Reluctant Witness

by Rachel Brimble

  She snatched her hand from his grip. “Why would you care?”

  He shrugged. “I am always interested in the community, Julia. You forget I am quite the figure head of Corkley Park.”

  She huffed. “I don’t think so, Marcus. And don’t ever lay a hand on me again. Got it?”

  And with that Julia turned and marched away.

  Chapter Nine

  At ten thirty the following morning, Julia stood outside Derek’s store, staring numbly at the huge front window now plastered with newspaper. Thelma had arranged for the window to be covered so no one could peer in and speculate on her husband’s secret life. Although details of Derek’s gambling hadn’t been released, details of his murder had, so gawkers as well as genuine sympathetic well-wishers now passed the store on a daily basis.

  She took a steadying breath, stepped forward and slipped the key into the lock. The bell above the door announced her arrival. Julia softly closed, then locked the door behind her. She took a moment to look around. Sunlight filtered through gaps in the paper, cascading sunbeams across the tiled floor and illuminating the dust motes that danced in the musty air.

  Derek’s Den was an old-fashioned store, like those portrayed in black and white movies. You could buy everything here—from a quarter of sugared almonds to seedlings for your garden. Julia smiled fondly as she recalled how from her first visit in a stroller with her mother to her last visit a few weeks ago, Derek had always greeted her with a beaming smile and peppermint lollipop. Tears threatened to spill so she quickly walked through to the back office and flicked on the light.

  Organized chaos claimed Derek’s office. The only way Julia could tell it hadn’t been ransacked was by the array of colored post-it notes stuck to various files, papers and stock. Thelma was right—Derek had been more than a little distracted toward the end of his life.

  She closed the door and took a seat behind his desk. But when she stretched out her legs, her foot knocked up against something hidden in the kneehole. Leaning down, Julia picked up the aluminum baseball bat and laid it across her knees. You were scared, Derek, really scared. Never in a million years would you have considered using this unless you were in serious trouble. She put down the bat and tugged on one of the four desk drawers. It rolled open.

  She pulled out a leather-bound book and opened it. A ledger. Maybe there would be something in here that would give some clue as to whom Derek had owed money, or at least the amounts he was paying. She placed the book on the desk and flicked through the pages.

  Half an hour later, her eyes swam with figures but she hadn’t found anything useful. She closed the book, and reached inside the second drawer. Among the various pens, pencil and cigarette packets, she found a diary. Frowning, she turned to the date when Derek had been killed and worked backward.

  He had been shot on the 30th of July, a date Julia knew she’d never forget. The space was empty. Nothing. Not as much as a delivery due. She continued to turn the pages. She was beginning to think her idea to come to the store would be a fruitless one, when she noticed a tiny asterisk marked in the corner of every other Thursday.

  Payment day, maybe? Her heart picked up speed. It had to be. Or it had to be at least something to do with his debts or the money laundering racket he’d gotten himself involved with. Everything to do with the store was outlined in plain black and white—deliveries were marked, stock takes, even cleaning days. This meant something else.

  A rush of adrenaline sped through her and Julia stuffed the diary under her arm and got to her feet. She’d go and see Thelma. Maybe she’d have some idea what the asterisk could mean, but if not...

  Just as she moved toward the door, the bell above the shop door tinkled. Julia froze. Had she forgotten to lock the front door? She didn’t think so, so she grabbed the baseball bat and hurried to a closed closet door. She climbed in among the brooms, mops and buckets and held her breath as she heard the office door open.

  Julia strained to listen. Whoever was in the office, was slowly making their way around the room. From the sound of the footsteps they were walking around in a circle. She gripped the bat handle harder, trying to focus above the noise of the blood thumping in her ears.

  The footsteps came to a halt outside the closet door.

  “How long are you planning on staying in there?” he asked. “I know it’s a mess in here but it’s got to be better than standing in the closet.”

  Julia fought a smile. Daniel. Thank God. Tilting her chin, she opened the door and came face to face with him.

  Her heart shot straight into her throat. That damn sexy smile of his should be deemed illegal.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Is that any way to greet your local Detective Inspector?”

  “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be creeping—”

  As she stepped forward, her foot got tangled between the baseball bat and a plastic bucket. The next thing she knew, she was sprawling forward into Daniel’s arms as the bat and bucket clattered to the floor.

  “Whoa, are you all right?” he asked, gripping her waist.

  She could tell by his tone he was trying his hardest not to laugh.

  “I’m fine.”

  She let go of his biceps but he didn’t take his hands from her waist. There was barely enough space between them for the air to revolve. She could feel his body heat. Sending up a silent prayer that he would not enjoy this moment too much, she lifted her head.

  “Go on then, get it over with.”

  “What?”

  “Say what you need to say. Laugh if you want. Just get it over and done with.”

  “Laughing is the last thing I want to do.”

  She met his gaze, and was trapped. He brought his lips down hard on hers. Her arms slipped back to those beautiful biceps and she dug her fingernails into the hard muscle.

  “Julia.”

  He whispered her name against the smooth curve of her neck, sending tremors of desire coursing through her. She wanted his hands everywhere. Wanted him to discover her while she explored every inch of him. Had wanted this since she’d burst into his office.

  And that was the thought that sent her reeling back to reality.

  “Stop.” She pushed at his arms. “Daniel, stop.”

  He pulled away from her, his eyes fiery with arousal, his hands slightly trembling as he lifted them to his hair. “I want you, Julia.”

  “Are you crazy?” She turned her back to him so he couldn’t see her own yearning reflected in her eyes. “This is madness. I’m leaving town. You’re a cop—”

  “I know, and if you think this is wrong, unethical, that’s nothing compared to the battle I’ve been fighting with myself. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve never been as attracted to another woman as I am to you.”

  The admission made her want to smile but she quickly trapped her bottom lip between her teeth. She could not enjoy this moment, she had to quash it. Her brother’s face flashed in front of her closed eyes like a cruel reminder of how weak she was not to fight this temptation.

  She spun around. “I can never be with you. Why don’t you understand that?”

  He squeezed his own eyes tightly shut, before opening them again. “What happened to your brother was not my fault.”

  “Maybe not, but I know what you’re capable of. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

  “What I’m capable of? What is it you think you’ve seen?”

  “Cops kill.”

  “Julia, come on—-”

  He stepped toward her but she held up a hand. “Don’t,” she said, her voice cracking.

  He ignored her, reached out and gently pulled her back into his arms. Hot tears pricked her eyes and she inhaled his scent like oxygen. When the smell hit her brain, her heart—she had no way of stopping herself from burying her face in his shirt and letting the tears fall.

  He said nothing, just held her. She had no idea how long they stood together like that, but when he shifted and
moved away from her, she immediately felt cold.

  He brushed his thumbs beneath her eyes. “We could make this work, you know.”

  She shook her head and her shoulders slumped. “No. No, we couldn’t.”

  “I meant what I said before. I want you, and maybe you’re going to need some convincing. But that’s fine. Even if it takes me ten years, I’ll do it.”

  “Daniel—”

  “Tonight is your night off and you’re going to spend it with me.” She opened her mouth to protest but he held up a finger. “No arguments. Just come to the Cove.” He paused. “Please, Julia. Now that I’ve found you, I’m not letting you go without a damn good fight.”

  “You’re not listening to me—”

  “I am, but I’m confident I can change your mind,” he said with a smile that set her whole body tingling. “Come on, take a risk. I dare you.”

  She crossed her arms. “You won’t change my mind. It doesn’t matter how I feel about you. I cannot put my mother through that.”

  “Through what? Surely she wants to see you happy?”

  It suddenly occurred to Julia that she had no idea whether or not that was true. “I would be sleeping with the enemy, Daniel.”

  He smiled. “Sleeping with?”

  The tone of his voice should have been cocky, but to Julia it sounded sexy. Keeping her eyes fixed to his, she ignored the erotic pull deep down in her stomach and instead, poked a finger to his chest. “This is not a joke.”

  “Believe me, thinking of sleeping with you does not make me laugh.”

  “Daniel—”

  “The Cove? Tonight?”

  She looked at him for a long, long moment. “Fine, I’ll go with you.”

  He lifted her finger and pressed a kiss to its tip. “Good.”

  Several seconds ticked by before Julia managed to drag her attention away from his lips. Finally, she cleared her throat and carefully extracted her hand from his grasp.

  “Don’t you think we should be focusing on Derek’s murder and not us?” She paused. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Thelma rang me this morning and said you were going to be here.”

  “I told her I didn’t want to involve you.”

  “Yes, she said as much when I stopped by for a key.”

  “Why would she...?”

  “She knows there’s a killer out there who went after Derek for a reason. She also knows it’s dangerous to come here alone when that killer could come back at any time to collect what’s owed him.”

  The significance of what he was saying made Julia feel queasy. She blew out a breath. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I should have called you.”

  “I’m here now,” he said before turning and rifling through a stack of papers on Derek’s desk. “Did you come here looking for something in particular? Because my team has already been through the place and found nothing useful.”

  “I know.”

  “But you thought you’d double check anyway?” he asked, as the corners of his mouth twitched. “There’s nothing here. Unless, of course, you know something I don’t?”

  Julia realized she’d left the diary in the closet. “Just a second.”

  She walked back to the closet, retrieved the book, and held it out to Daniel. “I found something interesting in here. If you look, you’ll see there is an asterisk marked on every other Thursday. It’s not much but it might be significant.”

  “Mmmm,” Daniel scored a finger down the pages. “It could. But it’s not enough to give us any headway. We’ll speak to Thelma about it.”

  “It won’t hurt to take another look around, will it?”

  “I suppose not and after all you knew Derek. I didn’t. Maybe there will be something here that looks out of place to you.”

  With a curt nod Julia walked to a bureau and looked through the various invoices, envelopes and letters pushed into the cubby holes. She spoke over her shoulder.

  “Did you manage to locate the boat?”

  “Mmm?”

  Julia smiled. He was already re-engrossed in his work. “Nothing. It’s not important.”

  “I’ve got a team following up a lead about the boat right now. There are one or two that sound close to your description down at the harbor. I’m hoping to get a call this side of lunch time.”

  “Any more theories why Derek was on the boat in the first place? I can only guess a meeting was set up and he was basically walking to his death. The killer had every intention of shooting him. I’m sure of it. No one is that cool, that calm, unless they are mentally prepared for it.”

  She heard Daniel exhale a frustrated breath and turned to face him. “You okay?”

  He ran a hand over his face. “I agree with you. Derek’s death was arranged and carried out on a pre-mediated plan. We need to locate that boat and the loan sharks. I’ve been around enough to know that businessmen like those Derek was involved with often get someone else to do their dirty work.”

  Julia tapped the letter she was holding against her chin. “In what way?”

  “My gut tells me we’re looking for a third person. A hired assassin of some sort. Whoever killed Derek was not necessarily the person who wanted him dead.”

  “You think the shooter was working for someone else? God, that’s awful.”

  “It makes the whole case more difficult to solve. If the guy on the boat was an assassin, they are trained to disappear.”

  Julia studied the tension in his shoulders and the firm clench of his jaw. “But you’ll find him, won’t you?”

  “My father’s assassin was never found. Maybe Derek’s killer will be my first escapee. My first failure as a cop.”

  Julia stared at him. “Your father was assassinated? When you told me about hiding in the cupboard, I assumed—”

  “My father was an undercover cop, Julia. A cop who worked hard and risked his life day after day to catch the bad guys. He was running with a gang of underground drug traffickers and someone from the neighborhood snitched on him.”

  “Daniel, I...” She let her words hang in the air and stepped toward him, but he held up a hand.

  “It’s done and I’ve accepted that it’s a huge possibility his killer will never serve a day behind bars, but if I don’t find Derek’s killer?” He paused and when he looked at her, Julia’s breath caught in her throat to see the rage there. “I will have failed as a cop and a son.”

  “You cannot think like that, Daniel. Your father is looking down on you now and he’s proud. Really proud.”

  He didn’t answer her, but turned back to Derek’s desk. As she watched him bend over the papers in front of him, Julia fought the despair that threatened to crawl its way inside of her. She couldn’t believe that just two weeks ago, she had been looking forward to escaping her mother’s endless sorrow and Marcus’ frightening volatility. Now all she wanted was to spend every passing second with this man she hadn’t even known then.

  She glanced at the letter—or what she’d thought was a letter—in her hand and all thoughts of her and Daniel vanished. It was a piece of stationery, not a letter. Blocks of figures had been scribbled onto the paper, dates strewn in the margin and initials haphazardly marked over the page.

  But it wasn’t the information that had her getting up from her seat, it was the creamy, heavy bonded texture of the paper. She’d seen paper like this before, held it, but where?

  It definitely hadn’t been in Derek’s store.

  She pushed it onto the desk in front of Daniel.

  “I recognize this stationery,” she said, urgently. “I’ve seen it before.”

  He picked up the paper, and scanned the scribblings. “You recognize it? From where?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem. But it doesn’t fit in with this store.”

  ****

  Daniel gunned the engine and headed toward Julia’s house. She hadn’t been too happy with him once he’d reverted back to cop mode after she’d found that sheet of fa
miliar paper. But he hadn’t been able to help himself. It had given him something solid to hunt down when his hope of solving this case had been fading fast. He’d left rather abruptly, he knew, but it was either that or spend the afternoon searching for other fruitless leads, and risk losing what little faith Julia already had in him to bring Derek’s killer to justice.

  He soon discovered she wasn’t at home nor at the club. He’d tried her cell but it was either switched off or she was ignoring him. No doubt that meant their date for tonight was off. His cop demeanor tended to have a mood-dampening effect on her, and part of him couldn’t blame her for it.

  But a cop was what he was, and a cop was what he would stay. He made his way into town and walked into a coffee shop for some much needed caffeine. He placed his order with the young girl serving, then turned his back to the counter.

  And saw Julia. Relief swept through him and warmed his blood. She sat by the window, the sunlight dancing off her blonde hair as she read a paperback novel. Daniel smiled. Never had he seen anyone so oblivious to their own beauty. He looked left and right and was quick to spot at least three guys, surreptitiously checking her out.

  Back off, boys. She’s mine.

  Daniel tipped the girl behind the counter, took his coffee and approached Julia’s table. He cast a shadow across the pages of her book and she looked up. Her spontaneous smile diminished the second her eyes met his.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said, giving an inelegant sniff.

  Daniel fought the pull at the corners of his mouth. She was fabulous when she was annoyed. “Yes, unfortunately it’s me. May I join you?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled up a chair and straddled it. “I wanted to check what time you want me to pick you up tonight.”

  “I don’t think so, Daniel. It wouldn’t be wise.”

  So they were back to that, again. “I want to spend some time with you on my night off, Julia. What wrong with that?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Come on, Julia,” he said. “Come to the beach with me tonight. I’m a great outdoor cook.”