Taming Deputy Harlow

by Jennifer Morey

  With her blank look, he surmised she hadn’t thought much on it.

  Her parents’ aloofness must have had something to do with her uncertainty. Did she even know how to recognize love? Real love. More than companionship.

  Time for a test. Just a little one.

  He slid out a single rose. Water dripped minimally. Putting one hand on the desk surface, he tipped the rose and touched the petals to her skin just beneath her nose. “Do you really see yourself ever doing that? The whole enchilada...marriage, kids?”

  She inhaled the fresh scent of the flower, then took the stem from him, holding it there herself. “I guess I haven’t pictured myself doing that, no.”

  She was still young. Maybe she just didn’t realize she was getting to the age where she would be ready.

  “Picture it now.” He held her gaze while she thought.

  “I don’t want to make the wrong decision,” she said. “To make the right decision I have to know I’m ready.”

  Fair enough. He admired her ability to communicate without offending. She had confidence and plans and wouldn’t let anything derail her unless she was sure.

  She smelled the rose some more. Then, after contemplating him, she put it back into the vase. “Why are you so determined to hook up with someone?”

  “I’m ready for that.” And he was sure that was what he wanted.

  “Why weren’t you before? Did the private company you worked for have something to do with that? You told me when we had dinner that it wasn’t good for you.”

  Yes, and he still didn’t want to talk about that. But now he had to.

  “It was a private military company. Aesir International. The man who ran it wasn’t on the straight and narrow.”

  She contemplated him again. “You were a mercenary?”

  “Security contractor.” He hated the term mercenary.

  “There’s a difference?”

  He had to calm his irritation. “A big one.”

  “Just because you’re a mercenary doesn’t mean you’re a bad one.”

  “I am not a mercenary, nor have I ever been a mercenary.” He couldn’t keep the sharpness out of his tone.

  She stared at him, now understanding. “I’m sorry, I didn’t...”

  Valdemar Stankovich had made him a mercenary against his will. He would never get past his bitterness.

  “What went wrong?” she asked.

  Everything. Nothing she could imagine would be worse than the truth. “They did some questionable things. I got out as soon as I could.”

  “What do you mean as soon as you could? Didn’t you just quit?”

  He didn’t like her wariness. She may not know, but she had nothing to fear from him. His time with Aesir made him look crooked. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

  “I’d rather not talk about why I don’t want to settle down right now.” She smiled slightly, tempering the sober topic.

  “I already know why.” Winning her would be a welcome challenge. He just had to be careful deciding when—or if—the time came to give up.

  “Can I look at the list of residents again?” she asked.

  “I emailed it to you.” He gestured to the Neville murder case file. “What have you got that out for?”

  She woke up her computer and navigated to the email. “Looking for anything that might tip us off to Jeffrey’s involvement.” Printing the page, she got up and went to the printer to retrieve it. Jamie took advantage of her turned back to admire her rear. As she headed back, she caught him. Whether involuntary or not, her gaze wandered down the front of him and back up.

  Then she seemed to shake herself back to business, reaching her chair and putting down the page as she sat. “I don’t think he had anything to do with it.”

  Jamie moved the wooden chair beside her desk next to her more comfortable one and sat beside her, liking their nearness.

  “Jeffrey’s friends were all interviewed,” she said. “Ella didn’t have many, since she was so new to the community. None of them had said anything unusual that stood out as suspicious.” She looked over the names of residents. “One of them said Jeffrey took her to dinner a few nights before and heard him say he bought plane tickets to Tahiti. Who would do that if they were planning to kill their spouse?”

  She jotted down the names of male residents who fit the age bracket. There weren’t many and one had died.

  “Someone planning to convince a jury of their innocence,” Jamie said.

  Reese lifted her eyes and he saw her concern. Would she be another deputy sheriff to fail at cracking this case?

  * * *

  When Reese arrived home later that night, she walked toward the white steps and railing that bordered her front porch, still floating from lunch with Jamie. She floated a lot with him. He hadn’t talked about anything serious, just like their first dinner. He talked about fun things, like the time he bought his mother a cat for her birthday. He’d been sixteen. His mother didn’t like cats and tried to hide her disappointment. Jamie had felt bad for days, until he noticed his mother taking a shine to the thing. The way he told the story made her laugh. It was so easy to talk to him. And he made her feel good. Happy.

  She’d barely been able to concentrate all afternoon and into the evening. The walk home had only given her peace and quiet to think about him some more. That couldn’t be good.

  As she reached the first porch step, she saw the lower corner of the window of the top half of the door had been broken.

  Stopping, she drew her pistol and searched the yard and sides of the house, then the street in both directions and behind her. Across the street, light illuminated windows but no one stirred.

  She’d stayed late studying the Neville file. It was nearly ten and the street was dark and quiet. No cars passed. Nothing made a sound. It was a cool, still night with no moon.

  Facing her house, she checked the yard again and looked closely at the dark windows. Creeping forward, she listened for any sounds coming from inside. Like the night, it was silent.

  Stepping up to the door, she stood to the side, seeing it was open a crack. Should she call for backup? So far it didn’t appear anyone was inside. They could be hiding. Waiting. Maybe they’d seen her drive up. Backup might take too long. She had a gun and she had training. She’d check it out first.

  Taking her flashlight out, she pushed the door open. With her pistol ready in one hand, she flashed light into the entry, searching the stairway going up the right wall. She saw nothing and moved to the opening to the living room. Her couch had been knifed and tipped over. The bookshelf had been cleared of its holdings and also tipped over. Throw pillows, lamps and tables had all been toppled. Someone had ransacked her house.

  Moving down the hall past the staircase, she reached the entry to the great room that opened to her kitchen and a nook area. The same had been done here, with her sectional knifed, bookshelf with all her movies tipped over and movies everywhere. Plates and glass lay broken on the new wood floor in the kitchen. The only thing left untouched was the kitchen table in the nook.

  To her right, she inched to the doorway of her master bedroom. Her mattress had been ripped open. Bedding lay strewn on the floor. Her dresser drawers had been emptied and clothes mixed with bedding. At her walk-in closet door, she flashed her light inside. More mess but no intruder. Back out in the great room, she stayed at the edge of the hall, peering up to the small loft area at the top of the stairs.

  A shadow moved.

  Reese’s heart slammed with her alarm. But she remained calm, calling on her training. The figure had ducked into one of three upstairs rooms—the office above her walk-in closet and bathroom. She clipped the flashlight to her duty belt.

  Going to the stairs, she climbed quietly and slowly. At the top, she checked the landing area an
d looked over the great room. She hadn’t finished renovating the second level yet. She aimed her weapon into the office, the only furnished room upstairs. This room had been partially searched and one of the two windows was open, the screen knifed and torn. She went there and glanced outside. A figure ran down the street.

  Closing the window, she hurried down the hall and checked what would soon be the second master bedroom and then the room she planned to turn into a library. It had its own balcony and would make a lovely place to spend an afternoon reading, especially with the partial mountain views. But right now it felt violated. Unsafe.

  After going back downstairs, she went out the front door and ran to the street. Whoever had broken into her house was gone.

  Back inside, she closed and locked the door. Staring at the broken window, her unease didn’t calm. She needed an alarm system.

  Still holding her pistol, she flipped on lights as she went through the house to the back door next to the nook. She still had leftover construction material from the renovations. Finding a board that would fit the front window, she took hammer and nails to the front door and boarded the entire window.

  Standing back, she still felt insecure. Who had broken into her house? And why?

  It had to be the money. Word had spread like wildfire of her treasure find. But Candace must not have told anyone Reese had put the money in the safe-deposit box. She did have a reputation of confidentiality with her role at the bank.

  If the money was connected to Ella’s murder, could that mean the killer was local? And still alive?

  She took out her phone and started to call Jamie. Then stopped. What had prompted that instinct? He was a security expert. He could keep her safe until she had an alarm system installed. Or was that an excuse to spend time with him? She battled with a deep and tempting urge to use the excuse. And then a familiar apprehension clenched within her. She felt it every time a man began to weave his way too far into her life.

  * * *

  When the sheriff told Jamie that Reese wasn’t in the office yet and that the reason she hadn’t shown up for work yet was because someone had broken into her house last night, Jamie was livid. She’d called the sheriff and a team had gone to her house. They’d just finished, the sheriff had told him. Now late afternoon, Jamie parked in front of her flax-yellow and white-trimmed Victorian and walked with long strides to her front door. Seeing the boarded window, he pounded the door below that and rang the bell.

  After several seconds and more pounding, Reese opened the door.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” He stepped forward, forcing her to step back, and shut the door behind him.

  “Call you?” She looked like a trapped animal.

  Hadn’t she even considered calling him? Was she that independent?

  “You could have been hurt.” Or worse.

  “I’m a deputy sheriff.” She turned and walked down the hall.

  He followed. “Did you call anyone for help?”

  “No. I didn’t need to. The burglar ran away.”

  “You saw him?”

  “I saw his shadow, and then his back as he ran down the street.”

  He must have been looking for the money. “How many people know about the money you found?”

  “Just the locals.” She faced him in the great room, which was missing a couch, as was the living room. Had they been damaged in the break-in? Looking for the money. The man probably had a knife. And a gun. Reese had been alone.

  “Is anything missing?” he asked.

  “Nothing that I’ve noticed. But I think Ella’s killer is a local and the money must have something to do with why she was killed.”

  The killer had been here all along? How else would he or she know about the money? Unless they were in contact with someone who’d know. He checked her back door and all her windows.

  “I’m having a security system installed.”

  Well, that was good to hear. He passed her and went to the front, checking the boarded-up window and the door lock and then the front windows in the living room.

  “I already did that,” she said from the living room entry.

  Ignoring her, he went up the stairs. The front two rooms still had old flooring and walls and no furniture. The wallpaper was torn in places and the carpeting was partially pulled up.

  “I delayed the construction workers a day so we could collect evidence,” she said from the top of the stairs, back to the railing open to the lower level. “No prints.”

  “He wore gloves.” Jamie walked into the office, temporarily set up on plywood flooring that had been replaced. The walls hadn’t been done yet, covered in dark, fine-printed wallpaper.

  Reese came into the office, which she began straightening out.

  Seeing the wallpaper was pulled back in here, too, he began to wonder why. As he continued to study the torn wallpaper, he noticed one strip had been pulled back enough to reveal what appeared to be a break in the wall. He went there.

  “Was this pulled back before?” he asked.

  Reese absently glanced up from her work on the desk. “The construction workers probably did that.”

  “No, they’d have torn down the whole wall. Isn’t that what you’re doing? Gutting and restoring the place?” He pulled the wallpaper down farther than it had been.

  Reese stopped stacking papers, dropping the sheet in her hand to look at him and the wall. “What is that?”

  She walked over to him and began helping him tear the paper. It came off easily, unusual for wallpaper.

  He looked up and saw finishing nails had held up this section of wallpaper up. Reese pulled off a big piece of it and he stood with her, staring at a door someone had covered. The trim and knob had been removed.

  Glancing at her, he hooked his finger in the round hole where the knob would have been. The door remained shut. He felt inside the hole and found a latch. He pressed it and the door released.

  “Whoever broke in here knew to look for something hidden,” Jamie said.

  “He must have found the door.”

  “And you interrupted him before he could see what was in here.” He met her gaze while the significance of this sank in.

  He opened the door to a small closet. On the floor sat one small trunk, full of dust and sealed shut with a padlock.

  Had the man known there would be something else hidden in this house? The story about the way the money had been found had spread all through town. It had been hidden under the floorboards.

  “Do you have any tools?” Jamie asked. “That lock is old and the trunk wasn’t built with quality in mind.”

  It was more of a decorative trunk. She left the office and went down to the laundry room, where she kept a toolbox. After carrying it upstairs, she gave it to Jamie.

  He took out a hammer and banged the lock. It broke off the trunk with the first hit.

  “You don’t know your own strength.”

  He looked at her with a raised brow.

  Kneeling on the floor, Reese opened the trunk. Jamie crouched next to her.

  Inside, someone had placed a variety of memorabilia. A few old Life magazines. Books. Maps. Records. A picture album and a few Polaroid photos.

  “Wow.” Then she lifted a Sperry & Hutchinson collector’s book, half filled with green stamps. “Double wow.” Putting the book aside, she took out the photo album.

  “Definitely reflects the time.” Jamie picked up the book filled with green stamps. “My grandmother talked about these things.”

  Reese opened the photo album.

  Jamie expected to find pictures of Ella and Jeffrey. There were pictures of Ella. He recognized her from the photos in her murder case file. Most of the photos were individual, but Ella was captured in a few with a man he didn’t recognize.

 
; “Is that Jeffrey?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t think so. I wasn’t born when he and Ella married and he was older when I first met him.”

  Several of the pages in the photo album were empty. Just three were filled with photos and it appeared to be a trip she’d taken with the man. Some were in a hotel room, others at Disneyland. And then dressed up in a restaurant for dinner. Another was taken outside the restaurant, a sign illuminated above their heads. Charlie’s. The man must have been a boyfriend of Ella’s before she came to Never Summer. There were a few other photos of the two of them with another couple. Friends they’d visited?

  “Do you think Ella could have hidden this trunk?” she asked.

  “Why would Jeffrey hide it if she kept pictures of her with another man?”

  “Maybe she knew him before she met him.”

  “And forgot to take it out of the closet before coming up with the bright idea of wallpapering over the door?” He looked up at what was left of the finishing nails. “I kind of doubt she forgot.”

  Had she still loved the other man?

  “I kind of doubt that, too. She must have hidden the trunk from Jeffrey. But why?”

  “Maybe she still loved him and kept a secret from Jeffrey.”

  “All the stories I heard about her and Jeffrey were straight out of a fairy tale.” Reese lifted a scarf from the bottom of the trunk.

  Jamie thought it was the last item inside. But it wasn’t. He looked down with her at bundles of hundred-dollar bills that lined the bottom of the trunk.

  Chapter 6

  “I feel like a bank robber.”

  Jamie looked over at Reese as she zipped up the duffel bag. They’d counted two hundred and fifty thousand. The stash under the bedroom floor had been considerably less.

  “I think you should stay at my hotel until this is over.” Convincing her wouldn’t be easy, but Jamie had serious concerns over the break-in. Along with the money she found under her bedroom floor, she had close to three hundred thousand.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know you can take care of yourself. But I’m an expert at security. Just let me make sure. Two pairs of eyes and ears are better than one.”