A Valentine's Quest (The Valentine's Trilogy)

by Sam E. Kraemer

  Candace finally insisted, telling me she owned the store and she wouldn't hear of me paying for the flowers. I graciously thanked her and invited her to go to dinner with us after the ceremony. She was a super person, and she was real. There wasn’t one fake thing about Candace, and she reminded me a lot of Beth, who I missed very much. The flower girl felt like an old friend, and I appreciated the warm feelings. I was looking forward to the ceremony for many reasons, not the least of which was to be married to Derek Valentine.

  Everything was set for the wedding, and I'd made a reservation for the five of us…the judge and his wife, Eric and Sienna King; Candace Jones; Derek and me…at South Point Café near the wedding site. The owner had been very accommodating, suggesting a small canopied area on the beach with a round table for our guests. We were ordering off the menu, but the setting would be beautiful.

  When I got back to the cottage that afternoon, having rented a moped for the rest of the week when I was in Old Town, I opened the door to find Derek was yet to return. I stripped off my clothes and went out to the pool deck where I spread a towel on a lounger so I could get a little sun-kissed glow, hoping not to look too pale in our wedding photos.

  I slathered myself with sunscreen, thought it was only a 30 SPF. I knew my skin would suffer for my pride, but we were in Key West for fuck's sake. I wanted to look as handsome as my husband for our pictures. We were eloping, after all, so the pictures would tell the tale of our blessed union for his family.

  I must have dozed at a point because I was awakened by Derek's lips on the back of my neck as he straddled my ass, not putting any weight on me. "I think we should make this a rule, baby boy, you being naked when I come home from work." I turned over and smiled, happy to see him. He glanced down and gave me the sexy grin, seeing my cock hard for him before he dipped down to kiss me again.

  When he pulled away, he chuckled at the dazed look I imagined on my face at his gentle kiss. "I love you, and I would be happy to come home and see you like this every day for the rest of our life together. I need to talk to you about something before we get too caught up in enjoying our last day as bachelors. Let me get undressed and grab us a couple of beers. We can get into the pool to cool off," Derek suggested.

  I nodded and turned to watch him walk away, admiring his sexy ass which always had me hard in a split second. I squeezed the base of my cock to keep from getting too far ahead of the night I imagined we’d have as he walked away because that man was so fucking fine, it nearly blew my mind.

  Trying to do something constructive and tame my weeping prick at the same time, I went to the bin near the pool and grabbed the waterproof lube he'd brought, along with another towel, placing both on the pool deck. I sunk into the water to cool off and maybe try to tame the beast between my legs, and I chuckled to myself. Things were going incredibly well, and I couldn't imagine any better way to spend a vacation. Getting married to the man of my dreams? That was simply a huge bonus.

  When Derek returned in all his naked glory, I just wanted to have him in my mouth. I spread the towel on the pool deck and patted the space. "Sit here, Detective. Please allow me to have my wicked way with you before you tell me whatever's on your mind. I've been thinking about having you naked all day. I've made all the wedding plans and managed to find another witness. The young lady, Candace, at the florist shop was more than happy about being a witness for our impending nuptials," I explained.

  Derek smiled as he looked at me with love in his eyes as he sat on the pool deck. "Good to know. Well, do your husbandly duty. Now you've got me stoked, and I need a clear head, baby boy. Get to suckin'," he ordered with a sexy smirk as he stroked his gorgeous cock.

  I did exactly as he instructed, manipulating the foreskin with my teeth and lips as I loved to do. I skimmed my tongue around the head of his cock, gently pushing the extra skin down the rim so I could get at the head and the stream of pre-cum he always gave me.

  One of my favorite things to do was to tease Derek until he got so impatient he’d drag me up his body. It seemed to me none of his prior conquests had shown his foreskin proper respect, but I would. He'd also come to love a slick finger up his ass, stroking his sensitive nerves inside, which was why I had the lube ready to give him something he would remember on his last night as a bachelor.

  By the time Derek let go down my throat, he was panting hard like he'd ran a race, and I was the cocky bastard who'd brought him to a glorious climax full of “fuck yeah, take it all.” I was proud of myself for being able to elicit such sounds from the sexy man.

  Smug was the look on my face when I looked up at the handsome man sitting on the pool deck, and his happy laugh had me grinning. "Come on you cocky thing. Let's grab a snack and have a beer because I have some things to tell you.

  “Thank you is the first thing; I love you is the second; and the third? Well, I found Cary Saunders. He's back in the States, and he's in custody right now because he's a flight risk. I'll explain in a minute," he told me as he pulled me out of the pool.

  My dick was hard, but it was deflating quickly because Cary…I now knew he had everything to do with Drew's death and I wasn't exactly happy to know he was in the area. Talk about putting a damper on our wedding? Yeah, that would do it.

  Twenty-Three

  Derek

  I approached the man waiting for me and I could have made him as FBI immediately because he had that crewcut, straight-laced look about him like he was a clone of almost every FBI agent I’d ever met. My hair was pulled back into a braid, and I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, trying not to stick out to the locals as a cop. Apparently, Cabot was channeling Agent Smith from the “Matrix” movies as he sat there in a charcoal gray suit, white shirt, and black tie. It was about ninety-eight degrees, but oh, he fit in fine.

  "Agent Cabot, thank you for calling to let me know you found him. As we learned after we started investigating the murder of Drew Corner, Cary’s a huge flight risk, so I’m glad you waited to make contact with him. Where's he staying," I asked, eager to get my hands on the little bastard.

  I’d been searching for Cary Saunders since the fucker took off for Spain after Drew’s death, but I was trying my damnedest to be discrete about it out of respect for Maddie and Miss Caroline.

  When they stopped talking to us, I felt confident there was more to the story so I had to determine which was worse: Losing friends because I was about to accuse a member of their family of murder; or holding someone responsible for the senseless death of a kid no more than sixteen years old who’d likely gotten in over his head in order to have a place to stay and three squares a day? I chose the latter, revenge avenue, and it would take a fucking nuke to get me off the scent.

  I’d figured out Cary was in Florida because of the panicked look on Maddie’s face when I told her Gray and I were going on vacation in Key West. Unfortunately, I had no legal jurisdiction down there, and we didn’t have enough evidence to issue a warrant for his arrest, or even classify Cary as a person-of-interest to get him extradited back to Texas for questioning. That was where the Feds came into the picture, and this time, I welcomed their interference in my case.

  The guy staring at me, Senior Special Agent John Cabot, was in Key West to pick up Cary, as I’d been informed. The fact Cabot had called me at all was really a fucking gift if I was evaluating the situation because intra-jurisdictional cooperation was usually unheard of, much less inter-jurisdictional cooperation.

  The Feds were looking at Cary because of his suspected connection to a local drug dealer they’d been investigating for six months, as I’d come to learn through Craig’s contact at the Bureau.

  Cabot was a friend of Craig's FBI buddy, Brian Hahn. Craig and I had also been coordinating things with Nate Offer in our Homicide Division who was assigned to the Corner murder case as well, and we were meeting at a coffee shop outside of Old Town to figure out how to affect the arrest with the least amount of problems.

  As a huge fucking courtesy, Cabot was allowin
g me to be involved because I wanted to talk to Cary about Drew’s death like I hadn’t been able to do when he took the fuck off from Houston.

  Just then, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Nate Offer with a big smile on his young face. "Vali, good to see you looking so happy. Must be the vacation, huh?" Nate greeted with a laugh.

  Nate Offer was a good-looking guy…six foot at least, buck-seventy at the most, but muscled up from what I'd seen in the gym at the Precinct. He was new, but he was eager, and he seemed to be a little too excited to see me, which had me concerned.

  I took a deep breath. "Nate, what brings you down here? I had this covered, and I was already gonna be down here so it wouldn't cost the department anything. We haven't exactly gone by the book on this one, you know, and I don't want any of us getting into trouble."

  I heard a throat clear, and I glanced up to see Cabot giving Nate a sizing up. "Oh, um, Senior Special Agent John Cabot, this is a colleague of mine from HPD. Detective Nathan Offer. He's new to our department in the Homicide Division, and he was assigned the Drew Corner/Clark Perkins cases because back at the office, they think they're at a dead end. Fortunately, Nate, here, isn’t one to give up," I introduced, offering a smile in support of the kid.

  "Nice to meet you, Detective Offer," John greeted as he extended his hand with a dry look, which wasn’t a surprise to me. They shook hands and both looked at me for further instruction, so I turned to the younger man. "So, Nate, why’d you come down?" I reminded. The guy had a big smile on his face as he turned to me, which continued to worry me.

  Finally, he spoke. "Well, Craig told me you were down here for vacation and to see if you could track down any leads with regard to Cary Saunders, so I thought I'd join you so nobody could say Homicide wasn't included. What do we have?" he asked as he looked at Cabot and me.

  I wasn’t sure why, but my gut told me the guy was lying. Baxter and I shared stuff with Offer, but only things we knew were solid leads. My speculation with regard to Cary being in or near Key West was based only on Maddie’s reaction at the news I was bringing Gray to Florida.

  It wasn’t enough for us to share with Offer, so I was definitely going to be on my guard with regard to the man’s behavior. If the fucker was stalking me, he was gonna have to learn how to walk with my boot up his ass because I had everything I needed in the man who was on the island with me…or somewhere in Key West at that moment.

  I glanced at John and nodded for him to relay the intel we had with regard to Cary and his hiding place, which wasn’t so hidden. Cabot tracked the idiot by using his credit cards, which were actually in Caroline’s name. I’d have done it myself, but doing it legally would have been tricky, and well, I was a cop so doing it illegally wasn’t an option. The Feds could do it without much head turning, so I was grateful Cabot was on my side.

  "Okay. Saunders rented a house near Higgs Beach. I've staked it out for a couple of days and based on the amount of activity I’ve seen around the place, it appears he's not alone in there, but I have no idea how many people are with him.

  “I haven't been able to get close enough for a good look at his companions without attracting a lot of attention because they’re being very careful about being outside during the day, but I know there are at least two people staying in the place. They order in instead of going out, and I was about to suggest we hijack their next food order to get inside, but you know the guy, not me. How do you suggest we handle this, Valentine?"

  I listened to Cabot describe their activities of late and gave it some thought. I didn’t know Cary Saunders too well personally, but his reputation left a lot to be desired, in my opinion. The video game entrepreneur we’d all believed him to be had been a bunch of bullshit as a front, which I’d come to find out after researching him in my off time.

  He’d submitted eight games to a fledgling gaming company, and they’d picked up one, which had no grand roll-out as it wasn’t really that exciting. It had barely been picked up on gaming sites, and best I could figure, he was going through his trust fund like a knife through hot butter.

  Obviously, the lack of success in his claimed profession was the reason he’d made some unwise choices, but I couldn’t let it get personal. I’d liked the guy when I met him, but he was a fucking fraud and he was involved in a homicide that took the life of a kid who was barely getting started on his path, in my opinion.

  I blocked out the reaction to the news of the man I was about to marry because I knew Gray cared very much about Cary, but he also wanted to know who had killed Drew, which was really the driving force behind why I’d continued to investigate Drew’s murder with help from Craig. Nothing would have happened with the investigation if it hadn’t been for Craig’s support and willingness to put his ass on the line right next to me.

  I looked at the two men whose attention I clearly had and spoke. "Well, Cary knows me because of our interaction at the deli where he worked. I’m pretty sure the guy knows I’m in town because my fiancé works for his aunt. She knew we were coming, and if he was my family, I’d have told him to get the fuck out of town. I have no doubt Maddie Wayne was looking out for her nephew and alerted him, so he knows Gray and I are here.

  “I'd suggest I just go up to the house and confront him. You and Nate can wait outside and we can see how things proceed. Honestly, I think if he’s back in the States and hiding in plain sight, he’s lookin’ to turn himself in and cut some sort of a deal.

  “Cary is the type of person who will want to do the least amount of jail time as possible. He's a computer geek or so he says, and God knows, he's not cut out for prison life," I suggested. We continued to discuss it and finally reached an agreement.

  I followed Cabot to the place where Cary was staying with his mystery guest or guests, and I had Offer in tow, glancing at him to see if he was staring at me like he wanted me to fuck him. When we parked outside the beach house, I turned to him. "Give me your cell number," I demanded as I pulled out my phone.

  "Um, okay, but this seems like a bad time to make a date," the guy told me as he retrieved his phone from his shorts pocket with a bashful smile on his face that didn’t make me happy at-fucking-all. I was getting married and I needed the guy to get it before I beat the crap out of him.

  I took a breath and thought about my baby boy, who was somewhere in Key West cursing me as he was picking out flowers and all the other shit that went along with getting married. I’d have gone with him to make it easier, but the opportunity to find Cary was too irresistible, and I was a sucker for closing cases.

  "Kid, trust me, that's not why I’m here at all. I'm engaged, actually, and I’m about to get married so I want this shit behind me.

  “I want our phones open so you can hear what I'm walking into, okay? If I need back-up, you signal Cabot and get him to come in with guns blazing, right? I don't anticipate trouble, but one never knows and I’m not ready to die yet, okay? You ready?" I asked as he punched his number into my phone and rang his own, opening the line.

  Without waiting for his answer, I hopped out of the car and walked up to the front door of the beach house Cabot had staked. I gave a double knock before I listened, hearing voices behind the door. Cary opened the door and shot me a sarcastic grin. "What the fuck took you so long to find me, Derek?"

  Twenty-Four

  Derek

  Cary Saunders was standing in front of me, and he had a self-righteous smirk on his face I wanted to slap off, but I couldn’t touch him and still do what I needed to do. "Well, there was that part where you lied about the part you played in Drew’s death before you hot-footed it to Spain to allude questioning by the authorities. And, here we are, now, Cary. You’ve come back. You doin’ okay?" I asked because I didn't hate him. He was a slime ball to be sure, but he was a personable slime ball…as slime balls went.

  Cary sighed and pulled me into a big hug as he felt up and down my back, obviously looking for a gun or a wire, neither of which did I have on me at the moment. I hadn’t b
rought a firearm with me, but I knew one guy who did, and I was counting on him to come through for me if shit went to hell. I had a wedding to get to, after all.

  "I'm not armed, you idiot. It's fucking Florida and I don’t have a carry permit here," I told him as I pulled away.

  I heard a sound behind me, so I slowly lifted my hands on a hunch. "Hey, Josh," I greeted without turning around. I’d speculated to myself Josh and Cary had some sort of a connection they weren’t sharing with the class, so I wasn’t really surprised Josh was in Key West. Until that moment, I wasn’t sure if I was making up an attraction that wasn’t really there, but it seemed like my gut was guiding me in the right direction, and I had a hell of a lot of fucking questions.

  When Josh Moore laughed behind me, I knew I was right. "Always too smart for your own good, Vali. What the fuck you doin' down here?" I turned around and smiled at my former friend as he pointed a gun at me, clearly prepared to use it.

  I chuckled, trying to hold my nerves and not think about the fact I might leave Gray a widower before we ever walked the aisle. I’d taken care of him financially when I met with the Human Resources lady at work to change all of my paperwork, naming him my beneficiary, but he wouldn’t give a shit about any of it if he had to bury me, so I had to play things smart.

  "Come on, Josh. I’m only here to ask Cary why he beat the living daylights out of Drew before the kid died. I just want him to answer some questions for me about what the kid had on him, or what he had against Drew because they didn’t seem to know each other when the boy came into the deli that night.

  “This doesn’t have to be anything more than me just getting a few answers to all the questions I have. He left before I could talk to him and you know we always suspect those who flee more than those who stay and talk to us,” I reminded Josh as I tried to get a good look near me to see if there were others with them or if there was something I could dive behind if shit went south.