I picked it up, smoothing it in my hand. “This is so sweet. Where did you find it?”
“Wasn’t easy, but I did. Do you know how male penguins woo a mate?”
I shook my head.
“When the male finds a female he wants to be with for life, he searches the beach for the perfect pebble,” he said. “Then he offers it to the female. If she accepts it, they remain together for the rest of their lives.”
He bent to one knee, and it all made sense—the comment about moving, why we were really there, the pebble. He grabbed my hand, rubbing his thumb along my palm, and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a black velvet box. Popping it open, he held it out in front of me. “Remember the night we first met at the bar downtown? I asked if you wanted to dance, and you corrected my grammar. I remember lookin’ into your eyes and thinkin’ you were the kind of girl I’d go through hell and back to find—the one I never thought existed. These past few years with you have been the best of my life. I never knew I could love a woman the way I love you. When I wake up each mornin’ and see you layin’ by my side, all I want is to get through my day so I can come back to you again.”
“Cade, I—”
He squeezed my hand. “Just hang on a second, let me finish. I haven’t just been thinkin’ a lot about movin’ lately. I’ve been thinkin’ about us, about our future together, and the only future I see is one with you in it. Sloane Monroe, will you marry me?”
A multitude of feelings surged through me. I was stunned, and happy, and caught off guard. I’d prepared for this moment, sure one day it would come. And yet, here it was when I least expected it. After marrying once before when I was way too young, I’d sworn off ever marrying again. Until now. Until him.
“Well,” he said. “Whaddya say?”
Before I could say anything, I became distracted by the sound of a vehicle tearing up the road at great speed. It turned in our direction, jerking to an abrupt stop. “Hey, umm, I think someone’s here.”
Cade’s eyes were still focused on me, as if he hadn’t heard a thing. Then he turned, looking distraught. His perfect moment had been spoiled. He released my hand, shook his head, and stood, trying to get a good look at the people in the truck’s cab. “Who in the hell would be comin’ into our camp right now?”
I shrugged. “Who else knows we’re here?”
The truck’s passenger-side door opened, and Cade’s feisty Aunt Bonnie hopped out. She didn’t look like the spirited woman I was used to seeing. She looked weary and forlorn. Something wasn’t right.
“Bonnie?” Cade said. “Your timing is the worst. What are you doing here?”
She approached us, glanced down at the ring box Cade had snapped shut, and blotted her eyes with a tissue. “I’m sorry to disturb you two, especially now when you were ... well, it looks like you were ... anyway, I didn’t have a choice. The two of you need to come home right now.”
“Why?” Cade asked. “What’s happened?”
More tears, and then, “It’s Shelby, Cade.”
“What do you mean? Did she call you? Is she all right?”
The driver’s-side door of the truck opened, and Bonnie’s boyfriend Hank walked toward us. He was bald, had a thick beard, and was muscular for a man in his upper sixties. Hank slung his arm around Bonnie. “Would you like me to do it, dear?”
Bonnie shook her head. “No, Hank. It’s all right. It needs to come from me.”
“What’s going on with Shelby?” Cade asked.
“Sloane’s friend Maddie called me this morning,” Bonnie said. “She’s been trying to get in touch with the two of you for several hours.”
“We don’t have any cell service out here,” I said. “Did Maddie say why?”
Seconds passed in silence, and it seemed Bonnie couldn’t bring herself to say what needed to be said. She deferred to Hank. “I thought I could do it, but I ... I just can’t.”
“Bonnie, please,” Cade said. “You’re the toughest woman I know. To see you like this ... it’s makin’ me worry.”
“I’m so sorry, Cade. I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you. Shelby was walking home from school and she was attacked.”
“Attacked how?”
“Someone shot her.”
A frantic Cade grabbed Bonnie’s arms. “What are you sayin’, Bonnie? Who attacked her? Why?!”
“I don’t know yet. No one does. Maddie is working with the police to piece together what happened.”
Cade reached in his pocket and pulled out his keys. “We’ll leave the camper here and head down. Where did the bullet hit her, and which hospital is she at?”
Hands on hips, Bonnie bent toward the ground and let the tears flow. “She’s not at the hospital. She didn’t survive. Our sweet girl is gone, Cade. She’s gone.”
CHAPTER 3
After convincing Cade it wasn’t the best time for him to be driving, I grabbed Boo from inside the camper and decided everything else could remain until later. The four of us piled into Hank’s truck and headed for Utah. It was a quiet ride at first, and my thoughts turned to the last visit we’d had with Shelby the week before, nitpicking details I remembered, anything that seemed unusual or off somehow. The visit had been peculiar—the same Shelby we were used to seeing, but in different packaging. She had arrived carrying an expensive Gucci handbag and wearing large, round diamond earrings—and they didn’t look like cubic zirconias to me; they looked like the real deal. When I had inquired about how a poor college student with no job could afford such high-end items, she blew me off, saying the diamonds were fake and the handbag and the boots were borrowed. The explanation seemed logical, but thinking about it now, I realized I’d never really bought it.
Cade reached out, tapping Bonnie on the shoulder. “I need you to tell me everything you know so far.”
“Maddie didn’t say a lot over the phone. She was in a rush. She wanted to talk to you first.”
“Yeah, well, my phone still doesn’t have service, so I feel like I’m sittin’ here spinnin’ my wheels until I can get on the phone.”
“I’m doing my best to get you there as fast as I can,” Hank said. “Once I hit the highway, I’ll do ninety. Should be able to shave an hour off our trip if we don’t run into any traffic.”
Cade patted him on the back. “Thanks, Hank. I appreciate it.”
Bonnie faced Cade. “I’ll tell you what I do know. Maddie’s neighbor called her this morning after she heard gunfire in the park next to the cul-de-sac they live on. I guess Maddie wasn’t home at the time. Maddie told the neighbor Shelby had called her, but she’d missed her call. She tried calling back, and Shelby didn’t answer. Maddie drove home to see what all the fuss was about. By the time she arrived, the police were there, and they told her they had found Shelby in the park.”
“What do you mean they found her?”
Bonnie shook her head. “I don’t know, Cade. Maddie said Shelby had an early morning class each Monday and a three-hour break before the next one. Instead of staying at school, she usually walked back to Maddie’s guesthouse.”
“Why was she walkin’ in the first place? Where was her car?”
“In the shop being repaired. I’m not sure why.”
“She told me she walked to her morning classes sometimes,” I said. “She liked how quiet it was in the park.”
“Why are the police saying she was attacked?” Cade asked. “Aside from the bullet wound, do they have proof of an attack? Did the neighbor see anything?”
“I don’t think so. Shelby has cuts on her face and hands.”
“How many times was she shot?”
“Once.”
“Where?”
Bonnie’s shifted her gaze from Cade to the snow-covered mountains out the window.
“Where was she shot, Bonnie?” Cade asked again.
“In the back,” Bonnie whispered.
He gritted his teeth. “Are you kiddin’ me? What kind of ... who would do somethin’ like that?!”
“I don’t know anything more than what I just said. I’m sorry. Maddie told me to tell you she’d explain more when she sees you, and she’ll examine Shelby as soon as she has permission.”
My phone made several dinging sounds. Cade’s followed. We had service. Cade picked his phone out of his pocket and stared at the screen. “Looks like I have a few voicemail messages.”
He put the phone on speaker, and we listened to a terror-stricken Shelby, in what I assumed were the final moments of her life. “Dad, please pick up. I need you, Daddy. Please. I’m scared. I think someone’s following—”
There was a pause, followed by Shelby cursing. A muffled voice was heard in the background, a voice not belonging to Shelby. The voice was deep and low, a man’s. His words were broken and choppy, too hard to translate. Once he stopped talking, the line went dead.
Cade made a fist, thrusting it into the seat multiple times before burying his head in his hands. “I should have never sent her back! I should have never let her leave without fixin’ things between us first!”
I knew nothing I could say would soothe him, but I had to try.
“None of this is your fault,” I said.
“‘Course it is. Before she left, she tried smoothin’ things over, tried to make peace, and I rejected her. She died thinkin’ I let her down. Can you imagine? In her final moments, she called and I didn’t answer. She must have thought I didn’t want to talk to her. The moment she needed me most, I wasn’t there. I let her down, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
CHAPTER 4
Maddie’s long, blond pigtails bounced up and down as she speed-walked toward me. She enveloped me in her arms, pulling me close. I choked back the tears I’d so bravely kept at bay, trying to remain calm while the sea of turmoil swirled around me. She was my oldest friend, my closest confidant, the one person who could read me better than anyone.
“Let it out, Sloane,” she said. “It’s okay.”
“I can’t. I need to be strong for Cade.”
“Cade will understand. How’s he holding up?”
I broke from our embrace and glanced back, ensuring he wasn’t within earshot. He stood at the door of Maddie’s lab with a cell phone to his ear, breaking the news about Shelby to Wendy, Shelby’s mother and his drug-addicted, unstable ex-wife.
“He’s not good,” I said. “Although I keep waiting for him to explode. It’s coming.”
“He’s in shock right now. We all are.”
“There’s more to it. He’s struggling with the guilt he feels over what happened the last time Shelby visited. They fought over her grades. It didn’t end well. He can’t stop replaying it in his mind.”
“Yeah, I knew things were off between them,” Maddie said. “Shelby talked to me about it when she returned last week. You know she wanted to quit school, right?”
I crossed my arms, nodded. “The day before she left, we had a nice talk. I told her I thought she should remain in school for one more semester. Her first year of college was rough. She didn’t like living on campus. When you invited her to stay at your guesthouse this year, she was ecstatic. I was hoping it would give her the boost she needed to stay.”
“I dunno. She seemed to think she didn’t need school to live the kind of life she wanted, and she acted like she didn’t need her dad’s money either. She told me there were other ways she could take care of herself.”
“Other ways? How?”
Maddie shrugged. “I dunno. When I pressed her on it, she clammed up.”
Cade ended his call and walked over.
“How did it go with Wendy?” I asked.
“‘Bout the same as it always goes. She’s gonna head this way tomorrow. I tried holding her off, but you know how she is. With all that’s goin’ on, I can’t deal with her right now.”
“Where is she living these days?” I asked.
“Says she’s with some new guy in Michigan.”
Cade turned toward Maddie. “I want to know everything. How close are the police to catching the piece of trash responsible for Shelby’s murder?”
“We’re all working as fast as we can, Cade. Believe me. So far we can’t find anyone who saw anything. I wish we knew who did it. I’d kill him myself.”
“She’s been living in your guesthouse for four months,” Cade said. “You must have seen kids come and go, met some of her friends. You know the people we should be talkin’ to, right? I want names.”
“Shelby hardly ever invited anyone over. She was gone a lot. The guesthouse is small. I figured she preferred hanging out somewhere bigger, where she could be with all of her friends.”
“Did she say anything about having any problems with anyone lately?”
Maddie shook her head. “She got along with everyone. Well, everyone except Paul.”
Cade raised a brow. “Who is Paul?”
I gave Maddie a hard stare, knowing she’d interpret the stare’s specific meaning. Cade didn’t know about Paul, not that it mattered now. Whatever secrets Shelby kept, they all needed to come out.
“Paul’s ahh ... someone Shelby had been hanging out with, I guess.” Maddie said. “Never met the guy though.”
“Hangin’ out?” Cade asked. “Friends or more than friends?”
“Well, I guess hanging out wouldn’t be the right choice of words.”
“What are the right words?”
“Paul was Shelby’s ex-boyfriend,” Maddie said. “I think he was, at least.”
Cade raised brow. “Boyfriend? Since when?”
“I don’t know. She only mentioned him to me a couple of times. She said he was someone she was dating, and then maybe three or four weeks ago, she said they broke up.”
“What’s his last name?”
Maddie shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Shelby was always private about her personal life, so I never pushed.”
He whipped around, gauging my reaction. “Why don’t you look surprised? Did you know about this guy too?”
This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to be having right now. “She mentioned him to me a few weeks ago, but it’s like Maddie said, I didn’t think much about him, especially since she said they broke up.”
“Any guy datin’ my daughter is a guy I deserved to know about, no matter how insignificant. You hid it from me.”
“I didn’t hide anything.”
“Yeah, you did. Since when do we have secrets from each other? I thought you trusted me. Guess you don’t.”
There it was—the anger I knew would come—finally pushing its way to the surface. The insult stung like a slap to the face. Any other day I would have clapped back. But he was feeling helpless, like a father who’d failed to protect his daughter. Right now he needed someone to blame, and I was it. “It wasn’t my intention to keep it from you. She told me they had dated for a while and then said they broke up. Since he wasn’t relevant in her life anymore, I didn’t think it mattered.”
I could have said anything. He wouldn’t understand.
“Why was she so afraid to tell me about the guys she was datin’? She’s dated guys in the past I haven’t liked. How was this one any different?”
“If he wasn’t someone she was serious about, she probably assumed there was no point in bringing him up to you.”
“Why did they break up?” Cade asked.
“I don’t know,” Maddie said. “The only thing Shelby said was that he was too clingy. She did mention Paul hadn’t taken the breakup well, but I never got the impression she was concerned for her safety or worried in any way. She acted like he was more of a nuisance than anything else. I suspected the breakup had something to do with Jesse.”
Cade threw his hands in the air. “Who the hell is Jesse?”
“He was another boy she’d started seeing,” Maddie said. “I don’t know much about him either.”
Cade looked at me. “Did you know about Jesse too?”
“When Shelby came home this last time, she said she ha
d gone out with Jesse a few times. It seemed like they were just getting to know each other.”
“Maddie, do the police know about these guys?” Cade asked.
Maddie nodded. “They know everything I know.”
“There must be photos of these guys somewhere—in her house, on the Internet—somewhere.”
“I’ve never seen any,” Maddie said. “I even asked her to show me. She kept saying she would, but she never did.”
He pointed to the lab door. “I want to see her.”
Maddie placed a hand on Cade’s shoulder. “Being chief of police, I know you’ve inspected bodies before, but this is different. She’s not some Jane Doe you don’t know. It won’t be easy.”
“Don’t care,” he said. “No matter how hard it is, I still have to do it.”
CHAPTER 5
I focused on the sound of my shoes squeaking along the rubbery, blue floor of the lab. It helped divert my attention away from why we were there. When we were halfway through the room, Maddie came to an abrupt stop, and it became eerily quiet. I’d been in that exact lab many times over the years, but today it felt different, almost sacred, like if I raised my voice above a whisper, it would be a sign of disrespect.
Three polished metal tables were positioned in the far corner of the room. The first two were empty. A sheet covered a body on the third. I assumed it was Shelby.
“I’ll lift the sheet off and give you a few minutes,” Maddie said. “Then I’ll cover her back up, and we can talk about what I’ve learned so far, okay?”
Cade and I nodded, and the three of us approached the table. I grabbed Cade’s hand. My lungs felt tight and heavy, constricted, and I struggled for breath.
Maddie folded the sheet down with the gentlest of movements. Cade glanced at his daughter, blinking through the tears that couldn’t be stopped.
His voice shaky, he reached for Shelby’s hand. “She’s so cold. So cold and pale.”
Gone Daddy Gone (Sloane Monroe Book 7) Page 2
