secret and the aggressive dogs could continue to get a fresh start they otherwise might not get. I needed to know whether the money led to Paul’s killer or not.
Erik was already on his feet. “Thanks for your help. If you find out anything else—”
“I’ll let you know.”
My tone came out sharper than I intended, but I’d received the concerned citizen blockade enough from former Chief Wilson during the investigation of Uncle Stan’s death. I hadn’t expected it from Erik now.
Something had definitely changed between us.
We paid our bills—separately—and he strode out.
I might have stomped my feet a bit more than necessary as I exited the café. I clambered up into Russ’ truck, and then waited for Erik’s police cruiser and another car to pass me. I pulled out behind them.
When we reached the first intersection, he signaled and turned in the opposite direction of the police station.
What the heck? Hadn’t he just said he needed to get back to work?
Erik wasn’t a liar, not even to spare someone’s feelings. An omission was the same as a lie in his mind. So what was going on here?
If I followed him, the worst that would happen is I’d waste a little time. I made a snap decision and turned in the same direction.
Tailing someone wasn’t part of the curriculum at law school, and my parents had people for that any time they’d wanted someone followed. On TV, though, the important part was to keep far enough back to not arouse suspicion.
Erik headed out of Fair Haven.
I did an air punch. No way was this official business. His jurisdiction ended at the city limits.
My arm sank down, the joy gone from the punch. If this wasn’t official business, then I could think of only two reasons why he might be headed out of town. Either he was going for a mid-day tryst with whatever woman had taken my place or he was a part of whatever shady dealings had gotten Paul killed.
Chapter Twelve
A headache bloomed behind my eyes. Erik couldn’t be involved in anything shady. If it turned out he was, I was never going to be able to trust another law enforcement officer—or another man—again. The only truly good and decent man in my life up until this point had been my Uncle Stan, and he’d been killed for it. Even Mark, for all the qualities that attracted me to him, was still a married man who had a highly questionable friendship with a woman who wasn’t his wife.
No, whatever Erik was up to had to be above board. He’d asked me to help him find out information about Paul’s relationships with the other workers at the shelter, after all. He didn’t need to do that, and he’d have no reason to allow me into the investigation if he had something to hide.
My cell phone rang from my purse and I jerked. The truck swerved slightly.
I straightened out. Russ’ truck wasn’t Bluetooth-equipped, so I slowed my speed and fished it out.
“This is Nicole.”
“Why are you following me, Nicole?”
Crap. I stank at covert surveillance. “How did you know?”
“I’m a police officer.” There was a hint of amusement in his voice. “Besides, Russ’ truck has a distinctive bend to the fender where they backed a tractor into it one spring while removing dead trees from the bush. It’s hard to miss.”
That made sense. Everybody new everybody else in this town, and Erik was trained to be observant.
“There’s a gas station coming up,” he said. “Pull the truck over.”
I disconnected the call and slammed a palm into the steering wheel. He had every right to lecture me. I was a civilian poking my nose, once again, into an investigation. Even though he’d asked for my help, it’d been in a limited capacity, and I’d tried to push beyond that.
I pulled into the empty parking space next to Erik’s cruiser in the gas station lot. He was already out of his car, leaning against the passenger side.
I rolled down my window. “I promise not to follow you anymore.”
He stepped away from the vehicle, pulled open the passenger side door, and hooked a thumb toward it. “If you’re quick, I won’t make you sit in the back.”
He couldn’t arrest me for following him, so… “Are you inviting me to ride along?”
His face remained expressionless, and he tilted his head slightly toward the open door.
I clambered out of the truck, locked it, and climbed in before he could change his mind. This trip must be about the case after all.
When we were back out on the road, he glanced sidelong at me. “I hope you didn’t have any other plans for this afternoon. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”
I texted Russ so he wouldn’t worry—and so he’d know where his truck was if he wanted to pick it up. “Who do you think he was paying?”
“Could we talk about something else on the way? If I’m right about where the money was going, this is going to be a hard visit.”
My innate curiosity sprinted around inside of me like a hyperactive hamster on a wheel, but I locked it inside. This case was personal for me because I’d accidentally run into the victim, but for Erik, it was more.
All my activities in the past few days had revolved around learning more about Paul, so I couldn’t even entertain Erik with the stories that otherwise might have brought a smile to his face—or at least as close to a smile as the man ever came. Truth be told, I didn’t feel much like putting in that work anyway. It was a lot less fun to work on making someone else laugh than it was to naturally laugh together.
I defaulted to the safe option and asked him how he was finding the role of interim chief. The conversation took off from there and we spent the drive “talking shop” about where he hoped his career would head and what I hoped to be able to do at Sugarwood.
Finally, Erik stopped the car in front of a little house with white siding and a bike in the driveway.
He went still and his jaw stiffened. “Wait here for a minute. I’ll come back for you.”
A little feeling like I didn’t belong here wiggled along the back of my neck, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. I’d made such a fuss about coming. “I’ll wait.”
Erik squared his shoulders and left the car. A woman with brown hair in a pixie cut, wearing a pixelated green uniform that looked like it belonged to some branch of the military, opened the door. Her face broke into a smile and she threw her arms around Erik’s neck.
I didn’t feel a twinge of jealousy. Shouldn’t I feel something over the fact that he wasn’t interested in me anymore and he was hugging someone else?
Erik said something and the smile faded from the woman’s face. They went inside. I started a game of Sudoku, insanity-level difficulty, on my phone to distract myself and to keep from thinking too much about why I didn’t have a green-eyed monster dancing a jig on my shoulder.
It was fifteen to twenty minutes before Erik came back out. He waved to me from the porch, and I joined him. His face was grim, and my stomach hollowed out even more. The way Erik acted made the situation feel different somehow. Personal.
The fatigues-clad woman waited for us in the living room. Her eyes were puffed and red, like the last fifteen minutes had been spent crying. People could fake tears, but these didn’t look pretend to me. It blew my theory of blackmail away. No blackmailer cared like that for the person they were extorting money from.
She offered me her hand. “Captain Melissa Goering, U.S. Marine Corps.”
Her handshake was solid. I returned an equally firm grip. “Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes.”
“You’re not a police officer,” Melissa said.
I glanced down at my man-sized jacket. “No, I’m a…” What was I anymore? Maple syrup farmer? Part-time animal shelter employee? Neither of those explained why I was part of the investigation, and I didn’t want to put Erik in a bad position since he obviously hadn’t gone into detail about why I was here. “I’m a lawyer.”
She nodded her head. I hadn’t claimed I was the prosecuting attorney on Paul’s case, but that’s likely what she assumed.
Melissa gestured to the couch. “Please take a seat. Erik said you both have some questions about Paul.”
Erik had moved over to the nearest wall to stand in front of a line of three pictures. The one I could see around him showed Melissa with a blond-haired little boy, maybe five or six years old. It might be a nephew, but based on the bike in the front yard, I’d guess son.
The pieces weren’t coming together for me. Erik thought this woman connected to Paul’s secretive bank withdrawals, but she hardly looked like a drug dealer or like she needed anyone’s charity.
Erik turned away from the photos. With him out of the way, I had a clear view of the remaining two. One showed Melissa, the little boy, and two older people. The woman had the same facial structure and smile, so I’d guess they were her parents. The other was of about a dozen or so Marines in dress uniforms. I couldn’t make out faces from this distance, but the woman in the skirt was likely Melissa. One of the men standing next to her was built like Erik. That might explain how they knew each other, but it didn’t explain what we were doing here.
Erik selected a spot on the opposite end of the couch. “We’ll keep this as quick as possible so we can be done before Jacob comes home from school.”
Melissa perched on the arm of the chair across from us, her back straight in that unnaturally erect way the military trained into its members. It made her look strong and confident even though she clutched a shredded tissue in her hand.
“I’d appreciate that,” she said. “This news is going to be hard enough for him.”
Erik cleared his throat. “Jacob is Paul’s son, isn’t he?”
Melissa’s shoulders lost their straight line for a second and her gaze dropped to the ground. Then she pulled everything back into place and gave Erik a defiant look. “Yes.”
I stayed quiet, giving myself time to work it through in my mind. The money must have been child support, except that wasn’t something most people felt the need to hide. And why didn’t Erik know that one of his closest friends had a son?
I glanced in Erik’s direction, and the pictures on the wall behind him caught my gaze again. Hadn’t Erik said he and Paul served together? If that was Erik in the photo with Melissa, then they all served together. I didn’t know how long Erik and Paul had been out but…
“Your son was conceived while you were serving together?”
Melissa’s gaze shifted to Erik. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you,” she said, her voice soft. “It wasn’t that we didn’t trust you. At first we wanted to protect you from having to lie for us, and then so much time passed that we didn’t know how to say something.”
“You did what you felt you had to do. When you had Jacob, I knew the father had to be someone in our unit. The timing.” Erik’s Adam’s apple worked up and down in his throat. “I should have put the clues together
sooner. I wondered why Paul moved up here instead of south the way he planned after he got out. He always hated everything to do with winter.”
Tears slid down Melissa’s cheeks. She didn’t try to hide them. She just let them fall like a badge of honor, and maybe they were. “It was for us. When I got assigned here, he wanted to be within driving distance so he could see us as often as possible.”
My throat tightened, and as selfish as it was, all I could think was how grateful I was that I hadn’t been the one to kill Paul, even accidentally, and cause all this grief. “Why did you need to keep it a secret?” I asked.
To their credit, neither of them looked at me like a stupid civilian. Erik gave Melissa an it’s-your-story-to-tell nod.
She wiped her nose. “The military has certain rules about fraternization. To prevent someone from abusing their power or losing objectivity, officers are prohibited from having any sort of a relationship with the personnel serving under them.”
That explained why they’d hidden it when they were both still serving. “But Paul’s been out for a while. Could they have still done something to him post-discharge for sleeping with a subordinate while he was serving?”
Erik and Melissa exchanged a quick glance.
Erik angled toward me. “Melissa was our ranking officer. Paul was her subordinate.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. Talk about making a gender-biased assumption. Of all people, I should know that a woman could lead capably—look at my mother, after all. She was one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the country, right alongside my dad. “I shouldn’t have assumed. I’m sorry.”
Melissa shrugged. “You get used to it after a while.”
“You shouldn’t have to, and especially not from another woman.” I wasn’t going to make any more assumptions in this case. I was going to ask to be certain. “So you were still hiding your relationship because you were worried about the repercussions for your career?”
“We’d been talking lately about whether it was finally safe for us to openly be together given how much time had passed. But I’m up for a promotion, and we thought why not wait a few months longer.” Melissa yanked another handful of tissues from the box. “Now I wish we hadn’t wasted all these years. If I had it to do over again—”
