“This is an honesty zone,” I pointed out. “That goes for you too, Big Dog.”
“I’m not lying.”
“But you just said you wouldn’t ask your brother for any kind of help, and yet you sent him a letter, warning him you were in danger.”
“She has a good point,” Harley said.
“He was only supposed to get that letter if I was dead. You know, dead. As in, over my dead body. If the embezzler killed me, I wanted Silas to go after the bast—erm—the guilty party. If I was dead, I’d have no hope of clearing my name and shoving my innocence into Silas’ smug face. If I wasn’t around to do it, I’d need him to connect the dots for me, you know?”
“Say we believed that.” I didn’t. I put down the shrimp I was peeling in order to cross my arms over my chest. It was my turn to practice my skills at cutting a glare. “What are you doing here in Camellia Beach? Why now?”
“I followed Sammy Duncan here. He’d just been sprung from prison. You see, I wasn’t the only person caught in the net the feds cast over the illustrious Consolidated Bank of Cedar’s Hill. Another worker, a bank teller, was convicted of the crime. They called him a co-conspirator. I think they called me the linchpin and kept looking to me to tell them where I’d stashed what Sammy had taken. But I couldn’t tell them that because I didn’t have it. The feds stopped asking after brother-boy repaid what had been lost. They stopped asking about anything. My guilt was a fait accompli. Silas’ interfering with my life has always caused me trouble. There was this one time in college when—”
“Tell us about Sammy Duncan,” Harley interrupted to say.
“Right. Sammy. He worked as a teller at the bank. I didn’t really know him, because I didn’t pay that much attention to the people who worked under me. It was an awful job. So boring. I wish I’d paid a little attention though. This Sammy guy must be a real stupid creep. The feds had no trouble proving he was responsible. Because he didn’t have the lawyers I had, and because he didn’t take a plea deal, he served a much longer sentence. He was released a few days before the storm hit. I followed him from the prison. Drove everywhere he drove. That’s how I ended up here.”
I looked over at Harley and asked, “Do you think Sammy is the guy with the tweed hat that came in looking for Joe?”
Harley shrugged. “I got to the Chocolate Box after he left, remember?”
“Shoot. That’s right.” I looked over at Big Dog. “Does this guy wear a tweed hat?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“And you weren’t the least bit suspicious that Sammy Duncan came to a town where you just happened to have friends and had visited many times in the past?”
He shrugged. “No one was more surprised than I was when he ended up here. Pleasantly surprised, if truth be told. Did you see the size of the waves that day? The beach, a hurricane, big waves. It’s a surfer’s wet dream,” Big Dog said. He flashed his devil-may-care grin.
I’d known Harley long enough to know that surfers were single-minded in their pursuit of the perfect ride.
“The stolen money was never recovered,” Harley supplied.
That wasn’t hard to believe. For someone who was cut off from any kind of funding, Big Dog seemed to be living quite comfortably.
“He plans to prove his innocence,” Harley added.
“And you believe that?” I expected better from Harley.
“I’ve known him for years. He’s a good guy.”
“No offense, Big Dog—Taylor—whatever your name is, but your story doesn’t work. How will finding the money prove anything? You could have easily been in on the embezzling and let your friends Sammy and Joe hide the money while everyone forgot about the crime.”
“I swear I didn’t know either of them!” Big Dog shouted.
I swung my attention back over to Harley. “He might seem like a good guy on the surface, but…” I left the rest unsaid as I waved my hands in the surfer’s direction.
Harley knew about my past and how I’d learned to harden myself against even the most trustworthy of friends.
“I trust him,” Harley said, his voice gentle. It melted my heart a little.
“Before the two of you get into an argument over me, how about I tell you what I think is going on, and, Penn, you can choose to believe me or not. I can’t stop you from going to the police, but I’d rather you didn’t.”
I sat back in the chair. He was the black sheep of the Piper family. For that reason alone, I supposed I needed to give him the chance to tell his side of the story. Once branded a black sheep, one was rarely given a chance to explain, well, anything.
“Okay. Sure, tell me what’s going on,” I said before I started to peel another shrimp.
He looked surprised. “I…really?”
“Yeah, why shouldn’t I listen to you? Are you going to lie within our honesty zone?” I asked.
“No, I just—” He looked down and smiled into his bowl of cocktail sauce as he shook his head. “I expected that since you’d talked with the police and know that both Joe and I are from Cedar Hill that you would have already formed your opinions about me.”
“I may have.” I wasn’t going to lie about that. “But that’s not going to stop me from hearing what you have to say.”
“That’s decent of you.” He looked over at Harley, who was watching the two of us with an expression that looked like an equal mixture of amusement and pride. “You were right about her. Penn is someone worth getting to know.”
“You said that about me?” I asked Harley.
“Of course I did.”
I was touched. I reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
“Again, I ask,” Big Dog said with a wicked grin taking up much of his pirate face, “do the two of you need some time alone?” He waggled his pirate brows. “Or perhaps lots of alone time?”
“Um…” Did Harley and I need a moment to ourselves? “No. We need to focus on figuring out what’s going on.” I glanced over at Harley and my heart fluttered. He was watching me in a way I’d never seen before, like he was a hungry coyote on the prowl and he saw me as a tasty bit of prey. Oh my, that look was having a heady effect on me. But this wasn’t the time or the place. “We…um…need to focus,” I repeated.
Harley drew a shaky breath. “Yes, we need to figure out why your brother and the police are so keen on finding you, Big Dog,” he said. “And if this has anything to do with Joe’s murder.”
“You actually think he was murdered?” I asked. That surprised me.
“You think Joe was murder, Penn, and I trust your judgment. We’re a team, remember?” Harley said. “So, let’s get this business sorted.”
A team. I don’t think two words had ever sounded as sexy as those.
“Where do we begin?” Big Dog asked.
“I suppose we should start with your brother. Silas Piper told me he was looking for you because of that letter you sent via your friend, the one telling him you’d been murdered,” I said.
“Oh, that stupid letter.” Big Dog groaned. “I wish I’d never written it.”
“Well, you did. And he has it. But he made no secret that he thinks of you as the black sheep of the Piper clan, or perhaps more accurately, the albatross hanging around the necks of the Piper family. So, I’m wondering if he came to Camellia Beach because he is truly concerned for your welfare or is there something else about what you’re doing here that’s worrying him?”
“Wait, my brother is actually here? In Camellia Beach?” Big Dog asked. “You didn’t simply talk to him over the phone? He-he didn’t send someone? He came...in person?”
“He was here a week ago,” I told him. “He went to the city police department to report your murder. He seemed upset, but I did think it odd that he came to the island personally and so soon after the hurricane had blown through. He could have just as easily hired someone to quietly look into the matter for him.”
Big Dog pressed a shaky hand to his lips. “He didn’t visit me
after I was arrested. Not once. He wouldn’t even take my calls.”
My heart ached for him. I knew what he was feeling. It was never a good sign in a black sheep’s life when a family member went from ignoring your existence to taking a personal interest.
“Let’s get back to the money,” I said. “Why do you think your accomplice…er…Sammy Duncan would come here?”
“If I knew that, I’d already have retrieved what he’d taken from the bank, now wouldn’t I?”
“Okay.” I needed to get things straight in my head. I started ticking off the points we knew. “Joe was murdered. Probably before the storm. His house burned to the ground. Had someone deliberately burned the house down to cover up his murder? A few hours before the storm hit, a stranger wearing a tweed hat came to the Chocolate Box and started asking where he could find Joe. Shortly after he left, you arrived at the shop. Were you following the stranger who visited the shop? Was he Sammy?”
“Um…” Big Dog smiled sheepishly. “I had some serious surfing to do that morning. I kind of lost track of Sammy. Haven’t been able to find him since.”
Gracious, no wonder Silas had wanted to keep his brother on a short leash. He seemed quite helpless. Or was that helpless guy routine an act?
I looked over at Harley. Was he buying his friend’s story?
“Can you get me a picture of Sammy?” I asked. I needed to find out if he was Mr. Tweed Hat.
He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and started to swipe on the screen. It was the latest model and nearly as big as a tablet. “Just a minute.” He tapped the screen. Waited. And then tapped the screen some more. “Here’s Sammy Duncan,” he said and handed me his phone.
Although the guy in the picture wasn’t wearing a hat—the picture was from a newspaper report that included Sammy’s mug shot taken shortly after his arrest—I recognized him right away. He was Mr. Tweed Hat.
“Did Sammy go anywhere else after being released from prison? Or did he come straight here?” I asked.
“He visited his mother for a few days. She threw a huge welcome home party. All the Cedar’s Hill church ladies came out with their best covered dishes. The entire block smelled delicious,” Big Dog answered. “After the party, he hopped in his mom’s ancient Subaru and drove here.”
“How do you know that?” Harley asked.
“I was sitting in a car outside, watching his house. I didn’t want to miss anything he did.”
“Do you think Joe had the money?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Big Dog answered.
“Did Sammy and Joe know each other back at Cedar’s Hill?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Big Dog repeated with a rueful shake of his head and sideways smirk that made me want to scream at him. “I didn’t know them.”
Do you know anything?
While he had provided me with a name and information about my mystery man, the rest of what he’d told us created more questions than answers. Part of me wanted to pick up the phone and turn him and that smirk of his over to Detective Gibbons.
But then I looked at Harley.
Even if Big Dog reminded me of a smarmy pirate, he was Harley’s friend. Harley had made the decision to hide him in his apartment. It’d be up to Harley to call Gibbons—or not.
“You don’t happen to know anything about Blackbeard’s treasure, do you?” I asked.
“What?” Big Dog wrinkled his nose. “I haven’t had an interest in pirate stories since I was eleven or twelve.”
“How about the Gray Lady?” Harley asked, much to my chagrin. “Have you heard about her?”
“You know I’ve heard about her,” Big Dog said with a snort. “Everyone is talking about how the ghost killed Joe Davies.” But then he leaned toward me and said, “If you ask me, I think his death was cosmic retribution, especially if he ran off with the goods and left me and Sammy behind to take the blame.”
“I see.” I wiped my mouth and fingers with a paper towel. “Thank you for the shrimp,” I said as I stood.
Harley jumped to his feet while Big Dog remained slouched in his chair.
“Do you have to go?” he asked. He grabbed hold of my hand. “I was kind of hoping we could talk more.”
I glanced over at Big Dog who was peeling another shrimp. “I think we’ve talked enough for tonight.” Big Dog was only going to feed us the information that he wanted us to know and nothing more.
I called Stella over to me.
She didn’t budge from where she was sitting at Big Dog’s side.
“Stella, come.” I snapped my fingers and clicked my tongue.
Still, nothing.
“Bacon,” I sang and waved a small piece of it in the air.
She sniffed.
Slowly, reluctantly, she climbed to her feet and dragged herself away from her new favorite person. I handed her the teeny sliver of bacon, patted her head, and then picked up her leash. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” I asked Harley.
He twined his fingers with mine as he walked with me toward the door. The contact felt intimate and comfortable. He followed me out to the porch then closed the door behind him. “This wasn’t how I wanted tonight to go. His showing up like this changed all my plans.” He turned toward me with the most adorably frustrated frown. “But what could I do? He’s my friend.”
“You did exactly what I’d expect.” I pushed a lock of hair away from his face. “You’re a nice guy, Harley. You do what’s right. That’s why I like you so much.”
“Is that what you think of me? That I’m nice?” He braced his hands against the wall on either side of my head and moved so his warm body was pressed against mine. “If you could hear my thoughts right now, you’d know I’m not all that nice,” he said, his voice low, sexy. “There’s nothing nice about me right now.”
A stuttering heartbeat later, he kissed me. His mouth, hungry and demanding, gave me everything I never knew I needed from a man. When our lips finally parted, I was literally breathless. I didn’t realize a kiss could leave a person breathless. I’d thought that was a fantasy woven by romance writers.
His lips on mine had left my legs trembling and feeling rubbery. I put my hand on his chest to keep me from sliding to the porch decking. The rapid thump of his heart beat against my palm. Clearly, he’d been just as affected by the kiss as I’d been.
Gracious, his expression looked fierce.
I realized suddenly that up until now, we’d been playing at dating. Playful kisses. Harmless date nights. Solving a few murders with him playing the role of my sidekick. They’d been games. No expectations. No danger—except for the chasing after murderers part. My heart had remained safe.
But this kiss, oh my…
It made me want things that scared me more than a deranged killer ever could.
“I’m done playing nice, Penn,” he said. “If you want to be in a relationship, no more pushing me away. No more secrets. If you’re going after a killer, you tell me. We go forward as a team. Or we part ways.”
Uncertain if I could talk without my voice cracking, I nodded.
He kissed me again. Gently, this time.
I wrapped my arms around him and lived in the moment…for the moment.
Slowly, we both pulled away.
He was breathing faster than before.
So was I.
He pressed his forehead to mine.
“Tomorrow?” I said, lamely.
He nodded.
“Breakfast?” I said.
“I’d like that.” He stepped further away from me. That odd chill that had plagued me earlier returned.
“Are you sure a cold front isn’t coming through?” I rubbed my arms to chase away the goose bumps.
“The weather is supposed to hold steady until Friday. Tell Bertie I’ve got the insurance papers ready for her to sign. I’ll bring them with me in the morning.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that. See you in the morning then,” I said. Lame parting words, but I couldn’t come up with anything
romantic. I opened my apartment door. Stella darted inside. The theme song to the Mary Tyler Moore Show was playing on the TV in the living room and spilled out into the night.
I stood there at the threshold, thinking how wonderful it felt to have Harley in my life. I wanted to say something—something not hokey—that would let him know I was ready to go all in on our relationship. I searched for the right words. But if there were right words to say in such a moment, I didn’t have a clue to what they were.
“You put up with me,” I said instead. “That must make you one of the nicest guys in the world. And I love that about you.”
Before he could answer, before I could see how he’d react to my accidental use of the L-word with that compliment, I stepped inside my apartment and slammed the door closed behind me.
Just in time too. My wobbly, romance-stricken legs gave out on me, and I ended up leaning against the door. A long, happy sigh escaped my lips.
“Hot date night with Harley?” Barbie asked.
“Looks like she got that love potion from Althea’s shop and used it on herself,” Trixie said with a tsk. “I needed that potion.”
“You need to take a cold shower,” Barbie said.
I wasn’t sure if she was directing that comment at me or at her sister.
With a happy yip, Stella ran over to where the two sisters were sitting on the sofa. She then ran back to me, circled my legs, before returning to the sisters with their endless supply of snacks. With her adorable black nose to the carpet, she started to sniff around for cheese crumbs.
I, on the other hand, headed straight to my bathroom to take that cold shower.
Chapter 16
Judging by the size of the crowds visiting the Chocolate Box the next day, an outsider would have thought it was the Fourth of July weekend, not some random October Monday. Between the hungry ghost hunters who’d spent the night on the beach with all sorts of questionable-looking ghost-detecting equipment and the treasure hunters who had rolled in early with their more expensive (but just as questionable-looking) metal-detecting equipment, the shop’s meager stock was nearly sold out by ten o’clock.
Bonbon With the Wind Page 12
