Murder by the Seaside (11 page)

Sebastian watched me. “I think she’s just coming for the fries.”

“Shut up.” I smiled and my lips cracked. “Crap. Let’s go. Wait till Mrs. McGee gets a look at me.” I dabbed gloss onto my lips as I walked.

“What do you mean?” He beat me to the door and held it wide. I passed under his arm.

Freud lay sunning his tummy on the stoop with a teacup of milk and what looked like oatmeal. Poor kitty.

* * *

Sebastian insisted on driving the quarter mile to see Mrs. McGee. Something about hydration and heat and exertion. All I heard was I was a baby who needed a sitter. Hard to get a man’s attention when he thought I had one foot in the grave all the time and looked like a tomato.

When we pulled up to the curb, Mrs. McGee was climbing out of her pearly white Lexus. She hauled a rainbow of crisp new shopping bags out of the trunk.

“Mrs. McGee?” I caught up with her as she was struggling up the walk under the weight of the packages. “Can I help you with those?”

She startled, then stopped. “What on earth happened to you? Chemical peel?” Her bottom lip pressed out.

“Car bomb.”

She shrugged and continued up the walkway. “What do you want today? Did you see Perkins?”

“I did. I also met Tara Wilkins.”

Mrs. McGee unlocked her door and nodded me inside. I kept a close eye on her. I wished Sebastian had joined me, but he said he wanted to keep watch on the perimeter. Entering a place that needed him to watch the perimeter put me on edge. “How long did you know Brady was seeing Tara?”

“Who are you?” She leveled a hard look at me. “Did you tell me you were FBI last time you came? Why is the FBI so interested in my husband’s death?”

Classic deflection. I’d hit a nerve. She didn’t plan to answer my question.

I glanced out the window. Sebastian leaned against the side of his Range Rover, looking like he was the most dangerous thing on my island. No sign of the easygoing guy who wore flip-flops to the mall. His fitted black tee emphasized his muscles. The new dark glasses looked more like a warning than an accessory. He nodded as if he saw me looking, though I was on the other side of a now-closed door, peering through a lacy curtain.

That nod gave me a boost. I could do deflection, too.

“Tara said Perkins was dirty. She also said Brady and Perkins fought about money. I got the impression Perkins might’ve been pinching your husband.”

Color drained from Mrs. McGee’s face.

“I grew up here. I’ve known my share of fisherman. None of their wives shop at Burberry.” I stared at the bags at her feet.

Mrs. McGee shifted from foot to foot, and her eyes swept the room. I inched closer to the door. She dipped her head low. “Perkins is shady. I don’t know what those two were up to. I don’t care. Brady and me got along fine. He let me shop and I let him run around with that trailer trash. I pretended I didn’t know what he was up to. Brady returned the favor.”

“Do you think Perkins had anything to do with Brady’s death?”

She tugged on the hem of her shirt and rubbed the back of her neck.

“Mrs. McGee, if you know something about your husband’s death, you have to tell someone. Otherwise, Adrian Davis is going to be put away for a murder he didn’t commit. The murderer, whoever it is, is going to go free. If you know something...” As much as I wanted to threaten her, and to point out how someone tried to kill me twice since starting my investigation, I didn’t want to scare her. Maybe she was safe.

She flitted past me to the door, tripping over her bags on the way. She couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. “You need to go now. I’ve told you what I know. You need to talk to Perkins about Perkins.” Swinging open the door, she stood off to the side against the wall. Her voice cracked. “Don’t come back without the sheriff. I don’t know what you’re up to. Go.”

I stepped onto the porch, catching sight of Sebastian. Mrs. McGee didn’t miss him, either.

“I want to help.” I worried the sight of Sebastian might give her the wrong idea.

“Go.” The door whipped shut and locked with an audible
snap
.

Sebastian dropped me at the Tasty Cream three minutes later. Claire’s car was outside my place. She stood at the counter talking to Mrs. Tucker.

“I’ll be back in ten.” Sebastian leaned across my seat and pushed the door open.

“Where are you going?”

“I saw someone outside the McGee place. I want to go back and check on her. If they’re watching the house, she could be in trouble.”

I slid onto the pavement and said a prayer it was only Mrs. Davis lurking outside the McGee house.

My fingers gripped the door to the Tasty Cream and released. Right beside Claire stood my high school nemesis. Karen Holsten, choosing a flavored soda water. A rock the size of my head twinkled and glistened on her ring finger under the fluorescent lighting. She hadn’t gained a single pound. Somehow she was more beautiful. No acne. Tailored sundress. Peep-toe pumps. One look at my worn-out Chucks sent me across the street to my place in a hurry. I planned to grab a pint of ice cream from the freezer and eat in front of my window until she left. How long could it take to buy water?

Hustling across the street it occurred to me she might walk out and see me running away. I picked up the pace. Freud wasn’t on the stoop. I wrenched open the screen and fell into the safety of my apartment.

Before the door clapped shut behind me, an arm wrapped around my waist. A hand clamped over my face, pinning my lips and crushing my nose. The urgency in the movement sent ice through my veins. This wasn’t Adrian. This man was mad. His body was fuller. His breath stank. The air around me vibrated with tension. Before I could get a look at his hands for some clue to identify him, a cloth bag was yanked over my head. The man dragged me through the room and mashed me down into a chair. He tied my arms behind my back and whispered low against my ear. “You’re getting in my way.”

Chapter Eleven

The space inside what I came to believe was a pillowcase moved slow and hot like lava over my brain. Every second seemed like forever. My muscles were rigid and aching with fear. If my current abductor was the culprit who shot up the boathouse and bombed my car, what would he try next? I mashed my lids tighter, erasing that thought. This situation had hope. Sebastian would soon return and discover me missing from the Tasty Cream. Then he and Claire would find me here.

Heavy footfalls circled my chair like a shark waiting to attack. Both wrists burned with my effort to free them. The inside of the pillowcase smelled like fish. I suppressed a gag crawling up my throat. Leaning my head to the side shifted the stinky fabric, which afforded me a measure of fresh air. As the folds of material moved away from my shoulder, cooler air rose up from the ground into my shroud. Through the small space, a pair of black work boots came into view and stopped.

The awful whisper began again. He leaned into me, bracing one palm on each side of my head. His hot breath scalded my face through the fabric. “You need to go back to where you came from. This is island business, my business, and I want you out of it.”

Silence.

Half of my brain wanted to bawl out, “I promise! I’m leaving right now. Tonight. As soon as I get this fish bag off my head. I’m out!” The rest of my infuriating, inquisitive mind wondered who he was. As if it mattered. As if staying was an option. That same idiotic part of me wanted to stamp my foot and declare, “This is
my
island, buddy. Not yours. You owe me major money for shooting up my office, and you owe me a new car and a new bonus tire.”

Tears streamed over my cheeks in frustration. Anger and fear coiled inside me, and a growl wedged in my throat. Images of busting free like the Hulk ran through my mind, but I wasn’t the Hulk. I was a wimpy twenty-nine-year-old whose arms still ached from carrying boxes up my steps four days before. If I had my pepper spray or my laptop, I’d give him something to remember me by. His island. Ha.

“You’re all out of warnings, Miss Price.” The
s
and soft
c
in the words slithered on his tongue. Misssss Pricccccce.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I held my breath, waiting for a blow that never came.

“You know what you did. What you’re doing.” A finger poked hard against my chest, grinding into my sternum until I whimpered. “Leave this alone.”

“I haven’t done anything.” My mouth didn’t know when to quit. “You’re the one who needs to stop. You’re the one who should leave
my
island. We don’t put up with murderers here.”

He ran. I waited. His feet disappeared first. Light jogging steps coursed over the shag, down the short hall and ended in my room. What did he have in there? The windows rattled. Something was happening. Did I scare him off?

CRASH!

My lamp? The window? I imagined his boots busting out the window. A series of small thuds and muffled grunts came from the direction of my room. Not good. I tugged against my restraints with full force. Nothing but pain.

He hadn’t tied my legs. I stood as far as I could before I lost my balance and fell on my face. The carpet stank like fifty years of mildew. I inched forward so that the chair was eventually left behind. I sat on my knees and put my head on the floor until the pillowcase fell onto the carpet. I shook it free and sat back on my haunches.

Somewhere in my apartment, a man screamed and so did I. Before I could orient my harried thoughts, Adrian slid headfirst down the hall from my bedroom and into the living room on his back. I crawled against the wall and pressed my back to the front door. Was he the one who tied me up? Was that why he whispered? My legs were too limp to stand. We locked eyes. What if the town was right all along and Adrian had duped me again? He rolled onto his stomach and pushed up to his knees. I scrambled to stand, failing miserably but refusing to give up. He wouldn’t hurt me. Would he? One hand on the doorknob behind me, I froze. Adrian fell facedown. My grip eased on the knob. What happened to him while I escaped the chair? I looked out the window to the street below. No Claire. No Range Rover. On the floor, Adrian groaned.

One side of my bindings gave an inch. I wriggled and tugged hard against the twine until I worked it loose. Then I painstakingly looped the material over the doorknob and pulled. With a great tear, the ties gave way. I pried a replica boat oar off the wall in the kitchen and walked toward Adrian. I hated those oars when I was younger. Every house on the island had one somewhere. In case the homeowners forgot they lived in a marina town, I guessed. Mom had a set of blue and white oars in her kitchen, a wedding present from her mother. Who knew someday a little oar would come in handy?

“Get up. Now, Adrian. I mean it.” I inched closer, keeping my right leg back in case I needed to kick him in the head or nether regions.

“He got away. I’m so sorry.” He spoke against the shag, not bothering to roll away from the stink. Something was wrong.

“Are you hurt?” Sounds from the scuffle made their way into my cyclonic thought stream.

“He zapped me.” Adrian rolled onto his back and his arms fell wide.

“Zapped?” Aliens came to mind. That’s how messed up I was.

“Tasered. Call the sheriff.” Adrian cringed and rubbed his chest. “Don’t tell him I’m here.”

“Sheriff Murray?”

“Yes.” He rolled his face toward me. A cut along his cheek was smeared with blood. “Tell him someone broke in and tried to hurt you. He got in and out through your bedroom window.”

I went for ice and a dishtowel. “Here.” I handed the ice to Adrian and looked for a first-aid kit. Seated on the floor beside him, I dialed the sheriff and let it ring on speaker while I went to work on Adrian. As a full-grown tomboy, I knew a little something about first aid.

The call went to voice mail. I redialed.

“Did you get a look at the guy?” I dabbed ointment on Adrian’s cut.

“Not a good one. He had a ski mask. Can you believe that? It’s friggin hot in here. So, clearly he’s crazy. I tried to sneak up on him, but he zapped me. How about you? Did you see him?”

I shook my head. “Just his shoes.”

He snorted. “Well, he was my height, a little heavier than me, and he had a stun gun. When he raised it, I almost wet my pants. In the dark, it looked a lot like a
gun
gun.”

I pushed his hair off his forehead and laid my hands in my lap to keep from touching him more. “I’m glad he didn’t have a
gun
gun.”

“Are you okay?” He rolled onto his side and touched my wrists with featherlight fingers. “My turn.” He took the first-aid kit and hit Redial on my phone.

“This island has gone to crap since I left.”

“Most things do.” He blew softly over the cuts, working the remaining twine away from my skin without hurting me more. “I’m sorry.” His deep gray eyes searched mine. They looked like a vortex of heartache I wanted to fall into, but I’d never do that again.

“It’s not your fault. You saved me.” My lips tried to smile and failed. A million suppressed emotions marched on my heart. Adrenaline still coursed through my veins from the fear.

In true moronic, muddled-brain-from-recent-trauma fashion, I leaned. He leaned. We leaned.

“Hello?” Sheriff Murray huffed through my phone speaker. I snapped back to reality, snatched up the phone and hopped to my feet.

“Sheriff Murray, this is Patience Price. I need to report a break-in.”

When I disconnected a few minutes later, my limbs began to tremble. I slid down the wall to the floor and wrapped my arms around my knees. “He’s on his way.”

Recovered from the zapping, Adrian came to me. He rubbed his palms over my arms and massaged my hands in his, careful to avoid my aching wrists. His voice was low and steady. “You’re okay. I’m here and I won’t leave you alone. I promise.”

A tear crept over the edge of one eye and rolled out, betraying me. Being seen so shaken unnerved me. Never mind that someone kept trying to kill me.

“I left because I was afraid.” His quiet, uncertain voice startled me.

I pulled my hands from his and dared a look at his face. “When?” Fear wasn’t an emotion I thought him capable of. With his jaunty gait and easy smile, Adrian didn’t know a stranger. He never walked away from a dare, or a challenge. As far as I could remember, the only thing he ever walked away from was me.

“After high school.” For the first time, his eyes left mine first. “My mom begged me to go to college. When I got the full ride to Miami to play ball, I tried to work out a way you could come, too. The more I ran through the scenarios, the more it didn’t work. You wanted to take off with the few hundred bucks we saved and leave. Your goal was to skip town any way you could. My goal was to marry you. I couldn’t do that on a high school education and seven hundred dollars.”

My breath caught in my throat. Adrian had wanted to marry me?

“I couldn’t take care of you. At the time, I thought the answer was a good job, as if I already had everything else we needed.” He laughed softly.

I stood and walked to the door. I’d wait for the sheriff at the curb. I flicked the dead bolt open and reached for the knob. Maybe I’d walk to his station. What was taking so long anyway? Why hadn’t Claire or Sebastian come yet?

“You should leave before the sheriff gets here.” I didn’t look back. Emotions pooled in my tummy and chest. There were too many feelings to sort out and no time. First, I had to fill out a police report and relive the most recent horrors of my life.

“Stop running away.” A huge hand landed on my shoulder.

I spun on him. “Me? Me! I’m not the one who runs away.”

“You were.”

His stable, reasonable voice made me want to kick him. Why did he do this to me?

“You wanted away from your parents so bad you’d take off with seven hundred dollars to see how far you could get. I don’t know how you remember it, but I remember you crying. A lot. You wanted your parents to understand you and they didn’t. You wanted them to have regular jobs and buy clothes at stores. That’s not who they are.”

My cheeks burned. Humiliation set my chest on fire. I’d forgotten. Or rather, I hadn’t thought of it in years. Adrian was right. I had been embarrassed by them. Worse, I had guilt to go with it. Guilt for feeling embarrassed because I loved them so much. I hated that I cared about what they wore or what they did for a living. I wanted them to push me and they never did. I needed structure and rules and security, but they gave me endless freedom and cared more about my horoscope than my GPA. Adrian knew that. He knew everything.

“Why didn’t you tell me you applied to colleges? I could’ve done that, too. I have felt so completely naïve and stupid for a decade. How did I not think of going to college? I had the second best GPA in our graduating class.”

I hated missing the obvious, and I’d missed that one by a mile. Not that my parents talked about college. The entire concept of college eluded me until I realized Adrian had a real plan and I was more like my parents than I could accept. Running away was a child’s plan, but I didn’t see it as that. All I saw when I was with Adrian were roses and sunshine and love. Hey, all you need is love, right? And a boyfriend, but mine bowed out.

“How did I not know you planned to leave me for something better? I was supposed to be the smart one. The logical one. I made the plans. I wanted to be normal, but I was so far from that I couldn’t see it.” A decade of emotion ripped through me, unleashing more tears than seemed humanly possible. Adrian’s pretty blue eyes went dark and stormy. His expression became guarded.

“I wanted normal, too—I just didn’t want to run away. I wanted to be something you’d be proud of. The night I told you about Miami, you creamed me before I could ask you to come with me. In hindsight, it would have failed horribly, but at the time, I had tunnel vision.”

I ran a fist under my nose and blinked. Could I have been the problem? Imagine that. Humbled and deflated, I stepped toward him. Without looking into those eyes, I laid my head against his chest.

“I waited for you to call so I could tell you I left the money in our account. I hoped you’d buy a ticket and come see me.” He pressed one huge palm against my back, bringing me closer still.

“It’s still there. I couldn’t bring myself to use it.” A laugh slipped out. I’d thought of a million ways to punish him with the money. Sending him seven hundred dollars of manure was my favorite, but shipping and delivery costs in Miami were crazy.

“I was all in,” I said. “You had a backup plan.”

“In hindsight, I should’ve told you I applied to schools, and I should’ve encouraged you to do the same, but back then it felt like betrayal. You were happy with your plan, and I wanted you to be happy.”

I wiped my eyes, letting his perspective settle in. He was right. If he’d told me, I probably would’ve felt betrayed and I’d have made sure he knew it. I had a temper back then.

Curiosity reared its ugly head, ruining a nice moment. I turned to look at him.

The look on his face shook me. A crease ran between his brows. His lips were tight. The corners of his eyes crinkled with worry.

“Why’d you come home? You were out and doing pretty well—at least according to Google—but you came home.”

The familiar cocky grin emerged. “You did an Internet search on me?”

“Answer.”

“I like it here. Who wouldn’t?”

“And?”

“I planned to run for mayor. Past tense.”

“What? You don’t think this town will elect a murderer for mayor? Mayor murderer has a certain ring to it. I can head your campaign.”

“No thank you. That would be suicide.”

I pushed him away, smiling. Red flashing lights lit and dimmed outside my window.

“Patience!” Claire’s hysterical voice screeched from the distance. Boots thumped up the outside steps. A car door slammed.

“Go.” I whispered, flashing Adrian a warning look.

He hesitated, looking between my face and the window.

“Go. It’s the sheriff. I’m okay. Claire’s here.”