Stuck on Murder (18 page)

She climbed from her car, grateful to find no reporters waiting in the communal parking lot. She stepped briskly toward her cabin, glancing over her shoulder as she unlocked the door and let herself in.

The cabin was dark. Normally, she left a light on when she knew she was going to be out late, but she’d had no idea when she woke up this morning that the day would include Nate’s arrest and a road trip to the Cape.

She fumbled for the light switch, but before she could reach it, the standing lamp in the corner flicked on. Brenna screamed and a rush of adrenaline hit her like the zap of a long-fingered lightning bolt. She jumped into her fighter stance, ready to kick some serious tail if necessary.

“Whoa.” Nate raised his hands as if in surrender. He was sitting in the corner chair between the lamp and the bookcase, and judging by the look of his puffy eyes, he’d been asleep when she came in.

“Are you nuts?” she yelled. She put her hand over her racing heart. “You scared me to death. What if I had pepper-sprayed you?”

“Then I imagine we’d both be runny-eyed and sneezing right now,” he said. He stood and crossed the room toward her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s f—fine,” she stammered. But it wasn’t. She felt sickly and faint, her skin was clammy, and her teeth were chattering.

“Are you okay?” he asked. All traces of sleep were gone as his gray eyes bored into hers, and he grabbed her elbow and helped her to the nearest seat.

She dropped her head between her knees. Nate crouched down beside her so he could see her face.

“Is this because of what happened to you in Boston?” he asked.

Chapter 16

Brenna tilted her face up and found him just inches in front of her. She put her head back down. Truly, hadn’t this day been long enough?

“What makes you think anything happened in Boston?” she asked.

“You have safety issues,” he said. “I assumed they came from your time in Boston.”

“I’m just cautious-natured,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” he said.

He sounded dubious, but he didn’t press and she was grateful. She didn’t think she was going to pass out anymore, so she slowly raised her head and rested it on her folded arms on her knees.

“Can you eat?” he asked. “You look like you could probably use some food.”

It had been hours since the lobster roll at the shore. She nodded.

“Follow me,” he said.

He stood and led the way into the kitchen. While she sat at the counter, he raided her refrigerator for eggs, milk, cheese, and salsa.

She marveled that he was here, in her kitchen, doing something as domestic as cooking when he should be in jail.

“How did you get out of jail?” she asked.

“I told you, it’s all who you know,” he said. “Well, that and a heavy chunk of my savings used as bail.”

“So, who do you know?”

“An art collector judge, a badger of a defense attorney, and a chief of police who really didn’t want to arrest me anyway.”

“It
is
all who you know,” she said. With sudden clarity she realized that, as reclusive as he was, Nate moved in elevated circles of circumstance that she would never know.

She watched as he cooked the beaten eggs on the bottom of the pan, layered sharp cheddar cheese on top, and then gently folded the eggs around the cheese into the shape of a half moon. When he turned the omelet onto a plate, he put spoonfuls of salsa and sour cream on top, handed Brenna a fork, and said, “Eat.”

“I didn’t know you could cook,” she said. The eggs smelled delicious and she tucked into them with gusto.

“How do you think I feed myself?” he asked.

“I thought you were living off my baking efforts,” she said. He laughed and she liked the way his eyes crinkled in the corners. He made an omelet for himself and then sat down beside her.

“So, are you going to answer my question?” he asked.

She sighed. “I had a feeling you hadn’t forgotten.”

“Not that I’m badgering or anything,” he said.

“Aren’t you more interested in what Tenley and I found out tonight?” she asked.

“If that’s what you want to talk about,” he said. “But I have to ask, do you get panic attacks a lot?”

“That was not a panic attack,” she corrected him. “That was a borderline hysteric reaction to finding someone in my house when no one was supposed to be there.”

“Point taken. Sorry,” he said and hung his head, looking much like Hank when he was being chastised.

“It’s okay,” she said. “How did you get in, by the way?”

“Master key. As soon as I was released, I called Matt. I’m glad you and Tenley had the good sense to let him know where you were going. I waited in my cabin as long as I could stand it.” Nate’s voice was low when he added, “But I got worried and came over here.”

He sounded genuinely anxious on her behalf, and Brenna had no idea what to make of that. She did know that the thought of him having a key to her place didn’t bother her as much as it should.

“Sorry you were worried. We were fine, although we didn’t know it,” she said. She hesitated, not wanting to divulge what Dom had asked her to keep quiet, but then decided Nate would respect her confidence and not blab. “Please keep this between you and me. It turns out young Mr. Cappicola is a Harvard grad, trying to turn the family business legit.”

Nate put his fork down and stared at her. “No way.”

“Way,” she said. “Ripley approached him about the lake proposal, but Dom declined. He didn’t like the potentially problematic aspect of throwing you out.”

“
Dom
, is it?” he asked. He raised his eyebrows questioningly and Brenna was mortified to feel her face grow warm.

“He was very nice,” she said.

“I’m sure he was,” he said.

“It gets better,” she said in an effort to get the conversation back on track.

“What, do you have a date with him?” he asked. He sounded a bit miffed. Brenna stifled the urge to roll her eyes.

“No,” she said. “I have even better information.”

Nate jabbed his fork into his eggs with a little more force than necessary. Brenna decided to ignore this.

“Guess who owns the
Morse Point Courier
?” she asked.

“No idea,” he said.

“Cappicola Industries,” she said.

“You’re kidding?” he asked. His gaze met hers and she raised her hands in exasperation.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” she asked. She was feeling pretty proud of herself and her detective work. “And that’s not all.”

“Of course not,” he said. He pushed his plate away and looked as if he was bracing himself for her next bit of news. “What else did you find out?”

“That if Ed Johnson doesn’t start selling more newspapers, he’s going to be shut down.”

“
Dom
told you that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“And you believed him?” he asked. He didn’t even try to hide the skepticism in his voice.

“Of course,” she said. “Why would he lie?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s see, maybe to throw suspicion off of himself and onto Ed?”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “If you had met him, you’d see.”

“Well, I won’t be meeting him,” Nate said. “That is Chief Barker’s job, not mine or yours.”

“But . . .”

“No buts,” he said. “I want you to leave this alone. The police can investigate Ripley’s murder. That’s what we pay them to do.”

“The police make mistakes,” she said with her teeth clenched. Sometimes, despite her best efforts, the bitterness of her past got the better of her. Nate opened his mouth to speak but she pressed on, “I think if I can get into Ed’s office . . .”

“No, absolutely not,” he said.

“Why not?” She stood up and carried her empty plate to the sink. “It’s no different than visiting Ripley’s office.”

“Yet another thing I didn’t want you to do,” he said. He followed her to the sink, put his plate on top of hers, and turned to face her. “There’s no memorial to decoupage here. You’d be straight up breaking and entering. And having been arrested for just a few hours today, I highly recommend avoiding a stay in the local jail.”

“I’m not going to get arrested,” she said. “All I’m going to do is search Ed’s office to see if there is anything that links him to the mayor’s murder.”

“Like what?” Nate asked. “The key to the trunk?”

“Don’t be silly, he wouldn’t keep that lying around,” she said.

“That was sarcasm.” He ran a hand through his brown wavy hair. She noticed he did that when he was feeling particularly exasperated.

“Look, they let you out, because of who you are, and because you can pay an inordinate amount of bail,” she said. “But do you really think they won’t come after you again, if they don’t find out who really did it?”

“So what?” he asked.

“So? Everyone will think you’re a murderer. People will whisper behind your back and point at you.”

“And that would be different how?” he asked. He had a point. He wasn’t the friendliest sort and the locals had been whispering about him even before the mayor’s murder.

“Trust me,” she said. “When people believe the worst of you, it cuts deep.”

She turned away from him and walked back to the brown suede couch that ran along one wall of her living room. She sank down into it and he sat down beside her. His eyes were intent as they studied her face.

“Tell me what happened to you,” he said.

Brenna studied him. His eyes were patient and, to her undoing, full of empathy. She swallowed hard. She never spoke of the events that had led to her move to Morse Point. They were still quite painful, but she had a feeling Nate would understand. She hoped so at any rate.

“Two years ago, I was closing the gallery by myself. We’d just received the crates for our next event, an auction of Jean Depaul’s turn-of-the-century works, and I was charged with doing the inventory before I left.”

Brenna paused. The memories of being in the gallery that night filled her mind. She’d been nibbling on Havarti cheese and wheat crackers and listening to Mozart on the stereo. She had always loved the cavernous gallery at night and was happy to do inventory. She’d felt it was a treat to get to be the one to open the crates and see the works first.

She’d opened half of the crates when she got that creepy feeling of another presence in the gallery. At first, she thought it was one of the gallery owners stopping by to take a peek at Depaul’s work, but when she called out, no one answered. She told Nate about that feeling and he nodded.

“I knew something was wrong,” she said. “So I decided to get out of there. I wanted to call the police but my cell phone was in my purse in the back and I didn’t want to go back there. In the main room, I felt safer, as if someone on the street might see me, so I made my way toward the front door.”

She paused to take a long breath. Even two years later, this part bothered her.

“I was halfway to the door when I was attacked,” she said. “To this day I am not sure where they came from. I was knocked down, and when I tried to put up a fight, they took one of the small sculptures we had on display and cracked me on the temple with it.”

She lifted back her hair and showed him the small scar at her hairline.

“Ouch,” he winced. “What happened?”

“They stole every single piece of Jean Depaul’s work,” Brenna said. “And I was left in a pool of blood and wasn’t found until the next morning when the owners arrived to open the gallery.”

“You could have died,” he said. His voice was tight with anger and somehow that made Brenna feel better.

“There were days that I would have preferred that ending,” she said. He frowned. “The police fingered me for the robbery.”

“What? But that’s ridiculous,” he said.

“The burglars had done their homework,” she said. “They stole my identity and started offering the works on the black market using my name. No one believed me. Not the police, not my bosses, not my clients. My reputation in the art world was destroyed.”

Chapter 17