Strict Confidence

by Skye Warren

  His eyes narrow, as blue as Emily’s. As blue as Paige’s. “You never gave a damn about her. Did you show up for her birthdays? No, you sent a goddamn card. A check.”

  Guilt swallows me where I stand. It merges with the bitter scent of ashes from the fire, with the sight of Jane’s eyes filling with tears on the beach. There are a million things I’m sorry for, which is proof enough that I should leave Jane alone. “I came here to talk to the fire chief. You want to give me shit for being an asshole, you’ll have to get in line.”

  Joe flips his notebook closed and claps Alan on the shoulder. “Keep me updated.” He walks away over the ruts in the grass left by the emergency vehicles.

  Alan shades his eyes and watches him go. “He’s never been right since his sister died.”

  He was never right before that, either, but I don’t bother correcting him. “Maybe it’s a woman,” I say. “Maybe not. But how do you know it’s not some teenage kid crying for help?”

  “I don’t,” Diebold says. “Could be anyone. That’s not really my purview, but the police department usually shares their leads with me. Not in this case.”

  “Because he has no leads,” I say, my teeth clenched.

  Diebold runs a hand over his arm. I have a vague memory that he was injured in a fire once, around the time he got his promotion. He had burns along his entire left side. They’re covered up now in his uniform. “Spent some time going through the wreckage. When you live in a place like Eben Cape, something like this, it’s personal. It was interesting that there weren’t any signs of a break-in.”

  “You said yourself the fire destroyed everything. Including evidence.”

  He looks out at the ocean. “You say Emily Rochester never liked being on the water?”

  “She hated it. Said it made her hair frizzy. And she got seasick.”

  “Always thought it was interesting they never found her body,” he says, his pale watery gaze meeting mine.

  “Lots of bodies don’t get found after boating accidents.”

  “She would have known every way into the house.”

  Chills race over my back. “Are you suggesting she’s still alive?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything.” He gives a sudden, slightly manic laugh. “Just the imaginings of an old man. I should probably do the department a favor and retire already.”

  In the stunned silence my mind processes the following facts: that Emily Rochester loved this house. She wouldn’t voluntarily leave. She used to point at it when we walked the beach on the other side. I used to dream about buying it for her. Of course, it was Rhys that eventually did that. It was Rhys she eventually married.

  Why would she let everyone believe she died?

  My brother was an accountant. Not a fisherman or even a hobbyist boater. Emily didn’t grow up around the ocean. And she got seasick.

  Despite those things, they rented a boat.

  They went out on the water and never came back.

  “No,” I say, the word drawn out and final. “I don’t believe in people coming back from the dead. I don’t believe in ghosts. We had a funeral for Emily Rochester. She’s gone.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Diebold says, sober now. “But whoever set that fire didn’t go up in flames. They’re walking around the cliff. Walking along the beach. Walking the same places as you and me, so take care of Paige. And take care of yourself.”

  I glance at the winding path where Joe Causey’s black department-issued Taurus descends the winding road. “You don’t think he’s going to catch the person who did it.”

  He scratches his head. “I’m not entirely convinced it wasn’t him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jane Mendoza

  I go through the motions of Paige’s bath-time routine with an aching heart.

  As if Beau reached in and twisted it as he left.

  Every beat of my heart forces me to remember his words on the beach. The man who said those things was the casual, cruel boss I started working for, not the lover in my bed. After everything, it’s still painful. I wanted to sink down to my knees in the sand and sob.

  Not with Paige waiting in the house.

  Not with everything feeling as tenuous as it did when I first got here.

  Now she flips over in the clawfoot tub and kicks her feet. Paige was suspicious of the tub until the first time she tried it. Then she did a complete one eighty. “It’s like a pool!” she’d said, eyes round with astonishment. “Or a hot tub. I’m a mermaid. Look at me, I’m a mermaid.”

  There’s more than enough room for her to stretch out her legs. She sweeps one hand through the water and makes waves on the side of the tub.

  “Ten more minutes,” she says.

  And I get it. There’s a whole toy store in there for her. Everything we had sent from a little shop downtown to try and coax her in. Bubble bath that makes the surface of the water glisten with rainbows. Floating toys in the shape of boats. Bath paints, which seem like they’ll defeat the purpose but remain miraculously out of her hair.

  “Five minutes,” I offer as a compromise.

  My temples throb with the stress of the argument. Beau said he needed me. It didn’t stop him from turning his back on me. He claimed he didn’t mean it when he said he loved me. A moment that passed, he called it. I don’t have the energy to fight him.

  “Seven,” Paige says, and dunks her head under again. She learned how to make deals while playing Monopoly. She’ll make you an offer on St. Charles Place for more than it’s even worth. It seems like a good idea until she captures her monopoly and bankrupts you a few turns later.

  “Okay,” I tell her when she resurfaces. “Seven minutes.”

  I step out into Paige’s bedroom. Most times, she wants to be alone, so I give her space. I’ve already washed her hair. She’ll be pruny soon, but I don’t want to push her too hard. So I perch on the edge of the bed and listen to her drag the toy boats through the water. From the sounds of her dialogue there’s a pirate ship in battle with a cove of mermaids. Kitten naps peacefully on Paige’s pillow, undisturbed by the battle.

  A movement outside the window catches my eye. I sweep back the curtain a few inches, expecting to see moonlight on waves.

  There’s someone out there.

  A woman, walking slowly down the beach. I get the impression of blonde hair bleached white by the moon. A long, pale nightgown. Unease skips down my spine. The woman doesn’t seem to leave footprints in the sand—or maybe I’m too far away to see them. It’s almost like she’s floating over the beach, drifting toward the water.

  “How many minutes? How many minutes left?” A child’s voice calling from the bathroom.

  I look over my shoulder at Paige, who’s skimming the boat toy over the edge of the tub. “Five minutes,” I say, my voice sounding hollow. Afraid.

  When I look back, the beach is empty. That doesn’t make me feel better. Not at all. She wasn’t walking fast enough to disappear. I stick my head close to the window and look up and down the shore. No one’s there.

  I drop the curtain and rub my hand over my eyes. It was a traumatic event, the house fire. It’s making my imagination run wild.

  A trick of the light. That’s all. Stress, and a trick of the light.

  I go back into the bathroom. “Time to hop out and get dried off.”

  “Ten more minutes.” Paige clings to the edge of the tub, only her eyes peeking over the side.

  “I’m going to get your pajamas ready.”

  A new pajama set waits in the top drawer of Paige’s dresser. I snap the tags off one by one and drop them into her little wastebasket.

  “Ten more minutes,” Paige calls, though I haven’t been back to warn her. I shouldn’t keep bargaining with her, but it’s hard to be strict with a girl who’s gone through so much. First losing her parents. Then a fire. Let her enjoy her baths, if that’s what she likes.

  “I’m almost done,” I answer back.

  A shadow darkens the door. His
scent follows a moment later. Wind and ocean and… smoke. Beau watches me with dark eyes made darker by his thoughts. “Jane,” he says.

  My hands clench around the pajamas. “Paige is having her bath.”

  In the bathroom, she makes a noise like a cannon’s blast.

  Beau straightens up and clears his throat. Despite the strength of him, the ferocity of him, all contained in that muscular body, he looks… vulnerable.

  Like he’s recently been burned through as much as the house has.

  “I need to apologize to you for my behavior earlier.” Every word is stiff. Uncomfortable. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I’m sorry.”

  Then he nods his head and turns to go.

  I should let him. I should let him walk out of here and go change his clothes and stay my cold, distant boss. We could have the kind of neutral boss–employee relationship we should have had all along. His love is dangerous. He proved that to me on the beach.

  But there’s something about the set of his shoulders that speaks of loss. He’s bereft. I don’t know of what. The house? His old life? Or some other, more elusive spark?

  I don’t know, and I desperately want to know.

  I move after him in a few quick steps. “Wait.”

  He doesn’t say a word as I catch his arm in the hallway. Beau’s dark eyes widen for a fraction of a second, and then his gaze slips down to my hand on his sleeve. The salt scent of the ocean is stronger here. His eyes have more depth. The light from the bathroom catches and recedes in their black centers. It’s harder to breathe with him looking at me like that.

  Like I’m some monumental decision for him to make.

  My mouth has gone dry. “What did the fire chief say?”

  His brows knit together into something like pain. He wants to lie. I can see it in his eyes. I can see myself reflected there, too. I’m dressed in all the expensive clothes he gave me. A piece of his world, now. On the surface, I fit in here, but I don’t want him to hold me at arm’s length. I don’t want him to keep me out.

  “Tell me the truth,” I demand in a whisper. Halfway through it becomes a plea. “Trust me.”

  He brushes my hand away and backs me against the wall in a single pained heartbeat. Beau’s big hand cups my jaw. It’s not like it was on the beach. He’s not pulling away from me. He’s pushing in, hard, his mouth confident on mine. Hot on mine. Possessive. It’s like he takes my words as a challenge, like the truth he offers is in every stroke of his tongue against mine, every ragged breath we share.

  His other hand steadies my hip. My heart pounds at the contact. He can’t hide from me like this. He isn’t hiding from me like this. From the rest of the world, maybe. No one can see us here in the dim light of the hall. There’s only the aching truth between us. He needs me. I want him.

  Beau shoves a knee between my legs. My head tips back in spite of myself. Keep silent. I have to stay silent, though he’s giving me just enough contact to light my nerves up from end to end. It’s dirtier than touching me with his fingers. More shameful.

  Part of me loves that shame. I would rather be ashamed like this every minute for the rest of my life than watch him stalk away from me again.

  The thought of making that trade—my shame and submission for him to stay, stay, stay—tears a gasp right out of my mouth.

  “That’s it,” he says, close to my ear. I shouldn’t let him do this. I should stand up tall and demand to finish the conversation on my own terms. Demand more than a stiff apology from him. I can’t even make an attempt at pulling my body away from his. I want it too much.

  I let all my weight come down on his leg. Let his hand coax my hips into rocking against him. The rest of me follows. I want my hands in his shirt, my lips on the side of his neck. I want more of him. More of him than I can possibly have in the hall. More of him than I have time to take right now. I press a kiss to the side of his neck. Drag the tip of my tongue through the ocean-salt taste of his skin. Swallow another gasp.

  It’s only when I’m near frantic with the need to come that he pulls back, eyes dark with warning. “The fire chief said it was set on purpose.”

  It’s humiliating, how close I am to coming. He delivers this news right as I go over the edge so I have no choice but to hear it while I shudder out the kind of needy orgasm that makes my face burn. It doesn’t sate me. Not when it’s followed so closely by awareness of what he said.

  My nerves against his leg send me up and up and up again. He’s doing it on purpose. He’s making me come because he has more to say.

  The horrible anticipation of it gets overrun by pleasure.

  “Someone was in the house that night.” His steady voice has an edge of certainty. An edge of anger as he rubs me to climax. “Someone lit a goddamn match.”

  Shock moves through me, chasing down the pleasure. Fear comes next. Cold in my veins. Of course it was possible. Possible that someone else came into the house and started the fire. I hoped it wasn’t. The idea that someone walked above our heads while we were sleeping—while we were having sex, even—makes my skin crawl.

  I hadn’t suspected a thing, so consumed by Beau Rochester.

  Whoever it was, they took advantage of us. The memory seems violated somehow. I was in Beau’s arms while someone plotted to kill us in his house.

  I don’t know what to do. Throw myself fully into his arms or step away? I can’t do either one. I’m still pinned on top of his legs. His hands on my hips hold me in place.

  He lifts a hand to my cheek. “Jane—”

  “I want to get out.” Paige’s voice rises to a shrill shriek, and the slap of bath water hitting the floor comes a second later. “Jane. Jane. Jane.”

  I untangle myself from Beau and cross back through the bedroom to the bathroom. Paige stands in the tub, arms crossed over her chest. It’s the pose of an angry little girl but her face isn’t upset. It’s relieved, almost. Like I was gone a second longer than she could handle. I grab a towel off the hanger by the sink and hold it out, both arms wide.

  Paige steps out of the tub and lets me wrap her in soft cotton. Her little shoulders look even smaller through the drape of the towel. “Where did we put that brush?” I muse, mostly to myself. Mostly to calm my racing heart. The hormone warmth of two orgasms heats my veins.

  “In the top drawer.” Paige draws the towel tighter around her as I retrieve the brush.

  I focus all my attention on combing her hair. All of it, except the part that’s still hearing Beau’s words from the hallway. Someone was in the house that night. It’s scarier than the fire starting. Knowing that someone was there. Someone else could have tiptoed past my room. Someone could have pressed their ear to the door, listening to us together.

  Someone could have used that fact against us.

  It occurs to me now that Joe Causey knew Beau and I had sex. He knew from the very first time I met him in the hospital. How did he know?

  “Jane?” asks the small girl in front of me.

  “Yeah?” I say, too quickly, smiling back a beat too late at Paige’s reflection in the mirror.

  “Can I have a glass of milk before bed?”

  I shake off the urge to tell her no. I don’t want to go to the kitchen of the inn. In the face of Beau’s news, what I want to do is lock ourselves behind the nearest bedroom door and not come out until the police have found the person.

  In the meantime, what if they come looking for me?

  They could.

  Someone was in the house that night.

  “Of course you can.” I won’t show her my sudden, irrational fear. Beau has security systems installed at the inn. Nobody is going to get in here without tripping an alarm. It’s perfectly safe for me to walk to the kitchen and pour Paige a glass of milk.

  I run the brush through her hair one more time, sweeping it back from her face.

  Paige studies me in the mirror. “Jane?”

  “Yeah?” There’s no sense in upsetting Paige with this, so I give her
my biggest, warmest smile.

  She smiles back. It’s not a full-on cheesy grin, but after all she’s been through, I can’t say I’d expect it. Paige’s smile squeezes my heart. “Can we play Monopoly tomorrow?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Beau Rochester

  Marjorie startles when I enter the kitchen. Her shoulders tighten at a board creaking under my foot, and she snaps her head around with wide eyes. “Mr. Rochester.”

  She’s rinsing her hands in the sink. The dish towel she reaches for has been ironed and hung neatly over a hook near the sink. She’s the kind of innkeeper who pays attention to details like dish towels matching the drapes.

  I imagine it’s one of the only things we haven’t disrupted.

  “Is there something I can do for you?”

  My own blood pounds in my veins. I want to go back upstairs to Jane. I want to take her face in both my hands and kiss her the way I would if we had all the time in the world. “You took down a message for me. I need to know more about it.”

  Her hands flutter down to her skirt. Emotions cross her face in rapid succession—fear, defiance, guilt. The guilt is interesting. “I didn’t want to write it down.”

  “But you did.”

  “It was crazy.” She meets my eyes with a kind of desperation. Marjorie’s not the type to get mixed up in anything like this. She runs a tight ship at her inn. It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t blame her for someone leaving a message. “I decided to throw it away while I was out, but you already found it by the time I got back.”

  The same prickling paranoia I felt at the house taps the back of my neck. “What did she sound like? Were there any noises in the background?”

  Marjorie’s eyes get wider. “Do you think she would come here to find you? I just assumed she was one of your—” A flush creeps up her cheeks.

  She’s talking about the photos of me that made it to the tabloids.

  Damn those photos.

  At the time, being photographed like that felt like success. It felt like I’d finally arrived. It painted a picture I didn’t mind. That I enjoyed a beautiful woman every night in my bed. That I had the money and skill to be sought-after. It was such hollow bullshit compared to what I want now—only one beautiful woman.