Don't Trust Me

by Jessica Lynch

  Maria could tell her light-hearted tone wasn’t helping. She ditched it in favor of being real with her guest. She kept her voice soft, almost hypnotic as she coaxed Tessa’s attention on what she was saying rather than the slap of her cocoa against the mug as she swirled it.

  “I don’t think it’s so much that he’s attracted you. With Mase, it’s never that simple. I think he’s convinced himself that you’re the one for him.”

  “I barely know him—”

  “Doesn’t matter, sweetie. Trust me. I haven’t seen him so far gone over a girl since Lindalee Murphy.”

  “Have I met her?” Tess asked.

  Who knows? She’d been hidden away in the bed and breakfast since Sunday so she knew it wouldn’t have been in the last few days. The morning she discovered Jack’s body was still mainly a blur; as a defense mechanism to keep her from breaking down, she approved of the curtain in her mind, though it made moments like these awkward. She could’ve stumbled into Bigfoot and she wouldn’t have remembered that.

  “Oh, no. At least, not in Hamlet. Lindalee was an outsider—”

  “Like me,” she interrupted.

  “Yes, like you, only she moved with her family here when me and Mase were taking high school classes. I guess you could call them sweethearts. They dated for, oh, close to two years, but I was there the day they met. Mason claimed her as his girl from day one. She never stood a chance. They were inseparable.”

  Were. A pit formed in her stomach. The idea of drinking any more cocoa made her sick. She placed the mug down, nudged it away from her. Don’t ask, she ordered herself. Something told her she didn’t want to know.

  Don’t ask. Don’t do it. Don’t—

  She had to. The words blurted out: “What happened to her?”

  “Don’t know. After graduation, she told him she couldn’t do it anymore. She left Hamlet to go to college and, well, she never came back.”

  “Never came back,” Tess echoed, her tone curiously flat. Yup, she admitted, definitely shouldn’t have asked.

  Maria’s big blue eyes widened. “I didn’t mean it like that. Sometimes people actually make it out of Hamlet,” she explained. “I mean, I won’t, no. She must have.” A pause. “He might be intense and all, but Mase is totally harmless.”

  Tess thought of the way he cornered her, grabbed her, questioned her about spending her time with another man. She thought of the pain in her wrist, and his assertion that they would go out tomorrow night when he never asked, but only demanded.

  And she thought of the way he treated her like he owned her, how the support he gave her following the shock of her husband’s death and the help he offered when she found that threatening note somehow put her in his debt.

  She worried how he would react the next time she somehow managed to set him off. She didn’t know him well enough to predict him and, after this little chat, she was quite sure she didn’t want to.

  “Yeah.” She swallowed weakly. No matter what, Tess refused to trade one overbearing man for another. “Harmless.”

  After he tagged Caitlin on the radio, Lucas figured that he’d see her within a couple of hours. She’d been on her way out of town to meet with her counterpart the next county over when he buzzed her. The courthouse was forty minutes from Hamlet. Adding the time of the meet, he didn’t expect to see her anytime soon.

  He had to keep himself busy. Idle hands and all that. His thoughts kept straying back to Tessa’s pale face and the fear that glazed her pretty golden eyes. It was bad enough that her husband was killed and she found his body. Now someone was terrorizing her. He promised Tess she would be safe in Ophelia. He damn well needed to make sure that Maria was safe.

  It had been too, too easy for someone to slip that threatening note under Tess’s door. Lucas couldn’t stop thinking about that.

  So he found something to do. Remembering Sally’s request at the coffeehouse that morning, he turned the closed sign on his office door to open before picking up his radio. There were plenty of patients he could tend to and finally time to do so.

  Caitlin ended up surprising him. About a half hour after their conversation, the telltale clack-clack of her boots echoed in the corridor outside of his examination room. It never ceased to amaze him how she always seemed to zero right in on his location. He would put money down that the exam room was the first place she checked for him. It was one of her quirks.

  It drove him nuts when they were married. One time, he had to ask if she had a tracker on him. She laughed him off. All these years later, he still wondered.

  “What do you got there?” Caitlin rarely wasted time on pleasantries when she was wrapped up in work. Marching into the office, she came over to where Lucas was working with Phil’s samples. “Something for my case?”

  “Not right now. I’m still the doc. I’ve had to turn away a few of my patients to focus on the Sullivan case. Autopsies take time, and so does all the paperwork. I’m trying to catch up with some of my regulars now that that’s done.” He finished labeling the first vial, started on the second. “You can wait in my office. I’ll be right there.”

  “Why don’t I keep you company here instead?” Her breath tickled the back of his neck. He hadn’t realized she’d gotten so close. Before he could ask her to give him space to work, she placed her hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”

  Lucas fought the urge to shake her off. “Phil from the post office came in for some bloodwork. I’m prepping his samples to send out to the lab.”

  “Mm-hmm.” It was a noncommittal sound as Caitlin trailed her hand down his side. Lucas stiffened at the first brush of her fingers. That didn’t dissuade her. She walked behind him, letting her hand make its own path as she ran her palm across his ass.

  When she made the move to cross over to the front, he grabbed her hand. He gave it a warning squeeze and then didn’t let go. Who knows what she’d make a grab for next if he did?

  “Sheriff. Don’t.”

  “Why not?” she purred. “Come on, baby. Can't we ever just take a minute for us? Do we always have to be on the job?”

  “I can’t let myself forget you’re the sheriff,” he told her honestly.

  “Sure you can. It’s easy.”

  “I can’t. And you don't want me to.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “If I forget you’re the sheriff, I’m only gonna remember that you’re my ex.”

  “Wow.” She recoiled as if he’d slapped her. The warm touch of his palm suddenly seared her. Yanking her hand back, she stormed away. She needed the exam table between them. “I guess that settles that, then.”

  Maybe he’d been too harsh. “Caity—”

  “Forget it. Moment’s passed.” She waved him off. “If you didn’t call me here because you wanted to see me, what was it? I’m busy, Luc. I won’t always drop everything I’m doing just because you buzzed me.”

  He sincerely doubted that. In the years since the divorce, Caitlin had shown him on countless occasions that she would take him back in a heartbeat. She never could grasp the concept of it’s over and move on the way that Lucas did. If their respective professions didn’t keep them in contact, he’d be more than happy to keep his distance. After all, she was his ex for a reason. He accepted that, even if Caitlin never would.

  Lucas finished handling Phil’s bloodwork. Once the samples were properly labeled and stored in the refrigerator, he returned to his place on his side of the exam table. Then, as clearly and concisely as he could, he told Caitlin about his visit to Ophelia last night.

  It was obvious that this was the first she heard about the threatening note left for Tessa Sullivan. Halfway through his story, she pulled her notepad out and started jotting down everything Lucas said. Her thin lips pulled down in a nasty frown, the only sign that she was aggravated that no one told her this before. Other than that, she was strictly professional.

  “Do you have the note?” she asked. “I’d like to see it.”

  “It was
gone when she went back. I wanted to see it, too, but no one could find it.”

  She couldn’t swallow her snort. “Of course it was.”

  “Caity, please.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s so convenient. Right? Her husband gets killed. Now someone is warning her about getting out. Jeez, I know there are a few of us who aren’t fond of outsiders. This is a little crazy, though.”

  “You still think she did it.”

  Caitlin huffed, snapping her notepad shut with a flick of her wrist. “No one said cop work was easy. I'd be bored out of my skull if it was. But, just this once, I wish it was. I wish she did it.”

  He pointed at her. “How could she have gotten out of the holding cells?”

  “I know, I know. That’s the thing I keep getting back to.” She tucked her notepad back into its pouch on her belt. “Maybe I should rethink keeping her in town. I want to have her nearby until I close her husband’s case, but what good would it be if she ends up joining him on your slab? Good business for you, sure. Bad press for Hamlet. What?” She caught Lucas rolling his eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  He shook his head. “I told you enough.”

  That was true. Which begged the question: why hadn’t Mason told her about the note when she'd asked for his report at the station? Better yet, why hadn’t Tessa Sullivan made the report herself?

  Good questions, both of them. And questions she had every intention of asking as soon as possible.

  “Okay. If that’s how it is, I appreciate your help. Thank you.”

  She started to head away from the table, stopped as if struck suddenly by a thought, then spun around. Her hands in her pocket, her green eyes innocent and wide.

  “One more thing, Luc.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. He’d been expecting this. The only surprise was that it took Caitlin until now to say something. After their visit to the coffeehouse that morning, he was banking on the gossip mill getting to her before he had to buzz her himself.

  It felt good, knowing he was right.

  “Yeah?”

  “I got a buzz from Addy today. Sally told her she saw you at the coffeehouse this morning. You weren’t alone.” She waited for him to deny it, her mouth tightening when he kept his silence. “I haven't seen you since Sunday,” she added. “It's Tuesday now. It wasn't me.”

  “No.” Picking up his clipboard, he started to make notes on Phil’s patient chart. He hoped the blatant brush-off would be enough of a hint for Caity to drop it but, yeah, that was wishful thinking. He'd set this thing up. He knew he'd have to deal with it sooner or later.

  “Sally said she was an outsider.”

  “Sally should be paying more attention to making the coffee. It was a little burnt.”

  “Luc. Lucas. Just tell me one thing. Tell me the outsider wasn’t Sullivan’s wife.”

  “We’re not married anymore,” Lucas reminded her. He was going for gentle but her incessant questions always got the better of him and his temper. From the way Caitlin’s guileless expression turned stormy, he missed gentle by a mile. “If I want to take someone out for a cup of coffee, I can. I don’t answer to you, Caity. What I do when I’m off duty is my business, not yours.”

  He’d expected open jealousy. The nasty hiss caught him off guard.

  “You’re wrong, Lucas.” With a vicious stab, Caitlin jabbed her finger in his direction. “It’s my town,” she sneered. “Everything here is my business.”

  Caitlin was just about to open the door to her cruiser when the soft rustling of leaves made her whip her head around. She turned in time to see Tessa Sullivan tiptoe out of the copse of trees. The woman’s head was down, watching each careful step as she slid down the small slope that bordered the cobbled road.

  She stepped away from her car. Raising her voice, she called out, “Mrs. Sullivan. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  Sullivan jumped, skittish as ever. Her head popped up, wide eyes narrowing right on Caitlin. The sheriff searched for guilt there. All she found was honest surprise.

  What a shame.

  “Sheriff De Angelis. Nice to see you.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Her question more of a demand laced with suspicion, Tess wondered if she should answer the other woman. Something told her that if she did, she wouldn’t be addressing the sheriff but Doctor De Angelis’s ex-wife instead.

  That made her smile. “I thought I would take a walk, get some fresh air. The weather’s beautiful.” Her smile wavered. “Jack would’ve loved it. Autumn was his favorite time of year.”

  “A walk? All the way to the mountain side of town? Convenient.”

  “Not really. The doctor told me to stop by during office hours if I needed something to help me sleep. Maria brought me most of the way. I decided to walk the rest.”

  Caitlin crossed her arms over her chest. She was still feeling burned by Lucas’s rejection and here was a perfect target for her pissed off mood. “What were you doing in the trees? I’d thought you’d know it wasn’t safe by now.”

  “I couldn’t help myself, Sheriff. I thought I heard a cat when I was passing by. I couldn’t just keep walking. I had to see if I could find it.”

  “Did you?”

  Sullivan shook her head slowly. “There was nothing there.”

  “‘Course not. We don’t have any strays in Hamlet, you understand. Just pets. You won’t find anything in the woods except for trouble.”

  With a small nod and a tight smile, Tess conceded the point. Sheriff De Angelis’s subtle dig managed to go straight to the bone. Oh, yeah. She understood. If you were a part of Hamlet, you belonged. But they wouldn’t tolerate any outsiders who begged to survive.

  Strays. Right.

  “Now that I think of it,” De Angelis continued, “I have to ask: where’s your shadow?” At Tess’s blank look, she explained, “Mason.”

  The other woman’s expression went from blank to completely closed off. “I’m not sure,” she hedged. “I thought he was on duty.”

  “Didn’t stop him last night.”

  Tess heard enough in the sheriff’s short answer to guess, “You heard what happened to me.”

  De Angelis jerked her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing back at Lucas’s office. “From the doctor, actually. And you know what? That worries me, Mrs. Sullivan. Crime goes down in my town, I’ve got to know about it. I will know about it. But I should’ve heard about it from my deputy. Or the civilian claiming to be harassed.”

  Sullivan’s brow wrinkled, thin lines marring her forehead. She pursed her lips, started to argue. “I never—”

  Call it petty, call it vindictive, but it made Caitlin happy to see Tessa Sullivan as anything less than perfect. Even when she was sobbing, she somehow managed to look radiant. Here, now, looking embarrassed and confused and upset, Caitlin felt like she won something.

  She held up her hand, cutting the other woman off. “Don’t. I’ve heard enough from Luc, and you can bet I'll be taking Mase to task for keeping this from me. You want to make a formal complaint, meet me at the station house.

  “For now, I’ll tell you this just once, Mrs. Sullivan… consider it a fair warning: don’t make the mistake of thinking his loyalty is to anyone outside of town. No matter what, Hamlet always comes first.”

  Tess didn’t know if the sheriff meant Mason or Lucas. Both, she decided. Caitlin De Angelis was just that proprietary.

  She tilted back her head, jutting out her chin. If the sheriff saw it as a dare, so be it. “‘Hamlet helps’,” she said. “Am I right?”

  Caitlin ran her gaze over Sullivan’s guileless face. She sniffed. “Yeah, well, I voted against that slogan.”

  Without another word, she turned her back on Sullivan. She was halfway around the rear of her cruiser when she realized that she was on her way back to Lucas.

  Freezing in place, Caitlin pulled the thick rope of her braid over her shoulder. If she went back inside, she’d have to hear it all over
again how she shouldn’t be jealous. That she no longer had the right.

  Too bad she couldn’t turn her feelings off as easily as Lucas seemed to. To hear from Adrianna that Lucas was having brunch with an outsider had been a stab. Then to have him shrug off her attentions as easily as he had was an absolute insult.

  It took every ounce of her considerable willpower to return to the driver’s side of the cruiser. From the weight of the Sullivan woman’s curious stare, she knew her every action was studied, dissected. That bothered her. And the fact that she cared what some outsider thought just made her more pissed off.

  Once she was sat behind the wheel, Caitlin rolled down her window. “Good day, Mrs. Sullivan,” she said before peeling away.

  And if she got a little pleasure from causing the outsider to stumble back onto the path, well, she was only human.

  18

  Tess waited until the rear bumper of Sheriff De Angelis’s cruiser faded from sight. Only then, when she was sure she was alone, did she wipe her sweaty hands on the side of her jeans. That was too close for comfort.

  Exhaust lingered in the thick autumn air. She coughed, hoping that she didn’t carry the acrid stench with her as she hurriedly crossed the street. Pausing only to run her trembling fingers through the soft waves of her hair, she forced herself to head straight for the front door.

  Though she knew she shouldn’t and every impulse screamed at her to run back to Ophelia and hide, she braced herself and knocked.

  When no one answered, she told herself that she would knock once more and if the door stayed shut, she would leave. She knocked, and was just stepping down when she heard the soft creak of the door pulling in. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Lucas De Angelis leaning against the doorjamb, a small smile flirting on his lips.

  “Tessa, what a pleasant surprise.”

  At least someone was glad to see her.

  Concern flashed across his flawless features in the next instant. Stepping out of the doorway, he leaned over Tessa, bracing her with his hand on her shoulder. “You look shaky. Something wrong?”