“I try to be civil with you.” Wrong words. He couldn’t find the right ones, so he let those sit there.
“Since when?”
And he sure didn’t have the energy to fight. If they started, he feared he wouldn’t fight fair. “Not. Now.”
“We had an agreement.”
She was being rational and calm, and he couldn’t fight that. “Jesus, you just don’t quit.”
“You know how careful I was with the few answers I gave Ben before. I have no idea what I’m going to say once he finally has time to formally question me. Lying is not something I do but now I’m worried about you and how what I say might impact you, and it’s making my stomach twist. So you owe me. You just do.”
The words sliced into him. All he’d wanted was an hour or two of breathing room. If he could go to Ben with a reasonable explanation, he’d save them all a lot of trouble. But that couldn’t happen now because telling the whole story meant making himself the number one suspect in a murder. The stakes had risen. Kerrie’s injuries could be serious, which put him at the wrong end of the firing line again.
“Tessa.” When she started to tremble he almost went to her. She had to be cold and frustrated. She needed a shower and warm clothes and to be at least two states away from him. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m trying to help you.” The pain, genuine and immediate, echoed in her voice.
“I don’t want your help.” But, God, he did. Some days carrying all the baggage dragged him to his knees.
“Yeah, you’ve made that clear.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “For the record, maybe if you let someone in, shared some of the weight, you wouldn’t be so damn angry all the time.”
Without another word, she turned and started walking. Her shoes squeaked with each step. Stiff shoulders but her head down.
He felt like he kicked a puppy. “Wait.”
She didn’t face him. Just gave him a short wave and shouted over her shoulder. “You want to be alone, you got it.”
Hurting her just added to his guilt. “Tessa, please.”
At his begging, she stopped. This was becoming a habit. He’d push her, and she’d finally draw a line and leave . . . and then he’d falter. Watching her as she walked away from him knocked into him like a kick to the gut. He shouldn’t care, but he did.
Finally, she turned around. “Just tell me what happened on the boat.”
Her expression didn’t give anything away as she stood there, dripping, seemingly oblivious as the rain pelted her in the face.
He swiped at his glasses but finally gave up the losing battle against the rain. Maybe it would be better to face her through blurry raindrops. “There was a woman on the boat.”
“How is that possible?” Her eyes widened. “Wait . . . is she okay?”
Exactly the response he’d expect from her—a mix of caring and wanting to know more. She didn’t just accept what people told her. She investigated. She was a technical writer. He couldn’t remember that term before but did now. For the longest time he thought that meant she spent her days researching, because that fit with who she was, until she explained that she created and reviewed manuals and online guides. She literally made sure documents that explained how to do things made sense.
He wished she could explain what was happening now. “She was tied up and unconscious, but Ben said her breathing sounded steady.”
Tessa swept her hair back again and moved in closer. People milled around and several residents crowded the ambulance as the back doors slammed shut.
“How long has she been on there? Was she attacked or did—?”
“She’s the wife of the man we found on your lawn.”
Tessa blinked as she fell silent. “What?”
“You heard me.” He could almost see the information click together in her head. One piece, then another. Any second now she would step back, move away from him. Fear would cloud her vision and he couldn’t blame her.
“Then you know her, too.”
“Yes.” There wasn’t any reason to deny it, so he didn’t try. Already wet and miserable, he turned and leaned against the front of Ben’s car in a relaxed stance that didn’t give away anything about the energy pinging around inside of him.
She took another step until she stood between his outstretched legs. “How bad is this going to get for you?”
“I have a history with this couple. A bad history.” He glanced around but no one was standing near them. The crowd huddled closer to the marina building, though more than one onlooker spent a lot of time watching them. “When the facts come out . . .”
“Did you hurt them?”
Just as some of the tension left his body she asked that and the adrenaline surged through him again. “What?”
She rested a hand on his thigh. “I’m asking one time only and expecting you to tell the truth.”
The soft touch comforted him when he thought nothing could. More than anything he wanted to slide his hand over hers, but he held back. “You think that I would do that?”
“No.”
The tension spinning around and ratcheting up inside him broke. “Then why ask?”
“I knew you’d assume I was interrogating you and I wanted you to hear my answer. But I still need to hear yours.” She slid her hand to his knee, until she barely kept contact. “I saw your face when you recognized the man this morning. You were stunned.”
This time he reached out. Rubbed his thumb over the side of her index finger. “I didn’t know they were here. I didn’t touch them.”
Her gaze searched his face for a few more seconds before she nodded. “I believe you.”
“Thanks.” The small word didn’t do justice to how he felt.
He continued to skim his fingers over the back of her hand. Her soft skin and the tenuous connection grounded him. The way she turned her hand over and let her fingertips wander over his palm reeled him in.
“Hansen.”
He picked up on the question in her voice. He claimed to need space, but he’d forfeit it in a second for her. That realization scared him more than the prospect of jail.
He dropped his hand. “This can’t be happening.”
“We need to go to Ben’s office.” She looked up, closing her eyes as the rain fell on her face. “And maybe find a towel.”
Some strands of hair stuck to her shoulders, but the rest cascaded down her back. If the rain truly bothered her, she hid it well. The chill wind turned her cheeks pink, but she didn’t complain. She rarely complained.
She had the kind of open personality, warm and giving, that would be so easy to fall into. Except for the questions. She seemed to ask whatever popped into her head. But here, watching the ambulance speed away and the crowd start to clear, she didn’t go there.
He didn’t know if he should be nervous or not. “You’re not asking for specifics. Why?”
“I plan to be standing there when you tell Ben. Maybe not this second because his attention is scattered in a million different directions, but we both know you’re going to do it and not wait.” She threw him a look that suggested he shouldn’t argue with her. “He’s your friend and you’re not a jackass. You’re not going to put Ben in a terrible position.”
It made sense . . . right up to the part where the truth made him look pretty guilty. “Telling him will do that. He’ll have to arrest me.”
“Maybe it’s your turn to have a little faith in him.” She sighed at him. “As you pointed out, we all have secrets. Yours are about to be splashed all over this island.”
“So?”
She sighed. “You need one person on your side who’s not bombarding you with questions or doubting you right now.”
He didn’t say it but it sounded like he didn’t have to. Ben would do his job. Tessa would support him. That was a gift he might not be able to repay. “And that’s you.”
“Me and Ben, once he stops being super lawman. And hopefully not just us.” She sighed. “People are goi
ng to talk. Say things.”
It would all start again. The rumors, the staring. It was one thing to be considered the mysterious loner on an island filled with people harboring secrets. It was another to be the target of a murder investigation. “Shit.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
SYLVIA DROPPED THEM off at Ben’s office an hour later. Hansen wanted to head home, but Tessa knew that would only raise more questions. No matter how hard and emotionally exhausting the next few minutes might be, he needed to get to the other side of it. The only way to do that was to go through it.
Ben lifted his head as they stepped into his office. “Tessa, I need to talk with Hansen alone.”
“She can stay,” Hansen said in a tone that sounded flat and lifeless.
“It doesn’t work that way.” Ben leaned back in his chair. “But she’s not going far because I need to talk with her, too.”
Tessa dreaded what would happen later and what he might ask. But at least he hadn’t sent her home . . . yet. “Then we’re good.”
Ben’s gaze shifted between her and Hansen. “Friends or not, we need to play this by the rules.”
The tension snapping across Hansen’s shoulders and down his back pulled his posture even straighter. “I’ve already told her most of it.”
Most? True, she still hadn’t heard a word about his past and whatever trouble he’d gotten tangled up in. It would be so easy to throw up her hands and walk away. Let Hansen clean up his own mess.
But curiosity nagged at her. He intrigued her. She’d been sucked into his life and caught up in his past. Bad moods, grumpy disposition, and all.
But he wasn’t a killer. She didn’t fear him. She knew to her soul that he hadn’t left her house for a few minutes to step outside and kill his one-time nemesis in a flash or wander over to the beach and hurt a woman on a boat. Even if the timing worked and all those noises she’d heard outside that night related to the murder and not him pleading for help as she’d assumed, she couldn’t make a man who killed and attacked in such a cold rage fit with the man who agreed to be dragged out to the beach with her to look at a boat.
“Huh.” Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Interesting how you think ‘most of it’ is enough.”
“He didn’t—”
Ben held up a hand. “You don’t need to rush to his defense, Tessa. If you think you can stand there and not say a word, then fine. I’ll ask you both about the body this morning and wait to go over your movements last night in more detail after I put you in separate rooms later.”
“Lucky us.” She hated the idea of later and questions, but she understood. Whitaker might be relaxed, but murder was murder. The good people of this island would be on edge and snapping at each other until Ben figured all of it out.
“Do you know where the primary crime scene was?” Hansen asked.
Phones rang nonstop, but Ben didn’t bother to answer. He didn’t argue with them either. “Shut the door. We’ll need a bit of privacy.”
Hansen nodded and closed it. Leaned against it, either to keep anyone from barging in or because he needed the extra support; Tessa wasn’t sure which.
“A fight or something happened on that boat but there’s no blood trail, no pool. Nothing points to the stabbing taking place there. The blood on Tessa’s lawn wasn’t consistent with him being stabbed there either.” Ben exhaled. “Which means he was most likely killed at another location on the island, one we haven’t discovered yet.”
“That sounds ominous.” When neither man said anything, she guessed she’d picked the right word.
“Judson and Kerrie Ross.” Ben dropped a file on his desk. “They live in Alexandria, Virginia. He’s a partner in a law firm in Washington, D.C. Specializes in something called complex civil litigation, according to his bio. It looks like she designs interiors for high-end boutiques and small hotels in the area.”
Hansen closed his eyes for a second, then reopened them. “All true. Yes.”
“They’re well-off. No kids.” Ben flattened his hand on the top of the file. “But you know all of that, too.”
“I do.”
The information didn’t change anything for her. Made the couple more human, maybe, but she didn’t need a reminder of that. She saw Judson’s face every time she closed her eyes. She knew that would happen for a long time. Killer or terrible husband or just unlucky, the end result was the same. She’d come face-to-face with death, right there where she planted her flowers and raked leaves, and that would linger.
“They don’t own the yacht but the identification and paperwork I found provided the basics about them. Makes me wonder what ten minutes on the internet will show me.” Ben’s tone didn’t threaten but it didn’t waver either. Gone was the usual joking between the men. Ben stayed focused, his frustration with Hansen very clear.
Tessa tried to change the subject to give them both some breathing room. The question picked at her and she needed to know the answer anyway. “Is Kerrie okay?”
“Unconscious. She has a head injury and bruising. She’s dehydrated from being on the boat alone for at least a day.” Ben glanced at Tessa, but his focus mostly stayed on Hansen. “The doc said she should be fine physically. But who knows what she saw or survived.”
The news sounded good, but the timing didn’t make sense to Tessa. Not at all. “She was there this whole time?”
“Apparently.” Ben opened the cover of the file but closed it without really checking inside again. “It looks like she was punched. Knocked around.” Ben stared at Hansen. “Any of this sound familiar to you?”
Without even thinking, Tessa shifted. She went from standing beside and a little in front of Hansen, to putting her body in front of his. He didn’t need a shield, but her feet had a mind of their own. “You can’t think Hansen did this.”
Ben finally looked at her, really looked. That’s when Tessa noticed the fatigue. The tugging around his eyes and flat line of his mouth. He wasn’t enjoying this interrogation any more than Hansen.
“I need to ask him, Tessa.”
But he couldn’t believe this. There was no way. “Do you?”
Hansen pushed away from the door and came to stand beside her. “Yes, he does. He’s doing his job.”
Some of the tension around Ben’s mouth eased and he nodded. “Tessa, I’m guessing by this time tomorrow everyone on Whitaker is going to think Hansen did this. I’m not going to be the only one searching online. Once the names go public, Hansen’s entire life will be fair game. All of Whitaker is going to know.”
Without specifically saying it, it seemed like Hansen and Ben had found some common ground. She still blustered and wanted to stomp around, asking questions and demanding answers. But they were much more realistic about Judson and Kerrie and Hansen’s past spilling over into everything. “That doesn’t mean—”
“I knew them.” There wasn’t a surprised reaction to Hansen’s admission. More like a shared understanding in the room. “Ben knows because I said Kerrie’s name the second I saw her on the boat.”
“And the gossip mill’s been churning since Judson was found on your lawn and Hansen was standing right there.” Ben stared at the phone for a few seconds when one of the calls went longer than the usual two rings.
When he glanced over at them again, some of the exhaustion had vanished. He looked more like the Ben she knew. The one who would calmly weigh the evidence but be ready to charge into battle if needed.
Well, he wasn’t the only one who could fight. She refused to wait on the sidelines. “He was with me last night.”
Hansen started to talk but Ben put a hand up to stop him. By some miracle, that move worked. “Were you close enough to him all night that you would have known if he’d gotten up?”
“Okay, yeah.” Hansen scratched the back of his head. “We should talk about this alone and then—”
Tessa caught Hansen’s arm before he could bluster his way into a jail sentence. “I’m his alibi.”
He looked at her
hand, then at her face. “Tessa, you don’t want to be in the middle of this. Trust me.”
“It’s okay to say he was right there and you think you would have heard him leave. No one is going to blame you for falling asleep or for anything that happened before he got to your place,” Ben said.
Okay, that was exactly what happened, but it left an opening for doubt and she hated that. “Hansen didn’t do this. We both know that.”
Silence filled the room, but it didn’t last long. Ben’s cell started buzzing. He glanced at the screen and immediately answered. “Yeah? Coming.”
“What now?” If anyone else from Hansen’s past jumped up, she might just lose it.
“I need to go help Lela.” Ben winced as he glanced over at the door leading to the cells.
He had to be kidding. For the second time, she stepped in front of Hansen. This was starting to be a habit now. “You are not putting him in there.”
Hansen laughed, but it sounded hollow. “It’s fine.”
She was two seconds away from smacking their empty heads together. Since Hansen had shifted into full-on guilt mode, she tried to reason with Ben. “This is an island. A storm is coming. He can’t go anywhere.”
“But you two can work on your stories if I don’t separate you.”
She had to give the man credit. But he missed his chance. “Don’t you think we would have done that already?”
Ben’s exhale cut through the incessant phone ringing and Hansen’s dramatic sigh. “Good point.”
It was about time she found an argument that worked. Her back ached from standing there, so stiff and ready to fight off anyone who touched Hansen, and a puddle surrounded her feet. “Thank you.”
“For the record, I don’t think you killed anyone, but we both know you’re hiding details because you think they matter, which means they’re bad.” Ben glanced at Hansen before grabbing a dry coat from the rack. He seemed to have an endless supply, but if the storm lasted as long as predicted, he’d need a few more. “As soon as I’m done, I’ll be at your house and you’ll need to come clean on everything. Not just the pieces that are easier to tell.”
Her Other Secret Page 8
