Eye of the Tiger Lily

by Ann Yost

  “You’ll just get in the way of the cops.”

  “Why are you mad?”

  He couldn’t explain that he was trying to protect her. In addition to the black-and-whites, there was a medical examiner’s wagon on the scene.

  “Let her go in,” Grey Wolf said, quietly. “Whatever it is she’ll find out soon enough. And she can handle it. I promise you.”

  ”Handle what?” She sounded fully alert.

  ”Apparently someone’s died,” Grey Wolf explained.

  Molly said nothing. She just scrambled out of the car. Cam swore and opened his own door only to feel Grey Wolf’s hand on his shoulder.

  “You can’t protect her from everything,” Grey Wolfe said to Cam. “She’s a grown woman. She’s taken care of herself for a long time now.”

  Nevertheless, Cam noticed, Grey Wolf was right behind him as he strode into the casino after Molly.

  It was so quiet in the casino it reminded Cam of a trip to Coney Island in January. Spooky.

  He found Molly talking with Rusty Walks Tall, who had been hired to help chief Davey Tall Tree after the later was elected tribal chief. Walks Tall was big, a college baseball player who’d decided to return to the reservation after graduation. His open, friendly face looked worried.

  “I don’t know, Molly. I’m not supposed to let anybody back there,” he said. “I’ll check with the sheriff.” He nodded at Cam and Grey Wolf then ducked down the corridor that led to Big Eddie’s office. Molly turned to look at Cam, her eyes huge.

  Cam figured that handling any kind of a major crime at the casino would be complicated. While it wasn’t located on the reservation it was owned by the tribe, which had its own, separate police force. When Jake Langley, Eden County’s sheriff, appeared behind Walks Tall, it was clear that the jurisdictions were working together.

  “Hey Cam, Molly, Daniel.”

  Like the others, Cam shook hands with the tall, broad-shouldered sheriff, until recently a single dad. Now, thanks to his marriage to Cam’s sister, Lucy, Jake was Cam’s brother-in-law. He grinned at Molly.

  “I heard about the delivery. Nice going.”

  She smiled, absently.

  “What’s happened here,” Cam asked, abruptly.

  Jake looked more closely at Cam and his eyes widened. What was he seeing? Fatigue? Dishevelment? Frustration? Probably all three. He was also, undoubtedly, wondering why Cam was with Molly and Grey Wolf. It was time to explain.

  “I should tell you that I was here earlier and, in fact, I broke into Eddie DiMarco’s office from which I stole a laptop.”

  Jake’s green eyes slitted.

  “I helped him steal it,” Molly volunteered.

  Cam’s jaw tightened. He’d wanted to keep her out of this. Foolish idea.

  “Daniel? Have you got anything to confess?”

  “I’m just the chauffeur,” he said. “Unless you’re talking about the stolen laptop. I’ve got custody of that.”

  Jake sighed. “You’d all better come with me.”

  “I’d like to speak with Davey,” Grey Wolf said. Across the room the rez’s chief and former tribal cop lifted his hand to wave at Molly who waved back. “I’ll be out here if you want to talk to me, Jake.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  In spite of the grim circumstances, Cam thought, it was amazing how much it lightened his mood to see Grey Wolf abandon Molly.

  They followed Jake down the corridor and into the room. It looked the same as they had left it, with the dragonfly lamp still burning. Except for the body on the butterscotch sofa. Eddie DiMarco’s stomach, straining to pop the buttons of his tuxedo shirt, was not a smooth pumpkin; instead it rippled downwards, a triumph of terraced flesh. His short, fat legs sprawled to each side and his arms rested at his sides. But what made Molly clutch her neck with both hands was that the casino manager appeared to have no head—just a white, blood-stained towel wrapped around whatever was now atop his sloping shoulders.

  Cam took Molly’s shoulders and turned her away from the macabre sight.

  “She just delivered a baby, Cam.” Jake’s voice was mildly amused. “I think she can handle the sight of blood.”

  It wasn’t the blood that worried him. Eddie had been killed shortly after he and Molly had burgled the office. Molly would be afraid they’d caused the man’s death. Cam, on the other hand, was afraid someone was after Molly.

  And then there was the sofa where they’d…he forced himself to forget about that. It was over and done. The murder made their amateur undercover attempt look foolish.

  “I’ll want to talk with you both about the robbery,” Jake said, casually. “In the meantime go on home. You look like you could use some sleep.” He nodded at the body. “This looks like a professional job. One shot to the brain. Right on target. DiMarco died instantly.”

  “An execution,” Molly whispered.

  “Probably. The safe’s been emptied.” He gave them each another hard look.

  “There were stacks of money in it,” Molly said, faintly, “along with the laptop. We were trying to find proof of fraud.”

  “Dwight Winston held a gun on Cam last night right after the birth incident,” Molly said. “He must have figured out that we’d stolen the laptop.”

  “Winston’s disappeared as far as anyone knows,” Jake said. “We’ve got an APB out on him.”

  “Who found the body,” Cam asked.

  “A croupier…kid named Candy Red Fox.”

  Molly nodded. “She’s sharp.” Her frown bothered Cam.

  “What?”

  Her eyes were weary but full of concern.

  “This isn’t going to do your family or your business any good if it gets out, Cam. You were doing it for the rez. You shouldn’t have to pay a price.”

  Whatever else it cost him, he’d already paid a helluva price for spending two days with Molly Whitecloud but he didn’t tell her that.

  “I can handle it.”

  ”I think,” Jake said, “we’d better talk about this a bit now. Want some coffee?”

  They rejoined Grey Wolf and between them they filled the sheriff in on the alleged fraud and the exploitation of local girls. Jake listened, intently.

  “I assume,” he said to Cam in a casual voice, “I don’t have to tell you how foolish it was to try to handle this alone or to put Molly in danger.”

  “It was my choice,” Molly said. “Daniel asked Cam to come out here to protect me. The whole thing,” she indicated the slumped body and her voice caught on a little sob, “the whole thing is my fault.”

  Cam felt a rush of emotion. Without considering his audience, he circled her with one arm and pulled her against him. When he looked up he found Jake’s curious green eyes on him.

  “”Connect the dots for me,” he said.

  “We believe the laptop contains the casino’s real financial records, including the percentage of the profits siphoned off to the Jersey mob. Grey Wolf needs the records to shut the place down so Molly took it upon herself to get those records. She came to work here as a masseuse which is code for hooker. I came up here to ‘hire’ her and help search for the evidence.”

  Jake’s eyes shifted from Cam to the top of Molly’s head where it was buried in Cam’s chest, and back again.

  “Is there any point in my asking why you got involved?”

  Cam liked and respected his new brother-in-law but there was no way he was going to talk about his past with Tiger Lily. He shrugged.

  “I got the resort funded and built. I felt responsible.”

  ”Hm.”

  “I feel so responsible,” Molly said, on a sob. “If I hadn’t tried this undercover stunt, maybe Dwight wouldn’t have killed Eddie.”

  “It was a professional hit,” Jake said. “Whoever killed Eddie intended to kill him. I doubt it had anything to do with either of you.”

  Unless Dwight Winston was a professional hitman. Cam left the thought unspoken.

  Jake looked at Cam.

 
“So where’s the computer now?”

  “In Daniel’s car,” Molly said. “I was just resting my head on it.”

  “I’ll need to take it in as evidence,” Jake said.

  Cam nodded. Grey Wolf and the Indian Gaming Commission would have to wait to look at the data. There was no hurry now. It was unlikely there’d be any more crimes committed at the now-closed Blackbird Casino and Spa.

  “I wonder if the casino will reopen,” Molly said. “A lot of people depend on these jobs, you know. And the rez needs the income.”

  Cam felt a shaft of anger. As usual, she was concerned about the rez—first, last and always.

  “Time will tell,” Jake said. He leveled his gaze, once again, at Cam. “Take her home.”

  Cam shepherded her out to the cars.

  “What if they test the butterscotch sofa,” she said, in a low voice. “They might find, er, evidence, that we’d been there.”

  That had occurred to him, too.

  “They might. Nothing we can do about it now.”

  She groaned. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For this weekend. And for everything.”

  He nodded, too tired to maintain his usual defenses. “There’s nothing we can do about anything right now. Tomorrow I’ll tell Jake about the other couples who visited this place. Maybe he can start there. C’mon. I’ll take you home.”

  But he didn’t. In the end, he suggested that Grey Wolf take her home. Cam had no business at her cottage and he figured he’d already done enough damage to her reputation and his own for one evening.

  But it was hard to see her climb into Grey Wolf’s sedan and even harder to watch the taillights disappear. Cam knew, without Grey Wolf saying a word, that he’d spend the night with Tiger Lily.

  And that was hardest of all.

  The darkness had thinned and the birds were greeting the morning when Cam finally pulled into his garage at the Victorian home he’d bought for Daisy and himself and Asia, his family’s housekeeper. He figured he’d grab an hour or two of sleep then he’d clean up, spend some time with Daisy, check in with Jake then go into the office. He’d neglected it enough during the past few days. Wearily he unlocked the back door then he walked through the darkened kitchen, the butler’s pantry and on through the old-fashioned dining room with its high ceilings and on to the foyer and the glass doors that separated the staircase from the front parlor. Someone had left on a light. He stepped through the glass door to turn it off and discovered there was a woman asleep on the Victorian sofa. She was beautiful and sexy, her auburn hair mussed, her long lashes resting on her peach-colored cheeks, her long, tapered fingers holding a homemade, blue-and-white striped afghan around her shoulders.

  Shit.

  Cam’s heart curled as he sat down next to Sharon. The jostling woke her and she sat up and rubbed the sleep from her lovely, hazel eyes

  “Hi,” she said, with a sleepy, but warm smile.

  He was struck again by her natural beauty and her innate kindness. She looked just as good all tousled and sexy as she did in her tailored business suits. Her pale skin glowed in the low-wattage light and her half-lidded eyes were trusting. Damn.

  Cam genuinely liked Sharon. She’d been his friend before they’d started to date. He’d chosen her deliberately because she was a friend. Like Elise. He grimaced. Like Elise. He should have known this was doomed. He rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. Damn, he was beat. He needed to tell her they had no future together but not now. He was too tired for tact.

  “You look strung out,” she said, in a sympathetic voice.

  Cam knew the depression he felt was less due to fatigue than the gut-twisting experience of watching Tiger Lily ride off with another man. No, not another man. Her ex-husband. He tried to infuse some life into his smile.

  “What are you doing here?” The question sounded too stark. He tried to soften it by picking up her hand and holding it a moment. Guilt cascaded through him.

  “You don’t mind my being here do you?” He heard the anxiety in her voice. When he’d met her, Sharon had seemed confident and complete but his lukewarm courtship seemed to have undermined all that. “Asia called me. Her niece’s husband broke his leg and they needed her to go over to Andover for at least the night. She would have called Hallie but it was late and the children were already in bed.”

  “So you got to sacrifice a night of sleep, eh?”

  Sharon was like Molly in that way. Generous. Elise had never given up anything without getting something in return. But then, Sharon had every reason to expect something from Cam: An engagement ring and the promise of happily ever after.

  Sharon glanced out the window and blinked.

  “Oh my gosh! Morning already?”

  “Just about.”

  “Is it true you’ve been sleuthing out at the casino?”

  He frowned. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She sounded genuinely distressed. “Daniel Grey Wolf is my tenant. I got the idea from something he’d said.”

  “Damn. It was an undercover operation. What the hell was he doing talking about it?”

  “He wasn’t. Not really. Don’t blame him, Cam. I could tell he was anxious about something. Someone. I thought it might be Molly Whitecloud so I asked him. He admitted she was digging for information but assured me that someone was keeping an eye out for her. You were gone,” she said, simply, “and I put two and two together.”

  She sounded so anxious. God, he was acting like a jerk.

  “I helped put together financing for the casino. If there’s something wrong out there, it’s my fault.”

  Shit. He sounded defensive and hostile. He searched his conscience and figured it out. It wasn’t yet morning and Daisy wouldn’t be awake for a few more hours. Would Sharon expect him to take her to bed?

  “Is there something wrong?”

  He jumped. “What?”

  “Out at the rez.”

  “Oh.” He leaned his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. There’d be no way to keep DiMarco’s death a secret.

  “Yeah.” He told her about the murder.

  “I’m sorry.” He felt her fingers on his arm. “What does it mean?”

  “It means the casino and resort will close down for the present. It means there’s probably a contract killer on the loose. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

  “But Molly’s all right?”

  Cam didn’t want to think about Molly. “Yeah. She’s fine.”

  Sharon was quiet a moment. Cam held his breath waiting for her next words. He didn’t want to have to break up with her. Not now.

  “I’m going to go,” she said. “I need to get back to the inn before breakfast.”

  He looked into the beautiful, sad hazel eyes and was aware that she knew. She wouldn’t say anything now. Sharon Johnson was discreet and proper. She would probably never say anything but, after all, it should be up to him. He felt a tidal wave of guilt.

  “Let me run you home.”

  Crinkles appeared next to her toast-colored eyes when she smiled at him. They were attractive but they reminded him that she was several years older than he. She’d waited a long time for marriage. He cursed himself. She’d have to wait awhile longer.

  “I know you’re exhausted. Listen, I actually got a decent amount of sleep and anyway, I’ve got my car. Talk to you later?”

  He nodded. Her words were fading in and out. He wasn’t sure he’d make it upstairs.

  ”I’ll call you tomorrow, I mean later today,” he managed to say. She leaned in and gave him a brief kiss on the cheek. He inhaled her fresh scent and felt a small pang of regret. She’d have been perfect as a mother for Daisy and a wife for him.

  If there hadn’t been Tiger Lily.

  ****

  Molly sat at her kitchen table with her head in her hands. Until a few months ago she’d been a law-abiding midwife, a respectable resident of the rez, a pillar of the comm
unity. She’d worked with the lawmakers in Augusta to get permission to build the casino. She’d even started to work with the businesspeople of Eden to build a community crafts cooperative where all the locals, Penobscots included, could sell their wares.

  But her bona fides meant nothing in the face of what she’d done to Cameron Outlaw. She wished—oh, how she wished—she’d never heard of the Spotswood Fertility Clinic and its sperm bank.

  And last night she’d compounded that mistake by sleeping with Cam Outlaw thereby destroying the dreams of a fine man and a fine woman. Cam had said he wouldn’t marry Sharon Johnson now and she knew he’d be as good as his word.

  She knew he was a man with high ethical standards now. Had he always been? When he’d told her he’d come back the year she was seventeen, would he have done it? Yes. He had come back but too late. She’d made the decision to handle the situation her own way. She thought about what would have happened if she’d gotten ahold of Cam, if he’d come home and married her and then she’d lost the baby anyway. He’d have been a teenage husband with no education and no future and he’d have ended up hating her.

  At the moment, Molly did not like herself much at all.

  Daniel put a cup of chamomile tea and a slice of Murial’s homemade twelve-grain toast in front of her but she wasn’t hungry. How could she be hungry when she was full of self-loathing and regret? She wished he’d just go away.

  “You didn’t have to stay,” she muttered, ungraciously.

  He was nice enough not to point out that the cottage belonged to him.

  “Drink your tea.”

  “Sure. Why not? Tea can solve any problem, can’t it?”

  “It will taste good. And it will settle you down.”

  Molly lifted the cup and inhaled the steam. She was so ashamed of herself. And now she was taking her misery out on Daniel.

  “I suppose you want to know what happened in DiMarco’s office.”

  “Eat your breakfast first. Small bites.”

  Small bites. Molly shivered. The words evoked a memory of Cameron Outlaw sprawled on top of her, crushing her body into the butterscotch sofa, taking little nips out of her neck and shoulders.

  “I can’t eat.”

  “Look,” he said, with a gentle sigh. “I get it. You had sex with Outlaw. There never was any choice, you know, not once you launched that undercover business and shared a room. The two of you are like magnets. There’s no point beating yourself up about it.”