To Bedevil A Beauty (Southern Sanctuary - Book 5)

by Jane Cousins

  By dawn they’d found where the bullet had lodged, after it travelled through Berry’s arm. Prying it out of the black Mazda 6 side panelling felt like a hollow victory – now they needed to find the gun to confirm a match. Ramsey was studying the .38 slug in its plastic forensic bag when one of Elijah’s team strode out of the Nature Reserve to grab some breakfast and advise that they’d finally locked onto the gunman’s trail, and were tracking it back to the source.

  While he waited on more news his cell rang, his gut roiling, it was Zeke calling from the hospital. Up until now Zeke had been texting any updates on Berry’s condition. The fact that he was calling couldn’t bode well.

  “Tell me?” He demanded in his roughest voice.

  “I think we should move her.” Zeke stated bluntly.

  “Why?” He tensed, had something happened? Had the gunman tried again?

  “She’s stable but we can’t protect her here without more bodies. The doctors are happy to release her with a few provisos. I think we need to move her somewhere more contained.”

  Ramsey’s gut eased, thank God his team were intelligent independent policeman. “Haven Bay has a safe house for just such an emergency?”

  “I know Aunt Kimberly would be happy to take her home but I was thinking that the best place for Berry would be your place.”

  “My place?” Ramsey wasn’t sure if he’d heard Zeke correctly or if he was putting words in his officer’s mouth.

  Zeke must have assumed Ramsey’s gruff question translated to reluctance on his part. “Think about it Chief. You have that spare bedroom. You’re on the second floor, no buildings nearby of comparable height. No clear lines of sight if we are dealing with a shooter. There’s only one other apartment on your floor and you need a code for the entrance door and the elevator. We won’t have to waste manpower; probably one guy per shift on the apartment door would cover it.”

  “Yeah.” Ramsey nodded even as he continued to frown. What if Berry really had remembered who he was? Recognised him from that day in court? Understood that he was responsible for imprisoning her husband… ex-husband? How happy was she going to be waking up in his apartment? Well, too bad. Her safety trumped her… anger? Outrage? Disgust? He supposed he’d be finding out before too long. “Make it happen Zeke. Set up a bodyguard roster… put me down for the nightshift.”

  Ramsey had just hung up when his walkie talkie crackled to life, Elijah’s neighbourhood watch volunteers had found an abandoned camp site at the farthest end of the Reserve. Ramsey and Mac drove out to the spot via a series of meandering back roads and dirt lanes.

  It wasn’t much of a camping spot, Mac advised upon their arrival, amateur location, it would have flooded in the first heavy rainfall to come along. Ramsey studied the scene with an experienced law enforcement eye. The brand spanking new two man tent contained one rumpled sleeping bag. Both it, and the tent, still had magnetic theft prevention strips attached to them. No sign of the shooter, only some empty tins, a dead fire in a makeshift pit and several bottles of water. There was nothing obvious that would help in providing a clue to the shooter’s identity or current location.

  Elijah had bought along two of his volunteers to the campsite. A woman who was busy sniffing the air and an older guy, who was studying the suspect’s footprints as if they held the secrets to the universe. Ramsey didn’t protest their presence, it wasn’t like the Southern Sanctuary had sniffer dogs on the payroll, they needed answers now, not later.

  Ramsey was leaning back against the cooling hood of his car, staring unseeingly at the abandoned campsite when the older male volunteer wandered over to his side.

  “How’s Berry?”

  Ramsey instantly snapped into the here and now, his eyes flashing storm cloud grey. Just who was this guy to be asking? He looked to be in his early forties, just under six foot with brown eyes and hair shorn close to his skull. He failed to be intimidated by Ramsey’s glare, just stood there staring back at him, then he blinked and a small reluctant smile tugged at his lips.

  “I’m David Malone by the way… Berry’s Dad.”

  Oh Geez, this was Berry’s Dad? How? The man didn’t look old enough to have a daughter in her thirties. But he could see the resemblance, the colour of the eyes, the dusky skin and no doubt if David grew his hair out it would be a curly riot.

  “She’s fine… hurt, in a little bit of pain but the Doctors are saying she got off relatively lightly.” No wonder the man had been out all night searching for clues, he wanted the bastard who’d hurt his daughter found. “We’ve moved her to a safer location. She’ll need to stay put until we can establish the threat level.”

  Ramsey brushed his hair out of his eyes, noting there were three new neighbourhood watch volunteers moving into position at the edge of the clearing. The trio looked to be related, dark hair, similar features, large of frame and they moved through the trees like ghosts. Ramsey stared at them, the older guy, the one seemingly in charge of the three met his gaze and stared back… something in his look… surprise?

  “Who are the new arrivals?” Ramsey queried David Malone.

  “Who?” David looked around.

  “The ones Elijah’s going over to talk to.”

  Now that David had a direction in which to look he suddenly appeared to know who Ramsey was referring to. “Sorry.” David rubbed his eyes. “Long night. Those are some of the folks from over in Hidden Cove. That’s what I was coming to tell you. I found two distinct sets of tracks. One goes South-west and one heads North, toward Hidden Cove. I guess Elijah notified them. The terrain in that direction can get pretty dense and rough.”

  Ramsey nodded thoughtfully. “You seemed to find the outbound trails pretty quick, how come it took you so long to find the camp?”

  High colour stained David Malone’s cheeks.

  Ramsey bit back a groan. “Hell, that sounded like I was criticising you, I wasn’t, I swear.”

  David chuffed a tired laugh. “Don’t worry, I know what you meant. There were two men… here at the camp.”

  “You sure?” There was only one sleeping bag, Ramsey noted.

  “Yeah, definitely two, though I think only one of them, the shooter, spent a lot of time out here. He’s not an easy guy to track… he moves… inconsistently.” It took David a while to find the right word.

  Ramsey couldn’t help but wonder about the word he really wanted to use. “So the… inconsistent one, the hard to track one, he’s our shooter. He sets off for Haven Bay, while his partner waited for him here, then they either went North or South.”

  “I think they split up.” David was frowning, looking northwards. “The shooter heading that way.”

  Ramsey nodded, he was a city boy, he’d never been camping a day in his life. But even so, he knew enough that David Malone was holding something back… hell, the whole town was holding something back. “I’m not asking you to swear in blood or anything, but if you could use one other word to describe the shooter, other than inconsistent, what would it be?”

  David’s brown eyes stared at Ramsey like he was reading into his soul. “Crazy… out and out crazy."

  Ramsey spent the rest of the day in his office, fielding calls and following up leads. Mac thought he had a line on where the tent and sleeping bag were stolen from so Ramsey let him run with that. Maureen had the local grapevine wrapped around her petite wrist, it was a no brainer to assign her to co-ordinate all the search teams continuing to look for the shooter and now his mysterious partner.

  Just after lunch, a stray thought had blipped through his tired brain… what if… what if Berry’s ex-husband was somehow involved in all of this? Hmm, it was easy to check. After a quick search through the National database he put a call in to the head of the cushy minimum security prison where Robert Granger was imprisoned.

  The bastard had been very lucky. When it had been revealed at his trial that he’d been stealing from his clients’ accounts - the Midnight Raiders included - the judge had deemed it too risky to i
ncarcerate Robert in the same facility as his very pissed off former clients. So minimum security prison it was, three meals a day and according to the website a comfortable bed. How was that justice?

  Leaving a brief message of why he was calling Ramsey placed the phone receiver down, staring at it hard. His gut was clamouring, Robert Granger, somehow, some way, the bastard was involved in this. Damn, he hated waiting.

  And he was still waiting six hours later as he sat in the Five Alarm bar, right next to his apartment building on the foreshore… waiting for a phone call and for his burger. Releasing a deep sigh Ramsey willed himself to relax, he’d been up way too long. But it was over thirty hours now since the shooting and it felt like they were nowhere with the case.

  He let his eyes roam the relatively empty bar. Strange, since the place had been opened the same week Ramsey had arrived in town, you would have thought the locals would have flocked to a new establishment. The bar, according to Maureen, was located on the site of the former fire station. Hence the name, Five Alarm. The building having sat empty and unused for almost fifteen years until the current owners, two brothers, arrived in town to snap up the property and convert it into a bar.

  They’d wisely kept all the original red brick, knocked out the back wall of the station and built a patio out to meet the sandy beach, filling it with low comfortable sofas and tables, umbrellas available to block out the sun when it was out and gas heaters on rollers for the cooler nights.

  Ramsey had chosen to sit indoors, his back to a wall, just the way he liked it. From his position he had an excellent view of the entire room, the dark hardwood floors, matching long bar, the walls behind it decorated with bottles filled with colourful red liquid that appeared to glow and swirl. With its ridiculous high ceiling and clean industrial yet comfy feel, Ramsey couldn’t understand why the locals weren’t here three deep. The new owners appeared to be genial enough. Yet besides a few tables occupied by couples and a larger table towards the front, full of men in their early twenties, the place was barely a third full. And it wasn’t like the food was bad. Ramsey gave a nod of thanks as the only waitress on duty – a redhead with pretty blue eyes - swooped by and deposited his burger. Giving him a friendly grin but not stopping to chat, thank God, since he was starving and not in the mood for small talk.

  He’d just finished the last fry on his plate when new arrivals walked in, a couple. They were arresting. For one, the woman was stunning, even in the simple white loose pants and light blue scooped necked sweater she wore clinging to mouth-watering curves. Her dark hair was up in a sassy slick pony-tail, calling attention to her beautiful face, classic cheekbones and gorgeous clear sea green eyes.

  Ramsey couldn’t deny the female was lovely, but it was her companion that really caught his attention. Mainly because Ramsey didn’t often come across men that were taller than him… or broader for that matter. The newcomer looked like a surfer dude on steroids with his tanned skin and shaggy blonde-brown hair. Except this was no casual beach bum, the man moved like a professional soldier, light, wary of putting his back to the room, deliberately manoeuvring the woman so that she was always protected.

  Several of the locals greeted them as they entered. Ramsey didn’t catch the over-sized surfer’s name, but the name Charisse, sounded awfully familiar. Ah, of course, the painter. The one who’d been the focus of the two recent vandal attacks. He watched as she patted her companion on the shoulder, rolled her eyes and despite his protest strolled away to find them a table.

  Glancing at his watch, realising that he still had forty minutes until he had to relieve Gideon, Ramsey decided to make himself useful and get answers to a couple of things that had been bothering him about those supposed vandal incidents. “Hi.”

  The brunette jumped, a hand clutching at her throat. Why, he had no idea. Surely she’d seen him sitting there one table over, who could miss him?

  “Oh.” Her look of surprise instantly changed to a polite cautious smile. “Hi.”

  Ramsey got to his feet, doing his best not to loom or intimidate. “I’m Chief Ramsey Hughes and you’re Charisse…?” Damn, he didn’t know her last name.

  “That’s right.”

  “I was hoping to ask you a few questions.” He was already pulling out a chair and taking a seat, Charisse didn’t appear all that perturbed by his pushiness but she did blink slowly, as if off balance slightly that he hadn’t said whatever she’d been expecting.

  “Sure Chief Hughes, whatever I can do to help.” Her wary smile gave way to a wide sunny grin.

  “You’d better make it Ramsey.” He held up his bottle of beer. “Technically, I’m off the clock.”

  “You have some questions?”

  “About the recent vandal attacks; on your car and house.”

  “Oh yes, of course.” Charisse nodded. “I’m not sure how much help I can be though, I wasn’t present when they happened.”

  “You’ve had some time to think since they occurred though, any names popped into your head about who might want to cause trouble for you?”

  Charisse studied him carefully, amusement lingering in her eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “No, I’m afraid not. I guess it was just kids who found an empty house and decided to cause a little mischief.”

  “Ones capable of lifting a car with their bare hands…” Ramsey muttered under his breath.

  Before Charisse could make any response, a shadow loomed across their table.

  Ramsey looked up to find Charisse’s companion standing over them… hmm, so this is what it felt like to be loomed over? Interesting. Damn the guy was large, what was he, 6.7ft maybe 6.8ft?

  “She’s not available dude.” A glass of wine was slammed down on the table in front of Charisse. “She didn’t smile at you. She wasn’t flirting with you with her eyes. She doesn’t want to hear that her hair is like spun sunshine or that her eyes are vivid green pools of a tropical sea. She doesn’t want to listen to your half-assed compliments, get it. Did you not see the band-aide?” The giant held up his right hand, to display a band-aide taped to the middle of his palm. “Did you not see the ring?”

  “Ah… well.” Ramsey was finding it hard to track the conversation. Was this guy drunk? What was up with the band-aide?

  “Nate…” Charisse’s voice held a warning tone.

  “Cyd, did you show him the ring?” Nate turned his attention to Charisse. “We agreed. Any time a guy approaches, you put your hand out and show them the ring. We had the conversation again this morning. Remember? You promised.”

  Charisse shook her head. Wow, she even frowned beautifully. Weird surfer hulk was one lucky guy. “I did? I don’t remember agreeing to do that. It sounds rude.”

  Nate shook his head. “This morning, when I was stripping paint off the front door? We talked about it then and I definitely recall you agreeing.”

  Charisse’s frown suddenly cleared. “You weren’t wearing a shirt.”

  “A-ha, so you do remember the conversation.” Nate accused.

  “I remember you not wearing a shirt… I don’t remember any conversation.”

  Nate rolled his whiskey coloured eyes, Charisse reached up, grabbed him by the t-shirt and yanked him down onto the seat next to her. “Sorry.” She gave Ramsey a reassuring smile. “We’re renovating a house and I think the paint fumes have started to affect him. Nate… sweetie…”

  Ramsey couldn’t be sure but he suspected that Charisse was grinding her heel down on Nate’s booted foot.

  “…this is Ramsey Hughes, the new Chief of Police that everyone has been talking about. Ramsey, this is Nate…”

  “Her husband.” Nate held out his hand, smiling in genuine surprise when Ramsey actually shifted his attention easily from Charisse and took it.

  “Yes.” Charisse laughed softly. “I’m still trying to get my head around how that actually happened.” She lifted her glass and took a sip.

  Ramsey hid a frown, there was a band-aide on the palm of Charisse’s hand
, mirroring the exact same spot Nate had one. Nate had mentioned the band-aide first and then the ring, as if the band-aide and whatever it represented meant more than the ring… just one more piece of the puzzle.

  “I was just asking Charisse a few follow up questions about the recent vandal attacks on her car and property.”

  “Unfortunately, I wasn’t very helpful.” Charisse absently laid her hand down on Nate’s bare arm.

  “I would have thought your number one priority would be finding who shot Berry?” Nate mused.

  Charisse gave him a horrified look. “Goddess yes, Berry! How is she? I spoke to her mother today and she says Berry is recovering. Is she allowed visitors?”

  Ramsey nodded, he knew exactly how Berry was doing, he had hourly reports to prove it. “She’s good, sleeping a lot, grumpy from the pain but she should be fine. We’re keeping visitors to immediate family only at the moment.”

  “Understandable.” Nate was studying Ramsey closely, the more the new Chief of Police talked, the more the larger man appeared to relax. “If you ever need any help, back-up, you should call me.”

  “Just what is your line of work, Nate?”

  “Security.”

  Security? Hmmm, why did he think that was only the tip of the iceberg? Ramsey glanced at his watch, his gut instantly easing. Thank God, he could finally see Berry… er, relieve Gideon. “Well nice meeting you both, I’ll let you get on with your evening.” He stood up.

  Charisse leant casually on Nate’s shoulder, giving Ramsey a smile. “Tell Berry I said hi, and that I promise there will be a party.” She looked at Nate. “A party right… to celebrate?”

  “An absolute blow out Cyd, you can count on it.”

  “You’re invited too Ramsey, I’ll let you know the date.”

  As Ramsey walked away he heard Nate mutter something in Charisse’s ear causing her to laugh, it was an insanely sexy sound. He was glad he wasn’t Nate, he must have to fight men off his new wife with a large club.