Her P.I. Protector

by Jennifer Morey

  About an hour later, Skylar sat up. She had sipped on her ginger ale until it was half gone.

  Julien glanced at her and saw her wringing her hands. He let her mull through the shock of what he increasingly knew they’d have to face.

  At last she straightened and looked at him. He warily met her eyes.

  “I feel better,” she said, matter of fact.

  He resisted the smile her resilient tone tempted.

  “I didn’t think we were at risk,” she said.

  “I should have asked you about birth control,” he said.

  She lowered and shook her head in denial. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Neither can I.” But he couldn’t say he was disappointed.

  “It’s one thing to fantasize about it, but it’s totally different when it’s for real.”

  She had fantasized about him getting her pregnant? “Yeah. I’d have to agree with you there.”

  That brought her head up. “You’re amused?”

  “No.” He cleared his throat. “I’m as surprised as you. I wouldn’t have seen this coming if a meteor struck with a message attached.” It arrowed straight through their main issue, what kept them from really opening up to a serious relationship. They wanted different things out of life. He wanted to move to a suburban neighborhood and be part of a family he and the woman he loved created together. She had strong ties to her family ranch and had never contemplated having a family.

  He was sticking his heart out into the unknown, risking pain he ordinarily would not with any woman, not after Renee.

  “Meteor.” She grunted a cynical laugh. “That’s what it feels like.”

  “How about we start with a pregnancy test?” Before they worked themselves up in a tension-ridden frenzy, they needed facts.

  “Right. Test.”

  Julien heard Sawyer in the shower. As soon as he was ready, they’d head out for the ranch. First stop: pharmacy.

  * * *

  Skylar alternated between flashes of utter panic to attempts at imagining what it would be like to have a baby. She already had Sawyer, and if she and Julien made it as a couple, she’d have a pre-made family even before she gave birth to another member.

  She had to give Julien a large amount of credit. While she had been in the throes of reality slapping her face, he had remained as calm as a sea turtle. He had allowed her time and quiet to process the insurmountable realization that she was, in all likelihood, pregnant.

  He even went into the pharmacy for her. Now they had arrived at her house and she went into the bathroom and took the test. But she couldn’t look at the results. Instead, she brought the test stick out into the hallway, where she found Julien waiting like an expectant father. Sawyer must be in front of the television, since she heard a family movie playing.

  He took the stick from her with a questioning look.

  “I couldn’t look,” she said.

  He held her gaze for several long, poignant seconds before looking down. Then he met her eyes again. “It’s positive.”

  Skylar let out a hard breath and cursed mildly. She ran her fingers through her hair, her mind going a trillion miles per hour with endless scenarios and the torture of what lay ahead for her—for them.

  “I need Bogie.” She walked to the door.

  “Not alone, Sky,” Julien said.

  She stopped and faced him. “I need to be alone.”

  “Okay, but at least let me ride behind you. I’ll give you plenty of space and I won’t talk.”

  She nodded once and left the house. She saddled Bogie while one of the grooms helped Julien saddle Willow.

  Riding out of the stable, she headed toward her favorite route, along the fence line. She heard Julien behind her and his horse’s hooves, along with a snort every now and then. His presence prevented Skylar from escaping into her own thoughts. She needed to sort out her situation, to come up with a plan. How would she deal with this? She couldn’t begin to assemble any coherency.

  Bogie bobbed his head and glanced back at her with a nicker.

  “Yeah, I know.” She patted his head. So in tune with her, he sensed her unsettled state.

  The horse went into a trot and then a gallop without her urging. She loved running with him. She let him have free rein.

  Remembering Julien wasn’t an experienced equestrian, she looked behind her. He rode well for a beginner. Was there anything he wasn’t good at? She grew annoyed. And he was nice, too. He patiently let her go through her stages of emotion and did whatever he had to do to see this new development through, including riding a horse like he’d been riding for years.

  Arriving at the place where she had seen the man digging the hole, she slowed Bogie to a halt and stared at the spot. If it hadn’t been for the gunman, her life would still be on track, her days on the ranch would be as usual.

  Or would they?

  She still would have met Julien. Rather than him with her 24/7, maybe they would have dated like normal people. The same chemistry would have sparked, though. She doubted any of what had transpired between them could have been avoided.

  After several minutes stewing over her predicament, Skylar finally came to accept what nature had handed her. She was pregnant. She would have a baby. And Julien was the father, a man who set her on fire with unfathomable passion. That couldn’t be all bad, could it?

  She looked back and saw him about fifty feet away, sitting on Willow, watching her.

  Turning Bogie, she rode to the side of him and his horse. He met her eyes in that way of his, confident and strong, ready for anything.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Nothing for now,” he said, sounding as though he had an answer for everything.

  She wished she could be so sure. “What are we going to do nine months from now?”

  He didn’t respond right away. “Things will be different nine months from now.”

  “How so?”

  “You and I will know each other better, for one. And, most likely, we will have arrived at a plan for our future.”

  Their future? As in...together?

  “Don’t worry so much. I’ll respect your wishes, no matter what they are,” he said and then reined his horse in a turn back to the ranch.

  Did he mean he would live on the ranch with her? Split time between them with the child? What about Sawyer? The more time she spent with the teenager, the less she wanted to part ways with him.

  The questions echoed in her mind as she rode beside Julien.

  He had to have some tumultuous thoughts about this. He was just being stoic to help her. And damn if that didn’t attract her to him all the more.

  * * *

  Sheriff McKenzie called with news that the search warrant had been approved. On their way to Benson Davett’s house, Julien couldn’t stop the thoughts and worries from bombarding him. It had taken all his willpower to stay calm and supportive for Skylar. He wished he could do more for her. He wished they were farther along in their relationship. He wished he could make her see that having a family was not only the most natural thing in the world, it could also be the best thing that ever happened to her.

  Julien knew this would be the best thing that ever happened to him. Even if he had to live with a dysfunctional arrangement like joint custody, he would have a child of his own.

  Not to discredit Sawyer’s place in all this. Another child in the mix would actually help the boy. He would be part of a family, a stable, healthy family—if Skylar came around and allowed them into her life.

  He was glad when they arrived at Benson’s residence; he could finally focus his mind on something other than Skylar and the baby. Sheriff McKenzie, who met them at the door, gave them the go-ahead to enter. The house was immaculate, not a thing out of place aside from upturned items as the search continued. Law-enforc
ement personnel were everywhere.

  “So far, nothing is turning up,” the sheriff said.

  That was discouraging. Julien went to the back sliding-glass door. No one had started to search outside yet. He opened the door and stepped outside while Skylar remained inside talking with the sheriff.

  Julien carefully walked the border of the yard, passing artfully curving flowerbeds that were springing to life. He checked for areas where someone may have dug and saw none. After he made his way to the other side of the yard, he came to the shed and found it secured with a master lock.

  He looked toward the house and saw Sheriff McKenzie Skylar standing just outside the sliding-glass door.

  “We found some keys in here.” The sheriff went inside and a moment later reappeared. He brought Julien the keys.

  Julien tried a few before one of them released the lock. He opened the shed and went inside.

  “Here.” Sheriff McKenzie handed him gloves. “I’ll get the team. Just look. Don’t disturb or touch anything.”

  Julien began searching the shed, careful to do as the sheriff said. There were the usual gardening items—including two different kinds of soil shovels, one caked with dried dirt. That struck him as a potential piece of evidence. A photographer appeared and Julien pointed to the shovel.

  “We need samples of that dirt,” he told the sheriff.

  When the rest of the crime scene investigators appeared, he left the shed and walked the rest of the yard. Nothing seemed out of place.

  “Julien?”

  He turned to see Skylar standing at the rear of the shed. He joined her there and noted that the ground different than the surrounding, mounded and chunkier and most important—void of plants.

  “Sheriff,” Julien called.

  The sheriff came to them and as soon as he saw the ground, he hollered for the crime scene team.

  Julien stood back with the sheriff and Skylar waiting while the forensics experts dug the ground, slowly and meticulously.

  “We found something,” one of the experts said.

  Skylar clutched Julien’s arm apprehensively.

  “It’s a body.”

  Skylar’s hand tightened on his.

  “Maybe you should go inside,” Julien said.

  “No. I’m all right,” she said.

  Julien stepped closer, Skylar going with him. The forensics team cleared dirt from around a partially decomposed body, buried behind the shed at a decent depth, plastic parted to expose the corpse. Julien could tell this was Audrey Davett based on his memory of her photo and what remained of the features of her face. They’d do a DNA test to confirm it, but this had to be her.

  “No jewelry,” one of the forensic team members said.

  So, Benson had removed her jewelry before burying her?

  The forensics team began bagging up several dirt samples.

  “We also obtained a saliva swab from Benson. There was a hair sample taken from the trash bag we recovered from the dig site near the Chelsey property,” the sheriff said.

  Julien supposed he hadn’t told them that before because they’d had nothing to compare the hair to until now.

  “There’s a box of trash bags in the garage, bought from a big-box store. Forensics said they could compare them to see if they came from the same source as the garbage bag that was buried.”

  “Wow. That’s a big break,” Julien said.

  “It is now that we’re here and we have been able to get DNA from Davett,” the sheriff said. “Oh, and we also found emails between Audrey and an attorney. Benson must not have known about her second email account. The email she used for personal communications was cleaned out. We’ll try to recover what we can, even though everything was deleted.”

  “Good work, Sheriff. Are you sure you don’t want to come to work for Dark Alley?” Julien said.

  The sheriff chuckled. “I’m just glad we’ll be able to solve this case.” He started to move away. “This is going to take a while. Why don’t you and Skylar come with me to the station? We’re going to bring Benson and Maria in for questioning.”

  Julien wouldn’t miss that for the world.

  * * *

  Skylar waited with Julien in the room with a one-way mirror. No one was in the interview room.

  Sheriff McKenzie entered. “Benson is refusing to talk. He cried lawyer.”

  Of course he did. He was a lawyer himself. He knew not to talk to detectives without an attorney present.

  “Maria Morales has agreed to talk, however. We offered her leniency if she had anything to do with Audrey’s murder. She may have known about it or even helped Benson in some way.”

  Two officers brought Maria into the interview room. She appeared nervous, eyes flitting from one cop to the other. After she was seated, one of them left and only a single officer remained. He sat across from Maria.

  “I’m Detective Ross,” the officer said.

  Maria nodded.

  “Why don’t we begin with when you and Benson began having an affair?” Ross said.

  “A year ago,” she said.

  “And how long had you been working for him at that point?”

  Maria had to take a few seconds to think. “Five months.”

  She moved quick, Skylar thought, zeroing in on her man and going after him.

  “How much did you know about his wife?” the detective asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you know anything about her? What she did, who she saw, where she went?”

  Maria shook her head. “I knew Benson didn’t love her anymore. He told me she was having an affair.”

  “When did he tell you that?”

  “I don’t remember. Maybe three or four months ago.”

  “Did he ever say he would divorce her?”

  “No. He said she would take all his money and that he regretted not having a prenup in place.”

  “So, he had no plans to divorce or leave her?”

  “Not that I’m aware.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  Maria didn’t answer right away. “Well, naturally, I would have preferred he not be married, but with him wanting a divorce, I thought we would eventually be together.”

  “You must have realized he wasn’t going to divorce her,” Ross said.

  Maria tapped her fingers on the table, clearly agitated. “Yes.”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  Maria tapped her fingers again. “Well, obviously, I didn’t like it, but I knew what I was getting into when I got involved with him.”

  Skylar could see the detective was trying to get her to reveal emotion that might suggest motive.

  “How much didn’t you like it?” Ross asked.

  Skylar smiled a little. Ross was a cool cookie, soft and mushy in appearance but cunning and hard in reality.

  “I didn’t like it, okay.”

  “Did it make you angry? Jealous?”

  “He didn’t love her.”

  “Didn’t?”

  Maria sighed hard. “What are you asking?”

  “A simple question. Were you jealous?”

  “No. Audrey didn’t work. She met Benson when he was young. She isn’t a career woman like me. She isn’t smart. She’s a homemaker.”

  She sounded so defensive that Skylar wondered if she had been the mastermind behind Audrey’s murder.

  “What’s wrong with being a homemaker?” Ross asked.

  He hadn’t even gotten to the hard questions and already Maria was unraveling.

  “Nothing, but...Benson needs more than that, you know.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “No.” She grunted her frustration. “I—I just know him.”

  “Okay.” Ross held up a hand, indicating he would b
ack off on that line of questioning. “Did he kill his wife?”

  She hesitated.

  “Did he?” Ross asked.

  “Yes.”

  Ross said nothing and the long silence put Maria on task to continue.

  “We talked a lot about the problem of Audrey,” she said. “You know, how it would cost him too much money to divorce her. I tried to convince him he would be all right even if she took him to the cleaners. He’s a good lawyer with a successful practice. But he had his eye on the maximum bottom line, you know?”

  Ross nodded.

  “About a week before, Benson started saying he’d like Audrey to go away. He kept saying that, and asking me if I would like that. I told him I’d like for him to divorce her, but he always refuted that.”

  “Then what?”

  Maria tapped her fingers on the table again, bending her head.

  “Need I remind you that you could be facing serious criminal charges if you don’t cooperate?” Ross said.

  After a few seconds, Maria raised her eyes and held the detective’s gaze. Skylar felt a chill with the coldness she saw in them.

  “She’s not telling the truth,” Skylar said loud enough for only Julien to hear, despite the fact that the room was soundproof. “Not all of it.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I think, too.”

  Skylar caught Sheriff McKenzie’s sober glance before facing the one-way glass again.

  Finally, Maria straightened regally and said, “He called one night...the night Audrey was reported missing. He wanted my help. He asked me to come to his house. He never invited me there. When I arrived, he said he’d secured our future and I had to invest in it. He asked if I wanted to be with him. I said I did. He then took me to the backyard and showed me the hole behind the shed. Audrey’s body was in it.”

  Maria put the back of her wrist to her mouth.

  “What an actress,” Skylar said.

  “He told me to start shoveling,” Maria said. “He told me if I didn’t, it meant I wasn’t serious about us being together. I was scared. I did what he asked because I didn’t know what he would do if I didn’t.”