Hooked (A Romance on the Edge Novel) (34 page)

The trooper handed Garrett a gaff hook encased in a large plastic bag. Blood stained the end of the hook. Sonya knew, with the day she was having, that the blood had to be Kendrick’s.

“That’s not mine,” she said, her voice an octave higher than normal. “I don’t have a halibut gaff on board. The only hook I have onboard is five feet long, not two. What good would a two foot gaff do on a drift boat? I need one longer than four feet just to reach the water from the sides of this tub.” She was rambling but couldn’t stop herself. She was smart enough to know how bad this situation was getting. She’d threatened Kendrick last night, in front of a dozen witnesses. Now the murder weapon was found on her boat? Sweat broke out over her body, but she felt cold. Colder than she could remember being in a very long time.

“Sonya,” Garrett’s voice cut through the fog that was rapidly closing her in. Suddenly he was there, kneeling in front of her, taking her hands in his. “You have an ironclad alibi. We know you didn’t do this. You couldn’t. Kendrick had been dead between ten and twelve hours. We were together during that time.”

She met his eyes. Seeing the reassurance in his should have allayed her fears, but it didn’t. “If I use your alibi then everyone will know we were together. If the fishermen find out, I’m going to be blackballed more than I already am.”

Garrett let go of her hands and fell back on his haunches. “Let me get this right. You’re willing to be arrested and charged with murder rather than let anyone know we were together last night?”

“Dude, that’s rough,” Judd commented from the bunk.

“No,” Sonya said. “It means you have to find the real killer so we don’t have to use the alibi.”

Garrett got to his feet and walked back to the stove, where he’d positioned himself when he’d entered the pilot house. Sonya tried not to miss his steady warmth. She knew by the tightening of his jaw and the rigid way he held his shoulders that she had hurt him with her refusal to come clean about them. There was a lot at stake here.

“If that’s the way you want it.” Garrett rubbed the back of his neck. “If the gaff isn’t yours—” he picked up the evidence bag “—do you have any idea how it got onboard your boat?”

She racked her brain and came up with nothing. “I’ve no idea.”

“I have one,” Garrett said. “Why is Aidan fishing with you today?”

“Aidan? H-he wanted to understand the drift operation.”

“He picked today of all days to do that?”

“Another coincidence,” Judd interjected, clicking his tongue.

“How?” she asked. “There is no way Aidan could have brought that onboard without one of us seeing him.”

Garrett unzipped his trooper jacket, took the gaff hook, stuffed it in his jacket, and then zipped it out of sight.

“No.” She swallowed past the bile that had returned. “I don’t believe it. I won’t. There are other ways to plant something like that. Someone could have dropped it onboard during the night. Or-or planted it when I grabbed a quick shower at the cannery this morning. I was gone about twenty minutes.”

“Those are possibilities,” Judd seemed to agree until he continued, “but wouldn’t you have heard the gaff if someone dropped it onboard during the night? Aluminum boats aren’t known for muffling sounds, quite the opposite in fact.”

“I wasn’t paying attention to noises last night.” A bomb could have gone off right on her deck and she wouldn’t have heard it, not with all her attention centered on Garrett and what he’d made her feel. She stole a glance his direction and wished she hadn’t, as his eyes reflected the same memories she knew hers did.

“Judd, table the gaff for now.” Garrett’s gaze returned to Sonya as he pulled the hook free of his jacket and held it in his hand. She would never look at another gaff the same again.

“We’re back to who wants to hurt you, Sonya.” Garrett leaned against the stove and folded his arms across his chest. “It obviously wasn’t Kendrick. So we need to go back to the beginning and figure out who wants you off this water. We need names fast, because whoever he is, he proved he’s willing to kill to do it.”

“Sonya, no matter what the cops might think, I didn’t plant that gaff hook on your boat,” Aidan said once more as they reached the beach in front of their camps.

Sonya wearily ran a hand over her face. She didn’t know what to think. Aidan did have opportunity but did he have motive? The
Double Dippin’
was currently anchored near the running line in front of the cabin with Peter and Wes onboard until she returned.

If she could keep Aidan walking toward their camps, maybe he’d turn in the direction of his when they reached the creek. It had been a hell of day and she didn’t see it getting any better. Particularly with the upcoming meeting with her grandparents. It was hard to believe it was only late afternoon. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

It seemed like weeks since she’d been back at camp, when in reality it had only been a day. By the time fishing ended, she’d need a month of sleep to recover from the season. She noticed the outboard engine laying on a tarp under the bluff and almost laughed. She’d bet a steak dinner Gramps had gotten that miserable thing to run. He was probably waiting for Peter or Wes to help him get the outboard bolted onto the skiff.

Aidan grabbed her arm and turned her toward him. She’d almost forgotten he kept step with her. “Sonya, you’ve got to believe me. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

She raised a brow. “Never?”

“Never again.” Frustration shown clearly in his expression. “How long are you going to make me pay for that?”

“Name it, Aidan.
Name
what you did to me.” Hell, she didn’t want to go down this path. She was tired. Tired of crap drifting her way. Tired of men complicating her life. Getting into it with Aidan wasn’t something she wanted to face right now. Especially considering the answers she might get.

“Believe it or not, the night I hit you scared me to death.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I saw the monster inside me clearly that day. I’d watched Earl beat my mother time and time again. I hated him for it. Still do. But when I couldn’t get you to do what I wanted, I turned and did the same to you.” He grasped her shoulders. “To the woman I loved. Seeing what I was becoming scared the shit out of me. I got help, and I will continue to get help. There is no way I’ll let that ever happen again. I refuse to be my father. Sonya, I love you. Give us another chance. We were good for each other.” He dropped his forehead to hers, his arms inching around her waist. “Don’t believe the worst of me anymore. Please.”

“Aidan.” She felt tears tease behind her eyes. She’d believed in them once. Believed that they could be happy together, that they’d marry, have a family. They had so much in common, made sense where she and Garrett didn’t, but she couldn’t go back. She was either too frightened or too obstinate to try. At some point, her feelings had changed. Whether it was that night he’d shown her a side of him she had no idea existed or later, but something inside her refused to change.

“I don’t believe the worst of you, Aidan.” She placed her hands on the sides of his face. She’d loved this face. The strong jaw, the warm brown eyes, the sexy tilt of his lips when he smiled at her. She reached up and softly placed her lips against his one last time. Stepping back, she gazed at him with remorse. “I’m sorry. I can’t go back.”

He pulled her to him and desperately took her mouth. She let him kiss her, tried to even feel what she’d felt with him before. There was nothing. What she felt with Garrett was so much more than she’d ever felt with Aidan. It saddened and scared her at the same time. Aidan’s grip loosened, turned gentle as he tried to coax a response from her that she didn’t have in her to give. Finally he set her back from him, and let her go. His expression one of resignation.

“It’s Hunt, isn’t it?”

“No. Yes. Hell, I don’t know.” She shook her head. “He’s not the best choice of man for me to become involved with, but I did…at least, I think we are…involved that is.” She bit her lip.

“You barely know the guy.”

“How long you know a person doesn’t really mean anything. Does it?”

The stain of humiliation colored his face. He slowly shook of his head. “We’re never going to get past this, are we?”

“Yes, we will. But we’ll never be more than friends, Aidan. You need to understand that and move on.”

His heartbroken gaze met hers. “I don’t think I can live with that, Sonya.”

“You and Sonya looked cozy,” Earl commented from the shadows of the porch. The red butt of his cigarette flared to life as he took a long draw. When he exhaled, smoke curled around his head like a crown of death. Aidan had seen this vision many times in his life, even drew one of his seedy characters in his graphic novel after his dad. Not that Earl ever caught on. He’d have to read one of Aidan’s novels to see it and that was one thing he knew Earl would never do.

“We were saying good-bye to each other.” Or at least good-bye to what they could have been.

“What do you mean good-bye?” Earl’s bushy brows hunched over beady eyes. “You going somewhere?”

“She doesn’t care about me the way I need her to. We’re over. Finished.”

“Change her mind. What kind of a sissy-boy are you?” Earl stood and ground the butt of his cigarette under the heel of his boot. “In my day, you wanted something, you went after it until you got it. Show some backbone, boy, and go and get what’s yours.”

“She isn’t mine to get. Besides, she cares for someone else.”

“Women are fickle. They change their mind like they change their outfits. Get him out of the picture and chances are she’d be wantin’ to wear you.”

Aidan gave a humorless laugh. “Right, like what? Bump him off?”

A smile cracked Earl’s yellowed, leathered face. “Now you’re thinking like a Harte.”

The last thing he wanted to do was think like a Harte. It hadn’t gotten him anywhere positive in the past. “I’m not going down that road.”

Though it would be nice to see the last of the fish cop.

Sonya had spent most of the evening catching up her grandparents on the happenings of the last twenty-four hours. Who knew life could change so much in that length of time? As she had expected, they scolded her for brawling with Kendrick at the Pitt. Peter had given her a heads up over this, but he needn’t have bothered. She knew she’d get called on the mat over her actions as soon as they saw her. The news of Kendrick’s death went better than she’d hoped, though they were shocked and dismayed over their family having to be a part of something so tragic. The point that they focused on was the development between Garrett and her. Sonya really hadn’t wanted to tell them that she’d slept with the fish cop, but figured she needed to prepare them in case the news had to come out. They also took this much, much better than she’d hoped.