by Tanya Agler
“Exterior decorating. That sounds like it might be a wonderful class for the community center. If your mother has any free time, I’d like to talk to her about that.”
“Mom.” Frustration tinged Colin’s voice. “I know you love your job, but enjoy the hayride, okay?”
That was interesting. Jonathan wasn’t the only person in the wagon who loved his occupation and thought about it even when he wasn’t on duty. Colin reminded him of his younger self pleading with his parents to take some time off. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d seen Colin before.
The wagon stopped while the tour guide spoke about the wildflower field surrounding them. Magenta, yellow and pink flowers extended to the tree line. The colors reminded Jonathan of the wall of vibrant fishing flies and lures at Mo’s Gas and Bait Stop. He caught his breath. Mo had described a teenager who resembled Colin right down to the gray hoodie with a baseball logo.
And Colin had recently moved here, so he probably wouldn’t be familiar to Mo yet.
He couldn’t come right out and ask Colin in a public area if he’d visited Mo’s bait shop with the intent of purchasing cigarettes as a minor using a fake ID, not without having a solid piece of evidence.
“Daddy.” Vanessa pulled on his sleeve. “Are you thinking about work again?”
He glanced her way, but not before catching Brooke’s bemusement. “Busted.”
Izzy poked him in the ribs. “This is supposed to be our family time together.”
Whether that was a poke at him or at Brooke, he wasn’t quite sure. He was doing everything he could to find ways to spend more time with his daughters, including lobbying for that promotion, but Brooke? If he had his way, he’d love to get to know her even better. Of course, if Colin had presented a fake ID to the cashier, arresting her son would scuttle any chance of a relationship.
“Would you like me to take a picture of the three of you?” Brooke interrupted his thoughts almost as if she knew his mind had once again drifted to work.
He’d missed having someone who recognized that about him, even more so since police and detective work could lead him down dark paths. He knew all too well how everything could change in an instant. He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket and extended it to Brooke, her soft hand brushing his, a pleasant sensation warming his skin. “Thanks.”
From the startled look on her face, she might also have felt that spark. She rubbed her hand and then snapped some shots. “Check them. If you don’t like them, I’ll take more.”
The opportunity was too good to pass up. “I’ll take one of you and Colin.” He raised his phone and pressed the white circle, taking their picture.
Brooke laughed. “I hope it’s a good one. Wait. Did you take our picture with your phone to get my number?”
His eyes widened, and a smile lifted the corners of his lips.
“Busted.”
He could only hope he didn’t say the same about Colin once he showed the photo of him to Mo. He wanted to be wrong about Colin being the underage teen who tried to buy cigarettes in the bait shop. That wasn’t his only concern. He also crossed his fingers the gossip chain would never reveal to Brooke the conversation he’d be having with Mo later this week.
CHAPTER FIVE
BROOKE PROPPED OPEN the door of the men’s locker room with the rolling cleaning cart and glanced around. When the custodian, Al Floyd, fell ill with a fast-acting stomach virus and left early on this dreary and rainy Tuesday, she stepped in and volunteered for the rest of his shift. A director sometimes had to do what she asked of her employees, and this was one of those times.
It meant a longer evening as she’d just locked the center doors five minutes ago at the stroke of six. Colin had replied to her text that he was occupied with homework and not to hurry home on his account. He’d even volunteered the information that he’d walked Daisy. Evidently, Riley had gone with him.
When had he grown up so fast? And when had he noticed girls, let alone started dating? It had been a bit of a shock to discover Riley wasn’t just a buddy, but she only had herself to blame for that assumption.
It seemed she had something in common with Isabella Maxwell. Both of them wanted to protect the men of their family from getting hurt.
She peeked at Al’s daily routine checklist. Dust all flat surfaces, replenish the soap and paper towels, clean the lockers. Snapping on her gloves, she nodded her approval and dispensed with the first two items with ease. She then gauged the height of the lockers and shook her head. She’d need a step stool to tackle the highest of the six rows of square, compact lockers and work her way down. Within minutes, a quick trip to the storage closet yielded the necessary step stool, and she grabbed a couple of extra rags for good measure.
Returning, she opened all the lockers on the top row. Mustiness wafted through the room, and she fanned her hand under her nose. She’d address this with Al upon his return. Did he skip the top ones often or were they always a little musty since they probably weren’t used as much? She wouldn’t know. It wasn’t as though she came in here often.
She opened her phone to her popular music app and nodded appreciatively as her favorite Kelly Clarkson song filled the air. In no time, the trash bag on the cart handle was nearly full of grimy paper towels, and most of the lockers were in much better shape. The room already smelled fresher as the industrial-strength cleaner worked its magic. Once she knocked out the last two lockers, she’d place an order at Mario’s for an extra-large olive-and-green-pepper pizza for Colin and herself, since Aunt Mitzi was eating with Owen and Ashleigh.
Should she contact Owen and find out what his intentions were? She laughed. Did family members even do that anymore?
Her stomach growled. She’d better get a move on. In the next locker, her hand bumped into the back wall sooner than she expected, and her eyebrows furrowed. Something was wrong. She retrieved her phone and shone the light into the one beside it and then into another. Then she moved the step stool and flashed the beam into each locker on the top row. There was something different all right. The back wall of that troublesome one was a good five inches shallower than the others. She knocked on the one farthest on the right and worked her way over to the alarming space. A hollow sound was her reward.
Biting her lip, she tapped her phone and turned off the flashlight. Should she call Jonathan or investigate more? She shook her head. If he visited in his official capacity and that news spread around Hollydale like wildfire, Mr. Whitley might not be happy with the police visiting the center for the third time in not even so many weeks.
What would it hurt to check this out more? For all she knew, the lockers were built this way and she’d feel foolish reporting an architectural anomaly. That must be it. She was nervous, that was all. Laughing, she tapped the metal for a few seconds, and the thin sheet fell. She pulled out the panel and laid it atop the cart, taking care with her gloves so nothing would be smudged. Then she returned and peered into the locker with the flashlight from her phone. A small plastic sack rested there with something inside that looked like small cards, most likely IDs.
This discovery left her no choice, and she placed a call to her new friend’s police number.
* * *
JONATHAN ARRIVED AT the community center, his adrenaline pumping. This might be the lead he needed to advance his investigation. If this panned out, there was a good chance he could convince Mike to allow him to spend some extra hours on the matter until the case was solved. As it was, his attention had been diverted to patrolling the outskirts of the city, pulling funeral detail for old Mr. Preston, who had died two months short of his hundredth birthday, and checking on a report of a suspicious smell, which had turned out to be a false alarm. Two high school seniors had been storing eggs for a Halloween prank when one of their siblings came upon the find and broke the first dozen, the fumes causing a noxious odor a neighbor had gotten a strong whiff of.
&n
bsp; He hadn’t even had time to follow up with Mo about Colin. Breaking the case on the false IDs would give him a leg up when he interviewed for the detective position, more so than busting up a kid’s prank.
He’d take anything he could get to bolster his chances of receiving the promotion. Sure enough, when Mike had posted the job listing online, Everson’s niece sent in her application. As far as Jonathan knew, and he wouldn’t be a good detective if he didn’t have his sources, he was the only other candidate to apply for the position.
However, the real bonus to his day was seeing Brooke again so soon after they ran into each other at Ike’s Pumpkin Farm. He’d thought long and hard about saying something to Izzy regarding her behavior and decided against it. He wanted to give Izzy time to hopefully come to terms with the idea of him dating. For her sake, he didn’t like her getting defensive every time he became interested in a woman, although it only took one right woman for interest to blossom into something deeper.
Until now, he hadn’t given any careful consideration to dating again. Never had five years seemed so short and so long. Raising two daughters, moving away from Savannah and working full-time and then some kept him busy. Truth be told, except on the anniversary of Anne’s death, he didn’t mark the time in years. No need to do that. She was gone, and it didn’t matter whether it was five weeks or five years. She’d never enter the room with a new handmade Christmas ornament, her eyes sparkling, or be standing there with his mug of coffee and a kiss when he ran back into the house, realizing he had forgotten something. Most of the time, however, he hadn’t and just used that as a convenient excuse for one extra kiss. They knew and laughed afterward at his transparency.
It wasn’t a matter of replacing Anne. That wasn’t possible. However, he wasn’t opposed to finding someone new. Someone who made five years seem like five minutes and five minutes seem like an eternity of happiness.
That didn’t happen every day. Finding that once had been a treasure beyond compare. Was he selfish for wanting to find that again? Izzy thought so, if her attitude this past weekend was any indication. There was no way, though, he’d allow his twelve-year-old daughter to dictate his love life.
He spotted Brooke at the center’s entrance. Today’s gray pantsuit accented her attractiveness, and her hair was swept upward. He’d already memorized her features from her patrician neck to her amber-brown eyes. Cool and collected in a business setting while warm and approachable away from work, Brooke was a happy change from the life he’d settled into.
And something deep inside told him he’d be happy spending a long time finding out all facets of her. What made her laugh. Whether she cried at sappy movies. How she’d look after he kissed her.
Except he had to track down whether her son had purchased and used a fake ID to buy cigarettes. Not the best starting point for any sort of relationship.
Besides, he was here in uniform, although he was also a cop when he wasn’t in uniform. He pushed aside his reaction to her.
As soon as she met his gaze, she waved. “Officer Maxwell.”
They were back to official titles once more. “Ms. Novak.”
“This way, please.”
Something was different, and he took in the latex gloves as they walked toward the men’s locker room area. He sidestepped the cart holding the door open. After rounding the corner, he came upon a row with multiple lockers, all the same size. A wall divider separated the rest of the area. He peeked around the corner and found four navy shower curtains and bathroom stalls. He returned to find Brooke righting a step stool that had fallen on its side. Her hands trembled ever so slightly. He wanted to reach out and steady them, but this wasn’t the right time. He pulled out his notepad and pencil. “Tell me what happened.”
“Our custodian, Al Floyd, wasn’t feeling well, so he left early.”
He kept taking notes as she recounted her evening.
“Then I called you and waited.”
“Appreciate it.”
His gaze settled on a slight smudge of grime at the end of one of her sleeves.
She glanced at the spot, and her cheeks turned pink. “At the last center, I kept a change of clothes on site, but it’s slipped my mind to do the same here.” She gave a light chuckle. “I’ll bring in casual clothes tomorrow in case of an emergency like this, but everything I own is machine washable. It’s amazing what a good iron can do.”
He dropped off his uniforms at the local dry cleaners. They gave him a discount and did a fine job.
“Can we go back to Mr. Floyd for a second?” The name didn’t ring any bells even though Hollydale was small. And he tended to run into a lot of people since he did all the grocery shopping for his family and volunteered at the girls’ schools. That, and his job, kept him preoccupied. “Do you know how long he’s worked here or do you need to pull up his employment file?”
“Two years.” She smiled and shrugged. “I make it a point to remember everything in each file. The heart of a successful community center is its staff.”
Formidable, smart and perceptive. The more he got to know her, the more he sensed she was genuinely devoted to the center’s future as well as the employees under her command. “Why did he leave early?”
“He clutched his stomach and ran out of here the second I sent him home.”
Whether Mr. Floyd knew of the stash and had to leave before he could do anything about it was now Jonathan’s top priority. The case had a new suspect, but why keep the fake IDs in the locker once a new director was hired?
If it was easy money, why not?
Snapping on his gloves, he climbed the step stool and shone his compact searchlight at the small satchel in the back. Carefully, he removed the sack and dusted it for fingerprints. Nothing. Opening it, he found ten generic IDs, half of which were finished laminated licenses with different names and addresses. A pile of blank North Carolina IDs rested at the bottom. He’d swing by the local DMV and find out if these had been stolen from the department or were clever rip-offs.
“Are those fake licenses?”
He’d almost forgotten Brooke was nearby, he was so preoccupied with new thoughts about the case.
He glanced around the room. Someone knew what they were doing when they picked this spot as a hiding place and possible exchange location. This was one of the few places in the center where there’d be no video footage since this also served as a changing area and restroom. “Who has access to this room?”
“Anyone using the facility, and Betty sees everyone coming and going.” She accompanied him to the door, and he noted the reception desk and the women’s locker room.
A visit to Mr. Floyd was in his immediate future. Jonathan began collecting and tagging the evidence. “Thanks, Brooke.”
“Do you think one of my employees had something to do with this?” Fire came out of her eyes, and he appreciated the way she defended her crew, even though she’d only worked here a short time.
Whether that trust was justified remained to be seen.
“It’s too early to say.”
“You say that a lot. Sometimes, though, you have to believe the best in people, believe that a community can come together and make life better. People are basically good, don’t you think?” Her gaze wandered over his uniform, and while he liked how she seemed to be checking him out, it was almost as though a light bulb clicked. “Or, maybe not.”
He removed his hat and placed it on the cart. “Where does this go?”
“Thanks, I can put it away.” She moved toward it, and they bumped into each other.
“I know, but I’d like to answer your question while we put it away together.”
“Oh.” Those expressive cheeks turned pink once more, and she swept her hand in front of the cart. “Be my guest. Hold on. The step stool doesn’t belong in here.”
He fetched it and tucked it into the cart. “Problem
solved.”
They walked in silence, and she stopped. “I’m curious. Are you Officer Maxwell or just Jonathan?”
He also halted and adjusted the step stool, hanging too precariously to one side. “I’m always a little of both.” He returned his hands to the cart and began pushing. “I take my uniform seriously, and sometimes I do see the worst in people. I understand where you’re coming from, though. The desire to make life better for a community.”
They had that in common. While he protected the residents of Hollydale, she enriched their lives with programs and events. They weren’t so different in that respect.
She showed him the maintenance area and where to store the cart. “I’ll return the step stool to the supply closet tomorrow. Do you really think Al could be involved? Wouldn’t he have told me to skip the lockers or, better yet, moved the evidence once I began working here if he was behind this?”
“Both of those are valid points, and I’ll keep them in mind when I interview him. I’d prefer if you don’t give him a heads-up about this. Until I investigate this further, I’d appreciate it if you would keep this totally between us.”
“Shouldn’t I tell the staff?”
He shook his head and put his hat back on. “It’s a small town. If word gets out, people will talk, and that could tip off the suspect. Promise?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “I promise. If you’re done here, I need to lock up.”
“Can you be here early tomorrow and let me return a different bag to the locker? Tonight, I’ll dust these for prints but also stuff something in the bottom. And, I’ll leave the one on top so it looks the same.”
“Seven too early?”
“That’s perfect.”
He wanted to keep talking to her a little more, but he no longer had a valid reason. Besides, this was technically his own time, and he had to return to his daughters. Caleb and Lucie had invited them over to dinner, and he hadn’t missed Izzy’s glare when he excused himself early. By now, they were probably finished. Although Izzy and Vanessa loved to play with his cousin’s menagerie of animals, there was only so long he could impose on his relatives for one night, not to mention one lifetime.