The old man just flapped a hand at her and kept typing.
“He’s very focused,” Cheri said, grinning. “And the pain in the ass over there on the phone is Harrison Palmer. News and features. Fair warning, he will try to hit on you.”
Emma laughed. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem. Okay, what else? This is you,” she said, slapping the empty desk next to hers. “You should have a computer by tomorrow, but if you’ve got your own I’d recommend using it. The ones Einstein gets aren’t exactly top of the line.” She glanced around, as if the editor was nearby listening, and whispered loudly, “They come with WordPerfect.”
“You’re kidding.”
Cheri shook her head gravely. “I’m surprised they don’t have floppy drives.”
Emma tried and failed to hold back a spate of giggles. She wasn’t sure about this town, or this job, but she liked Cheri already. “Well, I guess I’ll just leave this here,” she said, dropping the thick folder the editor had given her on the desk. “Whatever it is, I probably won’t need it at the police station.”
“Getting the weekly reports?” Cheri said. “You should run for it, before Harrison gets off the phone and notices we have fresh meat.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
Emma grimaced. “Okay, I’m out of here,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Cheri.”
“You too. Good luck, and I’ll be here when you get back.”
She started across the room, and then stopped and turned. “Um. Where’s the police station?”
Cheri laughed. “Take a right out of the parking lot, and a left on Main Street. The big brick building on the hill. You can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.”
Emma headed out feeling a lot better than when she’d gone in. This day was already improving. Now if she could just get her stuff delivered, and stop thinking about Nick Donovan, everything would be fine.
* * * *
Nick sat in the bullpen with the file Sheriff Tanner had given him open on his desk. It hadn’t taken him long to go through. He already knew most of what happened last week—pretty much nothing. The big news had been two weeks ago when Nick arrested Cam Thatcher, which turned out to be unnecessary.
He was actually grateful for that, since Sydney Davis had been involved. She’d gone to school with him and knew him by name. But they’d let Cam go, so she’d already forgotten about that Nick Donovan guy she used to know.
A surprising splinter of pain lodged in him at the thought. He’d worked hard to isolate himself, to protect his dangerous secret. And he’d succeeded so completely that the only people he interacted with now were his parents.
Not that he didn’t love them. But it would be nice to have someone to talk with about something besides how his job was going, whether he’d eaten dinner, and remember-when-you-were-five-and-you-did-that-thing stuff.
Maybe that was why he’d reacted the way he did this morning with his new neighbor.
She was the prettiest thing he’d seen in a long time, but that wasn’t the only reason he’d been interested. He’d watched her for a few minutes while she had an animated discussion with the movers. She was confident and fragile all at once—like someone who’d been hurt badly and worked hard to hide it.
And she was running from something. Usually when someone new moved to town, everyone heard about it right away. But Emma Reid had slipped in without a ripple. No friends from wherever she was before had come to help her, and no one from town had showed up to meet her.
He knew what it was like to be alone. And he wanted to protect her.
But she’d made it very clear that she wasn’t interested in that.
“Holy shit. Donovan, is that actual paperwork on your desk?”
Nick looked up and smirked as Dean Wesley walked into the room. His more-or-less partner was decent to work with, but he had a bit of a superiority complex. And since Nick had played the big, dumb country boy for so long, Dean enjoyed poking him whenever the opportunity came up. “Nah,” he finally said. “Men’s room’s out of toilet paper.
“I didn’t even know you could read, man.” Grinning, Dean came over and perched on the desk, then picked up the top sheet in the file. “Says here, ‘For a good time, call Lolly.’ Well, how about that.”
“I heard that, Dean!” Lolly shouted from the front room.
“You know I love you,” he called back, replacing the page. Then he turned to Nick and said, “So. Lolly says somebody got a promotion around here.”
Nick shrugged. “I guess.”
“Gonna get your face on the news?”
“Don’t think so,” he said. “Sheriff says I just have to talk to Fitzy from the paper once a week.”
“Huh.” Dean toyed with the folder a minute. “You get a raise, too?”
The slight change in the tone of Dean’s voice said he was looking to get angry. Nick decided not to let him—he couldn’t risk a petty workplace rivalry. “Nope, just more work,” he said. “Want to trade?”
There was relief in Dean’s laugh. “No thanks, man,” he said. “I’ve got enough to do around here, picking up your slack.”
A brief murmur of conversation drifted in from the front room. Dean slid off Nick’s desk and headed for his own. “Your new friend Fitzy must be here,” he said. “Have a blast. I bet it’s the only time the news is ever gonna talk to you.”
“Probably,” Nick said. And at least for the next three weeks or so, he wanted to keep it that way.
After a minute, Lolly appeared in the doorway and sent Nick a bemused smile. “We’ve got someone here looking for our press liaison,” she said. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
He smiled back. “Seems that way.”
“All right. I guess she’s all yours, then.”
She?
The receptionist stood aside—and Nick’s jaw unhinged as Emma Reid walked in.
Chapter 3
Emma stared at the man in the uniform, behind the desk the receptionist had pointed out. For a minute she was sure she wouldn’t be able to speak. Finally, she said, “You.”
“Miss Reid.” Nick Donovan stood slowly and offered a cool nod.
If he was surprised or upset, he didn’t show it. Which led her to believe he wasn’t surprised at all. He must’ve known this morning, since he was the press liaison—and since this was a small town, everyone probably knew she’d come here to work for the paper. It kind of pissed her off that he hadn’t mentioned this.
“Wow. Fitzy looks a lot different than I remember him.” The other cop in the room stood, too. “I take it you two know each other. You going to introduce me, Donovan?”
“I don’t know her. Not really.” Nick looked a little flustered now. “You’re not Fitzy.”
Emma managed to calm down some. If he really was expecting Fitzy, maybe she could forgive him. “No, I’m not,” she said. “He’s semi-retired, and I’m his replacement.”
“You’re a reporter.”
“Yes.” Okay, so he didn’t know that either. Maybe she should stop assuming things about this guy—and he was kind of cute when he was baffled. He looked damned good in that uniform, too. Not that she was going to notice those sorts of things. “And you’re a cop,” she said.
“Deputy, actually.”
The other cop came around his desk. “If you’re not going to introduce me, I’ll do it myself,” he said, approaching her with a hand out. “Dean Wesley.”
“Emma Reid.” She shook politely. “I’m new here.”
“I noticed.” Dean flashed a grin. “Welcome to Covendale,” he said. “I do all the work around here, in case you want to talk to someone who actually knows what’s going on. Donovan there, he just holds the desk up.”
Emma glanced at Nick, and caught him directing a fierce glare at the other man for an instant before his features went blank. Interesting. She summoned a smile, and said, “Well, I appreciate the offer, Dean. But this is official newspaper business
, so I have to talk to the press liaison.”
Dean’s lips curled smugly. “Maybe we should talk about unofficial business, then.”
Unbelievable. This guy actually thought she was flirting with him?
Before she could get good and mad, Nick walked over and stood next to her. “Come on, Ms. Reid,” he said, his eyes on Dean. “I’ll show you to the conference room.”
Dean stared at him, and then let out a mocking laugh. “Look at you, all proper and formal,” he said, shaking his head. “Conference room. Where’d you get that from, Donovan—the Press Liaison Rulebook? If there is one, I bet you’ve got it memorized. Did you put it under your pillow with the department handbook?”
With a bright, false smile, Emma laid a hand on Nick’s arm. Her breath caught as she felt him tense at her touch, and the heat of him seemed to flow into her. She made herself ignore the sensation. “I can’t wait to see it,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed, but he cooled and shrugged it off. “Like I said, if you want to know what’s really going on, talk to me.” He smiled thinly. “Oh, and you’d better use small words. You might confuse him.”
Nick looked away and grabbed a folder off his desk. “This way, Ms. Reid,” he said tightly.
Emma followed him further into the police station, down a hallway and beneath a hanging sign that said HOLDING and pointed to the right. He didn’t speak until he’d ushered her into a room with a big table, lots of windows, and an overhead projector and screen at the far end. She hadn’t seen one of those in years—it looked like the editor of the Banner wasn’t the only one lagging behind technology in this town.
Nick closed the door behind them and heaved a sigh. “Sorry about Dean,” he said. “He’s not usually like that.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She had a feeling Dean was exactly like that, and for some reason Nick just put up with the abuse. Which was odd, since he looked like he could break Dean in half if he wanted to. She had to wonder why. He couldn’t be as dumb as the other deputy seemed to think. “Well, I guess we should get started,” she said, sitting down at the first chair on the close side. “How does this work?”
Nick walked over and sat at the head of the table. “I was hoping you could tell me,” he said. “I just got promoted to press liaison this morning.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head and smirked, showing those dimples again. “Sheriff Tanner kind of sprung it on me. I was expecting Fitzy.”
“Yeah, I figured that out. Um…” She bit her lip, then rummaged through her purse for her phone and a small notebook and pen. “I’ve got a recording app here, so I’ll just run that and take notes. Sound good?”
“Sure.”
It took a minute to set up the app, since she’d only used it twice back in college. Good thing she hadn’t deleted it. When she had it going, she set it on the table and opened the notebook to a blank page. “Okay, so…” She trailed off when she realized Nick was staring at her. Intently. “What?”
“Nothing.” The intensity fell from his expression, and he busied himself with the folder he’d brought in. “Do you want to ask questions, or should I just tell you this stuff and you can interrupt if you need to?”
She shook off the flustered feeling of his stare. “That second one.”
“All right,” he said. “I read through some back editions of the Banner this morning, and it looks like the police blotter breaks things down into arrests, tickets, and fines. So I’ll start with the arrests.”
“Right.” Emma tried not to frown. She hadn’t read any back editions this morning—this guy was doing her job better than her. She clicked the pen open and jotted arrests in the notebook, then underlined the word. “Go for it.”
Nick cleared his throat. “On Tuesday evening, one male suspect was taken into custody for cemetery desecration in the second degree and placed under arrest after questioning. The suspect—”
“Whoa. Wait a minute.” Emma reached out and paused the recording. “First of all, you sound like you’re reading from a phone book. Relax, okay?”
He grimaced. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” She still wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she was determined to impress Mr. Halstead. If possible, before she landed her big story. He wanted enthusiasm about the police blotter, he’d get it. “Also, second degree cemetery desecration? Is that really a thing?”
“Well, it’s an actual law,” Nick said with a low chuckle. “Usually we don’t arrest people over it, but it was the third time Mr. Berenson…er, removed his deceased mother-in-law’s remains from the cemetery.”
“Oh my God. He dug her up?”
This time he laughed outright. “No, it wasn’t quite that bad,” he said. “Mrs. Voight was cremated, and Mr. Berenson keeps breaking the display to steal the urn. He’s threatened to…urinate on Mrs. Voight’s ashes and pour them over his ex-wife’s rosebushes.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” A giggle caught in Emma’s throat. “I mean, this is what you arrest people for around here. Peeing on dead people.”
“And public littering.”
“What?”
Nick cleared his throat again and glanced at the folder. “Mrs. Jennie Rothchild was arrested briefly and charged with public littering when she left several…personal pleasure devices on the walkway in front of the home of Mrs. Theresa Carmichael.”
“Personal pleasure—no,” she said. “You don’t mean dildos.”
He smirked. “Is that what the kids are calling them these days?”
She gaped at him, and promptly dissolved into laughter.
When she finally caught her breath, she wiped a few tears from her eyes and grinned. “See, this is what I mean,” she said. “Don’t give me the technical rundown about suspects and custody and second degree whatever. Tell me who did what, and why. That’s what readers want to know.”
“Do they?”
She nodded and reached for her phone, to start the recording again.
“What about you, Miss Reid?”
Emma froze with her hand hovering over the screen. The intense look was back, stronger than the first time. There was a lot of heat in that stare—and she wasn’t sure whether to throw herself at him, or scream and run away. “What about me?” she half-whispered.
“What do you want to know?”
“Um. About the arrests and fines and…stuff. For the paper.”
He blinked, and suddenly he was the calm, vaguely confused deputy again. “Right,” he said. “I guess you should turn that recorder back on.”
She breathed out slowly and tapped the record button. Jesus, who was this guy, Dr. Jekyll? Whatever had gotten into him before, it was completely gone now. Like he wasn’t even aware of it. “Okay, so second degree cemetery desecration,” she said, making sure her voice didn’t shake too much. “Tell me about that again.”
“No problem.”
He launched into the story, and for a few minutes she watched carefully for signs of Mr. Hyde coming back. But nothing strange happened, and soon she practically forgot about the whole thing.
* * * *
Somehow, Nick made it through the interview. He even managed to sound normal, or at least normal enough to erase that wary look from Emma’s eyes and make her laugh a few times. He walked her out of the station, said goodbye, and headed straight for the men’s room without speaking to anyone.
He remembered where he’d seen her—at The Vault. More than once.
He’d been very careful. He always drove halfway around the city before he approached the place from the back, and stopped six blocks away to put the mask on before driving the rest of the way. He went in through the private entrance and straight to the back rooms, where no one but the fighters and their backers were allowed.
No one in Greenway knew him, so he was mostly safe even if they saw him without the mask and somehow put it together. But if anyone who saw him regularly in Covendale ended up watching The Ham
mer a few times, the risk was a hell of a lot higher.
He knew Emma Reid had seen him fight. He’d spotted her in the crowd at least three times in the past year, maybe more. But he hadn’t realized it right away. He’d separated the two parts of his life so thoroughly that his brain never cross-referenced them.
Tell me who did what, and why. That was what triggered his revelation. It got him thinking about her being a reporter, inquisitive and curious and prone to digging beneath the surface. When she said that, her look of concentration had flashed him into the cage, where he kept seeing the same expression in the crowd. Someone who watched the fights closely, like she wanted a clue to lead her behind the masks.
The same expression…on the same face.
Maybe that wasn’t why she watched the fights. But he knew she did, and he wasn’t about to ask her for a reason. In fact, he wouldn’t talk to her at all, except when he had to for the newspaper. And he’d make those interviews as brief as possible.
He was in the bathroom a good fifteen minutes before he felt in control of himself again. And when he came out, Dean was waiting for him.
“I don’t even want to know what you were doing in there, man,” he said. “Come on, we’ve got a call.”
“For what?”
“Barking dog disturbance on Laurel. It’s Lou Jessup’s terrier again.”
“Well, the fun never ends.” Nick didn’t mind running out to Laurel. His parents lived just up the street from Lou Jessup, in the same house he and his older sister grew up. Bethie had moved three states away to go to college, and then fallen in love and ended up staying there to marry. Maybe he could stop in and say hello to his folks for a few minutes. “Listen, I can take this myself if you want,” he finally said. “I know you don’t like Mr. Jessup’s dog.”
“I hate that damned rat.” Dean pretended to think about it for a minute, even though Nick knew he’d agree. Sure enough, he said, “If you’re sure you don’t mind…”
“No problem,” Nick said. “I’ll head out there now.”
Deputy's Secret (Welcome to Covendale Book 3) Page 3