6. Scarlett
Scarlett
She shuffled out of bed a lot earlier than I expected, plopping herself down at my little dinette. I reached into the fridge and pulled out two more eggs.
“Do you want scrambled or fried eggs?”
“Fried,” she groaned.
I set about making her eggs and finished cooking the sausage links I had started. “How are you feeling?” I asked her.
“Could be worse.” She shrugged.
“Did you get my message yesterday?” I glanced back at her, but she was looking down at the table, avoiding my eyes. A slight nod was all I got. “Who is he? ”
“Some guy I went to school with. Nothing to worry about.”
“And he followed you to Calla Bay, where you’re visiting your sister?” I placed our plates on the table and pulled out my chair to sit. Aurora shrugged. “He doesn’t sound like someone not to worry about.”
“Did you tell him that I’m staying here?” She shoveled eggs into her mouth, trying to look casual, but the tightness around her eyes told a different story.
“No. I played it off like I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I think my hair gave us away. Still, I didn’t confirm anything.”
She let out a heavy breath, her shoulders sagging with relief. “Thanks. If you see him again, can you just keep telling him I’m not here?”
“Rory.” I pulled her attention to me. “Is this guy dangerous? What’s going on?”
“No. He’s harmless. He’s just not great at being rejected, and I don’t want to deal with it.”
I raised my brows, but that was all she was going to say on the matter. We finished eating our breakfast, the dinging of a text notification breaking the silence that had fallen.
Luke: Morning. Do you have any plans today?
Luke’s name on my phone brightened my mood instantly.
Me: No. I’m off today and tomorrow. A whole weekend free!
Luke: No Eddie this weekend?
Why did I read that with a jealous undertone?
It wasn’t. He was just curious. Luke knew that I was seeing him and was probably surprised that a free weekend didn’t include plans with the guy I was dating.
That was the problem with text messages; the tone was missed, and someone (me) could end up misreading the situation .
Me: We went out last night.
Luke: Where did he take you?
Me: Millie’s.
Me: Speaking of which, I saw something odd.
After the encounter with the smarmy guy at my front door, I almost forgot about my date and running into Captain Langston and Officer Monroe.
Luke: Come with me today. I want to walk the Karrigan scene again. I could use someone to talk things out with and you can tell me about what you saw.
The fluttering sensation in my chest came as no surprise.
It happened every time Luke was around me.
I immediately started picking out my outfit in my head before I shut down that runaway train.
Luke was a married man. He was one of my best friends, but that was all.
He didn’t care what I was wearing, especially to go walk through an old crime scene.
Me: Yeah, of course.
“Scarlett,” Aurora called. She had been saying something, but I completely missed it.
“What? Sorry.” I cringed.
“Things must be going good with Eddie if he’s making you grin like that,” she laughed. I didn’t bother correcting her. “Anyway, I was trying to ask if you’d give me a ride to my car. I got a ride home yesterday, so my car is still at the bar.”
“Look at you, making good choices,” I teased. “Yeah, I just have to get ready. I was heading out anyway.”
Aurora went off to get dressed while I busied myself at the kitchen sink, rinsing our breakfast plates.
Luke: I can pick you up in 30 if that works.
Me: Perfect!
“Be ready in thirty minutes. Luke is going to pick us up,” I called to Aurora.
She popped her head out of the bedroom door, her eyes wide and a scandalized grin on her face. “That was Luke on the phone. Not Eddie.”
“Just get ready,” I huffed, much to Aurora’s amusement.
True to his word, Luke was at my door twenty-seven minutes later.
His gaze raked over me from head to toe.
I had thrown on a pair of jean shorts and a T-shirt that I had tucked in and paired it with a pair of sneakers.
My hair was down, the mass of curls as unruly as ever.
There was nothing interesting about my outfit.
It was practical for where we were heading.
Alana Karrigan had been murdered at a secluded portion of the beach, her body dragged into the abutting woods and semi-hidden behind a fallen tree.
Luke’s eyes did a second sweep from toe to head before landing on my face.
He wore a dark green shirt that made his eyes pop. His jeans hung low on his slim waist, the fabric molded to his muscular thighs. His hair was growing out slightly, a little longer than he usually wore it. The perfect length to run your hands through, just enough to grab hold of…
“Good morning, Aurora.”
I swallowed hard. My thoughts had definitely gotten away from me for a second. My sister was standing behind me, ready to go.
“Morning, Luke.”
“Rory needs a ride to her car. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not.” His eyes were back on me, something different sparkling in them. He looked like he couldn’t make sense of me.
We dropped Aurora off at Courtside’s. As soon as she was out of the car, I told Luke about the guy from last night. I knew Aurora wouldn’t want me bringing it up, but despite her protests that he was harmless, I still felt like Luke needed to be aware.
“Why didn’t you call me last night? I would have swung by. Made sure he was gone.”
“I didn’t want to bother you at home. He didn’t threaten me or Aurora. He just gave me the creeps.”
“I’ll let the guys at the station know. We’ll keep a lookout for him, keep tabs on him. But if he shows up at your apartment again, promise me you’ll call me. Anytime. Day or night. On shift or off. You call me.”
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth, my teeth holding it hostage as I bit into it. Luke turned to me in the car, his gaze dropping to my mouth. The energy around us seemed off. A tension was growing between us, and I didn’t know why. Nothing was different, but for some reason, the air was charged.
“I promise,” I said quickly, trying to diffuse the pressure.
Luke nodded once, turning his head back to the road. The turnoff to the scene was wide but quickly narrowed to nothing more than a path. The asphalt ended, transitioning to a gravel drive. Luke drove in as deep as he could before putting his SUV in park.
“Let’s walk through the woods first and make our way to the beach,” he said.
“Are we looking for something?”
“No. Any evidence is either tagged and locked, or it’s gone. I’m grasping at straws here, Letty. I’m hoping being at the scene will help.”
I took my sunglasses off, hooking them into the collar of my shirt since I didn’t need them under the shade of the trees. “Has anything else come out about the possible missing evidence?”
I didn’t want to call it police corruption. There was probably nothing missing in the first place. And even if there was, what was to say it wasn’t a terrible mistake. It wouldn’t necessarily mean there was a dirty cop.
“No. I talked to Wes, but either he doesn’t have anything yet, or he’s not ready to reveal it. But either way, he isn’t talking.”
Luke stomped through the woods, picking his way to the area where Alana was found.
“Be careful for prickers.”
“Is everything okay, Luke? You seem… tense.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Luke sighed. “Actually, no, not really. The biggest case of my career is hanging in the balance. I might be working with someone whose moral compass points south, which leads me to wonder if I locked up an innocent man. And on top of that…” Luke turned his head back to me, his eyes on mine. “I’m getting divorced.”
“What?” My heart dropped. “Luke, I’m so sorry.”
Even through the years of my unrequited crush, I didn’t want to see Luke’s marriage fail.
I liked Luke… a lot… and I would never wish for anything to make him unhappy.
Twigs snapped underfoot as Luke picked up his walk again.
I followed behind him, placing my feet in the tracks he was leaving behind.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he sighed. “But her getting knocked up by someone else really sealed our fate.”
“Luke.” I pulled on the back of his shirt, stopping him.
He turned to look at me, no tears or sadness in his eyes, just a resigned acceptance.
I burrowed into him, wrapping my arms around his middle, squeezing him tightly.
His arms came around my shoulders and pulled me closer as he leaned his cheek on the top of my head.
The clean scent of his laundry detergent surrounded me, his heart beating strong and steadily against my ear.
“Yeah. That was a blow, not going to lie. That should be my baby she’s carrying, not some other dude’s.”
“Are you sure it’s not? What if—”
“Positive,” he interrupted me. “I’m positive.”
“I’m so sorry, Luke. You don’t deserve that,” I told him.
Juliet was a fool. She had the best man in the world, and she threw it in the trash. She didn’t deserve him. She never had. Her ice-cold heart was poisoning Luke’s kind soul every day.
His hand brushed through the hair by my ear, his chest expanding with his breath. I pulled back, and Luke’s arm tightened for just a moment, keeping me in place, before he let his hands drop.
Now that Luke had opened up about what was on his mind, the tension between us disappeared.
Instantly, it was like we were back to our easy friendship.
Luke and I walked the length of the woods, the beach, and back again for a couple of hours.
Every place that evidence was collected, Luke stopped and recited what they found and what it meant.
“Footprints were found here.” Luke pointed to the marshy land between the beach and Ryan’s house. “Ryan Redmond’s size, the treads matching up with sneakers collected at his house.”
“This is where we found the knife that was used in the murder. No prints left on the weapon,” he said aloud. “Ryan Redmond was seen with a knife matching the description a few months before the murder.”
“A mostly smoked cigarette was left right here. Right by her body. It had been used on her body at some point during the murder. Forensic examination came back inconclusive, but Ryan had that same brand in his possession.”
We stopped at a downed log. A deep feeling of sadness weighed in my belly. After a moment of silence, Luke continued his assessment. “Alana’s body was found here. Traces of Ryan Redmond’s DNA found on her clothing and… inside of her.”
Ryan claimed that it was consensual. The good girl falls for the bad boy and all that. She was sixteen to his nineteen.
“Alright. Let’s get out of here. I don’t think any epiphanies are coming. This case is solid. We have the right guy.” Luke was talking more to himself than to me, but I assured him anyway.
“You’re a great cop, Luke. You followed the evidence and went where it led you.”
“Thanks, Letty.” He threw his arm around my shoulder on the way back to his SUV. He had to back out the length of the gravel drive since it was too tight to turn around, his hand gripping the headrest of my seat as he turned behind him to see.
“You never told me about your date last night,” he said on the drive back.
I instantly recalled seeing Captain and Matt at the restaurant. With everything else, it had completely slipped my mind. It seemed so silly now, but I filled Luke in on what I had seen.
“It just struck me as odd. Captain and Matt at Millie’s together. Have they ever seemed close?”
“No. I actually get the impression that Captain’s not a huge Monroe fan.”
“It wasn’t just that they were having dinner. It felt shady. When they caught my eye, there was no friendly wave—they shifted in their seats and avoided eye contact.”
“What were you wearing?”
“What?” I squealed.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he laughed at himself, hearing the question back. “I just meant… I don’t even know what I meant. I was just trying to picture the scene.”
“Well, I had on a strappy black slip dress and a pair of heeled sandals. My hair was pinned half-up, half-down, so the curls wouldn’t be in my face all night.”
Luke’s jaw tensed, his chest rising and falling with his heavy breaths. “And he took you to Millie’s? Looking like that?” His voice was low.
“I didn’t know that’s where we were going when I got dressed. But it was fine. You know me. Pizza and a beer is my favorite dinner.” I smiled.
“I hope he told you how beautiful you looked.”
How did we even start talking about my date? I only wanted to tell him about seeing the Captain and Matt out to dinner together and their weird behavior.
Oh, that’s right. When he asked me what I was wearing, like that was a normal question.
“Not once,” I answered him honestly. Actually, Eddie had never once said that I looked nice.
“Then he’s an idiot, Letty. I didn’t even see you, and I can tell you, you looked like a vision.”
My traitorous heart thumped wildly behind my ribs.
He just found out that his wife was cheating on him and got pregnant by another man.
He wasn’t even close to divorced yet. Luke had told me I looked pretty a million times, but it was always said so casually.
It made my breath quicken every time, regardless, but a simple “you look nice today” was very different from the man sitting next to me telling me I looked like a vision.
I had thought that nothing was different earlier, but I was wrong. Everything was different. Luke was on his way to being a free man, and I had no idea what that meant.