Perilous Homecoming

by Sarah Varland

  Davies nodded, his face looking as serious as it always did. The man had never known how to have fun and relax like the rest of the guys she’d worked with on the force. He was all work, all the time, it seemed, and Kelsey guessed that when the chief retired in the next few years, the lieutenant would be a shoo-in for the job.

  “I’ll let you get to it then.”

  “Are you and Clay both sticking around here today?” Kelsey should probably have an idea of how many officers were around so she could make sure that she wasn’t doing any obvious investigating when any of them were around.

  “Yes, and one of the newer guys, Officer Dixon. You don’t need to worry about your safety—we’ll be keeping an eye out for any trouble.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Have a good day.” He walked down the hallway toward the main section of the museum. He wasn’t being as openly hostile as he’d been when she’d returned, something for which Kelsey was thankful. Apparently he’d realized she was innocent in all this and had decided to let the past go. When he was gone, Kelsey walked into the room where everything had started.

  She got chills as soon as she looked around. It was daylight, that was different, but the knowledge that a man’s life had ended right here, that she’d been a witness to it, as it was happening, was weighty. The anxiety could easily be suffocating if she didn’t deal with it the right way.

  Another run after work today might be in order. This time she’d just have to ask Sawyer to come with her.

  Kelsey took a deep breath, tried to ground herself in the present. It was daylight, she repeated in her mind again, needing to cement that thought for herself. No one was here killing anyone right now. And if she turned around and left this room now, then she couldn’t finish her job and get out of this town, and she also would be walking away from potential clues to who was after her.

  “So...” Sawyer’s voice was low, but it still startled her. She shot him a look and he smiled a little—smiled in the face of one of her best glares, which was slightly insulting—and shook his head. “How did you get started with this job?”

  “Oh, it was something I’ve always wanted to do. I love antiques and it seemed like a good career move.”

  “Didn’t you enjoy being an officer, though?”

  Kelsey could do without that conversation today. “Sure. I need to focus now, if you don’t mind. Sorry.”

  Sawyer took her hint and Kelsey got to work.

  Kelsey steered clear of the far wall where the double doors that opened onto the balcony were. She didn’t need to get that close to the scene of the crime today. Instead she focused on the built-in bookshelves on either side of the door where they’d come in, and on the displays on the other two walls. The books were relatively standard fare for old books. From the index she’d been given, she knew that none were rare copies or first editions. Most of their value, in her opinion, was sentimental. There were histories of the Hamiltons and some of the other families who had lived in Treasure Point since its founding. There were several books of maps, some histories of coastal Georgia. All of it was lovely and added character to the museum and another layer of authenticity, but none of it required much thinking on her part in terms of the valuation of the items.

  The first exhibit in the room was about Blackbeard, the famous pirate who’d spent time around the Treasure Point coast. In fact, as the display reminded her, he was rumored to have had a relationship with one of the ancestors of the Hamiltons. The display also included a small amount of pirate treasure—a few gold coins—and a note about Officer Shiloh Cole being responsible for its recovery—she’d have to ask her about that sometime—as well as an old book that had been signed by Blackbeard and a few other small things.

  The other exhibit was similar, but dealt with a wider variety of pirates, some of whose names Kelsey recognized and some she didn’t. This exhibit drew her in, just as it would a visitor to the museum, because it was about undiscovered shipwrecks that were rumored to lie off the Georgia coast.

  There was a map in the exhibit with shaded areas where experts hypothesized the wrecks might be found, mostly in more protected areas of the ocean in and among the barrier islands. A framed note beside the map indicated that the Treasure Point Historical Society hoped to eventually contract trained divers to search for and perhaps recover some of the articles from the ships for use in the museum. It would take more time and federal permission, so Kelsey wished them well with that. Shipwrecks with such historical significance would be fought over by far bigger contenders than Treasure Point, but she admired their hopefulness and had to admit that it gave the exhibit a nice touch, an extra hint of excitement.

  The exhibit did have one artifact, the plaque beside its case identified it as a chart divider, and explained that it had been recovered on the beach near Treasure Point and was thought to have washed up from one of the wrecks off the coast.

  “Isn’t that interesting?” Sawyer said from behind her. Kelsey jumped. She’d almost forgotten he was behind her, she’d been so enthralled by her work.

  This, this was why she’d chosen this job, because it was so much more a passion than it could ever be a paycheck. She cared about what she was doing.

  “Which part of it?” Kelsey asked, even though her answer would be “yes” for just about any of it.

  “How it says that items like this were often the most common sort of pirate treasure. I think of coins, you know?”

  Kelsey nodded. “You saw the one across the room, right?”

  “I did.”

  Kelsey looked back at the sign Sawyer had motioned to. Apparently navigational tools were a common “treasure” that pirates had been able to sell for profit—but something they could also carry around easily and use until they found a buyer. That hadn’t been covered in any of her history classes that she could remember.

  She made a few notes in her iPad, then looked toward the French doors that led to the balcony.

  “Are you going out there?” he asked.

  Kelsey wanted to say no. But if she was really going to investigate this, she couldn’t ignore the scene of the crime. She exhaled. “Yes.”

  She took a few tentative steps in that direction, then looked back at Sawyer, who hadn’t moved. “Are you coming?” She was surprised at how much she wanted him to.

  “If that’s what you want.” He walked toward her, even offered his hand. She took it—for moral support of course, nothing else—and opened the door with her other hand.

  It looked...like a balcony. Nothing about the scene up here suggested someone had been pushed off. She leaned forward a little until she could see the stains on the ground beneath told the truth about what had happened here.

  But there was no new evidence, which meant she could leave the balcony and not come back. She hurried inside, dropping Sawyer’s hand as soon as she’d shut the door behind them.

  Then she turned to Sawyer. “I’ve got to head to St. Simons now. You could drop me off at my house so I can get my car, or—”

  “Let me come.”

  After the way he’d made sacrifices to keep her safe last night by sleeping in his truck, she didn’t have the heart to refuse him. Besides, even with a gun secured at her waistline, there was really no substitute for the way Sawyer’s broad shoulders and overall strength made her feel.

  Safe. They made her feel safe.

  As she thought about them, her eyes went to his arms, which filled out the sleeves of his polo like he’d spent more time outside than in an office in the last few years.

  Kelsey jerked her eyes away as soon as she realized she was noticing Sawyer in a way that had very little to do with tolerating an unofficial bodyguard. Seeing him like that, as a man rather than just someone who wanted to help, or a former classmate...it couldn’t work. She wasn’t opposed to the idea of a relations
hip with someone, although it had taken her years to make the strides she’d finally made in her career, and it would take a special man to be able to handle that. But job passions aside, Sawyer could never be the man for her. The whole Atlantic Ocean’s worth of water was under that bridge, whether he was aware of the reasons or not, and try as she might—because she had tried—Kelsey had never been able to forgive his youthful pride in going out for that speech contest that had ended up costing her the scholarship she’d needed so desperately.

  “Yes, you can come,” she said to him with a little more distance in her voice than she’d had before, then she turned out of the room she couldn’t wait to escape and headed down the hallway.

  EIGHT

  Every time Sawyer started to feel like he was getting to know twenty-eight-year-old Kelsey, something happened to transport him back to eighteen again and remind him of why she wouldn’t let them be friends. Judging by Kelsey’s attitude at times, being casual acquaintances was more than enough for them to try to handle. Even though he understood that she was upset about the scholarship, there had to be more to it than that. What kept getting between them?

  He followed her to the front door, then stepped out first, something she shot him a look for, but even though there was a substantial police presence at the museum, he felt better knowing he’d seen the outside, scanned it for threats, before she had. No, he didn’t have law enforcement training like she did, but he was observant and could pay attention to details, especially when it involved a possible threat. He’d also been raised in the South. While he believed women to be fully capable—and he believed Kelsey to be more than fully capable of taking care of herself—he also believed that a good man was willing to take on some danger so a woman didn’t have to.

  Along those lines, he walked to Kelsey’s side of the truck and opened the door for her.

  When he closed the door behind her and circled the front of the truck, he realized that this felt oddly like a date. Kelsey Jackson was the kind of woman he wouldn’t mind taking out, getting to know. His chances of getting her to agree to that were pretty slim, though.

  As he climbed into the truck, he glanced over at her, and smiled a little at the way the sunlight coming through her dark red hair almost made it look like it was on fire. Didn’t that just suit her personality well?

  “All right, Kelsey. I’ve had about enough of the weird one-step-forward as friends and two-steps-back stuff. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, so would you mind telling me what’s up?” Sawyer wasn’t one to beat around the bush, but maybe Kelsey didn’t know that, because she looked surprised at his pointed question.

  “I want to ask you what you mean and fake ignorance, but it won’t work for me, will it?” she asked without looking at him. He admired both her honesty and her perceptiveness.

  “No.”

  “I need to let it go, Sawyer. It’s stupid and it’s petty and it’s embarrassing.”

  “How?”

  “You know where we’re going right?”

  “St. Simons.”

  “To the Medlin Estate. It’s on the north side. Just take the normal highway and roads to the island and I’ll give you more directions when we get there.”

  “Sounds great, but you aren’t getting out of this conversation.”

  “Fine. It’s about that speech contest. The one for the scholarship.”

  So it was about that. But was that really all there was to it?

  “What about it?”

  She took a deep breath. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “What?”

  “You asked me why I became a police officer. It’s because I have always wanted to do the job I’m doing now, to work with antiques and have a job that provided a more secure life, with less guesswork, more certainty. But doing that meant going to college, which my parents couldn’t afford. I worked summers and after school, saved every penny I could, but when you got that scholarship, that was the rest of the money I was counting on. So instead of starting this process at eighteen, I had to wait until I was in my early twenties and had earned enough money working a job that wasn’t a career for me to do it.”

  It was everything he’d wondered, confirmed. Except possibly worse.

  “I did need the scholarship, Kelsey.”

  “You... What?”

  “Look, it’s a long story and I don’t want to get into family drama. But I wanted to major in marine biology and that wasn’t an option without the scholarship. Can we leave it at that?”

  “I thought you majored in business. Didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

  “Double majored.”

  “Oh.”

  She seemed to be digesting that. At least, Sawyer guessed so, because she didn’t say anything else, which was fine with him.

  “How much farther to the estate?” he finally asked when he couldn’t stand the quiet anymore.

  “Not far.”

  After a few more minutes of silence, Kelsey spoke again. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you, Sawyer. I don’t know what this confession of yours changes. Maybe nothing.”

  “You’re going to keep holding on to a decade-old grudge? Even now that you understand it wasn’t about beating you?”

  Sawyer knew he was being extremely blunt, but Kelsey could handle it. They were adults now, and whether he was her favorite person or not, it didn’t seem unreasonable to think they could get along relatively well in small doses.

  “You’re right.” Kelsey exhaled the admission just as they were pulling through the gates of an estate that Sawyer guessed was the Medlin Estate. She met his eyes. “I’ll work on letting it go.”

  “Thank you. Now, how do you want to do this? Do you want me to just follow you around? Is anyone going to wonder why you have a plus-one with you at work?”

  “I don’t think so. The Medlins are in Europe right now, so it’s only the staff and they tend to not ask questions.”

  They had a whole contingent of staff, even when they weren’t in town? That sounded kind of over the top.

  He parked the truck and they walked around to the back of the house, where Kelsey knocked on a door. Only moments passed before a woman in a maid’s uniform answered the door. She showed them inside and then, as Kelsey had said, left them to their own devices. Sawyer couldn’t resist an impressed whistle as he looked around at the opulence of the house.

  “These people are seriously wealthy.”

  “You’re one to comment on something like that.”

  “What? I’m just saying that judging by the house, they don’t seem like the warmest of people. And like they appreciate money. Am I wrong?”

  “The Medlins have never been anything but nice to me.”

  “And I suppose you’re implying that the same can’t be said for the Hamiltons?” Sawyer knew he had pushed it enough today with the way he’d pressed her about the scholarship earlier, so if she didn’t answer him, he wouldn’t pursue the topic.

  Kelsey said nothing. Sawyer still wondered, though. He couldn’t let go of the idea that there was more to her grudge against him than she’d admitted. He was relatively sure he’d never done anything to seem above her in any way. His parents? It wouldn’t surprise him, but that was a can of worms he wasn’t willing to open right now.

  It did serve to remind him, though, that even if he was finding himself fascinated with her—her intelligence, her determination, the contradictions that made up who Kelsey Jackson was—it was pointless. They could never be more than friends. There were just too many things between them.

  They moved from a well-decorated, museum-like living room into a well-decorated, museum-like kitchen. Antiques in the kitchen? Sawyer wouldn’t have believed it, but sure enough, several things that looked old and expensive sat on the counters as decorations. Kelsey would
have known what they were. All Sawyer knew was that it was ridiculous.

  “I don’t get why anyone would want to live like this.”

  She turned to him with a sharp frown. “Why?”

  “It’s not homey. It’s just a collection.” He’d had enough of those growing up in his parents’ house—and theirs wasn’t nearly this over the top.

  Kelsey shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be your thing.”

  “Good. It’s not.”

  Sawyer’s phone rang, saving him from the rest of that conversation. He was glad to get away from it. He was getting a little tired of the way Kelsey kept shoving their differences in his face, as if she wanted to prove to him that they were totally incompatible.

  Fine. He got the message.

  * * *

  Kelsey had spent more time than she’d planned to at the Medlin Estate. The antiques there were beautiful, and she was thankful she got to be the one to look at them and do this job, and simultaneously anxious to prove herself, despite her limited experience.

  Because of that, she’d taken extra time and care there, which had made it take up more of the day than she’d intended. She was falling behind everywhere. Frustrating, but something that happened. Even so, she hadn’t been able to walk away from the Medlin Estate until close to dinner time. There had just been too much to do.

  Sawyer had dropped her off at home without saying much—she couldn’t blame him, she hadn’t been very good company. She’d gone inside, showered, and sat down with her iPad and notes about the museum only to realize she’d started on one of the rooms but never finished. She glanced at her watch. Not too late. She climbed back into her car, drove through a barbeque stand for dinner, and then kept driving back into town and straight to the Treasure Point History Museum.

  There was a lone squad car parked at the corner of the parking lot, and even though it should have made Kelsey feel better, the reminder of the crime made her shiver, goose bumps chased each other up her arms. She was thankful they were here so she wasn’t completely alone. She waved at the officer, a young recruit she didn’t know by name, and then headed inside.