Senseless death.
He’d seen way too much of it in Afghanistan. As a cop, he wanted to help people. Yet cops and murderers were uneasy dance partners with one always trying to lead the other.
He wished the case was all his, that he could take over the questioning, demand answers, but he was pretending to be the new kid on the block.
“Here, maybe you need to see this.” Riley turned his cell phone toward Shelley, showing her a photo.
Shelley looked away. Oscar started to protest. This wasn’t the time or place, but her rescue came from a different source.
“Hello, Mr. Vaniper,” Shelley said. The piano player had returned. For a moment, Oscar thought Riley would continue to talk right through “Amazing Grace.” Oscar’d had to “ahem” twice to get Riley’s attention. Riley passed the cell phone to Shelley. She glanced at it, gave it back to Riley and announced that she’d be calling her lawyer.
Oscar saw the tears in her eyes. They barely shimmered, but they were there, and just as an hour earlier, when he’d seen the proof of her grief, he almost interfered. Oscar almost told Riley what he could do with the photo.
“Good,” Riley said. “Have your lawyer meet us at the station. I’m sure you know where that is.”
If looks could kill, Riley would have been a chalk line on the floor, because Shelley was now one very annoyed pregnant woman.
Shelley stood and started to leave, but her cell phone pinged. He watched as she pulled it from her pocket, checked a text or message and then turned pale.
“Everything all right?” he queried, wishing he could get a look at her phone.
“Just a typical day.” The words were typical; the tone was not. An edge that hadn’t been there earlier was present, a terseness.
Whatever she’d read on her phone had changed things. She’d been both angry and wary during the questioning; now she was visibly shaken.
She retrieved Ryan from the front desk, hefting him into her arms and holding him tight. She made it look easy, but the kid had to be heavy.
Oscar took one step toward her. “You need some help?”
She gave him a look that put him in his place. Alongside Riley, he was pond scum. Usually it didn’t bother him. Rarely could a cop arrest a perp without being called worse than pond scum. Shelley’s look, however, bothered him.
Bothered him a lot.
“SHE’S NOT TELLING us everything.” Riley strode toward his vehicle, Oscar at his heels.
“You’re absolutely right,” Oscar agreed. “She just got a message on her phone and it spooked her.”
“What kind of message?”
Oscar knew Riley was hoping for details. Instead all Oscar could provide was “It was an email or a text, and she didn’t share.”
“I’ll see if I can’t get her to open up,” Riley said. “Usually talking to them at the station works. Doesn’t matter, male or female. It’s all about turf. If that doesn’t help, I’ll get a subpoena, make sure we can legally get to her phone messages. I can’t believe that she packed up her belongings, didn’t inform her landlord, was heading out of town and is unwilling to tell us where or why. Something’s going on. She didn’t act this hinky back when we were dogging her about her husband’s whereabouts.”
Riley got in his vehicle, but before he started the engine, Oscar rapped on the window until the man rolled it down.
“Everything’s happened so fast today. I probably should mention that Shelley Wagner and I have met in the past.”
“Really?” Riley frowned. “Where?”
“Here. I spent a summer with my aunt when I was twelve.”
“Anything I should know about?”
“Not really. Look, for what it’s worth, I think she’s telling the truth about what she saw. It’s what she’s omitting that has me worried.”
Riley just shook his head.
“Why is she omitting anything?” Oscar went on. “Why would she do that? What will it get her?”
It was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, and Oscar didn’t have an answer. He pressed on. “Call it a gut feeling, and what would her motive be?” Oscar waited, hoping the other man would do a little back-and-forth, share scenarios.
Riley waved Oscar away before starting his vehicle and driving toward the station.
Oscar stood for a moment. He’d overstepped the boundaries set between new cop and seasoned cop. He’d questioned when he should have listened. He’d argued when he should have reasoned. He’d tried to lead when he needed to follow. Going undercover for the FBI meant playing the role, not risking everything because of passion.
He wanted the people who had hurt Candace. Wanted them bad. He hopped on the back of his Harley, gunned the engine and followed Riley’s vehicle. It made no sense to him, this insane feeling he had for Shelley. So what if he’d been watching her with Ryan, watching her idly rub her stomach? She was alone and determined to do right by her children. No, that wasn’t what had him wanting to pull her into his arms and comfort her.
But this wasn’t the time to be empathetic. Catching hardened criminals was part of his day-to-day job with the FBI, and each one had a sob story. Here, in Sarasota Falls, he might run into a hardened criminal—what? Once a year? Maybe. This wasn’t what he wanted, was it?
Still, Oscar hadn’t expected to like Sarasota Falls so much. He hadn’t been crazy about it the few times he’d visited as a kid. There hadn’t been a skate park or an indoor trampoline facility. Now, though, he was interested in other things. Things that had nothing to do with his job. First of all, there was his aunt. What a tough old bird. Oscar wasn’t sure, but he thought that Aunt Bianca was more angry at being ripped off by Wagner than she was hurt. When Oscar had called to say he was coming, she’d laughed, insisting she was fine. When she opened the door to invite him in, she continued to be fine. Now that he was living in one of her guest rooms, she claimed to be more than fine.
She liked his company.
Parking next to Riley, Oscar followed his boss to the station’s entrance and said, “Innocent until proven guilty. I don’t think Shelley Brubaker had anything to do with Candace’s death.”
“Here’s an idea,” Riley offered. “Since it doesn’t appear your Ms. Brubaker is having an affair with Cody Livingston, maybe we should consider that your friend Candace was having an affair with Shelley’s ex-husband. Maybe Larry Wagner—”
Oscar laughed, interrupting the chief. “Candace hasn’t even been married a year. She married her high school sweetheart. Beginning of the school year, they were moving into their first house and talking about which bedroom would be for their someday baby. Not the time to stray.”
“Best time, one last fling. You think you know someone...” Riley entered the station.
Oscar didn’t follow but stood thinking. His first thought was that Candace was smarter than that. But from what he could tell, so was Shelley. And maybe, right now, Riley wasn’t talking about either of them.
Everyone at the precinct was aware that Riley’s wife had left him years ago. According to Lucas, the cop who knew the scoop on everyone and everything and shared all of it, Riley had been gone too much and available too little. It was a common enough problem. Oscar’s last girlfriend had balked when he started training for the FBI. She claimed she’d have been afraid