But then suddenly, he kissed my hand and announced, “It’s been delightful talking to you, but I have to leave, unfortunately. I promised my sister-in-law I wouldn’t be gone long, but I had to try to find you tonight. Would you join me for dinner Monday night?”
Enchanted by the idea of a date with Jack but curious about why we couldn’t have dinner the next night, I didn’t think twice and said yes immediately. “I’d love that! My house is at 138 Barn Street.”
He stood and leaned down to kiss me on the cheek. The scent of his cologne filled my nose with the delightfully masculine smell, and I closed my eyes to savor it.
“I’ll pick you up at seven Monday night. See you then, Poppy.”
I opened my eyes as he pulled away, leaving the delicious scent lingering around me. As I watched him walk out of the bar, I told myself that it was time to go after what I wanted out of life. The first thing I’d go for was him Monday after dinner. After that, I didn’t know, but I was sure of one thing.
I’d spent my last day wishing for a better life.
Chapter Nine
My gaze met Alex’s as soon as I walked through the door of The Grounds, and I saw the stressed out look on his face he’d worn since this case began. Committed to changing that, I plastered a smile onto my lips and hurried to our table where my second cup of morning coffee waited for me along with my partner.
“Sorry, sorry. I overslept by a few this morning, and ever since I’ve been playing catch up.”
He studied my face for a moment and then returned my smile with one of his own. “You look like a ray of sunshine this morning, Poppy. A happy ray of sunshine. I need that after the night I had.”
“Was Derek on your back again last night?” I asked before taking a sip of The Grounds’ new French Roast coffee I’d recently fallen in love with.
He sighed and nodded. “Yeah, that was part of it. He’s worried, so he’s making sure I am too. I guess I don’t blame him. Thankfully, nobody outside of Sunset Ridge seems to care about Lee Reynolds’ murder.”
Part of it? What else was Alex dealing with after hours that was ruining his nights? He’d told me he and Bethany didn’t really see each other anymore, so was there someone else?
Knowing I was snooping but needing to find out, I asked, “What’s keeping you up nights other than our good friend Derek and his broken record routine?”
Alex averted his gaze toward the opposite side of the restaurant, and I turned to follow it but didn’t see anyone there that would be the answer to my question. He didn’t say anything, but I sensed I’d stepped over the line and truly pried into his private life, something I strived never to do.
Feeling bad, I reached across the table and gently touched the sleeve of his uniform. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to seem like I was intruding on your privacy.”
He turned his head to look at me again, and in his dark brown eyes I saw genuine sadness that struck my heart like a fist. What was wrong? The look he gave me wasn’t the kind of look someone gets from being hassled by their boss. No, this was real sadness.
But why?
I had to admit I knew next to nothing about what he did when we weren’t working together. From what he’d always told me, he seemed to spend most of his off-duty time at his house. I didn’t know what he did there except spend a lot of time watching sports on TV. Other than that, I knew he’d dated Bethany for a while, but he’d said that was basically over.
So what problem had been making his nights miserable and caused that terrible look of misery to fill his eyes?
“You don’t pry, Poppy. I know you’re like that. It’s nothing important and not part of the job, so you don’t have to worry about it getting in the way of what we do together.”
As he spoke, that sadness disappeared, replaced by the thoughtful look I usually saw in his eyes. I wanted to ask if there was anything I could do to help, but I didn’t. Whatever we were as Officer Alex Montero and Poppy McGuire working together on cases, we weren’t anything as just Alex and Poppy.
“It would never even enter my mind that you’d be anything less than professional, Alex. You don’t have to worry about that.”
He took a sip of his coffee and changed the subject. “So what was that smile about when you walked through the door? You practically lit up the entire place.”
I didn’t want to tell him the real reason for my smile. He didn’t approve of my spending time with Jack, and I knew if I told him I’d agreed to go on a date with him after hanging out with him last night at the bar that Alex would be unhappy.
But I didn’t want to lie to him either. We may not have been close outside of work, but I considered Alex my partner and a friend, and for that, he deserved to be told the truth.
“It’s nothing. Just went out last night and had a good time.”
Not exactly the truth, but if we were going to have a conversation about Jack, I figured I needed to ease into it. Alex wasn’t exactly his biggest fan, although I wasn’t sure why.
More interested than I thought he’d be, he probed further about my generic answer of a night out. “Really? That’s not like you, Poppy. You’re more of a homebody. Where did you go?”
Suddenly feeling like I needed to defend myself or at least prove to him I didn’t spend all my time alone sitting in my house, I said, “I go out. Well, I go out sometimes. It’s nothing big. Just hung out at my father’s bar.”
He knew I was avoiding answering his questions. His expression grew serious, and he cleared his throat. “Poppy, I think it might be time for us to clear the air about something. You don’t have to feel awkward about mentioning Bethany, if she’s who you went out with. Just because things didn’t work out with us doesn’t mean she’s going to cease to exist. Sunset Ridge is a small town, and she’s a good friend of yours.”
So that’s why he thought I was dancing around the truth. That would have been easier than telling him about my time with Jack. I couldn’t avoid this conversation any longer, so I swallowed hard and began telling him what really happened.
“Oh, it’s not that, Alex. I am sorry that things didn’t work out between you two, but I didn’t go out with Bethany. I hung out with Jack Reynolds at McGuire’s last night. I know you don’t think that’s right because he might be involved with the case at some point, but I had a nice time talking to him. He’s very interesting, and to be honest, I don’t meet that many people in this town who are like that and want to spend time with me.”
He didn’t look angry as much as unhappy at my explanation. Or at least that’s what I thought because that same look he’d had a few minutes ago came back and turned his brown eyes sad.
“You underestimate yourself, Poppy. Any man with a brain in his head would want to spend time with you.”
“But you still don’t approve, do you?”
Alex shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“Why? Do you truly believe Jack’s going to be a focus of this investigation at some point? We’ve got no evidence to show he had anything to do with his brother’s death. He wasn’t even in Sunset Ridge when the murder occurred. I don’t see what the problem with him is.”
He hesitated and began to speak before stopping a few times, but then he said, “I just have a bad feeling about him. I can’t explain it.”
His answer made me smile and feel better about the whole thing about Jack. “Well, since you rely on me for gut feelings, I think we’ll be fine since I don’t get a bad vibe from him. For what it’s worth, I don’t intend on marrying the guy, so you don’t have to worry about me. I just like spending time with him. Nothing more. And if he looks like he’s going to be a person of interest in our investigation, I’ll break it off with him so fast your head will spin.”
For the first time since we became partners, Alex looked worried about me. Laying his hand on mine, he said, “Just promise me you’re going to be careful. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“See, there’s the partner I’m used to. I
promise, Alex, I’ll be careful, but you don’t have to worry. It’s not like Jack is going to stop roaming the world and settle down in this Podunk town. He’ll leave after his brother’s funeral and I’ll just be a memory. That’s okay, though. Sometimes it’s nice to just get together with people for a few days.”
A strange silence settled in between us, and even though I had the feeling he wanted to say something else to me about the Jack situation, he didn’t. We sat there at our table in the back of The Grounds as the Sunday morning crowd filed out to begin their day and said nothing for a long time. I didn’t mind that we didn’t have anything to say. I just wished it wasn’t because he disapproved of me spending time with Jack.
“I forgot to tell you I got the information on Jessica’s financials,” Alex announced, breaking the silence after about ten minutes.
“On a Sunday? How did you do that?”
“Computers work every day of the week,” he said with a smile as he pulled out the information from inside his coat.
“Like us?”
He chuckled at my joke. “Yeah, like us. I actually got it yesterday, but take a look at this.” He pointed to the bottom of a bank printout. “The account she and Lee had at the First National Bank branch in town is practically empty.”
I studied the information he showed me and was surprised to see a bank account with so little in it. “Five hundred and twenty-nine dollars? That’s not a lot of money for a guy who had to be making a good paycheck each week. Did they have other accounts?”
Alex shook his head. “No, not together. This one was opened when they got married. Lee didn’t have any other ones either. She has another one, though, in her name only. That’s a far healthier one.”
“Really? That’s interesting, don’t you think?” I asked, wondering why Jessica Reynolds felt the need to have her own bank account separate from her husband.
He flipped over the top sheet of paper to show the printout from Jessica’s individual account. I read down the page to see a balance of fifty thousand dollars at a bank in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania.
Surprised to see that town involved in our investigation once again, I looked up at Alex and said, “What’s with this out-of-the-way town and our case?”
“I know. I didn’t expect to see anything else about it, and there it is as the place where Jessica has a bank account all to herself that’s doing much better than the one she shared with her husband. Sounds like she’s been hiding money away.”
“Is it merely an odd coincidence that Lee Reynolds’ first wife lives in that same town that Jessica has a bank account in? I mean, it’s not like Waynesboro is a popular place like Baltimore or even Frederick.”
With a sly grin, he said, “I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but I’m starting to wonder if both of Lee’s wives conspired to kill him. One has the right caliber gun and the other has enough eye drops to last a lifetime. Did Jessica get impatient because they weren’t doing the job and used Cherise’s gun?”
“We don’t even know if they knew each other, though. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the first wife to hate the second wife,” I suggested before he got ahead of what we could prove.
“True. It does seem odd that they’re both connected to that small town, though, don’t you think?”
“Do we know where Jessica got the fifty grand?” I asked as I nodded toward the printout.
He scanned the information and read what it said. “There were only three transactions in the past month, and none of them explain that amount. From what I can see, the account has gradually grown after an initial deposit about a year ago of thirty grand and each month she’s deposited another two grand, while every so often withdrawing smaller amounts.”
“Maybe her husband was giving her the two thousand dollars every month as an allowance?” I offered, knowing how unlikely that sounded. Two thousand was a sizeable amount for most husbands to give their wives, even a pseudo-celebrity like Lee Reynolds.
Alex looked as unconvinced as I was that she’d been getting that money from our victim. “I think we need to go back to Waynesboro. I want to speak to someone at that bank to find out where these deposits were coming from and where the initial thirty grand came from.”
“Well, it’s Sunday, so we can’t do it today. I have to make an appearance at The Eagle bright and early tomorrow before my editor thinks I jumped ship, but I can be ready to go by ten probably. Sound good?”
I turned to stand and leave and heard him say, “You’re in a pretty big hurry. Got somewhere better to be?”
The truth was I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I just hadn’t thought of staying there with him now that we’d decided we couldn’t do anything else about this part of the case until tomorrow.
“No, not really. I just figured I’d go home and do a little work on my articles before my meeting tomorrow. Do you have something else you wanted to talk to me about regarding the case?”
I waited for him to say something, but he simply gave me a forced smile and shook his head. “No. See you tomorrow, Poppy. I’ll meet you in front of the police station at ten.”
“Sounds good. See you tomorrow, Alex.”
I thought about telling him I hoped he enjoyed the baseball game I knew would be on that night and knew he’d be watching, but I didn’t and I didn’t know why.
* * *
Bright and as early as I could after my editor kept me late at our meeting, I met Alex in front of the Sunset Ridge police station at nearly quarter after ten Monday morning. He stood leaning against the squad car, but I didn’t notice any look of unhappiness about my being late.
“So sorry again. I swear I had the best of intentions to get here by ten, but my boss couldn’t stop talking. I’m guessing it would be too much to ask that you’d have gotten me a coffee this morning, right?”
He grinned and held up a cup from The Grounds in front of him. “It’s probably cold since I got it nearly twenty minutes ago, but the thought was there.”
I took the cup from his hand and lifted it to my mouth for a much-needed drink of coffee. “It’s the thought that counts, and this is still pretty warm, so you get credit for the thought and the action.”
“Ready for a road trip?” he asked as he climbed in behind the wheel.
“I’m ready to find out where Jessica’s been getting her money from,” I answered as I closed the passenger side door. “I’m also ready for a break in this case, to be honest.”
Alex nodded and looked over at me as he started the car. “I’ll second that. Four days of Derek nagging me is more than enough.”
We drove to the tiny town of Waynesboro right over the Maryland-Pennsylvania state line and chatted about the case, the weather, the baseball game from the night before, and some other meaningless topics, like we always did when we were in the car. I sensed that whatever he’d been dealing with for the past few days had passed, or at least abated, and now he was back to being the guy I was used to.
Main Street in Waynesboro looked like what most people thought of when they heard someone mention a main street in a small town. While there were a number of empty shops, most of the storefronts showcased unique little stores. As we drove down the street, I saw one dedicated exclusively to scarfs and wraps and another one that sold only hand dipped candles. In many ways, this small town reminded me of my hometown.
The Third National Bank sat on the corner of Main and Locust Streets, so we parked the squad car in the parking lot next door and walked into the old building with its large columns flanking the doorway. The white marbled floored lobby sat empty, except for us and a single bank worker at a welcome desk just inside the front doors.
Alex approached the dark haired woman whose eyeglasses hung on a chain around her neck and flashed his badge to get her attention. “I’m Officer Alex Montero from the Sunset Ridge police department. I need to speak to the bank manager. Is he or she here?”
“He’s not here right now, Officer Montero,” she s
aid with wide eyes full of apprehension. “He should be in by noon, though. I can give you his card and you can call him, if you like. His name is Thomas Rubens.”
Alex took the manager’s business card and told the woman behind the desk that we’d return at noon to speak to him. “Maybe we should poke around town to see if anyone knows Jessica.”
Walking out into the mid-morning sun, I took out my cell phone to see if I could get us some information on a hunch I had. “Give me a second. I want to check something out.”
I dialed Keri’s number and asked her for Jessica Reynolds’ birthplace. As I guessed, she was from Waynesboro. Thanking her, I turned to Alex and said, “Jessica was born in this town. She listed her address on the marriage certificate as 174 Chambersburg Road Waynesboro.”
Alex’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Interesting. Let’s stop in at that bakery across the street and ask for directions. Maybe this is the break we need.”
We crossed the street and headed into Martin’s Bakery. The deliciously sweet smell of cakes and pastries washed over me no sooner had I stepped inside the store, and I closed my eyes to take a deep inhale of an incredible mix of sugar, flour, and cinnamon from the apple tarts on the glass case.
The elderly woman behind the counter chuckled at my reaction to the delectable baked goods all around me, and I opened my eyes to see Alex staring at me.
“You okay there?”
“The smell of fresh baked goodies is my kryptonite,” I said as I scanned the glass cases in front of us for what I wanted to take home.
“What can I get you?” the woman asked me as I stood staring at those apple cinnamon squares.
Alex spoke up before I could pick my baked poison. “Can you tell us how to get to 174 Chambersburg Road Waynesboro?”
When she heard the address, she laughed and her chubby face scrunched up. Confused, he looked at me and I shrugged. Maybe there was something amusing about that address.
“What’s so funny?” he asked as she looked at us like we should know what the inside joke was.
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