“That little fucker is lucky I’m a police officer, or he’d have walked out of here with more than a red face. No one talks to you like that.”
I hated how conflicted he made me feel. His actions annoyed me, but his sentiment did not. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”
“Yeah, too long.”
The bell rang, but Michael didn’t move. He kept his focus on my face and without looking away said to the guy hovering beside him, “Move along.”
After a moment of confusion, the man departed.
“Are you seriously going to stay here all night?”
He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. He wore a dark Henley that showcased his superb physique. The muscles in his arms flexed with his movement and my mouth went dry. Why couldn’t he be overly muscular and massive in a way I found off-putting? Why did he have to be that perfect amount of hard, delicious, well-maintained strength that suited his height and build? I wished he was naked so I could lick him.
Ugh. I scolded myself for the wayward thoughts.
“You’re ogling.” Amusement threaded his words.
I flushed at being caught and then narrowed my eyes in irritation. “You wore that shirt deliberately.”
Laughter spilled from his lips. “Men wear clothes because it’s the law. They don’t wear clothes deliberately.”
“Some men do.”
His dark eyes dropped to my cleavage and then moved to my lips. “You chose that outfit deliberately.”
“I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Which makes it worse. You chose it for other guys.”
“I chose it for myself. I dress for myself.” I glowered. “If you remembered anything about me, you’d remember that.”
He cocked his head in thought. “I distinctly remember a set of underwear you admitted to wearing just for me.”
Heat spread through me at the memory. We’d been fooling around in his car, and I was wearing a satin emerald-green bra and underwear I’d bought for him. The lingerie had taken our making out from slow and delicious to hungry and determined. He was seconds from pushing inside me for the first time when we were interrupted.
I shrugged off the melancholy memory. “Lingerie is different.”
“You buy lingerie for Jeff?”
Seeing the flash of jealousy in his eyes, I crossed my arms over my chest and countered, “Did your wife buy lingerie for you?”
The bell rang again.
Michael didn’t budge. Again.
“Hey, man, you’re supposed to move.” A cute guy with a thick head of dark hair and glasses said to Michael. His eyes flicked to me with interest.
Cute.
Michael didn’t think so. He turned to stare coolly up at the guy. Then he did the unthinkable and unclipped his badge from his belt and held it up. “Move. Along.”
The guy scurried.
Actually scurried.
Amusement I didn’t want to feel pushed at the corners of my mouth. “You didn’t just flash your badge at that guy.”
Michael recognized the laughter in my eyes and grinned. “I’ll do what I must.”
Kell appeared beside Michael. “Detective Sullivan … you’re supposed to move along every time the bell rings.”
“I know how it works.”
“Then why are you hogging Ms. McGuire? Do I need to ask the sheriff to intervene?”
Michael glanced around the room and found Jeff at the table behind us. “Jeff, it going to piss you off if I don’t move from this seat?”
The room grew quiet as Jeff looked over, his gaze dancing between us, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he found this funny! “Make you a deal—you let me switch seats with you at the next bell, I’ll give you that seat back when the bell rings again, and I won’t make you move.”
Michael’s shoulders tensed.
Jeff grinned. “I’d say that’s a fair deal.”
“But Sheriff,” Kell whined, “that’s not how this works.”
“Well, Sullivan?” Jeff ignored the councilman.
My cheeks grew hotter as everyone turned to stare at me in curiosity as these two so-called professional cops (professional assholes more like it!) bartered over time with me.
“Let me make the decision easier.” I pushed away from the table, not sure who I wanted to smack more. Snatching up my purse, I whirled and strode out, ignoring Kell’s protests.
“Dahlia!” Michael called after me, but I pushed open the conference room doors and marched out of there as fast as my high heels would let me.
I was hurrying across the shiny tiled floor of the main reception when I was abruptly whirled around and hauled up against Michael’s hard body. He gripped both my arms; I pushed against him.
“Let me go.”
His expression was equal parts indignation and concern. “Dahlia, stop.”
“No. You stop,” I hissed, not wanting to make a scene. “Were you trying to humiliate me in there?”
His jaw clenched. “You know I wasn’t.”
“No.” I jerked away with all my strength and stumbled out of his grasp. “You were just metaphorically peeing around me.”
Jeff appeared beside us, the crest of his cheeks flushed. “Dahlia, are you okay?”
“I’m mad at you too,” I announced.
He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, we didn’t—”
“Didn’t what? Mean to act like Neanderthal teenagers?” I scowled between them as both their faces darkened at my insult. “You’re the sheriff, and you’re a detective. And I’m a person. You are not two dogs fighting over a chew toy.”
“Dahlia, you know that’s not fair,” Michael huffed.
“You know what’s not fair? Being gossip fodder for this town. What did you two think would happen in there?” I gestured toward the room. “You think it’s a joke? Michael maybe has an excuse, but Jeff, you’ve lived here long enough to know what happens when something like this gets out. Especially when a jealous Dana Kellerman is in the room. All of a sudden I’m the tramp who’s stringing along the sheriff and his new detective.”
“If anyone dares even say that …” Michael bristled.
But contrition softened Jeff’s expression—he knew I was right. When I broke up with him a few years ago, people had gossiped about me, and a lot of it had been nasty. “I’m sorry, Dahlia.”
Exhausted, irritated, dreading the consequences of their juvenile antics, I shook my head and was about to walk away when a commotion at the front of the hotel drew our attention. We turned to see Deputy Wendy Rawlins and Deputy Eddie Myers hurrying across the lobby toward Jeff.
“Sheriff.” Wendy almost skidded to a halt.
Jeff and Michael grew alert at the deputies’ drawn, pale expressions. “What’s wrong?” Jeff asked.
“I know you’re off duty but …” Wendy glanced around and saw I was close enough to overhear. She turned to Jeff. “Sheriff, we need you and Detective Sullivan to come with us right away.”
My heart raced at the grim seriousness in Wendy’s tone and the deep concern that etched itself into Michael’s and Jeff’s faces.
“On our way,” Jeff said. He looked down at me. “We’ll talk later.”
I nodded, my anger defused under the heavy, horrible vibe the deputies had brought into the hotel with them.
Jeff strode away with his officers, but Michael lingered. His expression softened at my concerned countenance.
“Be careful.”
“Always am.” There was so much in his eyes. So much I knew he wanted to say. He seemed to decide on an apology. “I’m sorry if I was a dick in there. I’m … I’m terrified of losing you again.”
Tears brightened my eyes as he lowered his head, rubbing the back of his neck in a way that made him seem vulnerable. I didn’t like Michael vulnerable. I especially didn’t like him vulnerable as he walked away from me into a possibly dangerous situation.
“What was that about?” Vaughn crossed the lobby tow
ard me.
He watched the officers disappear. I heaved a sigh, my stomach roiling with anxiety. “I have no idea. Something bad, I think.”
“So it would seem.” His spectacular silver eyes focused on me. “Are you all right?”
“My life is one giant soap opera, Vaughn.”
“That would be a no, then?”
“That would be a hell no.”
Michael had come to learn a lot about the Devlin family in the last month since his arrival in Hartwell. He knew Ian Devlin along with his wife Rosalie, who was a bit of a hermit, and their youngest child Jamie all lived together in the Glades. It was a community of wealthy homes in the north of Hartwell. The Glades, despite their price tag, was not the prime real estate in town. There were several houses down the coast from the boardwalk, separated by land, that were worth millions. Vaughn Tremaine owned one of the sought-after beach houses that sat out over the water. Michael had garnered enough knowledge to know it would be a craw in Devlin’s throat that he didn’t own one of those homes.
Rebecca Devlin, the only daughter, left town four years ago for graduate school in England and had not returned since.
Kerr Devlin, the second-eldest son lived in a penthouse suite of the family’s hotel, The Hartwell Grand.
As for his second-youngest son, Jack, his house was a nice but average home in South Hartwell.
The eldest, Stu, lived in a beautiful family-sized home on Johnson Creek. The creek fed into Hartwell Bay on the southern coast. If you didn’t own a rare, spectacular oceanfront home, and you didn’t mind trading in a mansion-sized home in the Glades for location, you bought a house on Johnson Creek. Stu Devlin’s house was more than he needed. It was also on the bend of the creek with a private dock, and far enough away from its neighbors that someone could fire a gun and not be heard.
Which meant no one knew Stu Devlin was dead until the married woman he was screwing around with let herself into the house.
Michael stood in Stu’s glossy white kitchen as Stu’s body, now in a body bag, was loaded onto a gurney. There was blood splattered across the back window of the kitchen that faced the creek. Blood on the floor where Stu had died.
From what they’d surmised, and they’d know more once the coroner looked at the body, the two entry wounds were almost one hole, they were so close together. And they were on the chest, near the sternum.
The wounds were consistent with how a police officer was trained to shoot.
There had been an anonymous tip at the station that Freddie Jackson was involved in the selling and dealing of cocaine. No one had seen Freddie Jackson in hours. He didn’t come into the station for his shift, and his car had been abandoned two miles from here on the side of the road.
“We got the emergency search warrant.” Jeff strode into the kitchen. “Wendy called it in. They found four bags of coke and $10,000 in hundred-dollar bills in Jackson’s apartment.”
“Fuck,” Michael bit out. Impotence and anger filled him.
By all accounts, Stu Devlin was a piece of shit but one that deserved to be behind bars, not fuckin’ dead.
“Twelve years,” Michael muttered.
“What?” Jeff asked, frowning.
“The last time there was a murder in Hartwell. It was twelve years ago.” Michael had done his research before moving here. Although there had been a couple of murder cases in the county, the town of Hartwell had been spared for years. Possibly because the sheriff’s department was based there, so Hartwell had more deputies patrolling the streets because of the number of tourists who poured in throughout the year. When it came to violent crime, there’d been physical and sexual assault cases in Hartwell, the highest percentage of which were committed by visitors.
But there hadn’t been a murder case in Hartwell in twelve years. Not until Michael arrived.
“We wanted to spook him, Jeff.” He rubbed a hand across the nape of his neck, agitated. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’ve seen a lot of bad shit over the years. I’ve never played my part in the cause of it before.”
Jeff glowered. “No. You don’t get to do that. Because if you’re to blame, then I’m to blame, and I’m not taking the blame for Freddie Jackson. All we can say is that we underestimated his brand of screwed up. My guess is he came to Stu Devlin for reassurance and instead Stu told him the police were raiding his place for coke.”
A setup. Made sense. Michael nodded, exhaling slowly. “He was getting jumpy. Becoming a liability for them. They wanted him out of the way.”
“It’s only speculation at this point but my guess, yes,” Jeff said.
“I need to find this fucker fast. A man this desperate … who knows what he’ll do next.”
“First, we need to go break the news to the Devlins.” Jeff shook his head. “Jesus Christ. I have to tell the man his son is dead and then ask him to come to the station for questioning.”
It was going to be a long night. Following Jeff out of the house, Michael asked, “Is this your first homicide?”
“It’s the first homicide where I knew the victim.” Jeff gazed back up at what had been Stu Devlin’s impressive home. “Looks like a Devlin finally tried to fuck over the wrong guy.”
Maybe so, Michael thought, but Stu was a victim all the same. Michael wouldn’t stop until he’d found the evidence he needed against Jackson. Then he’d bury him with it. Just as Ian and Rosalie Devlin would have to bury their goddamn son.
Murder.
It was in my thoughts almost constantly.
Murder had rocked our quiet seaside town.
No one much liked Stu Devlin. I detested him for attacking Bailey and getting away with it. But he’d deserved jail time—not two bullets in his chest.
As I worked away at a hammered silver bowl I was making for Old Archie to give to his woman Anita, I longed for music to drown out my morbid thoughts. Instead, I tried to concentrate on the bowl. Old Archie had been a regular at Cooper’s for as long as I could remember. That was until almost two years ago when his “lady friend” Anita was diagnosed with a spinal tumor. He got sober for her and had been helping her through what we all assumed would be her final months.
To everyone’s happy shock, Anita was in remission. She’d spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, but she would live. Archie had seen Anita eyeing one of my handmade silver bowls a while back, and their anniversary was coming up, so he’d commissioned one for her.
I wished it would take my mind off Stu Devlin’s death and Freddie Jackson’s subsequent disappearance, but it couldn’t.
Michael had called to tell me about Stu’s murder, knowing it would be all over Hartwell soon enough. He’d been abrupt on the phone. I worried about him. While everyone huddled together in groups throughout the coming days, talking in whispers whenever they saw one of the Devlins out and about, Michael was hunting Freddie Jackson.
Two days after the news broke, I’d been working in my workshop when Michael stopped by to see me. My music had been blaring like it always was, and it was the first time I’d seen Michael truly angry at me since we’d left Boston.
“There’s a suspected killer on the loose, and your shop door is open while you’re blaring fuckin’ rock music! Does that not seem a little careless to you?” he’d yelled.
It had taken everything within me not to argue back. But he looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and he was only yelling because he was concerned. So I let it go. I promised I wouldn’t listen to my music while I worked until Jackson was found.
To thank me, Michael had given me a quick, hard kiss on the forehead and told me he wouldn’t be around much until he caught Freddie.
I understood that, but it troubled me. I remembered that even as a young cop, Michael had taken so much on himself. There was a whole sheriff’s office out there looking for Freddie, but I knew Michael would feel responsible for catching him.
It had now been seven days since Stu’s murder. Vaughn was shadowing Bailey wherever she went. Cooper hovered over Je
ss, his sister Cat, and his nephew Joey. No one believed Freddie would deliberately come after anyone, but the murder had freaked us all out. Rumors were flying about Freddie’s connection to the Devlins. We’d all discussed it at Cooper’s. Our favorite theory was that Freddie had done a lot of illegal things for Stu, whom he considered his best friend, and when he’d started getting shifty about Michael’s presence in town, he’d turned to Stu for help. It was possible Stu, the sneaky ass that he had been, had made it clear the Devlins would let Freddie swing in the wind if anything ever came to light about his criminal activities.
But why kill Stu? That was the part that still didn’t make sense.
My Led Zeppelin ringtone blared into the room; I jerked in fright.
Goddamn it.
I was so on edge.
Putting down my tools, I slid off the stool and crossed the room to where I’d left my cell on a cabinet. It was my dad.
“Hey,” I answered. He’d been calling every day since the news of Stu’s murder broke. “Everything okay?”
“I’m okay, Bluebell. I … uh … I wondered if you’d spoken to Mike lately?”
I frowned. “No. He’s out looking for Freddie.”
“Well, I … uh … look, I know things are complicated between the two of you but I just got off the phone with him, and he doesn’t sound so great.”
Surprised, I took a moment to process everything about that sentence. “You talked with Michael?”
“Yeah.”
“How much do you talk to him?”
“Dahlia,” he said, sighing. “We don’t talk about you. Much. And when we do, it’s never about whatever is going on with you two. I just … he doesn’t have a good dad to talk with. I’m here when he needs that.”
Emotion clogged my throat. God, I loved my father. “I’m glad he has you.”
“Yeah, well, I think he needs something a bit closer to home right now.”
Concern filled me. “What’s going on?”
“He’s frustrated, and he’s exhausted. I thought you might want to check on him.”
I chewed my bottom lip, staring at the drawing of me that Levi had sent. I’d framed and hung it on my workshop wall. He’d put me in a superhero costume. Darragh said Levi had recently gotten into comics.
Things We Never Said: A Hart’s Boardwalk Novel Page 26