“I want to know where you all went last night, from the moment you left the house, to the time you saw her last,” Nick said.
“There were only two places,” Layla said. “We had dinner at Pelican and went to Splashes nightclub after.”
“What time?”
“Our dinner reservation was at eight. We took an Uber around 7:45, stayed a couple of hours at the restaurant, and then walked to the nightclub from there, since it was only a couple of blocks away.”
“Did Marissa talk to anyone outside of your group, or did you notice anyone talking to her?”
“That’s hard to say.”
“Why?”
“We were all talking to everyone,” Layla said. “And we were all drinking. Everything past dinner is kind of a blur.”
“I had a couple of drinks, but I wasn’t drunk,” Georgia said. “I remember everything.”
She set her glass down and stood. She had a curvy, pear—shaped body, olive skin, and long, dark hair that looked like it was permed, even though I guessed it wasn’t. She neither looked American nor Australian. I guessed Iranian, but I’d never been great at guessing nationalities of people.
“Marissa stuck with us most of the night,” Georgia said. “The only person I saw her talk to aside from our group was Shawn when he stopped by for a few minutes.”
Nick furrowed his brow. “You don’t mean Shawn Hayes, do you?”
Layla glared at Georgia with a look that said, “Stop talking,”
Georgia didn’t take the hint. “What’s the big deal? He’s a friend of ours from college.”
I exchanged glances with Maddie. She shrugged. The name Shawn Hayes meant nothing to us, but it clearly meant something to Nick. He’d fisted his hand, and for a split second, I imagined him taking his frustrations out on the wall behind him.
He gritted his teeth. “What is that piece of trash doing in Australia?”
“I invited him,” Layla said. “We’re friends, and I wanted him at my wedding.”
“Where is he?”
Layla shook her head. “No.”
“What do you mean ... no?” Nick said. “Did Marissa know he’d be here?”
“She didn’t. I thought it would be better to tell her after she arrived.”
“Why? Because you knew I’d protect her, that I wouldn’t allow her anywhere near that stalker?”
“Stalker?” Georgia said. “What are you talking—”
“Shawn was my roommate in college,” Layla cut in. “We’ve been friends for a long time. Whatever bad blood there was between him and Marissa, it’s been over for a while now. She moved on. He moved on. It seemed to me enough time had passed to bring everyone together again.”
“I don’t give a shit how you justify it,” Nick said. “Shawn Hayes is a selfish dirt bag with no respect for women.” He pointed to one of the wine glasses on the counter. “That his? Is he hanging out somewhere, hiding?”
“Here’s not here,” Layla said.
Nick stared into the hall. “Come out, coward! No point in hiding now. I know you’re here.”
“He’s not here,” Layla repeated.
“She’s telling the truth,” Georgia said. “He left about an hour ago.”
“And went where?”
“If you think he had anything to do with what happened to Marissa, he didn’t,” Layla said.
Nick looked at Maddie and me, then jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Maddie grabbed an empty wine glass off the counter, poured the last of the wine in the bottle into it, and gulped it down.
“Maddie!” I said.
She shrugged. “What? It’s getting tense in here. Besides, someone needed to finish it off. And I’m thirsty.”
I grabbed her by the sleeve of her shirt and pulled her toward the front door. In the meantime, Georgia played a game of twenty questions, Shawn Edition, with Layla. Val followed us outside.
Val closed the door behind her, gripping the doorknob in her hand like she was worried someone would try to open it. When no one did, she followed us to the car and said, “Hey, Nick. Hang on a minute.”
He glanced over his shoulder, eyes lit with anger. “What?”
“Shawn is staying at The Devonshire.”
“Room number?”
“I’m not sure, but he’s on the top floor, second from the left, I think.”
She handed him a slip of paper.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“My cell, in case you need anything.”
He got into the car and sat down. “Why tell me where Shawn’s staying?”
“Shawn isn’t the saint Layla makes him out to be. He’s not a killer either, though. He wouldn’t hurt Marissa. I’m sure of it. They resolved everything after she arrived here. I swear. Go talk to him, and see for yourself.”
“Lemme ask you something,” Nick said. “You ever felt the ache of jealousy so deep in your bones that all rational thought leaves your mind?”
She shook her head. “No. I mean, I guess not.”
“I’m a detective. Before that I was a cop, and before that I was a misfit, a kid no one wanted or expected to amount to anything in life. Being surrounded by people who had no expectations of me taught me a hell of a lot about what people are really like. And let me tell you a little something about jealousy. It pokes at the flesh at first, and then it sits, festering there, twisting and turning until it strips away just enough skin to create a hole. It doesn’t have to be a big hole—just big enough to pierce a person’s skin and worm its way inside. Once that happens, it shifts the mind. Sometimes makes a person crazy enough to do things they themselves never thought they were capable of. I’ll know it when I see it. And, darlin’, Shawn is a repeat offender.”
Val crossed her arms, blinking at Nick like she didn’t know what to do with his analogy. None of us did.
“You go back inside and give Layla a message for me,” Nick added through gritted teeth. “If I even get the slightest suspicion he had anything to do with Marissa’s death, he’ll wish he would have stayed off the grid when I gave him the chance.”
CHAPTER 10
“I know how you feel about Shawn,” I said. “And right now, you’re desperate to take someone’s head off over Marissa’s death, but until you know one way or the other, maybe you should let me do the—”
“I don’t need your advice, Sloane,” Nick said. “She was my wife, and I’ll do this my way.”
“I flew here to help you. You don’t have to be so harsh.”
He sighed, tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But when you meet this guy, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Everything about him is just ... off. I know he’s to blame for what happened to her.”
He was wrong. He didn’t know Shawn was to blame, but it was clear he hated the guy. So why not blame him? “Who is he?”
He explained that Shawn was Marissa’s ex—boyfriend. They had dated up to the time she met Nick. He hadn’t taken the breakup well. Soon after she ended things, Marissa became Shawn’s obsession. He went to great lengths to get her back. After leaving notes on her car, Nick paid him a visit. He omitted the details, but it was clear whatever Nick had said, or done, worked. All correspondence stopped. Based on Layla’s behavior, she seemed well aware of Marissa and Shawn’s past and had decided to invite him to the wedding anyway. I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t. Selfish people like Layla only cared about one thing in life—themselves.
We pulled in front of The Devonshire, and Nick parked the car.
“What do you want us to do?” Maddie asked.
“Wait here,” he said. “If I need you two, I’ll let you know.”
She looked at me, and I looked at him. “Okay.”
He walked toward the stairwell, and Maddie smacked me on the shoulder. “Really? We’re going to sit here while he unleashes on the guy?”
I glanced back at her. “Of course not. I’m just giving him a head sta
rt.”
“How much of a head start?”
“A minute or two. I know he can’t stand the guy. But Nick’s a detective. I want to give him the chance to use his best judgment.”
“What you want is for him to think you trust him, despite how messed up he is right now. Why?”
“Because he did the same for me when I was tracking Shelby’s killer. He gave me liberties he shouldn’t have. I feel like I owe him.”
“Normally I’d agree with you. Most of the time, Nick is levelheaded. This isn’t one of those times though, Sloane. His wife is dead. This is different.”
She was right. My guilt over his leniency in the past was affecting my better judgment in the present. I wanted to believe he wasn’t capable of inflicting the kind of harm he’d later regret, but I was a fool to assume so. His eyes looked different now—distant and hollow—like an empty beer can shot full of holes. And if I were honest with myself, part of the reason I was there was to protect him from himself.
And so far, I’d failed.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Maddie was out of the car before I could get my door open, speedwalking toward the stairwell.
“Maddie, hang on,” I said.
But I was too late. She’d scaled the first flight of stairs, disappearing around the corner. My phone buzzed. It was Cade, asking how I was doing. I sent him a quick text message, locked the car, and turned, spotting a man in a blue tank top and tropical board shorts sprinting in my direction. He was so busy looking behind him that he smacked into my shoulder, and we both went down.
“Watch where you’re going!” I said.
He jumped up and held his hand out, pulling me back to a standing position before taking off again and shouting, “Sorry! Didn’t mean it!”
Bad manners weren’t all he lacked. He didn’t have an Australian accent either. He was American. I took off after him, tackling him from behind. I pinned him to the ground using a knee mount, a technique I’d learned in jiu—jitsu. Using most of my body weight, I pressed my knee onto his diaphragm, making it hard but not impossible for him to breathe, and easy for me to immobilize him for now.
Through staggered breaths, he said, “What’s your problem, lady? I said I was sorry!”
“You took off without introducing yourself. You’re Shawn Hayes, aren’t you?”
“How do you know my—”
Before I could answer, I heard footsteps in the distance. Nick caught up to us. He dropped to his knees and glanced at me. “Let go. I’ve got him.”
The distraction caused me to lose focus. Shawn wiggled backward, trying to release himself from my grip. Nick slammed his fist into Shawn’s face. Blood spewed from Shawn’s nose.
“You asshole!” Shawn screamed. “I’m not the crazy one. You are! I would have explained if you let me.”
But Nick wasn’t interested in explanations. He brought his fist down again, the band of his wedding ring cutting into Shawn’s forehead. Shawn’s head slammed against the pavement.
I wrapped my arms around Nick, yanking him backward. “Nick, no! Stop it. It isn’t worth it.”
Maddie joined me, the two of us managing to pry Nick away, but Shawn’s eyes were closed. Even though he’d only had two blows to the head, the hits were hard and precise. Shawn wasn’t moving. Maddie dropped to his side.
“He’s breathing,” she said. “He probably just passed out.”
A woman peeked around the side of the hotel building and yelled, “Get off of him! I called the police!”
Nick closed his eyes, registering her words and what he’d done.
He’d just assaulted a guy in a country with laws we were unfamiliar with.
“Let’s get out of here,” Maddie said. “Now.”
Nick tossed me the keys to the car. “You two go. Hurry up.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I said. “We’ll explain what happened. You just lost your wife. Hopefully, they’ll understand.”
“This isn’t like home where we can take a verbal beating in Coop’s office for something we’ve done and then go about our day. We’re in another country. I have no idea what they’ll do. I need to deal with this, and I need you two to keep checking things out.”
There was a good chance his actions could have us all deported, and then we might never know what really happened to Marissa. “Do you still suspect Shawn is to blame?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore. I should have never laid a hand on him. When he took off running, I assumed it was because he was guilty. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. I need to know for sure, and I’m not rational enough to be objective. So, please ... just go.”
“Come on, Sloane,” Maddie said.
I wanted to stay, wanted to find a way out of this, but as the sound of sirens whined in the distance, I knew he was right.
CHAPTER 11
“What happened when you went to Shawn’s hotel room?” I asked.
Maddie was too busy rifling through her bag to hear me. After chucking a few things out of it, she said, “Do you have any gum in your purse? I need something to chew on.”
She always needed something to chew on, and gum had been her go-to for as long as I’d known her. I pointed to my backpack. “Should be some in the side pocket.”
She opened it, looked inside, and frowned. “I want squares, not sticks.”
“That’s all I have. Wad it up. You’ll be fine.”
She wasn’t fine and plopped my backpack back on the floor without doing what I suggested. “What did you ask me before?”
I repeated the question.
“Shawn wasn’t in the room when Nick got there,” she said. “A woman came to the door. She said she was Shawn’s fiancée. They had just returned from the pool. I’m guessing they’d left their cell phones in the room while they went for a swim, and that’s why they didn’t know we were coming.”
“What did she say?”
“She said Shawn would be right back. He went to get some ice. Then her cell rang. She answered it and then looked at Nick like she was terrified. She backed into her hotel room, slammed the door, and locked it.”
“Then what happened?”
“Nick headed for the ice machine, but I think Shawn may have seen him on the way back and taken off. We were almost back to the car when we saw you.”
I regretted sitting in the car when we first arrived. If I had gone with Nick, maybe he wouldn’t have found himself in the situation he was now.
“Hey,” Maddie said. “You’re overthinking. Let’s focus on what we can do and not what we can’t, all right? Nick’s been through hell. That has to count for something.”
CHAPTER 12
Pelican was an upscale restaurant along the pier offering couples a romantic outdoor dining experience under a canopy of lush greenery and hanging vines similar to what one would see in a rainforest. The menu was full of local favorites I’d never tried, things like gulf bugs, crispy ginger and lime squid, Tasmanian oyster, and charred wallaby kebabs.
Maddie was salivating.
I was not.
While she stood off to the side checking out the menu, I canvassed the restaurant.
“What should we order first?” she said. “How about the bugs?”
“You know they’re not actual bugs, right?”
She looked closer at the menu. “I ... yeah. What about the wallaby then?”
“We’re not here to eat. We need to find someone who was working the night Marissa died.”
“Yeah, I know. Why can’t we do both? I’m hungry.”
I shook my head.
She sighed. “Fine, Sloane. Let’s not eat. Let’s starve to death while we get information. A glass of wine would be nice, at least.”
She had a point, not about the wine, but about the food. The mere mention of it had my stomach growling, and I realized we hadn’t eaten since we got off the plane.
“Let’s sit at the bar,” I said.
“It’s a yes to wine, then?”
> One of us needed to stay sharp, and while she was an expert at consuming alcohol with little effect to her demeanor, I’d always been more of the “one and done” variety. “You order a glass of wine, and let’s get a couple of things off the food menu. No bugs for me, though.”
“Oh, come on. Try something new.”
Realizing she wasn’t getting anywhere, she patted me on the shoulder and laughed. “You have no sense of adventure sometimes. You know?”
I did, and I was fine with it.
We walked to the bar and sat down. She ordered one glass of the house red, and a side order of a wink at the tall, blond-haired, twenty-something bartender who looked like he’d just stepped off his surfboard. He grinned back. We were in business.
“You two want to order any food?” he asked.
“What would you recommend?” Maddie asked.
“Ahh, well, my favorite is the pork belly.”
“All right. We’ll have that.”
“And prosciutto wrapped chicken bites,” I added.
The bartender walked away, returning minutes later with the wine. “I’m Connor. How long are you two in town?”
“The week,” Maddie said. “We’re here for a wedding.”
He flipped his head to the side, getting his bangs out of his face. “There was a crazy bunch of girls celebrating in here the other night. Bachelorette party.”
“I’m guessing they were our friends,” I said.
He raised a brow. “You two knew the dead girl? Oh ... uhh ... sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude.”
News of Marissa’s death had spread fast.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Marissa is ... I mean, was married to one of our good friends.”
“Everyone is talking about what happened. Hard to believe.”
“Did you talk to Marissa, or any of our other friends while they were here?”
“Not at the restaurant. I did later, though.”
“Later?”
“I went to Splashes after work with one of my mates. By then it seemed like they’d all had a fair bit to drink. They were fun, though. We chatted a while, and then my partner got there, and I took off with her.”
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