The Lawman's Legacy (Love Inspired Suspense) (6 page)

“I don’t need help.”

But she did. She’d needed it for a long time. She just hadn’t known how to ask,
who
to ask.

Not him.

Not a police officer.

You’ll lose everything.

You’ll lose Tyler.

“Yeah. You do.” His words were as gentle as his touch, and she knew she had to give him something so that he’d go away, leave her to take care of her problems the way she always had. If he didn’t, she just might give in to temptation, reveal the darkest, deepest secret she’d ever kept.

“Olivia gave me something when she was visiting.” The words tasted like betrayal, and she blinked back tears, Olivia’s pretty face and bright blue eyes floating through her mind.

“What?” His tone remained gentle, but she sensed the change in him, the surge of excitement.

“A letter. It’s sealed in an envelope. I didn’t open it.”

“Who is it for?”

“Her sweetheart. She said he might come for her one day, and she wanted him to know how much she’d cared, how deeply she missed him. She made me promise to keep the letter until her sweetheart came. She just kept saying it over and over again, ‘Promise me, Merry. Promise me you won’t give it to anyone else but my sweetheart.’” And, now, she was breaking the promise she’d made. A tear trickled down her cheek, but wiping it away would take more energy than she had, and she collapsed into a chair instead, let more tears flow, because she really didn’t care about stopping them.

Olivia was dead.

Merry had broken her promise.

“Don’t cry.” Douglas crouched near the chair, his hand resting on her knee, his blue, blue eyes looking into hers.

“Why shouldn’t I? Her sweetheart will never find Olivia now. They’ll never have a second chance to make things work.” But she did need to stop, because crying made her vulnerable, and she couldn’t afford to be that.

Not when she still had so many secrets to keep.

“You did the right thing. That’s what you need to remember and hold on to. Olivia wouldn’t have expected anything less from you.”

“If it was the right thing, why does it feel so wrong?”

“Because, you’re a good person and a loyal friend. So no more tears, okay?” He brushed at the moisture on her cheeks and smiled, but she couldn’t smile back.

She stood, let the blanket fall onto the chair. “I’ll get the letter for you.”

And, then she ran from the room, ran up the stairs and into her cozy bedroom with its antique furniture and tiny closet.

A good person?

He might not think so if he knew the truth.

He’s in danger. You have to believe me. Please, leave town and take him with you. It’s the only way to keep him safe.

The words of a desperate teen, the plea of a mother who had probably known she wouldn’t live long enough to see her son grown, and Merry had agreed, because she’d wanted to help.

Did that make her a good person or a bad one?

After four years, she still didn’t know.

She blinked back more tears as she opened her closet door and pulled up the loose floorboard. Beneath it, a white envelope lay atop a small leather journal. Beside them both, a blue bankbook was rubber banded with a stack of hundred dollar bills.

Too many secrets.

Sometimes, she got really tired of keeping them.

Sometimes, she wished she had one person she could share the burden with. One person she could trust enough to reveal the truth to.

But she didn’t.

Not her siblings.

Not her friends.

Certainly not the man who waited for her to return to the kitchen.

She’d do well to keep that in mind.

“Merry? Are you okay?” Douglas called from the bottom of the stairs, and her heart jumped in fear and in anticipation.

She acknowledged them both as she grabbed the envelope and let the floorboard fall back into place, hiding her secrets once again.

SIX

A
letter from Olivia to her sweetheart.

That’s what Merry had been hiding?

He wasn’t sure he was convinced.

It’s what she wanted Douglas to believe she’d been hiding.

He tapped his fingers against satiny wood, waiting expectantly as Merry started down the steps, a white envelope clutched in her hand.

“Here it is.” She held out the business-size envelope, her hand steady, her gaze direct. Obviously, she
really
wanted him to believe the letter was it.

But fear still lurked in the depth of her eyes. He could see it, feel it as he took the letter from her hand.

“Are you going to open it?” she asked and he nodded. He had no choice. Private or not, the letter had to be opened.

“Can I have it back after you’re finished with it?”

“It’s evidence. We won’t be able to release it until the case is closed.” He slid his finger under the taped flap and opened the envelope, carefully removing a folded sheet of lined paper.

Handwritten in blue ink, the note was less than a half page long, the words scrawled across the lines in sweeping manuscript. He read it quickly, silently.

Sweetheart,

Being away from you these past months has been torture. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of you and regret the decision I made that separated us. I know that you will come looking for me eventually just as I am now searching for you. I am giving this note to a dear friend to keep until the day that we are reunited. If you receive this before we meet again, please know that I have never stopped loving you. You own my heart as surely as the sun owns the day.

All my love forever.

No signature. No name.

Nothing.

Frustrated, Douglas slid it back into the envelope and tucked it into an evidence bag.

“Did it help?” Merry asked, and he met her dark eyes, shook his head.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“I’m sorry. I’d hoped it would.” The sincerity in her eyes was unmistakable, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she had more secrets, more things she needed to share.

“You keep saying you want to help, Merry, but I keep getting the impression that you’re not telling me everything you know.”

“I am.”

“That’s what you said earlier. Now, I’m standing here with a letter in my hand. A letter you didn’t tell me about fourteen hours ago.”

“I promised—”

“What else are you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.” He didn’t have time to beat around the bush, didn’t have time to wait her out. He needed everything she knew now. Not tomorrow or next week or next month. A killer was on the loose, and there was no telling if that person would strike again.

“I don’t know anything else about Olivia. Nothing that would lead me to believe she was in danger. Nothing that might help you find her boyfriend. That’s the truth.” Something about the way she said it made him take a step closer, look down into her soft, pretty face. Round eyes and high cheekbones, light brows that arched perfectly over thick, golden eyelashes, she looked fresh and sweet and innocent, and he wanted to believe her.

I don’t know anything else about Olivia.

What
did
she know about, then?

Someone knocked on the door, the sharp rap cutting through the tense silence. Douglas opened the front door, frowned as he saw his father standing on the porch. Dark circles rimmed Aiden’s eyes, and he looked a decade older than he had that morning.

“Aren’t you supposed to be off duty, Dad?” Douglas refrained from asking if his father was okay. He’d done that one too many times since Olivia’s body had been recovered, and Aiden hadn’t appreciated it.

“I could ask you the same.”

“I was still at the office when the call came in. I figured it would be as easy for me to respond as anyone else. Who called you?”

“Ryan. He said he couldn’t sleep and went down to the station to do some research. Vera told him about the emergency call. He called me.”

“I’m surprised he’s not here.”

“Another call came in after you left. Drunk and disorderly. He’s taking care of that. Then, he’ll be here.” Aiden took off his hat, his gaze on Merry. “You’ve had quite a day, Merry.”

“It’s been…rough.”

“We’ll get things sorted out. Did you dust for prints, yet?” he asked Douglas.

“I’m about to.”

“Good. Maybe we’ll get a print that will match what we pulled from Olivia’s apartment.”

“Tonight’s perp was male. The two prints we were able to identify from Olivia’s place belonged to a woman. Lila Kensington. Did Olivia ever mention her, Merry?” Because Charles didn’t seem to know who she was or why she would have been in the apartment. A background check had revealed Lila Kensington’s last known address in Boston, Massachusetts. Her last known employer had been the city of Boston public schools. Which was why her prints were in the system. No police record. Nothing to indicate the woman was a murderer.

But her fingerprints were in Olivia’s apartment, and Olivia was dead.

“No,” Merry responded, her voice raspy and hollow.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” The fear in her eyes, the tense way she held herself gave the lie away.

“Merry—”

She glanced up the stairs, cocked her head to the side. “Tyler is calling me. I’ll be back down in a few minutes.”

She didn’t wait for a response, just turned tail and ran up the stairs.

“Did you hear her son?” Aiden asked, and Douglas shook his head.

“No.”

“Me, neither. Why do you think she’s so jumpy?”

“I don’t know, but I plan to find out.”

“Could be she knows more than she’s saying about what happened to Olivia.”

“She has secrets, for sure. Here’s one of them.” He handed his father the letter, watched while Aiden read it.

“So, Olivia had a boyfriend.”

“A sweetheart.”

“We need to find out who that was. I don’t suppose Merry knows.”

“She says she doesn’t.”

“I don’t.” Merry carried Tyler from his room.

Dark head pressed to her shoulder, one fist wrapped around a lock of her hair, he looked sleepy and unhappy.

“We woke your son. I’m sorry about that.” Aiden patted Tyler on the back.

“He was already awake, but I’d really like to get him settled and back to sleep.” She hinted broadly, her gaze on the front door, the floor, the wall. Everything and anything but Douglas or his father.

“We’re going to dust for prints, and then we’ll be out of your hair.” Aiden walked out the front door, and Douglas could have followed.

Could
have.

But there were tear tracks on Merry’s cheeks, fear in her eyes. She looked shaken, defeated and terrified, and he wanted to know why.

“You can’t keep lying forever. Whatever you’re hiding, it’s going to come out eventually,” he said casually, and the color drained from her face.

“I think I need to sit down.” And, she did. No fanfare. No walk to a chair. Just straight down onto a step.

“
I
think—” he crouched down so they were eye to eye “—that you need to tell me what’s going on.”

“I didn’t eat dinner or lunch. Maybe my blood sugar dropped.”

“Pretending ignorance isn’t going to keep me from pushing for the truth.” But she looked awfully pale, her skin completely leached of color, her eyes dark against the pallor. He pressed his palm against the back of her neck, urging her head down toward her knees.

Soft warm skin.

Soft silky hair.

Soft sweet Merry, and all her lies and secrets.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, and he sighed, his knuckles skimming her cheek as he backed away.

“Me, too. Sorry that you don’t trust me enough to tell me why you’re so scared.”

“It’s not about trust.”

“Then what
is
it about?”

“Nothing that has to do with your murder investigation.” She stood, some of the color returning to her face, her arms still tight around her son.

“The investigation isn’t the only thing I’m concerned about, Merry. I’m concerned about you.”

“Don’t be.”

“I’m not sure I have a choice.”

“We all have choices.”

“Then I guess I’m choosing to be concerned.”

“I’d rather you choose something else.” She smiled, but it didn’t hide the sadness in her eyes.

“You never did tell me why things weren’t working out between us.”

“I don’t think this is a good time to discuss it. I have to get him back to bed.” She touched Tyler’s hair, walked up the stairs.

She was right.

This wasn’t a good time to discuss their relationship.

Or their lack of a relationship.

“Bye, Mr. Policeman.” Tyler waved as Merry carried him into his room, the sleeve of his pajamas falling back to reveal a half-dollar-size mark on his wrist. A bruise? No. The mark was raised. Like a ridged scar.

A burn?

That’s what it looked like, but Merry disappeared inside Tyler’s room too quickly for Douglas to get a better look.

Douglas didn’t think she’d be coming out anytime soon.

She was done answering questions, but he wasn’t done asking them.

Douglas pulled up his hood and stepped into the frigid morning. Deep clouds covered the waning moon and the wind blew snow across his path as he joined his father at the edge of the yard. “See anything that might help?”

“Just what you probably already spotted. Footprints. Size eleven or twelve shoe. Looks like a running shoe. Not a boot. I took a few pictures and I’m trying to cast one of the prints. We’ll see if it takes in this weather. If it doesn’t, the prints will be gone before the weather clears.” Aiden sounded more like himself than he had all day. Confident, self-assured. That was what Douglas expected his father to be. It’s what he’d grown up seeing.

“How about prints?”

“Haven’t dusted yet. I thought I’d leave that to you.”

“Do you think this is connected to Olivia’s murder?” Douglas asked as he pulled an evidence kit from his SUV.

“What do you think?”

“It’s a stretch to believe it isn’t.”

“Yet the fingerprints we were able to match from the apartment belonged to a woman and Merry saw a man standing outside her house. So, maybe we
are
dealing with two unrelated crimes.” Aiden rubbed the back of his neck, obviously tired and frustrated.

“There were other prints at the apartment we weren’t able to match, Dad. There’s every possibility that the prints we pull tonight will match up with one of them.”

“I’m not sure if that will make things better or worse. Connected crimes or random, we still have a murderer to find. Did you put in a call to Boston P.D.? Maybe they have some information about Lila Kensington that will give us something to work with.”

“She’s not on their radar. Aside from the prints that were filed when she applied to teach, there’s no trace of her in the system.” Douglas dusted the first windowsill, picked up a set of smudged prints and moved to the next window.

“Call Boston again in the morning. We need more information, and we need it quickly. A murder in Fitzgerald Bay is big news, and people are talking. They’re already speculating about the identity of the killer, offering a hundred different explanations as to why she was murdered.” Aiden paused and inhaled deeply. “Your brother’s name has already come up.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. There’s been talk around town for a few weeks about Charles and Olivia being in a relationship.”

“What! Charles had no interest in Olivia as anything other than a nanny to his children.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Dad.” And getting more worked up than Douglas had expected.

“I know. It just burns me up the way people around town talk about things that have no basis in fact.”

“That’s the point, right? They speculated about a relationship that didn’t exist, and now they’re making up motives for murder out of those unfounded speculations. It’s not surprising, and it doesn’t mean anything.” But Douglas still wanted to name a suspect, give the people in town someone else to talk about.

“Doesn’t mean anything? Your brother is a war veteran, a hero who came back to serve his community. He deserves better than whispered accusations.” Aiden’s voice shook with the depth of his emotion, and Douglas put a hand on his shoulder.

“The people who are whispering are a very small minority, Dad. You know that.”

“It still isn’t right.” Aiden inhaled deeply, shook his head. “We need to find a suspect quickly, because there are people in town who believe we own the police department, and who’ll be more than happy to accuse us of tampering with evidence if they think we’re trying to protect Charles.”