by Lucy Quinn
“Cookie, come quick!” her mother shouted through the phone. “I’ve got him!”
“Got who?” she glanced over at Hunter, mouthing the word “Rain” at him. He shook his head in slight exasperation.
“The courier!” Rain replied. “I’ve got him trapped! But hurry!” Then she hung up.
“She says she’s got the courier trapped,” Cookie explained as she tucked phone away again and scowled, dreading what they’d find when they got back to the inn. Was her mother really holding the poor man hostage? “She wants us to hurry.”
They’d already been on their way back to the inn, and now resumed that trek, but neither of them upped their pace appreciably. Cookie had been on the receiving end of Rain’s melodrama far too many times to fall for it now. Despite her trepidation over what her mother was up to, there was a big difference between the way she’d sounded just now and the way she had when she’d found the hand. Cookie could usually tell the difference, and this wasn’t an emergency.
It was clear that Hunter was happy to follow her lead on this. At the same time, Rain didn’t lie all that much. She might bend the truth, absolutely, but outright lie? Not often. Which meant she likely had trapped some poor soul. Cookie had a sudden image of her mother straddling some guy, and shuddered as she quickened her pace. If only to save whatever unfortunate man Rain had decided was involved in all this mess.
When they reached the inn, Cookie called out, “Mom? Where are you?” She had her hand on her gun but didn’t draw it, and Hunter did the same, his right hand disappearing under his jacket.
She was relieved when her mother called out, “I’m in here, sweetie!” She sounded more excited than anything, and Cookie relaxed a little as she climbed the porch and headed inside.
Rain was waiting for them in the front hall. “What took you so long?” she demanded, but she was grinning ear to ear when she said it. “Well, it doesn’t matter,” she continued. “He’s not going anywhere until I let him.”
“Let who, exactly?” Hunter asked, stepping up beside Cookie. “And where is he?”
“Right here,” Rain replied. She slid aside to gesture to the small storage space under the stairs. Of course.
Cookie eased her mother out of the way, and with a nod from Hunter, she opened the door.
Her mother’s little hippie hideout was exactly the same as it had been when she’d discovered it the other day, except now it was occupied. The courier did match Rain’s description, which wasn’t surprising at all. If there was one thing her mother knew, after all, it was men. He was tall and slim, with dark hair that curled a bit and came down almost to his shoulders, and he appeared to be in his forties. His eyes could definitely be a warm brown too, but it was impossible to tell right now because they were almost completely closed while his whole body was slack, like he’d been drugged. Which, considering where he was, combined with the skunky odor of the smoke still swirling around him and the joint in his hand, he clearly had.
“Mom, what did you do to him?” Cookie asked as she ducked into the tiny space. Hunter squeezed in behind her, and Rain stayed out by the door, leaning in to talk to them as they gathered around the man, who’d barely reacted to their presence.
“What do you mean?” Rain took a slightly defensive tone, and Cookie glanced back to see that her mother’s hands had gone to her hips, her chin lifting defiantly. “I helped out, that’s what I did. Just after you left, Hale showed up with another package for you. Since you wanted to question him, I figured I’d better find a way to make sure he stuck around. I offered him some food, but he said he’d already eaten. And my second option, well”—she grinned saucily, tilting her hips and thrusting out her chest—“it would’ve put him in a receptive frame of mind, for sure, but I doubt you would’ve appreciated it.” She shrugged. “So I went with option three.”
“Which was to get him high,” Cookie concluded with a sigh. “Mom, you do realize he can’t answer a whole lot of questions if he’s too stoned to even speak, right?”
“Hey, I can speak just fine,” the man in front of her replied, making her jump. His words were slurred, and his eyes only drifted open for a second before closing again, but he was coherent, at least. “Whattaya need?”
Rain giggled. “Isn’t he cute?” she said. “And did I mention his name? Hale. Hale Morris. Isn’t that just perfect? Rain and Hale. We’re like a weather report.” Apparently Cookie’s mother had decided to claim the courier. Cookie almost felt sorry for him.
“Mister Morris,” Hunter said, leaning in a little closer and recoiling slightly from the puff of smoke Hale blew at him. “My name is Hunter O’Neil. I’m a Special Agent with the FBI, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.” He was frowning, and Cookie knew exactly why. Anything this guy said would be ruled inadmissible, both because he was higher than a kite and because whatever he said as a result wouldn’t be considered reliable. Still, they weren’t questioning him as a suspect, at least, not yet.
“Hey, man,” Hale replied. His eyes flickered again. “FBI, huh? Whoa. I probably shouldn’t be smoking this in front of you.” He let out a chuckle, then took another hit.
“No. You shouldn’t,” Hunter replied. “But right now, I’m a lot more interested in obtaining some information. Is that all right with you?”
Hale nodded, eyes at half-mast. “Sure, ask whatever you’d like. It’s cool.” He had a nice voice, Cookie thought. Friendly. She could see why her mother would like him.
“Who sent me that package the other day?” Cookie asked, focusing back on the task at hand. “And the one tonight,” she added, remembering what her mother had said. She glanced behind her, and as if reading her mind Rain held out a second package, this one only a padded envelope. Cookie was relieved to see that it appeared to be unopened.
Unfortunately, Hale shrugged, as she’d half-expected. “No idea,” he replied slowly, lifting his head a little before slumping back again. “Sorry. The office called and said they had a package. All I did was deliver it. That’s about it.”
“You said the office had the package. That means you didn’t go pick it up from the sender, right?” Frustration coiled in Cookie’s gut. Whoever was behind this was doing due diligence to not leave any tracks. But one way or another, she and Hunter would find something. They always did.
Hale shook his head, his eyes red and glassy. “Right.”
“So, you have no idea who the package is from?” Hunter asked. “There has to be a record of it, and of how they paid for it.”
“Yeah, sure,” Hale agreed. “The office keeps track of all that stuff. They’ve got the card on file, probably.” He frowned. “Though we do take cash, so it could’ve been done like that, too.”
Cookie felt her shoulders slump. Given how careful the sender had been so far, she was willing to bet he’d done a walk-in with the package and paid in cash. Which meant no tracking him through his credit card, or his email or phone number. And he’d have given a false name, too. Glancing over at Hunter, she could tell by his scowl that he was thinking exactly the same thing. The courier angle was a complete dead end. Which wasn’t Hale’s fault. He was clearly just doing his job. “Thank you,” she told him. Hale nodded, smiling a relaxed, friendly smile that revealed his chipped front tooth. If Rain could draw, she could have a career as a sketch artist, Cookie thought. She certainly noticed the details.
Thinking of her mother reminded her of the new piece of evidence. Cookie rose to her feet from where she’d been crouching to talk to Hale and stepped carefully back out of the little space into the hall. The world spun a bit, making Cookie suspect she had a contact high. She sucked in clean oxygen to clear her lungs and held her hand out. Rain turned over the new package without a word. She’d even been holding it in one of their cloth napkins, Cookie noted with approval.
“Hold on,” Hunter said, following her out. He shut the door behind him, leaving Hale sprawled on the floor inside. “Allow me.” Taking the package from Cookie with one hand, h
e produced a folding knife from his pocket with the other. The knife was one of those one-hand openers, and he slid out the blade and then used it to slit the package cleanly along one side. That way they avoided destroying any trace evidence the sender might have left, though Cookie wasn’t too optimistic. Whoever this was, he or she appeared to be too careful.
Using the napkin, Cookie took the now-open package back and parted its sides to peer inside. No body parts this time, she was relieved to see. Nothing but a folded-up piece of paper. She unfolded it and read: Tomorrow, 2pm. Come alone. There was a string of numbers below that Cookie immediately recognized as GPS coordinates.
“All right, so we’ve got a meet scheduled.” Hunter already had his phone out, and was entering the coordinates. “And it’s for tomorrow afternoon—here.” The screen displayed a map, and Cookie saw Secret Seal Isle and the mainland before it zoomed in on a tiny speck out in the water.
“Great,” she muttered. “Another little-bitty island. What’d I do to deserve this?”
“We need to scout it out,” Hunter suggested. “Figure out if there’s anywhere I can set up to keep an eye on you when you go.” He motioned toward the front window. “First thing in the morning,” he added after a second. “Too dark to deal with it now.”
“Right.” Cookie mulled over the logistics. They needed some way to get to the island. The obvious solution was staring her in the face, and though it wasn’t her first choice, she didn’t see any way around it. “I’ll call Dylan,” she said finally, fully expecting Hunter’s scowl in reply. “We can borrow his boat.”
But Hunter shook his head. “Don’t worry about that,” he told her and smirked a little. “I’ve got a better idea.”
16
Cookie was awakened the next morning by a rapping on her bedroom door. “If that’s a raven, you can just find somebody else to pester,” she muttered, lifting her head blearily from her pillow. When the knocking continued, she glanced at her alarm clock to see it was well before five am. She mustered enough energy to shout, “What?”
“Rise and shine,” Hunter called out. “Time’s a-wastin’.”
Grumbling, Cookie dragged herself out of bed and staggered to the door. She threw it open, surprising Hunter, who had his hand already raised to knock again. “Do it and I’ll start knocking back on various body parts that really won’t enjoy the attention,” she warned.
“Fair enough,” he replied with a cocky grin. “It got the job done, anyway.” He eyed her oversized T-shirt and boy shorts. “I assume you’re going to change before we go?”
“I assume you’re going to stop being such a pain, but I keep being disappointed,” she shot back, which only earned her a bigger grin. Why is it guys think it’s so adorable when women are snarky at them? Cookie wondered. Not that she was complaining, She enjoyed busting his…ah, manbits every now and again.
“You might want to wear some sort of disguise,” he told her as he turned and headed for the stairs. “In case they’re watching the location already.”
“Sure, I’ll just drag out that nun outfit I’ve been saving for a rainy day,” she retorted, but Hunter just chuckled and waved as he started downstairs.
She took a quick shower, wrestled her hair into a thick braid, and then threw on a bikini top and some jeans cut-offs. Slipping her feet into her sandals, she paused before returning to her closet to rummage around in a box of things they’d found when they’d moved in. “Aha!” she declared, pulling free a large, floppy straw hat and a pair of big, cheesy pink sunglasses. “Perfect!”
On her way downstairs, she had another thought. When she reached the first floor, instead of heading into the sitting room and through to the dining room, Cookie turned right and ducked into her mother’s room. Rain had…interesting taste in clothes, and Cookie vaguely remembered seeing her wear something once that might fit the bill here. Sure enough, in Rain’s closet she found the exact item she wanted. It was long enough to cover her sufficiently, too, despite her being almost a head taller than Rain and a good deal broader and bustier. Once suitably attired, she made for the dining room.
“Well?” she declared as she entered and stopped in the doorway to strike a dramatic pose. “What do you think? They’ll never recognize me, right?”
Hunter was seated at the table, sipping his coffee, and nearly did a spit-take when he saw her. “What the hell is that?” he asked once he’d recovered. “And do you need help getting away from it?”
“It’s a beach cover-up,” Cookie answered, covering the rest of the distance to the table and plopping into her chair to pour her own coffee and snag a muffin off the plate. “It’s what you wear when you don’t want to get your swimsuit all dirty or risk having pervs stare at you as if they’ve never seen a half-naked woman before.”
“Sure, if you’re Ethel Merman, maybe,” Hunter replied, taking a gulp of his coffee. “Or maybe Liberace.”
He had a point. Most beach cover-ups were sheer, silky things, like a cross between a sleep shirt and a negligee. This one was more like a casual dress, with a wild flower pattern blazoned across it in colors so bright one needed sunglasses to look at it. On Cookie it fell well below the knees. On Rain it had come down to her feet.
“You said wear something so they wouldn’t recognize me,” Cookie pointed out. “Nobody’s going to recognize me in this.”
Hunter shook his head, but he couldn’t argue that one and they both knew it.
She grinned, please to win this round. He ignored her as they finished their breakfast in silence, then they hopped in his car and drove down to the docks.
“So, how’re we getting out there if we’re not borrowing Dylan’s boat?” Cookie asked once they’d parked and stepped out, the salt in the air hitting them like a body blow.
Hunter flashed her a conspiratorial smile and led her away from the main ferry dock and toward the smaller, private slips. They passed Dylan’s boat, and Cookie knew her former partner recognized it because he stiffened slightly and increased his pace. He didn’t stop until they reached a boat in one of the farthest slips.
It was quite a boat, too. Long and sleek, with black sides, it had a short white canopy, a row of black outboard motors, and comfortable couches built into recessed seating areas at both the bow and stern. Cookie recognized it at once.
“What’s this doing here?” she demanded as Hunter took a long stride to clear the boat’s lip and step onboard. “I thought it would’ve been impounded, or sold, or something.”
This boat had been the site of a death. An accidental one, as it had turned out, but she and Dylan hadn’t known that when they’d found it floating on the water with a naked, dead Dickie Dungworth onboard.
Hunter’s smile grew. “Since the case was closed and there wasn’t a crime, the boat got released back to Dickie’s next of kin,” he explained. “Hayley didn’t have any need for it, so she left it here since the slip’s already paid for through the end of the year. I called her last night to see if we could borrow it, and she said absolutely.”
Cookie eyed him, one eyebrow raised. “You called her and asked to borrow her boat?” she asked, her tone sharper than she’d intended. “I see. And this phone-calling, is this a frequent thing?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said, grinning. Cookie had to turn away so he wouldn’t see her grinding her teeth in response.
Because, as it turned out, she really would like to know. They’d met Hayley Holloway when she’d turned up to deal with her brother’s death and the blackmail plot he’d been handling for her. And when Hunter had come out to join the investigation, he and the famous singer had certainly hit it off. The last time Cookie had seen either of them, they’d been flying back to Philly together on Hayley’s private jet. Hunter hadn’t said a word about what had happened between the two of them, and Cookie hadn’t asked. It was none of her business, after all. She and Hunter were just friends and former partners. If he wanted to go have a meaningless, mindless, brainless fling with som
e gorgeous, rich, famous popstar, well, good for him.
Only that didn’t explain the nausea Cookie felt every time she thought about Hunter and Hayley together. Which was ridiculous, she told herself. She’d made this choice. Hunter had come onto her, more than once, in fact, and she’d told him straight-out that she wasn’t interested. But it seemed like certain parts of her hadn’t gotten that message.
“We good?” he asked, dropping the grin and stepping just a little closer to her, his eyes finding hers.
“Of course,” she replied, because what else could she say? Raising her chin, she forced a little more conviction into her voice. “Yeah, sure, we’re good.” Then she swatted him on the arm. “Let’s get this show on the road, cowboy.”
He shook his head at her change in attitude but complied, making his way toward the streamlined cockpit. But once he was there, he paused and began fumbling with his loose running pants.
“Whoa, there,” Cookie warned, hurrying over. “When I said ‘show,’ I didn’t mean peepshow, you know.” Not that she’d object to Hunter baring his sleek, muscular body, really. But now was hardly the time or the place.
He barked out a laugh as he yanked down his pants to reveal the board shorts underneath. “Figured I should dress appropriately, too,” he explained, tugging the pants the rest of the way off and wadding them up before tossing them onto the seat behind him. Now, wearing a tank top, board shorts, and mirrored sunglasses, he really did look like the kind of guy you’d see out for a pleasure cruise on a fancy speedboat like this one.
“Fine,” Cookie said, turning away from the sight of him, which was making her pulse race a lot more than it should, “but if you try showing me your bow, I’m out of here.” When she and Dylan had found Dickie, the only thing he’d been wearing was a bow tied around his junk.
That got another laugh out of Hunter. “Where’re you going to go, exactly?” he asked as he flipped a switch on the console and the motors roared to life. “We’re about to be out on the water, just the two of us, with nobody else for miles around.” The smile he gave her was pure sex and sent a dangerous thrill through her… one she was determined to ignore.
