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CHAPTER FOUR

When you open a tea shop at the crack of dawn, midnight is practically the middle of the night. So when my doorbell rang just after midnight my first instinct was to pull the pillow over my head and pretend I hadn’t heard it.

But then it rang again, more insistently this time, followed by three sharp knocks.

Chowder, who had been sprawled across half my bed despite his diminutive size, raised his wrinkled head and gave a half-hearted woof that clearly meant, “You’re the human, you deal with this.”

“Thanks for the support,” I muttered, pushing back the covers and fumbling for my vintage peach silk robe with the extravagant feather trim.

I slipped it on over my matching peach nightgown, the familiar weight of the silk a small comfort in the midnight darkness.

I cinched it tightly at the waist and stumbled toward the stairs, pushing a mass of tangled blond curls out of my face.

By the time I reached my front door, I was awake enough to be properly annoyed. I peeked through the sidelight window, ready to give the midnight intruder a piece of my mind.

And there stood Sheriff Dash Beckett, looking tense and alert, with something tucked under his arm.

I pulled open the door just enough to peer out at him. “Somebody better have died.”

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Excuse me?”

“The only reason you should be showing up at my door after midnight is if there was a murder. And even then, I’m not exactly qualified.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “No murder. Not yet, anyway.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you threatening me, Sheriff?”

“Dash,” he corrected. “And it sounds like you’re threatening me.” His grin widened. “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly aware of how the silk of my robe clung to me in the night air. A traitorous heat crept up my neck at his proximity in the darkness—a heat that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the intensity of his gaze.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” I managed, hoping my voice sounded steadier than it felt. My heart was suddenly performing a jazz drumbeat against my ribs, and I found myself fixating on the scar along his jawline, wondering how it would feel beneath my fingertips.

The thought ambushed me so suddenly that I nearly gasped. Where had that come from? I took a small step backward, trying to put distance between us that might cool whatever this was.

“No clue,” he answered without checking his watch, those dark eyes still studying me with an attention that made my skin prickle with awareness. “I’ve pretty much been working twenty-hour days since I took over the job. May I come in? This is…sensitive.”

It was then that I noticed his tension—the tight set of his jaw, the careful way his eyes scanned the street behind him.

And I suddenly realized what this must look like—the town’s new sheriff on a single woman’s doorstep after midnight.

Mrs. Pembroke lived on the opposite corner from me and she could see down our entire street from her drawing room window.

She was known to suffer from insomnia and treated neighborhood surveillance as an Olympic sport.

“Get in here,” I said, opening the door wider and practically yanking him inside by his sleeve, ignoring the electric current that seemed to jump from his arm to my hand.

I shut the door quickly behind him, but not before catching a glimpse of a light flicking on in Mrs. Pembroke’s house. “Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

“Problem?” he asked, standing in my front hall like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. His presence seemed to shrink the space, making my normally spacious entryway feel suddenly intimate.

“You just guaranteed we’ll be the main topic of conversation at Grits and Giggles by breakfast.” I sighed, tightening my robe’s belt again, painfully conscious of how I must look—hair a mess, dressed in my nightgown and robe.

Not that I cared what Sheriff Beckett thought of my appearance. Not at all.

Yet even as I told myself this, I could feel my pulse fluttering at the base of my throat like a trapped moth, my breath coming just a little quicker than normal.

Patrick had never made me feel so bewilderingly off kilter, so aware of every inch of my skin.

The realization brought a sharp pang of guilt that twisted beneath my ribs.

Ten years a widow, and suddenly I was behaving like a teenager with her first crush—all because of a man who probably made all the women on Grimm Island feel this way with nothing more than that intense gaze and the quiet confidence he wore as comfortably as his badge.

“So what’s so important it couldn’t wait until a decent hour? At my tea shop. Where I work. In public,” I said, focusing on irritation to mask the confusing symphony of reactions his presence was orchestrating in my body.

In response, he held out what I now saw was a worn leather-bound book. “This.”

I took it gingerly, and as our fingers brushed in the exchange, a shiver ran up my arm, spreading across my shoulders like spilled water. I hoped he hadn’t noticed, but the slight narrowing of his eyes suggested otherwise.

The binding was cracked and faded, the once-white pages yellowed with age. “What is it?”

“Elizabeth Calvert’s diary.”

That woke me up like an ice bucket challenge. “Her diary? Where did you?—”

“Found it hidden in evidence storage. Behind a false panel in a filing cabinet that looked like it hadn’t been opened since before I was born.”

I stared at the journal in my hands, suddenly aware I was holding the private thoughts of a dead woman. “This wasn’t in the case file.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he confirmed, his voice grim. “Which raises some interesting questions, don’t you think?”

“Why bring it to me?” I asked.

“I need you to read it. Immediately.” He glanced toward the windows. “I can’t be seen with it, and I can’t take it back to the station.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“Because I technically shouldn’t have removed it from evidence,” he admitted.

“Though I’m not sure it matters since it was never admitted as evidence in the first place.

And because I don’t know who I can trust at the department.

Deputies Harris and Jackson have been working with me to sort through everything.

They’re not from the island and I hired them, so for now, I’m trusting them.

But I’ve got thirty-eight other deputies who I inherited from Milton. ”

The gravity of what he was saying sank in. “You think someone there is involved in the cover-up.”

He didn’t confirm or deny, but his silence was answer enough.

“Coffee,” I decided. “I need coffee before I can process any of this. Come on.”

I led him through to the kitchen, where Chowder had already waddled his way after us, looking thoroughly put out about having his beauty sleep interrupted.

“Don’t give me that look,” I told Chowder as he snorted indignantly. “This wasn’t my idea.”

Dash watched our interaction with something like amusement. “Does he understand everything you say to him?”

“For the most part,” I said, filling his water bowl since he was up anyway. “He’s a very intelligent dog.”

I busied myself with the coffee maker.

“You know,” he said, breaking the awkward silence, “Since the neighbors are already talking, we might as well give them something real to talk about.”

I nearly dropped the coffee scoop. “Excuse me?”

“Dinner,” he clarified, and I could swear there was a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Tomorrow night. If you’re free.”

I turned to face him, coffee forgotten. “Like a date?”

“We don’t have to call it that if it makes you uncomfortable,” he said. “We could just call it dinner.”

I studied him for a moment, trying to decide if he was serious. He met my gaze steadily, and I realized with a little jolt that he was completely sincere.

“I…ahh…haven’t really dated,” I said lamely.

“Have you eaten dinner?”

If a hole had opened up in the floor I would have gladly fallen through it, never to be seen again.

“I’ll think about it,” I finally said, turning back to the coffee. “After I’ve had caffeine.”

He chuckled, a warm sound that seemed to surprise even him. “Fair enough.”

Ten minutes later, we were seated at my kitchen table, steaming mugs of coffee between us, the diary laid out like a time bomb waiting to detonate. Chowder had settled at Dash’s feet, the traitor, looking up adoringly whenever Dash absentmindedly reached down to scratch behind his ears.

I opened the diary carefully, mindful of its age. The first page had Property of Elizabeth Anne Calvert written in looping, girlish handwriting.

“She was twenty-two,” Dash said quietly.

I nodded and began to flip through the pages.

The early entries were what you’d expect from a young woman—complaints about professors and assignments, sorority parties and guys she’d dated but that never seemed to last long.

She wasn’t interested in college boys. She wanted someone who was mature and knew something about the world.

There were more pages filled with her excitement about getting accepted into graduate school, and more gossip about friends.

She never used their names. Only initials.

But as I reached the entries from the weeks before her death, the tone changed dramatically.

“Listen to this,” I said.

Met with J again today. He says it’s too dangerous, that I should let it go. But how can I? What they’re doing isn’t just wrong, it’s criminal. The whole island is built on lies.

Dash leaned forward. “What date is that entry?”

“July 2, 1996,” I said. “Two weeks before she died.”

I flipped forward a few pages and found another troubling entry.

Sometimes I think I’m being followed. M’s car was parked outside the library again today. Just sitting there. When I came out, he drove away without a word. Do they know? Have they figured out what I found?

“M could be Milton,” I said, frowning. “The former sheriff.”

Dash nodded. “That makes sense.”

I scanned the entry again. “As for J…I have no idea. I was just a toddler back then.” I tapped my fingers on the table. “I’ve heard stories about the island’s politics from that era, but it’s all secondhand information.”

“The Silver Sleuths might know,” Dash suggested.

“Oh, they definitely will,” I said, smiling slightly. “If there was a prominent J in 1996, they’ll know exactly who it was and what they were hiding.”

I continued reading, growing increasingly disturbed by Elizabeth’s final entries.

The men who run this island—they think they’re untouchable.

But I have proof now. Proof that would burn everything down.

J says I’m being dramatic, that I should just leave town, go to Duke early and forget what I found.

But he doesn’t understand. This isn’t just about politics or money. People died.

That last entry was dated July 10, 1996—three days before her body was found floating in the harbor.

“She knew something,” I said, looking up at Dash. “Something big enough to get her killed.”

“But what?” he asked, reaching for the diary.

Before he could take the diary, my phone rang, startling us both.

I held up my phone so he could see the caller ID and then I answered.

“Deidre,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said. “Mrs. Pembroke just called. Says the sheriff’s car has been parked outside your house since midnight.”

I closed my eyes. “Of course she did.”

“She seems to think you’re in some kind of trouble. Are you in trouble, dear? Because I can call Walt?—”

“I’m fine,” I said, cutting her off. “Sheriff Beckett is here on…case business.”

There was a beat of silence. “At midnight?”

“Yes.”

“And did this case business require you to wear your nightgown, or was that just a bonus for the sheriff?”

I felt my face heat. “How does she even know what I’m—” I stopped. “Never mind. I’ll explain tomorrow at the shop.”

“We’ll be there early,” she promised, then added in a whisper, “And Mabel, dear? You might want to close your bedroom curtains. Mrs. Pembroke has her binoculars out.”

I hung up and turned to Dash, who was failing to hide his amusement. “This is why I don’t date,” I muttered.

Dash raised an eyebrow. “The rumor mill works quickly here.”

“You have no idea.” I stood up, suddenly aware of how intimate this scene must appear—the two of us at my kitchen table in the dim midnight light, me in my nightgown and robe. “I need to try and get some sleep. I have to be up to open the shop in a couple of hours.”

“Keep the diary with you,” he said, coming to his feet. “Keep it hidden. I’ll call you tomorrow to discuss what you find.”

I nodded, clutching the diary. “What are you going to do?”

“Go home and get some sleep. It’s the middle of the night.”

I couldn’t help the growl that came from low in my throat. Arrogant man.

He grinned at me and I stumbled over my own feet as I followed him toward the front door. That grin was a powerful weapon.

At the door, he paused. “Lock this behind me. And be careful, Mabel. Whoever killed Elizabeth might still be on this island.”

“Cheery thought to end my night,” I said dryly.

“Just being thorough.” He glanced out the sidelight window. “Mrs. Pembroke is still watching.”

“She’ll be disappointed. No handcuffs or scandalous goodbye.”

A hint of a smile touched his lips. “Good night, Mrs. McCoy.”

“Good night, Sheriff,” I replied.

I locked the door behind him and leaned against it, watching through the window as he drove away and humming Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight” under my breath. Chowder sat at my feet, his expression distinctly judgmental.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I told him. “It’s just business.”

His snort clearly communicated his disbelief.

“We’ve got work to do,” I said, looking down at the diary in my hands. “And I’ve got a feeling things are about to get complicated.”