Page 81 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Cole leaves by six in the morning, but only after making me promise to respond to his texts during the day when he checks on me. He tells me that if I don’t, he’ll either come looking for me himself or send patrol units after me.
I wish he was kidding, but he’s not. If Daniel was the type of cop who would talk a jumper off a bridge, Cole’s the type who would lasso the jumper and drag him down.
Subtlety is not his strong suit. Since the last thing I need is Cole barging in with the cavalry while I’m working my case, I make the promise, fully intending to keep it.
I curl up in my upholstered rocker-glider, staring out the window, my third cup of coffee growing cold in my “Sweet Home Alabama” mug. A thousand things are screaming for attention in my mind, and I can’t think for all the noise.
A bomb’s gone off in my world and I’m afraid if I handle this the wrong way, I’ll detonate another one. If I have any chance of salvaging my future with James, I have to get this right.
In order to do that, I need to understand what’s going on. I have to figure it out—at least part of it—before I confront them.
“I will not let one mistake ruin his chances.”
What mistake? And whose was it?
A cardinal alights on a nearby pine branch, and I watch its tittering steps. Its tiny beak opens just enough to release a ripple of music. It flies off, and I yearn to go with it.
God, please show me what to do. I don’t know where to go from here.
Despite what I’m saying, my prayer isn’t actually “show me what to do.” What I actually mean is, “give me another option,” because I already know what I should do.
I should recuse myself. Step away from the investigation. If my people are tangled up in it, I’ve got no business being the person in charge, even though I’ll do the right thing when it comes down to it. If someone’s guilty, I’ll bring them in, no matter who they are.
Or who they are to me.
The problem is, if I step away, I’m basically nailing the coffin with James’s House-of-Representatives aspirations inside.
It’s a near certainty that the leak—be it in the sheriff’s department or the D.A.
’s office—will let it slip that I’ve recused myself.
Suspicions will be aired, whether they’re factually grounded or not.
After that, even if—no, when —it turns out there’s a legitimate reason for Edward’s comments, it’ll be too late to save James’s political career.
My stomach growls, and I realize, not only have I been out here for almost an hour, but the headache that’s begun picking at the inside of my head may be due to more than just the moral quandary I’m facing.
I need food, and I need sound advice.
There’s only one place where I can get both.
“I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this, hon,” Grace says from across the table in her kitchen, her hand laying sympathetically over mine.
Grace’s house sits next door to the Ink & Ivy, closed and quiet at this hour. Jake is at school so we have the place to ourselves, though evidence that this is his territory—Legos, action figures, a baseball—is scattered around the butter-walled, lace-curtained room.
Despite the hunger which partially drove me here, my pancakes and bacon sit untouched on my plate. I have, however, finished another cup of coffee. The underlying current of electricity humming through me prompts me to vow to stick to water for the next couple of hours.
“I just don’t know what to do. I could step down from the investigation. But if I do, and people find out?—”
“Which they have a way of doing in a small town,” Grace says.
“—Which they do—I’ll have lit a fuse that will blow up James’s chances without knowing for sure that my suspicions have any root in the truth. He could lose the election, and it might be for nothing. And our relationship would never recover.”
“What does your gut tell you to do?” Grace asks.
“It told me to drive here,” I say, offering a weak smile. “What does your gut tell you I should do?”
Grace withdraws her hand and pours herself another cup of black tea from her Brown Betty teapot. She drops a sugar cube in, stirs it with a small spoon, then takes a sip before setting the cup down.
“Your grandfather was your mentor, right?”
“I don’t know about mentor, but hero, yeah. And he’s the reason I got into police work.”
“Okay, so what would he tell you to do?”
That’s an easy one to answer. “Follow the facts to the truth, and the truth to the end.”
Grace smiles. “You pulled that out quickly.”
I shrug. “It was his motto. Made me memorize it. When I was twelve, I gave him a T-shirt with it printed on the front.”
“Hmm.” She taps her teacup. “You think you can do that?”
I close my eyes and rub my right temple, because we’ve finally arrived at the core dilemma.
“Say I keep going, and I find a perfectly good explanation and conclude Edward and James have done nothing wrong.” I tilt my head and cut my eyes at Grace.
“Say I move on and keep working to find the true culprit, and my life goes on as planned.”
“Okay. Let’s say you do that.”
“But what if I’m wrong, even though I think I’m right?
What if down the road, we learn that Edward and James were involved, despite what I thought was true at the time?
It’ll look like I was biased—that I cleared them because that’s what I wanted the truth to be.
Or worse, people might think I knew they weren’t innocent and cleared them anyway. ”
“Whichever way you go—whatever you decide—there are risks. But it seems to me that the path with the least risk of collateral damage is staying the course. Keep going and find out everything you can.”
My phone buzzes with an email alert. “Sorry, one second,” I say, as I grab it from my pocket.
The email is from the lab about the evidence taken from Kamden Avery’s vehicle.
A quick scan of the results reveals that they found fingerprints belonging to dozens of people, some identified in the system, some not.
The ones in the system come from a variety of sources—convicts, a couple of lawyers fingerprinted for licenses, a doctor, teacher, military personnel.
None of the people identified have names I recognize, and the one name I’m desperately hoping to find—L.A. Haynes—isn’t on the list.
That leaves a dozen fingerprints unaccounted for. No trace evidence of note was detected. No blood, no signs of foul play.
“Good news, I hope?” Grace says, optimism lacing her voice.
“Neutral.” I sigh. “Just an update on some testing. It doesn’t make the way forward any clearer.”
“Well, no point in you starving to death.” She nods pointedly at my plate. “We don’t waste bacon in this house.”
I pick up my fork and stab the syrup-drowned pancakes as my phone buzzes again. It’s another email, but this one’s about evidence derived from Kamden Avery’s body and the burial site.
The lab identified DNA not belonging to Kamden Avery and partial fingerprints on the tarp used to wrap her body. Neither the DNA nor the prints had matches in the system. The preliminary autopsy report cites strangulation as the cause of death.
I review the results again, cold dread washing over me as an idea materializes. It’s a path forward, but not one I want to go down.
Regrettably, I don’t think I have a choice.
I shove a few bites in, down a piece of bacon, then swig back the last of my orange juice. “Grace,” I mumble through a full mouth, “I’ve gotta go. Sorry about this.” I swing my jacket back on, grab my backpack off the floor, and head to the door .
“It’s fine, hon. Let me know how you are. And my door’s always open.”
That door hits the frame hard as I hustle to the Jeep. I’m so focused on what I need to do that I don’t notice my phone buzzing until I’m at the bottom of the driveway. The call switches over to the Jeep and when the number pops up, I don’t recognize it. The caller ID is blocked.
I frown and answer. “Sophie Walsh.”
“Sophie Walsh?” The voice is deep and unmistakably agitated. “This is L.A. Haynes. I hear you’re looking for me.”