Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Massey’s Pub smelled like fried shrimp, old wood, and the citrus cleaner Juniper swore by, even though it made Fallon’s eyes sting.
Locals packed the bar like always. Their sunburns fading into stories.
A baseball game murmured on the TV with the sound turned low.
Someone had left their flip-flops under a high-top and forgotten them, which felt exactly right for Calusa Cove.
Fallon took her usual table by the front window and ordered a blackened grouper sandwich and a rum runner with a floater. She wasn’t driving. She lived down the street, across from Harvey’s Cabins, and her yard butted right up against Buddy’s rental.
She checked her cell—still no reply from Buddy.
She put her phone face down.
It was ridiculous to be annoyed. She’d texted him a thank-you—and, okay, a not-so-subtle “coffee or drink sometime”—from the swamp because she’d been riding adrenaline and gratitude and maybe the memory of a man with a kind heart and a generous wallet when it came to her annual fundraiser.
He didn’t owe her anything. It wasn’t an invitation for a date—just casual friends who occasionally texted the not-so-casual sexual innuendos to one another. But lines existed for a reason.
She tucked the phone under her napkin as if that might stop her from looking again.
Sipping her drink, she glanced around the bar at all the usuals. Not much ever changed in Calusa Cove. The town had its fair share of drama, but the people and the nightly routine generally stayed the same.
For years, she’d thought about moving away.
When she’d decided to become a Fish and Wildlife Officer, she figured she’d move north.
Go anywhere but the place Tessa had disappeared.
However, she could never bring herself to leave.
It was as if she had to torture herself with the memory.
Remind herself that it could’ve been—should’ve been—her.
When the Ring Finger Killer had finally been caught—right in their own backyard—she’d thought maybe the mystery behind what happened to her best friend had been solved. Only, of all the trophies Dewey had kept, Tessa’s finger wasn’t among them.
And none of his victims had ever been that young, not even when he’d first started.
The air in her lungs flew out like a wild raven when Buddy stepped into the main dining area with a woman.
She was petite, with shoulder-length hair, dark eyes that missed nothing.
Black jeans. Black tee. No badge, no gun in sight.
She moved like someone who could disappear without leaving a ripple.
The woman laughed at something Buddy said, easy and warm, and Fallon’s stomach did a tiny, stupid drop.
Well. That explained the lack of response.
She took two gulps of her beverage, letting the rum burn as it went down, and reminded herself that Buddy’s romantic choices were none of her business, and that, regardless, she wasn’t looking for Mr. Right. She never was. She lived her life by one rule, and that was to live in the moment.
Juniper—the new owner, since Paul’s wife finally sold and moved out of town—beelined for them with menus.
Buddy scanned the room like it was habit, and his gaze caught on Fallon before she could pretend she hadn’t been watching the door.
He hesitated, said something to the woman beside him, then crossed the room.
“Hey Fallon,” he said with that kind, warm smile that had this weird effect on her that she didn’t want to acknowledge. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine,” she returned the smile, because she could fake it like the best of them. “Massey’s on a Wednesday. Bold move.”
“The grouper’s always good,” he said. “Sterling heard the ribs were good, so now he won’t even try the catch of the day, but that may be CIA talking.”
“Sterling’s CIA? That explains the clean-cut look.”
“It should explain more than that,” he said. “And this is Dovelynn Quinn.” He angled a hand toward the woman approaching. “Goes by Dove. Ex-Army, sniper.”
Dove slid into the third chair without waiting to be asked, flashed a grin that could talk its way past most locked doors, and said, “You saved a life today.” She lifted two fingers to Juniper and asked for two beers and one basket of fries. Juniper nodded like they’d known each other for years.
Despite herself, Fallon found herself smiling. “I had help.”
“From where I stood, you ran the show,” Buddy corrected.
“Is that your way of not saying you’d know how to follow orders if it was you out there in the gator-infested water with me?” Fallon teased, trying to act like this was a normal conversation with an old friend. Because in a way, it was.
Dove laughed. “I’d like to see Buddy take an order from anyone.”
“Just remember, I’m lead in this satellite office,” Buddy said. “You answer to me.”
Juniper delivered beers and fries for them and Fallon’s sandwich. Buddy didn’t touch his glass. Dove did, lifting it in a little salute. “To not dying in the swamp,” she said.
“I’ll drink to that.” Fallon lifted her glass.
They ate and talked around the edges of the day.
Dove told a quick story about a drone that got chased by an osprey, and Buddy asked the kind of neutral questions that showed he cared without delving too deeply into her past in front of present company.
She appreciated that. Not that she’d care.
Everyone knew because she ran the annual Tessa Project.
However, Fallon often got emotional or intense about it, making others uncomfortable.
He also didn’t mention her text. She didn’t either.
When his phone buzzed, he checked it and stood. “Need to confirm tomorrow’s vendor drop,” he said. “Don’t buy the whole bar a round—on me.”
“I make no promises,” Dove said.
He threaded through the crowd toward the back hall and was gone.
Dove watched him go and shook her head. “He’s got a tell when he’s pretending not to worry.”
“Oh?” Fallon stabbed a fry. “What’s that?”
“His shoulders go very Marine—like. Stiff, you know? But he was never a Marine,” Dove said. “It’s his ‘I’m fine, we’re fine, everything’s fine’ posture. Only, he’s coiled too tight to be fine.”
“Do you know what’s bothering him?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Dove said. “It could be the girl you found earlier. It could be the fact the case he worked today dropped us before the job was even done, and right now, our load is light. Buddy hates being idle. Drove Timothy, our boss in the Jacksonville office, nuts.”
Fallon hadn’t seen Buddy in two years, since the opening of the Crab Shack.
And before that, only when he’d been in town working a case.
But they had some text chats, a bunch of late-night phone calls, though that didn’t mean she knew him well.
However, she could tell he wasn’t the kind of man who took to relaxing easily.
“How long have you two been—” she glanced toward the direction he’d gone in “—an item?”
Dove choked on her beer and laughed so hard she had to set the glass down. “Me? With Buddy?” She wiped her mouth, eyes bright with wicked amusement. “He and I work together. He’s technically my boss, and he’s… well… not my type.”
“That felt like a very diplomatic pause.”
“It was me deciding whether to say, ‘he’s too earnest’ or ‘he commits to furniture.’”
“Furniture?”
“He had this chair in the Jacksonville office, and he had to bring it with him. He couldn’t buy a new one.
It had to be that one, and rumor has it, he brought it from the FBI,” Dove said.
“That’s a man who wants a harbor. I’m a storm.
Also, I like ’em rougher around the edges.
” She glanced around the restaurant, “Like—oh, hello.”
Trent Mallor walked in, hat in hand, hair damp from a shower or the river. Either way, he looked like he’d been carved out of sun and bad decisions. He clocked the room, saw Fallon, and tipped his head with a grin that had gotten him out of at least three minor infractions in the last five years.
Dove’s smile turned feral. “That right there is more my style,” she said. “Who is he, and is he single?”
“Name is Trent, and be my guest,” Fallon said, contemplating warning Dove.
Trent wasn’t the worst person—actually, he was just misunderstood.
And while he was a decent man, at the end of the day, he wasn’t going to ever settle down.
Like ever. Then again, Dove seemed like the kind of woman who could handle herself.
Besides, watching Trent try to wriggle away from a woman who could read his tells from sixty yards might improve her evening.
Dove stood, smoothed her tee like she was about to give a TED Talk on heartbreak, and slid toward the entrance. She intercepted Trent cleanly with a “Hey, you look like trouble,” and he laughed, which was the wrong move because Dove’s eyes lit like a cat spotting a laser pointer.
Fallon took a bite of the sandwich and pretended she wasn’t watching.
Buddy returned a minute later, rolling his sleeves like the air had gotten warmer.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. That was Sterling,” Buddy said. “He thinks we need another whiteboard. I told him no one needs another whiteboard.”
“I like a good whiteboard,” Fallon said. “It’s great for visualizing.”
“I prefer lists,” he said. “At least you can fold a list and put it in your pocket.”
They fell into a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly.
She knew him well enough that when he chose his words carefully, or chose not to say anything at all, it was all about letting her—whoever—decide what they talked about, or didn’t talk about.
It was his way of being… respectful. Also annoying.
“I texted you.” Jesus, she wished she hadn’t said anything. If she’d left it alone, it wouldn’t matter. It would’ve just died a quick, easy death. Not this painful death that now required a conversation.