“I know, I know. Rudd isn’t nearly as toned. They just try to make it look that way with the ripples on the front of the Ant-Man suit.”
I shook my head. “You’re a nut. And I’m not telling you who I think you look like.” A secret he’d been trying to weasel out of me since the first week we worked together.
Tanner grinned. “Because he’s really hot, right? You’re afraid it will swell my head.”
I rolled my eyes and then took off at a fast jog. Tanner looked like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, but he watched so few movies, he probably didn’t even know who the dark and handsome actor with the amazing dimpled smile even was.
Running along the beach, serenaded by the sound of the surf and the cry of the gulls, reminded me again of the many runs I’d shared with Ashley as a star-struck teen. She’d been the one who got me started comparing people to movie stars. Somehow I’d forgotten that over the years. With how many movie stars frequented the island, half the time the supposed look-alikes we spotted had probably been the real actors.
Tanner’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “I’m trying to help you think outside of the box. Your aunt says Preston goes out in that fishing boat of his before dawn every morning.”
“You talked to Aunt Martha about this?” Exasperation spiked my voice and sent a clutch of wading seagulls into flight.
“She mentioned Malgucci joined him yesterday morning. And by the time Malgucci got to the dock at 5:00 a.m., Preston had already done a loop around the pond.”
“Are you saying you think Preston killed Charlie?”
“I’m laying out evidence. From the tidal wave maps, the coast guard figures the body floated to Lucy Vincent Beach from this direction.”
“You talked to the coast guard?”
“I know a guy.”
The narrow channel that connected the giant pond to the ocean had a deadly undertow. Anyone who toppled out of a boat there would get sucked under with little hope of survival.
“Nate mentioned Preston was cagey about what he was up to in his studio too.”
My insides squirmed. The idea of Nate and Tanner bonding was just . . . wrong. I stopped and faced the glorious sunrise and willed the tension from my muscles. “We may know the smuggler’s identity soon enough.”
“How do you figure?”
“I searched eBay last night,” I said. He didn’t need to know it was at 2:00 a.m. because I couldn’t sleep for thoughts of the kiss we shared and of Nate swooping to our rescue. I cleared my throat. “Found someone selling an ancient Egyptian amulet. Someone on the island.”
“You think it’s the guy Jack was going to turn in?”
“Wouldn’t be the smartest smuggler, leaving his ads up on eBay after Jack alerted the FBI.”
“But criminals aren’t known for their smarts.”
“Exactly.” Then again, a mind-boggling number of antiquities had come up in my search— everything from a three-inch, carved-stone, fertility-goddess pendant to a two-foot, carved-wooden, anyone’s guess what. I’d been one click away from calling it a night when I happened upon the jade Egyptian amulet being sold out of the United States. One more click told me the seller was from none other than Martha’s Vineyard. Coincidence?
I didn’t think so either.
“I contacted the eBay seller and explained I was visiting the island for the weekend and asked if I could see the item in person.”
“What did he say?”
“Still waiting for a response.” We ran in companionable silence for a couple of miles, with occasional interjections on my part of memories of my visits here as a youth.
“Wow,” Tanner exclaimed as we neared the two-story-high pillars of sand left behind on the beach by the eroding clay cliffs.
“You’ve never seen them before?”
“I know you may find this hard to believe, Jones, but this is my first trip to the ocean.”
“You’re kidding me. All those weeks you trained at Quantico, you didn’t take a weekend to drive to the beach?”
He fixed me with a look.
“Right. Hard core. Silly me. What was I thinking?”
He chuckled.
I pulled out my phone. “Here, let me snap your picture with the sand pillar.”
As he hammed it up for my photo shoot, memories of doing the same with Ashley cascaded through my mind, followed by a deep sadness at how far apart we’d grown. I’d hoped that staying with her at the cottage would give us lots of time to reconnect, but she almost seemed to be avoiding me.
“What’s wrong?” Tanner asked.
“What?” I glanced up, realized my smile must’ve turned upside down, and shook my head.
The uncertainty in his expression was so . . . sweet, my heart did a silly jig. I dropped my gaze to the sand. “Just remembering happier times with Ashley and wishing we could have them back.”
“Why don’t you just ask her why she got so mad at you that last summer you were here?”
I closed my camera app, regretting having mentioned that to him before I left St. Louis. I checked for messages, but the signal wouldn’t cooperate, so I stuffed the phone back in its armband holder. “She just lost Uncle Jack. And Ben is hiding out on the island for who knows what reason.” I refrained from adding if he was still alive. “It’s hardly an appropriate time to bring up old hurts. Let’s head back.”
By the time we returned to the compound, Preston’s car had joined Tanner’s in the driveway.
Tanner was about to jump in his car to head back to his B&B to shower when a shriek rattled the cottage windows.
Ashley.
16
Ashley’s shout of “That stupid cat!” had me scrambling up the front porch with Tanner on my heels.
I yanked open the door. “What’s wrong? What did Harold do?”
Ashley and Preston were hunched over, picking colorful bits of sea glass out of the carpet. “He knocked my bowl of sea glass off the end table,” Ashley complained.
The tip of his tail twitched into view from beneath the couch.
I bit down on a smile and stooped to aid the cleanup effort. Tanner’s arm grazed mine, raising goose bumps, as he reached for a piece. Oh man, was he doing this stuff on purpose?
Harold eyeballed us from under the couch skirt, no doubt waiting for a chance to strike out a paw and claim a wayward piece.
“You two going out?” Tanner asked Preston and Ashley.
“Give it a rest,” I muttered to him under my breath. Couldn’t he see her bloodshot eyes? The dark bags beneath them? There was no way she had anything to do with Jack’s death, and if Preston loved her, he didn’t either. If they were going out it was because she’d want to spend every waking minute continuing the search for Ben. And I had a bad feeling when we found him, I’d have to arrest him. Because at this point, I didn’t see how Ben could be both innocent and alive.
I didn’t even want to think about how much Ashley would hate me for that, but it was better than the alternative—burying him.
“I have to work,” Ashley said. “Catering a birthday party.”
Stunned, I dropped back onto my heels and gaped at her. “They couldn’t get anyone to take your shift?”
“The girl who was going to cover for me came down with food poisoning or the flu or something.” Ashley didn’t sound as if she minded, and her resignation niggled.
I’d half expected her to demand the police search every vacant summerhouse on the island. The way I figured it, Ben was either holed up in one, or best case/worse case, depending on how you looked at it, was being held hostage in one. Unless . . .
She knew more than she was saying.
“I’m here to fix Ashley’s leaky faucet,” Preston said.
Tanner emptied a handful of sea glass into the bowl and stood. “Well, I’d better get going.”
Ashley suddenly looked worried. “You’re not spending the day with Serena?”
He picked at the shoulders of his perspiration-soaked T-shirt. “Need to showe
r after that run.”
“Oh, right, of course. Well, I guess we’ll see you both . . . later?” Her voice trailed off.
“Absolutely.” Tanner caught my eye and signaled me to join him outside.
I closed the door behind me so we wouldn’t be overheard. “What now?” I hissed since I really, really didn’t want to be told yet again that my childhood best friend might be a killer.
“I had the feeling if you stood next to Preston a second longer, Ashley’s fellow employee wouldn’t be the only one suffering from food poisoning.”
“What?” I didn’t bother to hide my exasperation at his cryptic gobbledygook.
“That summer after high school when Ashley got mad at you . . .” Tanner went on. “Did you date a guy Ashley was interested in?”
“No. Of course not. I would never do that.”
Tanner cocked his head and looked at me with an irritating little smirk. “You sure you’d recognize the signs? You’re kind of slow on the uptake when it comes to registering a guy’s interest in you.”
I gulped. Was he talking about himself? I’m pretty sure I felt the blood drain from my face and prayed Tanner wouldn’t notice.
“There was Nolan in accounting.” He counted off on his index finger and moved on to his second finger. “And that lawyer Jax and—”
I held up my hand like a traffic cop. “Okay, I get the picture. But this is different. Ashley and I used to talk about everything in those days. If she were interested in a guy, she would’ve told me. We talked about guys all the time.”
“Yeah, but I’m guessing you turned a few heads in her direction that didn’t normally notice.” That little smirk quivered on the corner of his lips again. “Being a summer novelty and all to her classmates, I mean.”
I rolled my eyes. “The population of this island explodes in the summer. I was hardly a novelty.” Only . . . A memory flickered at the edge of my mind. An evening beach party. Ashley had pointed Preston out a few times over the course of the evening—as he was barbecuing, as he was playing volleyball, as he emerged from a swim—adding incidental facts about his family and college plans. The plans had included studying art, an interest I shared, so I’d just assumed . . .
My chest tightened. She hadn’t been pointing him out for my benefit at all. Now her over-the-top reaction to finding me at Preston’s house Thursday morning made perfect sense. “How could I have been so thick?”
Tanner chuckled. “You were a teenager. Blame it on hormones.”
I cringed. No wonder Ashley had given me the cold shoulder after that night. She’d gotten all excited when Preston rounded the bonfire and headed our way. But then . . . he’d asked me out. Not her. Sure, I’d declined because I had only a few days left on the island to spend with Ashley, but he’d been insistent and scrounged up a guy to escort Ashley so we could go on a double date.
Tanner squeezed my shoulder. “I think my work here is done. Call me after you’ve showered. We should pay visits to Ben’s other friends on the island.”
“Uh, yeah, okay.” Only, I still needed to talk to Nate too. As Tanner backed out of the driveway, I checked my cell phone for a message from Amulet Guy. Yeah, I was chicken. What was I supposed to say to Ashley now that I’d finally figured out why she’d probably been mad at me for the past ten years?
Amulet Guy’s message appeared on my screen, inviting me to meet him at the open-air tabernacle in the center of Oak Bluffs at 11:00 a.m. I agreed and hit SEND.
“Now I have to figure out how to get there,” I muttered to myself as I let myself back inside.
“I’m heading into town to get a replacement part for the faucet. Did you need a ride somewhere?” Preston asked.
“What?” It took me a moment to realize he’d been talking to me and to register what he’d asked. “Oh, that’d be— Uh, no. That’s okay. Thanks anyway.” I’d been about to say that’d be great, since asking Nate or Tanner for a ride would only irk the one I didn’t call first. But the flare in Ashley’s eyes had immediately nixed the option. It was too bad, too, because Preston would’ve been the perfect expert to evaluate the antiquity I was going to see. Then again . . . given Tanner’s suspicions, maybe the less Preston knew, the better.
My cell phone chirruped the theme song from Murder She Wrote. “Oh, that’s Aunt Martha.” I scooped Harold from under the couch to take him to the bedroom with me, where he wouldn’t cause any more trouble. “With more plans, I’m sure.” And maybe I could finagle those plans to get me to Oak Bluffs without having to choose between Tanner and Nate for a ride.
I slipped into my bedroom and closed the door before clicking on the phone. “What’s up?”
“Nate’s talking about flying home. What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Okay, there’d been that kiss with Tanner in the car that apparently . . . maybe . . . Nate had witnessed. I winced. “What did he say?”
“That he didn’t want to get in the way of your job. Or whatever else you wanted.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Aunt Martha let out an impatient harrumph. “He saw Tanner’s car at Ashley’s this morning.”
Oh.
“He doesn’t want you to feel as if you’re caught in the middle of an old Peter, Paul, and Mary song.”
“Huh?”
“You know. ‘Torn Between Two Lovers.’” She sang a few bars and my heart hiccupped. “Nate said that? He feels like a fool?” A lover?
“Not in so many words, but clearly this island isn’t big enough for the three of you!”
“What do you want me to do?” My voice pitched higher. “Send Tanner home? He’s helping me with my investigation.”
“You may be surprised how capable Nate is if you give him a chance.”
I sank onto the edge of the bed and recalled his takedown of Shotgun Guy last night. Yes, Nate was capable. Of getting into a heap of trouble.
But if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have the half-exposed photo of the killer’s legs or the piece of sea glass found at the murder scene, not to mention have been rescued so quickly after the hit-and-run. Harold leapt onto the bed beside me and nosed my hand until I scratched the back of his neck. I clutched him to my chest. “It’s not like I want him to leave, Aunt Martha.”
“Good. Because that’s what I told him. I also told him we’d take him and Carmen into Oak Bluffs this morning and give them a tour of the campgrounds.”
“The campgrounds” was Martha’s Vineyard’s Camp Meeting Association or Wesleyan Grove, a historic landmark, consisting of thirty-four acres of quaint gingerbread-trimmed cottages, circling the tabernacle where I was supposed to meet my eBay antiquities seller at 11:00 a.m. It could work. After all, I told him I was visiting the island for the weekend, so it would look like I was there with my boyfriend and parents. “That sounds great. What time?”
“We’ll pick you up at ten thirty.”
“Perfect.” I released Harold, disconnected, then rang Tanner and explained what was going on. “Could you hover around the area? Pay attention to who’s watching?”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll watch your back. You think Ben’s your eBay seller?”
“I want him to be and don’t want him to be at the same time,” I admitted reluctantly. His circuitous route home from Egypt heightened my suspicions. It was a trick frequently employed by smugglers to cleanse an object’s provenance. Since the burden of proof lies with the government making an allegation an object isn’t legal to transport, the more ports the object has already passed through, the harder to prove it was originally stolen. Not to mention that by such convoluted treks, the object often gains paperwork needed for it to enter a more restrictive country.
“You think Ben will show his face if he sees it’s you?” Tanner asked.
“If he recognizes me, probably not. I’m sure Jack or my parents would’ve told him I’m FBI.”
“Is the seller expecting a woman? You could ask your Aunt Martha and Carmen to pose as the buyers.�
�
My insides churned at the thought of putting Aunt Martha in the middle of a potentially dicey situation. Not that anyone was likely to try anything with a hulking figure like Carmen standing next to her.
“We’ll see,” I said and clicked off so I could take my shower. I stripped out of my shorts and T-shirt, then wrapping up in the bathrobe Ashley had lent me, I tugged open the door to the guest bathroom. “A-a-ahh!” I yelped, clutching the edges of the robe together under my chin.
17
I jumped at the sight of Preston on his hands and knees under my sink. “Yikes, I didn’t realize this was the faucet you were fixing.” My gaze dropped to the bottoms of his shoes.
“It’s not.” He pushed to his feet. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I was just checking to make sure none of the other taps were leaking, too, before I trekked to the hardware store.” He hitched his thumb over his shoulder and backed out the second door, which led into the hall. “I’m going now. See you later.”
“Yeah, see you.” I locked the door behind him and noticed a dusting of red flecks on the throw rug where he’d been resting his sneakered feet moments earlier. I dampened my finger and caught up some flecks. They seemed to be bits of resin.
My thoughts flashed to the souvenir Charlie had been so protective of in the airport.
I unlocked the door and hurried after Preston. “Can I see the bottom of your shoes?” The question popped out of my mouth before I remembered that I could be talking to a murderer and my off-duty weapon was back in the guestroom with . . . my clothes.
Preston glanced at the bottom of his shoe in which more bits of resin were still embedded in the fine tread. “Sorry, did I leave a mess behind?”
“Red flecks.”
“Yeah, that’s resin off a crazy souvenir Charlie brought back from his trip.”
“You saw him? He gave it to you?” My mind spiraled through reasons why, none of them good.
“No.” Preston looked confused. “The police brought it to me. Aren’t you the one who told them to search Charlie’s house for smuggled antiquities?”
“Antiquities?” Ashley said with a gasp from behind me. “The agent that searched Uncle Jack’s house asked if he’d mentioned anything about antiquities. Do you think—?” She clutched her throat as if she couldn’t voice what she feared.
Over Maya Dead Body Page 15