He spins to face me, his eyes blazing. “Where are all the pictures of you as a kid?”
I point to the bed. “I literally just gave them to you.”
He shakes his head, his mouth parting the slightest amount. “No, Morgan. These are pictures of you as a teenager. Where are the ones of you being held? Or you with your favorite stuffed toy? Your first missing tooth, your bike rides… something.”
My brows draw in, my gut twisting as I glance down to where he’s looking. My fingers reach out, moving around the glossy photos, uncovering a dozen smiling faces, but all of them older. Matured. A lot from my high school days, and a few of me graduating from college, and then the police academy but…
There are no pictures here of me as a child.
My chest pulls. “She must have given me the wrong box.”
Lincoln huffs. “Or she doesn’t have them.”
I slap my hands on my thighs. “What are you saying, that my parents kidnapped me?”
He shrugs.
“Do you know how absolutely crazy you sound? You think I don’t remember my childhood?”
He tilts his head. “Do you?”
“Obviously.” I cross my arms, racking my brain, trying to recall my earliest memory, but in the heat of the moment, I come up blank. Anger at what Lincoln’s insinuating bubbles through my veins, but I keep the mask in place, not wanting to start something with him when I need to keep him calm so I can focus on the case.
“Listen.” I reach out to touch his forearm. He tenses beneath my hand, but he doesn’t pull away, so I grip him tighter, craving the connection even though I know the smart thing to do is to cut it off completely.
“If you want to talk about her. Talk about… your Morgan—”
He groans, ripping himself from under my grasp and grabbing at the roots of his hair. Suddenly, he dives down, grabbing a photo of me and holding it in front of my face. “This girl right here? She looks really fucking familiar, Sloane. Okay? And I know it sounds crazy. But…” He tosses the photo back down and storms across the room, opening up the side table drawer and bringing out a worn leather notebook.
My heart falters in my chest. What is that?
He tosses the journal on the mattress, pointing down at it. “How do you explain this?”
My fingers tremble the slightest amount as I reach out and grab the cover, flipping it open to the first page.
It’s a drawing.
A stunning portrait of a girl, her hair blowing in the breeze as she dances in front of the lighthouse, her arms above her head, and her eyes sparkling as if she’s diving inside my chest and staring straight into my soul.
My fingers caress the photo, a pit opening in the middle of my stomach. “Lincoln, this is…” I swallow around the sudden knot in my throat. “This is really beautiful.”
“Look at that photo, killer,” he rasps, stepping up behind me until our bodies are flush. “Look at it and tell me I’m crazy.” His lips skim the expanse of my neck, barely there kisses that tease the surface of my skin. “Tell me you’re not her. Tell me you don’t remember.”
And even though I want to rage, want to tell him he’s absolutely insane.
I can’t.
Because we’re interrupted by someone throwing the bedroom door open.
“They found the body,” Gabe rushes out, his chest heaving as Alex follows him into the room. “And you’ll never guess where.”
Lincoln steps back from me. Sighing, I run a hand through my hair. “Where?”
“The lighthouse.”
Chapter 31
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel as my truck bounces up the single-lane road to the lighthouse.
Against the fleet of news vans and police cruisers, my mother’s brown faux-fur coat is plainly visible, the starting point in the throng of picketing folks standing outside Paul Jensen’s house.
Throwing the truck in park once I’ve crossed the property line, I don’t stop to wait for Sloane, Alex, or Gabe as they trail behind in their own vehicles.
Slamming my door shut, I pocket my keys and stalk over to where my mother has a sign held up above her head with both hands, chanting something so loud that it’s nearly unintelligible.
A hand on my bicep halts me, the heat from Sloane’s grip searing straight through my coat.
“Lincoln, wait! Take a second to breathe. You don’t want to make things worse.”
I give her a puzzled look. “Worse than what, exactly? This situation looks pretty shit to me already.”
Shaking out of her grip for the second time in the last half hour, I try not to focus too much on the fact that I can still feel her fingerprints on my skin, long after she’s stopped touching me.
Inhaling a deep, cleansing breath, I duck under the caution tape blocking off the general public from the crime scene—except, apparently, if that general public is a group of angry, God-fearing women.
“Ma,” I snap, unable to mask my irritation. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She whirls on me, almost whacking me in the face with an elbow. As she turns, so does the woman beside her, and I realize after a beat that it’s Daisy; wearing leggings and an oversized University of Maine hoodie that I know belongs to her husband.
Baby Charlie dangles from a harness strapped to her chest, blinking his big doe eyes and flapping his arms, a knit cap pulled down over his head.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” My mother shakes her sign. I glance up, noting the inflammatory language scribbled in bright red before she spins back around and begins chanting with the others. “Turn yourself in, Paul! Stop hurting innocent women! We, the congregation of the Skelm Island Church of God, demand our local police take action and arrest this man!”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I turn my focus on my sister. “Care to explain what’s going on? Why are you two fucking with a crime scene?”
Daisy shrugs. “I have a late shift at the diner, and Ma needed a ride.”
“To a protest? Odd time for you to get political.”
Running a hand over Charlie’s head, she frowns, reaching out to grip my sleeve before tugging me away from the crowd. When we’re out of earshot, she places her hands on the sides of Charlie’s head and sighs.
“They found Tracy Cartwright’s body here today. I tried to keep Ma away from the news as soon as I saw the breaking story on Channel Nine, but she’d already heard through the metaphorical grapevine.”
Preacher Cartwright’s wife?
A sharp, stabbing sensation flares behind my left eye, and I lift my hand, rubbing at the brow bone in an attempt to make it lessen. “How is it possible the entire town knows the victim’s identity before an autopsy’s even been conducted?”
She twists her head, looking back at the crowd, then straightens back to me. “I don’t know. People have been on high alert ever since those other bodies showed up. I think some of the church wives listen to the police scanner in secret, so they can be the ones with all the hot gossip.”
Daisy cringes.
“Not that dead bodies are gossip. God, I’m starting to sound like you.”
“Let’s hope that’s not true,” a deep voice comes over my shoulder, ending our conversation. “I don’t want to suddenly feel like I’m fucking my best friend.”
Gabe saunters between us, drawing Daisy and their son into his arms; he glides his hands up her throat, cupping her jaw between his fingers, and tips her head back just enough to lay a sloppy kiss on her slightly parted lips.
A throat clears behind us, and I turn my head to see Sloane and Alex standing off to the side, looking everywhere but at the soft-core unfolding before our eyes.
As if sensing his audience, Gabe relents with a heavy sigh.
“Sorry, folks. Only an insane man sees his lover after three days, and doesn’t immediately kiss her,” he says when they finally part, tapping her nose with his index finger as she blushes furiously. As he pulls away, he points a finger at me. “Well,
unless you’re this guy. But not all of us are monks, am I right, Caruso?”
Alex doesn’t respond, his mouth mashing into a thin line. Taking a step forward, Sloane offers a tiny wave to my sister and nephew.
“Daisy, right?” she asks, tucking her dark brown hair behind her ears. “I don’t know if you remember meeting me the other day—”
“Detective Sloane,” Daisy says, nodding. “I remember. Not every day someone gets under my brother’s skin. Those girls engrave themselves on the old noggin.” Daisy raps her knuckles against her temple, grinning.
“It’s Morgan,” I say, though I’m not sure why. I haven’t even resolved to calling her that in my head, so the correction feels unnecessary, but it comes out nonetheless.
Everyone looks at me.
“Huh?” Daisy says, bouncing Charlie as he starts to fuss in his carrier. She rakes her gaze slowly over Sloane, raising an eyebrow.
Sloane exhales, her nostrils flaring. “It’s a long story.”
“It’s not,” Gabe says, leaning over to slip his son from his harness. Propping him up over his shoulder, Gabe pats the baby’s back, shushing him quietly as his cries begin to increase in volume.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, my annoyance rising quickly, flooding my chest and making it impossible to feel anything else.
I came down here for answers, but like everything else lately, my quest feels like it’s slowly unraveling to reveal that absolutely nothing in this town makes a fucking lick of sense.
“Mrs. Wilson, I presume?” Alex cuts in, stepping forward and offering his hand. “I’m Detective Caruso. Morgan Sloane’s partner.”
My skin prickles, heating my blood.
Sloane rolls her eyes, but they still flicker to me when she says, “Work partner.”
Despite the situation, I smother a grin.
“Caruso?” Daisy hums, dark eyes glued to his chiseled, smooth face. “Italian?”
Nodding, he flashes her a megawatt smile as she gingerly slips her fingers into his palm, and I swear I see the faintest flush of her cheeks when they meet.
It fuels the rage boiling inside me, if only on Gabe’s behalf.
“Can you tell me what’s going on here?” Alex asks, tapping a finger to the badge hanging around his neck. “We got a call about a body, but the officers I just talked to said the coroner’s already been out to collect.”
“What?” Gabe and Sloane gasp at the same time, eyes widening.
Shifting forward, Gabe shuffles Charlie back into my sister’s arms, turning to scan the area where a couple of uniforms mill about the lighthouse, watching the spectacle with twin bemused expressions.
He takes off without another word, booking it over to the other cops, hands flailing when he reaches them.
“They took the body before forensics even arrived?” Sloane asks. If her jaw could drop any lower, it’d be on the ground. “You’ve got to be kidding me. No way is the force here that stupid.”
Daisy shrugs, maneuvering her son to a comfortable position against her chest. “I think they were more worried about getting away from here before all hell broke loose. The Cartwrights are extremely well-respected on the island, and I overheard someone mention rioting tonight over the fact that Paul Jensen hasn’t been arrested.”
“Golden Boy here doesn’t seem to think Mr. Jensen did it,” Alex says, hooking his thumb in my direction.
“There’s no proof he did,” I bite out, a familiar pang spasming in my chest. How many times will I have to defend this man, when my only evidence is the fact that I want to believe him?
“I think we’re looking at the proof.” He jerks his chin at the crowd.
Even though it shouldn’t, his acceptance claws at the barbed wire around my heart, as if someone’s come along with a pair of bolt cutters, trying to make me vulnerable.
My gaze darts up to the little cottage as the chanting and questioning continues; it’s still inside, as usual, but then a curtain above the bay window shifts, attracting my immediate attention.
I focus on that spot, waiting for something else—for Paul to show his face, point his rifle out of it, anything—but the moment doesn’t come.
After a few extended minutes, my irritation comes to a peak, and I stomp away as Alex asks Daisy if she remembers anything out of the ordinary when she arrived on scene.
She can’t even remember to put on socks most days, her brain completely occupied by Charlie, but sure. Ask her to recount a crime scene.
I feel Sloane’s presence at my back as I head toward my mother; she follows silently, willingly, and it tugs at that open wound in my heart, as if trying to stop the bleeding.
When I get back to the throng, Officer Klepsky’s got my mother pulled aside; her face is redder than before, tears welling in her eyes, and she’s got a finger jabbed against his chest.
“Ma,” I say, unease wrapping like vines around my limbs. The finger jabbing is one step away from what officers here would definitely consider assault, and I don’t want to add that to my list of things to deal with right now.
“Lincoln, sweetheart. Do you care to tell Mr. Klepsky here that I’m not canceling my Halloween party next week?” She smiles sweetly, but it’s laced with malice.
I hesitate, glancing at Sloane. My mother’s annual costume parties take place on Halloween night every year, and they’re always the most popular event of the season. Skelm Island shuts down an entire street in honor of her giving people a safe way to celebrate the holiday, and everyone goes nuts for her apple-peanut brittle.
With everything else going on, I hadn’t even thought about the party, but now that she’s mentioning it, apprehension twists my gut.
Klepsky sighs, rolling his eyes. “Mrs. Porter, four of your good friends have just been murdered. Ladies you run in a tight-knit circle with. We’re just trying to look out for you.”
“If you’d catch the damn killer, I wouldn’t have to sit around worrying if I’m next.” She turns, dropping her finger and placing her hands on her hips. Her cheeks and nose are red from being out in the cold for so long, and her hair is in disarray from the wind.
“We’re working on it, ma’am, I assure you,” Sloane offers, pushing away from my side.
She steps forward with her spine straight, chin tilted.
My mother frowns. “Are you? All due respect, Detective, but then why hasn’t anyone been arrested?”
Chapter 32
“Somebody care to explain to me what exactly is going on?” I ask, throwing down my badge on Captain Stoll’s desk and jamming my finger into the center.
I’m raging. I can feel it in the way my face heats and my limbs tremble as I try to repress the fiery emotion surging through my veins.
“Do you see this, Captain? This is my badge. That means that I should be informed of things before the public. Before the news.”
This town is liable to make me lose my mind. And my reputation. I’m supposed to be an expert, but they’re making it difficult to live up to the name. Although, if I’m honest with myself, it’s not all their fault that I’ve been acting like a rookie on a case instead of someone dedicated.
“Now, Detective—”
“Don’t ‘detective’ me. I have had it up to here.” I raise my hand toward the ceiling. “I swear to God it’s like you guys don’t want to solve this case.”
Stoll scoffs. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” I ask, a trickle of apprehension winding its way into my brain. “Want to explain to me how the news made it all the way onto the island before we were even told there had been another murder?”
Stoll shakes his head. “I don’t—”
I slam my hands down on the desk, the top vibrating underneath my palms. “That’s right, you don’t. And I’m telling you right now, if you don’t start working with me, I will take your precinct out of the investigation altogether.”
“You can’t do that,” he snaps, his olive skin paling.
I lean forward, making
sure he’s locked in my stare. “You want to test that theory?”
“Carina.” Alex’s hands wrap around my shoulders and pull me back, smoothing up and down my arms in what I’m sure is supposed to be a soothing manner. But every swipe of his fingers agitates me more, making my skin pull tight and the rage boil deeper in my blood.
I know I haven’t been fully focused on this case. That I’ve let things get in my way—let people blur my focus. But this doesn’t help. It’s almost as if they’re trying to actively keep us from solving the case. And that alone puts me on edge, wondering if maybe we should be looking closer. If we should be adding persons of interest to a separate list; one that the Skelm Island PD doesn’t have access to.
Ones with their names on it.
Sighing a deep breath, I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to stem the headache that’s pounding between my eyes. “I want Paul Jensen brought in.”
“We’re already working on it.”
I paste a smile on my face, my teeth clenching so hard I’m surprised I don’t break a molar. “Well, work harder.”
“Carina,” Alex croons again.
I spin around on him. “How are you so calm? Don’t you see that they’re doing everything in their power to impede this investigation?”
Alex grimaces, his eyes glancing from me to Captain Stoll and then back. “Excuse us, Captain.”
He wraps his hand around my arm and drags me out of the office. I let him lead me away, too busy trying to count to ten slowly to keep my anger in check. It takes a lot to piss me off, but something about the people in this town makes me feel on edge—as if one simple thing will detonate an explosion.
Alex pulls me into the corner of the hallway and spins to face me, crossing his arms against his chest.
I huff out a breath. “Alex, come on. It’s like they’re trying to make us look bad. I don’t get it. I’ve never in my life dealt with a town that’s demanding justice but so unwilling to help make it happen.”
“I’m not disagreeing. These guys are idiots, we already knew that.” He tilts his head. “But you can’t put all the blame on them.”
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