Dyeing to be Loved (Curl Up and Dye Mysteries, #1)

by Aimee Nicole Walker

  Gabe coated his hand with shower gel then fisted our cocks together and began stroking them. Gasps for air and moans of pleasure echoed throughout the enclosed shower as he jerked us to orgasm again. I collapsed against the cold tiled wall when he finished, certain that my legs had turned into jelly.

  “You ruined me,” I told him.

  “For other men? I sure hope so,” he said arrogantly.

  “I was thinking about the run I had planned in the morning, but you might also be right.”

  Gabe tugged me into his arms then slapped my ass playfully. “I adore that mouth of yours. So full of sass.”

  It was a good thing he liked it because that part of me was never going away. There were several things I knew I could work on to make things go smoother between us, but I refused to alter my personality, just as I wouldn’t ask that of him.

  True to his word, Gabe helped me carry the dishes from the table to the kitchen with the intent to help me clean up the dinner mess. His cell phone rang in his pocket midway through the cleanup. He looked at the caller ID and said, “It’s Adrian.” He grinned as he tapped the button to answer the phone. “Hey, partner. What’s up?” The smile slid off Gabe’s face. “I’m sorry, man. I was in the shower. What’s wrong?” Gabe listened intently to whatever Adrian said. “Did he make it?” He heard my sharp intake of breath and reached out a hand to calm me. “I’ll be there in ten minutes or less, Adrian.”

  “What happened?” I asked as soon as he ended the call.

  “Rocky Beaumont was involved in a serious car accident just outside of town,” Gabe told me. I couldn’t tell by his facial expression or his tone if Rocky survived. “It doesn’t look good,” he said somberly. “Let me help you finish…”

  “No,” I said, cutting him off. “You go do what you need to, and I’ll finish the cleanup.” I pulled him down for a quick kiss. “Will Buddy be okay tonight? Do you need me to do something for him?” Gabe’s eyes had been all business seconds before but softened with my gesture.

  “He has plenty of food, water, and the full run of the house, so he’ll be okay while I’m gone.” He lowered his forehead to mine. “Thank you for understanding and for offering to look after Buddy. I am sorry to run out on you.”

  “It’s fine. Just be careful, okay?” I breathed him in one last time and stepped away so that I wouldn’t hold him up any longer. “I do like you after all.”

  “I really like you too.”

  I wasn’t sure how long I stood in that same spot after Gabe kissed me soundly before he left. Diva winding herself through my legs finally pulled me back down to earth. “You want to help me clean the kitchen, Diva?” She walked away from me with her tail swishing from side to side. “I take that as a big no. Do you have some big cat emergency you need to attend to also? Hmmm?” She didn’t dignify my question with a response, although she probably wished she could flip me her middle claw.

  After I had cleaned the kitchen, I got ready for bed. I said a silent prayer that Gabe and the other officers stayed safe on the blustery night. I replayed the way Gabe told me that he really liked me and remembering the timbre of his voice made my toes curl. I couldn’t fall asleep no matter how many times I told myself that Gabe was a seasoned veteran and knew his job well. I tossed and turned for what seemed like half the night until I heard my phone vibrate on my nightstand with an incoming text message.

  Just got home. Wanted you to know I was okay. Gabe hadn’t promised to text when he got home nor did I ask, but I appreciated his thoughtfulness.

  I’m glad you’re home safe. Thank you for telling me.

  I put my phone down and nestled back down under the covers. I felt my eyelids getting heavy as sleepiness crept in. I thought it was amazing how one simple text could have such an impact on me. Then I realized that nothing about my something with Gabe was simple, but I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

  I MIGHT’VE BEEN BLURRY-EYED from a short night of sleep when I returned to the station the following morning, but I was the happiest I’d been in a very long time. It seemed like Josh and I was finally on the same page, and things were moving forward—where life was taking us, I didn’t know. We finally admitted that we liked each other and that there was something between us. Texting him to let him know I got home safe just felt like the right thing to do. Receiving his immediate response, as if he had been waiting to hear from me, warmed me and made it possible to get a few hours of much-needed sleep.

  The only dark scourge in my life was Georgia Beaumont’s unsolved homicide and the attempt on her ex-husband. The tow truck operator discovered that Rocky’s brake lines were cut when he pulled the wrecked car from where it slid off the road and wrapped around a tree at the bottom of a steep hill. Rocky was still clinging to life when I showed up back at the station, but it wasn’t looking good for him.

  I would’ve loved to pin both things on Jack Wallace, but we could find no hard evidence tying him to either crime. He voluntarily allowed us to look at his phone records instead of making us get a court order. He seemed sincere when he said he didn’t care if his relationship with Rocky was outed. The question was, did Jack feel the same way once he discovered that Rocky had been sleeping with Georgia?

  Adrian and I hadn’t ruled out the use of a burner phone when Wallace’s records didn’t turn up anything suspicious. We had spent days going through the call logs hoping to find a call or text to Andrew Morningside, but we found nothing.

  “The only people who might want Rocky dead and have known ties to a dangerous felon are the Wallaces.” Adrian handed me a cup of coffee, which I accepted gratefully. “I’d bet your next paycheck that one of them hired the hit on Georgia and then Rocky.”

  “My next paycheck?” I asked.

  “I have a baby coming, partner. I can’t afford to bet my paycheck. Sally Ann has huge plans for a nursery, and I’ll be damned if I let her down.” Adrian propped up his feet on the desk. “We haven’t interviewed the wife. I think it’s time we did that.”

  “I have to wonder if Jack Wallace was Georgia’s first attempt at blackmail or if she had practice.” There had been absolutely nothing in the contents of her safe deposit box that her lawyer turned over to indicate that Georgia had been up to no good. Her entire estate was to be sold with the proceeds going to various charities for children. There seemed to be no one else who might want to hurt Georgia outside of Rocky, Nadine, and the Wallaces. Unless, Georgia had been trying to blackmail someone else. “Georgia had to have a cache of evidence somewhere in that house. Either the vandal found it, or it’s still there.”

  “There are probably only a few living people who might know the secret hiding spots in that old house.” Adrian rubbed his chin while he thought it over. “Mrs. Honeycutt is definitely one of them, but she certainly would’ve told us something if she knew it.”

  “Not if she was trying to protect Georgia’s reputation,” I replied to Adrian. “We might have to get a little tougher with Mrs. Honeycutt.” I knew I’d have to be the one to do it. “The other person would be Nadine, who was Georgia’s personal assistant for a few years, but she’s got her hands full right now.”

  “Still, she should want to help find the person responsible for nearly killing her husband,” Adrian replied. “But let’s start with Mrs. Honeycutt.” He cocked his head to the side and asked, “Did you bring your bad cop with you today?”

  “Always.”

  Adrian called Mrs. Honeycutt and asked her to meet us back at the house. The only other person who had a key was Georgia’s attorney, but he wasn’t quick to do anything. As predicted, Mrs. Honeycutt readily agreed to assist us.

  Once inside the house, I turned to face her. “Mrs. Honeycutt, you’ve been very helpful to us so far, but I can’t help but feel you’re holding something back.” Mrs. Honeycutt began clutching her pearls nervously, so I pressed on, but not as hard as I went on Jack Wallace. I didn’t believe she would require that level of intensity, to tell the truth. “Now, it’s come
to our attention that Georgia might’ve had possession of some documents that were damaging to certain people’s reputations and they could be the reason for her death.”

  Mrs. Honeycutt shook her head hard enough to loosen her bun. “No. Rocky killed her. I just know it.” She wanted it to be so, but that didn’t mean it was. “That’s probably why he wrecked his car while driving drunk.” There had been no alcohol in his system so either she was speculating, or that was the early morning gossip. We weren’t sharing with anyone that Rocky’s accident wasn’t really an accident at all.

  “We’ve been told that some of the documents that Georgia had incriminated Rocky in illegal activity,” Adrian said, lying through his pretty white teeth. “They might be the motive that he had to have her killed.” Lying to an elderly lady wasn’t fun, but it was necessary to get to the truth. “Please help us, Mrs. Honeycutt.”

  She closed her eyes for several long seconds as she pondered what to do. I could see the confliction in her eyes when she reopened them. “I think I know where they might be.” We followed her to the library where she moved a few books on a shelf to reveal a button hidden in the panel of the bookcase. “This house was part of the Underground Railroad and was used as a haven for slaves as they made their journey north.” Mrs. Honeycutt pushed the button, and the entire bookcase swung outward to reveal a staircase down to what appeared to be a cellar.

  “I hate dark, dank places,” Adrian said.

  I didn’t like them either, but I knew we were on to something. I didn’t find a light switch, but I wasn’t surprised because the house was built before electricity was invented. It had been renovated many times since then, but the room remained a secret because it wasn’t included in the renovations. “We’re going to need flashlights,” I told Adrian.

  “I’ll get them,” he replied.

  Mrs. Honeycutt wrung her hands nervously. “I’ve never been down there before, but Georgia was very familiar with the room. This would’ve been the place she used to hide things she didn’t want discovered.”

  “You did the right thing by telling us,” I told Mrs. Honeycutt, although I wished she’d done it sooner.

  Adrian returned a few minutes later. “Here you go, partner.”

  I took the flashlight he offered and tested it to make sure it worked before I led the way down the ancient steps that creaked and moaned with every step we took. “We’ll go back up one at a time,” I told him, concerned our combined weight might cause the staircase to collapse.

  “Fine, I’ll go first,” Adrian said without hesitation. “Good thing Mrs. Honeycutt stayed upstairs. She can call for help if this fucker gives way,” he added after the stairs began to tremble after a particularly loud groan.

  After careful maneuvering, we made it safely down to the cellar. I shined my flashlight around the large, cavernous concrete room. I could easily imagine men, women, and children hiding down here feeling both fear that they would get caught and exhilaration at the prospect of becoming free. If those walls could’ve talked, they would’ve had a lot to say. I wished they could help reveal where in the hell Georgia might’ve hidden the evidence of her blackmail scheme. There were several shelves that looked to hold canned goods and storage trunks placed throughout the room. Unfortunately, there was no X that marked the spot.

  “Let’s split up,” Adrian said. “I’ll go right, you go left, and we’ll meet back in the middle.”

  “Sounds good to me.” I began looking through trunk after trunk but found nothing but clothes from previous decades or even centuries. I heard a thud and what sounded like Adrian groaning. “You okay, partner?” Adrian didn’t respond, and I worried that he’d done something to hurt himself. “Adrian?” I called out once more and then rose to my feet from where I’d been kneeling over a trunk.

  A cold chill worked its way through my body that had nothing to do with the damp coldness of the cellar as I made my way to where I had last seen Adrian. The beam of my flashlight landed on Adrian lying prone on the floor. I rushed to his side and knelt beside him. There was a bloody gash on his forehead, and a large goose egg was starting to form. I pressed my fingers against his pulse point and found that he was still alive, just unconscious. I looked around for the source of his injury but found nothing.

  I suddenly had a sense that Adrian and I weren’t alone in the cellar. I circumvented my training to make sure the space was clear of threat in my rush to help Adrian. I switched my flashlight to my left hand and reached for my gun with my right as I rose to my feet. I heard a noise behind me and spun around with my gun out in front of me.

  I walked toward the noise with my gun and flashlight sweeping from left to right as I went. I had just rounded a corner of shelves set up in the middle of the room when something hit me hard in the back of the head. I dropped my gun and flashlight as I fell to the concrete below. The last thing I saw in the beam of my flashlight before I lost consciousness were small feet encased in black leather flats.

  Next thing I knew, I heard Adrian’s voice calling my name as he felt around my head and neck for injuries. I slowly opened my eyes, but the room was as dark as when I’d had my eyes closed. “She must’ve taken our flashlights,” I told Adrian.

  “Thank fuck you’re alive,” my partner said in relief. “She took our fucking guns and phones too. I can’t believe a seventy-year-old woman outsmarted me.”

  “She moved like a ninja,” I told Adrian. “How the hell didn’t we hear her walk down those rickety-ass steps?”

  “There must be another entrance to this room,” he replied. “We’ll never find it in the dark though. Our only way out is to take those fucking steps.”

  I tried to get up, but a wave of dizziness and nausea hit me hard. “I need a minute,” I told Adrian. “I can’t see it, but I know the room is spinning. I’ll be ready…”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Adrian said, cutting me off. “You must’ve really pissed her off because she did a number on your head.” Adrian patted me gently on the shoulder before he stood up. “I’ll feel my way up the staircase to the door. There has to be a way to release the door from the inside.”

  I wanted to argue with him that I was fine to make the trip upstairs, but I knew he was right after another failed attempt to sit up. “Be careful,” I told Adrian. “Sally Ann needs you returning home in one piece.”

  “At this moment, I wish she hadn’t talked me into giving up cigarettes because I’d at least have a lighter on hand.” Adrian began the slow journey around the obstacles to find the staircase. “I have a general idea of where it is,” he told me.

  “Keep talking to me so that I know you’re okay,” I called out to him.

  “Will do.”

  I couldn’t say for sure how long we’d been down there because I didn’t know how long we had been knocked unconscious. It seemed like it took days of Adrian shuffling around the room and slowly walking up the creaking steps before he reached the top. He found the door release relatively fast once he reached the door. Of course, I kept fading in and out the entire time so it could’ve taken him twenty minutes or twenty days.

  “Hang in there, Gabe,” I heard him call from the top of the steps. “I’m going to use the landline to call for help.”

  “Okay, partner,” I said, my words slurring.

  The last thing I had remembered before my world went dark again was Adrian hollering down the steps, “The cavalry is on the way.”

  I WOKE UP FEELING at peace with my life even though I only had a few hours of sleep. The world seemed like a brighter, better place. I realized that I was well and truly on my way to falling in l-l-like with him. Okay, it was stronger than like, but I was nowhere near ready to admit that to myself.

  I lingered a little longer over my coffee than I normally would have, therefore it was closer to mid-morning before I got in the shower. I paid special attention when I styled my hair and trimmed my beard because I was almost certain I’d be seeing Gabe again after he was through working for
the day. I fed my pets and headed down to the salon around noon to work on inventory and review the schedule for the upcoming week.

  I cranked up the music louder than I would if I had clients inside and got to work. I finished up the inventory and schedule quickly and decided to restock the stations. My mind was on Gabe the entire time and more than once I caught myself grinning like a fool in the mirror’s reflection. “Take it easy, kid,” I told my reflection. “Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your faith in…somethings.”

  The phone rang several times while I worked, but I let it go to voicemail since the salon was closed. Chaz would return the calls and schedule appointments when he came to work on Tuesday morning. I noticed that the phone was busier than usual, but didn’t give it much thought. I wished that I had when I heard loud knocking on the front door of the salon. I turned around and saw a frazzled looking Adrian standing on my porch. Our eyes met, and he waved his hand urgently for me to come to the door.

  I knew whatever he had to say wasn’t good news, but that didn’t stop me from going to him. “What’s wrong?” I asked Adrian. He was wearing a large bandage on his forehead and didn’t look so good, but he was at my salon, and Gabe wasn’t. I tried so hard not to panic, but it wasn’t working and was evident in my voice when I asked, “Where’s Gabe?”

  “He’s at County General,” Adrian replied. “Our cell phones were taken, so I didn’t have your personal number, only the salon. I drove over here to get you when you didn’t answer the phone. Grab your coat, and I’ll take you to him.”

  I quickly grabbed my coat and followed him to his car that he’d left running out front. “What happened, Adrian?” I asked once we were on the road. My heart was up in my throat by that time.