Death is in the Air (Secret Seal Isle Mysteries Book 5)

by Lucy Quinn

  “Even as we speak,” Cookie confirmed, pleasantly surprised he didn’t appear to be sauced, as per usual. “That’s why I need backup.”

  “Hell, yes!’ Swan pushed off from the desk and half-walked, half-strutted toward her, and she almost expected him to produce a superhero cape considering the way he was embracing the request for help. Thankfully, he only grabbed a jacket out of a nearby closet then veered off toward a door on the side of the building.

  “Wait, where’re you going?” Cookie asked, hurrying after him. The deputy didn’t answer, but she caught up with him just as he flung the door open and flipped a light switch, revealing the small garage attached to the station and the squad car that sat there waiting. “Oh.”

  “Oh is right, Miss James,” Swan declared, already pulling open the driver-side door. Apparently he was in the habit of leaving it unlocked, but then who was going to steal a squad car from inside the sheriff’s station? “If we’re going to stop these men in their tracks, we need to put the fear of the law into them. And nothing does that like sirens and lights.” He patted the dash as he slid into the driver’s seat and paused to peer out at her. “You coming, or what?”

  For a second Cookie considered saying no, she’d walk, since she’d rarely seen the man sober. But she had to admit that it seemed he’d managed to stay on the wagon tonight. Maybe he was making an effort to clean up his act. If so, Cookie was a thousand percent behind him. With a nod, she stepped quickly around the car to slip into the passenger seat.

  Swan had already started the car and opened the metal garage door, and as soon as she was in and buckled up, he put the car in reverse and roared out of the station.

  “Now, we don’t want to hit the lights too soon,” he explained as he yanked on the wheel and pulled the car into a screeching turn out of the short driveway and onto the street. “We’ve got the element of surprise, so it’s best if we use it.”

  Suddenly, he hit the brakes, throwing her forward. The seat belt caught her and knocked the wind right out of her lungs. “Oomph,” she huffed out.

  “Time to toughen it up, James,” the deputy said with a laugh. “If you can’t handle a little aggressive driving, I can’t imagine how’ve survived riding around with the cocky FBI agent.” He eased the car forward down the street, all the lights off.

  She ignored his petty jab and held on for dear life. It was a good thing there wasn’t anyone else on the road, Cookie thought, or they’d get in an accident for sure. Sober or not, Cookie was seriously starting to regret her decision to ride with the deputy.

  Luckily for them, the gallery was only two blocks from the station. She spotted the van almost immediately and breathed a sigh of relief that it was still there. But then she noticed the van had moved forward a few feet and that the back doors were now closed. She heard the faint sound of a door slamming, and in the next moment, the van rolled forward.

  “They’re moving!” she warned Swan, pointing toward the thieves. They must’ve finished taking what they’d come for, and now they were getting away. “After them!”

  Swan burst into a huge grin. “Yes, ma’am!” he shouted happily and hit the headlights, the spot, the blinkers, and the sirens all at once. It was like a camera flash combined with a blaring ringtone and a disco ball, and for a second Cookie could neither see nor hear. She blinked rapidly, trying to recover. And when her vision cleared, she noticed the van was now fleeing in earnest. The driver executed a fast reverse and a wide turn, and the van squealed away from them, its own headlights clicking on now that the thieves had lost all need for stealth.

  Beside her, Swan whooped. “You can run, but you can’t hide!” he hollered, punching the inside of the car’s roof with one hand while working the wheel with the other. They were racing through town now, heading toward the dock, and Cookie wondered where exactly the thieves thought they were going. This was an island, after all, and not a very big one. How did they even think they could escape?

  But then she spotted lights up ahead and after a minute, her eyes adjusted enough to make out a blurry shape beneath them. “They’ve got a boat!” she declared. “They must be heading for that! We have to cut them off!”

  “You got it!” Swan replied. He was almost up to the van now, his headlights inches from its rear bumper. But then the van took a sudden, sharp-left turn, cutting to the side just as the street curved slightly to the right at the town square.

  And then there wasn’t a van in front of them anymore. Instead, they were barreling straight for a large tree bedecked with holiday lights.

  “Look out!” Cookie shouted, and the deputy spun the wheel and slammed on the brakes, but it was much too late. The squad car spun about and careened sideways into the town’s Christmas tree, the sound of fiberglass and metal crunching against the thick branches. The car rocked to a halt as ornaments and tinsel showered down on them.

  Unbuckling her seat belt, Cookie twisted and spotted the van as it continued to make its way around the small square, past the now-downed tree, out onto the second pier, and straight onto some sort of boat.

  Pain radiated across Cookie’s chest as she yanked on her door then shoved, managing to force it open despite the debris and branches pinning it in place. No doubt the seatbelt was going to leave a nasty bruise across her torso. But there was no time to dwell on her minor injury.

  She squeezed through the narrow gap of the door and ran for the dock, but she could see they were too late. The second the van had trundled onto the boat—a small barge, she decided—dark figures had cast off the ropes and the boat had begun to pull away. By the time she reached the edge of the pier, huffing for breath, it was well out onto the water and picking up speed. A few minutes later, it had entirely vanished from view.

  “Dammit!” she shouted, banging her fist against her uninjured thigh. There wasn’t anything she could do, though. So after another minute of fuming, she turned back toward her so-called backup, who had just managed to drag himself out of the battered and dented squad car.

  Unlike her, Swan was in fine spirits. “Damn!” he bellowed with an entirely different intonation than the one she’d used. “Did you see that? That was something! It was like that tree came out of nowhere, huh? Crazy! I thought we were toast for sure!”

  Cookie resisted pointing out that the tree had actually been there for years, and that it had been decorated in a big ceremony just the weekend before. There wasn’t any point. “They got away,” she said, her tone flat.

  “Yeah, sorry about that.” Swan shrugged. “That’s just how it goes in law enforcement, though, am I right? You win some, you lose some.” He patted the hood of his damaged car and laughed. “But, man, talk about fun! I haven’t been this revved up since that time they had a wardrobe malfunction over at the assisted living facility a few years back, and it led to an orgy and a brawl all at the same time.”

  He continued to reminisce about the X-rated senior citizen incident, which had apparently involved a whole lot of lubricant, false teeth, and prosthetics, but Cookie stopped paying attention. Instead, she turned and trudged away, heading back the way they’d come. The thieves were long gone, but at least she could check the gallery and find out exactly what they’d stolen.

  The door was closed but unlocked when she reached it. She tentatively pushed it open, making sure no thieves had been left behind, and then flipped on the lights. Right away her eyes went to the blank spaces on one wall. There were five of them, and after scanning the rest of the room, Cookie stepped close enough to read the little plaques and confirmed what she’d already guessed—that the only paintings the thieves had taken had been Petra’s.

  And even though her gut instinct had been true, it didn’t explain why they’d left the other pieces. The stolen paintings had been quite lovely, but some of the other pieces in the gallery were just as nice. So why take all of Petra’s and not the rest? Were they art critics as well as thieves? Were they collectors obsessed with her work? Did they hope the work would skyrocket in v
alue now that she was dead?

  Or was there something else going on?

  Whatever it was, Cookie knew she wasn’t going to figure it out right that moment. With a sigh, she switched off the light and closed the door. She retrieved Brooklyn’s key from her pocket to lock it again and then started back home.

  Behind her, she could still hear Swan laughing. It was a sound she suspected would haunt her for weeks to come.

  14

  “Oh honey, are you okay?” Rain wailed as soon as Cookie walked in the door. “What happened?” She ran over and threw her arms around Cookie, trapping her daughter in the coat she’d just started to shrug off.

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Cookie promised. “Or I will be, if you back off so I don’t wind up being strangled by my own scarf.” Her mother pouted but released her, allowing her to shuck the heavy outerwear. “Where’s Hunter?” Cookie asked once she was free of the winter gear.

  “What do you mean?” Rain asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. “I thought he was with you.”

  Cookie shook her head, but she’d already caught the sound of footsteps on the stairs above. A second later, the man in question came into view. “Hey,” he called down as he approached. “Back from the VFW hall?” The smirk on his face showed that he had absolutely no idea what had happened in his absence.

  That changed the second he reached the bottom step, however.

  “Where the hell were you?” Rain snapped, turning on him with all the ferocity of a wounded mother bear defending her cubs. “Mister Big FBI Man, lounging upstairs on his bed while my poor baby takes on a pack of murderous thugs all by her lonesome. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

  Cookie raised an eyebrow at the characterization, as did Scarlett who had just followed Rain in from the living room, but she didn’t dare interrupt. Besides, this was prime viewing, and she had to admit to being more than a little ticked at Hunter herself. Couldn’t he have at least checked his messages?

  “Wait, what?” Hunter actually stumbled backward from the attack, tripped on the steps behind him, and wound up sitting on the third step. “What’re you talking about?” He looked past Rain to Cookie, his eyes raking across her, all playfulness banished. “What happened?”

  “There were guys at the gallery,” Cookie explained, turning and striding into the living room, where she sank down in front of the fire and welcomed the heat as it soaked into her. The adrenaline left over from the crash had long since faded and by the time she’d walked all the way home, she’d been chilled to the bone. “They were looting the place.”

  “You saw them?” Hunter asked, following her into the room and taking the spot opposite her on the hearth. “How many?”

  “Two, at least,” she said, closing her eyes and recreating the scene in her head. “Maybe one driving, but the windows were tinted and I never saw anyone climb in or out of the driver’s seat. The two I did see were loading the paintings.” She rattled off descriptions of the men. “They had a van pulled up right in front, and they must’ve picked the lock because the door was wide open.”

  “You didn’t confront them, did you?” Hunter’s eyes were narrowed and his jaw set.

  Cookie knew he was thinking of the many times she had charged into a situation like this one or even worse. But this time she was able to shake her head. “No, I didn’t. I sent Mom back here and kept watch on them while I tried to reach you,” she continued, allowing some of her anger to creep into her voice. “But you didn’t answer. Or call me back.”

  “Shit.” He hung his head, and when he lifted it again she saw genuine contrition in his gaze. “I’m so sorry, Charlie. I had no idea. I’ve been on the phone with the office, sending them the picture of that guy and seeing if they had anyone in the system who matched. My phone didn’t ring once. It never occurred to me to check my messages.”

  “I get it,” Cookie said, waving a hand. Hadn’t she speculated that’s what he’d been doing? She took a deep breath and let it out, along with her bottled up anger. She’d known, of course, that Hunter never would’ve deliberately ignored her call. All the years they’d worked together, he’d always had her back, and she knew that whatever else was going on between them wouldn’t ever change that. The situation had just been crappy timing and even crappier luck. No one was at fault, and there was no point in being angry about it. Especially since it was over now, and they couldn’t do anything to change it.

  “How did you handle it?” Hunter asked, getting the conversation back on track.

  Cookie grimaced. “I went to the only other person I knew was nearby and armed.” She waited and watched his face as he visibly searched for a clue, then saw his jaw drop.

  “Swan?” he finally asked, sounding slightly strangled.

  “Swan,” she confirmed. She shook her head and had to bite back a chuckle at the image of him behind the wheel. “He was into it, believe it or not,” she managed with an almost straight face. “Crazy as a loon, sure, but excited about the prospect of taking down some bad guys.”

  “And did he take them down?” Scarlett asked dryly, claiming one of the armchairs facing them. “Because I’ve met Deputy Swan a few times now, and he hasn’t exactly impressed me as a stellar example of law enforcement.”

  Cookie snorted. “Yeah, not so much,” she said. Then she proceeded to narrate the entire chase scene, complete with faces and gestures that were only slightly exaggerated from Swan’s actual moves.

  “Charlie,” Hunter said, cutting her off, his expression stony. “Please tell me you didn’t actually get into a car with that drunk SOB willingly.”

  “Oh, he wasn’t drunk,” Cookie said, shaking her head. “It was the first time I’d ever seen him completely sober. Still doesn’t change the fact his license should be taken away. The man is a menace on wheels.” She launched back into her story and when she shouted, “Wa-hoo!” and mimed punching the roof, Scarlett and Rain both toppled over, laughing so hard they were crying. Even Hunter was smiling, and not his patient when-is-this-going-to-be-over-smile either. No, this one was genuine and one that she didn’t actually see that often.

  Cookie ended with the calamitous run-in with the Christmas tree, complete to gasps of shock and dismay from her audience. She shrugged. “He’s fine, of course. His type always is. The squad car’s a mess, but he seemed pretty pleased with the night’s work anyway, so whatever.” She stretched and hid the grimace when pain stabbed at her ribs. That seatbelt had really done a number. “I stopped at the gallery on the way back to see what they took, then came back here. And that’s it.”

  “What did they make off with?” Hunter asked, his grin fading as he got back to business.

  “Just Petra’s paintings,” Cookie replied. “Those five she had hanging up there.”

  “Oh, no!” Scarlett gasped, clapping a hand to her chest. “My seascape?”

  “Sorry,” Cookie told her. “Yeah.”

  Hunter frowned and cracked his knuckles, deep in thought. “That’s messed up,” he said finally. “Why just take hers?”

  “No idea, but I was wondering the same thing.” Cookie sighed. “Whatever the reason, they’re long gone now.”

  “True.” Hunter studied her. “But you got a good look at them. We can use that.”

  “More calls?” Cookie asked, but he surprised her by shaking his head.

  “We’d need to hook you up with a good sketch artist. It’s not something they like to do over the phone. That never turns out well,” he said. “No, we need to go back to Philly, find an artist and have you pore over the books in person, see if those guys are in there.”

  The thought of leaving the island didn’t sit well with Cookie. She didn’t want to go back to Philly. There was a very good reason she was now living on the island. She couldn’t deny that he was right, though. She’d seen the thieves firsthand, and she was trained for this. So if those guys were in the books, she’d find them. If not, they’d at least have a quality sketch. It was the fastest way, even taking into
account the travel times involved. “All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  “Great!” Hunter slapped his leg and rose to his feet, suddenly full of enthusiasm. “We’ll leave first thing tomorrow. I’ll make a few calls, get our tickets, and let Spinner know you’re coming in—just to consult on this, nothing else.”

  She frowned, realizing that yes, she’d have to face her old boss, who she hadn’t seen or spoken to since she’d left a resignation letter on his desk and snuck out. She opened her mouth to tell Hunter she’d changed her mind, that there had to be another way. But he’d taken off up the stairs and Cookie knew in her gut she was avoiding a situation she should have dealt with a long time ago. Oh yeah, this was going to be a swell trip.

  Scarlett slid into Hunter’s place, taking Cookie’s hands in her own. “Hey, you all right?” her best friend asked softly. “As funny as that story was, you were still in a car accident. Are you hurt?”

  “Hm? Oh, no, I’m fine. A little bruised maybe, but I’ll live.” Cookie fought to muster a smile, but she felt utterly exhausted all of a sudden, the night’s events finally catching up to her. “Just worn out from all the excitement, I guess.”

  “Understandable,” Scarlett said. “But, hey, on the plus side, looks like you just won an all-expense-paid trip to Philly for the weekend. Not such a bad thing, right?”

  “No, it’s not,” Cookie answered, but inside she wondered. She’d loved Philadelphia, loved living there, loved the mix of old and new, sleek and homey. Other than facing Spinner, she should have been excited to go back to her familiar stomping grounds. Was it just the post-adrenaline crash? Or was it something else?

  Rain joined them by the fire and frowned as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t like you running back there like this,” she stated, never one to beat around the bush. “Especially not with him. Sounds too much like a romantic getaway to me, and that city still isn’t safe for you.”