Joker in the Pack

by Elise Noble

  I could only imagine.

  “Then young Tate Palmer went off to university. Oxford or Cambridge, one of the two. He was only seventeen, and his father crowed to everyone about it for weeks. All the girls in the village were heartbroken. He had quite the little fan club.” There was a long pause. “Goodness me, I got mixed up. That was the year before. Five years ago, Tate’s mother ran off with the gardener. Fenton didn’t have quite so much to say about that.”

  Really? Poor Tate. What a terrible thing to happen to anybody. Perhaps I should have tried harder to be understanding with him over our relationship, or rather, our lack of one.

  “Then there was Megan Shaughnessy. She decided she wanted to be an actress and moved to Hollywood. Following her dreams, she told everyone.”

  “Did she make it?” I asked. I loved a fairy-tale ending.

  “She starred in a number of movies, but they weren’t quite what her parents had envisaged. Not so many clothes involved, if you know what I mean. Mr. and Mrs. Shaughnessy couldn’t hold their heads up at the horticultural society any longer, so they moved to Benidorm.”

  “And Megan?”

  “Nobody’s seen her since. Oh, and around that time, Maggie Bottomly had her nervous breakdown. A truck driver found her wandering along the road at midnight in her pyjamas, and—”

  Nye rolled his eyes and interrupted. “I was thinking more about unexplained thefts than anything else, Carol.”

  “Oh. Let me have a think. As it happens, there were a few burglaries. A couple of months, that spate lasted, in all three of the Foxfords and half a dozen more villages besides. The culprit seemed to like the expensive things. Jewellery, mainly, but some art went missing as well.”

  “Did they ever catch anyone?”

  “No, dear. Except for Mr. Benson. It turned out he’d faked his own burglary to claim the insurance money. He’d been drinking away his fortune, you see, and he ended up owing money to some loan shark.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Do you know, I’ve got no idea? I must be slipping. I’ll try to find out for you.”

  “Thanks, Carol.”

  After he’d hung up, Nye sat back with the faraway look of someone deep in thought. “The fake insurance claim is an interesting angle. What if someone else tried the same trick and didn’t get caught?”

  I saw where he was going with that thought. “And Ronnie could have guessed, because he knew he didn’t do the burglary.”

  This detective thing was getting exciting!

  “Exactly. When we get the list of crime reports, we’ll go through it for high-value thefts and see which of those had big insurance payouts.”

  “How would that fit with something being hidden in the house?”

  “I’m not sure,” Nye admitted. “The vicar thought the envelope he gave Eleanor had papers in it. Maybe Ronnie managed to get copies of the insurance documents?”

  “So we have to keep searching?”

  “Afraid so.”

  I started with the wardrobe while Nye took Aunt Ellie’s dressing table. I’d only cleared out a tiny corner for my things, seeing as I didn’t have much left, and most of the space was still taken up by her clothes. Shapeless old dresses and worn cardigans.

  Her shopping habits clearly hadn’t extended to her own attire, or she’d have been outfitted in colourful kaftans and sparkly tops you could wear in three different ways. I hunted through all the pockets to no avail, then emptied everything onto the bed.

  “Nothing?” Nye asked.

  “Not yet. I’ll start checking the wardrobe itself.”

  I tapped the panels and checked the joints, but there was no Narnia-like realm hidden away at the back, or even space for Ronnie’s envelope. I was about to ask Nye to double-check when I heard a low whistle from behind.

  “Tell me these aren’t Eleanor’s.”

  I looked around and saw him holding up a pair of the lacy knickers I’d bought in a vain attempt to keep Edward happy. A barely there pale-pink thong with tiny bows at the top.

  I gasped, conflicted over whether to grab them off him or die of embarrassment as a blush rose up my cheeks.

  “I wish you’d warned me,” he said, dropping the offending item back into a drawer. “How can I concentrate on the job now?”

  “Maybe you could take a break?”

  And stop rooting through my flipping underwear drawer.

  “Good plan.”

  He shoved Aunt Ellie’s clothes off the bed, and before I realised what was happening, I was lying on top of it. Nye knelt astride me, giving me an eye-level view of the bulge in his jeans. Not quite what I had in mind, but that didn’t matter anymore.

  “Liv, you’re so fucking sweet. A proper English rose.”

  Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous was always calling me sweet, but he could be quite sugary himself.

  I was just about to have a taste when my phone rang. Why now? Why couldn’t I have a teensy bit of fun in my life?

  “Ignore it,” Nye said.

  “I can’t. I hardly ever get calls. It might be important.”

  It was.

  A whispered voice sent shivers through me. “I know what you’re doing. Call off the search, or you’ll regret it.”

  “Who is this?” My voice came out as a squeak.

  “You know who this is—your worst nightmare.”

  Nye snatched the phone off me. “Leave her alone, or you’ll fucking regret it.” He threw the phone down in disgust. “Asshole hung up.”

  “You heard what he said?”

  Nye nodded as he pulled out his own phone and began muttering into it about monitoring and traces. Now this was getting more personal, and I couldn’t stop shaking as I stared through the window at the drizzle outside. Would this game ever end? Every move we made, the mystery man seemed to be a step ahead.

  “Are you okay?” Nye asked, dropping his phone onto the bed.

  No, but I didn’t want to look weak, so I shrugged. “At least he didn’t come into the house this time.”

  It seemed I wasn’t the only one affected by Nye’s presence.

  “We’ll find him, Liv. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “How did he even get my number?”

  “It’s on your website.”

  Oh. Yeah. “What do we do now? Should we stop searching?”

  “No, we bloody shouldn’t. We’ve hit a nerve, and that means we’re getting closer.”

  “But isn’t that dangerous? I mean, he must have been near the cottage to know we’re pulling the place apart.”

  Nye shook his head. “He’d need to have looked in the windows, and Spike’s set up motion sensors. The control room would have called me if anyone got that close.”

  Or perhaps he was just psychic. I’d got to the stage I’d believe anything.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. My guess is that Carol’s been asking more questions and one of them’s touched a nerve.”

  “The insurance thing?”

  “Could be. The smell of money brings out the monster in people. But I do have a small piece of good news.”

  Oh boy, did I need that. “What is it?”

  “My team have found Larry in a homeless shelter a couple of towns away. He lost his sales job a few months back after he made inappropriate advances towards a colleague. My guess is he hasn’t told Betty.”

  “So he’ll be feeling the pinch as well?”

  “Exactly. With the amount he earned, he’d have been under pressure paying Eleanor two grand a month. If a new demand came, he’d be sunk.”

  “But I wouldn’t blackmail him!”

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  “What happens now? Do we talk to him?”

  “‘We’ don’t do anything. You’re not going anywhere near that man. He’s under surveillance, and when he goes out, Spike’ll take a closer look at where he’s living.”

  “Is that legal?”

  Nye gave me a look. />
  Right, I forgot. This was the new Olivia. New Olivia lived daringly on the dark side. At least, she did as long as she could manage the “lived” part.

  CHAPTER 33

  A COMBINATION OF turning my entire bedroom upside down and the nasty phone call a few hours earlier left me drained. And worse—our efforts were in vain. I groaned as I surveyed the mess. It looked as if a poltergeist had thrown a tantrum in there.

  “How about we sleep on the couch tonight?” Nye suggested.

  “I can’t.” Damn my OCD. “I’m so sorry, but I just can’t leave it like that.”

  Nye rubbed a hand over his eyes. “It’s okay, Liv. We’ll put it back.”

  It was nearly two in the morning by the time we got some semblance of order, and the moment we could see the bed again, we both collapsed into it.

  “I never thought I’d say I was too tired, babe, but I’m too…”

  I didn’t hear the last bit, because I fell asleep.

  Beeping from outside woke me the next morning, and I rolled out of bed to see a truck trundling down the driveway. A second one soon followed, along with half a dozen cars.

  There were definite advantages to sleeping fully clothed. My feet stayed warm, Spike didn’t see me naked, and it saved ten minutes in the morning. My mother was probably having afterlife palpitations, but I took a deep breath and blocked her out. Nye went to open the front door while I brushed my teeth, and by the time I got downstairs, he was holding a briefing in the kitchen.

  “Every box, bag, and basket gets examined. We’re looking for something small, possibly documents, and they might be in an old padded envelope. Anything you’re not sure of, call me, and if I’m busy, put it aside for checking later. Any questions?”

  “What do we do with things once they’ve been checked?” a blond-haired boy asked.

  “Items Olivia isn’t using for day-to-day living get stacked out in the trucks until this is over. Anything else?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Great. Let’s get started with the dining room.”

  Except we didn’t make it out of the door before a man with his black hair plaited into intricate cornrows sidled up to speak to Nye.

  “Got a minute?”

  “Tell me it’s not that woman with the lost King Charles spaniel again? I’ve already told her we’re not consulting a psychic.”

  “It’s about the surveillance detail.”

  “Which one?”

  There was more than one? I knew about Larry, but what hadn’t Nye told me?

  “The first one. He’s taken off for a dirty weekend in France with Pneumatic Barbie, so we’ve handed over to a team from the Paris office to keep an eye. Don’t suppose we’ll see much of him—they’ve ordered the ‘pleasure pack’ and a magnum of champagne.”

  “Too much detail,” Nye snapped.

  His colleague backed off, hands up. “Sorry, boss.”

  “What’s he talking about?” I asked.

  “Sorry you had to hear that, babe.”

  “Why? Who is it?”

  Nye sighed. “Your ex. I didn’t trust him, so I had him followed, but he hasn’t been near here.”

  That bastard! The only time Edward took me to Paris was on a business trip, and he left me on my own for most of it. I’d spent more time with the housekeeping staff than I did with my boyfriend.

  Anger welled up inside me, but I forced it down. You know what? It didn’t matter. My heart beat for Nye now. He was twice the man Edward would ever be, even if Edward got assistance from a cosmetic surgeon and packets of Viagra.

  I stood on tiptoe to kiss Nye on the cheek. “I don’t care about him anymore.”

  He pulled me tight against him, and I felt every inch of what Edward had been missing.

  “Good. Because I’m planning to make you forget he ever existed.”

  Dammit, why did he have to say that when we had a house full of people? We had no choice but to assist as Aunt Ellie’s cottage was systematically dismantled and the contents stowed in the trucks. Even once they were half-full, we’d barely made a dent in downstairs.

  I tugged at a piece of tinsel, which unravelled to reveal a huge bag of Christmas decorations, and… What was that?

  “Woohoo! I found a dining table.”

  A nice one too, with expanding leaves to seat six. I could hold a dinner party if the house was ever tidy enough for me to invite guests over. Were there any chairs hidden away? I kept my fingers crossed as I carried out yet another box.

  By late morning, the mood was still positive even though we’d found nothing, and I took a break to make lunch.

  “Don’t worry,” Janelle said. She’d been roped into helping as well. “If there’s anything here, we’ll find it.”

  “I hope so. Even with Nye staying, there’s not much more I can take.”

  “These cases have a habit of breaking suddenly. I’ve seen it loads of times. Last year, there was this…” She trailed off and looked up at Nye, who’d walked in looking grim. “Did something happen?”

  He perched on the edge of the table. “Spike had a poke around Larry’s room this morning.”

  “And?”

  Nye’s face darkened even more. “Larry had photos of Olivia and three other women in his nightstand.”

  A tremor ran through me, and Nye squeezed my hand.

  “A lot of photos?”

  “Enough. The ones Betty mentioned of you on your bike and more of you walking down the high street…”

  “What else? Tell me.”

  “There were some of you sitting on the floor in the living room, packing up parcels.”

  So Larry had been at the cottage. I felt sick. “How could I have missed him?”

  “It was evening when he took the pictures. It’s hard to see out into the dark when you’re in a lit room.”

  “I should have drawn the curtains.”

  “You weren’t to know.”

  “Well, I won’t be making that mistake again.”

  “I know, and I’m beyond furious that you’ve had to learn this way. We’ll keep watching Larry, and if he comes near you again, we’ll have more evidence against him.”

  “But the photos…”

  “We can’t admit we’ve seen those, not to the police.” He pressed a soft yet heated kiss to the corner of my mouth, full of promise. “I’ll stay with you the whole time, Liv. But in the meantime, we need to find whatever’s hidden in this house.”

  By the end of the day, the optimistic mood had diminished somewhat, and I’d heard murmured suggestions of tearing down walls. I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  “We’ve still got most of upstairs left to do,” Nye said once everyone else had left for the night. “Maybe our missing piece is up there?”

  “It just feels hopeless.”

  He gave my shoulders a squeeze. “At least we’ll know, one way or the other.”

  “But if we don’t find anything, how will the man after me know that? What if he keeps coming?”

  “Maybe we could take out an advert in the local newspaper.” Nye was only half joking.

  “Or hire one of those planes to fly a banner?”

  “How about a leaflet drop? Or one of those town crier dudes with the bell?”

  I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of that.

  Better to laugh than cry, right?

  Nye traced my dimples. “That’s better. If we don’t find anything, I’ll tell Carol. Job done. Shall I order a pizza?”

  The last thing I felt like doing that evening was cooking. “Please.”

  “You want everything on it?”

  “Except anchovies.”

  “Got it.”

  Our food arrived forty minutes later from the Italian place in Middleton Foxford, evoking memories of my trip there with Tate. He hadn’t contacted me since that last phone call, and the relief I felt told me I’d made the right decision by not pursuing things further.

  “Heaven on a plate,”
Nye said, flipping the lid open.

  “Well, a cardboard box.”

  He shrugged. “Saves washing up.”

  Edward would have had a fit if I’d suggested eating without cutlery, but snuggling up on the sofa with Nye while he wrapped one arm around my shoulders and held a slice of pizza in the other hand felt like the most natural thing in the world. Every so often, his fingers strayed downwards, and soon there was a very different kind of hunger coursing through me.

  “I should clear up,” I mumbled when he finished the last slice.

  “Leave it.”

  “But—”

  His kiss caught me by surprise, and I ran the back of my hand down his cheek, feeling the bite of his stubble against my skin as his embrace tightened. His lips might have been soft, but other parts of him hardened rapidly as he pulled me into his lap.

  “You want to head upstairs?” he asked.

  I locked my gaze on his, and no other answer was necessary.

  A shriek escaped my throat as he lifted me, one arm around my back and the other under my knees as if I weighed nothing. Effortless. Although he did trip over a stray footstool on the way to the stairs, mainly because I blocked his vision by kissing him again.

  In the bedroom, he paused only to rip off his jumper before following me onto the bed, and I got my first look at him shirtless.

  What had I done to deserve this man? I traced his abs with a finger in the dim glow from the bedside lamp, then moved my attention downwards. Flipping heck. It promised to be a tight fit—I could see that much.

  But before I could explore further, he pinned my arms above my head with one hand while he used the other to undo the buttons on my blouse.

  “Not so fast, Livvie. I want to have fun too.”

  That seemed fair. Frustrating, but fair.

  He raked his gaze down my chest before he dipped his head and trailed his tongue along the same route. When he blew across the cool trail it left behind, I broke out in goosebumps.

  “Are you sure about this?” Nye whispered.

  “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.”

  I wanted to tear my own trousers off as he reached for my zipper. For goodness’ sake, hurry up!

  And then his bloody phone rang.