“I wanted to go home and get the information I pulled off the drive.”
This woman. She was exasperating.
“Now?”
“Yes, now! Mike, this is important to me.”
Pushing my hand through my hair, I sighed. “Will you at least let me get dressed and I’ll walk over there with you?”
“It will only take me a few minutes. I’m bringing Mags so she can go potty. Why don’t you start some coffee?”
“Breakfast? I make a killer French toast.”
She ran her tongue over her lips. “That sounds yummy! We’ll be back in a few.”
After getting dressed in jeans and the black T-shirt I now knew drove Sydney mad, I started the coffee machine and went about making French toast. I wondered what time Sydney had to be in the clinic. I knew she was going to visit Gladys at some point during the day.
With the French toast going, I walked into the living room to get my laptop and my cell phone rang. Seeing the station’s number, I quickly answered it. I wasn’t due into the station for another two hours, but anything could have come up.
“This is Mike.”
The front door opened and Sydney walked in carrying a bag. Maggie Maye flew past me into the kitchen where the food was cooking. She still had her leash on. Sydney laughed and set her bag on the floor before following the dog to take off her leash.
“Mike, it’s Roger.”
“Good morning, Roger. What’s going on? Anything new?”
“I need to know where you were last night. And if you know where Sydney Burch was.”
Frowning, I looked at Sydney. “We were both here, at my house. Why?”
“You were together? Are you able to confirm that?”
“Yes. What is this about, Roger?”
He blew out a long, deep breath. “Someone got into the evidence room last night and stole the flash drive, coin, and letter. Whoever did it had to have help from someone on the inside.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No. You understand I needed to check where you and Sydney were.”
“Yes, but you also realize that if she had wanted it, she would have kept it.”
Now Sydney was at my side, her brows pulled in tight.
“There are only a handful of people who know about the flash drive.”
“Yes,” I replied, “but plenty more knew about the other evidence. They could have been trying for the coin, thinking it was expensive or rare, and didn’t even realize the drive was in there when they took the other evidence.”
Sydney placed her hand on my arm. I looked at her and she mouthed, “What happened?”
I held up my index finger.
“Does Doug know?”
“Doug was the one who discovered them missing.”
“What about the cameras in the station? Surely they picked up something.”
“Someone hacked the system. The cameras were down for about thirty minutes. Along with some of the cameras outside the station. And all the traffic cameras in a five-mile radius of the station were hacked into and turned off.”
Holy. Shit.
Roger paused for a few moments, and then I heard a door shut. “Mike, who in the hell has that sort of power to bribe someone in the department and then can hack into multiple security systems and turn them off?”
“Shit. Give me an hour or so, and then I’ll head in.”
“I’ll see what I can do on this end until you get here.”
“Right. See you in a few.”
Roger might have been a bit hotheaded at times, but he also recognized that I likely had more experience in this situation. It wasn’t like Salem was a super-small town and didn’t have any crime. It did. But breaking into the police department evidence room, stealing evidence, and disabling cameras so as not to be detected… that was not something you would expect in Salem.
“Mike, what happened?”
“Someone got into the evidence room and stole the coin, letter, and flash drive.”
She gasped. “What? Why would anyone take them?”
I headed back into the kitchen to take the French toast off the stove. There had to be a mole in the police department. But who? “I’m not sure. How did this person manage to get into different security systems and disable them all while they pulled this off? And was anyone helping them from inside the department?”
“Do you think someone in the department let someone into the evidence room?”
Shrugging, I replied, “I really don’t know.”
Sydney took her laptop and a file folder out of her bag and set them on the table before she quickly fed Maggie Maye.
“Let’s look and see what was on the drive. I printed it out but deleted the file from my computer. That might give us some answers.”
“Sydney, maybe I shouldn’t know what was on the drive.”
Her eyes locked with mine. “You don’t want to know?”
“I don’t know.”
Her brow rose. “How about if I read it first, and if I think it is something you won’t feel obligated to turn over, then you can read it. Or I’ll just tell you what’s on it so you aren’t technically seeing the files. It’ll be what I think is on the drive. For all you know, I’m reading random things I found online and printed out.”
“Okay. That sounds fair enough.”
She giggled and opened the file on the table.
I set her French toast down in front of her along with butter and syrup. I headed back over to the stove but turned around to watch her pour the syrup as she read whatever was on the paper.
“Syd, you’re going to drown my French toast. I put a lot of love into that.”
“Oh! Right. Oops. Looks like the French toast got lucky. I mean, I’d love to be slathered like that.” Her mouth dropped open. “I mean, you know, it’s like peanut butter and jelly—they just go. The jelly wants some of that peanut butter because it loves the thick, creamy, nutty goodness.” Then her eyes widened in horror before she shoved a huge bite of French toast in her mouth, cutting off further communication.
“The thick, creamy, nutty goodness?” I asked while trying not to laugh. She shoved more French toast into her mouth. I watched as she ate and read. She was the most adorable thing I had ever laid eyes on.
Maggie Maye was under the table, lying at Sydney’s feet. My dog was quickly falling in love with Syd, and something told me I wasn’t far behind.
“These are handwritten notes from Vickie that she scanned into the computer and saved on that drive. It’s like a… journal of sorts. Oh. My. Goodness!”
“What!”
She slowly shook her head. “You know that blog you found?” she asked, glancing up at me.
“Yeah?”
“That was Vickie’s blog!”
“Vickie’s?”
“Yes. Mike, the witch trials. They were a cover up.”
“I’ve already read that. A lot of people think they were used to cover up something else.”
“Yes, but Vickie found out what they were covering up.”
I quickly tossed my French toast onto a plate and rushed over to Sydney. God, I loved a good mystery.
“Okay, I think it’s safe for me to know about this.”
She smiled. “Okay, hypothetically speaking… Vickie says she received an old journal that another Truth-seeker gave her after seeing her blog. She got in her car one day, and the journal was sitting on the front seat with a note that said ‘What you thought you knew is only what they wanted you to know.’ ”
“What did she think she knew?”
She held up a finger. “Hold on. I’m getting there. From Vickie’s notes, it sounds like one of the magistrates was having inappropriate relationships with some of the young girls in Salem. One of the girls threatened to tell everyone about it. This magistrate, along with a few of the other men, came up with the idea to use the recent hysteria over witchcraft to accuse the girls of practicing it. The girls met and told their stories of
this man’s indecency, and the men used that meeting against the girls. They threatened to kill the girls’ families.”
She looked up from the laptop, and we stared at each other for a few moments. “It also says they also accused women who had no knowledge of the magistrate’s actions. They killed innocent girls to cover up one man’s disgusting atrocities.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “How did Vickie get involved with all of this?”
Sydney shrugged. “She was going to school for journalism—maybe that had something to do with it. She could have been researching a story and stumbled upon it.”
“Or she was a Truth-seeker,” I said.
“That as well.”
Sydney kept reading. “There isn’t much else except some notes I can’t make heads or tails out of. It looks like this was something she’d just started to discover. Wait. There’s an address that she has circled with a date next to it.”
I grabbed my laptop. “What is the address? I’ll look it up.”
“It’s 72 Commercial Street.”
“That’s it? No city or state?”
She shook her head.
“The first thing that comes up is a house in Provincetown, Massachusetts.”
I looked up, and Sydney’s face was white as a ghost.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“There’s a note to the side that said she’d planned to go to the house two days after she died. She was on to something, Mike. I have to go.”
I pushed my breakfast aside. I was already pulled into this thing, and there was no fucking way I was letting Sydney dig around without me there.
“We can go this weekend.”
Her eyes lit up. “We?”
I reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Yes, both of us. Let me cook you dinner tomorrow night, and then we’ll get up early Saturday and drive down to Provincetown.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I’m sleeping over again?”
This time, I gave her a wicked grin. “I don’t plan on getting much sleep, Syd.”
She swallowed hard and whispered, “I have a feeling the jelly is going to be really excited to meet the peanut butter.”
I chuckled and said, “The thick, creamy, nutty peanut butter.”
Her cheeks flushed. Before I could say anything else, my phone rang. “This is Mike.”
“Mike, it’s Roger. I thought you might want to let Sydney know they released the preliminary autopsy report. The death is being ruled an accident due to the blunt force trauma to her head and cervical spine. The coroner believes Vickie must have slipped and fallen due to the slippery ground. She most likely died instantly.”
Closing my eyes, I said a quick prayer for Doug.
“Thanks, Roger. I’ll be in soon.”
Sydney stared up at me. Her breathing had increased a bit and she seemed paler than before. I was positive she’d picked up on my reaction to the news.
“That was Roger. The preliminary autopsy is back.”
She stood. “And?”
“They’re going to rule it an accident. She must have slipped on the ground, and when she fell, she… she broke her neck.”
Sydney covered her mouth in an attempt not to cry.
I drew her into my arms. She buried her face in my shirt and cried. We stood there for a while until she finally got it all out. As she was wiping away the last stray tears, she froze for a moment, her head tipped to one side in confusion. “But then how did the fireplace get shut?”
That was something we’d wondered as well during the investigation of the crime scene. “It’s easy to close, and there’s a lever on the inside to open it. From everything we can tell, Vickie opened it, closed it, then fell once she got to the room.”
Stepping back, she ran her hand over her face. “I need to go see Gladys. She has to be hurting.”
“I know. Do you need any help? I can drive you there?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t have any patients until midmorning, I’ll be fine.”
“If you want to stay here and get ready, the house is all yours.”
A small smile appeared on her beautiful face. “Thank you. Do you need me to swing by and get Mags on my way to the vet clinic?”
Brushing the wetness from her cheeks, I leaned down and kissed her. “I’m sure she would love to hang out with you. I’ll come by after my shift and pick her up.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m so sorry, Syd. I wish I could make it all better for you.”
She wrapped her arms around me once more. “You do make it better, Mike. Simply by holding me.”
“That is something I have no problem doing,” I whispered as I kissed the top of her head.
No problem at all.
Sydney
Beatrice opened the front door, her cheeks wet from crying. “Oh, dear, Gladys is going to be so glad you came. Come here.”
I hugged Beatrice. Vickie’s disappearance had crushed the community, and for weeks, people had followed false leads. Every time they’d found nothing, I’d seen the devastation chip away at Gladys and Doug. It was heart wrenching. But none of us had ever lost hope that someday, Vickie would be found and returned to us.
“I can’t believe she was at my place all those years. I had no idea that passageway was there. If I’d known…”
I patted her back. “I know, Beatrice. I know. This isn’t your fault.”
She sniffled. “And someone took the evidence. Why would they take the evidence?”
“They took evidence?”
Beatrice dabbed her eyes. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but I heard Doug get the call an hour ago.”
I had been with Mike when he got the call. It left me feeling unsettled and on edge. “That’s terrible. We need to focus on being here for each other. It’s what Vickie would have wanted.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right, dear. Come in. How are you doing?”
“I’m hanging in there as best I can.” The image of Vickie’s body laid out on the ground still haunted me.
Beatrice grabbed my hand and led me inside. After Vickie had disappeared, it had been hard coming to her home, but I’d forced myself. Her bedroom was exactly as she had left it—neat and pristine. It broke my heart knowing Gladys had kept it that way so when Vickie found her way home, she’d have all her familiar things around her.
We turned the corner, and my heart hurt at the sadness in the room. It made the situation feel so real. Doug’s arm was wrapped around Gladys as he whispered something in her ear. He must have left the precinct after getting the official report. Since the investigation involved the police chief’s daughter, they had escalated it to the top. At least Vickie hadn’t been tortured. At least she hadn’t suffered. If she’d been tortured and then killed, it would have shattered us.
Gladys noticed me and said, “Oh, my sweet Sydney. Thank you for coming. Come here.”
“I brought you a little comfort food. I know it might not be the best time, but I made some fudge this morning.”
It seemed a little stupid to bring fudge, but I’d had nervous energy to expel before I stopped by. Gladys took the tin and touched my cheek. “Vickie was so lucky to have you as a friend.”
“No, I was the lucky one.”
At least her death had been painless. That was what I had to tell myself to keep from letting the sorrow overtake me.
“Hey, Doug.”
“Come here, punkin pie.”
With the recent loss of my grandfather, the use of my nickname still made me ache. When I’d arrived at his house and seen his cruiser in the driveway, I’d thought about leaving. I wasn’t sure how mad he might still be at me for the jump drive, but it seemed like it was water under the bridge.
Doug released me and shook his head, fighting the emotion. “At least we know, right?”
“Yes, at least we know. Vickie would want everyone to have peace.”
The doorbell rang. Beatrice leaned on her cane as she stood, but I put
my hand on her shoulder. “I’ll get it.”
“Will you stay for lunch? We want to share our thoughts about the funeral,” Gladys asked.
“Yes, as soon as I see who’s at the door, I’ll help get things set up.”
When I opened the door, Wesley was wearing a solemn look. “I heard.”
I stepped outside and shook my head. “Oh, Wesley, I hate this for them. For us.”
Wesley brought me close and kissed the top of my head. “I know. I still can’t believe it. What was she doing down there?”
For a second, I wanted to tell Wesley what I had found, but I kept quiet. Telling him only involved him and complicated matters with Mike. If Wesley knew that Mike knew and the truth about me taking the jump drive and copying it ever came out, it would cost Mike his job. That wasn’t something I was willing to gamble.
“I don’t know. If the police still had the jump drive, it might have the answers. But someone broke in and stole it.” I wiped a few tears away and took a step back. “Thanks for coming to my rescue last night. I was so stupid.”
Wesley cocked his head. “The jump drive was stolen? When? How?”
“I don’t know the specifics. I didn’t think it was the right time to ask Doug with Gladys there. They also took my letter and coin. Beatrice just told me.”
Well, Mike had told me as well, but I wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have said anything. Some lines had been blurred by our intense connection.
“Fuck.” Wesley ran his hand through his hair. “It would have been better if you made a copy.” Wesley looked at me, obviously hoping I had.
“I didn’t.” The lie rolled off my tongue easier than it should have. Before I disclosed it to Wesley, Mike needed to agree. And that required Mike putting a lot of trust into someone he didn’t like. I assumed my history with Wesley had little bearing on Mike’s opinion of him.
Time for a subject change. “Umm… was Leslie mad about the interruption last night?”
“No, not at all. She understands we’re close. She’s headed out of town for business. We got to spend some time together last night. All’s good.”
“Good. We’re about to discuss the services for Vickie. I know Gladys and Doug would want you to be a part of it. Come in and say hello.”
Dangerous Temptations Page 13