Deception (14 page)

Dylan took a slow turn around the room. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

Linda tapped the toe of her shoe on the cement floor. “We could overlay this floor with something nicer, too.”

Mia wrinkled her nose. “When Marissa and I came back here, we did pour some new cement on the floor when we replaced the sea door that leads out to the beach.”

“Well, whoever did it, didn’t do a very good job.” Linda crouched down and swept a hand across the sandy floor.

“Uh, Charlie Vega did it.”

“Oops.” Linda straightened up and brushed her hands together. “It’s just cement. Like I mentioned, we can lay down something nicer.”

Mia brushed past Dylan to get to the stairs. She’d had enough of the creepy basement.

“Of course—” Linda trailed off and Mia stopped, resting her foot on the first step “—Charlie might demand a piece of the action now.”

“Why would he?”

“You’re not the only direct St. Regis descendant now, and Charlie’s the father of the other one.”

Mia hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Just what I need, another complication.”

Dylan picked up Linda’s pad of paper and pen she’d put on top of a box and handed it to her. “Are you ladies done down here?”

Linda winked. “Don’t tell me you have the heebie-jeebies, too, Chief.”

“It’s not where I want to spend my afternoon.”

Linda took her notebook from him and tucked it into the briefcase slung over her shoulder. “I think that about does it.”

Mia continued up the stairs. “You’ve given me a lot of great ideas, Linda. I’ll definitely count on you if I decide to renovate the old place.”

“If?” She tugged on the jacket of her coral suit. “You mean I didn’t convince you?”

Mia raced up the remaining stairs and took a deep breath when she stumbled into the hallway. “Is that you or your husband talking?”

“Oh, I’m just interested in the challenge. Tyler wants to preserve the house as an historic landmark.”

As Dylan tugged the door closed behind them, he said, “I wonder why he hasn’t tried to do that already.”

“He might have done something about it this summer, but as you know, Coral Cove had a busy summer.” Linda hitched her briefcase on her shoulder as her heels clipped across the floor to the front door. “We even had to cancel our vacation.”

“That’s too bad. Where were you going?” Mia held open the door and gulped in a lungful of fresh air. If she ever did renovate Columbella House, she’d probably never set foot inside it again. It stifled her.

“We were going to the islands in Greece. Never been there before, and I was really looking forward to it.”

“That’s the price you pay for being married to a high-powered politician.” Dylan slid a glance at Mia and she almost choked.

“Laugh if you want, Dylan, but he was dealing with some heavy-duty situations this summer.”

Dylan raised one eyebrow. “Really? Because I thought the Roarke brothers and Matt Conner handled those heavy-duty situations.”

Linda clamped her oversized sunglasses on her face and her lips turned up in a tight smile. “They did the heavy lifting, but there was a lot of clean-up after those men cleared out, leaving dead bodies in their wake.”

Mia stepped between them and thrust her hand toward Linda. “Thanks so much for your expertise today. Like I said, if I decide to renovate, you’ll be my go-to gal.”

Linda took her hand in a light clasp. “Think about it, Mia. Do we really need another resort-style hotel on the coast, taking up more land?”

“I will think about it.”

She and Dylan stood side by side on the curb watching Linda’s Mercedes roll up the street to the house she was listing down the block.

“That niece of yours has guts, charging right onto Charlie’s work site and claiming him as her daddy.” He wedged a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head back. “Even if she didn’t look just like you and Marissa, you couldn’t deny that St. Regis chutzpah.”

Her cheeks warmed beneath his scrutiny. “Yeah, about that chutzpah, I’m sorry I attacked you last night. You know, I think it’s great you’re back in Coral Cove, picking up the parental mantle.”

He laughed in her face. “No, you don’t. You’re wondering what the hell I’m doing back here when I swore I’d be battling real criminals in the big, bad city.”

She dropped her lashes. “You don’t owe me any explanations.”

“Don’t I?”

His gaze dropped to her mouth, and a pulse throbbed somewhere…below.

“I told you to get your business done and get out of Dodge for your own safety—and against my own selfish interests.”

Her heart did a double backflip. “And your own selfish interests are?”

“Right—” he brushed his warm lips against hers “—here.”

The blip of a siren had them jumping apart, and Dylan glanced up, his brow furrowed. “What the…?”

“Chief!” A young officer waved out the window, a grin splitting his face from ear to ear. “Just heard on the radio. There’s a fight on Main Street.”

Dylan pulled his sunglasses from his front pocket. “Couple of kids?”

The officer’s grin got wider. “Nope. Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Vega.”

Chapter Eleven

Dylan swiveled around to face Mia. “You wanna lay a wager on what the fight’s about?”

“I think we’d both be betting on the same thing.” She shaded her eyes and asked the cop, “Is…is Charlie’s daughter there?” May as well put it out there. If Linda Davis already knew, everyone else in town did, too.

“You mean that cute gal with the nose piercing? Yeah, she’s there.”

“Oh, boy. I’m following you over, Dylan.”

He shook out his sunglasses and shoved them onto his face. “Do you think you should get involved?”

“I
am
involved. That cute gal with the nose piercing is my niece.”

Dylan placed his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t let that girl lead you around by a nose ring just because you feel guilty about Marissa. You know nothing about her, Mia.”

“Except that she’s Marissa’s daughter, and she needs help.” She slid from beneath his grasp and walked as fast as her heels would allow to her car. “See you over there.”

Dylan obviously didn’t find the situation too pressing, since he didn’t flick on his lights and sirens. Still, Mia had to take the turns a little faster than she wanted in order to keep up with him.

Of all the people Marissa had slept with, Charlie had to be the father of her baby—freewheeling, volatile, hard-living Charlie. Not to mention he’d acquired a jealous wife along the way.

Coral Cove’s Main Street extended less than a mile, and Mia spotted the trouble as soon as she turned onto the street. A crowd of people and two cop cars, including Dylan’s, marked the spot. She parked at the curb and exited her car, craning her neck to see above the crowd, which surrounded a parked truck with its windows bashed in. Charlie’s truck.

She dodged and ducked her way through the crowd until she had a clear view of the trouble. Dylan already commanded the scene—large and in charge. That was what she liked about him.

Tracing her lips with the tip of her finger, she smiled. That was
one
of the things she liked about him.

He held up a hand to Tina Vega, who was still clutching a Louisville Slugger. “Put the bat down, Tina.”

She hefted the bat in her hand and tossed it onto the hood of the truck, where it inflicted one last dent before rolling to the ground.

The other cop ran forward and scooped up the bat while Dylan made a move toward Tina.

“Hold on, Chief.” Spreading his arms out to his sides, Charlie took a couple of steps toward his wife. “Come on, honey. Let’s go home and figure this out. After three boys, you always wanted a daughter.”

Tina’s eyes popped and her face got redder. She seemed to be pawing the asphalt.

Maybe not the best approach, Charlie.
Mia clenched her teeth and shot a glance at Kayla, who stood behind her father, a slight smirk on her red lips. Just like her mother.

Mia itched to shake her niece.
Lose the smirk, Kayla.

Dylan was right. What did she really know about the girl? Kayla had tracked her down, sent an unfriendly, accusing email, and then followed her to Coral Cove without an invitation. Now she’d blundered into her biological father’s life without any concern for the man’s wife and children.

What else was she capable of?

But she was Marissa’s daughter. And underneath all that makeup and the tough-girl attitude lurked a confused little girl.

“I’ll take her in until things cool down, Charlie.” Dylan had slipped his handcuffs from his belt and turned toward Tina.

Tina’s face crumpled and she sagged against Charlie’s battered truck. “How could you, Charlie?”

Charlie moved in and wrapped his big arms around his wife. “Don’t be so upset, Tina. I didn’t even know you when I was with Marissa St. Regis.”

“Marissa St. Regis.” Tina practically spit the name into Charlie’s shoulder. “Why her, of all people? Everyone knows the St. Regis family and that horrid house are nothing but trouble.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Mia sprang forward. “As one of the last members of the St. Regis family and owner of that horrid house, I take exception to that.”

“One of the last members, but not
the
last.” Charlie leveled a finger at his daughter, who had lost the smirk and was following the action with wide, curious eyes. Had Marissa ever looked that innocent when she wasn’t faking it?

Dylan stepped between Mia and Charlie, giving Mia a tight smile. “Do you want to press charges, Charlie?”

“Absolutely not, Chief.” He squeezed his wife, a big woman who almost matched him in height. “We’ll figure this out on our own.”

“Just do it in private and stop creating a public spectacle.” He gestured to the tempered glass in pieces on the ground. “And clean up this mess, or I’ll charge both of you with littering.”

Charlie nodded. “On it, Chief. Kayla, do you want to come home with us?”

Mia shot Kayla a look from beneath her lashes. “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now, Charlie.”

“I don’t think so either.” Dylan tucked away his cuffs. “You folks go home and cool down.”

With the show coming to an end, the crowd shuffled away, murmuring and shaking their heads.

Wedging her hands on her hips, Mia turned to Kayla. “Did you think barging into Charlie’s workplace and spilling the beans was the best of way of telling him he had a long-lost daughter?”

Kayla caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Probably not, but I don’t have anything to hide. Why should he?”

“That doesn’t mean you have to air your business in public. How do you think his three boys would feel if they found out through the grapevine they had an older sister?”

“His three boys, my half brothers, are visiting their grandparents in southern California.”

Mia’s eyebrows shot up, and then she schooled her face into nonchalance. This girl had mad research skills. How did she discover half of this stuff?

“Do you need help?” Kayla skirted around Mia and crouched down to hold the dustpan for Tina Vega.

Tina eyed her with a closed expression on her face, and then dipped her head once.

Dylan put his lips close to Mia’s ear. “You gotta admit, Kayla acts just like her mother and aunt—brazen and fearless.”

Brushing her ear where Dylan’s warm breath tickled her, Mia scowled. “I was never as bad as Marissa, and you know it. You never ran to
her
rescue.”

He tilted his head, and she stared at her reflection in his dark sunglasses. “I never saw the soft spots in Marissa. You?” He tucked her hair behind one ear. “You had them all over.”

“But the soft twin prevailed, huh?”

“I never had any doubt.”

“Chief!” The other officer waved the bat in the air.

Dylan chuckled. “I need to wrap this up before he hurts someone. Do you still want to have dinner with your niece tonight, or do you want to avoid the fireworks?”

“Oh, I’m still game. Why? Are you afraid?”

“I should be.” He strode toward the other cop just as Mia’s cell phone buzzed.

She checked the display and saw Matt’s name. She still hadn’t told Dylan about Matt’s first bit of news. “Hey, Matt.”

“Hi, Mia. Hey, I’m sorry about earlier today. I gave you a shock, huh?”

“You could say that.” Dylan glanced at her over his shoulder and winked. She waved back. “It’s the postcards.”

“I meant what I said earlier. She could be traveling under an assumed name.”

“She’d have no reason to do that.”

Matt cleared his throat. “I don’t know about that. I checked out that Raoul character, and he is one shady dude.”

Mia gripped the phone harder. And she was the one who had brought him into Marissa’s life. “Has he been traveling? Does he have a companion?”

“He hasn’t been traveling much, at least not on his own passport. Look, she could still be with him and they’re bopping around using aliases. Those postcards could still be from your sister.”

“So are you saying you don’t believe Kylie’s vision about my sister, that she’s dead?”

“Kylie’s not right all of the time. She was face-to-face with a killer almost every day and didn’t recognize it. Didn’t sense it.”

Mia huffed out a breath. “Thanks for your help, Matt. Dylan’s just across the street. Do you want to talk to him?”

“I gotta go, but tell him hey for me.”

She’d tell him a lot more than
hey.
Tapping the phone against the heel of her hand, Mia studied the cracks in the sidewalk. So Marissa went on the run with some international criminal so that they had to travel under assumed identities? It might explain why Marissa had never come home, had always been vague.

Mia shook her head. It sounded crazy. But what was the alternative? Marissa had never been to any of those places and someone was sending postcards and forging her writing?

“Have you figured it out yet?”

She jerked up her head. The debris on the street had been cleared away, and the Vegas, even Tina, seemed to be carrying on a civil conversation with Kayla.

“Figured what out?”

“You’re deep in thought. Who was on the phone?”