by Connie Mann
Coming here was a bad idea. She’d known that.
But a cop? Really? Cat had no use for cops, good or bad ones, and she’d met both. The good ones made her worry she’d end up in jail because of her past. And the bad ones made her furious. She’d seen too many turn a blind eye to sex trafficking and drugs.
She turned to leave, but then Blaze burst out the door and spotted her. “There you are. Eve is getting all bossy because she couldn’t find you, and she wants you to play something while they cut the cake.”
Cat rolled her eyes and followed Blaze inside. She picked up her violin and played her heart out, knowing it’d be the last time she played for them. She should never have come.
Through every piece, she knew Nick Stanton watched her from his spot against the back wall. Those eyes tracked her every move, as though trying to ferret out her secrets.
Cat tried to ignore him, but every few minutes, she’d look up to find him watching her, smiling like a panther who had neatly trapped his prey. But he didn’t know who she was, why she was on the run, so he couldn’t hurt her.
Just when she thought she’d go crazy if he didn’t stop watching her, Cat saw him reach into his coat pocket and pull out a cell phone. As he listened, his expression grew grimmer and grimmer.
He hung up the phone, then said his goodbyes to Eve and Cole. As he turned to leave, he looked over his shoulder and sent her a two-fingered salute.
Then he was gone.
Cat let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and packed her violin in its case. No more. She had to get out of here before they tried to keep her any longer. Some sixth sense told her it was time to go—past time, actually. She hadn’t ignored that warning yet, which was why she was still alive.
She’d just turned to say goodbye to Eve and Cole when she spotted Blaze across the room talking on her cell phone, despite Eve’s edict that there be no cell phones at her wedding. Suddenly, Blaze stiffened and her eyes widened in panic. She hung up and raced from the room.
Cat hesitated for only a second before she grabbed her violin and followed. The sultry evening air dropped over her like a blanket when she reached the parking lot. Blaze had disappeared.
Cat started walking around the building, concerned. She might not know her well, but she knew panic when she saw it on someone’s face.
“Come on, come on.”
She followed the voice to see Blaze fumbling with the keys to Mama Rosa’s big boat of a Buick.
“What are you doing, Blaze?” Cat asked, coming up behind her.
Blaze froze, then looked over at her, all teenage attitude. But Cat didn’t miss the desperation in her eyes. “Geez, you scared the bejebees out of me.” She fumbled some more and finally got the door open.
“Do you have a driver’s license?”
Blaze turned, one leg already in the car. “I don’t answer to you. I have to go.”
Cat put a hand on her arm, felt the teen stiffen and jerk away. She knew that feeling, too. “What’s wrong, Blaze? Maybe I can help.”
“I have to go. Teddy needs me.”
“Teddy, the young man you were dancing with earlier?”
She nodded miserably. “He said he had to go, that he had a meeting and I couldn’t talk him out of it. And then he-he—”
“Take a breath. Then tell me. He what?”
“He called me just now, said he was in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Blaze shoved Cat aside and climbed all the way into the car. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. But he was scared and said to come get him. I have to get over there.”
“It could be dangerous. Let me get some help first.”
“There isn’t time.” She tried to close the door, but Cat gripped the frame.
“Scoot over. I’m driving.” Without giving Blaze a chance to protest, Cat slid into the car and used her hip to nudge Blaze across the wide bench seat. She kicked off her heels and yanked her dress up over her knees so she could drive.
“Get out. I don’t need you. I don’t even know you.”
“I realize that, but right now, I’m all you’ve got, especially if things are as bad as they seem.” Cat put the car in gear and swung out of the parking space in a wide turn, nearly swiping a pretty convertible. “Dang, wide turning radius,” she muttered. “Tell me where I’m going.”
Blaze glared at her, but something about Cat’s tone must have registered, because the teen blew out a frustrated breath and said, “The old quarry outside town.” Then she tucked her dress up just like Cat’s, showing off her black combat boots.
Cat spun out of the parking lot and hit the two-lane road going way too fast. She righted the car and sped toward the local teen hangout. “Do you know which entrance he’s near?”
Blaze stopped drumming her fingers on her leg. “You’ve been there?”
“I grew up here, too, remember.” She raised an eyebrow.
“I heard you couldn’t wait to leave.”
“Something like that.” Cat let the silence lengthen.
“We usually go in the south entrance.”
Cat headed in that direction, hoping Officer Stanton wasn’t lying in wait somewhere to give her a speeding ticket, or he’d realize that her license didn’t match her name. Or any of her names, for that matter.
“Did he give you any clue what’s going on?”
Blaze shook her head, arms wrapped tight around herself. “No,” she whispered. “But he sounded really scared.”
“Let’s find out what’s going on before we panic, OK?”
“I’m not a little kid, and I don’t cry wolf.”
Cat glanced at her in the waning light. “I believe you.”
At the words, Blaze raised her chin and nodded, pulling further into herself.
Several minutes later, Cat pulled through an old metal gate, and they bumped along a gravel track through what had once been a farmer’s field but now stood fallow. They passed a thick stand of pines, and the area suddenly gave way to big piles of limestone and sand, and deep water-filled craters that were the remnants of the property’s past as a limestone quarry.
“That’s his car.”
Cat figured as much, since it was the only one in the makeshift parking area. Before she’d gotten the car in park, Blaze swung the door open.
Cat reached out and grabbed her arm. “Wait. Let me go first.” She hiked up her long skirt and pulled out the dagger she had strapped to her thigh.
Blaze gaped at the knife, and her eyes flicked from Cat to the blade and back. “Do you know how to use that?” she demanded.
Despite herself, Cat smiled. “I do. And since I figure you won’t stay in the car, at least stay behind me, OK? We need to find him, but since he said he was in trouble, we have to be quiet and careful. I don’t want us to go crashing right into danger.”
“Are you, like, a cop or something?”
Another time, she might have found that funny. “Or something. Let’s go.”
Blaze nodded and slipped out. She followed Cat’s lead and closed the car door with a quiet click. Cat motioned with her head, and Blaze followed her down the narrow path that led to one of the most popular make-out spots in Safe Harbor, both of them clutching the hems of their long dresses in one hand. Cat kept her knife in her right, her dress and tiny key-ring flashlight in the other.
As they hurried into the deepening shadows along the path, Cat kept her breathing slow and steady, just like when she played her violin, so she could focus on everything around them. She heard Blaze’s rapid breathing behind her and her feet shuffling through the thick grass.
Around them, the twilight was alive with sounds. Cat had never been one for tromping around in the woods at night. Certainly not in Florida, where the creepy crawlies could kill you. She was more comfortable around two-legged creeps. And what did that say about her? she thought wryly.
She focused on the sounds, trying to listen for anything that wasn’t an animal. She
had no idea what they were going to find. Hopefully, just some teenage angst, maybe that Teddy had gotten into a fight with someone. But as she’d learned in the school of hard knocks, often the worst thing you could think of really was what happened.
She glanced at Blaze, who gamely kept up with Cat’s rapid pace, eyes darting around just as Cat’s were.
They reached the clearing that served as a makeshift beach, complete with a fire ring. Several yards away, the ground fell away into the quarry where the kids would dare each other to dive into the blackness below.
“Teddy? Are you here?” Blaze called quietly.
Nothing.
“Teddy? Where are you?”
Cat glanced up at the sky. They didn’t have more than a few minutes before it was full dark. She didn’t want to turn on a flashlight unless she had no choice. It would put them at a distinct disadvantage if anyone was watching.
Blaze turned and headed toward the edge of the drop-off. Cat caught up to her and grabbed her arm. Blaze shrugged it off and spun to face her. Before she could say whatever had her eyes narrowing, Cat said, “We stay together, got it?”
Blaze rolled her eyes and whispered, “Geez, you haven’t been back a whole day and already you’re as bossy as Eve and Sasha.”
Cat flashed a quick grin, though the knot in her stomach was growing by the minute. “Safety first and all that.” She turned, and they walked along the ledge, peering over the steep drop-off. Cat breathed a sigh of relief when there was no sign of Teddy’s body anywhere below. Nothing floated in the water, either.
She turned and led them in an ever-widening circle, hoping against hope to find Teddy sleeping off alcohol or pot and not something worse. Every instinct urged her to hurry, but she didn’t want to make a lot of noise. She didn’t have that twitchy feeling that someone was watching, but she wouldn’t risk Blaze’s life on it.
As they went farther into the wooded area, something on the ground caught Cat’s eye. She flicked on her flashlight, saw it was just a button, and kept going. Another glance showed evidence that someone had walked through the tall grass into the trees from this spot. And recently, judging by the way the grass was bent. She nodded in grim satisfaction. Her obsession with cop shows and the ways criminals gave themselves away might just come in handy.
She nodded her head at Blaze, and they followed the trail into the woods. Once under the cover of trees, it was too dark to see, so she reluctantly aimed the flashlight right at her feet to minimize the light.
But with every step—and every minute they hadn’t located Teddy—Cat’s worry inched up another notch.
She picked up the pace and would have missed seeing the boy if she hadn’t stubbed her toe on a tree root and stumbled off the path. Trying to regain her balance, she almost fell over his still shape, and she threw herself sideways, hands skidding across grass and rocks to keep from landing right on top of him.
“Teddy!” Blaze gasped, rushing over.
Cat rolled away from Teddy and onto her knees, shaking her stinging hands. She didn’t have time to worry about pain now.
Teddy lay on his stomach, still in the same clothes he’d worn to the wedding, his head turned away from a frantic Blaze, who shook his shoulder. “Teddy. Are you OK?”
Cat winced as she grabbed her flashlight with her torn-up hand and aimed the light at Teddy’s face. She froze.
Oh, dear God.
Chapter 4
Cat crouched down and put her fingers by Teddy’s neck, hoping against hope for a pulse. But there was nothing. And unfortunately, she’d seen death too many times not to recognize it. Joellen wasn’t the first runaway she’d tried to help. Sadly, she wasn’t the first who’d died a violent death, despite Cat’s best efforts, either. And of course, Daniel.
She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer while she blinked back tears, snapping them open again when she felt Blaze try to roll him over. “We have to help him. Come on, Cat. Help me. I can’t tell where he’s hurt.”
Cat put a gentle hand over hers. “Stop, Blaze. We can’t help him. I’m sorry.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Blaze’s eyes were wide and glassy in the faint beam of light, but Cat knew the second her words registered. “No. Oh God, no. He can’t be dead. Is that what you’re saying? That he’s dead? No, you’re wrong. You’re not a doctor.” With surprising strength, she pushed Cat aside and rolled Teddy over, crying out when she focused on his unseeing eyes. “No, no. Wake up, Teddy.” She turned to Cat, desperate. “You have to do something. Like CPR or something.”
Cat nudged her aside and started doing compressions, but she knew it wouldn’t help. After several minutes, Blaze realized it, too, and she slowly collapsed and slumped over Teddy’s still form, sobbing.
“We need to call the police, Blaze,” Cat said quietly, sitting back on her heels.
Blaze swiped tears from her cheeks and rubbed her hands on her long dress. “Call Nick. Not the chief. Monroe’s a total jerk.”
“Do you have Nick’s cell number?”
“I left my phone in the car.” She turned to run back for it.
“Hang on.” Cat pulled her phone out of her meager cleavage where she’d stashed it as they left the car. At Blaze’s snort, she said, “What? It’s not like I have pockets. Give me his number.”
Cat punched in Nick’s number as Blaze dictated it, relieved to see she had cell service. She turned her back on Blaze and walked a few steps away while she waited for the call to go through. Her stomach flipped and rolled at the thought of a cop having her cell number, but she couldn’t worry about that right now. Teddy and Blaze were what mattered. She’d just get another burner phone.
“Stanton.” He sounded tired and annoyed.
She took a deep breath, pushed her emotions aside. Blaze needed her to be strong. “This is, ah, Cat Johnson. You need to come out to the old quarry right away.”
She could almost hear him snap to attention. “What’s wrong?”
“Blaze and I are at the quarry, and it looks like Teddy—” She covered the phone and asked Blaze, “What’s his last name?” Then she told Nick, “Unfortunately, it looks like Teddy Winston is dead.”
“What? How do you know?”
Cat rubbed her forehead. “No pulse. Sightless, unseeing eyes. No apparent sign of a struggle.”
“Don’t be flip, for crying out loud.”
Cat stiffened. “I meant no disrespect. I was trying to be precise.”
“Are you and Blaze safe there?”
Cat looked around. Glanced at the knife she still held. “Yes. I think so.”
“I’m on my way. Don’t touch anything.”
He hung up before she could say anything else. Cat turned to Blaze, who sat beside her friend, stroking his arm as silent tears poured down her face. Cat swallowed and looked away. She couldn’t let her emotions get the best of her now. She had to stay clearheaded so she could think. “Nick’s on his way. Why don’t we go wait by the car?”
Blaze swiped her arm under her nose. “I’m not leaving him.”
“I need to go back to the car for a minute.”
“What? Why?” She scrambled to her feet. “Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t be gone more than five minutes. You can come with me or wait here.”
Blaze looked from Teddy to Cat and back. “I don’t want him to be alone.”
“I understand. We’ll make it quick.”
They hurried to Mama’s Buick, where Cat stashed the knife in her tote bag. She locked the car, and they returned to Teddy and sat on either side of him while the mosquitos chewed on their skin and they waited for the sound of sirens.
Nick climbed into his official Safe Harbor police SUV and backed out of his driveway way too fast. He spun the tires of the Ford Explorer as he headed for the old quarry, shaking his head. A dead teenager. In Safe Harbor. Cat had said there was no sign of a struggle. Dollars to donuts that meant drugs. Probably an overdose. But why? Teddy was a good kid from a goo
d family. He’d been at the wedding reception, had gazed at Blaze like she was a dream come true. He didn’t think it was suicide.
So it was probably drugs. He banged a fist on the steering wheel. Several months ago, when local boat captain Roy Winchester had died while trying to kill Sasha during a drug transfer and Nick arrested another boat captain, Demetri Markos, he’d thought that was finally the end of the drug trade in Safe Harbor. But then, Demetri got shanked in jail, and he knew that was nothing more than wishful thinking. Whoever had been running drugs through this little town since even before Nick’s childhood kidnapping hadn’t gone away, and they hadn’t given up. And he still didn’t know who was behind it.
He’d thought—OK, he’d hoped—he’d left senseless teenage deaths and drug trafficking behind when he resigned from the Tampa Police Department and took the job in Safe Harbor. Somehow, he’d let himself get lulled into a false sense of security. He shook his head at his own stupidity. He was a cop. He knew better. Evil didn’t confine itself to cities.
Still, he couldn’t help noticing that less than twenty-four hours after the Martinellis’ long-estranged daughter showed up in town again, they suddenly had a dead teenager.
OK, it was a total leap, and an unfair one at that, which made him realize he truly had become part of the town. Because he didn’t want one of the locals, anyone he saw at the Blue Dolphin or at church, to be responsible for a teen’s death.
Not that he wanted Cat responsible, either. She’d gotten to him, somehow, with her talent and the passion he saw lurking just below the surface. Her calm, serene expression obviously covered a backbone of steel, if her phone call was any indication.
“Get your head in the game, Stanton,” he muttered. Once he left the downtown area, he flipped on his official lights and flew down the two-lane highway. He wanted to get there before Monroe or anyone else did. He wanted to make sure Blaze was OK. And yes, he wanted to be the one to question Cat.