Perilous Homecoming Read online

  “Did you hear me?”

  No, she hadn’t heard anything Clay had said after she’d seen the facial expression that answered all her questions. “I didn’t. What did you say?”

  “If it was up to me, you’d only be a witness. But I’m afraid Davies is wanting to treat you as a suspect.”

  Suspect. The word she’d only narrowly managed to avoid in the case that caused her departure from Treasure Point not too many years ago. She hated when her integrity was questioned.

  “Let’s go, then.” She glanced toward the museum. “Although with that lights-off stunt not too long after what I saw on the balcony, there’s a good chance I’m going to need to be back here soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something is likely missing or vandalized. It’s going to be my job to assess that.” Her words came out tight, pointed. She felt bad that she was directing them at Clay, one of the nicest guys she’d ever known. But the prospect of being questioned about a crime she didn’t commit was enough to put anyone in a lousy mood.

  Anyway, Clay was probably thinking along the same lines already. Cutting the lights was a common gambit for upscale thieves, allowing them to snatch something that had, only moments before, been in plain sight. Perhaps the curator had caught a thief in the act of tampering with the wiring prior to the blackout. Was that why he had died?

  She reminded herself not to jump to conclusions. She’d barely met the curator and had been away from town too long to know the current gossip. There could be a dozen reasons someone might have wanted the man dead.

  Before she could apologize, before Clay could reply, another man walked their direction, tall and a little intimidating. Lieutenant Davies.

  “He read you your rights yet?”

  Kelsey couldn’t stifle her laugh. “Rights? Davies, I used to work with y’all. I know my rights and if you have a brain in your head, you’ll realize I’m innocent.”

  “Are you verbally assaulting an officer?” His serious face didn’t change. He’d always been a man who’d done his job well, but personally he and Kelsey had never gotten along.

  She shook her head. “You know I’m not. But you also know I’m not a killer.”

  “I guess we’ll see. I’ll spare you the cuffs, anyway, as long as you move slow. Let’s go get in the car.”

  Kelsey followed him without another word. She climbed into the back of the police car—definitely a first for her—and looked out the window, at the museum, for as long as she could before they drove out of view.

  Straight to the place where she’d first started to realize she might not be good at everything she put her hand to. She’d already faced disgrace at the Treasure Point police station. Was she about to face murder charges there, too?

  TWO

  Sawyer had gone back inside after watching Kelsey exit. But though the lights had come back on in short order, the party atmosphere had already vanished. All the guests had been herded into the main gallery, where the police had announced that no one would be allowed to leave until everyone had given a statement.

  That had been over an hour ago. A young police officer Sawyer didn’t recognize had taken down his contact information and asked him some questions about the party—what his connection was to the museum, what he had seen and heard, who he had talked to. The kid had been annoyingly vague when Sawyer had tried to ask some questions of his own—namely, asking what on earth was going on. Clearly something wasn’t right here. But none of the guests he’d spoken to in the past hour had the slightest idea what the problem was, and the police were being very closed-mouthed.

  He wanted answers, and while he seldom used his family name to his advantage, he started looking around for a Treasure Point police officer who might give him some information.

  There. Clay Hitchcock. No use of his family name would be necessary, since the two of them had been friends, had played football together back in high school—Sawyer was the quarterback to Clay’s receiver.

  “Clay!” Sawyer jogged in his direction. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Is it about all this?” He gestured around him. “Because otherwise it needs to wait.”

  “I’m not sure. Kelsey...”

  “What about her? Did she tell you something?”

  “No, she didn’t. I just... She seemed really shaken up when the lights went off. She went from acting like she hated me to asking for my help and I don’t understand what happened or where she went. I haven’t seen her since then, which is weird, since I know y’all aren’t allowing anyone to leave.”

  “You spoke to her after the lights went out? What did she want?”

  “Just for me to use my flashlight to help her find her way to the door.”

  “So you helped her and then?”

  “She ran.”

  Clay nodded. “I saw her after that. She’s at the station now.”

  “The police station?” Sawyer frowned. “Is she okay?” Nothing about this was making sense to him.

  “She is for now. Or she will be soon. But at the moment, she’s answering some questions for us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Clay shook his head. “I’m sorry, man. It’s all I can say for now.” He started to walk away, then glanced back at Sawyer. “You and Kelsey were talking? I didn’t realize you were friends.”

  They weren’t, apparently, judging by her attitude toward him. Though he supposed he hadn’t helped matters by failing to recognize her before she gave her name. Sawyer shook his head, being honest with both himself and Clay. “We’re not, really.”

  “But you didn’t mind helping her?”

  “Right.”

  Clay ran a hand through his hair, looked around. “Listen, I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but something about this doesn’t feel right to me. I think they’ll let Kelsey go soon and I can’t help her because I’m needed here. We’ve taken everyone’s statements and I was just about to announce that everyone’s free to go. Do you think you could go to the station and offer to give her a ride, make sure she’s okay?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.” It beat wandering around here in a suit, trying to stay calm, like one of the band members on the Titanic while it went down. “Are you two dating?”

  Clay laughed. “Her mom and my mom are sisters. I’d say that’s a no.”

  Cousins. How had he missed that in high school? That shouldn’t have made Sawyer as relieved as it did. He didn’t remember ever being attracted to Kelsey in high school, though he’d admired her intellect and competitive spirit. Was he that shallow that the fact that she’d grown up gorgeous had made her catch his attention? Or had he just changed enough to recognize that Kelsey Jackson might be a special kind of woman?

  “I’ll go see what I can do,” Sawyer said, and Clay nodded.

  “Thanks, man.”

  Then the other man was gone, leaving Sawyer to jog toward his truck and wonder how this night that had started out as an obligation—a somewhat boring one, at that—had turned into some kind of secret mission to make sure a woman who couldn’t stand him was all right, safe from a threat Sawyer didn’t yet understand.

  * * *

  Kelsey sat in the small room that passed for an interrogation room in Treasure Point. Really, it was an old office that the officers usually used as a sort of lounge. It was where the coffeepot was, and the smell of burnt coffee filled her nose and made her ready to confess anything just so she could get out of this room, out of this town and back to her life in Savannah.

  Except sheer stubbornness meant that she wasn’t about to confess when she wasn’t guilty of anything. Quite the opposite, she was one of the most promising witnesses they had. So why this treatment? They’d kept her waiting in here for nearly an hour.

  The door squeaked as it began to
open. Kelsey braced herself. As boring as it had been to sit here, and as eager as she was to get this over with so she could leave, she was not looking forward to any line of questioning that pointed to her as a murderer, a concept so atrocious to her she couldn’t let her mind dwell on it.

  But instead of Davies’s smirk, ready for an interrogation, it was the chief’s weathered, familiar face.

  “Sir! What are you doing here?”

  He cracked the smallest of smiles behind his facial hair. “I work here. Although I could ask the same of you.”

  Kelsey looked down.

  “Listen, I talked to the lieutenant. And I’ve been over to the museum to see where all of this happened, and I talked to Clay Hitchcock. Let’s start this over, shall we?”

  “How so?”

  “It sounds like you have some useful information about Michael Wingate’s murder.”

  Murder. Kelsey shivered.

  “But I’m not looking at you as a suspect. This town and this department has had enough foh-paaahs lately.”

  She tamped down the giggle that his overly Southern pronunciation of faux pas had brought on.

  “Tell me what you saw, Kelsey.” He pulled out the chair across from her. Leaned back.

  Kelsey weighed her options. She could still ask for a lawyer and refuse to answer any questions until counsel arrived. She was taking a chance sharing everything she knew. If someone was eager to frame her, they could twist the information she gave against her.

  But she knew from her time on the force that the chief was a man of honor. She wouldn’t end up locked up without a cause, and the best thing she could do was give him the story he was asking her for, just in case any of it helped. Besides, the information would clear her name for good in case anyone was wondering. The balcony should show signs of a struggle between a pair of people much larger than she was. They might even get footprints that clearly didn’t match her heels, or other pieces of physical evidence like hairs or fibers.

  “I needed some air.” Kelsey began, and she told the chief about leaving the main party area, finding a darkened room, then hearing voices and the sounds of a struggle.

  “I went straight to Clay and told him and he went out to investigate. The next thing I knew, the lights were off.”

  “The lights?”

  “All of them, sir. Someone flipped a breaker, I would guess. But what I want to know is why? It’s not as if the murderer needed to sneak up on Mr. Wingate. The murder had already taken place. And if the darkness was to cover his escape, why bother? The museum has multiple exits. Even if he looked as though he’d been in a struggle, it would have been easy enough for him to sneak away without being seen after the body fell. Why draw attention to the fact that something was going on when he had the chance for a clean getaway?”

  “Maybe he panicked?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. Something about this feels cold-blooded to me. I don’t think it was premeditated, but I don’t think the pushing was an accident. I do think whoever the other man was, he meant to kill Wingate.”

  “Solid reason for that?”

  “No. Just gut instinct.”

  The chief said nothing to that. She wouldn’t have expected him to—no words were necessary to remind her that her gut instinct had been wrong before. With devastating consequences for her career. In the case that had ended her tenure with the Treasure Point police department, she’d had a pair of conflicting statements to reconcile regarding a theft from Sawyer Hamilton’s wealthy, influential parents. The senior Hamiltons had pointed fingers at a former employee of theirs, a man named Scott Nicholson.

  Given her own grudge against Sawyer, it hadn’t taken much for Kelsey to feel sympathy for Nicholson, a man from humble beginnings who seemed to be suffering from the Hamiltons’ prejudice. Believing in his innocence, she chose to release him from custody, not knowing that they’d find ironclad evidence against him just a few hours later. Her bad judgment meant that he almost managed to escape punishment entirely—they barely managed to catch him before he fled town.

  “So, where do we go from here?” Kelsey spoke up, recognizing that she did so because the silence made her uncomfortable. Too much silence gave her time to think about the past, something she preferred to avoid.

  “From here, you’re free to go. I only wanted your testimony. Davies was being a bit overzealous for justice in this case. He could have taken your statement at the scene. Bringing you down here in the back of the squad car was unnecessary.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kelsey rose to her feet and preceded the chief out of the office. She’d just turned back to him to ask about a ride when he motioned ahead of her and said “Watch out.” But it was one second too late.

  This time she didn’t see the person she ran into. But the odd sense of déjà vu—mixed with the smell of his woodsy cologne—confirmed there was a good chance it was...

  “Sawyer Hamilton. Good to see you.” The chief stuck a hand past Kelsey. She was more than happy to step out of the way.

  Everything about taking this job had thrown her off balance—literally, it seemed. Clearly staying away from the young heir to the Hamilton name and all it entailed was her only option to regain her equilibrium. Which suited Kelsey just fine.

  “Did you need to see me?” the chief asked when Sawyer offered no explanation for why he was there.

  The other man’s eyes darted to Kelsey. She looked away. Why was he looking at her?

  “No, sir, I actually came to check on Kelsey. I heard she was here and thought she might need a ride home.”

  She’d rather walk the four miles to her family’s old farmhouse on the edge of town than accept. Four miles in the dark in heels and a dress would be preferable to—

  “That’s very kind of you, Sawyer.” The chief had softened his voice to what Kelsey had used to refer to as his “fatherly” tone. He looked over at her. “I would feel better if you accepted his offer.”

  What, could he read her mind?

  Unfortunately, it often seemed like the answer was yes. And he’d always been kind to her, even when most in the department had written her off as a failure and a fool. Which meant that while there was a large group of people Kelsey would mouth off to in this situation without hesitation, and then do what she wanted—trek home in the dark—she couldn’t do that to the chief. She owed him better than that.

  “I will, sir,” she said, forcing herself to turn to face the last man on earth she wanted anything to do with. “I’d appreciate a ride.” She forced the words out.

  “I’m right out front.”

  Without a backward glance, Kelsey followed him down the hall and outside. Might as well get this over with.

  THREE

  The F-150 wasn’t what she would have guessed Sawyer Hamilton would drive. Sure, it was a nice truck, but it was the same exact one he’d driven in high school. She’d have assumed he’d moved on by now, maybe to a new BMW or something more like that.

  He walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for her. She raised an eyebrow. “Uh, thanks?”

  He just laughed softly, a laugh that some women—most women—might have thought was endearing. “You’re welcome. I haven’t been gone from Treasure Point so long, Kelsey, that I forgot how I was raised.”

  Another reminder that he was still a Hamilton—one of the haves when she was a have not. And while he hadn’t played any role in the fiasco where she’d lost her job, he was the man who’d chosen to compete for a scholarship he didn’t need, who’d stolen her chance to go right to college, finish in four years, and get her career moving when all of her peers had.

  No, instead she’d stayed in Treasure Point, worked at the police department while she struggled to put herself though
school, and now was just beginning to see the fruits of her labor, was just now approaching where she wanted to be in life.

  Kelsey glared at him as he shut her door, walked around to the other side of the truck, then climbed in.

  He’d barely sat down when she stopped in the middle of fastening her seatbelt. Loyalty to the chief only went so far. She wasn’t doing this to herself. “You know what? I’d actually like the walk. Thanks, though.” She reached for the door handle, but his voice stopped her.

  “What problem do you have with me, Kelsey? I haven’t seen you in a decade, so I assume it must have been something in school, but I always thought we were... I don’t know, friendly rivals? Maybe even friends?”

  What did it say about him that he’d counted her as a friend? She never, never would have thought the same about him.

  Either way, his reminder about how much time had passed stilled her. She was an adult now. Close to successful. So far from that bitter, angry seventeen-year-old kid. Surely she could be mature, not let him get to her, right?

  “Fine.”

  He put the car in Reverse and maneuvered his way out of the parking lot. “Are you in the same house you were in during high school?” he asked and at her nod, he headed in that direction.

  “Oh, wait, my car. It’s at the museum. Could we swing by there?”

  “Sure.”

  He turned around in an empty parking lot and drove back in the direction of the museum. Neither spoke for a minute, and Kelsey wanted to keep it that way, but one thing was bothering her enough that she was willing to break her “say nothing” rule.

  “How did you know I was at the police station?” She braced herself as she asked the question. Had everyone seen her getting ushered into the back of the police car? She hoped not, but if so, better to know now so she could call her boss and do damage control with her job before the situation sounded worse than it was.