And The Earth Moved: Romantic Comedy Cozy Mystery (Amber Reed CCIA Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

“Your clothes aren’t quite dry yet.”

I’m still submerged in the Jacuzzi, finally feeling relaxed.

I wonder if my clothes really aren’t dry or if this is some kind of ploy to keep me in just my underwear. I purposefully didn’t bring any new clothes from my flat to the guest house the other day because I was determined I was moving back home. And staying put.

“I’ll go and find you something of mine to wear,” he says before heading back into the kitchen.

By the time I’m out of the hot tub and wrapped in a huge bath towel he’s downstairs again. “I’ve put some tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt on the bed in the spare room along with some shorts and socks. All clean I promise you. They’ll be way too big for you but you can pull the cord on the trousers as tight as you can get it and they should just about stay up.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll let you go and get dried off. Come through to the kitchen when you’re dressed. I’ll make us something to eat. Pasta OK?”

“Pasta sounds great, thanks.”

“Feeling OK now?”

I look up from staring into the dancing flames of the fire. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“Not every day you get chased through woods by guys with dogs and end up jumping into flooded quarry holes,” he says, gently nudging my leg. “Or is it?”

I laugh. “Of course not!”

He leans closer. “Sure you’re OK?”

“Yes, absolutely.” My mind has been elsewhere. Turning over a thought which insists on popping into my head even though I’m tired and just want to switch off. A thought about Charlie and that kiss back at the quarry.

“Come on, spill. Tell me what you’re thinking.” He drains his coffee and puts the empty mug on the floor next to the sofa. “I can see you’re miles away.”

I turn to face him. “OK. Can I ask you something?”

“Ah, I see. Have you been silently psychoanalysing me tonight? Figuring out all my secrets eh?”

I push myself upright on the sofa. “So you admit you do have some secrets then?”

He turns away and then gets to his feet. “I think the fire needs another log.”

I let him do his man-tending-to-fire bit and wait for him to sit down beside me again.

“That time we were following Candi,” I begin, forcing myself to say the words. If I can jump off a quarry ledge into a black pool of water I can ask him this question. “And we ended up making out against the wall. Well, I know it was only for cover purposes then but tonight, well, you kissed me, properly this time, up at the quarry.”

“Guilty as charged.” He holds both hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Why?”

He raises a quizzical eyebrow. “Seriously? Why did I kiss you? I thought that would have been obvious.”

I don’t say anything for a few moments and he touches a hand to my knee. “Hey? What’s wrong? Did I overstep some line? Did I make a mistake? I thought you…”

“You didn’t make a mistake.”

“Good. I’m pleased to hear it.” He edges a little closer on the sofa. “In that case…”

I feel myself easing back into the soft cushions of the sofa as his lips brush against mine and his hand traces tantalisingly slowly down my cheek.

Chapter Twenty Seven

“Do you think Liam will be OK?” I ask.

It’s the next morning and we’re at the local police station. After Charlie had contacted the police about the smuggling operation they’d set up surveillance at the quarry. Ryan had gone back to check on things along with some guy who was looking to buy some ‘stock’ and they had been caught with the evidence and arrested.

He’d confessed to setting up the smuggling operation as a favour to a mate who had ‘lost’ his usual storage place. He’d said he’d done it because the quarry had serious financial problems since he and Liam had taken on running the business.

He’d also said Liam was in no way involved in the smuggling operation and had gone on to explain how he was worried about his brother and his increasingly erratic behaviour. Upon further questioning he’d said he’d found Liam a couple of times doing stuff as though he was in a trance and knew absolutely nothing about it.

Right now Liam is sitting in the interview room at the police station looking angry and frustrated.

“I’ll go through. You can stay here and listen in if you want to?” Charlie says. “I’ve cleared it with the guy in charge of the  police station.”

I nod.

Charlie opens the door and heads into the room where Liam is sitting along with one of the local policemen.

“Liam, your brother is worried about you,” I hear Charlie saying. “He thinks you might not be well.”

Liam bashes a fist on the table and I jump a foot, but neither Charlie nor the police officer so much as flinch.

“I’m fine,” Liam shouts.

“He says he’s found you doing stuff you don’t know you’re doing,” Charlie continues. “As though you’re sleep-walking or in a trance. If that’s true and you’ve been doing these things up at the quarry then you know that’s dangerous right? To you and to other people.”

Liam says nothing, glaring at the wall above Charlie’s head.

“You’ve been under a lot of stress lately haven’t you? With the death of your father recently. Your brother told us the quarry is in financial difficulties. You’ve both been struggling to keep the business going. He says you’ve lost some contracts to supply stone to places. People have said they no longer want to work with Set In Stone, now that your dad isn’t running the quarry.”

Still Liam says nothing.

“You know about all this right? You understand what I’m saying?”

Still nothing.

I clench my fists. Poor Liam. He’s always been volatile but we should have spotted his behaviour and his moods had become even more erratic in recent months.

Charlie presses on. “I’m going to get someone to come in here and ask you some more questions, Liam,” he says, his voice calm. “Her name is Mary. She’s a psychologist. She wants to try to help you sort some stuff out. Things are going on in your head. Things you feel you can’t control. OK?”

Nothing.

Charlie gets to his feet, nods to the local policeman and leaves the room, walking back to the room where I am.

“What if he did it?” I say to Charlie as he lets the door slam closed behind him. “What if he killed Joel in some fit of temper and he doesn’t know he’s done it? Can he be charged with murder?”

“Depends on how things go with the police psychologist. If he was involved somehow with Joel’s death but he honestly didn’t know what he was doing, then it could be a lesser count of murder he’s charged with.”

“Like manslaughter you mean?”

“Yeah. Look, I’m going to go and get Mary and go back in the room with her. We’ll see what she makes of things. This might take a while. Do you want to stay or head home?”

I sigh. I’m not sure I want to hear Liam being cross-examined by a psychologist. What if he breaks down or freaks out or something?

“I’ll head home,” I say.

“OK. Take my car. I’ll get a lift back when I’m finished later. I’ll give you a call as soon as we’re done here.”

I nod and he hands me his keys then squeezes my hand discreetly. “Speak to you later.”

I open the door and then stop when he says, “Hey!”

“Yes?” I say, still feeling a bit numb. I’m stunned Liam might be about to be charged with murder or manslaughter.

“Drive carefully eh? I want my car back in one piece. I know what your driving is like!” He gives me a smile. Yes,
that
smile. But this time it doesn’t have quite the usual effect on me.

I nod. “I’ll be careful.”

Chapter Twenty Eight

I’ve finally moved back home for good. It was long overdue. The other night Charlie and I fooled around for a while and he convinced me, with plentiful demonstrations, that there’s a world of difference between
playing
the horny boyfriend and
being
the horny boyfriend. I thoroughly enjoyed the demos but they also served as a wake-up call. Carlie and I were supposed to be concentrating on the case not getting involved. My head was spinning with everything that had happened over the past few days and I needed some space.

Somebody knocks at the door of my flat and I move to answer it. My mum is standing on the doorstep with a box of cakes in her hands.

“Got time for a cup of tea and a cake?” she asks hopefully.

I nod, feeling anxious. She’s going to ask me about Charlie and I don’t know if I can carry on telling this fake boyfriend story much longer, especially to her face.

We chat about this and that, my mum updating me on her job, how the building company is doing, how busy my dad is and complains she doesn’t see my sister and her family often enough.

Mum opens the cake box and sets a couple of custard slices on a plate. We share the same cake preferences.

“So,” she says, sliding onto a stool at the breakfast bar in my kitchenette. “I thought you could bring Charlie round for lunch on Sunday.”

I almost choke on my tea which goes down the wrong way. “Lunch?” I finally manage to gasp.

Mum nods. “Yes, I thought it would be nice. I think your sister can make it this weekend too with her tribe so it will be great for us all to get together.”

“Sorry, I don’t think Charlie will still be around by then.”

“What? You’ve not broken up with him already have you? I know he may have strange….” She pauses, wipes at some crumbs on the worktop and avoids looking at me as she continues. “Erm, he may have the unusual store cupboard thing going on but I’m sure he’s a nice enough boy.”

I wonder what my family would make of Charlie if they ever did get to meet him. He’d probably be forever getting strange looks from them while they wondered what other unusual tastes he had.

“Charlie is only in town to help out with an investigation up at Ennis’ place. He’ll be leaving soon.”

“Oh,” Mum says looking disappointed as she finishes her custard slice. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Me too, I think. Me too. Charlie will be leaving soon and my little stint as an investigator’s assistant will be over.

By the time Mum leaves I think I’ve just about managed to convince her I’m not dating some weird guy, I’m not involved in anything dodgy and I wasn’t angry with her about something and keeping our conversations brief because of it. She even started planning a shopping trip for the next weekend. I hope the Joel case is resolved by then. I don’t fancy having to make up an excuse to cancel our girly afternoon out. I’m not sure I’ll get away with another excuse as far as Mum’s concerned anyway.

I tidy up the dishes in the kitchenette and am just about to take a shower when somebody else knocks at my door.

Charlie is standing outside, looking exhausted but somehow still as handsome as ever. I make him a cup of coffee and he slumps onto the sofa with a sigh.

“So what was the verdict?” I ask, curling up on the opposite end of the sofa.

“Initial diagnosis is that Liam has spilt personality disorder. It’s like he’s two different people. There’s the usual bad-tempered-sometimes guy and then the good-mood- sometimes guy, and then there’s the other side of him. An alter ego if you like. When he’s in that place the regular Liam doesn’t know what he’s doing or saying.”

“Really? That can happen?”

“Yep. Certainly can. Scary stuff eh? The mind is a complex piece of kit.” He leans back against the cushions with a heartfelt sigh. “We searched his house and found explosives, the stuff to light them and on him, in his coat pockets we found traces of explosives too.”

“Liam was behind these strange random explosions and the earth tremors that have been happening around here these past few weeks?”

“Seems so. He doesn’t officially set the explosives at the quarry anymore but he used to do it a few years ago. They have a guy who does all that side of things now but he still had access to the explosives. The guy who runs the explosives store raised the fact he thought stuff was missing. Small amounts but missing none-the-less. Liam said he would look into it. Of course that version of Liam didn’t know he was the one taking the stuff. If there’s something to be thankful for it’s that he’s only been using small amounts of explosives otherwise he could have got himself killed or killed others. He can’t remember anything about it at all.”

I shake my head. “Wow, that’s amazing.”

“It seems Liam was the one behind the dumper truck incident when they first tried to warn us off too. He can’t remember doing it but Mitch swears he was told to do it by Liam and he has witnesses to that effect.”

I try to take in all this information. “So that night we were at the quarry and Liam turned up. He went into the storeroom we couldn’t get into and put something in his bag. It was explosives?”

Charlie nods.

“So what happened with him and Joel that night at the quarry then? Or did Liam have nothing to do with Joel’s death?”

“We still don’t know. I’ve asked forensics to check Joel’s clothing for any trace of explosives. Maybe Joel saw Liam setting explosives up on the moor and tried to stop him or something and they ended up in a tussle.”

Charlie’s phone buzzes and he picks it up from the coffee table checking the display. “Forensics,” he says, hitting the answer button.

I watch as he listens to the caller then says thanks and ends the call.

“Well? Was it Liam?”

“It looks unlikely. No trace of anything linking Liam to Joel’s death.”

“So what now?”

Charlie frowns then closes his eyes as though he’s remembering details and concentrating on working something through in his mind. “We’re missing something. Let’s go back to basics for a minute. We checked the CCTV footage of Joel leaving the house.  And the gate footage of him driving his car through, right?”

I nod. “So did the police.”

“We assumed that once he went through the gates he drove somewhere,” he says, leaning forward.

Then a thought springs into my head and I sit forward, looking at Charlie. “But what happened to him after he went through the gate you mean? We did all the asking around the pubs. The locals said they didn’t spot him anywhere that evening.”

Charlie nods and gets to his feet. “Exactly. Maybe that’s because he didn’t go anywhere. Once he’d gone through the gates the camera angle isn’t great. We need to check the recording again.”

“I’ll call Ennis now and ask him if we can go straight up to the house and watch the CCTV footage again,” I say, standing up. This has the makings of another sleepless night.

And not in a good way.