Perilous Homecoming

by Sarah Varland

  “I’m going to need to take them with me to process them for prints.” Shiloh moved toward the bag. “I’ll be in touch if I find anything. You can probably have the bag back tomorrow or the next day, assuming it’s clean. I don’t have a lot on my plate right now, so I’ll rush this.”

  “Thank you.”

  Shiloh nodded, then headed out the door.

  “Now, can you tell us again what happened, Kelsey?” Clay asked. “How did you notice that your things had been tampered with?”

  “I had laid the pictures out on the table and noticed that one of the photos I’d taken was missing. That’s when I figured out that when I hid in the closet after realizing someone was in the museum with me, my bag was still out in the room beside the desk, in plain sight.”

  O’Dell’s cell phone rang. “One minute,” he said to Kelsey, and walked away. “Hello?”

  Sawyer could still hear his voice, but couldn’t make out the words as he’d wandered too far away.

  Hitchcock speared Sawyer with a look. “I know what the two of you are doing.” He kept his voice low. But it didn’t seem like a reprimand, not yet. It almost sounded more...

  “You know I can’t sit on the sidelines, Clay,” Kelsey said, voice etched with frustration. “I trust y’all to do your jobs, and I’m not overstepping any legal lines, I promise. So just—”

  “Listen. I’m starting to think we might have another leak in the department.” There had been a leak in the department before? Sawyer was surprised, but Kelsey just nodded, as if she was already familiar with that story. “Or maybe we’ve just been bugged... I’m not sure, but I’m suspicious. You looking into things on your own isn’t a terrible idea. I’ll feed you whatever information I feel like I can.”

  Kelsey nodded and glanced at Sawyer. He nodded, too.

  “We’ll do the best we can,” she promised Clay.

  Footsteps signaled O’Dell’s return. “That was Shiloh. She couldn’t wait to look in the bag and says she found something in one of the pockets that struck her as odd. It’s an envelope, with your name on it, and a necklace inside. Did you put that there?”

  “No.” Kelsey shook her head. “What necklace?”

  “She said it’s a feather and an anchor on a chain.”

  Sawyer looked at Kelsey. Unless he was imagining things, her face was noticeably paler. “What is it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s my necklace. But I wore it yesterday, then put it on my bedside table before I went to sleep last night.”

  Before anyone could say anything, Hitchcock was already headed up the stairs. In silence, they listened to his retreating and returning footsteps.

  “It isn’t there,” he said.

  “He was in my house,” Kelsey said as her eyes widened. “He was in my house.”

  “You can’t stay here.” Sawyer hoped it was obvious, but with Kelsey, he wasn’t counting on it.

  “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said, but her protest was weak. It didn’t seem like she was that convinced herself. And how could she be? The man who wanted her dead had clearly been inside her house, had gotten through whatever security measures she had in place, and she had been unaware of it.

  The thought was sobering to Sawyer. When Kelsey had unlocked the door to let them inside tonight, he hadn’t thought to check the house for any sign that it had been breached. Foolishly, he’d assumed that since the door was locked and there was no obvious sign of a break-in, all was well.

  Clearly that was far from true.

  “There’s an apartment at the museum,” O’Dell said to Hitchcock.

  Kelsey frowned. “Why would the museum have an apartment? There’s no need for anyone to live on-site.”

  “The apartment doesn’t belong to the museum—it was there before, from when the Hamiltons lived at the plantation house. They converted the space above the garage into an apartment and used to rent it out.”

  “If it doesn’t belong to the museum, then who does it belong to?” Kelsey asked.

  Sawyer cleared his throat, looking awkward. “Me, actually. And you’re perfectly welcome to use it. But if the guy is already targeting the museum, is it wise for her to be there?”

  “He’s targeting her already, too. Besides, this way we can increase police presence there and kill two birds—”

  “If you don’t mind avoiding the word kill that would be great,” Kelsey interrupted.

  “I think that apartment sounds like a pretty good option,” Sawyer said to Kelsey. “What do you think?”

  Kelsey just nodded. “Whatever you guys think.”

  Sawyer had never seen her so compliant. Knowing this guy had been inside her house had rattled her. And he understood why—there was something personal in that, almost more malicious than having a gun fired at you. This was becoming more personal, and it was apparent that Kelsey’s nightmare might not be over anytime soon.

  As for him? He was starting to think he was in over his head. What did he know about investigating?

  Nothing. But he knew he wasn’t going to leave Kelsey alone.

  * * *

  Kelsey had felt like she was on autopilot ever since the discovery that the killer had been in her house. Was it just the necklace? Or were there other things he had touched? Were there cameras? Bugs? High-tech surveillance seemed far-fetched for Treasure Point, but so did this entire scenario. The town had some crime, but premeditated murders weren’t common.

  Yet this was really happening. Someone was trying to kill her for what she’d seen the other night, and it appeared that he was inching ever closer to making her demise a reality.

  That thought jolted her, put a bit more of the fight back into her veins. That wasn’t going to happen, she wasn’t going to let it.

  “I need to pack. Can y’all stay while I do?” she asked the officers, who agreed quickly. She started up the stairs, but hesitated halfway up. Both Matt and Sawyer started up the stairs.

  “I’ll come make sure I don’t see anything else suspicious,” Matt said.

  “I’ll keep you company.” Sawyer grinned, that easy, laid-back, good-old-boy smile, and Kelsey almost relaxed.

  Almost, but not quite. Her life was still on the line.

  But it was nice to have Sawyer’s smile right here, ready to brighten her day, if only for a second.

  “I’ll need clothes...” She tried to talk herself through the packing process to hurry it along, but it still took Kelsey more time than she would have liked. In any case, they were headed out the door within half an hour, heading for the museum. Kelsey still hadn’t heard whether her suspicions about the map being taken were correct or not.

  They pulled up in the museum parking lot and Kelsey eyed the building with the apartment in it—it looked like a carriage house, with a garage area on the bottom and a few windows on the top where she guessed the apartment was. “Is this really okay? This wasn’t... Michael wasn’t living here, was he?”

  Sawyer shook his head. “No, this has been empty since they refurbished it after Aunt Mary moved to the nursing home where her sister lives. It’s had electricity this whole time, since it’s not wise to turn that off in the South unless you want the whole house to rot in this humidity. I called to have the water turned on while you were packing, so it should be all set.”

  “I know it’s silly, but hearing that it wasn’t used by Michael makes me feel better,” she muttered. Her situation was creepy and dangerous enough already, she didn’t need to add any more by wondering if Michael Wingate could have left something behind in his apartment that had gotten him killed.

  “We’ll check it out and then you can get settled. There will be an officer here at all times, maybe two. It’s already been cleared with the chief and the museum board,” Hitchcock said.

  Kelsey no
dded. “Thanks.” Though she wondered how secure the police presence would really make her if there was a mole or something in the police department.

  But he smiled at her a little. “Relax. I’m being careful,” he said in a low voice, then started up the outside stairs to the apartment.

  Kelsey took a deep breath and followed him, with Sawyer on her heels, which she was grateful for. The man seemed to be sticking to her like glue ever since the scare earlier at the museum. She didn’t particularly mind him hovering. All things considered, it probably wasn’t a bad idea to have another set of eyes watching her back.

  Kelsey waited on the top landing for Clay to finish checking everything out. Standing in the glow of the floodlights on the side of the building made her feel uncomfortable, but she reminded herself that they’d just made the decision to come here so it wasn’t as if someone could be lying in wait.

  “Everything looks good.”

  “Good.” She walked inside and surveyed the small apartment. There was a kitchen directly inside, with a small table and chairs, and a large living area with a door off the far end. Bedroom and bathroom? It was clear that the place hadn’t been occupied in a while—she could see the dust—but other than that, it looked comfortable.

  “Thank you for letting me stay here,” she said to Sawyer. “I appreciate it.”

  “I’m glad I could help.”

  “Oh,” Clay said. “Shiloh told me that you were right. The officer on duty phoned into the station and said that the map was missing from the museum.” He hesitated. “Whatever you’re doing, you’re onto something, which is good, but you know it makes your situation more dangerous. Be careful.”

  “I’m trying,” she said.

  He nodded. “We’ll have someone watching all night, Kelsey. Stay safe.”

  Then he was gone and Kelsey turned to Sawyer. “If that map is what the killer decided to steal, something not even related to the antiques and artifacts I was photographing, what are the chances that you’re right and that something in that room did get Michael Wingate killed?”

  “The map?” Sawyer asked as he followed her into the living room. She sank down onto the couch, feeling stunned by what she’d managed to think through. He sat beside her.

  “Yes. The map.”

  “You think the guy behind all this wanted it?”

  “Or wanted it gone. If he just wanted the image, he could have taken a picture. But if he wanted it destroyed...maybe that’s why he killed Michael.”

  “Just because he’d seen it? That doesn’t make sense. He’d have had to kill more people than that, and no one else has had threats made against them.”

  “True. But what if Michael started to suspect something—made an innocent comment, and the murderer knew he was onto whatever it is the killer is trying to hide?”

  “We still don’t know what he could be involved in,” Sawyer reminded her.

  Kelsey laughed, the tension from the night needing a release. “Sure we do. It’s simple. That map? It was the key to someone’s treasure. And he didn’t want anyone else to find it. Don’t you think a criminal might think that was worth killing for?”

  “I think that Clay’s right and you may be onto something. Did you back your pictures up on a computer or anything?”

  “They’re on my iPad, but it’s in the bag. Shiloh has it as evidence right now.” Yet another thing that would slow this case down and make her stay in this town longer. It was starting to feel like someone was conspiring against her.

  “So they should be in the cloud.”

  Before he’d finished talking, Kelsey was tapping at the screen of her phone.

  There it was, the shaded map with approximations of where several shipwrecks were believed to be.

  “You said you scuba dive, didn’t you?” Kelsey asked Sawyer without looking up from her phone’s screen.

  “Of course. Why?” She didn’t answer immediately. Understanding gradually dawned. “You’re not...”

  “It’s the only way to find anything else out,” she said.

  “Okay, now I know that’s not true. You could talk to people, do some research, look in some of those books of my grandparents’ that I mentioned...”

  “Sure, but none of that is going to substitute for being there. We need to figure out how these potential shipwrecks play into this now that we know that they do. Is someone planning to find those wrecks for himself? Maybe that exhibit gave them an idea and now they’re planning to go search for things.”

  Kelsey stood and walked the length of the room, then came back.

  “What?” Sawyer asked.

  “Maybe someone is planning to find the wrecks, or...what if they already did?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No one has been interested in Treasure Point history for years. It was only a few years ago when that pirate treasure was discovered that people really started to look back at our history. That’s when the museum idea became a reality.” Kelsey had never been more glad she’d kept up on some of the town happenings.

  “Can you sit back down? You’re making me nervous.”

  Something in Sawyer’s voice caught her attention. Kelsey sat down beside him, where she’d been sitting earlier, and then looked over at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Seriously?”

  “I mean, besides...” She struggled to find words to put there. Besides the fact that someone was trying to kill her? Besides the harsh reality that she had to stay in a house that wasn’t hers because the security of her home had been breached? Besides the way that every time they uncovered a layer of what might be behind the villain they were chasing, they discovered another five layers beneath it?

  “All of it, Kelsey. It’s just really sinking in tonight. This isn’t pretend, it’s not some show we’re watching on TV knowing that series has to continue and that the people in the show are going to make it out alive. It’s real life. Your life.”

  “Yours, too.” A flicker of guilt twinged in her midsection. “It’s probably dangerous for you to be around me.”

  “Like I’m going to let you do this on your own?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “But why, Sawyer? We hadn’t spoken in years. Why do you care so much?”

  ELEVEN

  Sawyer didn’t think he could answer the question himself. He looked back at Kelsey and shrugged. “I don’t know, but I do.”

  If the tension in the room had been thick before, it was almost tangible now, but Sawyer made himself hold eye contact with her. He’d meant what he said, wasn’t ashamed of it.

  Kelsey looked away, as he’d known she would. Even though Sawyer had only meant the comment in a just-friends capacity, he had known even that would make Kelsey uncomfortable. Why was she so resistant to depending on people, to letting others get close to her? He may never find the answers, but he still wanted to figure out how to get her to make an exception for him, to let him become her real friend.

  “Okay, then. So the map... What if someone found the ships already and they want to keep them a secret?”

  “Why would they want to do that?”

  She shook her head. “So they can keep all the treasure to themselves? Or maybe there’s something else I’m not seeing. Figuring out people’s motives is almost impossible. It’s all conjecture. But if I had to guess, I’d say there’s a good chance someone has been stealing from the shipwrecks, maybe selling things?”

  “So, you think maybe someone destroyed the map, committed murder, tried to kill you and may be trying to sabotage the museum opening because they’re plundering shipwrecks and don’t want to be found out?”

  “It makes just as much sense as anything else. Don’t you see?”

  Sawyer did understand her point. “How would you prove this? The police have worked the crime sc
enes and still haven’t found anything. Not even prints—the guy who’s after you has been extremely careful so far.”

  “He’ll slip up eventually. For now we’ll focus on building a case against him, even a circumstantial one is better than nothing because we can use what we’re learning, as unofficial as it is, to hopefully catch him in the act or get our hands on concrete evidence.”

  “And you want to do that by going diving at the wrecks.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Sawyer finally admitted.

  “Really? So you’re in? I mean, I know you don’t have to come. I’ve appreciated your help, but I can handle it on my own.”

  There she went again with the I-don’t-need-anyone bit. Sawyer wanted to help. How long was it going to take to get her to believe that?

  “I want to go.”

  “Then let’s talk about a plan.”

  * * *

  It was past midnight when Sawyer slipped back into his parents’ house, where he was staying while he took care of the museum business and tried to figure out where he was putting down roots. His résumé was with several prestigious research centers across the Southeast, but in truth he wasn’t disappointed about not having heard from any of them yet. Being back in Treasure Point had reminded him of how much the town meant to him. He’d already started looking into the few nearby marine biology job postings he’d found online. Maybe he could live in Treasure Point and commute to work. He was starting to want to stay.

  Or maybe that had more to do with his high school class’s valedictorian—Kelsey—and less to do with the town itself.

  He shut the door behind himself and turned to head for the stairs.

  “You’re home late.”

  His dad’s voice stopped him in his tracks. Sawyer put his shoulders back, almost unconsciously, and turned to face the older man. “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you given any more thought to coming back to the company?”

  “Dad...” It was too late at night for this conversation, too late altogether.

  “It’s what you were raised for, Sawyer. Not for chasing some crazy idea of doing something different entirely.”