Page 167 of Secrets Along the Shore

It’s time to drag the truth to the surface.

I can’t possibly bethe first person to steamroll into Roy Hutchins’s office, but going by the shock on the face of his assistant, Angie, as I blow through the room, you’d sure think I was. I’m through the door behind her and partially down the hall before she even rises from her desk.

“Wait!” she bellows. “You can’t go back there!”

“Try me,” I snap, without breaking my stride down the narrow shotgun hallway, forcing her to hustle to catch up.

“He’s with someone! He can’t see you now!”

“He’ll see me.” Three doors span either side of the hall. I pass an open bathroom on my right, but the rest of the doors are shut. I spin to her. “Which is his?”

She plants her feet, folding her arms across her chest.

“Okay, fine.” I keep going, throwing doors open. When I fling open the last one on the left, Roy Hutchins jumps up from his seat behind his desk, while his wide-eyed guest swivels in his chair to gawk at me.

“Whoa!” Hutchins’s face is red with outrage. “What’s going on? This is a—” His words and expression freeze as recognition floods his face.

Ahh. There it is.

A white bandage wraps around a six-inch section of his forearm. A sardonic smile slips onto my face. “Hello, Roy. Got yourself a boo-boo?”

The eyes of the forty-something male in the guest chair flick back and forth between me and Hutchins. Maybe he’s a client. Maybe he’s a colleague.

I don’t care. I fix him with a flat glare Adam Driver would be proudof. “Time for you to go.” Rather than argue, the man pops up and disappears down the hallway in less than five seconds.

“What do you want?” Hutchins straightens his shoulders in a move I think he means to be intimidating. I hope he’s not considering manhandling me out of here. I’d hate to make him look like an idiot in front of Angie.

“That’s interesting. Usually the first question is ‘who are you?’ But then, youalreadyknow who I am, don’t you, Roy?”

Hutchins’s stare darkens, but he doesn’t deny it.

“I know who you are too.” I click my tongue. “Pretty shoddy surveillance skills, buddy. If I were you, I’d consider a weekend seminar to brush up.” I nod at the bandage. “For your burglary skills too.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That won’t stand up in court, will it, when I bring charges against you for breaking into my house?”

“I didn’t break into your house.”

“No, you onlytriedto break into it. If I walk over and wrestle that bandage off, am I gonna find bite marks matching my pit bull’s mouth?”

More silence from Hutchins, though he does put his hand on the bandage.

“That’s what I thought—which is why we’re going to come to an understanding. Otherwise, I’m filing a report with the sheriff’s department the minute I leave here. That bite, along with video footage from my outdoor security system?—”

If it existed…

“—will be more than enough to land you in jail and yank your license permanently.”

I’m not exactly being honest about the video, but hey, I’m not perfect. And he did try to break into my house.

Hutchins sneers. “What understanding?”

“Unless you want to become Mitchell County’s next Most Wanted, you’re gonna tell me who hired you to keep tabs on me and on the Kamden Avery case?”

I’m making a few leaps here, but they’re reasonable ones.

He shakes his head and snorts. “I can’t tell you that.”