Chapter Twelve Nic #2
“I didn’t atta—” She shakes her head. “Never mind. I tried to, but you kept running away.”
“Oh.” I listen as she tells me how she emailed her old editor again after the bar.
How they ended up talking on the phone, Harriet pitching the idea, putting her reputation on the line for me—for Sara.
It’s just starting to really sink in, how hard she went to bat for us, when she mentions a conversation she overheard—
“Wait, you overheard what? Again, Harriet—why didn’t you tell me this before?”
She has the decency to look ashamed. “You were mad at me!”
“I’m still mad at you.” Though, I have to admit, less so than before.
“Well, I’m telling you now, okay? Anyway, she was excited about the concept. Though I did have to sort of fudge a couple details. But it’s okay. She gave me the green light, and now I can—”
I interrupt. “We.”
She pauses. “We?”
“Sara’s my sister. Her arraignment is in four days. If you think I’m not doing this with you, you’ve lost your damn mind, sweetheart.” The word slips out of my mouth before I can stop it. Sweetheart. I haven’t called her that in eight years.
Her cheeks redden, and our eyes lock for a long moment—too long—my mouth going dry.
“You really want to help?” Harriet asks after a long moment.
I tear my eyes away from hers and grab my cup.
I take a sip of coffee, stalling to gather myself before I answer.
What the hell was that? Have I lost my mind?
Clearly, I’m still attracted to her; I’m a big enough man to admit it.
But I’m no longer a seventeen-year-old virgin.
I need to control myself, keep in mind that empty fucking look in her eyes when she said we never slept together.
Right.
“I do,” I say. “Your article will give Sara’s case some much-needed exposure. And once people read about it, they’ll have to see something shady is going on. So what’s the plan?”
“Well.” Harriet tugs in her chair and leans across the table.
“First, we need to prove that the police didn’t do their due diligence.
Did they look at anyone else or just immediately focus on Sara?
From what I understand from Maggie, most of the evidence against her is circumstantial.
Like, any defense attorney worth their salt could get the fingerprints from the knife tossed. ”
“Even more reason to do this then. Maybe we can get the attention of a decent lawyer who’d be willing to take the case for cheap.”
“Oh, good point.” She takes a sip of her drink. “From everything I heard on that beach and how things have shaken out over the last week, it’s clear the police are hurrying to pin this on Sara—but why? Is it because of the project Sharkey mentioned? If so, what is it?”
I can’t believe I’m about to suggest this: “Doesn’t your ex-boyfriend work for the LIPD?”
She cringes. “Technically, he works at the sheriff’s office on the mainland, but yeah. They brought him in for this.”
“Maybe you should talk to him. He might let something slip about the case.”
Harriet’s eye twitches. “I thought about that, but what if he’s involved with whatever Sharkey’s tied up in?”
“Still worth trying,” I say, hating every word.
“I guess.”
I smile like I’m not dying a little inside, sending Harriet back into the arms of her ex. Maybe they can thank me in their wedding vows.
“Also.” She lowers her voice. “I’ve been thinking about the timeline.”
I set my cup down in front of me. “Same. I actually wrote it all out last night, but I don’t see how it helps.”
“Well, it made me realize something. George was outside during a torrential downpour, but he hated the outdoors. In fact, he hated discomfort of any kind. So, ipso facto, what—or who—managed to lure him out there?” Her cheeks are flushed, her brown hair loose and wild around her head.
“I’m thinking George knew that what was going to be discussed was sensitive enough that he didn’t want to risk being overheard. ”
That makes sense. “Then it couldn’t have been Sara! They didn’t even know each other.”
“Except the cops will say they did. Martin told me about those LinkedIn posts—”
Martin has such a big mouth when he drinks. I interrupt. “That was just a shitty coincidence.”
She holds up a hand. “Okay, I can believe that, but it’s what the cops would say. That she got him alone on the beach and WHAM!”
She slams her hands down flat against the tabletop, and my coffee jumps, a splash of dark liquid spraying across the center of my T-shirt.
“Shit!” I grab a napkin but only manage to smear it.
Harriet winces. “Sorry. If you dab, it’ll come out more easily—no, like this.” She grabs a napkin and climbs halfway across the table, wiping up my T-shirt. Her hair swings down, and a handful of strands whisper against my forearm, soft and gentle. She smells so good, like lavender and citrus.
I wonder what would happen if I twisted them around my hand, pulled her close and—
She abruptly pulls back, clearing her throat. Her cheeks are red. “So yeah. That’s what I was thinking about the timeline.”
The air in front of me suddenly seems very cold. I cough, trying to steady myself. “Right. But I still don’t see how it helps. It doesn’t even narrow down our list of suspects. Didn’t a ton of people have issues with him he wouldn’t have wanted to discuss in public?”
I push my fingers into my temples. My head’s throbbing again.
Am I being an idiot by insisting on doing this with her?
What if we end up crosswise with the cops and get thrown behind bars too?
Harriet would probably hire some big-shot attorney from the city to defend her, and I’d be stuck with Barry.
My parents would drop dead from the stress.
But I encouraged my mom to take the job for Harriet’s party, and now Sara’s in jail. Logically, I know those things aren’t connected, but it sure feels like they are. It feels like by wanting to see Harriet one more time, I unwittingly pushed over the first domino and the rest came crashing down.
“Okay,” I say. “So you need to get in front of your ex-boyfriend”—she rolls her eyes—“but what should I do? I gotta go help my mom with a couple things at the office, but then I’m free. Unfortunately, most of our upcoming jobs have canceled since Sara’s arrest.”
“Good question.” Harriet taps her finger against her chin. “Let’s brainstorm. First—our suspects. The gate to the beach had a code, and George changed it daily. The only people with it the day of the party were my mom, George, me, and…”
“Us,” I say. “The caterers.”
She grimaces. “Yeah. So if it wasn’t any of you—”
“It wasn’t!” I snap.
“Of course it wasn’t,” she says quickly. “Which means George must have been killed by a guest who went out to the beach through the house.”
“Hang on,” I say. “If they went through the house, how did they get outside and then back inside without anyone noticing? The only way to the beach is through the living room, right?”
Harriet shakes her head. “There’s a door in the basement.”
I straighten. “Well, there couldn’t have been many people who knew about that door, right? That can help us narrow things down.”
“Unfortunately, George insisted on giving tours of the entire house to pretty much everyone who ever entered. Lots of people had seen it.”
My shoulders slump. “Shit.”
“Yeah. So back to the guests. What was their relationship like with George? Take my mom. She worshipped him. Relied on him for far too many things, in my opinion. I would be absolutely shocked if she’s our killer, so I think she can go way down on the bottom of our list. No motive.
Then there’s Luke Dalio, his business partner.
You’ve heard about the high-rise hotel George was trying to build on the old Windswept Motel property? ”
“Yeah, of course. Mom’s talked my ear off about it. I don’t know if your side of the island is aware, but everyone over here hates that idea.”
The Windswept Motel sat on that land for the better part of eighty years, across an inlet from Atlantic City.
Tourists loved it—it offered both small-town charm and easy access to AC’s nightlife—but a couple years ago, it burned down in a massive fire caused by faulty wiring.
It was pretty horrific—several people were severely injured, and a kid almost died.
A few months later, the owners ended up selling off the land to George and moving down to Florida.
George’s plan for it only came out later: a giant high-rise hotel complex, which he claimed would finally make Logan Island relevant.
Except when he put the proposal in front of the zoning board and town council, he was immediately denied.
He lost his shit and has been fighting with them ever since.
“Yeah, I know,” Harriet says, a little haughtily for someone who lived off island for almost a decade.
“My point is that George had more experience than Luke figuring out how to slice through red tape. Luke will be lost without him. Plus, Luke isn’t the kind of guy who’d get his hands dirty. Not the murdering type.”
I’m getting impatient. “Okay, so who do you think is our killer?”
Harriet chews on her lip. “As I mentioned to Detective Jones, Barbara Patterson is definitely someone to consider. She despised George. She’s heading up an antidevelopment group and was always calling the cops on his construction sites, digging through records to try and prove that he was dirty.
I could see her getting angry enough to do it. ”
“Harriet, Patterson is, like, eighty,” I say.
“Don’t be ageist. Old people can be brutal. Plus…” She snatches up her phone, types something, then spins it so I can see the screen. “According to Google, it doesn’t take much strength to stab someone. Especially with a very sharp knife.”
“Well, shit. Sara sharpened those things daily. Actually.” An idea is sprouting in my mind.
I have doubts about Patterson being our murderer, but Harriet could be onto something in a broader sense.
“My mom and Mrs. Patterson go way back. I could ask Mom what she’s heard from Patterson about it.
See if she knows who else is in that group—and if any of them were at the party. ”
Harriet’s eyes light up. “Great idea.”
Those wide blue eyes. Full pink lips. She looks so innocent, so sweet. I could fall under her spell so easily.
I need to be careful, in more ways than one.
“Thanks,” I say.
She nods. “All right, so you talk to your mom. And I’ll… I guess I’ll see if I can get Kozel to tell me anything about their investigation. We can reconvene tomorrow. Sound good?”
I drop my eyes to the black liquid inside my paper cup, the tiny bubbles rippling to its surface. Remind myself again that the only way I’ll get out of this unscathed is if I keep my distance.
“Sounds good,” I say, watching as the bubbles burst, one by one.