Hotshot P.I.

by B. J Daniels

  “You know that or you wouldn’t be here.”

  Jake smiled. He might get the opportunity to thump Frank yet. “What did you hear?”

  “I already told the sheriff—”

  “Tell me, Frank,” Jake said between gritted teeth.

  Frank slowly wiped the grease from his hands onto his worn jeans. “They were arguing about something.”

  “What?”

  Frank shot him a contemptuous look. “How should I know?”

  “You were listening to their conversation.”

  “I just happened to overhear Clancy threaten him, that’s all.”

  “What exactly did she say?”

  “I don’t exactly remember.” He shook his head at Jake’s stupidity. “I got better things to do than memorize my customers’ conversations.”

  Jake took a step toward Frank. “Try to remember.”

  “She said it was over between them. He said it was over when he said it was over. She said he was hurting her and he’d better leave her alone or else.”

  “Not bad for a conversation you can’t remember,” Jake said. “Where exactly were you when you overheard this conversation? I thought the café was closed.”

  He gave him a nasty sneer. “I was walking by.”

  Jake nodded. “This waitress who overheard this same conversation—”

  “Liz Knowles. She’s up at the café.”

  “Was she walking with you?”

  “I think it’s time for you to leave, Hawkins.” Frank turned to go back to his plumbing problems.

  “One more question. How was it you were able to buy this resort?”

  Frank picked up a pipe wrench from behind the pump and hefted it into both hands. “I’m through answering questions. You don’t own this place anymore. Your old man’s behind bars, your girlfriend’s a murderer, and you’re nothing but some punk P.I. who doesn’t know squat. So don’t you come around here hassling me no more—or you’ll regret it.”

  Jake smiled and pushed back his baseball cap. “One of these days I’m going to kick your ass, Frank. And that’s a promise.”

  * * *

  CLANCY KNEW THERE probably wasn’t anything to find in cabin six, but she still had to look, and she hoped the cabin girl’s curiosity would get the best of her.

  Just as the girl had said, the cabin wasn’t locked. Nor did it look much different from number three. Except the beds were made. Clancy glanced around in all the corners, under the beds and behind the door. Nothing, just as she’d thought. Then she took a closer look, inspecting the cracks between the worn pine plank floor and the crevices between the floor and baseboard. No tiny blue beads.

  Disappointed, she stood for a moment in the middle of the room, thinking about Dex. Where were the rest of the beads from the necklace? It was obvious the necklace hadn’t been broken here. Some of the tiny beads would have gotten caught between the floorboards. Common sense told her she’d find the beads closer to home. They were near enough to the lodge that she’d walked to them in her sleep. But where? And what did the broken beads signify? Probably nothing. Her sleepwalking was often illogical, she reminded herself.

  It made as little sense as Dex coming to Hawk Island. If it was to see her, then why hadn’t he called her the first day? Why had he waited? And whom had he left a message for on the dock? As far as Clancy knew, Dex didn’t know anyone up here but her.

  “Find anything?” the girl asked from the doorway.

  Clancy smiled to herself, glad she hadn’t been wrong about the girl’s curiosity. “Is it possible the message he wrote was for some woman he’d met here?” she asked, knowing that was more than a possibility.

  The girl looked away.

  Clancy knew she’d hit paydirt. “Dex always had a way with women.”

  The girl looked up, a smirk on her young face. “There was this one waitress.”

  Of course there was. “Which waitress?”

  “Liz. Liz Knowles.”

  What a sleaze Dex had been! All the time he’d been dating her he’d been seeing other women. Then he’d come to Hawk Island supposedly to get her back and he was making time with one of the waitresses at the resort. Maybe she had killed him. “So the message from Dex was probably for her?”

  The girl shook her head. “I passed Liz on my way down to the docks. She was already headed for his cabin.”

  “Maybe Liz just missed the message or picked it up later.”

  The girl brushed a speck of lint from her sweatshirt and, looking at the ground, shook her head. “Later I went to check. The message was gone. Liz hadn’t left his cabin.”

  “Do you know if anyone else came to Dex’s cabin that night?” Clancy asked on impulse.

  “No.” The girl looked disgusted, and Clancy realized her impulse had been right. The poor thing had hung around outside the cabin waiting for Liz to leave. All Clancy could think was how lucky the girl had been that Dex hadn’t taken advantage of her schoolgirl crush.

  But if the message hadn’t been meant for Liz Knowles, then whom? Clancy felt a sudden chill as she remembered that night at the cafe when Dex had looked past her into the darkness and seen someone. Or something that had frightened him. She wondered what Dex had had to fear. And from whom. The person who killed him? “What about the night he was killed?”

  “I had to work at the café. But I know Liz planned to go to his cabin that night.”

  Clancy remembered what Jake had said about Dex not having any underwear on when he was found dead. Liz Knowles might be the explanation for that. But if Jake’s theory was right, who had interrupted the two?

  “The only time he left the island was that first afternoon Thursday,” the girl was saying.

  Clancy’s head snapped up. “He left the island?”

  She nodded, looking unhappy. “He was all dressed up.”

  The girl obviously figured he’d had a date. She was probably right. “Do you know where he went?”

  She shook her head.

  Clancy had a thought. “He came back and then wrote the message you took to the dock that first night?”

  She nodded, looking miserable. “He was in a really good mood.”

  * * *

  THE FIRST THING JAKE noticed when he left the pumphouse and Frank was that Clancy was no longer in the boat. In fact, she was nowhere to be seen. He swore under his breath. This should not have come as a surprise. No, this was absolutely predictable. Anyone who knew Clancy would know better than to think she’d just sit idly by in the boat as he’d asked her. She’d never done anything he ever told her. Needless to say, that part of her hadn’t changed a bit.

  He spotted her finally by the cabins, talking to a cabin girl. Questioning a cabin girl, he corrected himself. Damn her hide. Well, at least he could see her, and she was all right. For the moment. He’d take this up with her when he finished interviewing Elizabeth Knowles.

  The Hawk Island Resort café was actually little more than a grill that served burgers, hot dogs, fries and soft drinks. All the seating was outdoors at wooden tables under a canopy of pines and Japanese lanterns. Cheap plastic checked tablecloths flapped in the summer breeze. A woman in her early twenties in shorts and a tank top was busy putting out condiments.

  “Lunch isn’t served for another half hour,” she said when she saw Jake. She had the harried, tight expression of a young woman who was already tired of her summer job and it was only early June.

  “I’m looking for a waitress named Knowles.”

  She looked up.

  He saw fear flicker in her eyes.

  “I’m Elizabeth Knowles.”

  He asked her the same questions he had asked Frank. But got different answers.

  “What makes you think they were arguing about money?” he asked, his interest piqued not only by the difference in how she and Frank related the conversation, but by this woman’s obvious sympathy toward Dex.

  Elizabeth shrugged. “He said she owed him money. But it sounded like she’d dumped him
, too, and he was upset about that.”

  Funny, but money had never come up in the conversation, according to Clancy. And Frank. Jake glanced around the café. “Where were they sitting?”

  She pointed to a far table at the back edge of the deck flanked by two large pines.

  “And where were you when you heard this conversation?”

  Her gaze flickered away. “I was working. I had to close the café that night.”

  She must have been the waitress Clancy saw cleaning the grill.

  “You couldn’t have heard their conversation from inside the café,” Jake said quietly.

  She flushed to the dark roots of her blond head. “I wasn’t. I was…in the trees. I had to run an errand.”

  Right beside the deck. “Did you see anyone else while you were there?”

  She shook her head. “I was only there a few minutes.”

  “Just long enough to overhear their entire conversation,” Jake said.

  “I gotta get back to work,” she said, turning to walk away.

  “What was so interesting about that conversation that you hid in the pines to listen?”

  Her steps faltered, but she didn’t stop or turn around. Nor did she deny it. “I was just curious,” she said flatly. “There’s no law against that.”

  No, if there was a law against curiosity, Jake would be doing time right now, he thought as he watched Clancy hurry down the dock to her boat. What had she learned from the cabin girl that had put a spring into her step? More important, how could he convince Clancy she wasn’t going to be doing any more investigating on her own?

  * * *

  CLANCY STRETCHED OUT in the back of the boat, pretending to be asleep. It was hard to do since she couldn’t help but steal a peek at Jake from under her large straw fishing hat. Jake strode down the dock, his cap pulled low over his eyes, his jaw set in concrete. She didn’t have to see his eyes to know he was furious. Or to know who he was furious with. Obviously he knew that she’d left the boat.

  “I thought you agreed to stay here where I could see you,” he said the moment he reached her.

  She leisurely pushed back her hat and looked up at him. “I did stay in the boat. For a while.” She grinned, too pleased at what she’d discovered to hold it in any longer. “Don’t you want to know what I found out?”

  “Dammit, Clancy, I won’t have you messing up my investigation with your amateur sleuthing.” He glowered at her.

  “I found out some pretty good stuff,” she said. “For an amateur, of course. Dex was romantically involved with one of the waitresses.”

  “Liz Knowles.”

  She stared at him. “How did you know that?”

  “She’s one of the witnesses who overheard your conversation with Dex.”

  Clancy sat up. “Really?” How interesting. “Wait a minute, why didn’t I see her that night?”

  “She was hiding in the pines right beside the deck.”

  Excitement coursed through her. “Then, she wasn’t the person Dex saw in the darkness. It was someone else, just as I suspected.” She hurriedly told Jake about the note the cabin girl had left under a bait can and how Dex had been on the island an extra day and night before he contacted her. Also how he’d left the island Thursday to meet someone, maybe a date, and returned in a good mood. “That’s when he left the note.”

  She waited for Jake’s reaction, expecting him to be as excited about this as she was. He bent to untie the boat, and, if anything, he seemed more angry.

  “Don’t you realize what this means?” she demanded. “Dex knew someone else on the island, someone he left a note for. He also left the island to meet someone. It’s a lead.”

  Jake looked up, leveling his gray-eyed gaze at her. “Clancy, I realize telling you what to do is a waste of my breath,” he said. “But it would help if you’d let me do the job I’ve been hired to do. And if you’d just stay put like you’re told. This is my case, and whether you believe it or not, I know what I’m doing.”

  “No wonder I keep firing you,” she said in exasperation. “This may be your case, Jake, but it’s my life. Even if I trusted you to do the job my aunt hired you to do, which you have already admitted isn’t why you’re here, I couldn’t stay put. Someone tried to kill me. The sheriff isn’t even looking into other leads because he believes he already has his killer, and you don’t believe I’m innocent any more than he does. If I stay put, I might end up dead. At the very least, in prison for life.”

  Jake jerked off his cap and raked his fingers through his hair. “Dammit, Clancy, sometimes I’d like to—” He slapped his cap back on his head and leveled his gaze at her. “You were always like this. Too independent, stubborn and fearless for your own good. Remember that time you went swimming off Angel Point in the storm?”

  She’d almost drowned. Probably would have if it hadn’t been for Jake. She’d only done it because he’d told her not to. What he was saying was true. Often in the past, she’d let her stubborn pride get her into trouble. “You’re wrong, Jake. I’m not fearless. I’m scared to death.”

  In one swift motion, he pushed off the boat and stepped in. “You should be scared. There’s already been one murder. If you didn’t kill Dex, or whoever he was, then the killer is still out there. It’s too dangerous for a—”

  “Woman?” She raised a brow at him.

  “Amateur,” he said with that soft southern drawl.

  She pushed back her sunglasses to glare up at him.

  “We’ll discuss this back at the lodge.” He tossed her the boat key. “You can drive.”

  She caught the key easily enough but bristled at his tone. It sounded as if he thought he was going to have the last word on this. He was even going to let her drive her own boat. And then take the key again when they got to the lodge. She tossed the key back to him. “Some things aren’t debatable,” she said, pulling down her sunglasses as she stretched out on the seat in the sun again.

  She heard him mumbling as he started the boat and pulled away from the resort. She had the feeling that Jake Hawkins was used to women he could mold like soft clay. Well, not this woman. And he had a fight on his hands if he thought he could.

  It was more than her stubborn pride, Clancy told herself. She was tired of feeling like a criminal. And while she appreciated Jake’s help, she had no intention of letting him investigate her case alone. She had to prove her innocence. And she couldn’t depend on anyone to do it for her. Not even Jake Hawkins. Especially not Jake Hawkins.

  Jake slowed as they rounded the island. Clancy pretended to sleep until she felt the boat bump the dock. She sat up, studying Jake out of the corner of her eye to see if his mood had changed.

  He still looked irritated with her, but as he passed on his way to tie up the boat, he handed her the boat key. That simple sign of trust touched her more deeply than she wanted to admit.

  “Jake?” She started to tell him that she was glad he was here. That she liked being around him, even when he was ill-tempered. That his being here made her feel like she had a chance to prove her innocence. He gave her strength. And hope. Even if he was here for all the wrong reasons”Thanks.”

  He grunted in response and offered her a hand out of the boat. “I still don’t want you interfering in my investigation.”

  She smiled. “But you’re smart enough to know that I will whether you like it or not.”

  “You are the most disagreeable woman I’ve ever—” Before she knew what was happening, he grabbed her and hauled her out of the boat—and into his arms, into his kiss. It was a kiss that brooked no arguments. He took her lips, the same way he took her body to his. Her lips responded to his demands, parting of their own volition to allow him access to her. Against her counsel, her body answered his, molding its softness to his hardness.

  “Excuse me?”

  Clancy’s eyes popped open as she recognized the voice and realized it was directly behind her. Abruptly Jake broke off the kiss and swung Clancy around, shielding h
er before he realized just who had joined them in the small bay.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” her attorney said from his boat, which now bumped the edge of the dock. Funny, but Tadd didn’t sound sorry. Nor could Clancy remember hearing his motor when he pulled into the bay. She had a feeling he’d cut his engine and drifted in when he’d seen the two of them kissing.

  But then she’d heard nothing but the throb of her heart against Jake’s chest, felt nothing but his lips on hers. Now she felt her face flush, wondering how long Tadd had been watching them.

  “I’d ask you how the investigation was going but I can pretty well see the course it’s taking,” Tadd commented. Jake swore and released Clancy. She stumbled and fought to regain her composure. “Did you bring the flier?” Jake said a little hoarsely. Clancy tried to still her pounding heart, not even kidding herself that it was Tadd’s sudden appearance that had caused it to pound, not Jake’s unexpected kiss.

  “Why don’t we go up to the lodge,” Tadd said, his look growing serious. “I’ve got some news you might want to sit down for.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Clancy led them into the living room. Tadd took a seat on the western-style couch her family had bought when she was a child. It had horses embossed in the thick leather and wide wooden arms. She stood, too nervous to sit, remembering the night of the resort fire when she’d come down the stairs to find her parents sitting on that same couch, arguing about Warren Hawkins and the missing money.

  Clancy had that same sick feeling now as she looked at Tadd. He sat on the edge of the couch, at odds with the warm, inviting character of the room with its large rock fireplace that Jake now leaned against, the rich golden pine floors, the bright-colored rugs.

  Tadd pulled a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. “The sheriff needs to know if this is the man you knew as Dex Westfall,” Tadd said, unfolding the flier.

  Clancy found herself unable to move. Instead, Jake crossed the room, took the paper from Tadd’s hand and brought it over to her.

  She could feel his gaze on her as well as Tadd’s. She took the flier in her hands, a zillion thoughts whipping through her mind. The last thing she wanted to do was look at the photograph she knew she’d find reprinted on the sheet of paper. What if it wasn’t the man she’d dated? What if it was?