by Diane Capri
“But?”
“I managed to get out of his hold by striking him in the head and kicking him in the crotch.”
The sheriff put his head down to write, but I saw his lips twitch a little. “And then what happened?”
“Daniel showed up and basically told Jeremy to go. Jeremy tried to hit Daniel, and Daniel punched him in the jaw, and Jeremy left.”
“And this is Daniel Evans, the mayor of Frontenac City?”
“Yes.”
“With whom you are having a relationship, correct?”
I glared at him. “Yes.”
He didn’t look at me as he wrote something else down. “After I showed up on the scene last night, what happened then? Did you return to your suite at the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“With Daniel.”
“Yes, he stayed over.” I raised my eyebrow at him in defiance.
“And you both stayed in the suite until the morning?”
“Yes. When I woke up this morning at eight, Daniel was gone. He left me a note that he had a meeting to get to.”
“Are you sure Daniel never left your suite during the night? You were pretty drunk, if I remember. Maybe you passed out, maybe—”
“Yes, I’m sure. Daniel was with me all night.” Of course, he was right. I wasn’t really sure when Daniel had left. But he’d made me coffee, and the coffee was hot when I got up. That was enough evidence for me.
“And you never saw Jeremy Rucker again?”
I glared at him. “Definitely not.”
He nodded and then closed his notebook. “Okay, thank you for answering my questions.”
I stood. “Can I leave now?”
“Yes.” He stood as well, and we were nearly face to face. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Fine.” I went to go, but turned back and grabbed the apple strudel from the table. I took a big bite of it as I passed by him and headed out the door. Damned if I was going to deny myself something delicious because of him.
Once we were out of the room, he blocked my path. “Andi, I’m sorry.”
“You treated me like a suspect.” I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. I wouldn’t let them fall, though. Not now.
“You know I had to do it like this. I couldn’t show you any favor. Considering who Jeremy is and the pending case of his, other jurisdictions could move in. This is the best way to protect you if that happens.”
“We don’t even know if he was killed. He could’ve fallen off the cliffs.”
He gave me a look. “You know better than most how the gossip mill runs amok in this town.”
“Fine. I understand why you did it this way. But it sucked, just so you know.”
He took a step closer to me. “It sucked for me, too. You have no idea how much.”
I licked my lips, suddenly aware of the narrowness of the corridor we stood in and the heat that swept over me. He reached up and drew his thumb over the side of my mouth. Apple filling covered the tip.
“You had apple on your lips.”
I took in a deep breath of air. I was feeling a bit claustrophobic. “Will you let me know what the coroner says?”
“I’ll see. I might have to play this close to the chest.”
“Is this where you tell me not to leave town?” A smile grew across my face because of all the other times he’d said just that.
“Yes.”
God, why did we have to be in the sheriff’s station with a deputy standing only a few feet away? Why did we have to be in the middle of yet another possible murder investigation? Why did he have to be the sheriff? And be all noble and upstanding and so incredibly stubborn?
And so incredibly sexy it made my belly quiver.
“Sheriff?” Deputy Marshall called out. “Daniel Evans is here to see you.”
The spell broke, and I took a stumbling step backward. Sheriff Jackson sighed, then took a step out of my way and allowed me to walk by. As I did, his fingers brushed against my hand. I pressed my lips together. It took everything I had not to turn back around and kiss the bastard.
When I entered the lobby, Daniel, who had been pacing, came to me and hugged me close. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good.”
“Jesus, Andi. I can’t believe you had to go through that. To see him like that.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled his spicy scent. He really did smell amazing. “I’m fine, really.”
“What did the sheriff want?” he asked as he took in my face.
“Just routine questions. Since I knew him, I could fill in some history and information.”
“Okay.” He drew his fingers down my face. “I guess I need to go answer some questions, too.” He pressed his lips to mine softly and then kissed my forehead. “I’ll call you later, okay? I have to go back to the mainland after this.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He crossed the lobby and went into the back room where Sheriff Jackson waited. The moment he disappeared behind the door, I let out the breath I was holding and left the station. I had some thinking to do, and investigating, because as I’d hugged Daniel, a memory popped into my head. One where I’d woken around three a.m. and Daniel wasn’t in my bed.
Chapter 7
The lobby was chaotic when I returned to the hotel. People gathered in groups, the buzz about the body found on the rocky beach spreading from one cluster to the next, until I heard nothing but an incessant hum of words: body, twisted, horrible, suicide…murder.
Ginny was next to the concierge desk, helping Casey keep order. For a brief second, I felt smug satisfaction seeing the unflappable Casey actually flustered. His hands were waving, his lips yapping, and I could see the sweat on his brow.
When Ginny spotted me, she came rushing over. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she’d chewed her lipstick off. “Oh my God, it’s a madhouse right now.”
“I can see that.”
She grabbed my hand. “How are you holding up?” She shook her head. “I can’t even imagine what you are feeling right now.”
“I’m okay.”
She gave me a look. “How can you be?” She squeezed my hand. “Did you sleep?”
I nodded.
“Daniel stayed with you, I hope.”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Good. I sure wouldn’t have been able to sleep alone after what happened.”
I wasn’t going to mention to her that I wasn’t one hundred percent positive that Daniel did spend the entire night with me. He wasn’t in the bed when I’d woken up in the middle of the night, but he could’ve been somewhere in the suite. Maybe he’d slept on the sofa, after all. Sometimes I snored when I was dead tired like that. Add that I’d been drinking, and who knew what kind of noises I’d made in my sleep.
She shook her head. “Maybe you should stay with me for a few days. I mean, first the break-in at your suite and now finding your ex-boss’s body all broken and mangled…”
I frowned. The break-in. Jeremy had said I had something of his. Could he have come to the island before and searched my place? It was possible. I’d felt the sensation of being watched a time or two. I’d attributed the feeling to the deaths I’d investigated, but maybe that creepy sensation had been linked to Jeremy all along.
Ginny frowned. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Not surprising, considering everything.”
“I’ve got to go back to my suite,” I said. “Can you cover for me for a few hours?”
She looked out over the swarming mass of people wandering around the lobby, who were either confused about what was going on or complaining about it. She shrugged. “Sure. What the hell? Crowd control is my specialty.”
She took a step forward, put her fingers into her mouth, and whistled really loud.
Every head whipped around to look at Ginny. Silence descended almost instantly. Casey turned so pale it looked like he was going to pass out. I suppressed a smile.
“Now listen up. If everyone will kindly follow m
e into the ballroom, we will get everything organized for the tournament tomorrow. Your itinerary is still moving forward as planned. There is nothing to be worried about.”
“How about free drinks?” someone from the crowd shouted.
Ginny smiled the most winningest and flirtiest grin I’d ever seen. “Of course.”
That caused a wave of cheers among the throng, and just like that, problem solved. They followed Ginny toward the grand ballroom.
I gave her a thumbs-up and headed to my suite.
The moment I was through the door, I rushed into the living room, grabbed my notebook off the table, and made a list of all the things, to the best of my knowledge, that had been in the box of personal items I was allowed to take with me when I’d been booted out of the law firm.
1. Sad little bonsai tree
2. Tiny Zen garden with sand and little rake
3. Pair of red pumps, broken right heel
4. Stack of five notebooks, all of them filled with notes
5. My “World’s Okayest Lawyer” coffee mug I got as a Secret Santa gift one Christmas (still didn’t know who gave it to me)
6. Hairbrush, hair clips, and elastics for a quick ponytail when I needed one
7. Cat-shaped sticky notes, also a Secret Santa gift
8. Rubber fingertip for flipping through pages of paper
9. Pretty purple Fitbit that I’d stopped using after a year
10. Pink-gold earrings which had been a gift from my parents for my thirtieth birthday
11. A framed picture of the Park family and me during my first Christmas with them
12. My favorite maroon-colored lipstick and a compact of pressed powder with a small brush
13. Pens, pencils, and markers
Now I had to think of what items I’d brought with me to the island. I might’ve thrown away some of that stuff, but Jeremy was adamant about his flash drive. He absolutely believed I had the damn thing. The only thing I could think of that made any sense was that he’d hidden the flash drive in something he’d thought I’d still have with me.
I set my notebook down and considered what I had thrown away. I hadn’t kept the bonsai tree. It had been a sad little thing anyway, and I’d trimmed it until it was nothing but an ugly blob, so I gave up on it. I’d tossed the Zen garden as well. The little rake had broken, and I’d put it back together with green duct tape.
I went into my bedroom closet and examined my shoes. I still had the pumps. I’d fixed the heel myself, although I wasn’t sure I had worn them since I left the firm. I ran my fingers over the leather. I couldn’t feel any bumps or ridges. I looked at the lining. There was no place inside those pumps where a flash drive could fit. I turned the shoes over, and taking in a deep breath, I struck the heels against the edge of the table, breaking them off. I looked inside the shoes and the heels but didn’t see anything. I’d ruined the pumps for no good reason.
In the bathroom, I rummaged through my makeup bag for the lipstick and the compact of pressed powder. I took the lid off the lipstick tube and twisted the lipstick up. I used this tube often, so I was sure I would’ve noticed something as big as a flash drive inside the tube before now. I opened my compact but couldn’t see any obvious place to stash even the smallest of drives. I flipped the compact over and twisted it. It broke, and no flash drive fell out. I did similar damage to my hairbrush, breaking the handle apart. All I achieved for my sleuthing was a bunch of plastic pieces on my countertop.
My completed notebooks were in a box under the bed. I didn’t like to throw them away because I never knew when I might need them. Belly on the floor, I reached under the bed and pulled the box out.
I opened the lid and went through each notebook, flipping page by page, then holding them upside down and shaking them to see if anything fell out. A ribbon bookmark with the letter A on the end and a business card for a matchmaking company in California floated to the carpet. I ran my fingers along the spines of the notebooks, but there was no way anything would fit in there, and I wasn’t about to rip away the covers to confirm what I already knew.
Next, I jumped up and went into the kitchenette to find the “World’s Okayest Lawyer” mug. I opened the small cupboard and found it behind two other mugs. One proclaimed the absolute universal truth that “Everything tastes better with cat hair in it,” and the other one flatly stated, “I can’t adult today.” I took the lawyer mug out and looked it over. There was no way Jeremy could have put a flash drive in that ceramic mug. Not unless he’d broken it apart, remade it with new clay, and then fired it in a kiln.
My gaze flitted over the little teal-blue box I kept on the table as a place for all the knickknacks I didn’t want lying around. Some people had junk drawers. I had a cute little junk box. The previous junk box, the one I’d used before the break-in, had been smashed to bits that night. This one was new. I’d found it in one of the shops in the village.
I walked into the living room, removed the lid, and upended the box onto the coffee table. I had a few cat-shaped sticky notes left, and I quickly flipped through the pad. Nothing stuck in there. During one of my clear-out phases, when I was sorting through the junk at the bottom of my purse, I’d tossed my old exercise tracker in the box.
I picked it up, looked at it, wondering where it could come apart. Since I hadn’t used it in more than a year, I figured I wasn’t about to train for a marathon anytime soon. So I smashed it onto the coffee table.
The tracker didn’t break, but it cracked along the front plate. More force was required. I took it into the kitchenette, placed it on the counter. I sorted through the drawers, found a meat tenderizer tucked away, and used it like a hammer to smash the tracker with a couple of solid whacks. Little plastic pieces went everywhere. I fiddled with the front plate of the tracker and took it off. There were only electronics inside it. No flash drive.
Maybe Jeremy had been lying. Maybe he’d misplaced his flash drive and only guessed that he’d put it in my office. He would’ve been under a lot of pressure with the embezzlement situation hanging over his head—possibly fifteen years in prison and a mountain of debt he’d work the rest of his life to repay.
But he’d seemed so adamant about that flash drive. And he’d come all the way across the country to find it.
Jeremy was a lot of things, but he wasn’t absent-minded. He absolutely believed I had possession of his flash drive. Maybe I did. I continued to search.
I opened my small jewelry box. I didn’t wear a lot of jewelry. Sparkly baubles just weren’t my thing. I took out the delicate gold earrings my parents had sent me from Hong Kong for my birthday. It had been one of the more thoughtful presents they’d ever given me. I flipped them over and looked at the back. Maybe if Jeremy had been a jeweler, he could’ve fit a tiny square flash drive into the back. But these earrings were just earrings, not holders of secret spy gadgets.
I put them back in the jewelry box and looked around my suite. I had made a mess. My gaze then landed on the framed picture of the Park family and me that I had sitting up on one of the shelves in the living room. It was the absolute last thing in the box that I’d brought with me when I moved to the island.
I took it off the shelf and carried it to the sofa. I sat down and laid the picture on the coffee table. I flipped the silver frame over and pushed up the little black hooks to remove the cardboard backing that held the photo in place. After I slipped the cardboard off, I took the photo out and placed it on the table. I picked up the boxy frame and looked it over.
My gaze homed in on the bottom right corner. The two pieces of the frame were glued together at a right angle, but they looked like they were separating a little. I got a knife from the kitchen then came back and slid the knife’s tip between the two wood sides of the frame at the joint and pried them apart.
A small piece of black plastic fell out and onto the floor. I picked it up.
The black plastic square was no bigger than the tip of my finger and had tiny strips of gold metal on
one side. It wasn’t a bulky flash drive with a plug. It looked more like a SIM card for a cell phone.
Jeremy had hidden the thing inside the frame because he’d known I would never throw that photo away or leave it behind. He knew how important Ginny and her family were to me. I’d told him stories about Christmases and Thanksgivings I’d spent with them during my years at college.
I plopped back against the sofa cushions and stared at the tiny little card. I’d found what Jeremy had been looking for. Now I just needed to figure out how to read it.
Chapter 8
I went into the kitchen and found a small plastic sandwich bag. I put the tiny flash drive inside it and zipped it closed. At least now I was less likely to lose the darn thing. I was about to clean up the mess I’d made when I heard a quick knock on my door, and Ginny whirled in like a ’70s-era dervish, braids swinging and a patchouli scent-cloud in her wake.
She stopped in the middle of the living room and frowned. “What is going on? Looks like another break-in.”
“No, it was just me looking for something.”
“What?”
“The flash drive Jeremy wanted.”
“And did you find it?”
I held up the tiny plastic piece inside the sandwich bag. She leaned down and squinted at it. “It looks like a piece of plastic garbage. Where was it?”
“Stuck into the corner of my picture frame.” I showed her Jeremy’s hiding place.
She picked the frame up and inspected the tiny slot where the drive had been stashed. “Wow. I don’t even know what to say.”
“I know, right? Jeremy really wanted to hide this.”
“From who?” she asked.
“No clue.” I shook my head.
She set down the frame and took the drive from me, inspecting it front and back inside the baggie. “How does it go into a computer? It doesn’t look like any drive I’ve ever used.”
“It’s a SIM card. It goes into a phone.”
