by B. T. Lord
“Oh my God! It is you! I was over at Wanda’s when I heard you were down here.”
Cammie rolled her eyes in disgust as Carolyn Haskell teetered towards them on her five inch spike heeled snow boots. Wearing a pair of skintight black ski pants that accentuated her tiny size four body, while keeping her pink fur trimmed ski jacket unzipped just enough to show off her ample cleavage, the blonde bombshell threw Cammie a hateful look before latching onto Eli’s arm and literally pulling him out of the booth. She coquettishly tilted her heavily made-up face while offering him a wide sensual blood red-lipsticked smile.
“You remember me, don’t you Eli? Lord, I remember you.”
“Who doesn’t remember her?” Rick whispered under his breath. “She was always trying to get into Eli’s pants. By the looks of it, she still is.”
Carolyn wrapped her arms around Eli and shoved her Double D breasts into his chest. Eli kept his arms to his side, his ice blue eyes squarely on Cammie.
“Good to see you again, Carolyn. You’re looking fantastic. Finally got rid of all that weight, eh?”
Carolyn’s expression faltered for a moment before, by sheer willpower, she pulled it back into place. “My, my, don’t you look just good enough to eat?” she replied, pointedly ignoring his remark. She pulled back and ran her tongue over her glossy lips.
“Why don’t you find us a booth and I’ll be right over as soon as I’m done here.”
Carolyn’s face lit up at the thought of spending time in Eli’s company. With a smugly triumphant glance in Cammie’s direction, she teetered off on her high heels, her fanny wriggling back and forth provocatively.
While this was happening, Jace unceremoniously pushed Rick out of the booth. Brushing past Eli, he grabbed Cammie’s hand and literally hoisted her out of her seat. He threw his arm around her and pulled her tightly against him. “We should get home,” he announced loudly.
Cammie bristled at Jace’s uncharacteristic macho maneuver. She was beginning to feel like a hockey puck between these two powerful men and she didn’t like it.
Eli swept his gaze over the two of them and smiled again. “We’ll catch up some other time, sugar. Good-night Cam. Deputy Rick.” He paused and let his gaze linger on Jace. “Good night, Junior.”
“Listen, asshole—“ Jace began as he surged towards Eli.
Cammie quickly inserted herself between the two men. “Any fighting and I arrest you both. Got that?”
Eli and Jace seethed at each other, but thankfully remained where they were. Rick quickly retrieved Cammie’s parka and handed it to her.
“Come on Jace,” she replied as she took his arm. “Let’s go.”
Jace hesitated long enough to give Eli one last glare. Then he grabbed his parka and barged out of the restaurant. Without a backward glance, Cammie followed him out.
The ride home was silent as Jace stared out the passenger window. So much for, as Rick would have eloquently put it, ‘a horizontal anniversary celebration.’ A sullen anger poured off him, leaving Cammie troubled and struggling with a darkness that had appeared out of nowhere and was now slowly enveloping her and Jace. What frightened her was not that Eli had brought this darkness. What terrified her was the thought that the appearance of Eli had awakened a blackness that had always been inside of Jace. Only she hadn’t known it.
Until now.
CHAPTER SIX
Cammie entered the second bedroom and sat down facing the bed. Rick took the seat next to her and removed a small recorder from his pocket. He held it in his hand and turned it on.
She slowly and deliberately gathered her churning emotions and shoved them deep into a compartment that wouldn’t be opened until she was alone. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look at the man lying on the bed in front of her, his arm flung over his brow. When he shifted, she involuntarily winced when she saw the swollen and bruised skin around his right eye and cheek, and the broken lip that was twice its normal size.
“Do you know where you are?” she asked.
“Kelley’s place,” he mumbled. “Or so everybody’s been telling me.”
“Do you know how you got here?”
He shook his head. “No clue.”
He struggled to sit up. Placing his feet on the floor, he shook his head a few times as if to clear it, then squinted up at Cammie, then to Rick and back again.
“You mind telling me what’s going on? I have a vague memory of some dude doing something to my hands, then some other dude fiddling with my shirt. Unfortunately I kept passing out.” Once more, he shook his head from side to side, his disheveled hair falling into his eyes. “God, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
Rick looked over to Cammie. She was the senior officer. It was up to her to tell him. Although her face remained professionally neutral, he thought he detected a flash of something in her eyes, a momentary look of anguish and pain before the curtain once more fell over her emotions. He had to hand it to her. He certainly wouldn’t be as composed as she was. Shit, despite his training, he’d be a total mess.
For a moment, he had the profound feeling of gratitude that she was leading this investigation, not him. Then he too blinked it away in a rush of guilt and remorse.
“Eli was murdered early this morning between 3 and 6 am,” she replied, her voice low yet her words reverberating throughout the silence of the small bedroom. “We found you passed out on the floor in his bedroom, near his corpse, with blood on your shirt and a 38 revolver under your body.”
She watched as he jerked his head up and stared at her in disbelief. Then confusion. Then panic.
Then slowly and inexorably, the panic turned into a deep, searing crackling anger that turned Jace’s face red with fury.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cammie pushed open the door to Zee’s and shivered with delight as the blessed heat and comforting smells of burning wood from the fireplace washed over her.
It was the only thing that felt good that day.
She’d spent the night staring at Jace’s back, frustrated and worried over his continued silence. It cloaked him like an impenetrable cocoon and she had no idea what to do about it.
The truth was she wasn’t good at this part of relationships. For years, she’d never stuck around long enough to work through the nuances and challenges that always arose when you had two people trying to maneuver their way through their differences to make something work. Any hint of conflict or disagreement, and she was gone.
This time, however, she wanted to stick around. She wanted to make this work. She wanted to find the right words that would reassure Jace and make him understand that he was better than Eli in so many ways. There was no reason to be jealous.
But she knew that wasn’t quite true.
In Twin Ponds, Jace was king. He was a great mechanic, a great hockey player, a great human being – things that meant a lot in this part of the world.
But Eli was king of the world. He’d won the Stanley Cup twice, both times scoring the series winning goal. He’d dated some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. He was on magazine covers and television commercials. He’d be talked about for years; he was already in the elite pantheon of sports superstars.
How could anyone compete with that?
Not knowing how to unravel emotions and give voice to feelings that were so deep and heartfelt, she’d ended up throwing her arm around Jace and holding his hand, hoping against hope that come morning, he’d be the same, loveable, easygoing man she knew.
Instead, when she finally awoke after a fitful sleep, she found him and his truck gone, an indication, as if she needed one, that he hadn’t gotten over his funk, since they usually commuted into town together. When she drove into Twin Ponds, she swung by the garage and spied him with his head already under a car hood. An hour and a half earlier than usual.
She sighed. Eli had barely been back twenty four hours and he was already screwing up her life.
Again.
Cammie spent a quiet mo
rning locked in her office, avoiding Emmy and the questions she knew the starstruck young woman was eager to ask about her past relationship with Eli. She ignored Rick and the line of people suddenly realizing they had business in the sheriff’s office. She tried to concentrate on the Birdman, but with people gawking at her through the glass walls of her office, she was beginning to feel like a zoo exhibit.
Throw me enough sardines and I’ll perform and tell you all about what went down fifteen years ago with Eli. Bark! Bark!
She hated sardines. And she wasn’t about to open a chapter of her life that deserved to be put away on a dusty shelf and forgotten about.
At eleven o’clock, she finally grew tired of the gawking. Grabbing her parka, she slipped out the back door. She needed to talk to someone and there was only one person she could unburden herself with.
Zee was drying glasses when Cammie entered the deserted restaurant and plopped herself down at the bar in front of him. The place was still with the low sounds of classical music playing over a small radio Zee kept propped up on the shelf behind him in stark contrast to the loud rock music that usually filled the establishment at night. He took one look at the deep circles under her eyes and her disheveled auburn hair and without a word, grabbed a shot glass, poured some scotch into it and shoved it under her nose.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“Tell me you don’t need a drink.”
“It’s eleven in the morning.”
“And there’s snow outside. So what? Drink it. It’ll grow hair on your chest.”
“That’s probably the best thing that could happen to me all day.”
She threw back the drink and shuddered as it scorched a path down her throat.
Zee was right. It was exactly what she needed.
The rotund restaurateur was one of two people who knew the truth of what happened between Cammie and Eli all those years before. It was the biggest scandal to hit Twin Ponds, yet despite his reputation as Gossip Central, Zee treasured loyalty and discretion. He’d never given away any details, maintaining a stoic silence when asked. And he’d been asked, over and over during the years.
Grateful and touched by his faithfulness, Cammie used him as a touching stone for whatever was going on in her life, knowing his advice was always well thought out.
“Noticed Jace was at work earlier than usual,” he said casually as he continued wiping the glasses. Cammie grunted in response. “Can’t be easy competing with the Second Coming.”
“Have you heard anything about why the bastard’s back?” she asked.
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Can’t say that I have. What I can tell you is that he’s staying at his mother’s old house.”
Cammie lifted her brows in surprise. “I thought that place was sold off years ago.”
“Nope. When Mrs. Kelley died, she left it to Eli. He’s been renting it out ever since. And –“ he abruptly fell silent.
Cammie looked up at him. “What?” she prompted.
“Never mind.”
“Tell me, Zee. He’s been renting it out ever since and--?”
“Not sure you’re going to want to hear this.”
“Try me.”
“Alright. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. The rent he’s been charging all these years, which hasn’t been much to begin with, has all been donated to the cancer society. I’m sure you remember when Mrs. K got cancer. You and Eli were just starting high school. It took that poor woman years to die.” He shook his head sadly. “I wouldn’t have wished that slow, painful death on my worst enemy.”
Cammie cringed. “Lovely. Now he’s vying for the Mother Teresa award of the year to hang next to his two Stanley Cup rings.”
“I warned you.”
She slumped back in her chair. “It doesn’t make sense. Why come back after all this time? He’s never given Twin Ponds a thought since he left. He’s never even mentioned Twin Ponds in all the interviews he’s ever done.”
“How do you know? You read them all?”
Cammie felt her face grow warm. “Well, I might have skimmed one or two.” She saw the look on his face and threw her hands up. “Okay, okay, so I read them. How could I help it? Every time I turned around, his ugly mug was on some magazine cover. It was impossible to avoid the man.”
Zee harrumphed as he bent to neatly stack the glasses under the bar. “How do you know he didn’t come back for the same reasons you did?”
“I had no choice, remember? Dad died and I had to sell his property.”
“But you didn’t. You fixed up the old cabin, made whatever peace you had to make with the past, and now you’re sheriff.”
“Exactly. I made my peace with the past. Which included finally burying that mess between Eli and I. Now the jerk reappears out of nowhere and resurrects it in full living color. I had to slip out the back door of headquarters to avoid the curiosity seekers, not to mention Rick and Emmy who are chomping at the bit to ask me questions about my past with the Anti-Christ.”
Zee straightened and started polishing the counter. “It will die down again. Just wait it out.” He picked up the bottle of scotch and poured her another shot. “Look, Cam, maybe Eli had the same epiphany you did. Despite all the miles you two put between yourselves and Twin Ponds, you ended up back here. Your people have been here for generations, just as his has. This land gets into your essence, becomes an integral part of who and what you are. That’s why you came back. Not because your father died, but because the woods and the ponds were calling to you. And after ignoring it as best you could, you found you couldn’t any longer. ”
“Since when did you become the philosopher?” she joked.
“Tell me that what I’m saying isn’t true.”
She considered Zee’s words, then nodded. “Okay, okay, you’re right. About me, anyway. But my gut is telling me Eli’s up to something. There’s more here than meets the eye. The only way the woods and ponds would call to him was if they were decorated with awards and dollar signs and beautiful women. You need a soul to have epiphanies. He doesn’t have one.”
“Instead of spinning your wheels, why don’t you just ask him?”
Something in Zee’s tone caught her attention. She looked up, saw that he was looking over her shoulder and groaned.
“Don’t tell me.”
“Good morning, sweet cheeks!”
She angrily whirled around. “I’m Sheriff Farnsworth, not sweet cheeks.”
Eli threw his hands up in the air. “Still cranky in the morning, I see.” He spied the full glass of scotch sitting on the counter in front of her. “You taking up where your old man left off?”
She eyed him up and down. Wearing the knee length tan camel hair coat from the night before, under which he wore a forest green sweater and the same tight jeans that left nothing to the imagination, he looked incredibly handsome.
Resting her eyes on his face, she noticed a weariness in his expression, as if he hadn’t slept. A twinge of the old attraction unexpectedly flared up in the pit of her stomach.
Taking her completely by surprise, it shook her to her core. Ruthlessly clamping down on the unwelcome emotion, she turned her back on him, afraid he’d see something in her face. “Fuck off, Kelley,” she muttered.
To her surprise, Eli laughed. “She’s just a picture of northern Maine hospitality, isn’t she, Zee? By the way, the place looks fabulous. Brings back a ton of memories.”
“Thanks, Eli.
“How about a coffee? You want one, Cam?” He looked pointedly at the scotch still resting in front of her.
Unnerved, but damned if she’d show it, she pushed the glass away.
“I don’t.” She swung off the stool. “Gotta go. You know how it is. A sheriff’s work is never done.”
She started to leave, but he quickly blocked her exit. “I specifically came looking for you. I was hoping we could talk.”
“We just did.” She tried again to side step him and again he blocked h
er.
“Don’t be so damned difficult. All I’m asking for is five minutes. Is that so hard?”
“I’m sure you two can swap stories about why you came back to Twin Ponds,” Zee piped up as he put two steaming cups of coffee on the counter.
Cammie swung around and glared at him. He shrugged in return.
“We can sit in the back where we won’t be disturbed.” Eli grabbed the two mugs and walked towards the booth where she and Jace had sat the night before. She glowered at Zee again as he lifted his hands and shooed her towards the booth.
She could make a run for it. The front door of the restaurant wasn’t that far away and she could be outside before anyone could catch her. But she was stubborn. And reluctant to admit she couldn’t handle any situation – including this one. She’d be damned if she allowed whatever emotions she was feeling to drive her from Zee’s.
With a self-imposed challenge staring her in the face, she turned and slid into the booth opposite Eli. She watched as he took two sugar packets and carefully placed them side by side on the table in front of him, making sure the edges lined up perfectly. She frowned at his meticulousness, but said nothing.
“It’s amazing,” he replied softly as he took one of the packets, broke it open, sprinkled the contents into his coffee, then replaced it on the table with another. “I’ve been away for fifteen years and the place hasn’t changed one bit.” He chuckled. “I even saw Fred Miller still driving around in his beat-up Honda Civic. That thing was a wreck when we were in high school. Can’t believe it’s still running.”
She almost told him Jace was responsible, but swallowed the words. No sense bringing up that particular topic of conversation.
She folded her arms tightly across her chest and watched him continually lining up the sugar packets, fighting against the irrational urge to grab them and throw them across the restaurant.
“So, you’re the elected sheriff. How long you been wearing the badge?”
“A little over a year now.”