Don't Trust Me (Hamlet Book 1)

by Jessica Lynch

  Tess watched him go. Once he stepped off the curb, she remembered what she had started to ask him before he distracted her with his resentful reaction to seeing her with Lucas.

  “Wait!” she called after him. “I need you to tell me where my car is!”

  Mason acted like he hadn’t heard her. Rubbing his hand against the back of his neck, unable to hide the flush that crept up the sides of his throat, he crossed the street to where he had parked. His boots thudded against the gravel, the handcuffs on his belt clanking with the force of each step.

  Just before he climbed into his cruiser, Mason waved back at her. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Seven o’clock. See you, Tess.”

  It was a promise, Tess knew. But she took it as a threat.

  As he sped off, she gave herself a small shake. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up. Underneath her jacket, she could feel the goosebumps as they erupted over her flesh. The same fear that overwhelmed her last night with the note came back with a vengeance. Her wrist ached where he yanked, the skin on fire from his hard touch.

  Her first instinct was to go see Lucas again. The force of her response was so strong that it staggered her. It had to be because Mason had basically warned her against seeing him again. As a child, she’d always been contrary. Her grandmother used to tell her the opposite of what she expected a teenaged Tess to do, knowing that she would always do the reverse.

  She was an adult now. Tess could do what she wanted—but she would do what was best for her. And right then? Hunting down the gorgeous doctor when she was already rattled wasn’t the best answer for her. Maybe later. Maybe when she was thinking more clearly. For now, the best thing for her to do was go inside and pretend that Mason hadn’t been waiting for her.

  Turning toward the walkway, Tess took two steps up the winding cobblestone path before she stopped dead in her tracks. Standing with her arms crossed, and her hip propping the screen door open, Maria looked like she’d been waiting a while for the other woman to notice her.

  Tess knew she was caught. Her shoulders slumped. “How much of that did you see?”

  Maria gestured inside the open doorway. “Enough that I think a good cup of hot cocoa is in order. Come in, sweetie. Let’s have a chat.”

  17

  Maria didn’t say anything until she’d boiled the milk, added the chocolate, and poured them each a generous portion of the steaming liquid in an oversized mug. Tess vaguely thought Maria was using soup bowls. Even better. Right now, as unsettled as she was, hot cocoa sounded like just what the doctor—well, doctor’s sister—ordered.

  Small wisps of smoke danced above the mug. Wary of the temperature, Maria took a tiny sip, smacking her lips in satisfaction when it passed her muster. “Ah, that’s good.”

  Tess’s tongue was still sensitive from where she burned it on coffee that morning. She pushed her mug to the side, letting her cocoa sit until it was cool enough to drink without causing more damage. Without even realizing it, she started to rub her wrist. The red mark was fading, though the ache from his rough tug lingered.

  Maria tsk-ed. “He did that to you?”

  “He didn’t mean to yank,” she said, dropping her hand into her lap. “I wasn’t expecting him to grab so I pulled away from him. It was an accident.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Maria pursed her lips, her mug rattling against the tabletop as she placed it down. “Hamlet is a small town. Real small. I mean, it’s so small that Hamlet’s not even the name—it doesn’t have a name. Do you know what a hamlet is?”

  Tess had no idea where Maria was going with this. Because she liked Lucas’s sister, she decided to play along. She thought about it. The most she could say she knew about Hamlet was that it was a Shakespeare play she’d never had to read.

  Was it the one with the whole “To be or not to be?” speech? Maybe. Probably not what Maria meant, though.

  She shook her head.

  “A hamlet is another name for a small village. Perfect for us, right? For years, we were the no-name hamlet where the local kooks chose to build their homes between the rocky ridge of the mountains and a deep valley. We have no reliable phones. Internet works sometimes, not always. Some of the houses on the gulleyside of town have televisions but it wasn’t worth it to lay cable all over so that’s hit or miss. And, yet, we stay. In a good year, there’s maybe two hundred of us. I see you, bellisima, so lost, so confused. Do you know why I tell you this?”

  Tess reached for her hot chocolate, took a tentative sip. Still warm, but cool enough to drink. After she took another gulp, she met Maria’s friendly smile. And she understood. “It’s like you told me before. Small town, everyone knows your business. But it also means you know about them.” When Maria nodded behind her mug, Tess guessed, “You know something about the deputy.”

  “I’m not a gossip, Tess, but I watch. My brother, he always says to me, ‘Maria, keep your nose in your own home’ and I try. Except you’re in my home now. While you stay in Ophelia, I'll watch out for you. You’ve only been here for a handful of days. How well do you know Mason Walsh?”

  It wasn’t hard to be honest. “Not well at all. He pulled me over when I had a little too much to drink, and he made me spend the night in the holding cells. That was supposed to be it. But then… with Jack…” Tess gave a helpless shrug before grabbing her mug if only to have something to do with her hands. “I’m not a complete moron and, hell, he hasn’t been exactly subtle. I know he’s attracted to me, but I can’t figure out why he turned like that. He was so sweet before and now… it’s like he’s changed. He’s so…” She couldn’t find the word.

  “Intense?” Maria suggested.

  That was it. “Yes!”

  Maria nodded, her long dark hair spilling over her chest as she leaned in conspiratorially, both elbows on the kitchen table. “Oh, yes, Mason can be very intense at times. Ever since he was a kid. We went to school together and, I remember, when we were in elementary school…” She let out a sharp whistle. “You never wanted to get between baby Mase and his pudding cup.”

  Tess appreciated Maria’s attempt at lightening the mood. It didn’t necessarily work—talking about the deputy just brought back how unsettled his confrontation made her—but she appreciated it anyway.

  Maria must have realized that her light-hearted tone wasn’t helping. In the next moment, she traded it in favor of being completely honest and open with her guest. She kept her voice soft, almost hypnotic, as she coaxed Tess’s attention on what she was saying rather than the slap of her cocoa against the mug as she swirled it.

  “I don’t think it’s so much that he’s attracted to you. With Mase, it’s never that simple. I think he’s convinced himself that you’re the one for him.”

  “I barely know him—”

  “Doesn’t matter, sweetie. Trust me. I haven’t seen him so far gone over a girl since Lindalee Murphy.”

  “Have I met her?” Tess asked.

  Who knows? She’d been hidden away in the bed and breakfast since Sunday so she knew it wouldn’t have been in the last few days. The morning she discovered Jack’s body was still mainly a blur; as a defense mechanism to keep her from breaking down, she approved of the curtain in her mind, though it made moments like these awkward. She could’ve stumbled into Bigfoot and she wouldn’t have remembered that.

  “Oh, no. At least, not in Hamlet. Lindalee was an outsider—”

  “Like me,” she interrupted.

  “Yes, like you, only she moved with her family here when me and Mase were taking high school classes. I guess you could call them sweethearts. They dated for, oh, close to two years, but I was there the day they met. Mason claimed her as his girl from day one. She never stood a chance. They were inseparable.”

  Were. A pit formed in her stomach. The idea of drinking any more cocoa made her sick. She placed the mug down, nudged it away from her. Don’t ask, she ordered herself. Something told her she didn’t
want to know.

  Don’t ask. Don’t do it. Don’t—

  She had to. The words blurted out: “What happened to her?”

  “Don’t know. After graduation, she told him she couldn’t do it anymore. She left Hamlet to go to college and, well, she never came back.”

  “Never came back,” Tess echoed, her tone curiously flat. Yup, she admitted, definitely shouldn’t have asked.

  Maria’s big blue eyes widened. “I didn’t mean it like that. Sometimes people actually make it out of Hamlet,” she explained. “I mean, I won’t, no. She must have.” A pause. “He might be intense and all, but Mase is totally harmless.”

  Tess thought of the way he cornered her, grabbed her, questioned her about spending her time with another man. She thought of the pain in her wrist, and his assertion that they would go out tomorrow night when he never asked, but only demanded.

  And she thought of the way he treated her like he owned her, how the support he gave her following the shock of her husband’s death and the help he offered when she found that threatening note somehow put her in his debt.

  She worried how he would react the next time she somehow managed to set him off. She didn’t know him well enough to predict him and, after this little chat, she was quite sure she didn’t want to.

  “Yeah.” She swallowed weakly. No matter what, Tess refused to trade one overbearing man for another. “Harmless.”

  After he tagged Caitlin on the radio, Lucas figured that he’d see her within a couple of hours. She’d been on her way out of town to meet with her counterpart the next county over when he buzzed her. The courthouse was forty minutes from Hamlet. Adding the time of the meet, he didn’t expect to see her anytime soon.

  He had to keep himself busy. Idle hands and all that. His thoughts kept straying back to Tessa’s pale face and the fear that glazed her pretty golden eyes. It was bad enough that her husband was killed and she found his body. Now someone was terrorizing her. He promised Tess she would be safe in Ophelia. He damn well needed to make sure that Maria was safe.

  It had been too, too easy for someone to slip that threatening note under Tess’s door. Lucas couldn’t stop thinking about that.

  So he found something to do. Remembering Sally’s request at the coffeehouse that morning, he turned the closed sign on his office door to open before picking up his radio. There were plenty of patients he could tend to and finally time to do so.

  Caitlin ended up surprising him. About a half hour after their conversation, the telltale clack-clack of her boots echoed in the corridor outside of his examination room. It never ceased to amaze him how she always seemed to zero right in on his location. He would put money down that the exam room was the first place she checked for him. It was one of her quirks.

  It drove him nuts when they were married. One time, he had to ask if she had a tracker on him. She laughed him off. All these years later, he still wondered.

  “What do you got there?” Caitlin rarely wasted time on pleasantries when she was wrapped up in work. Marching into the office, she came over to where Lucas was working with Phil’s samples. “Something for my case?”

  “Not right now. I’m still the doc. I’ve had to turn away a few of my patients to focus on the Sullivan case. Autopsies take time, and so does all the paperwork. I’m trying to catch up with some of my regulars now that that’s done.” He finished labeling the first vial, started on the second. “You can wait in my office. I’ll be right there.”

  “Why don’t I keep you company here instead?” Her breath tickled the back of his neck. He hadn’t realized she’d gotten so close. Before he could ask her to give him space to work, she placed her hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”

  Lucas fought the urge to shake her off. “Phil Granger came in for some bloodwork. I’m prepping his samples to send out to the lab.”

  “Mm-hmm.” It was a noncommittal sound as Caitlin trailed her hand down his side. Lucas stiffened at the first brush of her fingers. That didn’t dissuade her. She walked behind him, letting her hand make its own path as she ran her palm across his ass.

  When she made the move to cross over to the front, he grabbed her hand. He gave it a warning squeeze and then didn’t let go. Who knows what she’d make a grab for next if he did?

  “Sheriff. Don’t.”

  “Why not?” she purred. “Come on, baby. Can't we ever just take a minute for us? Do we always have to be on the job?”

  “I can’t let myself forget you’re the sheriff,” he told her honestly.

  “Sure you can. It’s easy.”

  “I can’t. And you don't want me to.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “If I forget you’re the sheriff, I’m only gonna remember that you’re my ex.”

  “Wow.” She recoiled as if he’d slapped her. Yanking her hand back, she stormed away, placing the exam table between them. “I guess that settles that, then.”

  Maybe he’d been too harsh. “Caity—”

  “Forget it. Moment’s passed.” She waved him off. “If you didn’t call me here because you wanted to see me, what was it? I’m busy, Luc. I won’t always drop everything I’m doing just because you buzzed me.”

  He sincerely doubted that. In the years since the divorce, Caitlin had shown him on countless occasions that she would take him back in a heartbeat. She never could grasp the concept of it’s over and move on the way that Lucas did. If their respective professions didn’t keep them in contact, he’d be more than happy to keep his distance. After all, she was his ex for a reason. He accepted that, even if Caitlin never would.

  Lucas finished handling Phil’s bloodwork. Once the samples were properly labeled and stored in the refrigerator, he returned to his place on his side of the exam table. Then, as clearly and concisely as he could, he told Caitlin about his visit to Ophelia last night.

  It was obvious that this was the first she heard about the threatening note left for Tessa Sullivan. Halfway through his story, she pulled her notepad out and started jotting down everything Lucas told her. She even made him repeat the twisted rhyme twice, then said nothing. Her thin lips pulled down in a nasty frown, the only sign that she was aggravated that no one told her this before. Other than that, she was strictly professional.

  “Do you have the note?” she asked. “I’d like to see it.”

  “It was gone when she went back. I wanted to see it, too, but no one could find it.”

  She couldn’t swallow her snort. “Of course it was.”

  “Caity, please.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s so convenient. Right? Her husband gets killed. Now someone is warning her about being next. Jeez, I know there are a few of us who aren’t fond of outsiders. This is a little crazy, though.”

  “You still think she did it.”

  Caitlin huffed, snapping her notepad shut with a flick of her wrist. “No one said cop work was easy. I'd be bored out of my skull if it was. But, just this once, I wish it was. I wish she did it.”

  He pointed at her. “How could she have gotten out of the holding cells?”

  “I know, I know. That’s the thing I keep getting back to.” She tucked her notepad back into its pouch on her belt. “Maybe I should rethink keeping her in town. I want to have her nearby until I close her husband’s case, but what good would it be if she ends up joining him on your slab? Good business for you, sure. Bad press for Hamlet. What?” She caught Lucas rolling his eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  He shook his head. “I told you enough.”

  That was true. And he was willing to bet that she was currently asking herself why her own deputy hadn’t filled her in. Or why the victim hadn’t made the report herself.

  If he knew Caitlin, she’d be on her way to find the answers to those question as soon as possible. That was why Lucas wasn’t too surprised when she nodded and said, “Okay. If that’s how it is, I appreciate your help. Thank you.”

  She started to head away from the table,
stopped as if struck suddenly by a thought, then spun around. Her hands in her pocket, her green eyes innocent and wide.

  “One more thing, Luc.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. He’d been expecting this. The only surprise was that it took Caitlin until now to say something. After their visit to the coffeehouse that morning, he was banking on the gossip mill getting to her before he had to buzz her himself.

  It felt good, knowing he was right.

  “Yeah?”

  “I got a buzz from Addy today. Sally told her she saw you at the coffeehouse this morning. You weren’t alone.” She waited for him to deny it, her mouth tightening when he kept his silence. “I haven't seen you since Sunday,” she added. “It's Tuesday now. It wasn't me.”

  “No.” Picking up his clipboard, he started to make notes on Phil’s patient chart. He hoped the blatant brush-off would be enough of a hint for Caity to drop it but, yeah, that was wishful thinking. He'd set this thing up. He knew he'd have to deal with it sooner or later.

  “Sally said she was an outsider.”

  “Sally should be paying more attention to making the coffee. It was a little burnt.”

  “Luc. Lucas. Just tell me one thing. Tell me the outsider wasn’t Sullivan’s wife.”

  “We’re not married anymore,” Lucas reminded her. He was going for gentle but her incessant questions always got the better of him and his temper. From the way Caitlin’s guileless expression turned stormy, he missed gentle by a mile. “If I want to take someone out for a cup of coffee, I can. I don’t answer to you, Caity. What I do when I’m off duty is my business, not yours.”

  He’d expected open jealousy. The nasty hiss caught him off guard.

  “You’re wrong, Lucas.” With a vicious stab, Caitlin jabbed her finger in his direction. “It’s my town,” she sneered. “Everything here is my business.”