by Lucy Quinn
Hunter just groaned.
There were three cabins below, plus a small galley and eating area. Each cabin had its own bathroom, which was a foolish design, but exactly the sort of thing Cookie could see a guy like Chip Winslow insisting on. The main cabin was clearly Chip’s, but there wasn’t anything interesting there. “A whole lot of condoms, a nicely stocked wine fridge, and some women’s clothing that might’ve been left behind by various conquests or could be some sick form of trophy,” Cookie reported after she finally surfaced for air. “But nothing that looks like it ties into his murder or gives away suspect or motive.”
Hunter sighed. “I haven’t found anything that could be the murder weapon, either,” he acknowledged. “This might be a bust.”
“I’m not willing to give up just yet,” Cookie insisted, giving the cabins one last perusal before returning topside. “There has to be something. If his boat was here Saturday night—and obviously he left it here before he died, so that would make the most sense—this would be the logical place for him to have been killed. All the murderer would have had to do afterward is to dump the body into the water and let the current carry it away. Only it didn’t go far enough. Just around the corner, in fact.”
Cookie hopped back onto the dock and was scanning the length of the boat for anything that might fit. As her gaze swept across the vessel, however, something else caught her eye. “Hey, hold on a sec,” she called out to Hunter, who was still on the boat itself. “Check this out.” She stepped over to where the towline ran from the speedboat to a heavy metal cleat screwed onto the dock. The cleat was shaped like a very short, very broad double T, with two thick stems leading down to a solid base and up to a very wide head that tapered a little and arced up toward the ends. Ends that were roughly circular and perhaps two inches wide.
“Whoa,” Hunter answered as he studied the cleat. “I think you’ve got something there, Charlie.” He leaped back over to the dock with a thud and crouched down beside the cleat then compared its end to Cookie’s picture of the wound on her phone. “Yeah, you’ve definitely got something.”
Pulling her phone back, Cookie retrieved a business card from her shorts pocket and typed in the number. “Hello, Dr. Delgado?” she said once the call connected. “It’s Cookie James.”
“Ah, the lovely Miss James,” the Hancock medical examiner responded. “Lovely to hear from you. But please, call me Jared. How are you?”
Cookie rolled her eyes but answered, “Good, thank you. I was wondering if I could show you an image and you could compare it to the wound in Chip Winslow’s head?”
That got his attention. “Absolutely,” he replied. “I haven’t had any luck here in trying to figure out what caused it.”
“Great, thanks. Hold on, I’ll send it to you.” Her camera clicked as she snapped a photo of the cleat’s end. She texted it to Delgado and then redialed. “Did you get it?” she asked straightaway. “Yes? Good. What do you think?”
“I think that could be the very thing,” Jared agreed. “Nice work, Ms. James! Any chance you could bring me the cleat itself so I can make certain? Unless you have the materials on you to make a casting from it.”
Cookie frowned. She didn’t have any casting materials at all, which she suspected he knew. “We’ll see what we can do,” she said. “Thank you, Doctor.” And she hung up.
“He thinks this could be it, too,” she told Hunter. “But he wants us to bring him the cleat so he can be sure.”
Hunter nodded. “Makes sense.” He studied the heavy metal fixture. “I can try to pull it free, but I’m not sure how much luck I’ll have. It looks pretty solidly attached.”
Cookie laughed. “Sure, you could give that a shot, He-Man,” she agreed. “Or we can try it the easy way.” The metal of her Leatherman was warm in her hand as she pulled it out of her back pocket.
“Where the hell have you been hiding that?” Hunter asked, grinning at her. He held out his hand. “Let me have it, and I’ll have this thing off in a jiffy.”
Cookie frowned and swatted his fingers away. “Let you have it? Why should I? I was the one smart enough to bring a tool with me—I get to be the one to use it.” She flipped the Leatherman open and pulled out the screwdriver attachment on one of its arms.
But when she reached toward the cleat, Hunter got in her way. “Come on, Charlie,” he said, gripping her arms to stop her. “Yes, you thought to bring it, that’s great. But I’ve got a lot more muscle than you do. I’ll be able to get the cleat loose a lot faster. Do you really want to stand around out here in the hot sun ten times longer just because your pride won’t let you admit that?”
“Ten times longer?” Cookie pulled away. “Gee, thanks for that high opinion of me, Mr. Macho. I’m not some delicate little flower, remember? I may not be Miss Muscles, but I’m pretty sure I can get the job done, and it won’t take all day. Now move!” She was starting to get pissed off—she’d always hated it when he got condescending.
Especially because he was so stubborn about it. “Fine, I’m sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound the least bit contrite. “Maybe it wouldn’t be ten times as long. But it would take longer, and I’d prefer to get the thing over to the ME as soon as possible. Wouldn’t you?”
“Sure,” Cookie agreed. “So stand aside and let me at it.” Then she hip-checked him out of her way.
Unfortunately, when she did that he stumbled, his shoes slipping on the dock yet again. And he windmilled his arms, reaching out desperately for anything that could keep him from falling.
Anything—like Cookie.
His arms wrapped around her. But of course Hunter was bigger and heavier than she was, and although her shoes gave her decent traction on the slippery wood, they didn’t anchor her against his weight tugging her sideways.
She flailed back, trying to free herself but only succeeding in pitching both of them forward… and right off the side of the dock, narrowly missing the back of the Wins Low.
Sploosh!
They hit the water hard, sending a great wave of it back up onto the dock. The impact tore the two of them apart, and the cold shocked Cookie alert. She’d always been a strong swimmer, and it only took her a second to kick back up to the surface, her head breaking through at the same time Hunter’s did. The icy temperature sucked the air from their lungs, and they both came up gasping.
“You okay?” he asked Cookie, even though he was the one wearing the suit and dress shoes.
“Yeah, sure, I love taking a quick dip in freezing ocean water every morning,” she shot back, reaching up to tug her soaked cap off her head and brush back the heavy mass of her sodden hair. “You?”
“Stunned, soaked, and freezing,” he admitted, “but otherwise, yeah.” Reaching up, Hunter managed to grab hold of the boat’s anchor line, tugging it down a little. With his other hand he reached out for Cookie. “Here, grab hold, and I’ll pull us both in.”
Though she knew she had more range of movement than he did, Cookie also realized that she probably wouldn’t be able to grab the rope on her own. So she complied, taking Hunter’s free hand and letting him reel her in. Both their clothes were soaked through, of course, and plastered to their bodies, so when Hunter pulled her up against him Cookie discovered she could feel every inch of him through their various layers.
Every inch.
She licked her lips, suddenly glad the water around them kept things cooled off as saltwater stung her tongue. At the same time, she was embarrassed to realize that he must be feeling every inch of her too. And that her nipples had already gone hard from the cold and were now poking into Hunter’s chest.
Perhaps he’d noticed that as well, because he was suddenly motionless, his arm still wrapped tightly around her.
A violent shiver shot through both of them. A beat went by as they stared at each other, then Hunter shook himself out of his daze. He flexed the arm clutching the rope. “Put your arms around my neck,” he instructed, and Cookie did so, trying to ignore the way th
at molded her to him even more tightly.
Hunter smiled down at her, his eyes dark with desire, but then concentrated on using both arms to haul them back to the dock. They’d only landed a few feet out, though now it felt like miles. When they were against the dock again, Cookie grabbed the cleat with both hands and pulled herself up and out of the water. The planks of the dock were hard on her ribs as she lay there gasping from the effort and cold. She barely managed to roll to the side before Hunter was flopping down beside her.
“Right,” he said after he’d caught his breath. “Let’s not do that again.”
Cookie looked over at him, lying there in his ruined suit, and when the ridiculousness of the situation hit her she started giggling. She couldn’t help it. He frowned, then sighed, then began chuckling as well, and in seconds both of them were lying there, stretched out on the dock, laughing uncontrollably.
Which, she decided, was probably better than thinking about the fact that they had been caught in such a tight embrace just seconds before. She was still flushing from the close contact and knew from their clinch that Hunter hadn’t exactly been immune to it either. She carefully chose not to glance down at him to confirm that fact. Who knew that hugging someone while fully clothed in the freezing water could feel so… intimate?
To take her mind off the embrace, she rolled over and eyed Hunter wryly, keeping her gaze on his face.
“So,” she said, propping herself up on one arm. “Can I unscrew that thing now, or do we need to take another dip to settle this?”
He just grinned back at her and waved an arm weakly in the direction of the cleat. “Be my guest.”
She rolled her eyes and looked around for the Leatherman, which she’d dropped when they’d toppled over.
As she began unscrewing the heavy cleat, she tried to ignore Hunter’s eyes on her… and the fact that her clothes were so skintight they might as well have been painted on.
At least with her bent over the cleat, he couldn’t see her face. No doubt it was flaming red from embarrassment—and desire.
15
“I look ridiculous,” Hunter groused as he stomped out onto the inn’s front porch.
“If you’d thought to pack more than one outfit—” Cookie started, but he cut her off.
“Give it a rest, all right? This is your fault. If you hadn’t let your mother near my running clothes, I could’ve worn those. But now that she’s managed to somehow shrink them two sizes in the laundry, that’s out of the question. Besides, I already told you I was in a hurry to leave and my other suits were at the dry cleaner’s. Not to mention, I didn’t realize I was going to be here for more than an overnight. You seriously don’t have any other clothes I can wear?”
“Oh, sure,” Cookie replied, rolling her eyes, trying to keep the mental image of him in his too-small sweats firmly out of her mind, “I just keep a bunch of men’s clothes on hand. For my many nighttime guests, dontcha know?” Then she got a good look at her ex-partner and burst out laughing. “Aw, you look adorable!” she managed to gasp out between guffaws.
“Ha ha. Laugh it up,” he grumbled. “I’m glad somebody’s enjoying this.”
“We really don’t have anything else,” Cookie assured him, wiping tears from her eyes. “You’re lucky the previous owners left some things behind. Otherwise you’d be in my mom’s dress right now.”
The inn’s previous owner had left a box of cast-off clothes in the closet under the stairs, presumably items forgotten by former guests over the years, but many of them were much too small for a man Hunter’s size. Which was why he was now standing in front of her wearing a pair of pink-and-purple-flowered Bermuda shorts and a giant-sized navy T-shirt that read ‘Fishermen Make A Great Catch’ over a pair of crossed fishing rods. Lime-green flip-flops completed the picture. “Maybe you should add a tie,” Cookie suggested before cracking up again.
“I’m still armed, you know,” Hunter pointed out. “Don’t make me shoot you.” While he’d never been a particularly funny guy, he normally did have at least some sense of humor. Of course, he also took his appearance very seriously, so dressing like this was a huge blow to his self-image. But Cookie was enjoying his discomfort. Considering how many times he’d made her feel awkward or embarrassed already during his visit, it was nice to have the flip-flop on the other foot for a change.
“Good luck drawing from under that tent,” she replied, still chuckling. “But if you’re done with your little fashion show, we need to get this”—she hoisted the cleat they’d taken from the dock—“back to Jared.”
“How could I forget?” Hunter muttered as he marched toward his car. “I bet he’ll get an even bigger kick out of this than you do.”
“Wow!” Jared exclaimed when he saw them, his eyes lighting up at the sight of Hunter’s new get-up. “That is some outfit. What, did you lose a bet?”
“No, but it turns out that FBI suits aren’t drip-dry,” Cookie replied before she giggled. The whole way there she’d had a hard time keeping a straight face, and she’d lost it every time someone else on the ferry had smirked in Hunter’s direction. “You’re going to be the talk of the town,” she’d told him after one couple snapped his picture. He’d actually tensed as though he was going to go after them and rip the camera from the man’s hand, but Cookie had held him back.
“Glad I can give back to the community,” he’d growled, but at least he was back to being snarky again. She considered that a good sign.
“Oh, I see.” Surprisingly, the medical examiner stopped laughing and eyed Hunter with some sympathy instead. “If you want, we’ve got a box of old clothes over there,” he said, gesturing toward a table against the room’s far wall. “Taken from the bodies, of course, so you’d want to wash them before wearing any of them, but you could probably find a… less colorful ensemble, at least.”
Hunter’s eyes widened and his mouth hung open for a moment, shocked by the ME’s suggestion. “Thanks,” he said after composing himself. “I’ll take a look in a minute.” For now, however, he gestured for Cookie to do the honors.
“Ta-da!” she declared with a flourish, digging the heavy metal cleat out of the bag she’d carried it in. It made a hollow thud on the metal examining table when she set it down, and Jared bent over it to inspect the object.
“I’ll need to measure it, of course, and make a mold, but I’d be willing to bet this is your murder weapon.” He straightened back up and asked, “Where did you find it?”
“The deceased’s boat was tied to it,” Hunter replied. He was frowning, but Cookie knew that look. He wasn’t annoyed, just simply trying to put the pieces together. “If Winslow slipped,” he pointed out, “and fell backward, onto that cleat—”
“It would have pierced his head at exactly the right angle,” Jared confirmed. “Yes. And the impact would be more than enough to do the kind of damage he incurred.”
“So it could have been an accident,” Cookie chimed in. “I mean, that dock was pretty slippery, right, Hunter?” She couldn’t resist getting in that little dig.
“It was,” he agreed, ignoring the jab for now. “Though I’d assume Winslow was more used to it than I am and had more appropriate footgear. Still, anyone can slip.” He focused on the medical examiner. “Did you find anything else?”
“A few things, actually,” Jared said. He all but beamed with his apparent success. “First, the deceased did not have any recent bruising, pre-or post-mortem, aside from right around the wound itself. He had a few older bruises, I’m guessing a few days before his death, but nothing newer.”
“So he wasn’t in a fight,” Hunter concluded.
The doctor held up a finger. “Ah, but he did have bruises and contusions along the knuckles of his right hand,” he added, “and those were right before his death. So he may not have been punched—”
“But he punched somebody,” Cookie finished for him. “Got it.” She shook her head. “That pretty much rules Rand out. There’s no way Chip got in a punch
on that guy and didn’t get beaten down in return.”
Hunter nodded. “Threw a punch but didn’t take one sounds like either he got one in by surprise or he hit somebody and laid them out with the first blow.” He glanced at the wall of steel doors that housed the cadavers, and one Chip Winslow. “Dude was decent-sized,” he said after a second, “and looked like he probably exercised some, but he was hardly a bruiser like Rand. So for him to nail somebody hard enough to put them down with one punch, it’d have to be somebody pretty flimsy. A little guy—”
“Or a woman,” Cookie interjected, saying what she knew they were all thinking. She was big enough and sturdy enough that a guy like Chip Winslow might not be able to knock her out with one punch, but plenty of other women wouldn’t have been so lucky. And cocky rich guys sometimes didn’t like being told no. “Mindy didn’t have any visible bruises,” she offered, remembering their interaction with the stylist.
“Could’ve used makeup to cover them up,” Hunter pointed out. “We’re also talking about Saturday night, and it’s Friday now, so she’d have had more than a few days to heal up.” He rubbed at his jaw, thinking. “We know she flirted with Chip, and we know that Rand threatened Chip because of it. Maybe she went down to Chip’s boat Saturday night to patch things up, afraid of losing her big tipper? But Chip wanted more than she was prepared to give. She said no, he hit her, she shoved him back, he fell, hit his head, and died?”
“Plausible,” Cookie agreed. “And then she dumped the body in the water, hoping to get rid of it, but instead it washed up at my back door. Crap luck for her.”
“Worse for him,” Hunter reminded her, and Cookie nodded. She hadn’t liked Chip much—nobody had—but he hadn’t deserved this.
Jared had been watching the exchange silently, eyes wide as if he were seeing something amazing happen right before him. Maybe he was, Cookie realized. This was when she and Hunter were at their best together, bouncing ideas and theories around, playing off each other’s hunches and instincts. It was why they’d been such a good team, and she could barely stand how much she’d missed it.