by V. K. Sykes
He seemed almost as nervous as she felt. “Just how bad are things anyway?” he asked after a few moments of awkward silence. “There are rumors that the store might have a hard time surviving, Night Owl or no Night Owl.”
Crap. The last thing they needed was that sort of damaging gossip.
“You know what, I think I could use some coffee too.”
That was a lie, but she needed a moment to get herself settled, so she turned her back on him and reached for a paper cup. When she’d filled it and turned around again, Micah hadn’t moved a muscle. He was just a brawny force of nature planted in front of her, his big hands resting on the counter as he patiently waited for her to answer.
When she didn’t immediately reply, he blew out an exasperated breath. “That bad, huh?” he said. “It’s written all over your face, babe.”
She didn’t know which was worse—the way his casually uttered babe sent chills rocketing down her spine or the fact that he could so easily read her. Then again, Micah had always been skilled at reading people, which she supposed was one of the reasons he was such a good cop.
No point in pretending with Deputy Hottie. “Quite bad. I did a little snooping through the files yesterday.” She gave a nervous little laugh. “I know that’s not very nice, but I needed the truth. My aunts just won’t level with me when it comes to the store. It’s like they’d rather quietly die than let people know they’re in trouble.”
His dark gaze warmed with understanding. “They’re proud people. Most islanders are like that.”
Yeah, but they were a little too proud sometimes. And that applied to her too. Maybe it was time she started asking for help, or at least a sympathetic ear. For some reason, she wanted that to be Micah.
“No kidding, and unless I can talk them into finally making some changes, I’m not sure the place will make it. They’ve been losing money for over a year, Micah. Florence and Beatrice still have some savings they built up in decent years, but when that kitty runs dry, all they’ll have left is social security to live on for the rest of their lives.”
If her new firm succeeded, Holly would gladly support them. But she knew they would hate that idea. They’d been so independent and so hardworking their entire lives. The situation was just massively unfair.
Micah grimaced again. “That would totally suck, but at least they’ll have their house. You can still live pretty cheaply on the island if you don’t have to carry a mortgage.”
“If I know Florence, she’ll try to mortgage the house rather than give up the store.” She sighed. “I’m not sure her bank would go for it though, which might be a good thing.”
He reached across and gave her shoulder a quick, gentle squeeze. “You’ll think of something. And don’t be afraid to ask for help, okay? Almost everyone in Seashell Bay would go to the mat for you and your aunts, me included.”
Her throat went oddly tight, so she just nodded.
“Well, as much as I’d rather spend the whole morning talking to you,” Micah said, popping the lid on his coffee, “I’d better go earn my salary. That break-in’s not going to solve itself.”
Disappointment flared surprisingly strong. It was silly to want him to stay, but his words had triggered a flood of awful memories that made her pulse start to race. She’d always felt completely safe in Seashell Bay, never having to even think about personal safety or loss.
“I feel terrible for the woman, Micah. She must feel so…”
Violated. Holly practically gagged on the word.
Micah loomed closer, his gaze narrowing with concern. “Holly, are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, flapping a hand. “It’s just that it’s such an awful thing to happen, especially to a newcomer.”
“You got that right,” Micah said. “Fitz was a little freaked out at first but seems fine now. She strikes me as a pretty tough customer.”
Unlike me, Holly thought grimly. “The fact that someone seems fine doesn’t mean they are. I’ll bet she’s hurting and at least a little scared.”
He grimaced. “I know. I’m not always the best at picking up female signals.”
Well, he was pretty adept at picking up her signals.
“That’s a common male affliction, for which there is no cure,” she joked, trying to lighten things up. “I hope Fitz has a friend she can talk to.”
“She and Jessie are buds.” He dropped his gaze for a moment, apparently thinking. “You know, Fitz always comes down to the Lobster Pot on Darts Night. Maybe you could check in on her. I’m sure she’d appreciate making a new friend.” When he looked up, her stomach dipped with a funny little swoop at the sudden heat in his eyes. “You’ll be coming, right?”
Holly nodded. “Morgan made it clear that she’ll be dragging me to the Pot tonight come hell or high water.”
“Good. Then I’ll see you there.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Which was certainly the truth, Lord help her.
A moment later, his expression morphed back into that of a serious law enforcement guy. “Holly, I’m going to say this to you and everybody else on this island. You have to lock your doors whenever you leave home, okay? And keep them locked even when you’re in the house. Let’s try to make it at least a bit of a challenge for whoever this asshole is.”
“I promise.” Holly never left her doors unlocked, not anymore. Not after what had happened in Boston.
The drive to Barrington Point took Micah eleven minutes, at least three longer than usual since he had the bad luck to be blocked by a truck carrying Rex Fudge’s old lobster boat. But instead of putting two wheels in the shallow ditch and roaring around the blockage, Micah forced himself to relax and use the extra time to think about Crystal Murphy’s kid, Justin Gore.
Justin had graduated from high school last year after a tough slog. For most of his nineteen years, his mom had raised him by herself. His father, a drunk who had worked off and on at the wharf, had taken off to the mainland around the time Justin turned ten. Things hadn’t gotten any better for the kid since. He was widely perceived on the island as lazy and careless and, so far, incapable of growing up.
Crystal’s beaten-up trailer nestled in a pretty stand of beech and maple trees on a lane just off Island Road. Most islanders who lived in modest homes, even those that could rightfully be called shacks, tried hard to keep them clean and tidy. Not Crystal and Justin. Maybe Crystal was just too worn out by life to make the effort, and Justin apparently didn’t give a damn.
The rickety wooden step at the door had sunk well down into the soft earth at an angle. When Micah stepped gingerly onto it, it rocked enough to almost make him lose his balance. He knocked twice on the screen door.
Justin appeared, rubbing a hand across his eyes. He was dressed in a faded black T-shirt and patterned black-and-white boxers. The young man was about average height but weighed no more than a hundred thirty pounds soaking wet.
“What?” he grumbled.
“Hi, Justin. Is your mom home by any chance?”
The young man shook his head, his black, curly hair drooping down onto his forehead. “Nah, she’s got the day shift this week.”
“Well, it’s you I wanted to talk to anyway.”
“Talk to me about what?” Justin asked warily.
“Mind if I come in first?”
“Mom doesn’t like people coming inside.”
Because it’s a dump or because you’ve got a stash and she’s protecting you?
Her son was the only family Crystal had, so Micah wouldn’t blame her for trying to protect him. “Okay, we’ll sit down at the picnic table then.”
Justin stared daggers at Micah for about ten seconds. Then he shuffled sideways and slipped his feet into a pair of flip-flops before opening the door and stepping out. “I don’t have any weed, if that’s what this is about.”
In the past couple of years, Micah had caught Justin smoking pot three times and each time had let him go with a warning. The last one h
ad included the proviso that, if he caught him a fourth time, a charge would result.
Micah made a point of not going nuts if the local kids toked up from time to time as long as they didn’t do it openly, and as long as nothing harder was involved. He figured a little marijuana was part of growing up. But he wouldn’t put up with flagrant use. When he caught Justin and one of his pals brazenly lighting up down at the dock as they waited for Crystal’s ferry to arrive—and there were about forty people on hand to smell the pungent odor—it had ended his patience.
He took off his sunglasses and sat down with his back to the sun.
“Okay, what?” Justin slipped onto the bench opposite Micah.
“Start by telling me everything you did yesterday from eight in the morning until five thirty. I’ve got plenty of time, so don’t leave anything out.”
Justin squinted hard, angling a hand against his forehead to shade his eyes. “I was right here all day, just like I am every day. Listening to music. Surfing the Net. Same old boring shit.”
“I’m guessing your mom was at work since you said she’s on the day shift at the restaurant.”
Justin nodded.
“That means nobody can vouch for your claim that you were here all day, right?”
“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t,” the kid said petulantly. “Where do you think I was?”
“Your mom still on those antidepressants?” Micah said, changing tack. “And she was on tranquilizers for a while too, as I recall.” Crystal had never hidden her problems, especially not when she’d had a few beers down at the Lobster Pot. Seashell Bay folks sympathized with her because she worked hard and tried to be a good mom.
Justin shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her about that.”
“Any drugs in the trailer? Prescription or otherwise?”
“Not as far as I know.”
Micah stared into the kid’s light brown eyes, trying to make contact even though Justin was continually shifting his gaze. “Okay, then I don’t suppose you’d mind me having a quick look around in there?”
“Mom wouldn’t like that. She never lets people inside.” Justin’s eyes dropped, probably in embarrassment. “It’s kind of a mess.”
“I get it, Justin,” he said gently. “But you’re not a minor anymore. It’s okay for you to give me permission. If you really don’t have anything to hide, this whole thing could end right here. And believe me, I’m not going to judge you or your mom because of a messy house.”
Justin thought for couple of moments and then made a gesture of resignation. “Okay, but please leave Mom’s stuff alone or she’ll kill me.”
Micah breathed a mental sigh of relief. Justin wouldn’t have agreed to a search if there was anything problematic in the trailer. Still, he had to go through the motions. “Best that you stay out here. It won’t take long.”
He headed inside the old double-wide, straight into the living room. The dining area and the kitchen were on his left. Heading past the kitchen and down a short hall, Micah found a decent-sized bedroom where clothes were strewn everywhere, like he’d expect in a teenager’s room. But from the underwear he saw on the floor, he had no problem deducing it was Crystal’s. The bathroom was across the hall, and another smaller bedroom was beside it at the end. That one was obviously Justin’s, because it featured a common theme in late-teen male décor—posters of near-naked swimsuit models on the walls. A wooden table with folding metal legs supported a desktop computer, two monitors, a Wii console, and a rat’s nest of black cables. The room was messy, though not as bad as his mother’s.
Micah made only a cursory search of each room. In the tiny bathroom, he found a bottle of lorazepam and another of Celexa, which he knew was an antidepressant. Both prescriptions were ordered by a Portland doctor and filled a few weeks ago at Watson’s Pharmacy, not surprisingly, he supposed, since it was right across the street from the restaurant where Crystal worked.
Justin, who’d been peering in the door, quickly moved out of the way to let Micah through. Micah took his sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and put them back on. “One more question, okay, Justin?”
The kid nodded.
“I know you’re pretty plugged in on what’s going down here on the island, so let me ask you this. Do you know any kids who like to fool around with stuff like Vicodin or Oxy?” Micah put his hand on Justin’s shoulder. “Look, I know you don’t want to be a rat, but you need to be honest with me now. I want to be able to trust you, and I’ll never be able to do that if you lie to me about something like this.”
Justin didn’t hesitate, shaking his head hard. “Nobody on the island does that stuff. Not that I know of anyway. And that’s the truth.”
Micah had watched Justin’s eyes and body language carefully. The kid gave no indication he was lying, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t.
“Okay, son, that’s all for now.”
Micah returned to his cruiser with some relief. He would have hated to dump more trouble on Crystal by having to arrest her son. But he was concerned too, because if Justin was indeed telling the truth about himself and the other island kids, it would mean his theory—and Griff Turner’s—had just gone down the drain.
Chapter 5
Holly’s first dart sailed off to the right and missed the board. That pathetic toss earned her a raspberry from Bram Flynn and a mixture of groans and shouts of encouragement from the tables nearby. Sighing because she totally sucked at Seashell Bay’s cherished pastime, she aimed her second missile. It hit the wire just below the number twenty but then bounced off and clattered to the floor. For the final attempt, she shut her left eye in the vain hope of sharpening her aim and sent the dart in a shallow arc toward the board.
Success! Somehow the dart not only landed inside the triple ring, it actually stuck, scoring twenty-four points. She pumped her fist in triumph as the dart wobbled, unsure whether to stay lodged or fall off to join its red-tipped mates on the floor.
Bram Flynn grinned as he retrieved the darts. “Even a monkey can hit a triple, time to time.”
Bram had hounded her for the better part of an hour to play a match with him, though Holly suspected it might have more to do with getting a better view of her legs and other parts of her anatomy than it did with darts. She’d finally given in, if for no other reason than to shut him up.
“Are you calling me a monkey, you jerk?” She smacked Aiden’s little brother on the shoulder as he toed the line. Describing him as a little brother was a hoot. At six five, little was not the appropriate adjective for Bram Flynn.
Bram’s face got red, his mouth pulling down with dismay. “Jesus, Holly, I was just yanking your chain.”
Holly knew that, of course, and she loved Bram, despite his history of ribald comments during her visits home. And she was thrilled that he was in control of the alcohol and gambling addictions that had almost destroyed his life.
“I know, you big goof.” She threw a glance at Micah, seated with Lily, Aiden, Morgan, and Ryan. At the next table sat Morgan’s sister, Sabrina, along with Miss Annie, Roy Mayo, and Father Michael Malone. “Micah, why don’t you take over for me? I think I’ve humiliated myself enough.”
Grinning, Micah tossed back the rest of his beer and stood. He’d already agreed to relieve her if she decided to bail. “Be glad to, if Bram can handle getting his ass whipped.”
Bram rolled his eyes. “Lancaster, I could beat you if I threw backward over my shoulder.”
“Okay, let’s see you back up all that talk.”
When Holly slid by him on her way back to her seat, Micah gave her butt a soft pat that practically froze her in her tracks. Though it was just a playful gesture and she figured no one would make anything of it, it struck Holly as almost possessive. And damned if she didn’t kind of like it.
And it wasn’t hard to imagine that big hand on the rest of her body either.
You wish, girl.
Then again, maybe that was two and a half bottles of Shipyard Ale doing the talking.
She was already past her usual limit. If she was going to get a little blitzed though, tonight felt like a good time for it. A little de-stressing was definitely in order.
Trying for a casual smile, she eased back into the chair beside Morgan and across from Miss Annie and Roy.
No matter how hard she tried, Holly couldn’t help eating Micah up with her gaze as he waited for his turn to throw. Maybe an inch shorter than Bram, the guy looked like an NFL defensive end standing next to a high school basketball player. Micah’s superwide shoulders stretched the blue, long-sleeved Henley he was wearing, as did his studly biceps and muscular forearms. With his impressive size and totally ripped body, he was a dominating presence even among the man-mountains that generally populated the Lobster Pot.
“Holly, as I was saying before you abandoned me for that rascal Bram Flynn, I’ll be darned if I can get a bead on those selectmen yet,” Miss Annie grumbled, referring to the town councilors. “I’ve talked to all three, and not a one of them is showing his cards.”
The matriarch of the Doyle clan turned her sharp gaze toward Father Michael, whose face was ruddier than usual, no doubt from the heat and the beer. Father Mike was the classic stereotype of the jovial, Irish American priest if there ever was one. “Father, you’d think it would be a no-brainer for those three old coots to get behind Florence and Beatrice, wouldn’t you? But no, they say they want to get lots of feedback from people before they make up their minds.”
She made the notion of feedback sound as appealing as a bucket of rattlesnakes.
“That’s what you get for not running for selectman yourself, Miss Annie,” Ryan drawled in a teasing voice from the other side of Morgan. “Actually, I think we’d all be better off if you ran the island as a benevolent dictatorship.”
“Hell, I thought she already did,” Roy said without a second’s hesitation.
Miss Annie gave him a poke on his wiry arm.
“Granny, they’re hardly old coots,” Lily said from down the table. “Chester and Amos and Thor are all at least twenty years younger than you are. Besides, you always say you’re not even old. Unlike Roy,” she added with an evil grin.