Oberon Boxed Set (Books 1-3) Welcome to Oberon

by P. G. Forte

  “The geese?” he asked, with a sardonic lift of his brows.

  She felt herself blush, although she couldn’t quite have said why; it was not like he could have read her thoughts or anything. She laughed self-consciously. “Yeah, well, if you think that’s something, you should see the pelicans. They really think they own the place.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Surprised, she glanced at him. There had been an odd undercurrent in his tone, and he was watching her now her with a steady, curious look. Almost as if he found something about her intensely puzzling

  “Do I know you?” she blurted, then blushed again because they both knew she didn’t.

  “Not yet,” he answered, smiling more broadly as he extended his hand. “Hi. I’m Sam.”

  “Oh, uh... hi,” she replied, feeling just a little flustered. His hand was warm and firm and his calloused palm much harder than any she’d been in contact with for a very long time. She was so enchanted by the pleasant tingling sensation that ran all the way up her arm to her shoulder that she was only marginally aware of Erin’s return.

  “Here you go,” Erin said and, without exactly meaning to, Marsha dropped Sam’s hand in order to take the paper cup that was being thrust at her.

  “I, uh... oh... thanks, Erin,” she answered absently, frowning at the cup in her hand and trying to quell her disappointment. “So, um... I’m sorry... Sam…what did you say you were here for?” She peered at him, aware of a sudden sense of annoyance, but not certain in which of them it originated.

  Certainly he looked considerably annoyed as he answered, with an arrogant lift of his brows, “I hadn’t.”

  “Oh,” she heard herself say again, when she was interrupted by the great thundering cloud of energy and pounding feet that was Kate and Mandy and the two dogs, barking and talking and panting all at once.

  “Marsha! Omigod, omigod! You won’t believe what we found!”

  “What did you find, girls?” Erin asked, cheerfully oblivious to the waves of deadly cold that cascaded through Marsha. “If it’s something really unusual, you can enter it in the contest.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think so,” Marsha said, swallowing hard as Scout came into view. Oh, hell. What now? She’d seen this look before. “Christ, Scout. You’d better sit down. You look like you’re about to pass out.” The dread she was feeling made her voice sound dull and hollow in her ears.

  “I’m okay,” Scout insisted, but she did not resist when Marsha pushed her into a chair.

  “Here.” Marsha grabbed the packets of sugar that Erin had put on the table, quickly stirred four of them into her tea, and handed the cup to Scout. “Drink this.”

  Scout pushed it away. “No, really, I don’t want anything.”

  “Scout,” Marsha spoke quietly, fixing her friend with a steady gaze. “Listen to me now. You’ve had some kind of shock. The sugar will help. I know it’s got caffeine, but it’s only a little, and I swear to God, a couple of sips isn’t gonna hurt anything.”

  Scout flashed her such a wary, suspicious look, that Marsha couldn’t help but laugh. “For God’s sake, Scout. It’s just tea! I’m not gonna poison you. So, would you please just fucking drink it?”

  “Shit,” Scout muttered. But she took a small sip. And then another.

  Marsha sighed. “That’s better. So, uh, d’you need to use my cell phone?”

  “Yeah,” Scout answered, sadly, handing back the cup. “I’m afraid so. And then I’m supposed to tell Siobhan not to let anyone leave.”

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  * * * *

  Chapter Six

  * * * *

  Sam shifted uneasily. The women weren’t making any sense. There were undercurrents to their conversation that he couldn’t follow. He was surprised at how much that irritated him. It had been a long time since he’d felt like this much of an outsider, and he didn’t like it. But he had a bad, bad feeling he wasn’t going to like it any better when he did find out what was going on.

  His lady from the photograph – he still didn’t know her name, and he could not believe the way she’d been about to brush him off – had sent the younger woman, Erin, to get someone named Siobhan. Now, she hovered anxiously around her friend, although he couldn’t understand the reason for her concern. The woman looked healthy enough to him. Tall, slim, and striking, she was exactly the kind of woman he usually found himself attracted to. But for some reason, maybe the fact that she obviously came with children, she just wasn’t the one who commanded his attention. Maybe it had something to with how rattled she appeared.

  Unless he was projecting. He felt pretty damn rattled himself at the moment. Nothing had gone according to plan today. First that damn reporter failed to show for the meeting she’d insisted upon. Although, who knew, he thought irritably, maybe that’s just how people in California worked. And now there was this. Whatever this was.

  He switched his focus to the two girls, who had fallen unaccountably silent. “So, what’s going on? What did you girls find?”

  Two sets of brown eyes – one dark, the other an unusual amber shade – regarded him with solemn suspicion. It was the dark-eyed girl who answered him, reluctantly.

  “A body,” she said, shortly, clamping her lips together, as if to keep any more words from slipping out.

  Oh, right. He smiled. “A body, huh? You don’t mean to tell me –” he began, but the look she gave him shut him up fast. Hell yes, she meant it. “Dead?”

  Both girls nodded.

  “But... where? How—”

  “The dogs found her. It,” the other girl added, shivering suddenly. “My dad’s a cop, so... he’s staying with... where... he said she, that she was—” she broke off miserably.

  Sam felt a rush of sympathy. “Here.” He pulled a pack of gum from his pocket and offered it to them. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

  Dark eyes narrowed as the older girl observed him suspiciously. “Are you a friend of Marsha’s?”

  Marsha? Despite the tightness in his chest, Sam couldn’t help but smile. So that was her name.

  “No, actually, we just met,” he answered, and watched as the girl’s gaze abruptly iced over.

  “Then, I don’t think so,” she said firmly.

  “It’s just gum, Mandy,” the other girl pointed out.

  “Well, I can see that, Kate,” the first girl answered, her voice cold. “But he’s a stranger.”

  “Mandy, honey, I think it’s okay,” Marsha said softly.

  Sam turned to find her watching him with a steady, assessing expression in her green eyes. The picture had not done those eyes justice. Her glance moved back to the girls, and she smiled gently. Emboldened, they accepted the gum at last, muttering thanks as they unwrapped the sticks and popped them into their mouths.

  Wordlessly, Sam offered the pack to Marsha as well. She looked at it blankly, as if her mind was a million miles away. Finally, she stirred. “Oh. No, thanks.” She smiled, shaking her head and adding, more to herself than to him. “I really have got to keep my wits about me today.”

  Sam felt his eyebrows crawl up his forehead. “I’m not going to poison you either, you know.”

  To his surprise, she immediately flushed beet red. She pressed one hand to her mouth as her gaze flew to his face. An unreadable mix of emotions danced in their green depths.

  “No, of course not,” she murmured. “That was just... I wasn’t—” She reached out and laid her fingers on his sleeve. Her touch was so light, he could not understand how he could feel her warmth so clearly through the thick leather of his jacket. But he did.

  “I didn’t mean—” she began again, but broke off abruptly as Erin rejoined them, accompanied, apparently, by the mysterious Siobhan. Marsha’s hand fell away from his arm, her eyes grew dark and unhappy.

  “What is it now, Marsha? Is there a problem, here?” The woman asked imperiously. Sam could read the tension in every line of her body.

  “I got it, Marsha
.” Scout interrupted before Marsha could answer. She laid an affectionate hand on Marsha’s shoulder and smiled. “I’m okay now. Really.”

  Sam watched the look that passed between the two of them, and again felt irritation flare up within him. Irritation, or maybe fear. What was going on here? What did they know that they weren’t saying?

  “There’s a problem, Siobhan,” Scout said briskly. “But it’s not exactly here.”

  Sam listened as the women talked. The now familiar rush of adrenaline pulsed in his veins. The bad feeling he’d had earlier just got worse. A dead body. Oh, hell, a dead woman yet.

  And a no-show female reporter. Shit.

  Now, what were the odds that was coincidence? Somewhere along the lines of farfetched to not-on-your-fucking-life-pal, probably. And, from what he was hearing, they weren’t talking natural causes, either.

  Just like Lou, an annoying voice inside his head insisted. But there was no way he was going to listen to anything it had to say right now.

  The whole damn thing was like a bad movie script. And, oh man, wouldn’t it just suck if he got himself embroiled in a murder investigation just when he was trying to keep a low profile? Damned if he didn’t make one hell of a great suspect, too. There he was, a stranger on the scene with no excuse, no alibi, and – if his suspicions about the corpse’s identity were correct – one bitch of a motive.

  And that was before you factored in any of the other interesting little details. Like the phony name he’d rented the cabin under, or the stolen hard drive still locked in his bike’s saddlebag, or the really smooth way he’d just bribed the cop’s kid for information with a stick of gum. He could only hope there was a reason they called this place Milagro Beach ‘cause it was gonna take a miracle to get him out of this mess.

  * * *

  This is so wrong. Nick stared down at the body at his feet and thought again about how incredibly stupid that sounded. Of course it’s wrong! Shit, Greco. Since when was murder ever not wrong? That’s why it’s a crime, isn’t it? Use your brain!

  Using his brain did not seem to be a workable option at the moment, however, since that one sentence had been stuck on repeat for some time now, while the rest of him went into mental meltdown. Fuck, but he was pissed off. He could not believe he was reacting like this! What was wrong with him? It was hardly the first time he’d seen a dead body. But all the same, he could do nothing to control the faint tremors that coursed through him and, despite the bright sunshine, he was chilled to the bone.

  He wanted desperately to do something, but he’d already done everything he could think to do. He’d secured the scene – as far as that was possible, as there hadn’t been a whole lot to secure – after the dogs had finished running through it. Not to mention the birds. And now, there really wasn’t any more for him to do except wait. Wait and think. Or maybe just wait, since thinking seemed to be pretty much a waste of time, at the moment.

  Jesus fucking Christ, was there some reason why shit like this always seemed to happen right after he’d quit smoking again? ‘Cause right about now, he’d pretty much kill for a cigarette.

  He snorted with sudden laughter. Yeah, that was a good one. Maybe that was the motive for this? Maybe he’d better check her pockets, see if someone had lifted her Newports. Hell, if she still had ‘em, he could maybe bum one off her. Not that he was a big fan of mentholated cigarettes usually, but at the moment they were better than nothing. And it was a sure thing she wouldn’t miss ‘em. Not anymore.

  “Aww fuck,” he swore softly, jamming his hands in his pockets and staring out at the water until his vision cleared.

  A solitary egret stalked through the shallows, and at the water’s edge, a half dozen sanderlings ran amid the mud and the garbage that had collected there – beer bottles, plastic drinking cups, scraps of paper, soggy plastic bags.

  It didn’t look like the Cleanup had made it this far up the beach, which was kind of strange. Locals would be sure to know about the shortcut he and Scout had taken, down the path that led here from the secluded picnic grove behind Beach Hoppers. Back when he was in high school, he and his friends used to come down here almost every weekend, to get drunk and make out on the beach.

  It was always a real pretty spot, too. Or, it would be without the garbage. There was a lot of driftwood scattered about on the shore and he could smell the familiar hot, salt-scent of the sun-dried wood, mingling with the sweet green fragrance of vegetation, and other, less pleasant smells that he’d rather not think too much about right now.

  Backup had better get the hell down here, and damn soon, too. If he had to cool his heels here much longer, he wasn’t sure his nerves could take it. He was apt to start taking the pretty little beach apart, piece by fucking piece, just to relieve some frustration.

  He didn’t usually have this kind of trouble maintaining a professional detachment. But on the other hand, this was the first homicide he’d ever had where the victim had been a friend of his. Someone he liked. Someone he’d slept with.

  It made a big difference, he discovered. It made it very personal.

  He paced restlessly. His foot came into contact with a loose piece of driftwood and sent it skittering across the sand, right through the crime scene, to land only inches away from where her hand lay. Palm up, arm extended; as if she was pleading with him to help her. Fury chewed at his nerves.

  “Jesus Christ, Paige,” he growled at the still form. “Now look at what the fuck you made me go and do!”

  Footsteps approaching down the narrow path that led to the beach recalled his attention. Good, he thought, when he saw Scout with a couple of guys he recognized as being with the Coroner’s office, and some of his guys, as well. It would be easier, once the familiar procedures took over, to maintain his distance.

  And he needed that distance. He needed it badly.

  He strained to see Scout’s face as she approached. She had seen altogether too much violent death recently. At this rate she was never going to get over what happened this summer. The tight, strangled feeling inside his chest relaxed a little when she got close enough that he could see her expression. She looked okay. Not great, of course, but better, actually, than he’d hoped.

  On the other hand, she’d always been real good at hiding her feelings from him. So maybe it was too soon for him to stop worrying.

  Oberon had always been such a quiet, peaceful place. Over the years, he’d had countless dreams of living happily ever after, just the two of them, right here where they both belonged.

  Home. A stray wisp of sorrow floated up to the surface of his consciousness, and he squelched it ruthlessly. This was not the time for those kinds of thoughts. Goddamn Oberon. This kind of shit never used to happen here. Don’t know what the fuck the town is coming to anymore. He shook his head, disgusted with the way his town was changing.

  With the disgust, and the arrival of the others, the last pieces of his professional persona slid smoothly into place, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  * * *

  Nick glanced at Scout as they made their way back up from the beach a few minutes later. She hadn’t spoken one word to him, and he couldn’t help wondering if it was because she could sense the anger raging inside him. It was a side of him she had seen only once, and he had no desire to expose her to its effects ever again. He reached across the distance that separated them and took her hand. She smiled at him wanly.

  “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded. “Mmm. It was just a shock, you know? But... it’s not really like last time, is it?”

  “No, it’s not. This has nothing to do with you,” he said firmly. “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just try and put it out of your mind.”

  “Is that how you deal with it?” He could hear pain and compassion in her voice and he wanted to eradicate both of them. “You tell yourself it isn’t personal?”

  “Yeah. That’s exactly how I deal with it,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact, the
words like acid on his tongue; grimly aware of the irony, and the falseness, of every word he spoke. “It’s not personal, it’s just business.”

  The parking lot was crowded, with close to a hundred people milling about. The post-Cleanup raffle was still underway, which explained why the milling crowd had not yet turned edgy, rebellious and sullen. He couldn’t believe the amount of people they’d have to question. And he knew the odds were terrific that not one of them would ever remember having seen anything even remotely helpful.

  That’s the way these cases went, more often than not.

  He caught sight of the girls standing near the table where they’d checked in earlier. Big smiles, wide eyes, all thoughts of waxy skin and clouded eyes and birds with bloodstained beaks forgotten – thank God – as they watched some long haired, leather jacketed guy juggle an odd assortment of objects: keys, a dog biscuit, a pack of gum.

  Nick felt his insides tighten. He assessed the scene in front of him through narrowed eyes. He didn’t know this guy. There were never more than a handful of people in Oberon he didn’t recognize on sight, most of whom were tourists, none of whom got that close to his daughter. Not ever.

  “Nick? Did you hear me? I said I’m going to use the rest room. I’ll be right back, okay?” Scout’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  He nodded toward the table. “Who’s that?”

  “Who? Oh, you mean the guy with Kate and Mandy? I don’t know.” Scout shrugged. “Some friend of Marsha’s, I think.”

  “Is he new in town?” he asked, his eyes still intent on the stranger. “I don’t know him.”

  “Oh God, Nick,” Scout chortled.

  He turned, puzzled, to find her smiling at him.

  “You know I love it when you go all super-cop on me, but really, how would I know? Go ask him yourself, if you’re so interested. I really gotta go.” She gave his hand a final squeeze, then sheared off in the direction of the porta-potties.

  He stared after her for a moment, thunderstruck. Super-cop?