Page 49 of Tide and Seek (Dr. Maxwell Thornton Murder Mysteries #8)

Maxwell

The late morning sun was already warm on my skin as I reclined in one of the deck chairs, a glass of iced coffee sweating in my hand.

The ocean stretched out before us in shades of turquoise and deep blue, the rhythmic crash of waves providing a soundtrack that was starting to feel almost familiar again.

Royce sat beside me in the other lounge chair, looking better than he had any right to after his ordeal.

He still had a nasty bruise blooming purple and yellow along his jaw, and I’d caught him moving stiffly when he thought I wasn’t looking, but the color was back in his face and his eyes were clear.

He was nursing his own iced coffee, one arm stretched out toward me so our fingers could tangle together between the chairs.

C.J. had arrived twenty minutes ago in cobalt blue shorts and a tank that matched, her short blonde hair artfully mussed, wearing oversized sunglasses perched on her nose.

She’d hugged us both fiercely, pressed the bouquet of plumeria and hibiscus into my hands, and declared that she was “absolutely not leaving until she’d told us everything because the rumor mill was already out of control and someone needed to set the record straight. ”

Now she sat on the deck railing, holding her own glass of iced coffee. “So,” she said, taking a sip of her drink, “I have tea. And by tea, I mean the actual details about what the heck happened here at Ocean Whisper Estates.”

I frowned. “How did you get the details? Detective Hartley was pretty close-lipped with us at the hospital yesterday.”

She got a sly look. “Well, I know a guy who works homicide down in LA. He shared the deets of the case with me.”

“You seriously know everyone, C.J.” I shook my head.

“Good thing I do. Otherwise you two might’ve gone back to Rainy Dale in a few days with nothing useful. Just think how boring that would be, everyone asking questions and all you could say was, ‘I don’t know. I have no idea what happened.’”

Royce gave a weak smile. “She’s not wrong. We just know bits and pieces.”

She sighed. “It’s a pretty crazy tale. To think Ethan was involved in any of this is shocking. I thought he was such a nice guy. His wife and children must be devastated.”

“So what exactly was Ethan’s role in everything that happened?” I asked, shading my eyes from the sun. “I mean, I know he helped kidnap Royce, but what else?”

“Well, first of all, Ethan was your burglar.”

I widened my eyes. “He was?”

“Yep.”

I frowned. “If that’s true, why’d he break the lock on my front door? He had a key because he worked for Coastal Pest.”

“He lost the key for a while. Had to break in that night, which was just one more fuck-up in a long line of fuck-ups.” She sighed. “Ethan wasn’t organized enough for a life of crime.”

“No.” I agreed. “It seems he wasn’t.”

“So even though he had to break into your home, he thought that was no biggie,” she said. “But then the alarm went off because the code had been changed without his knowledge.”

“We knew the code had been changed from visiting the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station,” Royce murmured. “Do they know yet who changed the code?”

“The police now think it was Margie.”

I widened my eyes. “Why’d she change it?”

“She didn’t trust Stiles or Ethan anymore. Not after Luke pointed the cops toward her. She was paranoid.”

“Yeah, with good reason,” I mumbled. “How’d she get involved with those two to begin with?”

“All this insanity started when Margie was approached by Stiles. He wanted Margie to let him use your house to store drugs in the attic, Max.”

I scowled. “So he approached her and she agreed?”

“Yes.”

“Unbelievable,” I groused.

“Apparently Stiles paid Margie very nicely for that access too. Sorry, Max.” She winced.

“Then she brought Ethan into the deal. She knew he needed money because of his sick wife. Plus, Margie wasn’t going to drive down and pick up drug deliveries.

That’s where Ethan was perfect. He was strong, and he drove around all day long anyway.

Nobody thought twice about him coming and going. ”

Royce nodded, sipping his coffee. “Service people are kind of invisible.”

C.J. sighed. “It’s true. I never once thought Ethan was anything but a nice guy doing his job.

But apparently, anytime Stiles had a customer, Ethan would get the drugs from your attic and make the drop to that person.

That way Stiles wasn’t handling the drugs himself and he had a buffer between him and the drugs.

Margie and Ethan were his built-in fall guys. ”

I scowled. “I still can’t believe Margie was a drug dealer.”

“Honestly, that even surprised Ethan. From what he’s told the cops, her only role was supposed to be letting them use your vacant house to store the drugs.

But then she got greedy.” C.J. pulled her sunglasses off.

“Unbeknownst to Ethan or Stiles, she started skimming from the boxes that Ethan would deliver to the house. She began selling drugs on the side to Luke and some people at her apartment complex.”

Royce rubbed his jaw, looking thoughtful. “She didn’t really OD, did she?”

C.J. lifted her light brows. “How’d you know?”

“Well, when Stiles was bragging about how he could make my death to look like an accident, it was like he was speaking from experience. I figured he’d done something before and got away with it.”

“He almost got away with it again,” I said, meeting Royce’s gaze. “Making your death look accidental, I mean.”

“Yeah. But he didn’t.”

C.J. slid her glasses back up. “The cops are pretty sure Stiles killed Margie, that’s what Ethan is telling them. But it’s almost impossible to prove she didn’t just OD. Ethan says Stiles did it to stop her from working with the cops, but we may never know for sure.”

“And the cops caught on to her because Luke gave her up as his supplier, right?” I asked.

“Yep.” C.J. nodded, smiling. “You guys know more than I realized.”

“I overheard Luke and Ethan talking the night Royce disappeared.” I grimaced.

“Is it true you held Ethan at gunpoint?” C.J. asked, sounding doubtful.

“Yes.” My cheeks warmed as I met Royce’s brown eyes. “I was a little out of my mind that night. I honestly think I would have killed Ethan if he hadn’t taken me to you, Royce. I was feeling very… desperate.”

Royce swallowed hard. “I’m grateful it didn’t come to that. You’d be in jail right now.”

“It would have been worth it so long as you survived.”

“Not to me,” Royce rumbled.

C.J. glanced between us. “You two are pretty adorable.”

I ignored her comment. “So Stiles most likely killed Margie. Do you know who killed Mrs. Brownstone or who tried to run us off the road?”

“Yes.” C.J. looked very pleased with herself. “I know it all, Grasshopper.”

“Then spill it,” I said, but I smiled.

She laughed. “Bossy, aren’t you?” She straightened. “Okay, so according to Ethan Stiles was the one who tried to run you off the road. He stole a car thinking he’d never be connected to the road rage incident, but someone saw him dropping it off in a grocery store parking lot afterwards.”

“Why’d he risk that?” Royce demanded. “Why pull a stunt like that? It was dangerous for him too.”

“Stiles was losing patience. He couldn’t get his drugs out of Max’s house, and he was desperate to appease his customer. Stiles’s reputation was on the line.”

“Asshole,” Royce growled.

“Indeed.” C.J. nodded. “He’s a thug.”

Royce said, “He’s the one who sent the texts too, right?”

C.J. shook her head. “Nope. That was Luke.”

“Luke?” Both Royce and I said in shocked unison.

C.J. grinned at our reaction. “Yes, it was actually Luke. Can you believe it? He confessed to sending them. He was desperate to get a fix and he knew you and Royce weren’t leaving anytime soon.

He bought a burner and sent the texts. Kind of a Hail Mary move to get you to leave, and a lame one at that. ”

“It did rattle me though,” I admitted.

“Sure, but not enough to chase you off, like he wanted.” She rolled her eyes. “He thought you two would scare way easier, apparently.”

I wrinkled my brow. “So, who killed Mrs. Brownstone? If you say Luke, I’m going to pass out.”

“No, that was Ethan.”

“God.” Royce shook his head. “That guy made one stupid choice after another. I know desperate people do dumb things, but that guy was just one walking mistake.”

“Why did Ethan kill her?” I asked, bewildered.

C.J.’s expression was serious now. “Okay, so apparently Ethan had been planning to break into your place again the night you arrived, Max. He had no idea you were coming back—nobody did. Ethan needed to get those drugs out of your attic before the big customer of Stiles’s lost his mind.

Since he had no idea you were coming back to LA, he thought he had a clear window. ”

“But we showed up,” I said.

“But you showed up,” C.J. confirmed. “Which completely derailed his plans. So there he is, lurking around in the dark like some kind of cat burglar, trying to figure out what to do next.” She paused, her expression clouding. “And that’s when he ran into Mrs. Brownstone.”

The name hung cryptically in the air between us. I hadn’t liked the woman, but she hadn’t deserved to die like that.

“Mrs. Brownstone had apparently been watching Ethan and Margie for months,” C.J.

continued, her voice softer now. “She was nosy, we all knew that, but she was also sharp as a tack. She’d figured out they were doing something illegal, storing something in your house.

She didn’t know it was drugs specifically, but she knew whatever it was, they were trying to hide it. ”

“And she confronted him?” Royce asked.

“Confronted him and tried to blackmail him.” C.J. shook her head, staring down at her coffee. “Fifty thousand dollars or she was going to the police. She told him she might not know exactly what they were doing, but that the cops would figure it all out and he’d go to jail.”

I felt my jaw tighten. “So he killed her.”