She would have to work a little harder to take on the persona of a young, beautiful bride on her honeymoon. Most people considered their honeymoons one of the happiest times in their marriages. He wouldn’t know about that, since he’d never married.
He just hoped she was up to the challenge. And this case was definitely going to be a challenge. They had to consciously attempt to catch the attention of a killer or killers.
Physically they both looked the part, but nobody knew for sure exactly what had drawn the killer to those particular couples besides their outward appearances. Had the couples offended somebody in town? Was it possible their physical appearance was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with why they’d been chosen for death?
So many questions, and he hoped that Sheriff Edward Lambert would be able to give them more clarity on the matter. He also hoped the Dew Drop Café served good food. They’d made no stops along the way, it was well after noon, and he was starving.
They’d spoken very little on the trip, other than the first flurry of conversation. Cassie appeared to be one of the most self-contained women he’d ever met. Unlike his sisters, she apparently didn’t feel the need to fill every silence with idle chatter. He liked that about her.
She was hot and quiet, definitely his kind of woman, but he knew better than to go there again. He couldn’t forget the utter contempt she’d shown him after their one night together.
Besides, she possessed other qualities that he knew would make him crazy in a short period of time. He had a feeling she was not only tightly controlled, but also controlling.
Around the office she had the reputation for being Ice Queen material. She didn’t have drinks or meals with other agents. In fact, she didn’t socialize at all with any coworkers.
She was always up for overtime, indicating she had no social life at all and didn’t seem to be looking for a relationship of any kind with any member of the opposite sex despite the fact that he knew she’d just turned thirty years old.
It had been Mick’s experience that most women had a little wedding-bell alarm that rang in their heads by their thirtieth birthday, but Cassie didn’t appear to be the norm. She didn’t seem to possess the desperate “I’m thirty and not married” madness.
“You hungry?” he now asked, breaking the long silence of the trip as they reached the outskirts of the small town of Cobb’s Corners.
“Starving,” she replied, and then pointed out the window to the left. “There it is.”
The Dew Drop Café had a red awning announcing the establishment. It didn’t appear too busy at this time of day and Mick pulled into a parking space directly in front.
“I’m not sure what I’m more eager for, information on the crimes or a big juicy cheeseburger,” he said as he turned off the car engine.
“I definitely know what I’m eager for. Information that will let us get this job done quickly and successfully.” She opened her car door and got out.
Mick did the same, the humid July heat slapping him in the face like a spurned lover. He was grateful for the dorky tourist shirt he wore. At least it was lightweight and breathed.
The Dew Drop Café was less charming inside than it had looked on the outside. The interior paint was old and peeling, the red bar stools sported rips, and the red vinyl booths also showed signs of wear and tear. Even though there were half a dozen people inside it was easy to spot Sheriff Edward Lambert, despite the fact that he wasn’t in uniform.
The older man, with a shock of white hair, sat at the back of the restaurant facing the door, intelligent brown eyes taking in everything and everyone in the room. Those eyes widened slightly as he caught sight of Mick and Cassie.
They approached his table, introductions were made, orders were taken by a waitress and then Cassie excused herself for the restroom.
“Ambience stinks but the food is great,” he said.
“That’s good to know,” Mick replied.
“I wanted to meet you two here instead of someplace in Black Creek so that we can keep this whole operation under wraps,” Lambert said as he wrapped big hands around the coffee mug in front of him. “Even though we’re a tourist trap and are still fighting over what the name of the town is eventually going to be, we’re also a small town where secrets are sometimes hard to keep. This whole thing won’t work if word gets out that the two of you are FBI agents.”
Mick nodded. “I completely agree.” The two men small-talked about the drive and the hot weather and by that time Cassie returned to the table.
“There’s no question that the two of you make the perfect bait physically,” Lambert said.
“Have you figured out if the killer’s trigger is something more than physical appearance?” Cassie asked as she reached out to align the salt and pepper shakers next to each other in the center of the table.
“Nothing so far. What we have learned is that the two couples pretty much followed the same kind of schedules while they were in town. I’ve got a list of places they visited and activities they did. I’ll give you each a copy before we leave here.”
“I read in the file that Jim Armond was an insurance salesman from Oklahoma, and Bill Tanner was a mechanic from Missouri. Any indication that the couples knew each other?” Cassie asked.
“None,” Sheriff Lambert replied. “At least none that we’ve been able to find so far. I’ve got a six-man force, all good men who have been working overtime to figure this out.” He stopped talking as the waitress appeared with their orders.
The decor inside the café might be questionable, but Mick eyed the thick cheeseburger and order of fries in front of him with appreciation. Cassie had ordered a salad, dressing on the side and Ed Lambert had ordered a piece of pie to go along with his coffee.
“I’ve got to admit that I’m understaffed and pretty much over my head with these murders,” the sheriff continued as the waitress moved away from the table. “I’ve been understaffed for the last couple of years as the town has gained more of a reputation as a hot spot for honeymooning couples.” He frowned. “When Mayor John Jamison got his bright idea about this Honeymoon Haven nonsense he turned our quaint little town into a mess.”
He paused and took a sip of his coffee. “There’s plenty of money flying around town, but none of it has allowed me to hire on more deputies and the petty crime rate has tripled.”
“Sounds tough,” Mick said.
The older man shrugged. “We do the best we can, but I want to assure you these murders are on the top of our priority list. Unfortunately, they aren’t the only things we can focus on with all my manpower. Your boss has assigned another couple to help with the investigation. They’ll be staying at the Super Eight Motel just north of town. Director Forbes indicated they would be your contact if you stumble across any information that might be useful.”
“Their names?” Mick asked.
“Agents Rick Burgess and David Ellsworth. They’ll be working with me and my team, but flying under the radar. The mayor is insistent that we keep this all as low-key as possible. Needless to say, we’re not eager for any publicity concerning the murders.”
Mick nodded. He was glad to know there were two agents working with the sheriff. He knew both agents, had worked cases with them before and trusted them. He had cell phone numbers for both of them and would check in with them once he and Cassie got settled in town.
“Your tech support team arrived this morning,” Ed continued. “Three men checked into the cabin next to yours. They let me know that they had their audio in place and were ready for your arrival.”
“Audio?” Cassie looked from the sheriff to Mick, who shrugged.
“According to the agent I spoke to early this morning they have placed listening devices in the room where you’ll be staying. They’ll be able to hear anything that happens, but also told me to let you know they didn’t bug the bathroom.”
Mick smiled at Cassie. “That means if you decide to verbally abuse me it will be all over headquar
ters before the day is over.”
“I have no intention of verbally abusing you,” she replied with a flash of her brilliant blue eyes. “Unless you need it,” she added under her breath.
Sheriff Lambert cleared his throat. “The good news is that if somehow, someway, the killer gets into your premises, your agents will hear everything that is going on and can get inside within seconds.”
Cassie’s eyes turned somber and Mick wondered if she’d really considered how badly this assignment could go. They were intentionally putting themselves in the direct path of a killer or killers. If the killer did manage to get into their room it would only take him seconds to shoot Mick and stab Cassie.
What Mick had no intention of telling her was that while he was being hunted, he intended to do a little hunting of his own. Although their job was merely to act the part of newlyweds, to draw the attention of the killer and allow their support team to make an arrest, Mick would investigate independently to find the killer. Even knowing Burgess and Ellsworth were assigned to the case wouldn’t stop him from working on his own.
He wasn’t about to get trapped in a honeymoon cabin with a killer and depend on a team to rescue him. He’d find the killer long before the game went on that long.
He’d only been blindsided once in his life, and that had been by a woman with blue eyes and a dark soul. He’d never let a woman close to him again, and he wasn’t about to allow a killer to get the upper hand on him either.
Chapter Three
It was just after three-thirty when Mick and Cassie were back in the car and headed toward Black Creek, aka Honeymoon Haven.
Cassie pulled out the list of the places the murdered honeymooning couples had visited before their deaths and stared at it in horror. Drinks by the pool, hot springs treatments at the local spa, candlelight dinners and a romantic canoe trip down Black River, and throughout it all she would have to pretend that she was madly, desperately in love with her husband, Mick. If she could pull this off, she’d deserve an Academy Award.
She cast him a surreptitious glance. He appeared to be so relaxed, as if they were taking a vacation rather than putting their lives on the line to catch a killer.
There was a part of Cassie that wasn’t afraid of death, times when she woke up in the middle of the night vaguely surprised that she had managed to survive the madness of her childhood.
No, she wasn’t afraid of dying, but she was afraid of not doing her job properly, of somehow screwing up and letting a killer continue his work or getting somebody else killed by her carelessness.
Gazing out the window, she noticed the road they traveled was narrow and winding through the Arkansas hilly landscape. The scenery was breathtaking. Tall trees crowded the sides of the roads while woods parted occasionally to show a glimpse of bubbling streams sparkling in the bright sunshine.
She knew what she’d signed up for, she knew they were headed to a place called the Sweetheart Suites where there would be one big bed for them both to share, one small space for them both to maneuver.
Still, the closer they got to Black Creek the more real everything became for her. She hadn’t shared a bed with a man for any reason in a while. The last time had been eight years ago when she’d been dating Glen Morrow.
Glen had been a nice man, but by the end of the relationship things had gotten strained between them. Glen had finally broken it off, telling her that she had too many control issues for him to handle, that she made it impossible for anyone to love her.
Cassie had been secretly relieved. The sex had been okay, the companionship had been nice most of the time, but she hadn’t been in love with Glen and she certainly hadn’t been looking for marriage or children. She knew her limitations and she knew that inviting people into her life brought the kind of chaos she didn’t want or need.
She glanced over at Mick. At least she didn’t have to worry that a pretend honeymoon would make her fall crazy in love with him. She recognized on a base level that he threatened everything she’d worked so hard to maintain, that inviting him into her life in any way would be the biggest mistake she’d ever make.
As they crested a hill the small town of Black Creek appeared in the valley below, and as they drew closer it was obvious that honeymoon madness had possessed what had once probably been a quaint little place.
The road they were on went right through the main business district, with shops and restaurants on either side. The Wedding Cake Café, Bride and Groom Boutique, Newlywed Night Shop for Adults, all the storefronts looked as if a pink and red and white froth had exploded all over the buildings.
Interspersed amid the honeymoon-themed businesses were others that indicated the mayor hadn’t been completely successful yet in the formal renaming of Black Creek to Honeymoon Haven. The Black Creek Bank rose up three stories, stately and gray next to the Black Creek Grocery Store.
Mick turned into an entrance that led to the Sweetheart Suites and parked in front of the building marked as the office. As he got out of the car to go inside and get the key to their unit, Cassie looked around the general area.
Tiny mauve-colored cabins were nestled amid tall, fully leaved trees, and on the opposite side of the office was a swimming pool complete with a grotto and a waterfall.
An edge of anxiety pressed against her chest and she turned to look in the opposite direction. Cassie liked water only if it was contained in a bathtub.
For a brief moment she was thrown back in time and the water surrounded her as she flailed helplessly, going under the surface as her lungs threatened to burst. She reached the surface. The only sound she heard was her own frantic gasps for breath and her parents’ crazy laughter before the water pulled her down once again.
She now pulled in a deep breath of the fresh-scented air, sat up straighter in her seat and shook off the memory as Mick returned to the car.
“Lucky number seven,” he said and handed her the key on a heart-shaped key ring.
“This whole town feels kind of cheesy, don’t you think? All the hearts and flowers and lace kind of make me want to gag,” she said.
“Cassie, where’s your sense of romantic spirit?” he asked as he put the car into gear and headed to their cabin. “I think it’s kind of charming.”
She looked at him in surprise. “I’d never guess you for a romantic kind of guy.”
He smiled. “Actually, I love romance, I just don’t want it to mislead any woman into thinking I want anything to do with marriage.”
“We’re definitely on the same page there,” Cassie replied. “I never want to get married.”
“Never say never,” Mick replied, parking the car in front of their little cottage. “Home, sweet home, let’s grab the bags and check things out.”
Imagining a honeymoon cottage and actually being in one were two very different things, Cassie thought as the two of them entered unit seven.
It was one large room, with a king-size bed resting on a platform that made it the focal point. The bedspread looked as it had been made by a thousand lace doilies sewn together. Scattered across the top of the white lace were delicate pink rose petals.
A dresser with a flat-screen television on top sat at the end of the bed with a chair next to it. The only other furniture in the room was a love seat behind a coffee table that sported a fruit-and-muffin basket obviously intended as a continental breakfast and a bottle of champagne chilling on ice in a silver-plated bucket.
Cassie dropped her suitcases on the floor and walked over to the bathroom. She gasped as she peered inside, where a Jacuzzi tub big enough for four people sat in the center of the room. The glass-enclosed small shower, sink and stool seemed to be incidental.
“Definitely not the average motel room,” Mick said from over her shoulder.
It was Cassie’s nightmare. The room breathed of intimacy, of items and furniture placed specifically to promote sexuality and love. She was grateful when Mick stepped back from her and walked to the love seat.
He s
ank down and pulled out the paperwork that Sheriff Lambert had given them. He spread out the pieces of paper on the table before him.
“According to this information the three agents next door are Sam Hunter, Jacob Tyler and Bob Hastings.” He looked around the room. “Let’s see if they’re ready for us. Agent Hastings, if you can hear me, please walk outside your cabin door and let me see you.”
Together, Cassie and Mick peered out their front window to the cabin next door. The door opened and a tall blond man walked outside. He stretched with arms overhead and gave a small but perceptible nod of his head, then returned back inside his cabin.
“Okay, so we’re wired for sound,” Mick said as they both moved away from the window. “I suppose our next order of business is to get unpacked and figure out what we’re going to do with what’s left of the day.”
“I never unpack when I travel,” she said. “I prefer just living out of my suitcases.”
He gazed at her curiously. “Funny, I would have definitely pegged you for the kind of woman who has to iron and hang everything the minute you check in someplace.”
“That just goes to show you how little you know about me,” she replied. There had been far too many times in her childhood that she’d been roused in the middle of the night to run from some motel or rented room with only the clothes on her back, leaving everything she owned behind because they weren’t in a suitcase she could carry out. But she wasn’t about to share the madness of her childhood with anyone, especially Mick.
“Well, I’d better get my shirts hung up, otherwise everyone will wonder why you married such a wrinkled man.” As he began to hang his shirts in the closet just off the bathroom, Cassie thought about the clothes she had packed.
Her entire wardrobe consisted of clothing that didn’t need to be ironed, that could be pulled from a suitcase and put right on. She sank down on the love seat. She didn’t want to think about clothes.
Scene of the Crime: Black Creek Page 3