The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge

by Stewart, Mariah

  “No.” Gus shook his head. “But the sooner you can get it together, the better.”

  Vanessa stripped off the gloves.

  “Vanessa, have you noticed any strange activity lately? Customers who acted peculiar? Anyone hanging around the store?”

  She shook her head. “No, no one strange. Gus, if you don’t need me anymore, then I think I’d like to leave now.”

  “Go on home. We’ll call you if anything comes up,” Gus told her without looking up from his work.

  Grady was still leaning against the doorjamb. She walked over and said, “We can go.”

  “Do you want me to run down and get the car and come back for you?”

  “No.” She took his hand. “I want to stay with you.”

  He nodded and they walked out of the shop and across the street. The town was pin-drop quiet, the only sounds the tap-tap of her heels on the pavement. There was a fine silver mist rolling in off the Bay that made her skin feel damp. She wanted to go home and take a very hot shower and she wanted to take him with her. She was tired and worn out and dispirited and she felt sick. Bling was everything to her, and someone had trashed it. She’d have to close for God only knew how long and she probably was out hundreds of dollars’ worth of her carefully selected merchandise. The day that had begun so perfectly had turned out to be perfectly awful.

  They went through the dark area off Charles Street and passed under the streetlights that marked the end of the municipal building’s lot. Across the road was the lot where Grady had left the car. Before her, the walk through the unlit lot appeared endless. Their shadows, cast by the lights from the municipal building, grew longer and longer as they walked farther and farther into the lot. Finally, they were at the car and Vanessa let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. She’d never been afraid of the dark, but tonight, on the heels of the break-in at Bling, she felt spooked.

  At first, Vanessa thought the loud crunching she heard was the sound of the oyster shells in the lot crushing beneath their feet. But something sharp stabbed through the sole of her shoe and she cried out.

  “What?” Grady caught her arm as she stumbled.

  “Something went right through the bottom of my shoe.” She stopped and stood on one foot. She removed the shoe, and when she touched the side of her foot, she felt something wet and thick. “I think my foot is bleeding. I must have stepped on a piece of broken glass.”

  Grady started toward the car for a flashlight, but after he’d taken two steps closer, he began to curse softly.

  “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

  “Do you have a tissue in your bag?” he asked.

  “I think so. You never go to a wedding without tissues.” She opened her bag and felt around inside until her fingers closed around one. “Here you go.”

  He reached out in the darkness and took it, then walked to the car, using the tissue to cover the handle as he opened the car door and reached inside to turn on the headlights.

  Vanessa stared at the ground, then at the car door. “Grady, is that …”

  “Yeah. Glass. Someone’s broken all the windows out of the car.”

  “What …?” She stepped closer.

  “Don’t. I don’t want you to step on anything else.” He held a hand out to stop her. “Let’s go back to the police station and get someone over here.”

  “I can’t believe this.” She felt stunned. “This whole night has turned into one big nightmare. My shop, your car …”

  “My rental car.”

  “This is such a quiet town, this is just crazy, that someone would break into Bling and someone else would vandalize your car.”

  They were nearing the edge of the lot, and in the dim light, she could see him shaking his head.

  “I’m not so sure it was someone else,” he told her.

  “You think the same person did this? The shop and the car?”

  He nodded.

  “Damn. That is the most bizarre coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Stop and think, Ness. First your shop, then the car you were riding in? Uh-uh.” His jaw was squared, and for the first time since she’d met him, he was angry. “No coincidence there, babe. I think someone’s trying to send you a message.”

  He opened the front door of the municipal building and held it for her to enter.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? What kind of message?”

  “I’m not certain, but I’m guessing it isn’t a love note.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “You should be scared,” he told her. “You have every reason to be scared.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it isn’t what you think. Maybe it’s kids, just out causing mischief.”

  “What happened in your shop is more than mischief. The smashing up of the car? Coming immediately after the break-in? I don’t think this is the work of mischievous kids. Whoever did this is angry, and that anger is being directed at you for some reason. You must have really pissed off someone.” He took her by the hand. “Which way is the police department?”

  She pointed to the hall on the right. As she did so, Sue walked out of one of the offices. Seeing them, she said, “Did you forget something?”

  “No. We’re here for round two,” Grady told her.

  “Round two?” Sue raised her eyebrows.

  “Someone took a sledgehammer or something equally heavy and knocked out all the windows of my car while we were at the shop.”

  “Son of a bitch …” Sue’s eyes grew wide. “What are the chances of that?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded wryly. “Go figure …”

  Chapter 11

  “Hal’s still not answering his phone,” Gus told Vanessa, “so I’m going to take a ride over to his place, let him know what’s going on.”

  “Don’t do that, please. Right now, he’s probably sitting in the Inn’s bar, catching up with old friends who came to the wedding,” Vanessa pleaded. She had a sinking suspicion of just which old friend Hal might be catching up with, and if that was the case, she really didn’t want to know. “Anyway, there’s nothing he could do tonight except worry.”

  “Or he could be home, sleeping soundly,” Grady offered. “In any case, Vanessa is right. You’ve got two people out there going over the car, two people over at Vanessa’s shop. You probably don’t need Hal, too. At least for now.”

  “All right,” Gus said. “We’ll let it go until the morning. But you just pray that this guy”—he pointed across the parking lot toward Grady’s bashed-up rental car—“is done for a while.”

  “If he has any sense at all, he’s got to be thinking that he’s pushed his luck enough for one night. He did get away with the break-in without anyone seeing him, but …” Vanessa said.

  “Not so sure about that. We’ll be canvassing the neighbors in the morning,” Gus reminded her. “Right now, we don’t know who saw what.”

  “True enough,” Grady agreed. “But he walked away from that and from the car without getting caught. This guy is no amateur. He picks and chooses his time and his target, but he’s also opportunistic. He hit the shop when half the town was at the wedding, and he hit the car when everyone was focused on the burglary. Now, I’m pretty certain that the break-in was planned in advance, but vandalizing the car … that couldn’t have been planned. He’d have had no way of knowing that you’d be with me, in that car, and that the car would be parked in the lot down here, but he took advantage of the opportunity. If we believe that he’s targeting Vanessa for some reason—and I believe that he is—he must have seen her get out of my car, possibly when he was finished at the shop.”

  “Why would he have even been back near the lot? If he’d just burglarized Bling,” Vanessa wondered, “wouldn’t he want to be far away?”

  “I think he wanted to watch—which is another reason I think this is personal. Look, there’s that long dark section of the road out there. He could have been hiding just about anywhere. He’d have watched the po
lice cars head for Charles Street, and he’d have known that was the focus of everyone’s attention. So while the breaking glass would have made noise, there wasn’t anyone around to hear it. Steffie was gone by then, and she was the last one who’d have been in that area of the parking lot, other than Ness and me. Once we were drawn to the shop, he had the lot to himself.” Grady paused to think.

  “Or,” Vanessa suggested, “he hit the shop because it looked like exactly what it is: an upscale women’s boutique that does a good business.”

  Before Grady could counter, she continued.

  “As far as the car is concerned, who’s to say it wasn’t a couple of kids taking a shortcut from the park through the parking lot?”

  “What park?”

  “On the other side of the trees that run along Steffie’s, there’s a small park. The generally accepted shortcut to Charles Street is through the parking lot.”

  “It’s possible,” Grady conceded, “but that’s not what my gut’s telling me.”

  “Is your gut psychic?” she asked.

  “Instinct, then.” He tried to explain. “I spent nine years in law enforcement. After a while, you develop certain instincts, and you learn to trust them. Yes, it’s possible that Bling was targeted because it looks like a shop that brings in shoppers with money, and is likely to have a few dollars in the cash register at the end of the day. But don’t many shop owners now make their deposits at night? Do you usually leave money in the drawer when you leave?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I usually lock it in a safe that I have hidden or I take it to the bank. There was money in the shop last night, though, since I wasn’t going to be there to lock up or to make a deposit.”

  “How many people knew that?” Gus asked.

  “Just the person who locked up last night, and me. I might have mentioned it to Steffie, but that isn’t something she’d discuss with anyone else.”

  “I’m going to have a few officers walk the area from Charles Street through the parking lot and down to the playground, just in case he dropped something or left something behind,” Gus told them. “The more I think about it, the more I’m thinking you’re right about the path he took down toward the parking lot. I think he hit the shop, hid somewhere close by while he waited for the call to come in here so he could watch us answer it. He had to know that in a town like this one, a crowd would be gathering to see what the commotion was, then he’d stroll on up and blend in.” Gus was thinking it all through. “I agree with your friend here, Ness. He wouldn’t have expected to see you get out of that car, but after he did, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to give you just a little more to think about. Besides, with you walking around down on the dock, then in the parking lot, you might have ruined his chance to sneak up to Charles Street, catch the action. That could have pissed him off. First thing in the morning, when it’s light, I’ll have that area gone over with a fine-tooth comb. No telling what they might find.”

  Gus walked them past the reception desk toward the door. “Well, with any luck, you folks won’t be needing us again tonight.”

  “I understand that the raccoons are making a racket, ma’am. We’ll have a patrol car over there as soon as we can.” Bill Mason, the night dispatcher, waved to Vanessa as she passed. He put a hand over the phone and told Gus, “The raccoons are in Mrs. Brophy’s tree again.”

  Gus rolled his eyes. “Tell her I’ll be coming by in about ten minutes.”

  He opened the front door and held it for Vanessa and Grady and exited with them.

  “I’ll drop you off at home,” Gus told Vanessa, then turned to Grady. “You staying at the Inn?”

  Grady nodded and took Vanessa’s arm as they walked to Gus’s patrol car.

  “I’ll drive you out after I take Vanessa home.”

  “Grady, why don’t you take my car back to the Inn? That way, you’ll have some transportation in the morning to get back into town,” Vanessa said.

  “Are you sure you won’t need it?” Grady asked as they got into Gus’s cruiser.

  “I walk into town all the time,” she reminded him.

  “Then thank you. I’ll take you up on the offer.”

  Gus stopped in front of her house. “Maybe I should come in and take a look around. You know, just in case there’s someone in there who shouldn’t be.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Gus.” Grady opened the rear passenger door and slid out, then leaned in to give Vanessa a hand and helped her out. “I’ll check it all out before I leave.”

  “Hal would skin me alive if anything happened to her.” Gus put the car in park. “Not to mention what Beck would do when he got back.”

  “Good point.” Vanessa checked her small evening bag for her keys.

  “You used to wear the badge, though, right?” Gus asked as they walked up the front walk.

  “Former FBI.”

  Gus nodded. “I thought I heard something like that.”

  Grady held out his hand and Vanessa handed him the keys. He unlocked the front door, and Gus held him back, his hand on his holstered handgun.

  “Give me a minute to clear it,” he told them.

  Grady and Vanessa waited in silence in the dark until Gus came back and turned on one of the living-room lamps.

  “Everything looks fine,” he told them. “No sign of anything amiss.”

  “Thanks, Gus,” Vanessa told him.

  “Anything weird happens, you hear any noises, you call the station and I’ll be right out.” He went out onto the front porch. “And we’ll be driving by throughout the night. Make sure you lock that door as soon as Grady leaves.”

  “Will do,” she told him.

  The key was still in the outside lock. Grady removed it and used it to lock the door from the inside. Vanessa smiled and held out her hand. “I’m guessing we won’t need this until the morning.”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here by yourself.” He walked into the living room, his jacket over one shoulder, his tie undone. “I can sleep down here.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” She met his eyes from the doorway. She wanted to put the events of the evening behind her. She’d had all she could handle of being afraid and being upset. Tomorrow, her shop would still be a mess and Grady’s rental car would still be smashed and there’d still be someone out there who was really angry with her for reasons she couldn’t know. But tonight …

  “I don’t think Gus checked under the bed or any of the closets. What if someone’s hiding up there?”

  “Good point.” He draped the jacket over the back of a chair. “I don’t want you lying awake all night worrying that someone will pop out from that closet. I’d better come up with you and check.”

  She turned off the lamp and started toward the stairs.

  “Do you have a basement?” he asked.

  “What?” She frowned.

  “A basement. You know, an excavated area under the first floor.”

  “Yes, I have a basement.”

  “Is the door inside or outside?”

  “It’s right through there.” She stood on the bottom step, her hands on her hips, and watched him disappear into the kitchen.

  He was back in less than a minute. “You could use a better lock on that door. It’s just a slide bolt. You should have dead bolts that require keys on it and the back door.”

  “I have a dead bolt on the back door.”

  “It has a latch that’s located right under the glass panes.”

  She started up the steps slowly, glancing over her shoulder. He was following her, his eyes on her face.

  “So?” she asked.

  “So someone could break the glass, reach in, turn the latch, and just like that, they’re in.”

  “Oh, thanks for that mood breaker.” She stopped midway up the stairwell and glared at him.

  He came up behind her, chuckling softly. “If the mood is broken, we’ll just have to find a way to get it back again.”

  “Think you’re
up to it?” She tugged on both ends of his tie.

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  She laughed and led him by the tie to her room facing the back of the house. Three arched windows framed a bay, and moonlight streamed in through the sheer curtains. She backed toward the bed, then stopped at the side and raised her hands to undo her dress.

  “Are you sure you aren’t too rattled from the break-in and everything …?”

  “I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight. You’re here to protect me, right?” She dropped the dress and it puddled on the floor at her feet. “Besides, do I look rattled to you?”

  “You look beautiful. In or out of that dress.”

  He reached out for her and she walked into his arms. His hands slid up and down her back, and she unbuttoned his shirt, pulling the tails out from the waist. She pulled up the T-shirt and ran her hands over his bare chest, then fell back on the bed, taking him with her. His mouth met hers halfway to the pillow, and she parted her lips to his tongue that thrust inside and teased the corners of her mouth. His hand reached for her left breast, but she moved it, offering the right one instead. She felt crazed with wanting him, could not seem to get close enough. She felt as if she were on fire, inside and out, everywhere he touched seeming to burn. His mouth moved to her throat, and she all but purred as his lips made an agonizingly slow descent to her shoulder, then lower, and she arched her back, but when his mouth sought her breast, she moved slightly to offer the right one and he took it between eager lips. She moaned far back in her throat and reached down to tug on his waistband.

  “As good as you look in this tux,” she gasped, “I think it’s time to retire it for the night.”

  Later, she would wonder how he’d managed to undress without his mouth ever leaving her skin, she was so totally lost in sensations she barely recalled ever having had before. She wrapped her legs around his and drew him inside almost frantically while his mouth drove her to the edge of madness. Wordlessly, the rhythm natural, he began to move inside her, slowly at first. She took him in deeper, as the pace increased, until she could no longer tell her cries from his. He slowed for a moment and raised his head to look into her eyes, then drove them both to completion on waves of sensation that she thought would never end.