Deception (11 page)

Mia gulped. She recognized the blue jacket. Now that Peter’s body lay only feet away from her, she froze. She folded her arms, tucking her hands against her sides. “You go ahead.”

With her teeth chattering, she watched Dylan forge a path across the rocks, the light from the flashlight bouncing ahead of him. He seemed to melt into the darkness, and panic washed over Mia until she spotted his light again as he crouched near the body.

Sirens blared in the distance, and Mia licked her lips, tasting the salt from the sea. Or was it the salt from her tears?

Had Peter committed suicide? Was that what he wanted to show her? Did he want to heap more guilt on her head?

Dylan called over his shoulder, “It’s Peter.”

Mia had already known that, but the confirmation carried by Dylan’s words turned her legs to spaghetti and she sank onto the wet sand.

The sirens came to a stop and the glow from the red lights above splashed the water and rocks. A voice boomed over a loudspeaker. “Chief Reese, is that you down there?”

Dylan pushed to his feet and waved his arms over his head. He tromped back to her and scooped her up in his arms. “Are you okay?”

“Peter’s dead.”

“Died from the fall. Looks like he broke his neck.”

Gasping, she buried her head in the hollow between Dylan’s shoulder and neck. He squeezed her tighter, their wet clothes meshing together.

He carried her back around the cave and across the sand as her legs beat limply against his thighs. He set her down next to her sandals. “Can you climb back up?”

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Yes.”

She ascended the rocks toward the house, while Dylan acted as a buffer behind her, catching her each time she slipped, planting a steadying hand against the small of her back.

When they reached the top, the entire Coral Cove police and fire departments swarmed toward them, peppering them with questions.

“Who is it?”

“Did you see him fall?”

“Is he dead?”

Dylan draped an arm around her shoulders and guided her toward his truck. “Ms. St. Regis needs to warm up. You can ask her any questions in my truck.”

He settled her in the passenger seat after starting the engine of the truck and cranking on the heat. He pulled a sweatshirt from the backseat and dropped it into her lap. “Warm up, and tell Lieutenant Trammell everything that happened from the minute you got that text message from Peter.”

She nodded, shrugged out of her wet sweater and pulled Dylan’s sweatshirt over her head. Not wanting to get the sweatshirt wet and anxious to shed the drenched blouse sticking to her skin, she shimmied out of the blouse beneath the sweatshirt.

Pressing her nose to the window, she saw Dylan open Peter’s car and duck inside. He must’ve taken the keys from Peter’s pocket. She shivered and snuggled further into the bulky sweatshirt.

A minute later, a dark shape cut off her view of Dylan, and Clark Trammell tapped on the window. She buzzed it down.

“Can I ask you a few questions, Mia—Ms. St. Regis?”

“Mia’s fine.”

Trammell took her through her actions after receiving Peter’s message at dinner. “Can I see your phone, please?”

She felt the front pocket of her jeans, and then dragged her sweater up from the floor. She plucked the cell phone out of the sweater pocket and dropped it into Trammell’s hand. “It’s kind of damp.”

He jabbed a button. “Still works. Can you show me Mr. Casellas’s message?”

Her eyes narrowed as she took her phone back from Trammell. The lieutenant would be looking at her as the prime suspect if she hadn’t been with the chief. She pulled up Peter’s text and thrust the phone back at Trammell.

Trammell squinted at the message and adjusted his cap, pushing it back on his head. “Didn’t you have an altercation with your husband in the street today?”

“Altercation?” Her gaze shifted past Tramell to Dylan, reenacting his discovery of Peter’s cell phone. Her eyelid twitched. Did Dylan’s officers suspect him, too? He’d been hanging out with her too much since her return to town.

Tramell cleared his throat.

Mia blinked. “Ex-husband. I wouldn’t call it an altercation.”

“Thought you two were still married. That doesn’t make you a divorcée, Ms. St. Regis. That makes you a widow.”

She chewed her bottom lip. What happened to calling her
Mia?
“The divorce was all but a done deal. Peter just had to sign some papers.”

“Exactly.”

She jumped beneath Dylan’s sweatshirt, and a shiver rippled over her skin. Exactly what? Had she just implicated herself in something?

Trammell scratched his chin, trying to look innocent or bumbling or something. Didn’t work.

“Why would you go to meet your soon-to-be ex, in the middle of the night, at a deserted house?”

“He said he had some information for me. I believed him.” She shrugged. “Besides, Dyl—Chief Reese was coming with me.”

Dylan jogged back to the car, his face joining Trammell’s at the open window. She preferred his.

“Are you warming up in here?”

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“A few of the officers went down to the body. We checked out Peter’s car, and we retrieved his cell phone.”

She hugged the sweatshirt around her torso. “What does it look like? Did he jump? Did he fall?”

“Was he pushed?”

Trammell’s words socked her in the gut, even though he’d been hinting around this conclusion for the past ten minutes.

Either Dylan didn’t catch his lieutenant’s implication or he didn’t care because he simply lifted a shoulder. “No way to tell right now. He didn’t leave any suicide note. There’s no sign of a scuffle at the drop-off. There’s no new erosion or crumbling of the rock that would point to a fall. We’ll have to see what the coroner says. Peter might have some evidence on his body—maybe a suicide note in his pocket, an injury in addition to the fall, skin beneath his fingernails if he scratched someone on his way over.”

Was Trammell studying her face with new interest? She had to sit on her hands so she wouldn’t be tempted to shove her hair back from her face and show him her unmarred skin, except for those injuries on her chin.

Dylan smacked him on the back. “I’m leaving this possible crime scene in your capable hands, Lieutenant, since I’m, uh…personally involved.”

“You got it, Chief. Thanks for your cooperation, Mia.”

Oh, now it was back to “Mia”?

When Trammell turned and loped back to the possible crime scene, Mia powered up the window. She held her breath as Dylan climbed into the truck.

He snapped on his seat belt and squeezed her knee beneath the sweatshirt. “Are you okay?”

“Your lieutenant thinks I had something to do with Peter’s death.”

“He wouldn’t be a good cop if he didn’t.” He pulled away from the curb, waving out his window to his officers still combing the lookout. “And Clark’s a good cop.”

“A-am I, are we, in trouble?”

“You and I are innocent and have nothing to hide. Depending on how closely the coroner sets the time of death, we also have an alibi. Lots of people saw us at Burgers and Brews. Don’t worry.”

She covered her eyes, burning with tears, with one hand and sniffed. “I can’t believe Peter would kill himself over an impending investigation by the IRS.”

“Then he probably didn’t. If it is suicide, I’m sure he had more reasons than an IRS investigation.”

“If I’m responsible for Peter’s death…”

Dylan cinched her wrist. “Stop. Even if he did kill himself over his tax issues, it’s not your fault.”

“First Marissa, now Peter and you’re next.”

The truck lurched to a stop at the stop sign at the entrance to the Coast Highway. “What does that mean?”

“Those cops back there were suspicious, suspicious of me and then suspicious of you—guilt by association. What if you lose your job over this, or your reputation? The people of Coral Cove love Chief Reese, but not for long if he continues to keep company with the town pariah.”

He snorted as he wheeled onto the highway. “Their idolization of Chief Reese has nothing to do with me and everything to do with my father. They don’t know Chief Reese as well as they think they do.”

She peeked at him through her fingers, the oncoming headlights illuminating the sharp planes of his face, the light spilling onto the tattoo stamped across his arm.

Did she know Chief Reese as well as she thought she did? Obviously, she wasn’t the only one in this car with secrets. Maybe one of these days if she spilled hers, he’d spill his.

He’d never wanted to work for the Coral Cove P.D., and yet here he was. Something must’ve driven him back. Would he ever confide in her? Still, she had no intention of blowing into town and mucking up the place Dylan had carved for himself here.

“Was that normal for your department to continue the investigation without you?”

“Absolutely. I discovered the body. I’d gone there to meet the victim.”

“We don’t know yet if he’s a victim.”

“Could just be the victim of an accident, still a victim.”

Tossing her cell phone between her two hands, she sighed. “I suppose I should notify Peter’s sister. She’s his closest relative.”

“Were you close to her?”

“Met her once.”

“If you’d like, the P.D. can notify her.”

She clasped the phone in her hands. “That’s kind of cold, isn’t it? She doesn’t know half the stuff Peter was trying to pull. She knew ours wasn’t a real marriage, but never got involved.”

“There’s no need for you to tell her.”

“Not unless Lieutenant Trammell arrests me for Peter’s murder.”

“I was there as a witness. Nobody’s going to arrest you.”

“Maybe they’ll arrest you, too.”

“Just stop running around saying you’re to blame for Peter’s death.”

“Ah-ha!” She smacked her knees. “You
are
worried.”

“I think you need to get back to your motel, have a warm bath and a glass of wine.”

“I’m at the Sea View, remember? Not exactly the lap of luxury.”

She sealed her lips for the rest of the ride back to her car parked outside Burgers and Brews. The night had turned ugly. Peter’s death had caused a tumult of emotions to course through her body, but she didn’t want to dump any more on Dylan.

She’d process them on her own—maybe in the chipped tub of her motel room clutching a plastic cup of cheap wine from the convenience store next to the Sea View.

Dylan pulled in behind her car, and she turned to him. “I’m sorry things turned out like they did.”

“Save your apology.” He shoved open his door. “You’re not getting rid of me yet. I’m going to follow you back to the motel.”

“That’s completely unnecessary—” she held up her hand as he opened his mouth “—but totally appreciated.”

The headlights of Dylan’s truck tagged her all the way back to the Sea View. He parked on the street and then met her by the office.

“I’m going to see you all the way to your door and listen while you lock it.”

“I’m not the one who wound up broken on the rocks tonight.”

“No, but you got a text message before Peter took the plunge. Who knows? Maybe someone else sent that text from Peter’s phone.”

An icy finger traced a line down her back, and she hunched her shoulders. “Now you’re being paranoid. Why would someone want to kill Peter
and
me?”

“I don’t know, Mia, but you’ve been involved in a lot of crazy stuff since you got back.”

“Maybe Peter generated all that crazy stuff and couldn’t live with himself anymore. Maybe that’s why he sent me the message.”

“We can stand here and speculate all night, but we don’t have proof of anything yet.” He snagged the key from her hand and shoved it into the lock. “And it doesn’t lessen my worry for you, so get a good night’s sleep and we’ll see in a few days what the coroner has to say about Peter.”

She leaned against the doorjamb, eyes downcast. If he really wanted to see to her safety, why didn’t he come in? Why didn’t he join her in that chipped tub?

His knuckles skimmed her cheek. “Are you all right? I know you and Peter used to be friends, no matter what happened at the end.”

Another rush of guilt heated her cheeks. Dylan had assumed she was mourning her old friend, probably not even out of the coroner’s van yet, and instead she was imagining what it would feel like to run her hands over Dylan’s wet, naked body.

She shook her head. “He changed so much. I don’t know what to think. I’m sad, I’m angry, I’m confused.”

“Just don’t say
guilty
again.” He threaded his fingers through her hair. As he cupped the back of her head, he dipped for a quick kiss. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Talk? She wanted more than talk from him. She ached to be in his arms, and if she threw herself there he wouldn’t let her down. But she had the stench of death on her. She didn’t blame him if he wanted far, far away.

“I’m glad you were with me tonight, Dylan.”

“Me, too.”

Sounded like dismissal to her. She stepped backward into the cold, lonely room and snapped the door shut. She clicked the deadbolt in place and then, feeling Dylan’s presence on the other side of the door, she laid her cheek on the scarred wood.

She couldn’t bring her brand of bad luck to Dylan. She wouldn’t do it.

She pushed off the door and slipped out of her sandals. Padding to the mini fridge, she swept the remote control from the console and aimed it at the TV. She’d stored a couple of bottles of water in the fridge earlier, but no cheap wine.

Tugging at the sleeve of her sweatshirt, she pulled it up.
Dylan’s sweatshirt.
She yanked it off her body. She could probably still catch him and give herself a good excuse to see him one more time.

Halfway to the door, she realized she didn’t have a top on. She ran back to her gaping suitcase in the corner and grabbed a T-shirt and then stumbled back to the door.

She threw it open and charged outside. “Dylan?”

The figure materialized from the shadows. Mia tripped to a stop, clutching the sweatshirt to her chest.

When the intruder took another step forward, the lights from the courtyard illuminated the scene.