Relief slumped through me.
“Thank you.” My voice cracked as I said the words.
“Now that we’ve talked about that, what’s this I hear about you needing to do some research on police work?”
My cheeks heated. “The mayor told you?”
“He called me last night when I was already in bed. He was that excited.”
“Did he? Oh, well, yes, I need to research how detectives operate.” The words hurt my throat. Another lie. Or was it? I did need to research it, just not for a movie. Still, I was justifying my poor decisions, and that wasn’t something to feel good about.
“For a movie?”
“Well . . .” I drew the word out until it was three syllables. No more lies, Joey. No more lies.
“You just want an inside scoop on the case,” Jackson said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I just needed to keep my mouth shut. That was all there was to it. Lie of omission? The lines all felt blurry right now.
More silence hung in the air like a dead man on a noose. I let it fall, something I generally wasn’t good at. I liked to fill the awkwardness, usually with blathering about inconsequential things. But not with Jackson. He wasn’t the inconsequential type, and I kind of liked that about him.
“My wife died three years ago today.” Jackson’s voice sounded deep and husky and full of emotion.
His words caused my heart to leap into my throat and stay there, pounding hard and heavy and oozing with compassion. The fact that Jackson was admitting this to me meant so much more than I could ever express.
My hand flew to his arm, and I squeezed, all my reservations disappearing—at least temporarily. “I’m so sorry, Jackson.”
“I usually take the day off and stay home by myself to grieve. I decided to do something different this year.”
“Because the mayor forced you to?”
He shrugged. “I could have said no. I thought maybe staying busy was a better option than mourning what could have—should have—been.”
“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
“I just wanted you to know because I’m feeling a little off, you know?”
“I know.” It suddenly made sense why Phoebe had been having a bad day yesterday. She’d probably been dreading the anniversary of losing her sister.
Jackson pulled to a stop and put his truck in park at our next location. “Let’s get this over with.”
When I saw the inside of the warehouse, nausea bubbled in my gut. I hadn’t expected the reaction, but being here brought up so many bad memories of what had happened last time I’d been in this open, exposed, rusty place.
It was on the water, and windows at the top were permanently open. A couple birds darted onto the beams overhead. I remembered hearing the bad guy’s voice. I remembered wondering if I was going to die. But mostly I remembered the man almost revealing what he knew about my dad, his gun pointed toward me. Then Jackson took a shot.
Yes, he’d saved my life, but not my sanity. Because I’d replayed that conversation over and over again. I’d been so close.
Jackson and I, along with Maria and her crew, walked through what had happened in the final showdown of my last investigation, ending with my famous baloney move that Raven had made popular. In reality, the move was something my father had taught me. When I’d told the producer about it, he’d insisted on making it one of Raven’s signature moves also. Basically, it meant “below knee,” and that was where I kicked someone when I needed to get away.
A lone chair had been placed in the center of the warehouse, just like when I’d been tied up here, which also was just like what had happened in an episode of Relentless. It was a long story, but one of the bad guys had insisted on reenacting that episode.
“It sounds like you guys make an amazing team,” Maria said.
I winked, trying to keep the mood light. “An amazing one.”
“The mayor tells me you’re going to be working together to solve more cases,” she continued.
My curiosity spiked. He’d told her that? Already? And here I’d thought I would just do a ride-along.
“The Nags Head Police Department is committed to keeping the community safe,” Jackson said. “We also like to raise awareness about what we’re doing in the area to help fight crime and make our streets safer. If Joey and I working together will help create and foster that environment, then it’s something we’re committed to doing.”
My eyebrows shot up. He sounded so believable. Maybe Jackson should go into acting.
At that moment, something crashed in the corner. I looked over in time to see someone flee from behind some old pallets.
Someone had been watching us? Was it my stalker? The killer?
Jackson took off after the man.
I had to do something. I ran out a door on the opposite side of the building. The not-so-smart creeper ran right toward me.
I glanced around, knowing I couldn’t stop him on my own.
A huge rope was on the ground, anchored to a pier in the distance.
My heart rammed into my rib cage over and over, faster and faster.
Just when the man was about to pass me, I pulled the rope. It caught his foot, and he sprawled to the ground.
I’d done it. I’d stopped the bad guy.
Jackson hauled him to his feet and jerked his hood down.
I held my breath as I waited to see if I recognized him.
Chapter Seventeen
“Who are you?” Jackson demanded.
I stared at the man—or should I say boy’s?—face, not even remotely recognizing him. He was probably a teenager, college if I had to guess. He had acne marks and messy brown hair, and his body hadn’t caught up with his frame yet, if that made sense.
“My name is Adam.” He raised his hands, his features slack and his limbs trembling.
“Why were you watching us?” Jackson asked.
“I saw Joey Darling. I just wanted another look.”
“Did you follow us here?” Jackson’s voice was just above a growl, but his grip had loosened on the teenager.
“No, I was on a break from work. I’m part time over at Shipwreck Bay Seafood. Anyway, I wondered what all of the commotion was about. No one ever comes here. When I peeked inside, I saw the cameras and . . . Joey Darling.” He glanced at me, his cheeks turning red. “I’m a huge fan.”
“I’ll give you my autograph later,” I offered.
When Jackson scowled at me, I looked into the air and did an imaginary whistle. Exaggerated innocence at its finest.
“I promise you I didn’t mean any harm. I just . . .” His face reddened again when he looked at me. “I think you’re great, Joey. I was so bummed when Relentless was canceled. I even have your poster in my bedroom, the one of you wearing that tight leather outfit and holding a gun—”
“Yeah, I know the one.” The poster hadn’t seemed like a bad idea at the time, but hearing him talk about it made me feel dirty somehow.
Jackson released him but still didn’t look happy. At least Maria and her crew weren’t on top of us right now. They stood in the background, as if too afraid to come closer.
“By the way, there’s something you should know,” Adam told me.
“What’s that?” I braced myself for whatever he was about to say.
He shifted his weight from one foot to another and then back again. “It’s like I said—I’m one of your biggest fans. I’m a part of your Facebook Fan Club. My goal was even to go to a fan convention one day and meet you face to face. You and Fiona the Werewolf Hunter.”
“Okay,” I said, waiting for the big reveal. If there really was one.
“As I was surfing around online, I came across this fan club that took fandom to a whole new level.”
Jackson bristled beside me. “What do you mean?”
Adam shrugged, his face squeezing with concern and thought. “Like, these people weren’t
normal. They were obsessed with you. They posted your schedule, your favorite foods, your hangouts. They even said you were in this area and that you worked at some hair place.”
My spine went straight. “Okay . . . that’s a little extreme.”
“How many people were on this site?” Jackson asked.
Adam shrugged. “At least six, I’d say. But here’s the weird thing: right after I discovered the site, it disappeared. I don’t think I was supposed to find it, but I do web stuff. I’m studying cybersecurity in college. I just work here to help pay my tuition. Anyway, I guess you could say I’ve always been good with computers, and I know how to get into some dark channels of the underweb.”
My blood grew colder and colder by the minute. Did this network include my stalkers? I’d always known I had more than one, but I assumed that the main guy—Leonard Shepherd, whom I’d had a restraining order against back in California—was the leader and he worked with a partner. But what if I was just skimming the surface in that assumption?
Ice filled my chest. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this at all.
Just then Maria clapped her hands behind me. I turned and saw her standing there, her camera crew recording this whole thing.
“This is going to make for some great TV!” she squealed.
My stomach sank. Certainly my life was more important than ratings . . . wasn’t it?
Jackson and I both let out a collective sigh when we closed the doors of his truck an hour later.
Adam had been released to go back to work after Jackson got his name and contact information in case the police had any more questions. Thankfully, Maria and her crew had been too far away to hear anything he said. I didn’t want word of this secret fan club to be leaked, nor did I want Adam to be a target, since these people were obviously unbalanced.
“That was an experience,” Jackson said, not making an effort to go anywhere yet. Maybe we both needed a moment to decompress.
“Or something like it.” I rubbed my arms. I was still chilled to the core after Adam’s confession. A whole group of potential psychopaths had banded together to talk about me? To stalk me? Not comforting.
“We’ll figure out who these guys are, Joey,” Jackson said.
“I hope so.” But they were good. Really good. And from what I’d seen so far, they knew how to cover their tracks.
“We still have officers patrolling past your place.”
I glanced over at Jackson in surprise. It was the first I’d heard of that. “You do?”
“We do. Just as a precaution. It’s really not a bad idea to get some bodyguards, Joey. We don’t know who we’re up against at this point.”
“We?”
“I’m in this with you.”
“Whether you want to be or not, huh?” I shifted before he could respond. “Bodyguards aren’t a possibility right now. It’s not in my budget. Long story.” And embarrassing. On more than one level.
“I know it’s none of my business, Joey, but what happened to all of your money?” He shook his head and looked out the window. “You know what, never mind. It’s like I said—none of my business. I just can’t seem to figure you out.”
“It’s okay. I’m a bit of a mystery to people.” I drew in a deep breath. Part of me wanted to tell him. Which was weird because the whole story didn’t reflect well on me. Usually I thrived on presenting a good image and trying to bury the ugly side of me. It was one of the reasons I’d swept what Eric had done under the rug. It would show the world how weak I really was.
Despite that, I cleared my throat. “My ex told me he was really good with money, and so I put him in charge of our finances. But it was like the more money I made, the more we spent. On stupid things. Things I’m not proud of. Things I desperately wish I could have a take two on.”
Jackson stretched his arm across the back of the bench seat and lightly touched my shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Joey. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, I need to own my mistakes.” I rubbed my fingers together. “I made some doozies. Anyway, Eric and I got into financial trouble—partly because of spending, partly because of his gambling problem. Eric talked to a lawyer who told him to put all our assets in one spouse’s name and all the debt in the other. Really, it was all fishy and underhanded. But I had no reason to doubt Eric, so I put all the debts in my name and all the assets in his. It was supposed to be a temporary solution. When we divorced, he walked away with what we had left, and I walked away with the debt.”
Jackson blinked and let out a quick puff of air. “Your ex was okay with that?”
“He was more than okay with it. He delighted in it, I think.” Eric hadn’t been the prince charming he’d presented himself to be when we met. At first he’d seemed like the stereotypical gentleman who’d treated me like a princess—until we got married and his career tanked soon after. Then everything became my fault, and his controlling side kicked in.
“What a jerk,” Jackson said.
He only knew part of it. Eric had done a lot of other things that were even more reprehensible, but it all came to a head when he pushed me down the stairs and broke my ribs. He took my phone so I couldn’t call 911. And then he’d left the house while I was still writhing on the floor in pain.
That had been my wake-up call.
“Listen, it’s just past lunch time,” Jackson said. “Do you want to grab a bite to eat?”
I paused before nodding. “Yeah, that actually sounds nice. Let’s do it. Just don’t let me order any gluten. Or meat. Or veggies cooked at more than one hundred fifteen degrees. And definitely no fries.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jackson and I went to Fatty’s. It was actually called the Fatty Shack, but locals just called it Fatty’s. It was one of the first restaurants I’d eaten at here, and the waitress Erma was a fan. My autographed picture was now on the wall, right alongside Tiger Woods and Sandra Bullock.
The restaurant was located on the causeway between Nags Head and Roanoke Island. The dated inside was decorated with old crab pots and buoys. It smelled like fish and dirty cleaning solution. The floors were sticky and the tables boasted chipped Formica. But it felt authentic, and the food was good.
I ordered seafood nachos, which almost fit my guidelines. Jackson, meanwhile, got a crab-cake sandwich and fries. We made small talk—mostly about fishing and church and how Maria Salvatore could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
A few people stopped by to talk to Jackson, and I enjoyed seeing him in a different environment other than work. He was much more relaxed here, and all of this had proven that he wasn’t an antisocial monster who hated people.
“You’re Lew’s daughter, aren’t you?” A man paused by the table. “Joey?”
My heart leapt into my throat as I looked up at the man. I didn’t recognize him. He was in his forties with thinning blond hair, a square face, and wire-framed glasses. He wore a golf shirt and khakis.
“I am.”
“I thought I recognized you. I’m Bert. Bert Philpot.”
“Nice to meet you, Bert.”
He frowned and shook his head. “Sure do miss your dad. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
I shook my head. “No, I wish I did. But I have no idea. How do you know him?”
“Through my nonprofit.”
“What kind of nonprofit is that?”
“I call it Safe Harbor, and it’s designed as an outreach to the international workers in the area. In the summertime, we have anywhere between twelve hundred to sixteen hundred seasonal student workers in the area. I started Safe Harbor after I discovered several of these workers were using a storage unit as their home. That’s when I knew I had to do something.”
“What do you do, exactly?” I asked, curious now.
“Many things. But I began by setting up people to provide transportation to work for these students. We evolved into connecting students to locals who’d serve as their mentors. Many of them can f
all victim to scammers. They speak broken English, and they have no one to turn to when they need help.”
“And my father helped you?”
He nodded. “That’s right. He approached me about volunteering.”
“Really?” This was the first I’d heard of that. My dad had been a good man. A really good man. He’d give someone the shirt off his back if needed. But I’d never known him to be the type to get involved with nonprofits. They were too organized and impersonal for my dad.
“He started helping me probably two months before he left. He was very faithful. He mostly helped with transportation.”
“I’d love to talk to you more about that sometime.”
“Of course.” He paused and shook his head. “You know, your dad looked almost apologetic last time I saw him.”
I put down the tortilla chip in my hand. “What do you mean?”
His eyes wrinkled at the corners. “I don’t know. You could tell he was distracted. Not acting like himself. He wasn’t the type to just up and leave, you know.”
His words gripped my heart. He understood also. “Yes, I know. Did you ever ask him where he was going?”
Jackson remained surprisingly quiet in the background, but I could tell he was listening to every single word.
“He just said he had business to attend to. That was what was weird though, because your dad seemed like such a simple man. He enjoyed living a quiet life.”
Exactly. That was my dad. That was another reason why none of this made sense. I had the deep feeling that he was in trouble. A lot of trouble. And I hated feeling powerless to do anything about it.
“I’m hoping to hear from him soon,” I said, playing with my straw wrapper. “Is there anything he said that seemed strange or off, Bert? Or did he seem normal in the days before he disappeared?”
A strange shadow fell over his face, but he quickly snapped out of it. “No, I can’t say there was. He mostly worked and fished.”
My heart sank, and I nodded. “Thank you.”
“It was good to meet you, Joey,” Bert said. “Your food is getting cold, so I’ll let you eat.”
Reign of Error (The Worst Detective Ever Book 2) Page 11