Still, exhaustion tugged at her. She didn’t have the strength to do this alone. Not anymore.
She looked at the letter resting on her table. The one she’d barely touched, except to open the envelope. She’d been trained in this. She knew not to handle the paper too much.
I found you, bitch.
Nothing subtle about that message or the angry, scribbling scrawl.
The knock at the door made her jump. Warm tea spilled over her hand. A second later that familiar racing sensation revved up inside her. The need to bolt, or at least hunt for a weapon and hunker down . . . and wait.
“Maddie?”
Ben’s voice reached her through the door.
This was Ben. Safe, dependable Ben. With that cute face, he turned heads all over the island. Attractive on any scale. Tall, dark, and handsome, but to her, brotherly with a background in ass-kicking, which was exactly how she preferred the men she knew. At a distance and lethal, protective without smothering.
The one time he’d asked her out, she’d panicked. She wanted him near her as her last line of defense. Ever since her life had blown up, the idea of dating, of trusting another person on any sort of intimate level, left her cold and shaking. She stayed away and totally out of the dating pool because it was easier, safer.
She mentally insisted keeping her life and her world separate from other people saved them from harm. Some days she wondered if her reclusive existence really only made it easier for her. No attachments meant no possibility someone could hurt or disappoint her.
At the second knock, she got up and headed for the door. She opened each lock, all four. A rush of relief hit her when she saw him standing there, tall and sure. “Hi.”
His eyes narrowed. “You okay?”
That would teach her to think her fake smile worked. “It’s been a long morning.”
“Same here.” He glanced into the empty room behind her. “What’s going on?”
She’d called him and asked for his help, something she never did. She knew she could, but she hadn’t, until now. She tried not to drag anyone into her messed-up life. “I have a problem.”
“Okay.” He glanced behind her again. “Which is . . . ?”
Right. Invite him in, like a non-messed-up person might do.
It took a lot for her to abandon her safety precautions, but it was either call him to come to her or go to his office, and the latter felt like a big step compared to her usual loner life.
“Sorry.” She gestured for him to come inside.
“Maddie, we’ve known each other for almost two years.”
She had no idea where he was going with this, so she cut him off. “We’ve barely seen each other.”
“You’re the town’s answering service. You handle all the calls for my office.”
Is he always this chatty? “I do that from here. Alone. Without anyone around.”
He made a face that suggested he was weighing his words and trying to find the right ones. “That’s my point. Not once—ever—have you asked for anything. The fact you did today is a clue something is very wrong. Just tell me what it is so I can help.”
She appreciated the straightforward attitude. He was known for it and it relaxed her now. Maybe that would make the next ten minutes easier, though she doubted it.
She walked over to the table and pointed at the handwritten note. “This.”
He frowned as he followed her. Lines appeared across his forehead and the scowl deepened as he studied the piece of paper. “What the hell is this?”
“It was on my porch. Slipped under the mat.” Peeking out as if to taunt her. Just like the last two. “I’ve been getting notes, on and off, for a few months.”
His eyes widened. “And you waited until now to tell me?”
“It’s complicated.” She couldn’t exactly start a conversation with, Maddie isn’t my real name and my whole life is a lie, even if that would be the one true thing she ever said while on Whitaker.
“Maddie.” His tone sounded half exasperated and half stunned.
“There are things you don’t know about me.” Things no one could know. Her past loomed right behind her. Things had changed and she should be safer now to venture out and meet people, but the notes suggested otherwise.
“Your former handler called me.”
Handler.
“I . . . you can’t . . .” That’s all she had. A sputtering mess of words that made no sense as a sentence.
He reached out but didn’t touch her. “Easy.”
Memories of her former life smashed into her, stealing her breath. She stepped back, ramming her calf into her favorite chair. “What are you talking about?”
“Evan Williams.” Ben nodded.
Anxiety jumbled and churned in her stomach. “I don’t know who that is.”
He stared at her for a few extra beats without saying a word. “Wildflower at night.”
He knew the name. The right name. And the code.
“How?” She forced that question out as a whisper.
While she fumbled and shifted her weight and generally wanted to crawl under the house and hide, Ben stayed calm. He didn’t fluster or panic. The evenness of his voice wrapped around her. “When everything unfolded a few months ago, and the killing, and you were, well, secretive. I thought . . . you know, maybe . . .”
The wince gave him away.
“Did you think I did it? You thought I killed some random guy who showed up on the island?” Good lord. Talk about a communication misfire.
He backed up that wince with a guilty shrug. “You disappeared for a few—”
“I was hiding!” And she was yelling now. It wasn’t fair to Ben but the idea that he thought she could kill someone almost doubled her over.
“On the island?” Shock sounded in his voice. “Where?”
Was that really the point? “I’m not telling you that. A hiding place ceases to be a good hiding place when you announce where it is.”
“Okay, look.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I don’t know details of what happened in your past. I got the call from Evan, pitched as an informal talk between law enforcement professionals, that digging into your identity was . . . I believe the phrase this Evan guy used was frowned upon.”
“Sounds like him.” She could almost hear Evan’s deep voice, all commanding and half threatening. Technically he no longer protected her or worked on her behalf, but he called and checked in often. Offered his support and insisted she get back in the program, just in case. They’d known each other ever since her life changed, and had become friends of a sort. Or the only sort she had.
“Where are the other notes you received?” Ben asked.
“I sent them to Evan.”
“I can call him but I think we both know you took photos.”
She rushed forward, stopping right as her hand brushed his sleeve. Then she dropped it. “I don’t want to do this.”
Ben being Ben, he stayed focused. He didn’t reach out for her. He wasn’t the type to crowd or plow through boundaries. “What?”
“Live in hiding anymore.”
His forehead wrinkled in what looked like confusion. “Okay. But I was talking about Evan and the photos.”
“It’s all mixed together.”
Ben visibly took a long breath. “Slow down and tell me how.”
“Do you know who Evan is?” She didn’t see Ben as part of some big conspiracy against her, but her past life had been complicated and dangerous and she didn’t recognize either of those things until she walked into a disaster.
“I know he’s with the Marshals Service and I know what the people there do. I don’t think you’re a fugitive on the run or I’d have agents all over the island.” He hesitated. “So I’m guessing you need protection of some sort . . . or did. It would explain the hiding and minimal contact with people on Whitaker, except for your voice through a telephone.”
He understood enough to get what she was about to say. It was mo
re of an explanation than she’d given anyone in years. “I can’t go back into hiding again. Not back to the kind where my life isn’t my own and I don’t decide anything.”
“I can appreciate wanting . . . I don’t know the right word. Freedom? But this is a serious situation.”
“Which is why I called you. You’re the police. This is your job.”
“I’m not even sure what I’m dealing with other than this one threat. Seeing the other notes won’t answer that fully, but they might help.” He glanced at the paper again. “So would a little bit of background on why you needed Evan in the first place.”
That was asking too much. She didn’t have the energy or will for a full show-and-tell. “Please don’t make me regret calling you.”
“Just the notes then.”
It was a fair request but still she mentally debated it. After a few seconds when she was sure her fingers would refuse to move, she pressed a few buttons and sent the copies to Ben’s phone. “There you go.”
“Thanks.” He let out another breath, this one louder and longer. “I hadn’t planned on sharing this, and I don’t know if it’s related, but we had an attack on the island last night.”
She froze. Everything inside her stopped. She even held her breath. “What?”
“Hansen Rye’s brother is in town and staying at the cabin. He was—”
“Wait, who?”
“Connor.”
“That’s not right.”
Ben’s gaze narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“But . . .” Her breath whooshed out of her. “The cabin is empty.”
“Was.”
“Was?”
“As in not now. I get the impression him coming to Whitaker was a last-minute decision, but he’s here.”
Her mind spun. The facts she knew . . . thought she knew. Empty, as in no one there. Locked and off-limits to anyone. She had asked around. She made it her business to know who came on and off the island and why. How had she missed him?
She swallowed hard but it didn’t help. Her voice still sounded rusty. “You said something about a brother?”
Ben shook his head a bit and continued to stare at her. “Yes. His name is Connor.”
That would mean that she . . . She closed her eyes and reached for her last bit of control. Breaking down in front of Ben was not in her plans today.
“Is he okay?” She gulped in air now. She could feel it stuttering and rattling around in her chest. She was two seconds away from wheezing.
“Maddie, is there something I need to know here?”
She doubled over with her hands on her thighs and wondered if that blow-in-a-paper-bag thing she’d seen on television worked. “That Whitaker is about as safe as a medium-sized city right now,” she said, trying to make a joke.
He helped her into the kitchen chair without commenting on her current condition. “We’re not quite at that danger level yet.”
“If you say so.” She threw her head back and stared at her ceiling. After a slow ten-count, some of the nervous energy pinging around inside her vanished.
“Trust me.”
“His brother.” The words came out in a harsh whisper.
“Do you know what happened at the Rye brothers’ cabin?” he asked, sounding half like he’d formed an answer but wanted to test her anyway. “Were you there?”
Silence screamed through her. “Hmm?”
He shook his head. “I think you heard me.”
“Do you need to get back . . .” He never stopped shaking his head, so she figured she could not fake her way out of this. She pulled her scrambled thoughts together to form a sentence.
“Maddie.”
“What? You just told me about the cabin. I’m surprised. That’s all.” Not the best avoidance tactic, but it was all she had at the moment.
When she looked at Ben again, she found him staring at her with a look somewhere between concern and complete confusion. Of course he was. He had eyes. He had to recognize stress-lying when it played out right in front of him.
“I’m thinking someone sneaked into the cabin, heard Connor there, and panicked.”
She hated how close he was. “I’m sure it was a fluke thing.”
“Uh-huh.” He finally broke eye contact and glanced at the letter. “I’m going to bag this note up and get it analyzed.”
That’s not what she expected him to say, but she was grateful for the reprieve from questions. This part she knew by heart, unfortunately. “There won’t be any fingerprints. There weren’t on the others. No prints. Paper you can buy anywhere.”
“With that kind of thorough assessment you could probably do my job.”
Dealing with criminals all day sounded like the ultimate nightmare to her. “No thanks.”
He leaned against the table, facing her. “Now that you’re breathing better there are a few things we need to do.”
“Like?”
“You should come into the office to work until we can get a handle on who is sending you these notes.” When she started to protest, he kept talking. “The more you’re around people, the harder it will be for anyone to get to you. Being out here, by yourself in this house all the time? Not good.”
“It’s my home.” She rented it, but then, everyone on Whitaker rented. It was a private island owned by a mysterious person who didn’t pipe up and identify themselves. But she loved the cottage. It was out of a fairy tale with the flower trellis around the door and a garden out back, just off the patio. She’d loved it from the second she saw it.
“You need security,” he said.
“I have a gun.” One that she might start carrying on her at all times.
He rolled his eyes. “So do I.”
That news caught her off guard. “I thought the town board didn’t let you carry one.”
He crossed one ankle over the other. “Protocol changed. Do you know how to shoot?”
“I learned that when I learned about how to handle a threatening letter. It was all part of the protection training. I had a handbook and everything.”
“Really?”
“Evan insisted.” She’d logged in hours at the shooting range and in self-defense classes. She had no idea if either would help if danger really knocked on her door, but she could at least sleep an hour or two at a time now without waking up in a panicked sweat.
“Right.” He stood up again. “Come to the office with me and we’ll work out a plan.”
She shouldn’t ask because it was weird for her to show too much interest, but she needed to know. “I don’t think you answered me. Is Hansen’s brother okay?”
“Connor is fine.” Ben was too busy bagging up the note to look at her.
“Good.”
He looked at her with an expression that dared her to lie to him. “But you’ll need to apologize and explain.”
Her muscles stopped working. “What are you talking about?”
He glanced at her. “Really?”
She tried to deflect because how could he know? “About an accident or whatever? Probably kids. Or someone got confused. I’ve just been here . . . you know. Answering phones.”
“That’s a lot of rambling.”
“You’re intimidating.” Sort of. He might be fair and listen and not be a jerk, but he still had a job to do and she may have tiptoed a wee bit over the line of what was appropriate when it came to welcoming the island’s newest visitor.
He’d surprised her and she panicked. Ben got that part right. After fifteen minutes of debating how to get down from the cabin’s loft and get by the guy, she’d been wound up and the breaker switch was right there, so . . .
“This isn’t my first day on the job, Maddie.”
Her mind raced with justifications and excuses. She blocked them all out and went with denial. “So?”
“I know guilt when I see it. You saw a guy and panicked, or you were in that cabin for a reason. Either way, Connor got hit.” He nodded in the general direction of her front door. “Grab
your coat and let’s get this over with.”
She refused to believe he was some sort of human lie detector. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You’re really going to play it this way?”
Until the very end . . . or until she came up with a logical reason for what happened last night. “I think so. Yes.”
“This is going to be interesting.”
Chapter 4
A half hour later they pulled up to Whitaker’s version of a police station. It was a small office attached to the far end of the building that housed the library. Maddie knew from her few previous trips in to pick up extra work assignments that it consisted of a small reception area, Ben’s office, a conference room, and a jail. The old furniture and peeling green paint on the walls only added to the Whitaker-doesn’t-have-much-crime ambiance.
Ben walked through the empty reception area, past the table piled with years-old magazines, and headed straight for his office. She joined him because she didn’t think she had any other choice. With each step she followed Ben’s lead and stripped off her winter coat. By the time they slipped into his office he had his off and was reaching for hers to hang them both on the coatrack in the corner.
Her hands froze in midair with the coat dangling off her fingers when she realized they weren’t alone. He was in the chair in the corner. Him. The guy with the bandage on his head. The same one who was about to cause her a lot of trouble because she’d panicked. An uncharacteristic move that she would now pay for, and she deserved it, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try to run from this like she did everything else in her messed-up life.
As they entered the room, he got up. She’d snuck a peek at him from her hiding position in the loft last night. Now the full impact hit her. Tall and lean with short black hair that fell in loose strands on his forehead, begging for someone—not her, of course—to brush it back.
He, who looked too good for her comfort.
He wore one of those thin, down coats that hugged his shoulders and highlighted his trim waist. The jeans dipped low on his hips, showing off a sexy torso . . . no, not sexy. Long. Lots of people were built like that, all perfect and angled with muscles popping out here and there. No big deal.
The Secret She Keeps EPB Page 2