by W. Soliman
Unfinished Business
By W. Soliman
Where is Jasmine Webb?
Charlie Hunter retired from the force at 40 to relax, work on his boat and go fishing with his son on weekends, not become an amateur sleuth. But he can’t say no to Kara Webb when she seeks his help in tracking down her sister, missing for 15 years.
The disappearance of teenaged Jasmine Webb was one of the first cases Charlie worked on after being made a detective. He’s never forgotten it or his suspicions, even after the girl’s parents told police they’d heard from her and the file on Jasmine was closed.
When Charlie’s son is threatened, finding Jasmine becomes even more important—it’s no longer just about closure, it’s about protecting his family. Which makes the constant dead ends all the more frustrating. Until Charlie realizes that the question they should be asking isn’t where Jasmine is, but who has Jasmine become…
86,000 words
Dear Reader,
What do you get when you cross summer with lots of beach time, and long hours of traveling? An executive editor who’s too busy to write the Dear Reader letter, but has time for reading. I find both the beach and the plane are excellent places to read, and thanks to plenty of time spent on both this summer (I went to Australia! And New Zealand!) I’m able to tell you with confidence: our fall lineup of books is outstanding.
We kick off the fall season with seven romantic suspense titles, during our Romantic Suspense celebration in the first week of September. We’re pleased to offer novella Fatal Destiny by Marie Force as a free download to get you started with the romantic suspense offerings. Also in September, fans of Eleri Stone’s sexy, hot paranormal romance debut novel, Mercy, can look forward to her follow-up story, Redemption, set in the same world of the Lost City Shifters.
Looking to dive into a new erotic romance? We have a sizzling trilogy for you. In October, look for Christine D’Abo’s Long Shot trilogy featuring three siblings who share ownership of a coffee shop, and each of whom discover steamy passion within the walls of a local sex club. Christine’s trilogy kicks off with Double Shot.
In addition to a variety of frontlist titles in historical, paranormal, contemporary, steampunk and erotic romance, we’re also pleased to present two authors releasing backlist titles with us. In October, we’ll re-release four science fiction romance titles from the backlist of C.J. Barry, and in November four Western romance titles from the backlist of Susan Edwards.
Also in November, we’re thrilled to offer our first two chick lit titles from three debut authors, Liar’s Guide to True Love by Wendy Chen and Unscripted by Natalie Aaron and Marla Schwartz. I hope you’ll check out these fun, sometimes laugh-out-loud novels.
Whether you’re on the beach, on a plane, or sitting in your favorite recliner at home, Carina Press can offer you a diverting read to take you away on your next great adventure this fall!
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Happy reading!
~Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
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Dedication
For Maggie,
longtime friend, confidante and drinking buddy.
Acknowledgements
My thanks are due to everyone at Carina Press for all their hard work and professionalism, especially my talented editor, Deborah Nemeth.
To Andre, for making sure I got the technical bits about boats right, and Paul Brightley, who knows a worrying amount about cybercrime. Any errors are down to me.
Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter One
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Charlie Hunter.”
The spanner flew out of my hand and clattered into the bilge. “Shit!”
“Hello there, is Mr. Hunter on board? I was told to ask on this pontoon.”
I swore again. The female voice responsible for breaking my concentration clearly wasn’t going anywhere. Bare-chested and bloody-minded, I hoisted myself out of the engine room of my motor cruiser and slowly wiped the oil from my hands on the rag protruding from the pocket of my jeans. I took a moment to shake the hair out of my eyes and rotate my shoulders to smooth out the kinks before turning to the woman, ready to let rip. One look in her direction and the words stalled on my tongue.
The policeman in me took stock of the evidence. Midtwenties was my guess. Tall, slim, curly red hair tumbling down her back, big green eyes, a dusting of freckles across her nose, curves in all the right places, no wedding ring. The man in me couldn’t help approving. She was just my type, or would be if I hadn’t sworn off all women as being more trouble than they were worth. Still, there was nothing to say I couldn’t indulge in a spot of window-shopping.
“I’m Hunter,” I said tersely. “Something I can do for you?”
If the woman was discouraged by my churlishness, she gave no sign. “My name’s Kara Webb, Mr. Hunter.” She introduced herself as though it ought to mean something to me.
“Congratulations.”
“You don’t remember me?”
“Can’t say that I do.” The name rang a vague bell but I was willing to swear I’d never had the pleasure. Kara Webb wasn’t the sort of woman a man was likely to forget.
“Is there somewhere we could go to talk? I could buy you a coffee, or something.” She nodded towards the café on the landside of the approach to the marina.
“Can’t see that we have anything to talk about.”
“Please, I—oh!”
She broke off as Gil bounded out of the boat’s salon, a growl rumbling in his throat, long tail wagging like crazy. Talk about mixed messages. I made a mental note to have a chat with my dog a bit later on about his duties. It would be useful if he could get into the habit of warning me of imminent intruders before they caused me to drop spanners in bilges.
“Gil!” Too late. He’d already leapt onto the pontoon and was jumping all over my lovely visitor. He’s a huge beast in an interesting variety of colours, and although I wasn’t about to admit that he’s a big softie, a lot of people were intimidated by his size. “Careful, he’s a bit edgy ’round strangers.”
“So I see.”
And then she smiled. I found myself silently repeating the words I’d said aloud when I’d dropped that spanner. Miss Webb, when she smiled, could put the sun itself to shame. It changed the whole tenor of her face and dispelled the air of despondency I’d sensed when first checking her out. Uh-uh, Charlie boy, I told myself severely. This looks like trouble. Don’t let that bloody smile influence you into buying whatever it is she’s come to sell.
Kara reached out a hand to tickle the dog’s ears. Gil, sensing a soft touch, had already rolled onto his back, ready to lap up any attention on offer.
“Gil,” she said, “that’s a strange name for such a handsome beast. S
omething to do with fishing?” She nodded towards the fishing rods attached to the roof of the cockpit.
“It’s short for Guilty.”
“Oh, I see.” That usually stopped people in their tracks but Miss Webb didn’t miss a beat.
“Well, look, Mr. Hunter, I can see you’re busy so I won’t take up much of your time. If we could just—”
“As you said, I’m busy.” Pointedly, I turned towards the engine room hatch.
“Mr. Hunter, please, don’t you remember me? It’s been fifteen years and I expect you’ve seen thousands of distressed families since then, but surely you remember my sister, Jasmine—”
“Jasmine Webb. Of course.” Now the penny dropped. It had been one of my first cases after being made up to detective and I remembered it well. “But surely you’re not the little sister—”
“The scrawny runt of the litter, you mean. The kid who got in everyone’s way and kept asking awkward questions. Yes,” she said with another brief smile, “that would be me. I was only twelve at the time and ignored by everyone. No one listened to what I had to say about Jasmine’s disappearance, except you, Mr. Hunter. I’ve never forgotten that.”
“Yeah, okay.” I was still trying to get over the fact that the awkward, gangling, tongue-tied kid I remembered had turned out like this. Just goes to show that you never can tell. “But your sister turned up alive and well.”
“We heard from her, certainly, and you were satisfied that the call and subsequent letter we received from her weren’t coerced, but we never saw her again.”
“I don’t see what you expect me to do about it. I don’t mean to be rude but—”
“Please! What I have to say is important and it’ll only take five minutes.”
As soon as I saw the tears welling, I knew I was in trouble. I’m a pushover when women turned on the waterworks.
I sighed. “All right, come aboard.”
She was already bending to take her trainers off. Obviously knew something about boats, then. It’s the height of bad manners to step on anyone’s craft wearing dark-soled shoes.
“How did you get into the marina, by the way?”
“Oh, that was easy. I simply waited for someone to leave, smiled at the guy and he held the gate open for me.”
“Wonderful!” I rolled my eyes. The fancy electronic gate system was obviously about as effective as Gil’s efforts to protect my new home. “Okay, one more question and then it’s your turn. How did you find me?”
“I went to the police station and asked for you by name. It was a long shot after all this time but I thought you might still work there. It didn’t occur to me that you would have retired. You seem a little young, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“They wouldn’t have told you where to find me at the nick,” I said, ignoring the implied compliment.
“No.” A hint of mischief lit her eyes as she followed me into the salon. “They were most unreasonable and wouldn’t tell me a thing. And so, oh—”
“It’s being refitted.” Her gaze travelled ’round the spacious cabin, which was devoid of all furniture except Gil’s bed and a folding canvas chair. The light oak walls were complete, but the cabinets were still halfway through construction, and wires hung from the ceiling. “We’ll be more comfortable in the cockpit. And it’s instant coffee or nothing. I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
I expected her to ask if I had any tea, probably something fancy like camomile—she looked like the type to drink that sort of muck—but to her credit she said instant coffee would be fine.
I removed a carton of milk from the fridge, sniffed it and poured the contents down my new sink. “Hope you don’t take milk.”
“No, just as it comes.”
We stepped into the cockpit and she sat on the cushioned bench. It would be a seriously bad idea to get too cosy with her, so I took the teak lounger on the other side of the table, putting a physical barrier between us. She elevated her brows, obviously not used to men making excuses to keep their distance from her, even if my one-man dog felt no such compunction. He ignored me, made a beeline for Kara and gazed up at her adoringly through liquid brown eyes, tongue lolling stupidly from the side of his mouth. His tail thumped against the deck as she smiled and stretched forward to tickle his ears.
I added loyalty to the list of subjects I needed to discuss with my dog.
“You were going to tell me how you tracked me down.”
“Oh yes. Well, after I failed to get anything out of the miserable desk sergeant at the station, I took myself off to the Royal Oak—”
I groaned. The hostelry of choice for Brighton’s finest. It told me all I needed to know, and more. One look at those big sorrowful eyes of hers and half my ex-colleagues would sell their souls in order to get on her good side, always supposing they still had souls to sell, which was questionable.
“Who spilled the beans?”
“Someone called Jimmy Taylor.”
“That figures.”
“Look, I’m sorry to come barging in on you like this. I can see you value your privacy but this is important to me.” She looked directly at me, fastened those magnetic eyes on my face, and I knew I was in danger of going the same way as Jimmy Taylor et al.
“Yeah, okay. You’re here now and have my attention, so you might as well tell me what’s on your mind.”
“What do you remember about my sister?”
I threw my head back and closed my eyes, dredging up the details from the recesses of my brain. “Jasmine Eleanor Webb, just seventeen, in her first year at sixth-form college. Red hair, green eyes, good-looking, same height as you are now, which would be about five foot seven. Good student, popular and hardworking, no known boyfriends, no known problems, reported missing by her father when she failed to return home after college. Assumed abducted because nothing was missing from her room to suggest she’d left home of her own free will.” I opened my eyes again and looked directly at her. “Assumed abducted by everyone except you, that is.”
“You have a good memory,” she said. I shrugged off the compliment. “I knew she hadn’t been abducted but no one would listen to me. It was like I didn’t exist.”
“Because her teddy bear was missing? The one she’d had since she was a kid.”
“Yes, and her diaries, as well. Why would she take the things that really mattered to her to college on that particular day? It wasn’t something she usually did.”
“It seemed odd that your father insisted she had no reason to run away and nothing was worrying her.” I felt myself being sucked into Kara’s problems in spite of my determination to remain detached from them. “All teenagers have worries that seem insurmountable.”
“My father’s always right.” Kara’s voice dripped sarcasm. “If he’d decided Jas didn’t have any problems then that’s the way it was going to stay.”
“But two days later she phoned from London and followed up with a letter. We knew she was alive, the investigation was wound down, and she became just another runaway.”
“Yes, and we never saw her again.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, Kara, but why are you dragging this up again after all this time? And more to the point, why have you taken so much trouble to find me?”
“Because I still don’t know where she is or why she left. I’ve never stopped thinking about it and I can’t get on with my life until I have some answers.”
“Yes, but even so—”
“And,” she added sombrely, “because my brother was killed in an accident last month.”
“Ah, I’m sorry.” That would account for the despondency then. Her family seemed to be dogged by bad luck. “I remember your brother. Brian?”
“Brett.”
“Yes, Brett. What happened?”
“A boating accident. He was helping to deliver a boat from France to Weymouth.” That figured. Her father was a marine engineer and keen sailor, and all the kids had the sea in their blood. “They got the yacht there, went
ashore and let off some steam. The other two went back to the boat but Brett stayed in the bar for one more.” She wrinkled her brow. “That’s the part I don’t really understand because he wasn’t a great drinker. Still, they’d had a force six with them all the way so I imagine he needed to unwind.” She shrugged. “That’s all we know for sure. He was pretty drunk and it looks as though he slipped into the water on his way back to the boat. The other two were out cold and didn’t notice Brett hadn’t come back. They raised the alarm the next morning, a search was made and his body was washed up with the afternoon tide.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I assume there was an inquest.”
“Yes, and it was declared an accidental death. He had a high alcohol content in his stomach and water in his lungs that implied…well, that implied—”
“That implied he’d been alive when he hit the sea,” I finished for her, giving her time to recover her composure.
“Yes, and there were no marks on him to indicate that it was anything other than an accident.”
“So what do you want me—”
“I was going through Brett’s things the other day and found this.” She rummaged in her bag and handed me a photograph. “That’s Brett,” she said.
“Okay, but who’s the woman with him?”
“Jasmine.”
I shot her a look. “But you said none of you had seen her since she disappeared.”
“I didn’t think we had.”
“It doesn’t look like Jasmine as she was described to me.” She was a looker all right but Jasmine had been described as a redhead and this woman was blond. Still, women are always messing with the colour of their hair so I supposed it didn’t mean much. “How can you be sure it’s Jasmine?”