by Lena Gregory
“I’ll talk to you soon, then.” He held her gaze a moment longer, and she finally understood the term smoldering gaze. Half the romance novels she read used it, but she’d never seen it in action. Until now. Luke had it mastered.
“Kay.” Holy cow.
He lifted a brow. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Me, too. Since her mouth was too dry to form words, she simply nodded and walked away.
“All set?” Tony’s wife, Gina, smiled knowingly.
“Um . . . yup.” Cass ignored the implication and placed the coffees on the counter beside the bag of donuts. Great. By the time she reached the car, half of Bay Island would know she was flirting with a tall, dark stranger in the bakery. And not doing a very good job of it. Gina was a sweetheart—the stereotypical older, Italian woman—but the bakery and the deli were pretty much gossip central. If you wanted to know anything that was happening on the island, you simply went into town for coffee. Hmm . . . “Hey, Gina. Have you heard anything about Marge?”
Gina looked up from the register, crossed herself, and muttered something Cass didn’t catch. “Can you believe it? Murdered?” She handed Cass her change without counting it out, and Cass stuffed it into her bag. Gina folded her arms on the counter and leaned in for a chat.
“I know. No one gets murdered on Bay Island.” Cass caught Luke in her peripheral vision, pretending to study the cakes displayed in the glass case. The tension lifting his shoulders belied the casual, disinterested stance. She shifted her weight so her back would be to him and leaned a hip against the counter.
Gina frowned. “Well, old man Tucker was killed last year, but that’s because he was messin’ around with Crazy Larry’s wife.”
Cass nodded. “I don’t know what he was thinking.”
“Me neither.” Gina shook her head and tsk-tsked. “Everyone knows how possessive Larry was with his Jenny.” Gina circled her finger beside her head. “And how crazy.” She looked around Cass toward Luke and lowered her voice. “Don’t you worry, dear. No one believes you killed her.”
Relief rushed through Cass. She’d been gone from Bay Island a long time and had come back only recently by island standards. Even though people didn’t like Marge, she was still a local and deserving of their loyalty.
Gina frowned. “Well, maybe some people believe it, but probably not too many.” She paused and stared for a moment. “Except, of course, the chief.” She patted Cass’s hand as if to offer comfort.
Cass forced a smile for the other woman. “I guess. Anyway, I gotta run. Thanks, Gina.” She ran out of the bakery without looking back.
She climbed into her car, tossed the bag on the seat, and put the coffees in the cup holders. She took a minute to rub at the tension headache gathering in her temples. While it was nice to know most of the town probably didn’t think she killed Marge, it was a little disconcerting to know she was the new big gossip topic.
She dug through her bag for her keys. Where had she put them? She patted her pockets. Nothing. She leaned over to check if they’d fallen on the floor and found them hanging in the ignition. Had she already put them there, or had she forgotten them on her way into the bakery? Maybe the stress was getting to be too much.
Cass blew out a breath, flipping her hair out of her eyes. She stepped on the brake, put the car into reverse, and looked back over her shoulder. Well, well, well. What have we here?
Luke stood beside a black Jeep Wrangler, looking around. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, seeming disturbed. She couldn’t quite place her finger on what it was that made him appear agitated, but he did. He pulled out a phone, dialed, and put it to his ear before climbing into the Jeep and taking off.
Hmm . . .
She thought briefly of following him but dismissed the thought just as quickly. She had no reason to distrust him. And what would she do if he caught her? She didn’t have to glance in the rearview mirror to know her cheeks had gone beet red.
* * *
“Hey.” Bee opened the car door.
“Watch where you sit.”
He glanced in just as Cass lifted the bakery bag from the seat. “Mmm . . . Is that Tony’s coffee I smell?” He slid into the seat, leaned across the center console, and kissed Cass’s cheek. “You’re a lifesaver.” He lifted a coffee. “Of course, if you hadn’t woken me, I wouldn’t need saving, but that’s beside the point.” Bee waved his hand in a dismissive gesture and took the lid off the cup.
He blew on the coffee before replacing the lid and turning slightly in the seat to face her. “Well . . . tell me everything. And give me one of those donuts. Please.” He flashed her his most charming smile, and she handed him the bag.
“I get the chocolate one.” She put the car in gear and pulled out onto the street.
Bee handed her a chocolate donut. “Where are we going? Don’t you want to sit and eat first?”
“Nah. I can eat while I drive. I want to get to Emmett’s while he’s still there.” She bit into the donut. Oooh. Tony really knew how to make donuts.
“Emmett’s. Why? Is something wrong with the car?” Bee broke off a small piece of powdered donut and nibbled at it.
“No. I . . . um . . . sort of promised Ellie I’d look into who killed her mother.”
Bee gasped and pressed a hand to his chest. “Are you crazy?”
Oh, great. Here we go. Maybe she should have left Bee home. And what if Emmett’s the killer? Then I’d be alone with him. No. Better to deal with Bee’s dramatics.
“Look, Bee. You didn’t see her. She was a nervous wreck, and she had a strange cut down the back of her hand.”
Bee spoke around a mouthful of donut, obviously giving up on being dainty. “What do you mean, strange?”
“I don’t know.” She thought back to the mark on Ellie’s hand. It had gone from her wrist to her knuckles. Not too deep, but more than a scratch. An image of Marge’s bloodred nail, sharpened to a dagger, popped into her mind. “Just in a weird spot, I guess.” She shrugged it off. “Anyway, Ellie wanted me to do a reading and see if I could name the killer.”
She glanced at Bee and caught his eye-roll.
He shrugged. “Sorry, but you know how I feel about that mumbo jumbo.”
“I know.” She was never quite sure if Bee didn’t believe in talking to the dead, or if he was afraid it might be real. A visible tremor ran through him, and she figured it was most likely the latter.
She finished her donut and took a sip of coffee before saying anything else. Bee waited her out while they ate.
“Since the chief seems convinced I killed her and doesn’t appear to be looking for anyone else, I figured I may as well see what I can find out.” She tried to keep the hurt from her voice, but if the sympathy in Bee’s eyes was any indication, she didn’t succeed. “I might not be able to look into my crystal ball and see who did it, but I can ask some questions. Emmett was acting strange the other night.”
“Emmett is strange, dear.”
“I guess, but he was acting strange, even for him.”
Bee held the coffee cup in his hand, rhythmically tapping the lid in time with some imagined tune playing out in his mind. “So, what are you going to do? Walk into the shop and say, Hi, Emmett, you’re acting weird. Did you kill Marge?”
Cass laughed, some of her earlier tension finally draining away. “No. I thought I’d ask him about building something for the shop. He did some of the renovations last year, and they came out really good. Plus, he didn’t kill me on the price.”
“This I gotta see,” Bee said under his breath as he stared out the window.
Emmett’s garage sat at the southwestern tip of the small, oddly shaped island. Not much else was around, except for the Bay Side Hotel and a small family-style restaurant. She’d never paid much attention to how secluded the area was. Until now.
She pulled into the small lot
and parked against the chain-link fence that bordered the hotel parking lot. Now for the hard part. “Could you do me a favor, Bee?”
“Sure, hon. What do you need?”
“I want you to wait here.”
“What? And miss this?” Bee pouted. “Then what did I get out of bed for?”
“Tony’s donuts and coffee. What else?” She grinned.
“Well, there is that, but I’m still coming.” He opened the door to get out.
“I’ll make you a deal.”
He paused and looked back at her. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
Cass shot him her most wicked smile. “If you wait here, I’ll tell you who else came into the shop today.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Give me a hint.”
Cass thought of Luke. What hint could she tease him with that would keep Bee in his seat in exchange for information? “Fine. His looks match that sexy southern drawl.”
She grinned again, blew him a kiss, and got out of the car.
“You witch.”
She shut the door and walked away, confident Bee would do as she asked.
11
Cass looked around nervously as she crossed the lot to the small garage. She’d hoped at least one of the bay doors would be open, but they were all closed up tight. Maybe Emmett had left? The sign showing through the salt and dirt clinging to the door said OPEN. She pulled open the door and walked into the waiting room. “Emmett?”
Empty. Hmm . . . She poked her head into the small office behind the counter. No one.
“Emmett? You here?”
A second door, this one closed, stood beside the open office door. She pushed, and it swung wide. “Emmett. You in here?”
Something loud clattered against the floor. “Aww . . . dang it.”
Cass smiled. Yup, that was Emmett.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Emmett. Cass Donovan. Where are you?” She moved into the garage, the smell of old grease in the closed-in space turning the coffee in her stomach.
“I’m right here.” He walked out from behind a car, wiping his hands on a shop towel. “What’s up? You having car trouble?”
“No, nothing like that. I came about . . . uh . . . something else.” She fidgeted with the strap on her bag while Emmett stood still and stared at her.
She waited, but he made no move to say anything. “Um . . . I noticed you left early last night, before the reading, and I wanted to make sure everything was all right.”
His cheeks flamed red. “Yes, everything’s fine. I just had something to do.”
Okay, not getting anywhere that way. “Um . . . I was also wondering if you’d be willing to do some work in the shop for me again.”
A ready smile crossed his face. “Sure, Cass. You know I love helpin’ out.”
Emmett’s wife died when their son, Joey, was a baby, and Emmett had raised him on his own ever since. For all his quirks, Emmett was a wonderful father. Even though he’d played every sport there was in high school, and he was good, he accepted it wasn’t his son’s thing. Instead of mulling over not having anything in common, Emmett jumped wholeheartedly into the activities Joey enjoyed and stayed very involved with all of the people in Joey’s life.
“Great.” She gave him her biggest smile. “I was thinking of doing some renovations upstairs. Nothing major, but maybe a storeroom and a small office for now. Then I could open up the back room and use it for more display cases.”
Emmett scratched his chin. “Hmm . . . We could probably do that.”
“Well . . .” She studied the garage behind him.
Emmett kept the space immaculate. She’d never been in such a clean garage. Even the floor appeared clean. Emmett shifted from one foot to the other. He lifted a large wrench from the nearest counter and polished it with the rag he still held.
She’d always hoped to renovate the upstairs of the shop but hadn’t really given it any serious thought. Suddenly, the idea excited her. “Eventually, I’d like to make the shop bigger and put in more display cases and stuff, but for now do you think you can put a stairway in without losing too much space?”
Emmett hung the wrench from a hook above the counter and tossed the rag into a small bucket on the floor. He took off his red baseball cap and smoothed back a wild mane of hair, then, without a word, he walked past her into the waiting room.
Cass took a last glance around the garage, with no clue what she expected to find. Nothing seemed out of place and, as organized as Emmett was, the smallest detail would probably jump out at her. She shrugged and turned to follow him. Bee was right. Emmett always acted strange. He was a sweetheart, but his social skills were . . . a little lacking. Oh well, the way he adored his son made up for it.
He was hunched over the desk, scribbling furiously. She tried to peek over his shoulder but gave up when she couldn’t see anything. Instead, she moved to the grimy window and looked out to see if Bee was still waiting in the car. Yup. There he was, head bopping to music she knew would be blasting. Good to know he wouldn’t hear a thing if she screamed for help. She glanced nervously over her shoulder, but Emmett was still in the zone.
Her gaze caught on a figure moving through the hotel parking lot across the street. Even with his hat pulled low and a very large bag slung over his shoulder, there was no mistaking Jay Callahan. What is he doing? He opened the back of his beat-up SUV and dumped a bag about the size of a body into it before slamming the door shut. With one last furtive look around, he jogged to the driver’s door and jumped in.
“I’ll be right back, Emmett.” Without bothering to look back, she ripped the door open and ran out into the sound of “It’s Raining Men” blaring from her car. She waved frantically, but Bee never even looked in her direction. She crossed the lot, jumped into the car, and hit the off switch.
“Hey.” Bee’s indignation was short-lived.
She slammed the car into gear and tore out of the lot.
“What happened?”
“I just saw Jay Callahan leaving the hotel. I think he put a body in his car.”
“What?”
She cringed as Bee’s high-pitched screech pierced her brain.
Bee grabbed the dashboard as she took the next corner too quickly.
She reached the front of the hotel. “I think he came out the back door. He was carrying something over his shoulder, wrapped in some kind of plastic or something. It looked like a long bag.” She searched the parking lot, cut through to the back exit, and shot out onto the small back road. “Where could he have gone?”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“Positive. He was driving that old truck he uses for work.” There were only two exits from the hotel parking lot. He’d been closer to the back one, but maybe he’d gone out the front. She pulled a quick U-turn in the middle of the road.
“Hey. What are you doing?” Bee braced himself against the dashboard.
“He must have gone out the front entrance. I was right behind him.” She scanned the only side street she passed but didn’t see any sign of Jay or the truck. “There’s nowhere to go. I don’t understand. How could I have lost him?”
“Lost him? Why on earth are you trying to find him?”
She pulled her gaze from the road for a second to glance at Bee. “Didn’t you hear me? I said I think he threw a body in his car.”
“So you’re looking for him? What if it was a body? Don’t you think maybe you should let the police handle it?”
“Yeah, right. All Chief Langdon is interested in is proving me guilty. He’s probably poring through every minute of my life trying to pin this on me.”
Every side street they passed was a potential escape route for Jay, every parking lot a potential hiding spot. They’d come too far into town to expect to run across him. There was no way she’d find him like this. “Who
knows? Maybe Langdon’s trying to get all of my friends as accessories.”
She’d been kidding, but one look at Bee’s face told her he wasn’t amused. He’d gone deathly pale, his eyes wide, and didn’t say a word.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
With no idea where to look for Jay, she turned around with less urgency this time.
“Where are you going?” Bee finally relaxed his death grip on the dashboard and sat back.
“I guess I’ll go back to Emmett’s.” Frustration beat at her, and she drove slowly through the hotel parking lot once more before giving up and returning to the garage. “I don’t know where Jay could’ve gone.”
“Maybe he went down one of the dirt roads into the woods.”
She shrugged. A maze of small dirt roads used by hunters and dirt bikers zigzagged through the entire area. “I guess, but there’s no way I’d be able to find him if he did.” She shifted into park and lowered her head to rest against her hands on the steering wheel. “You know we’re gonna have to go check on Ellie again, right?”
Emmett must have seen Cass coming, because he opened the door for her. “Is everything all right?”
“Um . . . yeah, sure.”
He frowned and scanned the parking lot, then looked back at her but didn’t press the issue. “I sketched a few different ideas. You can pick what you want.”
What? She’d come back to the garage intent on questioning Emmett about Jay. What was he talking about?
He laid several sketches out across the counter.
Oh right, the renovations.
“Do you want the office at the top of the stairs?”
Cass struggled to concentrate on what would be most convenient. She hadn’t given it much thought, since she’d only come up with the idea on the way into the garage. It had been more of a ruse to talk to Emmett than an actual idea for the shop, but the more she thought about it, the more excited she got. “That would be good, but will the stairway take up a lot of room?”