Chapter 3
Chapter Three
WEST
I was halfway through the stack of paperwork on my desk when a quick triple knock sounded on my open door.
I wasn’t expecting to see Avery Sawyer standing there.
Avery didn’t show her face in the police station often, a good thing, since it meant she mostly stayed out of trouble.
It wasn’t her presence that had me concerned.
It was the big, bright smile on her face.
With that wide mouth and her full lips, her smile was a showstopper.
Always had been, even when she’d been tiny.
As her brother’s best friend, I never got that smile.
That was her tourist smile. Her— Don’t you love my beer?
Spend some money in my taproom! —smile. I was more likely to get a scowl for bossing her around.
If I was getting her tourist smile, she had to want something. And I had a good idea what it was.
If I was right, I was going to make her work for it.
“Avery. Everything okay at the brewery?”
“So far, so good,” she said, inclining her head at the empty seat on the other side of my desk. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure. It’s been a few days. You here for an update on the break-in?”I straightened the stack of paperwork, setting it out of sight, and picked up the pen on my desk, flipping it through my fingers.
Avery nodded, though I didn’t think details on my investigation were her reason for stopping by.
She knew I would have called her if I had anything, and getting news about the break-in wouldn’t call for that smile.
It was easy enough to fill her in on what little info I had.
She’d get to the real reason she was here eventually.
And maybe I’d get another of those smiles along the way.
I wasn’t susceptible to her charm, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it.
“I don’t have much,” I admitted. “The prints all belonged to people who were cleared to be in the brewery. You didn’t keep your office locked, so any of your employees could have tried that drawer looking for a pencil or rubber band and left their prints behind.”
“Shit,” Avery said under her breath. “And the cameras?” She spoke the word cameras as if it had four letters and they all tasted bad. I thought I understood.
The cameras were part of being a Sawyer.
Avery liked to think of herself solely as the proprietress of her brewery.
I got it because I’d been in the same situation.
Being the son of the mayor in a small town wasn’t always simple.
Especially when your father expects you to live your life following precisely in each of his footsteps.
Valedictorian in high school, off to Chapel Hill, then to law school, and then finally into his seat in the mayor’s office so I could kiss Prentice Sawyer’s ass the way my father had spent his life doing.
No thanks. It had come as a great shock to both my father and Prentice that I didn’t intend to join his crowd of enthusiastic lackeys. I knew all about wanting to be your own person, but Avery couldn’t escape being a Sawyer, and these days that came with security.
Ever since Prentice had been murdered, his killer had been coming after the remaining Sawyers.
While he was away, Griffen had worked for Sinclair Security, one of the top private security agencies in the country.
He knew what he was doing. When he moved in, he had his former employers set up Heartstone Manor’s alarms and cameras and brought in Hawk Bristol to oversee everything.
Hawk didn’t take any chances. He hadn’t just wired Heartstone Manor—he’d tightened security everywhere: Quinn’s guide business, the Inn at Sawyers Bend, and Sawyers Bend Brewing.
I’d learned from talking to Hawk that the door the perp had used at the brewery was the one door they didn’t have coverage on—a pushback from Avery.
Whoever had broken in had used Avery’s alarm code, and either had a key or had expertly picked the lock.
Since Avery had changed the locks that day, and only she and Cammie had the keys, I was going with option two.
That left the suspect pool wide open, including Avery’s asshole ex-brewmaster.
Unless Cammie was in on it. As much as my gut had a firm line through her name, I had to keep Cammie on the list of potential suspects.
At this point, I couldn’t discount anyone.
Except maybe Avery. And that was only because Hawk had confirmed she’d come home in time for dinner and hadn’t left the Manor until the following morning.
I wished I had something concrete to tell her.
“Whoever it was got in and out without being caught on the cameras. Which meant they either got lucky, or they knew there was a blind spot because they worked there, or scoped it out ahead of time. I’m not giving up, but I don’t have much at this point. ”
Avery nodded, accepting my lack of news more easily than I expected.
That couldn’t be good. Proving me right, she leaned forward, her dark eyes intent on mine.
“I want to see the necklace. I asked Quinn, and she said you had it, that you took it for safekeeping after the break-in at Harvey’s offices. ”
I was shaking my head before she could finish, trying not to smile as she ground her teeth at my negative response.
There’d always been something about Avery Sawyer.
In a house full of children who lived on guard against their father, against each other, she’d always burned bright.
She kept to herself, but she wasn’t timid or afraid to go after what she wanted.
Sitting there with her cheeks flushed pink and her jaw set, she was almost irresistible.
Almost. I wasn’t going there. Aside from the fact that she was eight years younger than me, and she was Griffen’s little sister, she’d drive me insane in a week.
She was too headstrong, too reckless. I liked order in my life, and Avery was the opposite.
“I don’t have the necklace,” I said. “I gave it back to Harvey.”
“Why?” Avery protested. “It was evidence.” She slumped back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, momentarily stymied.
“Not officially,” I told her. “Harvey asked me to hold on to it, and then he asked for it back. And as much as you might think that necklace is proof of anything, right now, it’s just a necklace. We don’t know who it belonged to or how it got to the cabin. I had no good reason to keep it.”
Avery’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything.
I guessed she was formulating an argument.
She and her sisters believed the necklace was the key to finding Prentice’s mystery bride, the woman he’d hinted he was bringing back to the Manor to install as the new Mrs. Sawyer.
Their theory was that he’d been murdered over their relationship, and if they could discover who she was, they’d know who killed Prentice.
Maybe. But Prentice Sawyer never had any shortage of mistresses or enemies.
People all over the country hated him for a wide range of reasons.
Any one of them could have shot him. We had no proof that the murder had anything to do with the new Mrs. Sawyer.
Whoever she’d been, she hadn’t married Prentice or moved into Heartstone Manor.
No one had claimed the boxes of baby things Savannah and Hope had found in the attics.
Prentice had abruptly fired half the staff, stopped taking care of the Manor, and became close to a hermit in his final years.
His death was a tangle of mysteries. I didn’t blame Quinn, Sterling, and Avery for pulling at whatever threads they could find. We all wanted answers.
Avery shoved herself to her feet and glared down at me, her hands on her hips, her long dark hair sliding over her shoulder.
“That’s fine,” she said, her cheeks still flushed pink, her dark eyes flashing in annoyance.
I had to wonder what the fuck the ex-brewmaster had been thinking to let Avery get away.
“I’m going to see Harvey,” she announced. And then I remembered the downside of a headstrong, capable woman.
“Wait,” I said, standing. “I’ll come with you.”
Her eyes narrowed on mine, and I wished I knew what she was thinking.
I thought it likely she was about to tell me no, but if that were the case, she was shit out of luck.
I was going to Harvey’s with her, in part because I wanted to talk Harvey into letting me put the necklace back in the property room.
But mostly because I didn’t trust Avery to go haring off after her father’s killer on her own.
Talking to Harvey was safe enough. He was the family lawyer, loyal to the Sawyers, every one of them. He wouldn’t hurt Avery, but where she’d go after she talked to Harvey was anyone’s guess. I was going as much for damage control as to satisfy my curiosity.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Avery muttered, striding down the hall beside me.
“That’s debatable,” I said, placing a hand on her lower back as we passed through the front door, giving in to the urge to touch her, to lay a finger on all that sparking energy, as much as I was being polite.
“I’ll drive,” I said, nudging her towards my SUV. She climbed into the passenger seat without argument.
“What did Harvey say when he asked you to give the necklace back?” she asked as we turned onto Main Street, heading out of town in the direction of the Victorian where Harvey had his offices.
“That he was still looking into the source of the necklace, and he wanted to have it on hand in case he needed to send pictures or show it to someone.”
“And you didn’t think that was suspicious?” Avery asked.
“Do you?” I countered. She had a point if I thought Harvey was up to something. Which I didn’t.
“I wouldn’t have,” she said. “Except someone stole the file. I don’t know. Everything is suspicious. Especially when nothing makes sense.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Welcome to your father’s case. Too many suspects, too many motives, no answers.”
“I like my job a lot better than yours,” Avery said, sending me a sidelong glance.
“Yeah, I like your job, too. Especially since you’re so good at it. You ever find your notes on that recipe that’s missing?”
She shook her head. “Only what’s up here,” she said, tapping her temple. “What I wouldn’t give for a photographic memory right now. I know the ingredients, I think. It’s the proportions and some of the timing I can’t remember.”
We pulled into the gravel lot, only seeing Harvey’s and his secretary’s vehicles. Louise was seated at her desk when we pushed open the door, her eyes brightening when she saw us. “Chief Garfield. Avery. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Harvey available? We won’t take much of his time.”
“Sure, I’ll just—” She was lifting the handset on her phone when Avery crossed the room and dropped a quick knock on Harvey’s door, then swung it open. Avery wasn’t waiting for permission. She was a client, not a public servant, and she wasn’t going to let anyone tell her no.
I took advantage, following her in just in time to see the concern in Harvey’s eyes smoothly concealed by a friendly welcome.
“Avery. West. What a surprise,” Harvey said, levering himself out of his desk chair.
A rotund man with apple cheeks, he could have played Santa with the addition of a red suit and white beard.
“What can I do for you two? Is everything all right?” His bushy eyebrows pulled together as his bright eyes flicked from me to Avery and back to me.
“Everything is fine,” Avery said. “We just wanted to see the necklace. You know the one that Quinn found in the cabin? West said that you took it back from his property room and that you had it here. I’ve been looking into it, and I just wanted to?—”
She stopped at the morose shake of Harvey’s head.
My cop’s gut pinged. Hard.