by B. J Daniels
He was a loner, a guy who never stayed in one place long, and he liked it that way. Jill Lawson was a woman with deep roots, a woman who, until a couple of days ago, was engaged to be married.
“Now you know my reasons for not telling the deputies I was with you in the cottage. I didn’t want to get involved in Trevor’s murder.”
OH, SHE UNDERSTOOD all right. He didn’t want to get involved with the authorities—or with her. It was just a one-night stand.
So why didn’t she believe him? Not his supposed nonchalance about their lovemaking last night or his refusal to become involved in Trevor’s murder.
“If you didn’t want to get involved, then what were you doing out on the island today, Mackenzie?”
He took a swallow of beer. “I was curious. And you can call me Mac.”
Mac. “I saw the skull in the duffel bag, Mac,” she reminded him.
He shrugged. “There’s an old cemetery on the island. Probably early pioneers. That’s not that unusual.”
“And it interests you because…?”
He shrugged. “I was just curious what was behind that restricted fence. Weren’t you?”
“I still am. I know Trevor and Arnie Evans have been in there working. I’ve seen the mud on their boots.”
Mac nodded. “They were probably trying to get rid of the bodies before anyone found out. If there are any relatives of those pioneers still around, they could make a stink about the bodies being moved. Even shut down construction, possibly.”
She stared at him, wishing she could find a flaw in his logic. He seemed to have all the answers.
She couldn’t help being disappointed the skull hadn’t meant more. And angry with him for making it sound as if their lovemaking had been…what? Great sex but a fluke?
“Where is the skull?” he asked.
“Still in the duffel, unless whoever jumped me took it.”
He shook his head. “He didn’t have it when he dived into the water.”
“I wonder what he was after,” she said, watching Mac, curious how he would explain this away.
“You.”
“Me?”
“I imagine he followed you here.”
She couldn’t believe this. “Why?”
“Trevor owed a lot of people, people who might think that because you were his fiancée, you were in on scamming them.”
She hadn’t thought of that. “I think the man was the same one who was in my apartment last night. He demanded my engagement ring and was upset when I told him I didn’t have it.” She noticed Mac’s surprise. “He tore the silver bracelet that Trevor gave me from my wrist.”
“Did he take any of your other jewelry?”
She shook her head. “You think it was someone who knew Trevor had given me the ring and the bracelet? The bracelet was just a trinket, not worth anything.”
Mac took another swallow of beer. “The word around the area is that Trevor hadn’t been paying his bills. It sounds like whoever took your bracelet was just trying to get even. That’s why I think you should stop snooping around, stay some place other than your apartment until things blow over. At least until Trevor’s killer is caught. And try to keep a low profile.”
“I have a business to run.”
“Hard to run dead.”
She got to her feet, put the gun on the coffee table and turned to him again. “I took the bullets out before I came out of the bedroom.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “Otherwise, I would have taken the weapon away from you.”
He was an impossible man. She went back into the bathroom. Her bikini was still wet, but she closed the door and put it on, anyway. It helped cool her anger. “Where’s my wet suit?”
“Just take the shirt,” he called through the closed door. “It’s an old one.”
She put the shirt back on. The cloth was worn and soft and smelled a little like him. She’d get it back to him tomorrow.
When she came out, he was sitting where she’d left him, drinking his beer.
“Are you going to try to find out who killed Trevor?”
He shook his head. “I stay clear of ongoing murder investigations. It keeps me out of trouble.”
She studied him for a long moment, feeling that electric excitement in the air between them. She didn’t believe for a moment that if they made love again it would be anything but amazing. Maybe even more amazing than last night.
She ached for him to take her in his arms again, ached to feel his touch once more on her skin. But more than that, to feel that connection she’d felt between them. More than sex. Much more.
“About last night in the cottage—”
“Do me a favor,” he said interrupting her. “Don’t make me have to rescue you again. Tonight makes us even, okay?”
Even? She glared at him. “You’re scared, aren’t you.”
He looked surprised.
“You’re afraid of what would happen if we made love again.” She couldn’t believe the brazen words coming out of her mouth.
He couldn’t seem to, either. He laughed and shook his head as he got up from his chair. She watched him go out onto the deck and pull her wet suit off the railing. He stayed there in the shadowy darkness, holding her wet suit out to her. “I think you better get going before I prove you wrong and disappoint us both. Let’s just keep last night a memory, okay?”
She walked to him, snatched the wet suit from his fingers and crossed the deck to the opening in the railing. Once on the dock, she started the long walk to her van.
The dock felt warm under her bare feet as she left. A quiet darkness had settled over the marina. A light fog had moved in off the lake. The marina lights cast an eerie glow over the water.
She didn’t look back at the houseboat until she reached the stand of pines where she’d left her van. Mackenzie Cooper was leaning against the boat railing, looking out into the darkness.
Just the sight of him made her ache. But Mackenzie Cooper had made it clear that last night was a mistake. One he didn’t plan to repeat. Unfortunately it didn’t make her want him any less.
What was it about last night and her that seemed to scare him? He didn’t seem like a man who scared easily.
And she didn’t believe for a moment that he wasn’t looking for Trevor’s killer. Which meant they’d be seeing each other again. Soon.
Chapter Ten
After a sleepless night watching Jill’s apartment, Mac returned to the houseboat, took a cold shower and was getting dressed when his cell phone rang. He hoped it was Shane, who, Mac worried, was hiding, trying to figure out how to turn twelve gold coins into cash.
“Hello?” His hope was dashed at the sound of Pierce’s voice.
“Well?” Pierce said.
“Well, what? You didn’t really expect me to find your…merchandise this soon, did you?” Mac snapped back.
The silence on the other end of the line made it clear that Pierce had.
“I checked with my ranch foreman,” Pierce said, sounding put out. “Shane did work on the ranch. For a week. He quit. So did his buddy who was hired with him, some guy who called himself Buffalo Boy.”
Buffalo Boy. “I assume he has a real name,” Mac said.
“Marvin. Marvin Dodd. You realize how important it is that the contents of that box don’t just start turning up, don’t you?”
Mac groaned to himself. “I have another call coming in. I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.” He clicked off. What a pompous ass, he thought, as he took the other call.
“Mackenzie? It’s Charley Johnson.” Charles was one of the few people on earth Mac let call him Mackenzie.
The tone of his cop friend’s voice scared him. Had Shane been found?
“I just got a report on that ring you called me about,” Charley said. “You’re right. It was stolen. Are you sitting down?”
He wasn’t.
“A seventeen-year-old girl by the name of Tara French was wearing that ring the night she disa
ppeared from Bigfork seven years ago,” Charley said. “The ring had belonged to her grandmother. It was made especially for her, so it’s very distinctive—and valuable. Mackenzie, Tara French was one of eleven young women who’ve disappeared in that area over the past twenty years. Where the hell did you get this ring?”
Mac dropped into a chair, all the ramifications knocking the wind out of him. “I’ve got a human skull that might go with it. But I need this kept under wraps until we’re sure. If I get the skull to you—”
Charley let out a curse. “We can’t sit on this with a serial killer out there running loose and you with important evidence.”
“If I’m right, the killer is dead, Charley,” Mac said. “Just give me forty-eight hours. I’ll get the skull to you this morning. How long do you think it will take for an ID?”
Silence. “It will probably take me that long to get dental records on the eleven victims. Damn, I hope you’re right about the killer being dead.”
When Mac hung up, he thought about Jill and how she would take the news, if he was right about Trevor. Trevor had given her a ring that had belonged to a girl who’d been missing for seven years.
Mac uttered a vicious curse. To think that Jill had been engaged to a serial killer! Was it possible the other bodies were buried out there? Is that why Trevor had been “developing” Inspiration Island?
So what had he been doing out there? Reburying the bodies? Or moving them? But moving them where?
To the south end of the island, Mac thought with a start. To the swampy part where the mud was like quicksand.
The cell phone rang again, making him jump. “Hello?”
“I heard you were looking for a guy named Shane?” a young male voice asked.
Mac’s pulse took off. “Yes, I am.”
“You a cop?”
“No. A relative.” Sometimes that was worse.
“He was living at Curtis Lakeview Apartments with a bunch of guys. Unit number seven. Does that help?”
“Thanks. I’ll leave something for you at the Beach Bar. Just tell the bartender you’re a friend of mine.” He hung up. Curtis Lakeview Apartments. He felt as if the clock was ticking faster as he got into his pickup and drove north.
Curtis Lakeview Apartments had no view of the lake. Had no view at all. It was seven units stuck back in the pines, hastily thrown up and now quickly coming down.
The place was dead quiet. Either everyone was still asleep at this time of the morning, or some actually had jobs. Mac guessed that more than likely most of the units were empty. The building looked as if it could be condemned at any moment.
He wasn’t expecting to find Shane here. By now Shane would have heard about Trevor Forester’s murder. His nephew might not have the good sense to skip town, but he would be smart enough to change his address.
At least Mac hoped so. If Pierce was right about the collection being more valuable as a set than split up, then Trevor would have been trying to find a buyer. It made sense, given what he’d heard about Trevor Forester—that Trevor needed money and would even steal for it. Trevor must have been planning to skip town for some time now.
But now he was dead, and Mac feared Shane had the coins. It was how the kid had come to have the coins that worried him, since someone else was frantically looking for them. The shadowy figure on the videotape?
Mac groaned, wondering what plan Shane had to sell the coins. Shane wouldn’t have the contacts or the patience to try to sell the coins as a set. He would try to dump the coins quickly, any way he could, and he’d leave a trail the other thief could follow. Shane was going to get himself killed, sure as hell.
The only hope Mac had of saving his nephew was to find him before he got rid of the coins.
Mac tried the door to the apartment. It was locked. He pulled out a credit card, inserted it between the door and jamb, and heard the click as the lock opened. Cautiously, he turned the knob. The door swung inward.
It was a studio apartment with only two pieces of furniture: a lawn chair and a card table.
It appeared his nephew had left in a hurry. There were stinky fast-food containers on the table, the chair was overturned and dirty clothing lay on the floor, along with a couple of magazines and newspapers and some junk mail.
Shane was definitely not getting his cleaning deposit back.
One small pale-green square of paper on the floor caught Mac’s eye. He stooped to pick it up. It was a paycheck stub with Shane’s name on it and Inspiration Island Enterprises. Made sense. Shane had worked for Trevor Forester on the island.
Mac pocketed the stub and checked his watch. He had a funeral to go to. Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe Shane would show up at Trevor’s funeral. It was something the kid was dumb enough to do.
DRESSED IN A PLAIN black dress and a hat with a veil that had belonged to her mother, Jill slipped quietly into the back of the church at Trevor’s funeral. She didn’t want her presence to upset Heddy.
Alistair was right. Heddy had opened the service to the entire town. The church was packed. Jill didn’t have to worry about being seen.
From behind the veil, she looked for the other Scarlett and Mackenzie Cooper. Jill wasn’t sure how much of what he’d told her the previous night she could believe. One thing she was sure of: there was a lot more going on with him—and Trevor’s murder.
Heddy had insinuated that the murder of her son was somehow related to the other Scarlett. Jill knew she wouldn’t feel safe until Trevor’s murderer was caught. Maybe Mac was right. Maybe these attacks on her had to do with Trevor’s misdeeds. But she suspected it was more complicated than that. She had a feeling that Mackenzie Cooper knew what was going on, and that was why he’d tried to warn her off.
If the other Scarlett was the same woman Trevor had supposedly been going to marry and run away with, then the woman would be here at the funeral, if for no other reason than to spit on his grave—assuming she’d found out that Trevor had cashed in her plane ticket.
Or maybe the woman had really loved Trevor and was here sobbing her eyes out. Uh-huh. Or maybe she’d just been after the Forester money to start with.
In any case, there was no way Jill was going to find her here. Too many people. And too quiet. Jill’s only hope was to recognize the woman’s voice.
She spotted her father and Zoe in the crowd and dozens of other people she knew. But she didn’t see Mac.
Jill half listened to the service, thinking about Trevor. He had only dated her to please his father—and for the money. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. What bothered her most was her own culpability. She’d wanted to believe Trevor. She’d been so busy going to college, getting her business going, making it successful, that she hadn’t had time for romance—but her heart must have yearned for it more than she’d known, a discovery she’d made that night in the lake cottage with Mackenzie Cooper. As she stood at the back of the church, she didn’t see him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t here.
Maybe he’d been telling the truth. Maybe he couldn’t care less who killed Trevor. Just like he couldn’t care less about her? Or ever making love with her again?
The service, thankfully, was short, since the day was already hot even this early in the morning. She followed all the other cars out to the cemetery. By the time she reached the burial site, cars lined both sides of the narrow cemetery roads. She knew the cemetery well, because she came here weekly to put flowers on her mother’s grave, so she parked the bakery delivery van well away from all the other cars and cut across to where the crowd was already twelve deep and others were coming in behind her.
She searched from behind her veil for the other Scarlett, a foolish endeavor since she had no idea what the woman looked like. She sensed someone moving through the crowd toward her and turned to see Arnie. He stood next to her.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said quietly without looking at her. “That was really stupid what I did last night.”
Yes, she thought, it was. “Let’s j
ust forget about it. Just like the night in the cottage,” she whispered back.
He glanced at her as if surprised. Had he thought he’d blown it by kissing her? He had, of course, but she’d decided to keep it from him until she found out why he’d lied.
She felt a chill at the notion that the killer could be any of the people surrounding the grave—or standing next to her. Her gaze stopped on one man standing off by a tree a few yards away. Mackenzie Cooper. He’d been watching her, and he didn’t look the least bit happy to see Arnie with her. That cheered her.
When her gaze met Mac’s, her heart took off like a speedboat. She felt a small thrill and knew he’d felt it, too, as she watched him drag his gaze away first. He seemed to be looking for someone in the crowd.
She looked around, as well. When she couldn’t help herself and glanced in his direction again, Mac was gone. But she felt some satisfaction in the fact that he’d attended the funeral. She was more certain than before that he was investigating Trevor’s murder. What she didn’t understand was why. Unless he felt bad that he hadn’t been able to save Trevor.
The pastor finished speaking. Jill caught sight of Heddy through a break in the crowd. She was crying, hanging on to Alistair for support. It was a sight Jill would never forget, the two of them standing beside their only son’s grave, both devastated.
With the service over, a murmur of voices moved like a wave through the crowd. One voice carried on the morning air. Jill jerked around as she tried to locate the woman she’d heard speaking behind her. She’d know that voice anywhere. The other Scarlett.
Jill could catch only snatches of the woman’s voice.
“Trevor…blame…awful.”
Nor could she see the woman’s face, only the woman’s hat, as the voice moved away from the gravesite and along the row of parked cars.
Jill followed the hat, a floppy black disk of a hat with a red rose on the crown, and the strident voice.
“Heartless…cold…bitch.”
Jill wondered who the woman was talking about. The black hat stopped beside one of the cars, then moved toward the other side of the cemetery. Jill spotted the red Saturn parked behind a stand of trees at the far side. The woman had the nerve to drive Jill’s car to the funeral!