The Cliffside Inn

by Jessie Newton

  “Eloise,” Kelli said, sobbing as she grabbed onto the Chief’s girlfriend. Laurel watched them, her curiosity at an all-time high.

  “What happened?” Eloise asked, stepping back and holding onto Kelli’s shoulders. She wore pure concern and shock in her expression, and that felt very genuine to Laurel.

  “I came, because—” She cut her eyes to Laurel, who lifted her eyebrows.

  Kelli sighed and dropped her chin to her chest. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with Zach. He’s been hassling my mother for money, and I called and left him a message to leave her alone. Then I came to the cove, and I kept asking him to meet me. He never responded.”

  Eloise looked from Laurel to Kelli and back, recognition lighting her face. “Laurel, thanks for coming so fast.” She stepped toward Laurel and embraced her, and all the jealous feelings Laurel had ever had because of Eloise’s and Chief Sherman’s relationship only turned to guilt.

  Eloise pulled back. “Aaron called you, right?”

  “Yes,” Laurel said, shifting her feet. Eloise Hall was the nicest person on the planet, and she was beautiful and kind, and of course she deserved Chief Sherman. Laurel couldn’t help thinking the man was as handsome as the day was long. He was good with his kids, and fair with his staff, and any woman who said she hadn’t thought about kissing him was simply a liar.

  She cleared her throat and looked at Kelli again. “He never responded…” she prompted.

  “Right,” Kelli said. “But I figured out where he lived, and I came to talk to him. But I got a bad feeling on the way here, and I texted Eloise to come meet me.”

  “And she asked me to call Aaron,” Eloise said. “I did, and I got in my car and came straight down.”

  “So you went to his house unannounced?” Laurel asked, making a quick note. She lifted her eyes to watch Kelli’s reaction.

  “No,” she said. “I’d just gotten out of the car. He lives above the Chinese restaurant, and it has a keypad. I can’t get up there. So I started walking down the street, and when I turned around, he was just there.”

  “Then what?” Connor asked, stepping to Laurel’s side. He glanced at her notebook, which she tilted toward him. It didn’t have all the details, but enough for him to know the man in the back of their car wasn’t Kelli’s boyfriend.

  “He asked me what I was doing here,” Kelli said. “I’ve been practicing this speech for him, and I started to tell him to stay away from my mother, that she didn’t have any money, and that he should leave the cove and go back to Maine.”

  She visibly shook, and Eloise put her arm around her. They exchanged a glance, and then Kelli looked at Laurel again. These two had been friends for a very long time, if Laurel had to guess. “He wasn’t happy with that, and I told him I was going to look into everything about him, including the birth certificate he’d shown me a few months ago. I said I was going to find out about his mother, and his aunt, and that was when he started yelling.”

  “I’ll go see if we have other witnesses,” Laurel said. “Connor?”

  “Yep,” he said, and he stepped in front of the two women. He asked her something else, but Laurel needed to get away from the situation. She moved through the people standing on the sidewalk, asking for anyone who’d seen anything to come forward.

  A woman wearing an apron lifted her hand and said, “I heard yelling, so I came outside. He had her backed up against the building, and he was about four inches from her face.”

  “Did she yell back?”

  “No, she was already crying.”

  “Did he hit her?”

  “We all heard the sirens, and he looked over his shoulder.” She pressed her palms together, clearly nervous. “He turned back and yelled something about calling the cops, and he tried to swing at her. I mean, he did swing at her, but the guy’s drunk as a skunk, and he almost fell down.”

  “Thank you,” Laurel said. “What’s your name?”

  She gave it and said she worked at The Mandarin Garden, and Laurel moved on to find another version of the story. Everyone she found gave a very similar rendition of the story. Zach had been yelling, with Kelli pinned up against the building.

  Twenty minutes later, she met up with Connor again, and they conferred. “We’ve got the guy we need,” Connor concluded. “I’ll call it in. You want to give her our contact information?”

  “Sure.” Laurel stepped back over to Eloise and Kelli and pulled a card from the back of her notebook. “We’re taking him to the station. Do you both have somewhere safe to stay tonight?”

  “Yes,” they said together, and Laurel nodded.

  “We might have to contact you again,” she said, handing Kelli the card. “My advice? Stay away from this guy. Since he didn’t actually touch you, I’m not sure we’ll be able to do more than question him and warn him to stay away from you too.” Laurel smiled the best she could and turned back to her patrol car.

  She ignored the man in the back seat who kept yelling about his rights being violated, and by the time she and Connor got him back to the station, she had a splitting headache. “I need a break,” she told Connor as they went to file the paperwork to keep Zach Watkins in holding until he wasn’t drunk and they could interview him.

  “Baker and Hatch,” the Chief barked from his doorway. “My office, please.”

  “Oh, boy,” Connor muttered under his breath, but everything inside Laurel’s soul lit up the moment she laid eyes on Aaron Sherman.

  Stop it, she told herself. He has a girlfriend, and she’s amazing. She stuffed away her silly crush and stepped into the Chief’s office.

  He closed the door behind them and said, “Thank you for getting there so quickly. Kelli Thompson is one of Eloise’s very best friends.” He sighed as he went past them. “Sit, sit. Tell me what the situation is.”

  Laurel sat, and Connor looked at her. She was the senior partner, and she detailed everything for Aaron, who kept his mouth shut and nodded throughout the story. “Okay,” he said when she finished. “We need to look into Zach’s background. Find out if the birth certificate is real, and who he really is.”

  “Sir?” Connor asked. “Is that…?” He looked at Laurel, who also thought that would be taking this case a bit farther than they needed to.

  “He didn’t actually touch her, sir,” Laurel said much more diplomatically. “I’m not sure we can hold him once he’s sober.”

  Aaron frowned and then nodded. “Of course. You’re both right.” He smiled and stood, which caused both of them to jump to their feet too. Connor reached the door first, and he opened it and left the office without breaking stride.

  “Laurel,” Chief Sherman said, his voice low and husky. It sent shivers through her whole body.

  She turned back to him. “Yes, sir?”

  He gestured her back into the office and let the door settle almost all the way closed. It wasn’t all the way closed, but it might as well have been. Her heart raced through her veins, and her blood pressure felt like it might shoot through the roof.

  “I’m swamped here,” he said. “But I need to follow up on this on my own time.”

  “Sir?”

  “Would you be willing to work with me on this? On our own time, of course. No police department resources. Just me and you and our best minds at work.”

  Surprise filled Laurel. She couldn’t see anything unethical about following up on a birth certificate on her own time, with her own resources. “Okay,” she said.

  A smile filled his face, and the tension in the room disappeared. “Thank you, Laurel.” He opened the door, and Laurel ducked out, too much giddiness running through her.

  She couldn’t feel like this about the man. She simply couldn’t.

  On her way to her desk, she caught sight of Paul Leyhe, and she made a quick detour. “Hey,” she said when she arrived.

  Paul looked up, his dark eyes full of surprise. He’d asked her out—more than once—but Laurel had still been healing from her disastrous break-up.
“Laurel.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled at her.

  He was good-looking and smart. His sideburns had a hint of gray growing in them, and Laurel liked a more mature man.

  “I was just…” She glanced at the desk across from his, where his partner gazed at a computer screen as if hit held the most fascinating information on it. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Sure.” Paul stood up and Laurel led him toward a back hallway that led to a conference room. She ducked down it and turned back to him. “What’s going on?” Paul asked, concern in his voice now. “Something with that guy you just brought in?”

  “No,” Laurel said. “Nothing like that.” She put her bravery in place and looked right into his eyes. “I was just wondering if you’re seeing anyone, and if maybe the invitation to dinner is still open?”

  Surprise filled Paul’s face, and a slow smile spread across his face. “I’m not seeing anyone.”

  “I was in a bad place when you asked,” she said. “I’d just gotten out of this…abusive relationship, and I needed some time.”

  “I understand,” Paul said, his voice kind and deep, just like Aaron’s. “I’d absolutely love to take you to dinner.”

  “Great,” Laurel said, and she meant it. She smiled too. “Can’t wait.”

  Chapter Eight

  AJ Proctor walked past all the other researcher desks, her heels making plenty of noise on the practically flat carpet. She probably didn’t need to wear heels at all, because she still hadn’t earned her spot on the air.

  She carried a couple of folders in her hand, and she’d deliver them to the on-air talent for that evening’s broadcast. She’d be back at the hotel by then, eating by herself and watching someone else deliver the facts and narrating the clips that she researched and then wrote.

  She didn’t hate the job, but it wasn’t what she was used to. She’d managed to get selected for this trip to Denver, but she’d thought she’d be the one to be at the basketball arena, interviewing the players and coaches, as well as their representatives.

  Instead, she’d been two steps behind Eddie Winchester as he asked all the questions. She recorded the interview and took notes, and then she typed everything up for him. He had an office with real walls in the building where their studio had been assigned, while she had a desk crammed in between two others.

  “Here’s the transcripts, Eddie,” she said, smiling for all she was worth as she entered the man’s office.

  “Thanks, AJ.” He didn’t look away from his laptop. “Hey, we got the early slot in the morning. They start practice at eight-fifteen. We need to be at the arena by seven, so we get at least an hour before they kick us out.”

  “Seven,” she confirmed, though a small part of her died. To get her hair shiny and straight, her makeup just right, and her lips glossed, AJ had to get up five to make a seven a.m. meeting at the basketball arena in downtown Denver.

  She did love the mountains, as she’d never seen anything like them before. There was no water here, no shore, and no scent of salt in the air. The Rocky Mountains had a charm all their own though, and AJ wished she’d had more opportunities to travel.

  On her way back to her desk, AJ’s phone chimed. She pulled it out of the pocket in her slacks and saw it was Eloise on the group text. She loved her friends from Five Island Cove, and she quickly swiped the text open.

  Dinnervention with Kelli at six tomorrow, the text read. Coddington’s.

  AJ’s chest pinched, and she hated that she hadn’t known about this sooner. There was no way she could get from Denver to Five Island Cove by six tomorrow night. She hadn’t even known Kelli was in the cove, and she wondered what had happened to bring her back so soon. They hadn’t had plans to meet, and the texts had been how they’d been keeping in touch.

  When Robin had asked if AJ had met anyone interesting in New York, she’d told them no one. They hadn’t believed her, so AJ had simply said, Peterson.

  No one had asked specific questions, and AJ hadn’t had to lie to them. Peterson was the name of the goldfish she’d gotten on her second day in New York, because her apartment in Brooklynn depressed her. It was a studio, and she barely had room to sit, let alone think.

  She’d needed something else to focus on, and there’d been a pet store down the block on the corner. She’d ducked in there one afternoon after buying groceries, and the next thing she knew she had Peterson to talk to at night.

  She’d made a pact with herself not to start dating the moment she landed in New York, and to her great surprise, she’d kept that vow. It helped that she worked at least twelve hours each day.

  She sat at her desk and looked at her phone. A dinnervention, she thought. Must be serious.

  Out of all the women, she was the closest to Kelli, and she hadn’t heard anything from her friend. She didn’t want to ask all of her questions on the group text, so she just sent them to Kelli. It wasn’t all that surprising that she didn’t answer, but frustration still threaded through AJ.

  She reminded herself of the time difference, and then she stood up. She still had a couple of things to do, but she could complete them from the hotel room. She gathered the tape and the folders she needed, and with her laptop, put everything in her bag.

  “AJ,” Mike said as she went past his desk. “A bunch of us are going to dinner at The Roost. You in?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said with a smile. “I still have a few things to do tonight, and I need to call my friend.” She kept walking, because she knew better than to let Mike get a real conversation going.

  She hadn’t forgotten that he’d asked her out on the very first day she’d arrived in the office. She didn’t normally say no when a man asked her out, but she’d had the pact, and she wasn’t all that attracted to Mike. He had a loud laugh, and she stood taller than him.

  AJ reminded herself that she wasn’t a twenty-something anymore, and she probably should’ve simply said she’d love to go to dinner once she got settled in her apartment in Brooklyn.

  She wasn’t sure how anyone in the office managed a relationship, because she worked more here than she had anywhere else. She didn’t hate it, but she wasn’t used to being the low man on the totem pole. She’d had to learn to like the taste of humble pie, and she thought she’d done a pretty good job in the past two months.

  She drove her rental back to the hotel, where she ordered something from room service, spread out her work, and turned on the sports syndicate channel. Her prediction that she’d eat alone in her hotel room came true before her very eyes when the room service attendant arrived with her pasta with chicken and pesto.

  As she ate, she allowed herself to feel the range of her emotions. She hadn’t been on her anti-depressants for a couple of years now, but she considered it from time to time. One of those times had arrived, because a shroud of darkness descended on her as she considered her meal.

  Her phone chimed again, and Kelli’s name sat on the screen. A bright ray of hope shone from the phone, and AJ abandoned her fork in favor of her device. She tapped on Kelli’s name and quickly read her response.

  Too much to type out.

  “Then I’m going to call you,” AJ muttered, and she tapped the green phone icon and listened to the line ring.

  “It’s late here,” Kelli hissed instead of hello.

  “You said it was too much to type out,” AJ said. “What did you think I would do?”

  Kelli sighed, and she added, “Let me go in the other room.”

  “Where are you?”

  Kelli’s breathing came through the line, but she didn’t answer right away. A few seconds later, she said, “Believe it or not, Alice’s.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Kelli sighed again, this time longer and with more frustration in the sound. “I should’ve known better than to come back to the cove. No one can keep a secret here.”

  “You don’t need to keep secrets from me,” AJ said. “Besides, I’m not in the cove.”
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  “Everyone else is,” she said. “Eloise moved here over the weekend, and I came because…because…well, Julian and I are separating.”

  Shock moved through AJ, and she sat back in the desk chair. “You are?”

  “Yes,” Kelli said, her voice clipped and short. “I really don’t want to explain everything.”

  “Why not?” AJ asked. “It’s me, and I’m not even there. You can’t even see my face.”

  “I can picture it right now,” Kelli said. “I’m just embarrassed, AJ.”

  “Why? Is this your fault?”

  “No,” Kelli whispered.

  AJ cocked her head, because she had always been able to hear things in Kelli’s voice she didn’t want to give away. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Julian had a girlfriend in our house when I got back,” Kelli said. “Well, not right away. But he’s been dating his new assistant.”

  “That snake,” AJ said. There were a lot of things she could tolerate, but cheating wasn’t one of them.

  “It gets worse.”

  “How?”

  “He doesn’t want a divorce. He wants…both of us.”

  AJ had heard of this kind of alternative relationship, and there was no way Kelli would ever participate in it. Her husband should know that about her. AJ had never met Julian, but he must not know Kelli at all.

  “I’m so sorry,” AJ said.

  “So I packed a few things, and Parker and I are back in the cove. I just found somewhere to rent today, and Parker and I will be there tomorrow. I should’ve just gotten a hotel.”

  “It’s still tourist season,” AJ said.

  “I didn’t even try,” Kelli said. “Julian and I—” Her voice muted for a moment, and AJ could imagine the way she’d be trying to swallow back her emotion. “We never had much money to begin with, so my first thought wasn’t to get a hotel. It was to come to Alice’s.”

  “And she told Robin, and now there’s a dinnervention.”

  “I think she told Eloise, actually,” Kelli said. “How can anyone say no to Eloise? She’s, like, the nicest person ever.”