Mason gulped, his Adam’s apple quivering as he set his jaw. “That's true, boss. Think about it. You had plenty of friends around to keep you from getting into trouble, including me, Willie and Sly. Poor Mrs. Sullivan didn’t have anyone but me last night. Now her husband’s been taken from her. Here. In Hamlet.”
“I'm aware of that. Doesn't change a thing. We still have a job to do.”
“I’m trying to do right by our vic’s wife. You might want to treat her like a criminal, Sheriff. I don’t.”
“Okay. That's it. Stand down, Deputy.” Mason immediately began another retort. Having had enough at last, Caitlin tore off her sunglasses and silenced him with one firm look. Because her team was so small and close, she tended to let her deputies get away with a lot. Sometimes she had to remind them who was in charge. “Go to the station. Bring the witness there and leave her in Wilhelmina’s custody. I want to question her myself. Then—and only if I’m satisfied in her responses—we’ll discuss the witness’s relocation. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but—”
She wasn’t done. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll buzz Sly to join me here, then I’ll tackle the wit. You’ve been on duty for more than sixteen hours. It's made you twitchy, Mase. Take a few hours down now.”
“Boss—”
“Those are your orders. Go.”
Mason swallowed roughly. “Yes, Sheriff.”
He wanted to continue to argue. That much was obvious. He didn’t, though. When she got like this, no one disobeyed Caitlin De Angelis—except, perhaps, Lucas. However, the doctor happened to agree with Caitlin. Tessa Sullivan was the best lead that the sheriff had. She had to keep her close.
Mason disappeared into the bathroom without another word. As Lucas gathered up his medical bag, he could just make out the deputy’s muffled voice as he explained what was going to happen next. Silence followed. Either Mrs. Sullivan accepted what he said, or she spoke too softly for it to carry into the hotel room.
This time, when the bathroom door opened again, the woman exited first.
She took him completely by surprise.
If Caitlin hadn’t told him that Tessa Sullivan was in her mid-twenties, he would’ve put her much closer to her late teens. She was small-boned and slender-framed, lost in a hooded sweatshirt that was two sizes too big. Her light brown hair fell in waves to her shoulder. It stuck up in tufts from where she pulled at it in her grief.
The deputy fell in step behind her, close enough to catch her if she stumbled. Lucas didn’t quite understand the fervor with which he defended this woman to Caitlin before but, watching as she moved zombie-like across the room, he got it now. Mrs. Sullivan, her size and demeanor, clearly inspired protective feelings in others. Hell, he had to fight the urge himself to scoop her up in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be fine.
Caitlin flipped her notepad closed, tucked the pad in the back pocket of her uniform pants. She slipped her pen behind her ear, losing it almost immediately in the red tangle, then hooked her sunglasses on the front pocket of her uniform shirt. Her hands free, she met Mason and Tessa in the middle of the room.
She didn't offer to shake hands, or any other sort of greeting. No surprise there, either. The woman was only an outsider, and one who had brought trouble to Hamlet. In Caitlin’s opinion, Mrs. Sullivan was lucky not to be locked up again.
“Deputy Walsh is going to bring you back to the station. I know this is a very inconvenient time for you, Mrs. Sullivan, but the first forty-eight hours in any homicide are crucial. Anything you can tell me, anything you might remember, it could make a difference in catching your husband’s killer.”
The poor thing flinched, her hand flying up to muffle her sob.
“Sheriff...”
Caitlin pretended she didn’t hear her deputy’s warning tone. This one time she’d let it slide. Besides, she was too damn busy already. She didn't have time to write him up for further insubordination.
Like Mase, it was her first murder. She couldn't blame him for being so antsy. Death had a habit of doing that to the best of them.
“Before you go, just one more thing.” Caitlin loped over to Lucas and grabbed him by the upper arm. The possessive stroke that followed wasn't quite professional, and he struggled not to jerk away from her. “I want to introduce you to our doctor. Dr. De Angelis also acts as our medical examiner. He’s going to be the one taking control of your husband’s remains.”
Tessa lost the last bit of her color in her too pale face.
Caitlin kept her hand on Lucas’s arm. “I’m sure you’d prefer we wait until you’ve had time to process what’s happened here today but, unfortunately, we don’t have the time. Sorry.” She wasn’t. “I’m going to ask if you’ll allow an autopsy. Because this is a homicide, we’ll get approval from the county judge if we have to. I hope it won’t come to that. It’ll speed things along if you okay it now.”
Tessa’s eyes flickered over to Lucas. Rimmed with red, with a trail of tears that tracked down her cheeks, he still thought the golden color was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Hazel, Caity said. She wasn’t even close. He met Tessa’s stare directly. His bag slipped from his hand, landed with a thump at his feet.
Something shifted in that moment. He couldn’t explain it. He might have imagined it. But when she shuddered, took a deep breath, nodded, Lucas knew it was because of him.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Do what you have to do.”
“He’s in good hands,” Lucas promised.
Taking her by the elbow, Walsh murmured to the woman before leading her out of the room. Lucas traced the shape of her as the deputy hustled her away from the crime scene, purposely blocking her from seeing her husband's body. Before he knew it, he was left alone with Caitlin and the murdered outsider.
Lucas gave his head a clearing shake. It didn’t work. He wasn’t sure he’d get the tear-streaked cheeks or haunted golden eyes out of his head any time soon.
Realizing that Caitlin still had her fingers hooked around his bicep, he shook her off. Her point was already made, though, and she took his sudden rebuff without comment. Behind his back, a small smile lingered on her lips as Lucas bent down to recover his medical bag.
Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she cast her gaze around the room. The smile transformed into a grim look of determination.
“Okay, now that she’s gone, we can get to work. I need a camera in here to get the photos before you move Sullivan. I need a sweeper to check for any evidence I missed my first run through. I’ve got to talk to Bonnie again, see if I can get a copy of her tapes. First, though, I gotta buzz Sly, get him down here.” She unclipped her radio from her belt, cursing as she did. “Why didn’t I hire another deputy when the budget said I could? I could’ve used another guy.”
Lucas shouldered his bag. “Don’t think I’ll help you and Sylvester with the processing. My job is to take care of the victim’s body. You can solve the crime on your own, detective. And,” he added, “you wouldn’t be down one man if it wasn’t for your knee-jerk reaction in sending Walsh home.”
“Okay, look. I’m sorry about the mystery crack from before, alright? And maybe I am being too rough on the kid. Hell, this one’s got me shook. Mase was right. Sly gave me a report that this guy’s wife was in the holding cell overnight, and Mase already stood up and vouched for this outsider. I’d love for her to be responsible for this, but how? Damn it, she’s smaller than me. Even if I didn’t believe my guys, I gotta believe my own eyes. It would’ve taken real strength to strangle this Sullivan.” Caitlin snorted. “I could snap her in half like a twig.”
“You sound pissed, Caity,” Lucas pointed out after a moment’s silence. They both knew that an angry sheriff was a foolish sheriff. She'd overlook something if she couldn't get her head on straight. “You really want it to be her.”
She almost lied. It wasn’t right for the head of Hamlet’s law enforcement to wish guilt on someone just because it wou
ld be easier. But this was Luc. She couldn’t lie to him.
“Okay. Yeah. Nothing against her and all, but yeah. I want it to be her.” She paused for a beat and put her sunglasses back on. “You know why?”
Lucas had known Caitlin long enough to understand the way her mind worked. “Because if she did it, then that means that one of us didn’t.”
“Someone killed Jack Sullivan. That's fact. And as far as I can tell, no one’s crossed out of Hamlet since the outsiders came in.”
Which meant that their peaceful little village now harbored a murderer.
So this was shock.
If it wasn’t for Mason’s steadying hand on her arm, Tess thought she might just drop. Her limbs were heavy, though her head felt weightless. She was bobbing along some vaguely familiar hallway, her eyes seeing yet unfocused. Every part of her that counted was back in that hotel room.
Jack was dead. If she told herself that enough, would she believe it?
She saw his body. She found his body. And still it seemed like some horrible joke.
Her hands were trembling. She folded her fingers into her palms, tightened her hands into fists to stop the shakes. She absolutely refused to fall apart. This was when she needed to be strong.
With a shudder, she straightened, determined to stand on her own two feet. She didn’t know these people. The deputy… she didn’t know this man. After last night, he already certainly thought she was a lush. Now she was nothing but a fragile disaster. He knew it, too. She straightened, and he continued to rest the warmth of his palm on her chilled skin, holding tight.
Fine.
Using him as a buffer between her and the rest of the world, Tess let him lead her down another hallway and out the back entrance she would have given anything that morning to know about. Now, though, it simply meant she was that much closer to an exit to get out of the damn hotel.
She didn’t argue as he guided her toward the same cruiser she’d ridden in last night. As he helped her escape from Jack’s room, he explained in a hurried whisper that this was all a formality, that he had to take her down to the station. She accepted that she had no choice. But she didn’t have to be carried there. Once she was outside, she pulled away from him.
He immediately reached out for her again. Tess ducked away, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“No. I’m okay now,” she told him. Her eyes were dry. She felt like she’d cried all the tears she had to shed in that bathroom. Turning, she saw that Deputy Walsh’s uniform was damp from where he’d held her as she sobbed. She winced. And lied again. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
No. “Yes.”
Tess waited until he reluctantly moved away from her before she struggled to find something else to say, something that wouldn’t draw her thoughts back to what she left behind. It was impossible, so she asked, “Who was that?”
Everything that happened in the hours since she found Jack was a blur. It was like someone stuffed cotton inside her skull. She remembered clinging to Mason, and the way he took her into the bathroom so that she didn’t have to stand in sight of her husband’s body. People came and people went but only two things stood out from the haze: fiery red hair and a pair of icy blue eyes.
Mason waited until she buckled herself in and he had taken his seat beside her to say, “I suppose you’re referring to the doctor.” Lucas was a looker, no doubt, but he had hoped that in her grief she hadn’t noticed. “He’s a good guy, I guess. Does his job.”
“The doctor. He’s the man who’s going to…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. She didn’t have to. Mason nodded and she knew. “Okay. Um, what about the woman? The one with the red hair. Is she in charge? I don’t know, she came off as real official but… I— I think I’ve seen her before. How? Is that possible?”
Mason took his time answering her question. “That would be Sheriff De Angelis. She’s the head of law enforcement in Hamlet so you could say she's definitely in charge.”
He draped his arm behind her headrest, turning to look behind them as he backed the cruiser out of its spot. Tess noticed that he left his arm there once they were heading away from the hotel. She scooted closer to the door, leaving a gap between them.
Tess could've sworn she felt his fingers ghosting over her hair. Leaning into the window, she struggled to remember the last two days because it was better than realizing how much he closed the gap.
Her memories were hazy at best.
The alcohol and the shock hadn't helped any. She still didn't think she was wrong. And Mason had purposely avoided the part where she asked how Tess knew the sheriff.
Weird.
She wracked her brain. Looking back, the only two people she met at the station last night were Deputy Walsh and Deputy Collins. The sheriff never stopped in, so it wasn’t there. The niggling doubt managed to shove aside some of her guilt and grief. She clung to it like a lifeline.
Tess was absolutely positive she’d seen that red hair before. And then it hit her.
“The bar. Last night. I remember now. She was dancing and you— Oh.” A dull color spotted her cheeks as the complete show from last night flashed in her memory. Including the way the intoxicated sheriff threw herself into Mason’s arms. “You know her very well.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. It was no use denying it. “You saw that.” He could kick himself for letting Caitlin paw at him last night. “You have to understand—”
“I don’t have to understand anything, Deputy.” Her words spilled out in a rush. The color deepened to a rosy red. “You don’t have to explain to me.”
He wanted to. “The lady at the bar—she’s my boss. I’m just one of her deputies, that’s all. And, yeah, she might get a little... excitable when she’s had some to drink, but she’s the best sheriff we’ve ever had. She won’t rest until we find out what happened to your husband, you can trust me on that.”
Mentioning Jack was like throwing a bucket of ice water over her flaming embarrassment.
Her voice went flat. “So she’s going to be the one questioning me.”
“She has to do her job.” He kept his tone gentle. “We all do.”
“I know.”
Tessa didn’t say another word the rest of the way to the station. Respecting her silence, Mason kept his thoughts to himself. So that she didn’t see him peeking, he stole glances at his quiet passenger every now and then. She looked so small, so utterly breakable. He wanted to take her hand, promise her that she had nothing to worry about it.
But since he didn’t want to lie, he said nothing. Her husband was dead. She might be innocent—at the moment, he was sure that meant precious little to her. And since he couldn’t explain how Jack Sullivan became the first murder victim in Hamlet in Mason’s lifetime, he knew there was plenty for her—and the whole village—to worry over.
As he pulled into the station and cut the engine, he decided to ease one of his own worries. Whatever happened during the interrogation Sheriff De Angelis was sure to put her through, Mason wanted Tess to know one thing.
“Um, Tess— it’s okay if I call you Tess, right?”
She shrugged helplessly. Her gaze flickered toward his shoulder. A damp patch lingered there. The man was wearing the badge of her breakdown. He could call her whatever the hell he wanted. “That's fine.”
“Good. There's something I want to tell you, Tess. It doesn’t have any bearing on the case or anything but, well… Sheriff De Angelis, she’s just my boss. There’s nothing going on between us. I mean, just in case you were wondering. Not that you were. It’s just, after the bar last night—”
“Forget about it.”
He couldn't. “It's just that the sheriff, she’s—”
“You’re a good man, Deputy. Mason,” she corrected when he began to protest. A small, shy grin splashed across her face for an instant. “Don’t worry about me. No matter how tough she is, I won’t forget how kind you’ve been. How helpful. I promise, I won’t
hold you accountable for the actions of your superior. I’ll be fine. I just want to answer her questions and lay down. Maybe then, when I wake up, this will all be some horrible dream.”
As Tess bent to undo her seatbelt, Mason leaned back in his seat, one hand rubbing his chin.
Kind? Helpful? That wasn’t it at all. But if that’s what she had to tell herself, he could accept that. She’d just lost her husband. He knew that. He also knew that, technically, he was no longer poaching. He couldn’t steal a man’s wife when that man was dead.
It was a terrible thought. Mason was ashamed of even having it. Didn’t make it any less true.
8
Lucas was sewing Sullivan back up when he heard the door behind him open. Knowing who was looming made him take his time on the final few stitches.
There was only one person who treated his office as their own and, still raw from their encounter at the inn, he wasn’t sure he was ready to face Caitlin again so soon.
But that was Luc speaking. Dr. De Angelis knew that he had to be professional and do his job. And part of that job was addressing the lead investigator on the case.
Even if she was his ex-wife.
She’d gotten rid of those ridiculous sunglasses. Her hat was gone, her red hair lanky and flat against her head. She clutched a shiny maroon thermos to her chest. She sniffed, sneezed and scowled. “God, it stinks in here. I hate this fridge.”
It was a closet-sized morgue, barely bigger than a freezer really and just as cold. He could never understand why she always seems surprised whenever she had to meet him down here. At least she’d remembered and worn her uniform jacket this time.
He nodded at her. “You look tired, Caity. Third cup of coffee?”
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