Mason took another opportunity to take hold of Tess. She trembled under his grasp when he gently laid his hand on her shoulder.
“You okay?”
“It was locked,” Tess murmured. “I had to go out the window.”
“Window?” echoed Maria. “Che?”
“Where’s your room, Tess?” Mason asked gently.
“I… I don’t want to go back there. What if it’s not safe for me anymore?”
“Mason—Mase. Ophelia, she is the safest place in all of Hamlet. What’s going on?”
Mason kept his attention on Tess. “See? You heard Maria. With the security here, Ophelia is practically a fortress. No one can get inside once it’s in lockdown. It’ll be alright. Promise.”
Even as he said that, Mason wasn’t too sure he wasn’t making a promise he wouldn’t be able to keep. There was too much at play. On the one hand, he couldn’t understand why someone would leave such a cruel taunt for Tess; on the other, he couldn’t bring himself to think she was lying for whatever reason. He saw the terror in her eyes, watched her get sick out of fear. Her reaction was genuine. She really believed she was in danger.
And, unless he went and checked it for himself, he couldn’t help her as much as he longed to.
“I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to,” he said soothingly. Under his hand, Tess had tensed up again. He wanted nothing more than to calm her. “Maria can bring me to your room.”
“No.” Tess shook her head. Just like how she refused to let him approach Ophelia on his own, she was showing her strength as she said, “I can do it. It’s… it’ll be fine. I just have to tell myself it’s better than going back to the Hamlet Inn. It’s okay. My room is this way.”
Easily keeping pace with her, Mason took hold of Tess’s arm again, helping her as she shuffled down the hallway in her muddy slippers. She led him to a closed door with an oversized purple L painted in the center. Standing in front of it, staring at the design with a wary expression, she gestured at the door handle—then made no move to open it.
Mason did. Grasping the handle, it turned under his hand. The door eased inward.
She slumped against him. “It’s not locked anymore,” she whispered. “But I know it was.”
“Don’t worry, Tess. We’ll straighten this out. Stay out here. I’ll let you know when it’s clear.”
“Can I go with you? I think I’ll feel better if we’re in there together.”
It might be the most inopportune moment but Mason felt his heart skip a beat—and that wasn’t the only part of his body to react at the way she latched onto his side, clutching him as if afraid to let him go.
Tess wanted to invite him into her room? Nothing was going to stop him. And if he could be her hero, banishing the demons and shedding some light on the monster terrorizing the innocent outsider? He might even earn another invitation.
Mason guided Tess over to her bed. He settled her on the edge, feeling the pang of loss when he eased her grip off of his uniform jacket, then did a quick sweep of the room with his practiced gaze.
The first thing he noticed was that the window was still open, just like she said. Nothing else seemed out of place. Her purse was sitting on the desk. A half-empty glass was on the nightstand. He definitely didn’t see a slip of paper lying anywhere.
So where was the note?
He walked around the bed, moving purposely while Tess continued to rest, head in her hands. Picking up the glass, he made sure Tess wasn’t looking back at him before lifting it to his nose. He took a sniff. Water. He hadn’t smelled any alcohol on Tess, either, but after the way they met, it was worth checking.
After setting the glass back down, he lowered himself to his hands and knees, peering under the bed. It was too dark to see anything. He took his flashlight from its place on his belt, clicked it on and looked. Nothing except a pair of sneakers lying haphazardly on their sides.
Just in case, he crossed the room and went into the bathroom. A folded towel was perched on the toilet lid. Tess’s toothbrush was on the side of the sink. It smelled like her in the bathroom, a hint of cinnamon and spice lingering in the air. He breathed in deep, then yanked the shower curtain back to see if anyone was hiding inside the stall.
Having cleared the bathroom and the shower, he went back in the room. Tess hadn’t moved an inch from where he placed her. Maria, neither.
She lingered in the doorway, confused and unsure. When she saw him again, she waved him over. “Deputy Walsh, may I speak to you?”
“Sure.” Mason held up one finger, then turned toward Tess. He couldn't help himself. Crouching down again, he rested one hand possessively on her knee. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
Even though she kept her face buried in her hands, he saw it when she nodded. Her shoulders were shaking, though she didn’t make a sound. Mason’s heart broke for her. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not in Hamlet.
He watched her for a second, listening for tears, before rising and joining Maria out in the hall. With a nod, he gestured for her to move further from Tess’s room.
“Mason, cosa sta succedendo?” Maria rattled off a string of Italian before clutching his arm. “What’s going on? Is she okay? Why would she think my Ophelia isn’t safe for her?”
He patted her hand. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Maria De Angelis. She deserved the peace.
“She’s had a little bit of a fright, but she’ll be fine. It’s nothing like what happened to you,” he added quickly when Maria’s grip tightened. “I have to ask you something, off the record. You didn’t mess with her room, did you? Lock her in earlier tonight, or go in there when she was in the shower?”
If he didn’t want to upset Maria, he failed miserably.
“What? No!” She looked horrified at the accusation. “I honor my guests so long as they respect me and my rules. Why would you even ask me that?”
Because his inexplicable yet undeniable attraction to that pretty little outsider made him do stupid, stupid things. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he ducked his head in a bid to avoid her insulted glare. “Ah, jeez, Maria. I’m a deputy. I had to ask, even if I knew you had nothing to do with it.”
“With what? Dimmi! What’s going on? I go out for groceries and, when I come back, Mason Walsh is aiming a gun in my Ophelia. I don’t understand.”
Mason hesitated. Never one to gossip, he wasn’t sure that it was his place to tell Maria about what happened to Tess. An instant later, he corrected himself. He had to tell her. As deputy, it was his responsibility to make sure that everyone in Hamlet was safe. One outsider was already dead, and another threatened. Who's to say that the culprit would stop at outsiders?
Keeping his voice low, he quickly explained to Maria the events of the evening, starting with the locked door and ending with the fact that the threatening note was now missing.
He made the right choice in telling her. Instead of being angry and hurt, Maria was concerned. But not, like he sort of expected, for herself. She was worried about her guest.
As devoted to her bed and breakfast as she was, Mason should’ve realized that.
Maria shook her head royally, her long dark hair cascading down her back. “That’s awful! She’s such a sweetheart. She doesn’t deserve someone upsetting her like that, especially not in my Ophelia. Is there anything I can do for her?”
Mason had been thinking the same thing ever since he had to help her find her way out of the woods. He almost offered to take Tess back home with him—but even he realized that taking advantage of her after her scare would be kind of sleazy. Having her stay with Maria was the best thing for her, especially since the sheriff was still harping on her being the only suspect in Sullivan’s murder. He dreaded what Caitlin would say when she found out about this twist in the case.
No, he needed to keep his distance as best he could. Didn’t mean that he couldn’t still take care of Tess.
“She needs a good night’s sleep. I don’t
know if she’ll manage it on her own. You wouldn't happen to have anything that might help her relax, would you? Like a sleeping pill?”
Maria pursed her lips, thinking. She shook her head. “All I have is aspirin. But I know where I can get something.”
Mason immediately knew he made a mistake. “Ah, no. I don’t want to bother—”
“Hush, Mase,” Maria said, swatting him in the arm. “Luc is up all hours of the night. Come. I’ll get my radio. He’s used to weird buzzes, especially from me. He won’t mind.”
Yes, but Mason might.
He took two steps after her, prepared to tell her that he changed his mind, before he realized that he was just being selfish. As much as he wanted to keep Tess to himself, he couldn’t deny her something that might help her. It wasn’t her fault that the only one who could offer her a peaceful sleep was Lucas. And it made complete sense that Maria’s response to his request was to call on her brother. He was the only doctor in town and, since Hamlet didn’t have a real pharmacy, he was in control of any and all medications. Tess needed a sleeping pill? Lucas would have one.
Damn it.
Maria returned a few moments later, her radio in one hand, a wooden Louisville Slugger clutched tightly in the other. She beamed over at Mason. “I got Luc on the radio. He says he’s gonna stop at his office first for the medicine, then he’ll be right over.”
“That’s great.” It wasn’t great. If Tess needed someone to save her, he wanted it to be him, not the doctor. Since he couldn’t tell Maria that, he focused on something else instead. He pointed at the bat. “Going out for some batting practice?”
She hefted the bat up, a wicked and fierce glimmer in her pale eyes. “If someone else thinks they can sneak around Ophelia, then si. Most definitely.”
15
Mason rubbed his jaw, stifling a yawn. Stubble pricked the tips of his fingers. It had been a long night. Once the sheriff gave him the all clear to go off duty, he'd have to make sure he shaved before he went to see Tess again.
The sun was up by the time his rounds brought him back to the station house. He was feeling it. In the years that he'd been a deputy, Mason worked his fair share of overnight patrols but never so many shifts back to back. His eyes were dry, itchy, like he got sand in them. The yawns kept coming. He fought to hold them back. The sheriff had ordered him to take short breaks for rest. He was the idiot who kept cutting them even shorter.
The scent of freshly brewed coffee slapped him awake as he dragged himself into the station. It was empty, though that didn't mean he was the only one there. Station coffee couldn't brew itself; somebody had to be nearby. After helping himself to a styrofoam cup of the stuff, only pausing to splash some milk in to cool it down, he went off in search of whoever was on duty with him so early.
Bang.
Crash.
The slow, steady whine of a dying beep.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Mason’s lips curved around the rim of his cup. Caitlin. Of course. He should have known. The woman was like a robot. She'd been going nonstop since they found Jack Sullivan’s body, living on coffee and a steely determination to solve the outsider’s murder in record time.
He thought about it for a second, realized that her cussing while on duty meant she was real riled up, and went to prepare a second cup of coffee. Mood she was in, he might need a peace offering. Then, a cup in each hand, he crossed the station.
The main station house was a wide open floor, with two desks, a handful of visitor’s chairs, a battered old fridge, and a tray table next to it that held the department’s microwave and coffee pot. Hamlet’s single holding cell was toward the back. Off to the right, there were two doors. One was the bathroom. The other, a closed-in office that the sheriff rarely used.
It was that room where Caitlin had brought Tess to do her interviews on Sunday. And it was that room where Caitlin’s angry cry had just come from.
He knocked with his elbow, then carefully let himself in.
“Morning, Sheriff. I brought you some coffee.”
She already had an empty styrofoam cup on her desk. He placed his offering next to it in time to dodge Caitlin’s arm as she reared back and swung her open palm right at the side of her ancient desktop monitor.
Thwack!
Shaking out her stinging palm, she growled at the monitor. At least the beeping stopped.
“Feel better?”
“Damn it, Mase, the stupid internet went out again. Blasted cables were up all morning but the second the e-mail I was waiting for comes in, internet goes out. It's messing with me on purpose. I know it is.”
He nodded in sympathy. While all of Hamlet had a love-hate relationship with technology, Caitlin took it to the extremes. Mason long ago gave up on telling her that beating the machine wouldn’t fix it.
“You really should look into getting one of those fancy cellphones. Pay for the right plan, you're supposed to be able to get internet on it whenever you want.”
“Then I'd have to drive out of Hamlet anytime I wanted to use the thing. And I'll be damned if they try putting up another cell tower around here. That first one never took and, hell, we just don't need it enough.” She knew some of the younger kids, like Addy’s Sally, made a big fuss out of having no cell service. It didn't bother Caitlin. She sniffed. “Give me my radio any day.”
Hamlet communicators were reliable. The channels were always open. It was bad enough she had to go to the county’s big municipal center on the rare occasions she needed help with one of her investigations. If she didn't have to take that narrow one-way strait, she wouldn't.
Caitlin hated leaving Hamlet. When they were still married, Lucas was always going, taking a couple of hours to visit the bigger shops, or even week-long trips when he went away for his job. To keep up to date in his practice, Lucas was forever attending classes, seminars, even hosting lectures of his own. It used to drive her insane with jealousy.
Now she paid her neighbor to get her anything Jefferson didn't have in his store, and she watched from a distance as Lucas sped his Mustang out of town. It still drove her nuts, yeah. As long as he didn't bring anyone back with him, she managed.
She had to.
“Speaking of heading out of Hamlet,” Caitlin said, accepting the coffee with a nod, “I've got to take a trip today.” She made a face. She couldn't help it. “It's for the Sullivan case or else I'd be out with the rest of you guys. I shouldn't be gone long. Now, go on. Report. How was your patrol last night?”
“Oh. Um. Good, I guess.”
“Really? And Ophelia? How was that?”
Mason froze. “What do you mean?”
Caitlin let out a laugh. He didn't find any humor in it and, he realized after a beat, neither did she. “Come on, Mase. We both know you took a spin by Maria's place at least once last night.”
He couldn't really deny it. And it wasn't like he did anything wrong. Hamlet was small. If his patrol took him past Ophelia, he was only doing his duty.
It struck him that no one had radioed Caitlin and told her about the threat left for Tess. If Caitlin knew, she would've said something. No doubt. In her way, the sheriff was being playful. If she knew another crime had gone down, she'd be furious.
Last night was rough. He stood guard over Tess, watching as Lucas checked her out, took her measure, assured her that she was safe if she stayed inside of her room, regardless of what any faceless boogeyman left in a note. Mason longed to jump in, but the doctor never gave him the chance. So he tried instead to charm Maria into letting him stay the night, renting one of the rooms so he'd be close by if either of the women needed him. That hadn't worked, either. She obviously had more faith in a baseball bat than in Mason’s gun.
Probably didn't help that he'd pointed it at her, he admitted to himself.
In the end, he waited until Tess took the medicine Lucas brought before purposely walking the doctor out. If he couldn't stay, he'd make damn sure Lucas didn't.
Not t
hat it mattered. It was already too late. Seeing the way Lucas eyed her when he didn't think anyone was looking, Mason knew the other man was only going to stand in the way of him and Tess.
Just like he was sure that Lucas wouldn't tell his ex-wife anything about what happened at Ophelia. He would do his best to protect the outsider.
And so would Mason.
“You're right, boss. It was quiet. No trouble at all.”
“That's what I want to hear. We need more trouble like we need another outsider in town.”
He could never understand why she hated outsiders so much. They brought excitement, possibility. Everything was always so stagnant in Hamlet. A fresh face could inject a little life in their sleepy village.
Except for Jack Sullivan, he amended. That man had only brought death.
Mason shook his head, clearing that thought as quickly as it came. “Yeah, well, since it’s quiet, I was wondering if I could go off duty now. Take a couple personal hours since I just came off a double.”
Caitlin didn't answer him right away. Clicking angrily on the computer's mouse, she peered at her screen, scowling at whatever she saw. She wore her long red hair tied back, the tail resting over the shoulder of her crisp beige uniform shirt. She flipped it out of her face before taking her seat, her fingers tapping rhythmically against the desk.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
Mason suspected his boss had a pretty good guess what he wanted the personal for.
“We have a murderer out there in our village. Anyone could be the next victim. You haven't forgotten that, have you, Deputy?”
Tap, tap, tap.
“No, ma’am.”
“Didn't think so.” She leaned back in her chair, sipping the coffee Mason brought her. “We’re all on duty until further notice. No approved personal. Doesn't mean you can't get some sleep. When I get back from town, I'll buzz you and you can take a couple more hours down. I mean it this time. Take them. You look like hell, Mase. Rest. Take the time when you can.”
He ran his hand over his stubble. It felt thicker. “I will.”
Don't Trust Me (Hamlet Book 1) Page 14
