The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  His breath was warm across her face. She could see nothing but the glint of his eyes, could only feel the shape of him pressed against her. “Don’t you want to hear it, though? The big awful secret I didn’t tell you before.”

  She couldn’t swallow down her fear so she could tell him that yes, she did want to know, underneath the terror that he might be about to throttle her.

  His head dipped low, his breath fanning across her throat. His lips touched her jaw, just beneath her ear. “I got a girl pregnant once,” he whispered, and she stopped breathing. “Her name was Rita, and she was the daughter of someone important, and I was a banned jockey.”

  Her hands curled into the front of his shirt, and she tried to push him away…

  “I bought a little hat, a little white lace thing, and I thought if it was a boy, I might name it for my grandfather.”

  She froze.

  “And Rita couldn’t stand the idea of being attached to me like that. So she had the doctor take it out of her. Like it was a tumor. My child.”

  Her heart stuttered and then started up a slow, throbbing rhythm.

  “That’s what I didn’t tell you, pet. That women think I’m a disease.” His chuckle was dry and bitter. “Guess you’re no different, then.”

  She took a deep breath, and then another. She didn’t want to ache for him, but she did. It could be a lie, but the harshness in his voice told her it wasn’t.

  She wet her lips. “A detective came up to me at the feed store today,” she whispered, and felt his hands tighten on her arms. “It was…it was like he was trying to scare me.”

  “About us.” His voice hardened.

  “I didn’t tell him anything.”

  He sighed and let go of her. Stepped back. Shoved both hands into his hair and scrubbed hard. “Bugger all.”

  “I don’t want to be frightened,” she added, “but I am. I don’t know what to do about that. I never expected…any of this.” It was a relief to be honest, but it filled her eyes with tears.

  Her phone rang, and she was almost glad for the chance to answer it, and break up this moment.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Joan,” the bar owner’s wife greeted. “And yep, you guessed it. Daddy’s in the gutter again.”

  Emmie groaned and slid the phone back in her pocket without acknowledgement.

  “Your father?” Walsh asked.

  She pushed her hair back, pressed hard at her scalp with her fingertips, like she could contain the headache that was coming on. “Yeah.”

  He made a frustrated sound, and then sighed deeply. “I’ll go with you.”

  “You don’t have to–”

  “Well I’m not very well going to let you drag a man out of a bar by yourself, am I? Even if you do think I’m worthless.”

  “I never said–”

  “Just get yourself together and let’s go. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  ~*~

  Patrons shifted in and out of Bell Bar in waves. Inside, the crowd was overwhelming the AC’s ability to keep things cool, and Emmie felt sweat break out across her chest the moment they pushed inside.

  “Jesus,” Walsh muttered.

  “It’s orientation week for the college,” she told him, having to shout to be heard. “They overrun all the bars.”

  It took a full minute to work their way up to the bar, getting elbowed and trampled-on the whole way. Karl sat perched on his favorite stool, staring down into his empty tumbler, neck limp as overcooked pasta.

  “Dad.” Emmie wedged herself between his stool and the next one over, laid her hand on his shoulder. “Dad, come on, let’s get you out of here.”

  He turned a sightless glance on her, eyes glazed over. “Esther’s gone,” he said miserably, and her stomach clenched at the sound of her mother’s name.

  “You mean Maryann. Maryann left again, didn’t she?”

  “Esther,” he repeated. “My beautiful, sweet Esther.”

  Emmie sighed. “Yeah, Dad, she’s gone. Very gone. But what about Maryann?”

  “I hate that bitch,” he said with a scowl, and raised his glass to his lips though it was empty.

  “Dad–” A touch on her arm brought her head around. There was Walsh.

  And there were two uniformed police officers.

  “Emmaline Johansen,” one of them said in a booming voice that transcended the bar noise. “We need you to come down to the station with us for questioning.”

  “What?”

  Walsh put himself between her and the officers. “She’s not going anywhere. Questioning about what?”

  Emmie grabbed onto the back of his cut, willing him to stay in front of her. Not that it looked like he’d be willing to budge.

  “Theft of police property, for one,” the second cop said. “Come with us, ma’am, or we’ll be forced to place you under arrest.”

  “Arrest?” Walsh asked, an obvious, emotional outrage in his voice she’d never heard before. “What police property? She didn’t steal shit.”

  The noise level in the bar dropped suddenly as people started to take notice of what was happening. The prospect of a police brawl was too tempting, and they cut off conversations, turning to watch the exchange. Emmie saw a few phones aimed their way.

  Beneath her hands, the muscles in Walsh’s back locked up tight. Each breath pushed at his ribs, drove the bones hard against her knuckles. He exuded such calm all the time, but he was clearly ready to flip the switch on her behalf.

  She took a deep breath. “I’ll go.”

  He half-twisted toward her. “What? No you won’t. They’ve got nothing against you.”

  “Actually, we do,” the first officer said. “Let’s go, Miss Johansen, and they’ll explain everything down at the station.”

  Fear threatened to choke her, but she nodded, and stepped around Walsh. “Look after my dad, please,” she told him.

  He shook his head. “I’m–”

  “Walsh, please. I’ll be alright.”

  His eyes tracked across her face, wide with helpless panic. It was real fear she saw in their depths. Fear for her, worry, anger on her behalf.

  Then his jaw hardened and he looked at the two cops. “I’m calling her a lawyer.”

  “You do that,” Cop Two said. “And we’ll see what she has to say for herself.”

  Thirty

  Bugger this. Bugger all of this. Buggering cops, buggering drunken fool, buggering woman who couldn’t stop worrying.

  Walsh had managed to wrestle Johansen out onto the sidewalk, where the man had then puked up his guts and sent a group of college age girls running in all directions with shrieks and curses. The gin-soaked wanker now lay face-down on the concrete.

  Time for reinforcements. Both for physical, and moral support, at this point.

  Mercy answered on the third ring. “My British brother,” he greeted, and Walsh heard Remy babbling away in the background.

  Guilt needled him. It was after dark, Merc was enjoying his family time at home.

  “Ah…I had a favor to ask,” Walsh said, wincing. “If it’s not too late.”

  Mercy didn’t hesitate. “Where are you? I’ll be there in five.”

  Walsh sighed gratefully. “Tell your girl I’m sorry to drag you away.”

  “Walsh says sorry to deprive you of my magnetic sexuality,” Mercy said, voice more distant as he spoke away from the phone.

  Ava laughed. “Yeah. I bet he did.”

  Walsh smiled to himself as he disconnected. He’d grown up without that kind of banter, and the first time he’d heard it between a couple it had shocked him. It had excited him, too. Not in a sexual way, but in a warm, fizzing way, like when he was a kid waiting for Christmas morning. It made him want to smile like a dope, hearing a husband and wife give each other sweet hell. He’d never experienced it for himself…until Emmie.

  Who was probably going to get arrested for God knew what.

  Her father moaned on the sidewalk.

 
; “You and me both, mate,” Walsh told him grimly.

  ~*~

  A paper cup of water landed on the table in front of her, alongside the granola bar that had already been offered. The detective who’d brought it had an ugly yellow tie studded with blue diamonds, and one of those slack, beefy faces that lifted up in all the corners when he offered her a tight smile.

  “Would you please tell me what this is about?” Emmie asked, massaging the back of her neck and trying to find a comfortable spot in the folding chair. They unbalanced the things on purpose, didn’t they? To put you on edge? She’d read something about that in a crime novel.

  Her whole fucking life was a crime novel now.

  “I will,” the detective said, sitting down across from her. He had a folder that he opened and turned toward her, displaying two photos, and two blue-ink fingerprints on white cards. “Do you recognize this?” He tapped the photo on the left.

  “A doorknob.”

  “The doorknob to Davis Richards’ back door. The one we dusted for prints. This” – one of the fingerprints – “is the print we took from you, for elimination purposes in the Richards investigation. It matches this print” – the other one – “that we pulled off of this. Do you know what that is?”

  “A police badge,” she said, and her stomach turned over.

  “It’s my police badge,” he told her with a small, helpful smile. “I’m Detective Hanson.”

  “No.” She shook her head, but he was nodding. “I met Detective Hanson yesterday, at Lawson’s Tack and Feed, I met him…”

  The man across from her pulled out his wallet and showed her his driver’s license. Mark Hanson, age forty-eight, right there in front of her.

  “God,” she breathed, “who did I meet? Who was that?”

  The real Detective Hanson heaved a deep breath. “How about instead, you tell me how your prints got on my stolen badge?”

  ~*~

  “Just makes you feel all welcome, doesn’t it?” Mercy asked. He hauled Johansen’s unconscious weight from the backseat and slung the man over one shoulder like a bag of laundry, with no visible effort. He gestured toward the house with his free hand. “Take it your Emmie wasn’t living here with him.”

  “Nah, she had the loft above the barn.”

  “Hell, I’d live in the stall with a horse ‘fore I lived here.” Mercy adjusted his burden. “You lead the way, son-in-law.”

  Walsh grimaced and headed up the walk, stepping over stray candy bar wrappers and plastic takeout cups that the wind had carried into the yard and the homeowners hadn’t bothered to collect.

  The front door was unlocked, but he had to fumble around for a light switch. When he found it, the foyer chandelier sputtered a few times before deciding half its bulbs would work.

  “Nice,” Mercy said as they mounted the steps into the main part of the house. “You sure this isn’t Fisher’s long lost brother?”

  “We shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

  Mercy snorted.

  Because searching for a bedroom in this hell hole sounded like a stupendously bad idea, they dumped Emmie’s father on the couch.

  “Let’s get outta here before we die of gin fume inhalation,” Walsh grumbled, one last contemptuous glare thrown at his father-in-law’s sleeping back.

  In the moment, he hated the man for making Emmie’s life difficult.

  “Who in the hell are you?” a shrill, female voice said behind them, and they whirled at the same time.

  The stepmother, Maryann, stood at the top of the stairs, bloated face pinched with anger, dress fitting her broad shape with all the elegance of a tablecloth.

  “You robbing me?” she demanded. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  “Bringing your husband home,” Walsh said, stepping toward her.

  Her eyes widened with recognition. “You! It’s you, you foreign asshole! Get outta my house!”

  “Ma’am,” Mercy said, stepping forward with a few swaggering steps that emphasized his height. “Personally, I can’t wait to get out of your fucking landfill of a house.”

  She took a step back, managing to bristle and cower at the same time.

  “But maybe you oughta think about thanking Emmie’s husband for bringing your half-dead old man back in one…very smelly piece.”

  The woman’s beady eyes darted around Mercy, zeroing in on Walsh. “Husband.”

  “That’s right.” Walsh grinned darkly for her benefit – God knew he didn’t feel like it. He advanced on her at a slow stalk. “Which means you’re gonna want to be a lot nicer to Em.”

  “We’d hate to have to make another visit,” Mercy said with a giant grin.

  She looked between the two of them. Pursed up her mouth and shoved between them. “Always knew that girl was trash,” she muttered. “Always knew she’d end up married to more trash.”

  Mercy started to say something else and Walsh shook his head. “Bigger fish, mate.”

  ~*~

  A sharp knock sounded on the interview room door before it swept open to reveal Sergeant Fielding. His face flushed with anger when his eyes landed on her.

  “Hanson,” he snapped. “What’s going on in here?”

  The detective got to his feet, face reddening. “Interviewing a suspect. In the interview room. Where we interview suspects,” he said with a pointed glare that meant he didn’t want to have this discussion in front of her – said suspect.

  Fielding’s lips compressed. “Give me a minute with her.”

  Hanson made an unhappy sound, but obliged, leaving them alone.

  The sergeant shut the door and leaned back against it, posture non-threatening. “What’s going on?”

  She told him, growing calmer in the telling because without Hanson interrupting and trying to trip her up, the story sounded plausible. At least she hoped it did.

  “And you’d never seen him before?” he asked of the fake Hanson.

  “Never. But I haven’t had a lot of dealings with the police, so…” She sighed. “I had no reason to believe he wasn’t legit.”

  “Your student Becca saw him too?”

  “Oh yes, she was all suspicious, so she got a good look.” Relief flooded through her, and then another wave of it. “And they’ve got cameras at Lawson’s, ever since those guys stole that roping dummy, so I bet he’s on film.”

  “I bet he is too.” He looked at her a long moment, studying her. “Walsh is out there, waiting on you, ‘bout jumped down my throat when he came in.”

  She could envision his shoulders braced with tension, his scowl intense and cold. For her.

  She wanted to cry and bit at her lip instead. “I didn’t steal that badge. I might have married a Lean Dog, but I swear, I didn’t steal it. I had no reason to. And that’s not me.”

  “I know. Let’s get you home.”

  Detective Hanson was standing in the squad room, looking pissed off by the loss of his chew toy. “I sent her old man out front,” he told Fielding as they passed. “He was all riled up like a little Chihuahua.”

  Emmie shot him a dark glance as they passed, resentful on so many levels. When it came to Dogs, her husband was anything but a trembling neurotic lap warmer.

  “Thanks,” Fielding said with a sigh, and propelled her forward with a respectful grip on her elbow.

  Walsh paced the width of the stairs outside, smoke trailing over his shoulder as he worked on the last nub of a cigarette. He tossed the butt away and turned to her. Fielding cleared his throat about the littering, but Walsh ignored it, coming to her, pausing just short of reaching for her with his hands.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded…and tears flooded her eyes. She lifted her hands to shield them and Walsh’s arms wrapped around her, pulled her into the comforting warm solidness of his chest. She choked silently, biting her lip, closing her eyes, but the tears were pushing at her, trying to get loose.

  “No charges?” he asked over the top of her head.

  “No.” Fi
elding sounded troubled and exhausted. “I’ll look into what she told us and get back to you.”

  “She didn’t steal anything, and you know it.”

  “Hmm. Take her home.” To her he said, “Get some rest, Emmie. It’ll be alright.” Then his shoes retreated across the concrete, the door opened with a hiss of released air pressure.

  Emmie burrowed her face into the leather covering Walsh’s shoulder and willed herself to stop shaking. She shouldn’t seek comfort from him, because he was the reason for all of this. But all she wanted was the strength of his arms around her, his hands gentle against her back, her neck.

  “I didn’t tell them anything,” she said through chattering teeth. “About you, about the club–”

  He stroked her hair. “Ah, love, I know you didn’t.”

  ~*~

  “What’d he look like?” Walsh asked when they were in the truck and she’d calmed down a little. He gripped the wheel hard, veins standing stark in his forearms, illuminated by the dash lights. “Your fake cop.”

  Emmie relaxed back against the seat. “He was young. My age, probably. He looked like one of those fit, douchebag gym guys who’d missed a buncha sleep and drank too much. Like an echo of somebody who thought he was hot once.”

  He glanced over at her. “What? I meant eye color, height, weight, did he have a big nose? That kinda thing. They didn’t have you talk to a sketch artist?”

  “No. But you couldn’t see that anyway.”

  “No, but they should have done it. So they could catch the guy.” His jaw tensed as he stared through the windshield. “How did Fielding react when you told him?”

  She shrugged. “Concerned. But he would, wouldn’t he?”

  His brows tucked low over his eyes, his scowl fierce. “I know what’s going on. And my guess is Fielding does too.”

  “What?” She sat up straighter.

  “Be thinking about what that guy looked like, and when we get home, I want you to describe him to Sly and Eddie.”

  “Okay…”

  “They wanna crash on my couch, they can sit up and listen for a bit.”