Southern Sunset: Book One of 44 South

by Nicola Claire

“They say, ‘any press is good press,’” she enthused. “And if you’re really worried, why don’t you tell your side of the story?”

  I scowled at her. She knew better than to ask me for gossip.

  “That’s a good idea, Mr Drake,” a woman suddenly said from beside me. I glanced down at her, not recognising the petite blonde. But Tanya obviously did.

  “This is April Matthews,” Tanya said, her eyes holding mine for a fraction of a second longer than necessary. “A reporter for the Timaru Herald.” Shit, maybe Tanya did have an axe to grind. “The reporter who wrote that article you’re so worried about.”

  “It’s a speculative piece,” the reporter advised. “But I’d love to do an exclusive. How about it? Set the record straight, Mr Drake. What exactly was James Whiting doing on your property?”

  I gave Tanya one last glare and spun on my heel, heading toward the door.

  “Running only adds to the suspicion,” the Matthews woman said, rushing after me.

  “In whose fucking world?’ I muttered. But I knew it was a mistake to have spoken as soon as the words were out of my stupid mouth.

  “Yours now, I’m afraid,” Matthews said. “But relax, I’m here for the truth. You want the truth to win out, don’t you, Mr Drake? Help me to help you.”

  I stopped in my tracks before the door and turned my head to look down at her. She was short, so it would have been easy for me to loom and threaten. But that’s not who I am and I was fucked if I’d let Matt’s problems make me into a man I was not.

  “Listen, Ms Matthews…” I started.

  “Miss, I’m not married.” She offered me an inviting smile. Tanya snorted. I flicked my gaze up to the meddling café owner and then back down to the flirting reporter.

  Could my life get anymore complicated?

  “Miss Matthews,” I said. “There’s nothing to say.”

  “There’s always something to say, Luke,” she replied. “Can I call you Luke? You can call me April, by the way.” The smile turned shy.

  She was better at fake than Maggie.

  I scrubbed a hand across the back of my neck. Then flicked a glance out of the front of the shop, wanting to be anywhere else but here. My eyes met stunning blue, an arched brow, and the amused glint of a certain police sergeant.

  I pushed through the door needing an escape, needing a life line. Needing Maggie.

  The reporter fucking followed.

  “Perhaps we could get a late lunch,” the persistent woman suggested. “A bottle of wine, a selection of local cheeses. They say getting to know someone over a meal is always the best. And I would very much like to get to know you, Luke Drake.”

  Maggie flicked amused eyes off the reporter and settled her gaze on me.

  Yes. It seemed my life could get more complicated.

  Chapter 31

  This Time, It Was Full Of Meaning

  Maggie

  The fish was floating down the main street, tail fin gently swaying. Its beady little fish eyes watching everything and everyone. It stopped when it spotted me, did a loop-de-loop, then kept on ‘swimming.’ A startled laugh was torn from between my lips. The surreal sight not going unnoticed by others, either.

  Tourists pointed. Kids tried to chase after it, jumping up and reaching for its swooping tail. Locals just shook their head and kept on walking. Alicia Parsons’ voyeuristic tendencies were clearly common knowledge.

  I pulled my cell phone out as I stood outside Smokey’s and dialled the Timaru Court House. Judge Aniston finally answered my call after I’d been put through to three different people. The warrant for the video surveillance would be in my email inbox by close of business today. But visiting with Alicia now seemed counterproductive.

  She’d made her position very clear yesterday.

  I waved out to Reverend Blundell as he emptied the mailbox outside of the church, his tattooed arm visible at the end of his rolled up shirt sleeve. The pharmacist nodded his head to me in greeting as I walked past, then went back to his conversation with a tourist. In rapid-fire French.

  It kind of explained Alicia’s spying on him now. The English and French had never truly trusted each other.

  I paused as I came abreast of the Musterer’s Hut Café, getting quite desperate now for a coffee. But my gaze was snagged on a certain station manager and, bizarrely, the reporter I’d spotted yesterday who’d hounded Hook at Smokey’s for a byline. The slim blonde was batting her eyelashes and smiling up sweetly at a very disgruntled Luke.

  I crossed my arms and watched the show. Luke said something. She simpered back. He became more perplexed and agitated.

  And then he looked out of the café window, eyes connecting with me.

  He pushed through the door of the coffee shop in the next heartbeat as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.

  “Perhaps we could get a late lunch,” the reporter was saying. “A bottle of wine, a selection of local cheeses. They say getting to know someone over a meal is always the best. And I would very much like to get to know you, Luke Drake.”

  Well, that explained it, then.

  Luke looked at me, a pleading expression washing over his face briefly.

  “Good afternoon, Mr Drake,” I said, pleasantly.

  “Sergeant Blackmore,” he replied immediately.

  The reporter stilled, then brightened, stepping forward and holding out her hand for me to shake.

  “Sergeant. My name is April Matthews, staff reporter at the Timaru Herald.”

  I shook her hand and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Ms Matthews.”

  “Miss,” she said, flicking a knowing smile toward Luke. “I’m not married. Yet.”

  It took willpower and years of training not to laugh out loud. Luke looked beleaguered.

  “Has there been any progress made on the James Whiting case?” April asked.

  “We’re working with the necessary departments to find a resolution as quickly as possible,” I replied by rote.

  “Surely you have something to add,” the reporter said. “At least confirmation the death was not natural.”

  “At this stage, it would be premature to jump to any conclusion.”

  “But…”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Ms Matthews,” I interrupted. “There’s a coffee inside this store with my name on it.”

  I smiled at Luke and pushed between them, opening up the shop’s door.

  “Sergeant,” Luke called after me.

  “Yes, Mr Drake?” I replied, looking over my shoulder. The door was open, the noise of the busy café spilling out onto the street. Several pairs of eyes swinging our way and narrowing at the chill air I was letting in.

  “Can I have a word?” Luke asked.

  “If you’d like to buy me a coffee, Mr Drake, you can have several.”

  “Of course,” Luke replied, grasping the life line offered. “Good afternoon, Miss Matthews.”

  “Oh, I thought we were going to have lunch,” she complained.

  “I really need to speak with the sergeant.”

  “Naturally. With such suspicions hanging over Red Tussock, I should think you’d have her phone number on speed dial.”

  I walked back out of the shop and let the door shut behind me.

  “Ms Matthews,” I said, voice crisp. “I’d advise you to keep your speculations to yourself and not spread rumours on Twizel’s streets.”

  “Freedom of speech, Sergeant. I’m entitled to say whatever I like.”

  “And print it?” I pressed.

  “I’m a reporter,” she said, chin lifted.

  I turned and looked at the newspaper article taped to the Musterer’s Hut’s front window.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “One skirting the edges of the Defamation Act of 1992.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, face paling. “There is nothing in that article that could be construed as defamatory.”

  I turned back and looked directly at her. “Isn’t there?”

  “No.” She shook her head ad
amantly. “No, there is not. If you’ll excuse me,” she said primly, then spun on her heel, pulling her cell phone out of her oversized bag, and bringing it to her ear as she stormed off.

  “Nicely done,” Luke drawled. “But for a rescue, you left it a little late.”

  I spared him a smile and opened the door to the café again. The general hubbub of the coffee shop surrounded us, the smell of roasted beans on the air, the clamour of casual conversation washing over my senses.

  “Dragging you away from her would only have added to her suspicions,” I pointed out, leaning in so he could hear.

  “Ah, so if I hadn’t asked to speak with you, you would have left me hanging?”

  “I had hoped you had enough sense to take the opportunity my presence awarded.”

  “Admit it,” Luke murmured, bending low enough to whisper in my ear. “You have to keep yourself in check around me.”

  “Hardly,” I said on a breath of amused air. I came to stop in front of the counter, the woman behind it watching us - no, me - closely.

  “Sergeant,” she said with a nod off her head in greeting. “What can I get you?”

  “Flat white and a ginger slice, please,” I said. Then held out my hand over the counter. “It’s Maggie. Maggie Blackmore.”

  “Tanya Ruka,” she said, shaking my hand briefly.

  “Are you having something?” I asked, turning to Luke.

  “Yes, Luke. What are you having this afternoon?” Tanya asked, her tone sharp and full of meaning.

  Meaning I didn’t get immediately.

  “You know how I like my coffee, Tanya,” he drawled, seeming amused at the woman, not put out as I would have been. Her tone had been cutting.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I know how you like a lot of things. And law and order used to not be one of them.”

  My eyes swept between the two like a spectator at a tennis match.

  “Sounds like you had a wayward youth, Mr Drake,” I remarked.

  “Sweetie,” Tanya said. “It was outrageous. And hardly when he was a youth.”

  More rumours. Charming.

  “Tans,” Luke warned. “What happens in the shearing shed stays in the shearing shed, yeah?”

  Tanya - Tans - flicked her eyes to me. “Seems like you’ve branched out from shearing.” Her gaze travelled down my stab vest covered torso and landed on my hip holster. I smiled.

  It was utterly fake.

  She handed over the coffees and my ginger slice without a further word, then turned to the next customer, dismissing us. I shook my head to myself and went in search of a free table, finding one right beside that blasted newspaper article. Luke scowled at it as he sat opposite. Then scowled at a person sitting at a table next to us. Then turned his scowl on me.

  “You see,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. “That’s exactly why I don’t like nicknames.”

  His lips twitched.

  “Why’s that?” he asked, stirring sugar into his long black.

  “They’re proprietary.”

  “Proprietary?”

  “Once given, you can never get them back.”

  “And you think Tanya wants hers back?”

  I shook my head, placing my cup down on the table before me. “No. I think she believes because you own it, that she’s still in some way yours.”

  “She isn’t,” he argued.

  I smiled. This time, it was full of meaning.

  Chapter 32

  It All Matters In The End

  Luke

  “Does it bother you?” I asked. A base part of me wanted Maggie to be jealous.

  “Not at all.” But Maggie was not the jealous type, I was picking.

  I glanced across the café towards the front counter. Hard brown eyes stared back. Tanya, though, definitely was.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “No nicknames. Got it.”

  “Just so we understand each other, of course,” Maggie said, but there was laughter in her beautiful eyes.

  “You should know, though,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. “Even if I don’t call you by a nickname, you are definitely mine. I’m not giving you back. Just so we understand each other, of course.”

  She rolled her eyes. I let out a laugh. Half a dozen people stared at me.

  Grumbling to myself, I added more sugar to my drink.

  “Is it always this busy in here?” Maggie asked. “Or is it the article?”

  “It’s Twizel. Any opportunity to gossip and they’re there.”

  “I bet Sheila spends a lot of time in here,” Maggie mused.

  “Ha! Sheila and Tanya do not get along.”

  “Didn’t like her for you?”

  I arched my brow. “Well, there was that. But no. Tanya likes to think she’s the first to know anything in this town. Sheila likes to prove her wrong on occasion.”

  “A gossip stand off. Hmm, I bet you could mould a game show around that concept.”

  “What? You don’t have busy-bodies in Auckland?”

  “We don’t even know our neighbours’ names.”

  “That’s sad.” My neighbours might piss me off on occasion, but I know that should the shit hit the fan, they’d be there for me. A phone call. A drive by and see something’s wrong, they’d step in. Every single time.

  “There’s something to be said about anonymity,” Maggie offered.

  “There’s something to be said about community, too,” I argued softly.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Maggie hedged. But I could tell she didn’t believe it yet.

  “Give it a couple of years and you’ll see the light.”

  Something swept over her face and then was gone. Something sorrowful. Dejected.

  “You think you’ll go back?” I asked.

  “I have to.”

  “Why?”

  Maggie picked up her teaspoon and started stirring her coffee. She didn’t add any sugar, so I took it for the gesture it was. A distraction.

  “Maggie?” I pressed, leaning closer over the table. My hand reached out, but she pulled hers away, glancing around the bustling café. I leaned back and stared out the window.

  Maggie would either come to me or she wouldn’t. But I hadn’t been lying earlier. I was not prepared to give her back. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Auckland could go stuff itself, as far as Maggie was concerned. Matt had wanted her here, had big plans for her in Mackenzie Country.

  I had even bigger ones.

  As if reading my mind, she said, “Tell me about your brother.”

  My gaze flicked back to her impassive face.

  “What do you want to know?” I trusted her. I trusted that she was on Matt’s side. God knows why, he’d not done a thing to convince her. But Maggie was a good cop, that much I could tell. Honest. Loyal. Dedicated. All the things that Matt had always been.

  If they did ever get to know each other, they’d have a lot in common. I could picture Maggie becoming a close friend to my brother. Someone to rely on. A partner to share the load. Running the Twizel Police Station had taken its toll on Matt. It sure as hell had taken its toll on Matt’s marriage.

  He needed someone like Maggie on staff.

  “What kind of guy is he?” she asked. “Was he?” she corrected. “Before Missy’s death.”

  I scratched the scruff on my chin. “You’d have to go back a little earlier than that to see the real Matt,” I offered.

  “How much earlier?”

  “‘Bout a year, I’d say. Maybe more. He hid things well. They both did.”

  “Missy, too?”

  “Yeah. Picture perfect couple.”

  “Perfection is only ever skin deep.”

  “I thought that was beauty.”

  She shrugged. “Same thing.”

  “Being a cop makes you cynical, huh?”

  “No, just makes you realistic.”

  I wanted to tell her there was beauty in the world. Lots of it, if you only knew where to look, how to see it. But I was picking Maggi
e had a whole hell of a lot of baggage. At a guess, I’d say because of what happened to her brother. But Maggie was more complex a character than that.

  And I never wanted to sell her short of anything.

  “Matt and Missy,” I said, getting back to the original topic, “were childhood sweethearts. Fell in love in high school, got married not long afterwards. The twins came along much later. IVF.”

  Maggie raised her eyebrows. “That’s tough.”

  “Yeah, right? Hardcore. But they got through it. Seemed stronger than ever. Then they had the girls and everything was…”

  “Perfect.”

  “Yeah,” I said, softly. “Perfect.” I was beginning to see Maggie’s point. There’s no such thing as perfection. True perfection, that is.

  “What made you first question their relationship?” Maggie asked.

  “Missy would go for long drives with the girls. Matt would call the homestead trying to find her. She wouldn’t answer her phone or would be out of coverage. One day, Charlie said he saw her at Pukaki. Said she was heading up Mount Cook to show the girls.”

  “Any reason why she’d go up there?”

  “Matt used to take her there all the time, before the twins. She loved to hike and Matt was really into it. They joined mountaineering groups as teenagers. Got involved in search and rescue.”

  “It held memories for her,” Maggie surmised. “Good ones.”

  “Yeah, but why go there without Matt?”

  “Was he doing long hours?”

  “No more than usual. You know how the job is.” She nodded.

  “Did Missy have a good friend in town? Someone she confided in? Would turn to?”

  I shook my head. “Missy was a quiet girl growing up. Wore glasses. Got teased a lot. Matt would come to her rescue. Defend her. Kids can be cruel, you know? Matt stood up for her. Their relationship just happened afterwards. I think he felt responsible for her, in the end. Like if he didn’t protect her, no one else would.”

  “You think that’s why he married her?”

  “Nah, by the time he married her, he was in love.”

  “In love with Missy? Or in love with the idea that Missy was his to protect?”