Kiss of a Stranger (Lost Coast Harbor, Book 1)

by Lily Danes

  Adam was less convinced. “One of my guys left a bag behind when he skipped town. I was going to give his stuff to charity, but you look enough like a charity case right now. Hang on.”

  He returned with a bag full of clothes. The t-shirt was a bit tight and the jeans a little loose, but they more or less fit—and decreased the chance he’d accidentally flash Maddie’s best friend.

  “She should be back soon,” he told them.

  The siblings sat side by side on the couch, their bagel feast spread before them.

  Bree spread cream cheese on two bagels and held them out. “Plain or onion?”

  Gabe sat cross-legged on the floor across from them, then reluctantly took the plain. He didn’t want to give Maddie any reason to avoid kissing him.

  Bree sat back in triumph. “I knew it.”

  Adam ignored his little sister’s test. “Want to explain why you’re not dead?”

  Gabe glanced at Bree, then back to the man who knew some of his secrets.

  Adam claimed the onion bagel before his sister could take a bite. “Bree only pretends like she says whatever comes into her head. You can trust her.”

  Bree looked between them. “This about the guns from six years back?”

  Gabe glared at Adam. “You told her?”

  Bree rolled her eyes. “Settle down, He-man. I’m not an idiot. I figured it out the first time I met you.”

  Both men gaped at her.

  “Come on. I read the papers, and I’m capable of remembering more than six years back.”

  “Then why did you let her get close to me?” Gabe tried not to glare at Bree. Unreasonably, he thought Maddie’s friend should have tried to protect her from an ex-con.

  “Because you’re innocent, obviously. Why else would you be back here? The only people who come to Lost Coast Harbor are either looking for something or they’re hoping to never be found. Well, this would be a damn stupid place to hide, since everyone knows what you did. Have you found what you’re looking for yet?”

  Gabe shook his head in disgust. “Nothing. I still think it was Hastings, or at least a Hastings, but no idea which one. There’s no proof. We’ve got a bunch of random information, but none of it means anything.”

  “I disagree.” Adam took a bite of his bagel, then made them wait for him to chew and swallow before continuing. “You may not know what you’ve found, but you’ve definitely found something. If you’re hiding out, I’m guessing the explosion wasn’t an accident. No one would blow up an entire boat if they didn’t have to. Someone thinks you’re a threat.”

  Gabe wished that was true. “Except someone tried to kill me the first day, before I knew anything.”

  Bree shook her head. “Not the same. That could pass as a dock accident. This can’t. Someone took a pretty big risk to get you out of the way. So think, jailbird. What do you know?”

  Gabe sorted through the events of the last two weeks. “Everything Adam learned. I know how the docks work, but so does everyone else down there. I have a bunch of documents on my phone, but Maddie cleared most of them and the rest are gibberish. And there’s a file on me that someone seems to want.” Gabe pointed to the manila folder on Maddie’s coffee table.

  Adam finished his bagel and brushed off his hands. “It’s a place to start. Let’s get to work.”

  Gabe only hesitated for a second before handing over the file that contained his life story. Somehow, these two strangers already believed in him. He could try believing in them, too.

  “Forward the docs on your phone to me.” Bree flipped through his file. To his surprise, she didn’t pause when she hit the section with his juvenile record. “There’s a lot here. Stuff I wouldn’t imagine your average person could get.”

  “I’m sure they had a PI,” Gabe noted.

  “Mmm-hmm.” She didn’t sound convinced. Bree withdrew her laptop and a few cords from her oversized bag. “Never leave home without it,” she announced. A few seconds later, it was booted up, and she began to give orders. “I’m printing off the pages from Hastings’ office. Have another look at the so-called gibberish ones, because Hastings is not a man to keep nonsense around out of a sense of whimsy. I’ll trace these other docs back to their source.”

  In silence, they began working together, looking for anything in those papers that might be the downfall of the wealthiest company in town.

  Twenty minutes later, that’s how Maddie found them. Bree waggled her eyebrows at her friend, but she also made room on the couch so that Maddie could read the files over her shoulder.

  There would be time for teasing and gossip later. First, they were going to prove a dead man was innocent.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gabe had no idea what the hell was happening.

  Three people he’d known a little over two weeks were fighting for him. He said he was innocent, and they believed him. It felt like a world he gave up on long before had flung its doors open and invited him in. A world of friends and family and people who weren’t looking for the first chance to fuck you over.

  Gabe grinned to himself and turned back to his file. “Plea agreement.”

  Bree snatched it from his hand, read the heading, then tapped her keyboard, fingers moving at something close to light speed. “Nope. Public record. Anyone could get it, so there’s no trail to follow. Next.”

  He flipped the page over and called out the next one.

  Adam and Maddie were still trying to make sense of the Hastings docs. The other man passed a sheet to Maddie. “Gee, look,” Adam deadpanned. “It’s another page full of numbers.”

  With a grimace, she added it to the reject stack.

  So it had been for the last hour. They all studied the documents, looking for anything unusual—but no one knew what that might be.

  They were just finishing the last of the bagels when the doorbell rang. Everyone froze.

  Bree took charge first. “Get in the closet. That’s where I hid my dates when Maddie came home early.” Bree grinned at Maddie, unabashed. “I thought it was rude to rub your face in all the happy naked time I was getting.”

  Maddie blushed bright pink. Gabe followed the color as it rose in her cheeks. With great effort, he didn’t drag Maddie into the closet with him for a very grownup round of Seven Minutes in Heaven.

  When the door closed behind him, he could no longer see the room, but the walls were thin enough that he could pick up every sound.

  “Who is it?” Maddie called, her voice a bit strained.

  Papers rustled as the others hurried to clean up the work.

  “Open up, Mad. You’ve got some explaining to do.” He didn’t recognize the voice, but the others did. Even in the closet, he heard their collective sighs of relief.

  The steps to the door were too fast to be Maddie’s. “Erin! Come in and help us,” Bree said.

  It was a shame no one was there to see Gabe’s look of horror, because he imagined it was a doozy. Exactly how many people could know a secret before it stopped being a secret?

  Another set of footsteps when Erin stepped inside. They were solid and sure, and he had an instant image of the woman who’d been with Maddie at the bar, pretty and so confident he couldn’t imagine anything ruffled her.

  Except she sounded a little ruffled right now. “Maddie, there’s a rumor around town.”

  No one said anything while they waited.

  “Did you really buy three boxes of condoms this morning?”

  Bree whooped. “I knew it.”

  Without seeing her, Gabe knew Maddie was mortified.

  “I’ve been worried about you all morning, because I really thought you had feelings for Gabe and were probably heartbroken, and then I learn from a bunch of strangers you plan on having three boxes’ worth of sex in the foreseeable future. What the hell? More importantly, who the hell?”

  “Who knows about this?” Maddie asked.

  “Well, I just came from the diner, where there was a pretty involved discussion of how you pl
anned to use them. Several people thought you were already sleeping with Declan, but Kelly Jones said you didn’t put out, which is why he broke up with you. Gavin Donnelly said his brother would never do that. Two others said you were secretly dating that ‘dangerous-looking fellow’—that’s a direct quote—and they weren’t interested in changing their story when they heard he was dead. And Harold thought you were probably just being optimistic after all this time.” She paused long enough to take a breath. “Oh god. Tell me it’s not Adam.”

  Bree burst into laughter.

  “I’m not sure if I should be offended,” Adam said.

  Maddie groaned. “Fucking small town. Isn’t there some pharmacist code about confidentiality?”

  “Maybe, but Mrs. Wandsworth has no such code, and she was there when you bought them.”

  “That’s not fair,” Maddie said. “She’s not even five feet tall. How was I supposed to see her over the shelves?” She muttered a few uncomplimentary things under her breath. Gabe was able to pick out “nosy old hag.”

  Erin wouldn’t be distracted. “Normally I’d say that whatever you want to do with your genitals is your business, but I’ve been dealing with your celibate self for years. Now you’re finally getting some, and I find out over hash browns at the diner? Hell no.”

  Without warning, the closet door swung outward, and Bree gestured at him like he was a game show prize. Erin’s glare turned to incredulity. Gabe waved at her.

  “Aren’t you dead?” She studied him, then gave a satisfied nod. “The important thing here is I was right. I knew Maddie had feelings for him.” She looked around the room, at the various pens and stacks of paper. “What’s going on?”

  To his disappointment, Maddie’s back was to him, so he couldn’t see her response to Erin’s statement.

  She pointed to the coffee table. “Grab a highlighter, Erin. We’ve got some work to do.”

  Hours passed. Maddie kept the curtains drawn and played music just loud enough to drown out their voices. If anyone came by and saw Bree’s old truck and Erin’s Jeep, they’d assume a couple of old friends were comforting her in her grief.

  Though the condoms made her grief a harder sell.

  Gabe might have actually fucked her stupid—and she’d been so eager to repeat the experience that she hadn’t considered the consequences. If she stopped to think for just a minute, she’d have known exactly what would happen. Secrets were considered public domain in Lost Coast. By now, everyone would know her preferred brand and whether she liked them ribbed for her pleasure. She’d need to check the newspaper the next day and see if she made the front page. “Maddie Palmer Finally Gets Laid!”

  As mortified as she was, she couldn’t be too upset. A single moment of Gabe’s touch was worth every knowing look she’d be subjected to the next time she went into town.

  Maddie debated whether she should tell the others about the money in Oliver’s safe. She knew the time for secrets was long past, but she still harbored a small hope that, somehow, there was an explanation. If the evidence before them pointed to her boss and friend, she would share what she’d found, but she feared the information would lead them to believe Oliver was guilty before the evidence supported that theory.

  By silent agreement, she and Gabe weren’t sitting next to each other. Not to keep their whatever-this-was a secret—it was way too late for that. No, Maddie didn’t want to sit next to Gabe because there was no way in hell she’d be able to concentrate on random strings of numbers with Gabe just inches from her. Even now, she could sense his energy buzzing from across the room, a constant tension she felt as a spark against her skin. If he sat next to her, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from crawling into his lap.

  Maybe that lack of concentration was why it took so long to see what should have been obvious from the beginning.

  “Wait!” she called. “I’ve got something.”

  The others gathered around her, and she pointed at the strings of numbers. “Look at these. Three columns. The numbers in the first one are all over the place. Some are in the hundreds of thousands. Some are in the billions. But the second column is all the same. All between one and nine million. Then the third column, the numbers are a lot smaller again. Some variety, but none are over a hundred thousand.”

  Bree frowned. “Are we supposed to be seeing something?”

  Excited, Maddie grabbed a pen and started making marks. “Take out the commas between the numbers, and the decimal point before the cents. You’re left with numbers between eight and twelve digits long in the first column, but everything in the middle column is nine digits. No exceptions.”

  Erin’s brows drew together. “What about the third column?”

  Maddie grinned. She was right. She knew she was. “I’m getting to it. Most bank accounts are between nine to twelve digits long. Some people here use the local bank, which has eight-digit account numbers. But all banks have nine-digit routing numbers.”

  Gabe stared at her in wonder. “It’s a code.”

  “Yep. Account number, routing, and I’m betting that third number is the amount deposited. I’ll double down and say someone at Hastings was doing the depositing.” She caught Gabe’s eye. “Probably Peter, since it was in his office.”

  “Doesn’t mean he worked alone,” Gabe reminded her.

  She ignored him. “There are pages of these, all the same accounts. The numbers in the headers indicate the month and year.”

  Adam nodded, agreeing with her interpretation. “If it’s in code, someone’s trying to hide something. We just need to trace these accounts back to people. Bree?”

  “Already on it.” She tried to grab it from Maddie’s hand, but Maddie wouldn’t let go.

  Her hand shook as her eyes found the number midway down the page.

  “What is it?” Gabe moved to her side. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze. When she dared look at him, his brown eyes were warm and concerned.

  She took more time than she should to answer, because she knew, once she said the words, he wouldn’t look at her the same way. Maybe never again.

  Maddie forced the words out. “Charlie worked for Hastings. Our joint checking account is on this list.”

  Though she expected it, she still felt cold when Gabe removed his arm. He paced to the other side of the room as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough, then rounded on her. “How much?” His voice was low and dangerously controlled. “How much of Hastings’ blood money did you get?”

  Maddie wanted to deny it. She hadn’t known it was happening. Charlie had been the criminal, and she was one of his victims. All Gabe had to do was look at her life to know she hadn’t been rolling in piles of ill-gotten money.

  But every month, enough money to keep them afloat had shown up in her bank account, and she never asked questions.

  Erin stepped in, her voice sharp as knives. “Don’t blame her for others’ mistakes, including your own. A whole lot of people screwed up more than Maddie did, including you.”

  Gabe’s face was locked tighter than any bank vault. “That date is a year before I was caught. Charlie was arrested two years after I was.”

  Maddie gave a silent nod, not trusting her voice.

  “He was getting paid the whole time you were married. Three years, at least. I was in prison, and you were living on Hastings’ gun money.” Gabe spun and punched the wall so hard his fist shot through the plaster. Bree and Erin rushed to stand between Gabe and Maddie, shielding her from his anger.

  She didn’t deserve their protection. He was right. She lived on blood money for years. She fed herself and paid off her mortgage with cash made through others’ pain—and not once did she ask where it came from, because she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to burst her comfortable bubble.

  It didn’t matter if the money had come from Charlie’s drugs or the guns Hastings ran through town. It was still money that had ruined lives.

  Maddie could have stopped it.
She knew something was wrong a year before Gabe’s arrest. If she’d gone to the cops and told them something was wrong, that her husband brought home too much money, they might have looked into it. Years ago, she had the power to shut the whole thing down, and she hadn’t been brave enough to do it.

  The way Gabe looked at her, with disgust and bone-deep pain in his eyes, told her he was thinking the same thing.

  Because of her refusal to act, Gabe lost six years of his life.

  “Can you give us a minute?” Maddie asked her friends. None of them moved. “It’s okay. He won’t hurt me.”

  She couldn’t blame them for doubting her. Every hint of softness had fled Gabe’s expression, until he was nothing but sharp angles and cold eyes. Standing in her living room in worn-out jeans and a tight t-shirt, his muscles and tattoos on display, he looked every inch the ex-convict.

  Adam stared at Gabe, asking some silent manly question. Whatever it was, Gabe’s short nod was a satisfactory answer. “We’ll be right outside,” he told Maddie, with a light touch on her upper arm. Gabe’s eyes locked on his hand, and if possible his eyes blackened further.

  Maddie was pretty sure Bree mouthed “no-good ass clown” at Gabe before she left the room.

  When they were alone, Maddie struggled to find the words. Anything she said would be inadequate. “I never knew. If I’d known…” Her explanation tapered off. She’d known something. Just a couple days ago, he’d understood—but that was before they knew the cost.

  Gabe held up his fist to study the skinned, bloody knuckles with disinterested eyes, like the hand belonged to someone else. “I shouldn’t be surprised. This is how it always goes.”

  She understood, a little too well. “That’s not true. I was stupid, and I’d do anything to take it back, but I never betrayed you.”

  “Except you did.” His voice was almost mild. “This is who you are, Maddie. You avoid risk. You take the easy road, and back then it was easier to look the other way, no matter the cost.”

  “That’s not fair,” she protested. “What’s easy about being on your own at nineteen? Being poor and lost? I was on an impossible road. I had no money and I was about to lose my mother’s house. So yeah, I did whatever I could to get by, but don’t you dare say I was a coward.”