The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  “Yeah,” Becca said distractedly, “hey, what’s it like being married to a biker?” Then, in a rush, “Ooh, they have a pink and purple one. I have to have that.”

  Emmie dusted mineral grit off her palms and glanced over at her student, noting the bright tinge of Becca’s ears as she tried to untangle the halter from its hook.

  She grinned. “Seeing as how I don’t have any experience with being married to more than one, I don’t know. But being married to Walsh is…surprisingly okay. It’s kind of…nice,” she finished lamely, no idea how to describe it properly.

  “Is he good in the sack?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  Becca’s entire face went red. “Um…no?”

  Emmie laughed. “He knows what he’s doing. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Becca sighed dramatically. “I wish Todd knew what he was doing,” she said of her boyfriend.

  Emmie was about to respond when –

  “Excuse me. Emmaline Johansen?” a deep voice asked behind her and she whirled around.

  A man stood on the other side of her cart, dressed in a t-shirt, jeans, and a windbreaker that was much too hot for the weather outside. Certain things about him – the buzzed hair, the way he held himself, the breadth of his shoulders – signified a young man around her age, fit and confident. But his skin was pale, his face puffy and lined. Eyes shiny, like maybe he had a fever. He wore gloves, a thin pale leather, which she found strange, but she wasn’t up to speed on every cop habit.

  He pulled out his wallet, and then flashed her a badge. “Detective Hanson with Knoxville PD. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  That explained the puffiness, then. Cops were stressed, worn down, stuck at desks. Fatigue could kill a man.

  “It’s Emmie,” she said. “Emmie Walsh.” She nodded. “Sure. Becca, will you take this up to the front? Have them put it on the farm tab.”

  Becca gave the detective a long look, then said, “Sure thing,” and wheeled the buggy away. She glanced over her shoulder twice before she was finally around the corner.

  Emmie focused on the cop. “This is about Davis? Mr. Richards, I mean,” she added, remembering she’d only ever called him by his first name in her head.

  “I’m afraid so,” Detective Hanson said gravely. He gestured to a stack of feed bags that looked sturdy enough and she sat.

  He stayed on his feet, right in front of her, closer than she would have liked him to be. “Miss…Walsh, you said?”

  He was slipping his badge back into his pocket and fumbled it, dropping it between her feet.

  She picked it up and handed it to him. “Yes. Recently married.”

  A concerned frown etched lines in his face. “He’s a member of the Lean Dogs, isn’t he? If I remember from your vandalism report.”

  She nodded. “He is.”

  “Does that worry you?”

  “Why should it?” she returned. Tell her a few weeks ago that she’d be evasive and worried about her outlaw husband, and she would have laughed someone out of the room. But now, she was seeing it all from a different angle. The one from which Walsh was good to her, and she wanted to hold onto that goodness.

  At the cost of being cooperative with the police.

  He gave her a patronizing smirk. “Your husband is a member of one of the largest international criminal organizations, and that’s not something you worry about?”

  She shrugged. “Walsh is a businessman. He’s hardly threatening. Detective,” she said, frowning, “I thought this was about Davis.”

  “It is.” His smirk became a tight smile, less cocky. He didn’t like the way she was responding to him. “Very much so. You see, the way I look at it, Mrs. Walsh” – he turned her new name into a mockery – “what we have is a local legend in Mr. Richards. A man with lots of money, lots of respect, lots of influence in Knoxville. He’s well-liked, frequently donates to charities, and is seen as a pillar of the community.”

  “Yes.” She lifted her brows as if to say so?

  “A well-liked man without enemies, without any grudges, killed in his own home. Nothing stolen, no robbery, no break-in. Who kills a man like that?”

  He was giving her the stink eye, and she gave it right back. “I think you ought to talk to Amy Richards about that. She’s the only one I know of who stood to gain anything by his death.”

  Look at her, condemning her former mentor and defending her one-percenter husband. My how times changed.

  Detective Hanson snorted. “His grief-stricken, doting daughter, the one he built a farm for? Yeah, that makes about zero sense,” he sneered. “What does make sense is an outlaw walked into the picture, and a couple weeks later, the guy owns the place, and Richards is dead. An outlaw who’s part of a club notorious for dealing drugs, I might add.”

  “Check with the bank if you want, but the paperwork was already finalized. Walsh owned the farm before Davis was killed.”

  He stepped in closer, crowding her. “So you’re telling me you truly believe that the man you worked for for years winds up dead of a heroin overdose, and his daughter did it? Not the crack-dealing white trash thug you’re living with.”

  Emmie surged to her feet, forcing him to take a step back. “Okay, take me down to the station if you want, but I’m not going to sit here and listen to you insult my husband.”

  She made a move to step around him, and he caught her with one meaty hand on her shoulder. His face grew serious, less mocking. “Did he tell you why he left London? Why he really left?”

  The menace in his eyes sent her pulse tripping, panic unfurling deep in her gut. “He hated the big city,” she said, but couldn’t hear any conviction in her voice. “He came here for a job and liked it so much he stayed.”

  Hanson snorted, but it wasn’t mean. Almost like he was sorry for her. With his free hand, he reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a photograph, turned it toward her. It was a mug shot, Walsh, holding the little plaque with his name on it, giving the camera the dead eye. His face was smooth and maybe ten years younger.

  A cold chill moved down her back.

  “It was a turf war,” Hanson said quietly. “There’s a bar in London the Dogs own, and some other club tried to come in. A fight broke out, and three civilians were killed in the mayhem. When the police arrived, your husband had blood all over his hands, literally. No witnesses came forward, the case stalled out, and he jumped ship to America before any real charges could be pressed.”

  Emmie swallowed with difficulty.

  “The civilians? Two of them were women.”

  Her eyes lifted to his face.

  “I’d be very careful about where I put my loyalty, Ms. Johansen.” She didn’t correct his use of her maiden name. “The Lean Dogs sell illegal weapons, drugs, and contract kills. Wherever they go, they leave bodies in their wake, and they don’t care if outsiders get cut down in their quest for power. Why do you think they wanted Briar Hall? Did he give you the old story about how he was a jockey? How he wanted to be around horses? It’s a lie. Everything any of them ever say is a lie. They destroy lives, and they take what they want. It’s what they do.”

  He tucked his chin, eyes softening. “I’d hate to see you get hurt in all this. Or worse.”

  Then he withdrew his hand and the photo and stepped away from her.

  Emmie had to grab hold of a shelf to keep steady on her feet.

  ~*~

  She lingered at the barn longer than she needed to, well after Fred and Becca left. She clipped Apollo into a wash rack and gave him a thorough bath, counting on the lathering of sleek horse hide to serve as its usual balm. But Detective Hanson’s words were a poison in her bloodstream, working on her though she tried to ignore the effects.

  Her horse swung his head around to look at her, sensing her energy. “What am I gonna do?” she asked quietly, running her fingers through his short mane. “When will it stop?”

  When she could put it off no longer, she hiked up the
hill to the house and found two foreign vehicles. A classic car of some sort she didn’t care about, and a black Dodge truck, parked in front of the garage.

  She’d forgotten all about Walsh’s friends, and glanced down at herself. Tank top spotted with water, gummy shampoo residue on her arms. Her boots were filthy and she had spatters of mud or something all over her shins. She could feel the hair sticking to the perspiration at the back of her neck and on her forehead, the tendrils come loose from her ponytail.

  What a picture she must make.

  Whatever.

  They were in the living room and Walsh stood and walked over to greet her. As he reached her, it was devastating to realize how strongly he affected her physically, and to know how wrong it was for her to feel that way.

  Hand on her hip, he leaned in for a quick kiss that tasted like cigarettes.

  “Hi.” His smile was small and said he was pleased to see her.

  Her stomach knotted. “Hi.”

  His arm slid around her waist as he turned to the men holding up either end of their new sofa. “Em, this is Eddie” – scary handsome and tossing her a lazy, bad boy grin – “and Sly” – God, the blue eyes and the blonde hair on a face that could turn people to stone, a little like Walsh in that regard – “guys, this is Emmie.”

  “Hi.” She gave them a scant smile and ducked out of Walsh’s hold. “I really ought to go clean up. I stink like a wet dog.” She didn’t check to see if they thought she was rude, just went, hurrying around the edge of the room, down the hall to the back staircase.

  Her heart was in her throat by the time she shut the door of the master bedroom and leaned back against it. Maybe she was having another panic attack, like at the courthouse. Or maybe, she thought, as she surveyed the very lived-in room, she was just a willing accomplice.

  “Everything any of them ever say is a lie. They destroy lives, and they take what they want.”

  Was this a lie? His jeans slung over the bedpost and her flip-flops on the floor in front of the dresser. His razor and her makeup in the bathroom drawers.

  God, they were living together. Was that the lie…or was that what he wanted?

  A hot shower eased some of the tension in her muscles. And afterward, as she dried her hair, she caught sight of the little pile of stuff Walsh had dumped out of his pockets last night: a paperclip, a handful of change, part of a fast food straw wrapper, lint, and a Werther’s caramel.

  She smiled faintly. Whatever else he was, he was a man too. A human, with pocket change, who ate McDonald’s and liked old lady hard candy. Could he really be the stuff of nightmares?

  Dressed in clean shorts and a top, smelling worlds better, she headed down the stairs with the resolution to act more normal. She’d gotten spooked, it happened. It was undoubtedly going to happen again.

  She paused on the first landing when she heard voices below. There were more than just three of them in the living room now. A fourth voice, one sharp with authority, even when he laughed, one she’d heard before. Ghost.

  “Zel clocked him so hard, I’d be surprised if he didn’t have brain damage,” Sly or Eddie said. There were a few low chuckles. “That woman could find a way to kill you with a bottle cap. Give her a frying pan, and you’re talking frontal lobe damage.”

  “But they cleared him to go back to work,” Ghost said.

  “Oh yeah, but it was a big demotion. Throw in what you guys did to the poor bastard” – more chuckling – “and he’s one bad hair day away from being completely off the reservation.”

  “So this is personal, then,” Walsh said. “Vendetta type shit.”

  “That’d be my guess. Your guy said he wasn’t on assignment, right?”

  “Not my guy,” Ghost said, “but yeah, if Grey’s after us, it’s because he’s gone rogue.”

  Low murmurs she couldn’t hear at that point. She clutched at the bannister, heart pounding. She was eavesdropping, but couldn’t make herself stop.

  “Ego’s his thing,” Sly/Eddie said. “Without it, he’s got nothing.”

  “And becomes very dangerous, apparently,” Ghost said.

  Who in the hell were they talking about? Whoever it was, she most certainly wasn’t supposed to hear it.

  Emmie sat down hard on a step and waited, listening to Ghost thank the two newcomers and then leave.

  “There’s more beer in the fridge,” she heard Walsh say, and the voices seemed to move that way, growing more distant.

  She strangled a surprised yelp when Walsh appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her with a mild expression. “Had your shower?”

  He knew she’d been listening. He had to. But he was the picture of serenity.

  “Yeah.” She stood and brushed her shorts down to hide the shaking of her hands. “I was just…” Totally spying on you.

  “I told the boys you’d had a long day, so we ordered pizza. It’s on the way.”

  “Oh. That’s good.” She’d anticipated he would ask her to cook for his guests. Not that she really minded. Not that it would be unfeminist to do so.

  But she’d been searching for some sign that he was this domineering jackoff the detective had described to her, and he just wasn’t. Whatever else the other club members were, Walsh couldn’t be a killer.

  Could he?

  She had reached a dangerous point of self-reflection, one in which she couldn’t have been reasonable if she wanted to be. She wanted a drink. Hated that she had her father’s urge to drown her worries. She didn’t want to be worried about all this.

  But she was.

  ~*~

  Sly and Eddie might as well have been furniture for all the attention she paid them during dinner. After, she left her dish in the sink and headed for the hallway.

  Walsh started toward her, and she kept going. “I’m going to take a walk,” she said, and slipped out the front door before he could say anything. She struck off at a fast clip, short legs working

  double time to get her down the steps, around the bend in the walk and headed for the barn.

  The air was still hot and it felt good filling her lungs, chasing away some of that inner chill she’d carried since Lawson’s. Walsh had done nothing to her – well, save that whole tackling incident – and had given her no reason to be afraid of him personally. Then again, he’d turned her entire world on its end. Shouldn’t that spook a girl?

  Shadows lay in long fingers across the pavement, collecting in tide pools between the trunks of trees, the breeze like the low roar of ocean surf.

  Emmie walked faster. What sort of delusion had she been operating under? How could she have thought sex, a little cuddling, and what was probably pretend tenderness would somehow serve as worthwhile counterbalance to the fact that she was married to a damn criminal?

  She was breathing in ragged gasps when she reached the doors of the barn, and she paused to collect herself.

  It didn’t work. Especially not when Walsh materialized beside her, slightly winded from having followed her at her powerwalking pace.

  “Just a walk, huh?” He propped his hands on his hips and looked down his nose at her. “Not, let’s say, a nice running away?”

  “If I was going to run away, I wouldn’t do it on foot.” She patted her pockets, kicking herself for not going for a drive instead. She didn’t even have her truck keys.

  Then again, she hadn’t truly meant to bolt. She was only thinking that now, as she saw the serious light in his blue eyes and was struck anew by the fact that she was married to this man. Who she didn’t know, and who had wed her on the pretense of keeping her from a shallow unmarked grave.

  “Em,” he said. “What’s got into you?”

  When his hand reached for her she sidestepped it, going into the shadowy interior of the barn. The urge to confide in him was overwhelming, and that frightened her. How quickly she’d become dependent upon him, leaning into his support as easy as breathing.

  “Nothing, I just want to be alone is all.” She put her bac
k to him and walked down the aisle, wanting some distance.

  He followed her. “Emmie.”

  She got halfway down, right in front of Apollo’s stall, and spun to face him. He was covered in shadow, his eyes shimmering like a wolf’s, the dark making him seem taller, more threatening than he’d ever looked. She could believe it, looking at him right now. Could he have killed Davis, forged the paperwork, worked some outlaw magic, and then pretended to care about her? Absolutely. It happened all the time.

  “Did you kill Davis?” she asked, proud that her voice was firm though she was shaking on the inside.

  “What?” The incredulity in his voice almost sounded real. “Didn’t we already have this conversation? Love, what in the bloody hell–”

  “Answer the question, Kingston. I’m your wife, right? So no one can force me to testify against you. So tell me, for real this time. Did you kill my boss?”

  He stepped toward her, boots scraping across stray bits of hay that had escaped the night’s sweeping. “I don’t know what’s got into you,” he said calmly, “but I already told you, I didn’t kill the poor bugger. He sold the place to me. Why would I pop him off?”

  She swallowed hard; her pulse thundered in her ears. “Maybe he was trying to renege.”

  “Or maybe his junkie fucking grandson did it.” A thread of steel creeping into his tone, layering in aggression. “You know me now. You know I wouldn’t have done that.”

  “I know you?”

  “I told you everything.”

  “Or so you say.”

  He dragged in a deep breath. “You’re right. There was one thing I didn’t tell you.”

  She knew it.

  She bolted.

  Tried to, anyway. Walsh caught her by the back of her shirt and hauled her around, pushed her back against the metal bars of a stall and pinned her there with his body, his hands locked on her forearms.

  “Let me go!” she gasped. “You said you would. You said you wouldn’t make me stay.” It was almost a sob, burning in the back of her throat. “Let me go.”