Chapter 15
When Barnaby, armed with the name of the best criminal defense lawyer in Maine, arrived at the lockup the next morning, he found Marigold snoozing in Luke’s chair, her boots propped on the desk. The two Harbortown detectives were nowhere to be seen.
He gently nudged the sole of Marigold’s boot and she came awake with a start. “You here to bail them out?” she asked, swinging her feet off the desk.
“Them? I’m just here for Tamara’s interview. They postponed it to this morning.”
“You’re going to leave Gabby in here to rot? Not very neighborly of you.”
“Gabby?” Without asking for permission, he strode to the little window and bent to look inside.
His heart swelled at what he saw. Tamara was curled on her side, her head resting on Gabby’s thigh, sound asleep.
Gabby appeared to be writing something in her head, judging by the way her fingers tapped on her other thigh.
“What’s she doing in there? Never mind. Yeah, I’ll bail her out, if I can.
Doesn’t a judge have to sign off on it?”
“We’re a lot more casual out here. No official charges have been filed against Gabby. We contacted Judy Griffin and she couldn’t find you, but she said you wouldn’t want to press charges.”
“For what?”
“She stole a golf cart and took it for a joyride. Dire stuff. Real threat to the community.”
Barnaby let out the first laugh he’d enjoyed since Tamara had gotten arrested. “Yeah, we’re good. Do you know how many Lightkeeper guests have done that same thing? No charges. I’ll bail her out.”
“Actually we’ll just let her out. I’m sure she’s had time to contemplate the error of her ways. That’s really the only point of this lockup—and to keep inebriated people from falling into the ocean.”
As Marigold unlocked the door, Gabby sat up, careful not to dislodge Tamara’s head.
“You’re free to go, Gabby,” said the assistant constable.
“What about Tamara?”
Barnaby could have kissed her for that question, and for the gentle protective hand she settled on his grandmother’s arm. The emotions that gesture sparked in his chest scared him a little.
“That’s another matter. But Barnaby’s here for the big interview, and those two from Harbortown will be back in a minute. Tamara,” Marigold said, more loudly, waking his grandmother. “Time to get up, you have some police officers wanting to chat with you.”
Tamara wiped the sleep from her eyes as she sat up. “Barnaby!” The gladness in her voice nearly made him tear up. She seemed much less terrified and lost than when he’d last seen her, and he gave all the credit to Gabby.
She turned to Gabby, who was hiding a yawn. “Don’t forget about the owl, dear, will you?”
“I won’t,” Gabby promised as she helped Tamara up. “Or the mouse in the grandfather clock.” They both got to their feet and made their way toward Marigold, who was holding the door open for them.
“What’s going on?” Barnaby murmured in Gabby’s ear, letting Marigold take charge of Tamara.
“She wants me to stay at her house until she gets back.”
“Give me a minute,” Barnaby murmured to Marigold as she guided Tamara to the “interrogation room,” which was more or less a kitchenette slash break room.
“Take your time. The Harbortown crew got held up by a call from their chief. They’ll be a few minutes.”
Good. It wouldn’t take long for him to tell Gabby to back off. The warmth he’d felt when he’d seen Tamara’s head on her lap had evaporated in a flash at the thought of Gabby poking through Tamara’s things.
He followed Gabby out of the office into the brilliant sunshine of the hottest day so far this summer. “What did you do?” he demanded, causing her to spin around to face him.
She lifted her chin. “I stole a golf cart and paid for my crime with a night in jail. Do you have a problem with that?”
“You did it to get close to my grandmother, didn’t you? You’re trying to pick her brain for information. She told me you were asking about her family lineage. What is it you’re after?”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “Watch yourself, Carmichael. You’re back to sounding like a Carmichael instead of a human being.”
He ground his back teeth together. That was a low blow. He wasn’t speaking as a Carmichael, he was speaking as a…well, a Brown. “What are you after?” he repeated. “If it’s for your damn podcast, forget about it. Her situation is not fodder for your career.”
She set her hands on her hips, looking ready for a fight despite her disheveled bedhead appearance.
“It must be nice, knowing you don’t have to worry about a career.
You’re set for life, aren’t you? You can travel the world and do anything you want.
You can hike until your feet fall off, then hire a helicopter to pick you up and take you to a spa in Bali to recover. ”
That was a highly distorted version of an actual incident in his life. Through a haze of anger, he realized she must have researched him. “That’s not what happened. I rescued someone whose feet got injured and called in a chopper.”
Her eyes gleamed, since she now had him on the defensive, explaining himself rather than interrogating her. He needed to regain the advantage. “Why should you complain about resources? Your mother is a state senator and your father’s a federal judge.”
She wasn’t the only one who could research.
Her mouth fell open. “You googled me?”
“As soon as you met Tamara, yes. Okay, maybe before,” he admitted. He felt heat on his face. Must be the sun. Certainly not embarrassment. “Let’s get back to the point. I’m very protective when it comes to my grandmother.”
“Why do you think I’m trying to hurt her? I’d never want to do that!” she cried.
“Okay. Okay. My bad. Maybe I’m coming on too strong.” Damn the Carmichael in him. It came out at the most inconvenient moments. “I’m just checking in to see what your intentions are regarding Tamara.”
And now he was sounding oddly formal, as if he were a Victorian father confronting a potential suitor.
He watched amusement flicker across her face—so pretty, with her shining eyes and delicately carved features.
“My intentions are honorable, I promise.” She hesitated, then beckoned him farther away from the building, behind an overgrown lilac bush.
Although it was no longer blooming, a faint fragrance still hovered in the air, like a memory of sweetness.
“If I tell you what I’m up to, will you promise to keep it to yourself?”
“I’ll try,” he said warily, “but if it affects Tamara, I can’t promise anything.”
“It does affect her, but not how you think. Heather and I don’t believe that Tamara was involved in Amelia’s death, and we…well, we sort of illegitimately found a possible lead. I wanted to ask Tamara about it while I had the chance. That’s why I got myself arrested.”
He stared down at her, jarred out of his automatic defensiveness regarding Tamara. “You’re trying to clear her?”
“Yes. But this lead is so flimsy, it may not be anything. It’s nothing the police would even bother with.”
“That’s why you didn’t tell my brother, an actual constable?”
Were they trying to solve her case before the police did so their podcast would get all the glory?
Gabby nervously ran her tongue across her lips. “I mean, we will tell him, or the Harbortown police, when it’s the right time. We just wanted to firm it up first and give them more to go on. I was hoping Tamara would give me something to work with.”
“Did she?”
“Maybe. As soon as I get to my computer I’m going to follow up on some things. They took my phone away and the battery died overnight.” She waved her iPhone in the air—its purple case sparkled in the sun—looking so outraged he had to laugh.
“Cruel and unusual, for sure. Is a night without your phone even worse than a night in jail?”
She laughed, and the tension between them eased.
If she was trying to help Tamara, he wasn’t going to get in her way.
The opposite—he wished he could cancel the rest of his day of meetings and tag along.
Standing here with her, shielded by lilac branches, warmed by the sun, unable to look away from her…
his fingers twitched with the urge to touch her skin, just there, next to the curve of her lips.
She cleared her throat, breaking the spell. “You know, that information about my parents isn’t easy to find. It doesn’t come up on a simple Google search. It’s not in any of my online bios. You had to hunt for that.”
“I was curious,” he said uncomfortably. “Not stalking, I promise.”
“What, then?”
Did he owe her the truth? Yes, he decided. Otherwise she would think he was a stalker. “I wanted to know more about you after we had that argument in the conservatory. You were a wild card.”
“You could have asked me.”
“You seemed to dislike me too much for that.”
“I didn’t dislike you.” She hesitated, then added, “You just seemed very arrogant. I don’t like arrogance, especially if it’s aimed at me, like you thought you were better than me.”
Truly shocked, down to his bones, he stared down at her. “Never. I never thought that. I admired you the first moment I saw you. Then we argued and I respected you even more.”
A lilac branch brushed his face and he realized that in his agitation, he’d stepped closer to her, into her personal space.
He tried to step back, but he’d gotten too entangled in the thicket of the lilac bush.
She reached for him, and suddenly they were holding hands and warmth was coursing through his body.
More than warmth. Heat. Desire.
Shit.
He snatched his hand away and took a big stride backwards, never mind the overgrown shrubbery scratching at him. “I…need to get back inside for the interview. Tamara wants me there with her.”
“Okay.”
He couldn’t read her expression. Had he hurt her feelings? That wouldn’t do. “But I’ll be back. Right back.”
“Dude, I’m not waiting here in the lilac bushes for you.”
“Right.” God, this was mortifying. Why was he behaving like a kid with a crush?
He was a grown man who’d had relationships with women on almost every continent.
Why should Gabby’s steady amused gaze be sending him into such a tailspin?
“I just want to explain…” Explain what? That his reaction to her had thrown him on a mental tilt-a-whirl? “We need to talk,” he finally said.
“Well, you know where to find me.” She gave him a sassy wink. Damn her, she must know what effect that would have on him. Was she just toying with him now?
“Yeah, about that…”
They both heard the arrival of Luke’s truck, no doubt carrying the officers who were about to interrogate Tamara.
“You’d better go,” she said softly. “Tamara needs her champion.”
“Ha.” He snorted. “She told you that?”
“She told me a lot of things. It’s amazing what you can find out when you spend the night in jail with someone.”
He would have given anything to stay longer and grill her about what Tamara had said. But he didn’t trust those officers to wait if he wasn’t there. “Just be careful with her things. Obviously Tamara trusts you, but everything in that house is incredibly precious to her.”
“I understand.”
He strode off, brushing lilac branches away from his face, knowing he’d look a mess when he got into that interview room. Also knowing that it might take a few minutes for his raging erection to die down. Now there would be an awkward moment—sorry I was late, I had a hard-on.