Chapter 10
10
Davis
To no one’s surprise, Sloane gives me the I’m not getting on that thing look when she walks out the back door of the local doctor’s office shortly after five.
She’s in light-blue scrubs with little bears all over them, but I’m not dressed for this isn’t her first argument.
Her first argument shouldn’t be a surprise, given what she asked about our getaway from our wedding, yet it still makes me want to twitch.
And it involves the look she’s giving my motorcycle as I hold out the spare helmet for her.
“I’m not getting on a death trap at dusk, and especially not to go thirty minutes away. A block and out of sight after our wedding, fine. Here, now? No.”
“ Rawk! Death traps blow glitter! Rawk! ”
I cut a look at the parrot, whom I haven’t seen since the wedding, then back at Sloane. “You’re very suspicious of everything.”
“I worked in an emergency room when I lived in Copper Valley.”
Fine.
She wins.
This round.
And it’s more disappointing than I want to acknowledge.
Was I looking forward to a thirty-minute ride, each way, with her arms wrapped around me?
Unfortunately.
There’s something about an overly suspicious woman who doesn’t fall to the ground in appreciation of my mere existence that appeals to me.
Don’t like being worshipped.
Not my thing.
Been there, done that, with letting people down before. Not too keen to do it again.
Especially not the way I did it fifteen years ago.
Much prefer when expectations are kept low.
So this thing where I like Sloane?
It’s just about knowing that she’s tempering her expectations of me so I won’t let her down, or at least so she’ll be expecting it when I do.
It’s probably not about actually liking her.
I’m merely appreciating that she doesn’t treat me like I must be infallible since I was once in a boy band. One that I know she liked.
Big difference.
She walked to work after walking to the museum this morning, so we make our way through the residential neighborhood north of downtown toward her house with the parrot trailing us and making occasional vulgar suggestions.
When we reach her house, she asks if I want to come inside the red brick cottage while she changes.
Fully expected her to tell me to wait outside.
That whole I don’t trust you vibe and all, even if we need to sell our relationship to anyone who might be watching. For her sake more than mine.
But that feeling is also short-lived.
I grab her arm at the wooden door with three small windows making an arch at about my eye level. She has a porch the width of the house, with yellow and orange fall flowers in pots on either side of the door, but something’s not right here.
“Did you leave this open?”
The door’s cracked.
Not a lot, but enough that I notice.
She freezes and takes a half step back, right into me, giving me a whiff of antiseptic mingling with a softer cinnamon scent in her hair. “No.”
“Stay here.”
“Or maybe I did,” she adds.
“Do you usually leave your door cracked?”
“No, but everyone makes mistakes. I’m a little off these days.”
“ Rawk! Intruder alert! Rawk! ”
“Get lost, Long Beak Silver,” she says to the bird, but her voice is high and uneven.
I peer down at her. “Do you leave your porch light on?”
It’s off. In my experience, when people know they’re getting home after dark—and it gets dark early these days—they leave their porch light on.
She visibly shivers as she answers me in a small voice. “Yes. Usually.”
“Stay here,” I repeat. I tug her back so I can go in first.
“Oh my god. Peggy.”
She lunges for the door, but I grab her arm to keep her from going in. “Peggy?”
“My cat. My cat .”
I’m not the buffest guy in the world, but I’m not a weakling either. Lift weights regularly. Use my punching bags to manage stress. Keep up with martial arts practice too. So when Sloane wrenches herself out of my grasp and darts inside before me, I’m mildly startled.
She’s either surprisingly strong herself, or she’s running on straight adrenaline.
“Peggy?” The name barely makes it out of her mouth before she gasps.
And since I’m right on her heels, I can see exactly what has her startled.
An oak foyer table is lying on its side. There’s crushed glass and water and flower bits scattered across the wide-plank wood floor.
“Oh my god,” she whispers.
“Stay here.”
“ I need to make sure my goddamn cat is okay, okay? ”
I turn on my phone’s flashlight and aim it beyond the foyer.
“Peggy?” she whispers. There’s a tremor in her voice that turns into an audible inhalation as I light up the entryway to her little house.
I want to pull her into my arms, drag her out of here, take her somewhere safe, and then hunt down whoever did this and make sure they will never, ever, ever cause harm again.
However necessary.
After finding her cat for her.
But I breathe through the anger and focus on the immediate problem. “Where would it be?”
“She. She’d be in my bedroom.”
She takes two steps, then freezes, and I hear the distinct sound of teeth chattering.
Fuck.
Fuck .
“What does she look like?” I ask Sloane. “Short hair? Long? What color? How big is she?”
She doesn’t answer.
I push past her, carefully avoiding the water and broken glass while I head in the direction I assume is her bedroom, but I don’t make it three steps before a soft meow stops me.
“ Peggy !” Sloane drops to her knees, giving me half a heart attack at the thought that she might be kneeling in broken glass, and a three-legged gray tabby dashes to her. “Oh my god, you’re okay. My precious baby. You’re okay.”
A sob wrenches out of her chest.
A lump forms in my own throat.
Later , I tell myself. Feel it later. “Can she go outside?”
Sloane buries her face in the cat’s fur. “No.”
“Just for now? With you holding her? I’ll make a call. Make sure the parrot’s gone.”
She growls softly while another sob racks her body. Seems like she’s trying to hold it in.
I get that.
Held in a few too many things of my own over the years.
I squat down beside her, my entire body alert. “Sloane. I need to check the house, and you should wait outside.”
“We should call Chester.” Two sobs, but no more. She’s clearly fighting for control of her emotions.
“Who’s Chester?”
“Sheriff’s deputy. He’s Tillie Jean’s cousin.” She sucks in a deep breath, her face still buried in the cat. “If the goats aren’t causing trouble anywhere, he can probably be here in five minutes. Probably.”
That’s another thing about Shipwreck.
Someone let goats loose here a few years back, and they wander everywhere. Tillie Jean campaigned for mayor with the pledge of catch-and-release after fixing all of them so they quit procreating.
If anyone in Shipwreck leaves a door open, a goat gets in.
It’s the way of the town.
Surprised me they weren’t all over everywhere at the wedding on Sunday. Must’ve been a hell of a roundup campaign.
Which isn’t important.
What’s important is making sure whoever did this isn’t still here and didn’t leave any surprises.
I rise and head deeper into the house.
“Seriously, I’m calling Chester,” Sloane says. “ Wait . He can deal with—I said wait .”
“Call him and wait outside.”
“ Davis .”
“If I get murdered, do me one last favor and tell Nigel to fuck all the way off and let you live your life the way you want to live it.”
I’m not going to get murdered.
If whoever did this was still here when we arrived, they had to have heard us coming.
But more likely, they knew when Sloane would be at work and cleared out long before now.
“You’re an a—asshole sometimes, you know that?” She sounds farther behind me, like she’s moving herself and the cat out onto the porch.
“Do my best.”
I stride carefully deeper into the house as I hear her talking on her phone. “Ch-Chester. It’s Sloane. S-someone broke into m-my house.”
I turn left into her living room and text my sister.
Someone broke into a museum volunteer’s house.
I don’t mention that it’s the same volunteer we saw this morning behind the museum.
Vanessa’s already suspicious, and I don’t need her crap, even if I want her help.
A small-town sheriff’s deputy is fine, but I want better resources. Especially since the sheriff’s office didn’t take Saturday’s break-in at the museum seriously.
Naturally, Vanessa doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t mean she’s ignoring me.
Could mean she’s busy.
More likely means she’s doing whatever she’ll do her own way without telling me because she’s annoyed that I’m involving myself in what’s going on here in Shipwreck.
My friends think I’m secretive.
I have nothing on my twin.
Not that they’d know since she wasn’t really a part of the crew growing up.
I step carefully around the couch cushions—lavender with a funky circle pattern on them—and the overturned white distressed wood end tables and coffee table. The large-screen TV hung on the wall over a gas fireplace is shattered.
I pass through a small dining room with wall hangings littering the table and three of the six chairs overturned, then into the kitchen.
All of the drawers are pulled out, their contents spilled everywhere. Cabinets ransacked. Two oak cabinet doors hanging off their hinges. The oven’s open. So is the microwave.
“Davis?” Sloane calls from the front of the house.
“Stay outside.”
“I didn’t mean to call you an asshole. You’re annoying, but you’re not an asshole, and I’d really like you to not get murdered.”
“All good.”
“Seriously? Is that how you react every time someone calls you names?”
“Not my problem what people think of me.”
“That’s very enlightened, but enlightenment won’t keep you from being murdered.”
Dammit. She almost made me smile. And this is not a smiling situation. “Stay outside.”
I take a side door from the kitchen into the laundry room, which leads into a closet scattered with more scrubs, sweaters, jeans still on hangers, and boxes of pictures overturned all over the floor. I pick my way around the mess and into a modern primary bathroom with a claw-foot tub, large tile floor, and marble double sinks.
Whoever did this left no cabinet unsearched. They pulled the shower door off its hinges too.
And the bedroom attached to the bathroom is as messy as the rest of the house.
“Who— why ?” Sloane says from the main bedroom doorway.
She’s hugging her cat tight enough that it yowls while her gaze sweeps around the room.
The queen-size mattress crookedly hangs off the rustic wood frame. A floral quilt and ivory sheets and blankets are tossed about. Her underwear is everywhere.
So is an impressive collection of dildos and vibrators.
Some of them…quite large. All of them in different colors.
Ignore them ignore them ignore them .
I picture Sloane spread out on the bed, toy between her legs, eyes glossy, thinking about me?—
Stop it .
Breathe .
Focus .
There’s a framed painting haphazardly tossed across a tipped-over rocking chair, with one armrest poking through the canvas.
I bite my tongue to keep from asking if she believes me now.
It’s more productive to make two phone calls to get security on her house and someone in for cleanup.
Tomorrow.
Maybe the next day.
After I call Vanessa and ask her to have someone do a more thorough search of the scene once the local sheriff’s done with it.
She has connections everywhere.
She can get the best. And I’ll return any favors that need returning for it.
Don’t like asking for favors, especially outside of my small, trusted circle.
But I’ll offer my sister anything she wants to help find who did this, including making it up to whoever can get her the information I want.
“Anything valuable here?” I ask Sloane, pretending I can’t see any of the various dildos in all sizes and colors of the rainbow.
Her eyes are shiny as she points to the torn painting. “Tillie Jean did that for?—”
She breaks off as her voice cracks again.
My fingers curl into fists.
If the blond caveman did this, it’s the last thing he’ll do on this earth.
And I’m battling the desire to destroy him with a desperate need to hug Sloane.
Much like I don’t ask for favors, I don’t hug people outside my group.
They’re not safe.
Not trustworthy.
But fuck , I want to hug her.
Instead, I shove my fists into my pockets. “She’ll fix it or make another one. Let’s wait outside.”
She sweeps a glance around the room, and her face goes beet red.
Like she, too, is noticing that all of her adult toys are on display.
Focus. Focus. Focus .
“Can I—” she starts, then shakes her head, tossing her long copper hair as something new takes hold.
Confidence.
Rebellion.
Fuck-it -ness.
Probably some anger too.
Good.
She’s gonna need that.
I manage to steer her toward the front of the house without touching her. “Do you have any enemies? Or were you storing museum artifacts here?”
Her shoulders visibly tighten, then sag, and her breath comes out in a quick whoosh .
“Sloane?”
She visibly shivers as she walks through the front door onto the porch.
Sniffles again too.
Fuck .
I curl my fingers so tightly into my palms that my short nails dig into my skin to keep from reaching for her.
“So you’re right.” Her voice is dull. “Someone’s taking this treasure hunt very seriously.”
Her gaze swings sharply to me as she abruptly halts halfway down the porch stairs. “Or someone wants it to look like someone’s taking this treasure hunt very seriously.”
I probably deserve that kind of suspicion. “Spent the morning at my place. Beck came out. He left. Saw you at the bakery. Spent the rest of the afternoon at Crusty Nut.”
“Quick alibi.”
“You ever been in trouble?”
She blinks.
I watch her, waiting, wondering what has her surprised by the question.
Or if she relates to it.
Huh. Is she a recovering troublemaker too? I repeat my question, softer. “ Have you been in trouble?”
“Have you?” she fires back.
“Yep.”
“Real trouble, or you just did something normal and human that people had a bad reaction to because it wasn’t what they wanted you to do, so you just felt like you were always in trouble?”
“That’s a very specific question.”
“I’ve lived a very specific life. How much trouble have you been in? Do you have a criminal record?”
“No, but only because I had money.”
Usually I’m the one watching someone until they crack.
Not right now.
And right now, the back of my neck is getting hot.
I’m not normally that forward with practical strangers.
It’s sympathy for her being in a shitty situation that likely isn’t her fault and nearly certainly is related to Thorny Rock’s treasure.
Tell me what you had in your house .
She had something here.
Her body language is incredibly easy to read, and I hit a nerve when I asked her if she was storing something for the museum here.
I look at her, silently telegraphing the demand that I know better than to put into words.
Don’t need to look like a dick by ordering her to confess it to me out loud.
“ Rawk! Eat a bag of dicks! Rawk! ” The parrot’s voice is farther away.
Good thing.
I don’t want to see the parrot meet the cat.
Sloane looks out across the street like she’s thinking the same thing, then resumes walking down the four steps to her well-trimmed but browning lawn, still holding her cat. “I can’t decide if that means you’re more or less likely to have done this yourself.”
“What I want is at someone else’s house.”
She eyes me again.
Did I say having a woman suspicious of me was enjoyable?
I was mistaken.
This is too far.
A sheriff’s car pulls to the curb, and Sloane lets out a heavy breath.
I let out a slower breath as a familiar face pops out of the car.
So that’s Chester.
He was shooting me looks all afternoon at Crusty Nut.
Alibi verified.
He hitches his uniform pants up, goes ruddy in the cheeks, and looks at Sloane. “Someone did a B and E on you, huh? That hasn’t happened around here in at least four years.”
Fantastic.
“Except for Saturday night at the museum,” I remind him.
He shifts another look at me but doesn’t answer.
“You have a forensics crew?” I press.
He ignores me and talks directly to Sloane. “Welp, let’s go have a look-see.”
I suck in a deep breath so I don’t mutter anything I’ll regret later.
Like Fuck on a platter, have a fucking look-see?
“A look-see ?” Sloane’s voice gets higher. “Davis is right. Where’s the forensics crew? Someone tossed my house , Chester. That’s not worthy of a look-see .”
“He makes me nervous, okay?” Chester blurts. “He was my favorite. And now he’s?—”
The deputy gestures to me, as if to say now he’s right here .
“Oh my god,” Sloane mutters again.
If I squeeze my fists any harder, I’ll draw blood. “I’ll go take a walk.”
“You’re a witness,” Chester says.
“Happy to give a statement after you have your look-see.”
I stroll down the center walk from Sloane’s house to the sidewalk, ignore the images of her sex toys that keep popping into my head unbidden, then hang a right, without him stopping me.
“Shouldn’t you wear gloves?” Sloane says to him as I’m walking away.
“ Psst ,” someone else says.
I pause.
“Over here,” they whisper.
The neighbor to Sloane’s right has her door cracked and is gesturing to me. She’s maybe four foot ten if she’s an inch, with tight white curls on her head, more wrinkles than an elephant, and the combination of her large glasses and the porch light makes her eyes seem larger.
I head up her walkway to her front door in the rapidly darkening evening. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Are you the guy marrying Sloane on Saturday?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I saw another guy at her house earlier, and?—”
Thank fuck for small towns and retired people. “What did he look like?”
She squints at me with watery brown eyes like she’s debating if she wants to tell me.
I actively suppress a frustrated sigh and pull my phone out. One quick search later, I hold it out to her. “That him?”
“It is! ”
Fuck.
“You know him?” she asks. “Ohhh, I’ve been reading these why choose romances where the woman hooks up with multiple guys. Is Sloane having the time of her life? Is she actually marrying two or three of you on Saturday, but they’re telling me it’s just one because they think I’m too old to handle how young people do things these days? I’m so jealous. These old bones can’t even handle my vibrator anymore.”
Sloane has at least four vibrators. Which I need to not remember, ever. “Maybe try a lower setting.”
She snorts. “Oh, you think I haven’t tried that? Almost broke my wrist even then. Take it from me, young man. Take your calcium and keep lifting weights.”
“Will do. Thanks. You willing to tell the deputy over there about who you saw?”
She squints at me through her glasses, then peers past me to Sloane’s house. “Is that the single deputy?”
“Is Chester single?”
She gasps. “ Chester’s her third? I’m telling his wife. I’m telling his wife right now .”
“Sloane’s house was broken into sometime today.”
She gasps again. “While she was having a threesome with all of her fiancés?”
I look over at Sloane’s house.
Can’t see as much now.
No porch light on.
But there’s a flashlight bouncing around the living room windows from the inside.
“Sloane,” I say.
“What?” comes the short reply from her porch.
I almost smile. That’s more like the normal cranky I appreciate out of her. “Your neighbor saw someone.”
“Convenient,” she mutters loudly enough for her voice to carry.
“Are you having a why choose romance next door?” the older lady calls. “Are you actually marrying more than one man on Saturday?”
“No, Mrs. Kapinski, but someone did break into my house,” Sloane calls back.
“He was breaking into your house?” a guy calls from somewhere else on the street. “I saw a dude hanging out when I got home for lunch. I thought it was weird since you’re engaged to the lost Bro Code guy, but like Mrs. K. says, if we didn’t even know you were dating him, how many other fiancés are you keeping from us?”
“Are you serious right now? Someone broke into my house , and you want to know if I’m living out one of our book club books?”
“Somebody has to be,” Mrs. Kapinski says. “We want it to be you.”
Chester’s flashlight bobs in the doorway, lighting up the electrician’s van across the street. “You saw someone, Vinnie?”
“Yeah, guy looked familiar,” Vinnie calls back. “But I can’t place him.”
“This young man knows who he is,” Mrs. Kapinski yells. “I think they’re having a polyamorous lover’s quarrel over who gets to say vows first.”
They’d be hilarious if Sloane’s house hadn’t been trashed.
“Can you ask him who it is?” Chester says to Sloane. “I, ah, need to go call in for backup.”
“It’s your freaking job ,” Sloane says.
“Yeah, and…”
Whatever he mutters doesn’t carry over the yard.
Doesn’t matter.
Pretty sure I know what he’s saying.
And he’s the missing Bro Code guy .
Basic gist of it.
So fun, being the missing Bro Code guy .
Never been missing. Anyone who’s needed to know where I am has always known.
And I’m in Shipwreck often enough that the deputy fucking knows I’m not missing.
“Also, you can’t stay here tonight,” Chester adds. “It’s a crime scene. Like, a real one. Not the kind where Tillie Jean calls and complains that Cooper left a crime scene at her house.”
I don’t hear Sloane answer, but I feel a shiver ripple the air.
Highly doubt she’d want to stay there tonight.
I wait until Chester’s at his car, then I bid Mrs. Kapinski a good night with whatever she needs to make it a good night, and cross the lawn back to Sloane’s house.
She’s sitting on the front step, shoulders sagging.
The cat’s audibly purring.
No coat, so I shrug out of mine and drape it over her shoulders. “Go ask Vinnie if it was Patrick Dixon.”
That’s a look.
Lucky I’m not shriveling up into the crusted remains of a dead toad right now.
“Why the hell ?—”
“He was outside the museum this morning.”
She stares at me.
I stare back.
She doesn’t crack, but after one of the longest games of don’t blink I’ve ever played, she looks away and pulls my coat tighter around her while balancing the cat.
“Why?” she says quietly.
“Why was he there?” I clarify.
“Why all of this ?”
“Human nature to want to find a treasure. Even if it doesn’t exist.”
She slides another look at me. “Blow through all of your boy band money?”
I snort in amusement before I can stop myself. That also doesn’t usually happen with people I haven’t known my whole life either. “No.”
“So you just want to find a treasure for the fun of it.”
There’s no right answer to that question.
No, Sloane, I want to find the treasure to end the curiosity about it so no one else finds out the secret I know that could end Shipwreck as you know it .
“Yep,” I say.
“I don’t believe you.”
That makes two of us. “You have a place to stay tonight?”
She’s still staring at me, but a visible shiver makes her shoulders twitch. “I can find a place.”
“Mine’s away from all of this.”
“Are you offering me a place to stay, or are you bragging?”
“Offering.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Good picture opportunity for Nigel and your grandmother. We’re getting married Saturday. We should be living together.”
“And?”
“And I’ll be sitting outside wherever you go anyway to make sure your ex doesn’t try any more shit.”
“ Why ?”
“He hurt Ellie, and now he’s doing bad shit.”
She flinches.
I watch her, but she doesn’t look back at me this time.
“Wasn’t your fault he was a cheat,” I add on a hunch.
“It feels like it was my fault.”
“Why?”
“Because—because it does, okay?”
“Stupid answer.”
“When you grow up being told everything’s your fault and you need to do better and be perfect, it’s fucking hard to forgive yourself when your decisions hurt good people.” Her whole body freezes, and she pinches her eyes shut. “Never mind. Forget I said that.”
Not a fucking chance.
I lift my phone again and hit call on Ellie’s number.
She picks up on the second ring, and in very Ellie-like fashion, she doesn’t bother with a hello . “What the fuck , Davis?” she hisses, which probably means she’s far enough away from her kids that they can’t hear her dropping the f-bomb. “Everyone’s worried sick about you, and this feels like when no one would talk about why you all?—”
“You remember Sloane Pearce?” I interrupt.
There’s a long pause. “Yes. Why?”
“She’s here. You’re on speaker.”
“Seriously?”
It’s official. The rumor mill that I’m marrying Sloane hasn’t reached all of my friends yet.
I nudge my pretend bride and wave my phone at her so she can see the name on the screen.
“Hi, Ellie,” Sloane says hesitantly.
“Is he giving you shit? Tell me if he’s giving you shit. My brother’s out there in Shipwreck right now, and I can be there in an hour if I need to kick his ass.”
“Kick…whose…ass?”
“Davis’s. I’d kick Beck’s ass too if you needed me to, but I suspect he’s too busy to give you shit. Also, giving people shit isn’t his style. Not that giving people shit is Davis’s style, but I hear he’s had…a day.”
“Davis is only giving me mild shit. It’s more like indigestion.”
Ellie snorts. “That’s how we all feel.”
“Sitting right here,” I remind her.
“It is,” she says. “You go off and do your secret-secret stuff, and then you show up and you’re all, hey, Wyatt, can you get me four VIP tickets to the air show? , and you don’t say why, and you don’t show up for the air show, and then the next thing I know, Beck’s reporting you’re about to do something stupid. Including getting married , even if he doesn’t know to whom .”
“She’s very blunt,” I say to Sloane.
I almost get a smile.
“Ellie, are you mad at Sloane for what Patrick Dixon did to you?”
“ What? No. I’m pissed at him for what he did to both of us. I mean, I was. I don’t think about him at all anymore. Oh my god. Sloane. Tell me you’re not dating him again. I mean, if you are and you’re happy, I’ll…be…happy for you? As happy as I can be? I really think you can do better.”
“That’s not the problem,” Davis says. “She’s smarter than that.”
“Oh.” Ellie pauses but only briefly. “ Ohh. Oh, no. Oh, no no no. Sloane, you aren’t holding yourself responsible for a shithead man’s actions, are you? It’s not your fault. I was never mad at you. Jealous because you’re gorgeous, yes, but I’m only human. I think you’re awesome.”
Sloane eyes me.
Then the phone.
She presses one palm into an eye socket while clinging to the cat with her other hand. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“We’re coming out this weekend with Levi and Ingrid and their kids, and I’m buying you a beer at the Grog,” Ellie says. “Badasses stick together. Don’t waste one more minute feeling like that asswipe was your fault. Seriously. He’s not worth it. Why do the men never feel as guilty as we do?”
Sloane hugs her cat tighter and huddles into herself as much as she can. “Thank you,” she says again.
“Uh-oh. I think one of the kids just got Wyatt in the bathtub. Gotta go. Davis. Do not be stupid . I’ll call your sister. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Good luck with that,” I reply.
“Don’t underestimate me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Have fun with bath time.”
I disconnect.
Sloane sucks in a shaky, audible breath.
“Backup’s on the way,” Chester calls. “We’re gonna need to get statements from everyone.”
Vinnie’s wandered over from across the street. “I saw someone. You want me to describe him? I’m real good at drawing too. I can take a stab at it. Also, I called the mayor. The new mayor. She’s freaking out and coming over too. Gotta have everyone involved when there’s a crime around here, you know? All hands on deck.”
Sloane sighs again.
I feel that one.
It’s gonna be a long night.
And that’s before the next car that comes screeching to a halt in front of Sloane’s house.