The Finest Hour

by Anina Collins

  “I don’t know. I guess he had to talk to Derek about something.”

  “I guess so.”

  Focusing my attention back on the website of our P.I., I noticed whoever had made his site hadn’t put much effort into it. A basic black background and some white text in Times New Roman font showed he’d either done it himself or he’d been overcharged by someone who created it for him.

  “This is the lamest website I’ve ever seen,” I said as I pointed to his name at the top of the page. “I think I feel bad for this guy.”

  Alex shook his head and scrolled down to where his office address was listed. “Don’t. I remember where I knew him from. A case right after I joined the force. He was hired by a husband who thought his wife was cheating on him with his business partner. The man ended up murdering both of them on Sterling’s report that they had been sleeping together. The guy said he wished he never found out the truth. Sterling’s kind are nothing but trouble.”

  He jotted down the office address and closed the page as I walked toward his office door to look out into the hallway. “It’s not like it was Sterling’s fault anyone got killed. He was hired for a job. He didn’t kill them.”

  “No, he didn’t, but maybe if that husband hadn’t seen pictures of his own wife and his business partner naked in a cheap motel room acting like he didn’t exist in the world, he might not have taken a shotgun and blown the two of them away one night.”

  I smiled at Alex, knowing that case still stayed with him until that day. “So ignorance is bliss is what you’re saying?”

  “Sometimes it is.”

  “Are we heading out to see Mr. Sterling or is that for another day?” I asked, hoping we’d be taking a road trip that afternoon.

  “I don’t know if we’ll be able to find him at his office on a Sunday, but if I remember correctly, he pretty much lived in that place, so it might be worth a try.”

  He stood to leave, closing his laptop and grabbing his notebook and pen, as I wondered aloud, “He lives in his office? Is he trying to be some gumshoe from some forties film? Does he sleep on the couch there and complain about how bad his back is from it too?”

  Alex smiled at my characterization of Jefferson Sterling and shook his head. “I don’t remember, but I think you might have made it way more glamorous than he really is. I think you might be disappointed if that’s what you think you’re going to see.”

  As we walked down the hallway to leave on our road trip to Sterling’s office, I said, “You know, I think being a private detective might be interesting. I think I’d like that kind of thing.”

  Stopping right outside of Derek’s office, he pushed his eyebrows up in disbelief. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Hollywood makes it look far cooler than it actually is.”

  And that’s when we heard Craig say, “I didn’t know what to say. He as much as threatened her. I didn’t know what to do. I read through the handbook, but it didn’t say anything about this. I thought maybe I should tell Alex, but I didn’t know what to say, Chief.”

  Before I could even process what Craig may have been saying, Alex walked right into Derek’s office and said loudly, “I think I should be part of this conversation.”

  I didn’t know what was going on, but I sensed it wasn’t good. I walked in behind him and waited to hear some explanation.

  Derek put his hands up to calm us all. “Before this gets out of control, please close the door, Poppy. This needs to stay with the four of us.”

  I did as he said and turned back to hear what this was all about. Craig looked downright upset, his expression dark with worry, and Alex stood with his arms folded across his chest giving off the vibe that he was ready for a fight.

  What he’d be fighting about I had no idea, though.

  “Alex, Craig didn’t do anything wrong coming to me with this. I want you to know that he said he wanted to discuss this with you, but he didn’t know how to.”

  In a stern voice, Alex answered, “I heard that. What I want to know is what’s going on.”

  Craig and Derek looked at each other, and then Craig looked down at the floor as his chief explained why he’d come to him. “There’s nothing to get upset about here. I just want you to know that before I tell you what’s going on.”

  I knew Alex well enough that Derek’s dragging his feet was only making this worse. Alex nodded and merely said, “Uh huh,” as he waited for the chief of police to get to what had happened.

  As all this was going on, I stood there with my mind racing as to what all this could be about. Who threatened who? Was this why Craig had been so strange earlier? And what did all of this have to do with me?

  I sensed Alex knew a little more than I did about the situation, but at the moment, he wasn’t telling anyone anything. All he was doing was standing with his arms tightly folded across his chest, letting his body language say what he refused to for the moment.

  “Okay,” Derek said as calmly as possible as he began once again to explain. “Craig came to see me because of a situation he didn’t know how to handle exactly. I don’t want anyone to get worried because I’m on top of this. It seems that Craig and Stephen were talking at the Food King last night and Stephen had some rather unpleasant things to say about Poppy in the course of their conversation.”

  Alex and I looked at each other like we hoped the other person could understand just what Derek was trying to say. I turned toward him and finally blurted out, “Do they make you take special classes once you become a police chief to teach you to use all those words to say absolutely nothing?”

  He grimaced from my forthrightness and shook his head. “You’re not helping, Poppy.”

  “Well, either are you, Derek. Let’s lay our cards on the table here. We overheard Craig say someone threatened some female. Was that person Stephen and was I the female?” I asked in my typical way I knew made my old friend uneasy at times.

  At that moment, I didn’t care.

  “Well, I don’t know if legally it could be called threatening,” Derek said, hedging like he often did when he feared a situation was about to get out of hand.

  “What could it be called then?” Alex asked in a low voice. “What did he say exactly?”

  Craig lifted his head, and I thought he might break into tears he looked so upset. He cleared his throat and said in a quiet voice, “I saw him at the Food King and we got to talking. He said he heard about what happened to Samuel and that the only thing taken from his store was Poppy’s ring. I swear I didn’t tell him, but he knew. And then he said it would have been better if it was her instead of Samuel that got murdered.”

  For a moment, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I’d always known Stephen didn’t like me, but I’d never actually believed that had risen to the level of hate. However, if he was wishing me murdered, it obviously meant he truly did feel hatred toward me. I just never thought anyone would feel that way toward me since I couldn’t say I hated anyone ever in my life. I didn’t like Stephen at all, and after Jared broke my heart and ran away with that grocery clerk hussy, I wanted to hate him.

  But I never had.

  Now to know there was someone out there who actually felt hate in his heart from me made me genuinely frightened.

  After I could take a full breath of air into my lungs, I looked over at Alex standing beside me and saw the rage in his expression. He’d stopped himself more than once from giving Stephen exactly what he deserved, but now that he wasn’t a fellow officer anymore, I worried nothing would prevent him from finding Stephen and beating the hell out of him for this.

  And then he spoke and I knew how much he was working to hold back his emotions.

  “I want him taken care of, Derek. That may not meet the legal standard of a threat to Poppy’s life, but it sure sounds like he has an ax to grind. She’s a citizen of this town and another citizen, a police officer no less, has heard him say he wishes she was dead. What’s going to be done about this?”

  Derek stood from b
ehind his desk and sighed. “I’ll talk to him. He has to know this can’t go any further. I don’t care how he feels about Poppy. She won’t be threatened by him or anyone else.”

  “Good. He should be glad I’m still a cop in this town or I’d give him a sample of what payback feels like,” Alex said, reaching his hand down to hold mine. “But make sure you let him know he needs to stay far away from me. I’m not playing here. Cop or not, if I see him and he so much as makes the wrong face at me, I’ll give him everything he’s deserved for way too long, Derek.”

  The police chief nodded and sighed once more. Derek had never liked confrontation or fighting. That he became a cop had simply been the natural progression of his life once his brother became one. I had a feeling Derek would be far happier stocking shelves at the Food King or coaching the high school football team.

  The three of us began to file out of his office, but he stopped us. “One more thing. Craig, I’m going to put you on another case, and I’m working this one with Alex and Poppy. It’s not a punishment, but if Stephen does figure into this case in any way in the future, I don’t want what he said to you last night to be thrown out on some technicality.”

  All of us stared at Derek in shock. He hadn’t worked a case as an actual officer since becoming chief. Most of his days were spent cajoling the council and the mayor into letting his force have more equipment like new walkie talkies and police cruisers that didn’t break down every other week. In fact, I had a sense that the wheeling and dealing he did as chief suited him just fine and far better than being a cop.

  “You’re working this case?” Alex asked in a stunned voice. “Is there something you haven’t told us? You don’t work cases anymore, Derek.”

  “I know I don’t, but I’d never forgive myself if something happened to one of my oldest friends and the woman you’re marrying in a month. Consider it to be one of my best man duties and don’t make a big deal out of it. We’ll just get this case solved and then I’ll go back to spending my days sitting back with my feet up on my desk. That is what all you guys think I do all day, isn’t it?”

  “Whatever you say, Chief. As our new partner, I guess I should let you know that Poppy and I are heading to Baltimore to talk to a private detective by the name of Jefferson Sterling. It seems Samuel hired him for some work and paid him five grand.”

  “Okay. I’ll have Craig catch me up on the case before I assign him a new one, and then I’ll have a chat with Stephen.”

  Turning to face me, Derek smiled. “Don’t worry about this, Poppy. Your groom and his best man won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that except thank you. It was times like this that made me happy Sunset Ridge was such a small town and everyone knew everyone’s business.

  Chapter Ten

  Alex drove silently down the highway toward Baltimore, but I wanted to talk about what had just happened. He hadn’t said a word after leaving Derek’s office, other than when he opened my door to get into the car and told me to watch my head as I got in.

  For me, talking things out made them better. Sure, nothing much would get solved by us discussing the fact that a person he used to work with and would have put his life on the line for now openly claimed to another police officer that he wished it were me instead of Samuel killed in that jewelry store.

  But that didn’t matter. At least talking about it would ease my mind.

  The problem was that for Alex, talking rarely made things better. Not really a person who saw much use for discussing painful ideas, he’d much rather say nothing about it, as if ignoring what Stephen said to Craig made it like it had never happened.

  I’d stared out the window for nearly fifteen minutes as all these thoughts rolled around in my brain, but each passing moment made it harder to hold back from saying something about it. In truth, I needed to hear Alex say something—anything—that made me feel like I wasn’t alone in this.

  Which I already knew. I wasn’t stupid. I knew full well that if he had heard Stephen say those horrible things about me that he likely would have cold-cocked him right there in the Food King. The thought of that actually made me smile. I imagined Stephen standing there in the canned fruits and vegetables aisle with that smug expression I hated on his face and Alex cocking his arm back far enough that when he let his fist fly, it would slam into Stephen’s ignorant face like a brick into cream cheese. The image of him falling into a stack of canned peas and the cans all tumbling down on him as he fell to the floor pleased me more than it should have.

  “What are you smiling about over there?” Alex asked, tearing me out of my violent fantasy.

  I looked at him and smiled, happy to hear him speaking for the first time on this trip. “Cans of peas. And bricks and cream cheese.”

  He made a strange, confused face and then turned his head to face me for a moment before turning back to look at the road. “You mean like cream cheese icing? Are you thinking of that for the wedding cake? Because if you are, I have to say I’m not completely against that.”

  Chuckling, I took hold of his right hand and gave it a tiny squeeze. “No, I wasn’t, but we can talk to Sherry about that tomorrow at the Charming Cakes tasting. Do you know how cute you can be sometimes?”

  Alex smiled and moved into the passing lane to get around two trucks. “I have heard I can be cute. It’s true. I’m not sure what I said there that was so cute, but I’m glad it made you laugh.”

  “I’m just glad you’re talking. I was getting a little worried there for a while,” I said, cautiously dancing around the subject I wanted to discuss.

  He squeezed my hand gently and smiled again. “I’m about to marry a woman who is capable of talking every minute of the day. I have no illusions about not talking ever again.”

  “Good. Talking is something that I think can help in most situations. You know, like this one,” I said sweetly, taking another step closer to the topic we needed to discuss.

  I waited for his smile to fade and for him to fall silent once again, but he surprised me by simply shrugging and then saying, “I’m not sure what can be said other than you were right about Stephen all the while. He was that guy you said he was toward you.”

  That wasn’t the direction I’d expected this conversation to take. I didn’t blame Alex for wanting to believe his fellow officer wasn’t actively being nasty to me. He trusted that men like himself would act professionally. I didn’t blame him for that. I respected him for being so noble.

  Even if I had been right all along about Stephen.

  “Well, even if that is the case, that’s not what I think we should be talking about.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but when he did, it was one of those times that I knew there was nowhere else on this earth safer than right by his side.

  “Poppy, I’m not going to let him or anyone else ever hurt you. If he tries anything, I’ll stop him, even if that means he loses his life. I don’t have anything else to say except that and I love you and part of being the man who loves you is protecting you.”

  When the final word left his mouth, he lifted our joined hands to his lips and softly brushed his lips over my knuckles before glancing over toward me. “I suspect you, on the other hand, have a lot more to say because that’s who you are, so whatever it is you want to talk about, we have the time now.”

  The way he accepted who I was, even though we were so different, made me chuckle. “Well, I’m glad you aren’t as enraged as you were back at the station. I mean, I like the idea of you being enraged to defend my honor and all that, but enraged Alex sort of frightens me sometimes. You get that whole Incredible Hulk vibe to you and I’m afraid you’re going to tear a phone book apart or something.”

  He laughed out loud and looked over at me for a second. “Tear a phone book apart? When was the last time you saw a phone book anywhere, Poppy?”

  Rolling my eyes, I took his teasing for what it was and said, “You know what I meant
. I was channeling 1970s TV Incredible Hulk there more than the movie hulks from a few years ago.”

  “Whatever you were channeling, I think you’re saying I have no control over my anger and I’m green. Neither of those things are good, as far as I can tell.”

  “Fine. You don’t remind me of the Incredible Hulk. I just get worried when you get angry sometimes. You tend to bottle up your emotions so much that when you let them out, it’s a little unnerving is all.”

  Knowing what I said was true, Alex nodded. “Well, I can honestly say that since I’ve been with you, Miss McGuire, I have gotten better about the bottling up emotions business. Remember, before you came along, I spent most of my time alone out at my house.”

  As much as I wanted to talk about Stephen and what he’d said about me, the subject of where we would live after we married had been on my mind too, along with about a million other things wedding and non-wedding related, so I took the opportunity to broach the housing topic.

  “Speaking of that house of yours, what’s going to happen once we get married? We won’t need two houses.”

  He thought about my question for a long moment and shrugged. “I guess we’ll sell it. I haven’t been there for more than a few minutes anyway in the past six months anyway. Or maybe we can sell both our houses and find a brand new one to start our lives in.”

  Until that very moment he suggested selling my house in addition to his, I’d never even considered the notion that I wouldn’t live in my house forever. The mere mention of it made me feel queasy, even though I didn’t exactly know why.

  “I’m guessing by your silence that you aren’t a big fan of selling both houses?” he asked before glancing over at me.

  “I don’t know. I’d never even thought of it before right now.”

  Alex raised my hand to his lips again and softly kissed my fingers. “What if we decide to move away from Sunset Ridge at some point? We’d have to sell both houses then.”