Lowcountry Seaside Mystery Box Set, page 21
part #1 of Lowcountry Seaside Mystery Series
“What about this weekend?” Ryan asked. “How about we head out into the marsh?”
“Lord.” Jackson smiled. “You haven’t said that in a while.”
“I know. I just have an itch to get away for a little while. I thought maybe we could go looking for salamanders. We could be thirteen again.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jackson said. “We can meet up after church?”
“Sure.” Ryan looked at the boyish face of his lifelong best friend. Time had done little to change anything about the man, physically or otherwise. He was still handsome, still a flirt, and still all-too-ready to fall in love. “All right, man, see you later.” He headed outside and got back into his car. Maybe tonight, sleep wouldn’t be as elusive.
Chapter Fourteen
“Here are your results,” said the young forensic officer as she entered Ryan’s office. Her hair was black, far too black to be natural. She wore about six pounds of dark makeup and her skin couldn’t have been any whiter if she’d have been dusted in baby powder. It seemed she’d really taken to the gothic look. “They’re not great.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan asked, pulling the paper from its sleeve.
Cold cases were a tricky business, with most leads being too old to still have any value and the way people’s memories seemed to get fuzzy after a while. Hard evidence was really all the detectives could hope for. In this case, it would be a positive DNA match. But it seemed they would have no such luck.
“The sample was so old, so degraded.” She brought her black polished nails to her lips and began nibbling them. “Checking it actually destroyed it.”
“Were you able to get anything?” Ryan asked.
“We got a partial,” she answered flatly, her deep purple lipstick rubbing off on her fingers.
“Which means what?”
“It means we can narrow it down a little when comparing the DNA of suspects, but it won’t be strong enough to use as actual evidence.”
“Was the partial a match for Royce Wright?” Ryan asked.
“That’s the second bump in the road,” answered the young tech. “Royce Wright is what’s referred to as a non-secretor. His profile is hard to get. I’d have to have a fresh sample, and a lot of it, to really work up a profile on him.”
“Are you serious?” Ryan asked. “A non-secretor. Really.”
“Actually, It’s not all that uncommon. Especially around here, for some reason.”
“What about the hammer?” he asked. “The one we brought in a couple of days ago.”
“Better news on that front,” she chirped. “There wasn’t much in the way of DNA on it, but there were some pretty clear fingerprints. One of them was a partial, maybe yours . . . but the others belonged to someone else.”
“Royce Wright?” Ryan asked.
“Yup!” The young girl’s head snapped.
“Well, I guess that means it’s time for me to speak with him.”
Working the cold-case department was something Detective Ryan Devereux wasn’t sure he’d enjoy. But as time wore on and resolve to get back to the homicide department wore thin, he began to appreciate the small perks it afforded him. One of them was the schedule. Since most of the leads were so old and often hard to track down, making his own hours kinda just became part of the job.
As a result, having an early dinner with his family at five o’clock, then spending his evening chasing down a lead, seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Besides, he hadn’t had much luck catching up with Royce Wright during the daylight hours. So he figured maybe he’d give the evening twilight a shot at helping him.
“Hey, Dad,” Carly said as he walked through the door of his wife’s house. “I need you to be cool, okay? Don’t embarrass me. I know you want to, but don’t!”
“Oh, is this the dinner where I get to meet your date for the dance? I’d completely forgotten about that,” he lied.
The truth was that he’d probably overreacted to the news that his daughter would be accompanied to the dance by a boy. After all, parents were going to be there, and it wasn’t as if his wife wasn’t a good parent. If there was a reason not to trust the boy, Ryan was sure she’d have seen it.
“Dad!” The young girl pleaded. “For once, just be cool. Okay?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ryan said, watching her scoff and leave the room.
“He’s a fine kid,” Jillian said. “You don’t need to grill him. I have yoga with his mom.”
“I wasn’t going to grill him,” Ryan replied, standing next to his former wife as she stirred a large pot of beef stroganoff. “Stroganoff, really?” he asked. “You know that always makes me sick.”
“That’s because you eat too much.” She shook her head, her eyes focused on the bubbling hot pasta.
“That’s not my fault.” He smiled. “It’s too damn delicious. I can’t help it. You know that!”
“Well . . .” She shrugged. “God puts temptation in our paths every day. We must learn to overcome them.”
The intoxicating aroma of beef, sour cream, and butter melded together in a luscious and tempting swirl of decadent goodness. The scent slowly filled the air around him, wrapping him in a blanket of memories.
Though he loved the dish, it wasn’t a particularly difficult one to make, and more than that, it was pretty inexpensive. Which for a newlywed couple fresh out of school, it meant they ate it a lot. It was during those days so many years ago that Ryan’s affinity for the meal grew. It seemed that with each new day, each stir of her spoon, Jillian became a better cook until finally, she’d managed to perfect a dish that even Ryan’s momma would have taken her hat off to. It was just that good.
They’d been so happy once, so very happy that it somehow seemed unfair. But in the presence of youth, it’s easy to get lost in love, lost in the promise of what might be. And then, just as it always does, reality came knocking with questions both Ryan and Jillian realized they didn’t have answers for. Things like the future, mortgages, and college. At once, it became all too clear that youth had left them and that they couldn’t live on dreams alone.
That kind of thing is stressful no matter who you are, but coupled with Ryan’s long work hours and Jillian’s inability to be alone, the marriage crumbled. They were both sad at first. Sure, who wouldn’t be? But they’d managed to make it, to find a common ground in the love of a child and the memories of the hope they’d once had.
“I’ll hold back at the table for Carly’s sake, but maybe you just put some in a to-go box and—”
“Way ahead of you.” Jillian smiled, holding a small plastic container in the air. “I’ll make sure it’s full.
“Thank you,” he said, placing his hand on Jillian’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it. Hell, he hadn’t even realized he was touching her until her eyes darted to his fingertips. But the feeling of her warm skin sent chills though his hand and up his arm. It had been years since he’d touched the woman, so long that he’d forgotten just how soft her light skin was, how warm his hand felt when resting on her body.
“You’re welcome,” she said, spooning the last of the pasta into a large serving dish and heading into the dining room.
A large chandelier hung high above the table, catching Ryan’s eye. It was an odd-looking thing, with black wrought-iron and dark grey crystals protruding in large, jagged geometric shapes. It looked more like something you’d find in some boutique-style Paris hotel rather than a Lowcountry house.
“What is that?” he asked.
“You like it?” Thomas Kent’s unmistakable voice boomed in from across the room. A sheen of moisture lay across his skin and hair, indicating he’d just gotten out of the shower.
“It’s . . . interesting,” Ryan said, knowing full-well Thomas had been the one to choose it. Jillian would have never picked such a gaudy thing, instead sticking to more refined and elegant fixtures.
“I ordered it from Stockholm.” He grinned. “Thought it might add a nice conversation piece to our dinners.”
“It’s definitely a conversation starter,” Ryan replied.
“Still working on that story.” Thomas winked. “Even interviewed Ida Taylor.”
“You spoke to Ida Taylor?” Ryan asked.
They’d been sitting across from one another for all of ten seconds when the man launched into his self-obsessed story, the one where he’d no doubt paint himself as a hero for somehow solving the case before Ryan had the chance. Ryan straightened his back, focusing his eyes on Thomas’s ridiculously wide grin.
“Oh, yeah,” Thomas answered. “I mean, I know you already talked to her. I hear you were at the truck stop in Mount Pleasant too. What were you doing up there? Is it connected to the case? Does it have anything to do with the Twitter account or the photo?”
“I’m not talking to you about this, Thomas.” Ryan steadied his voice. “We’ve been through this. You can’t use my words in your little story.”
“What’s he talking about?” Jillian looked at Thomas. “What words?”
“We just had a simple conversation the other day.”
“No,” Ryan said. “I had a simple conversation, or at least I thought I did. You were drilling me for a story and trying to use it without my consent.”
“I’m a reporter.” Thomas smiled. “Everything with me is on the record.”
“The hell it is!” Jillian snapped. It was an odd sight for the detective. While he hadn’t spent a great deal of time around her lately, the sight of her suddenly blowing was certainly unexpected. It reminded him of the last days of their marriage, of the nights they’d stay up fighting and making up, only to fight again the next day.
Jillian had never been the type of woman to hold back her thoughts for the sake of a man. She was a proper Southern girl, yes. But sometimes, she just had a little more to say than ‘Have a blessed day.’ And it seemed tonight was one of those times.
“What?” Thomas gasped.
“You can’t just go around repeating things. Ryan is a detective. This is his job. If he says it was off the record, it was off the record!”
“It’s my job too,” Thomas said.
“It’s entertainment when it’s your job!” Jillian said. “It’s someone’s life when it’s his job. Someone’s memory, someone’s family.”
“Entertainment,” Thomas scoffed. “This is journalism. This is getting to the bottom of the story.”
“Then wait until there’s a story, Thomas. Let Ryan solve the case then report on that. Or do it now. Whatever,” she said. “Just don’t use statements he told you not to. It’s dangerous. It could get him fired. It could get him killed.”
“I’m not having this fight with him here.” Thomas balled up his napkin and threw it on his plate. “We’ll talk about this later.” He left the room.
Having his ex-wife fight for him was one of the last things Ryan expected to happen that night. Though, he had to admit to himself, it felt nice having her in his corner. Not the mention the look of utter shock and disgust that fell over Thomas before he left he room. Just the look on his face was almost as good as the stroganoff, though . . . not quite.
“I’m sorry.” Ryan looked at Jillian.
“He won’t use anything you said in that story. I can promise you that.” She sat motionless, her arms folded over her chest.
“Is everything okay with you two?” Ryan asked. “I mean, I’m not trying to pry. It just seems that maybe—”
“Maybe it’s me,” she said.
“Maybe what’s you? What do you mean?”
Jillian’s eyes turned to him, her soft features accentuated by the glow of the dark crystal lights. “All he talks about is work. You’d think he was reporting on the second coming of the Lord or something. He’s up before the sun and he gets home late. I see him on television just as much as I see him in this house.”
“How is that your fault?”
“It isn’t,” she replied. “It’s no one’s fault. It’s just that . . . our marriage ended because of me, because of what I did. I tried to blame you. I resented you for working so much. Now Thomas is doing the same thing. It’s happening all over again.” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I just wonder . . . am I going to react the same way? Am I going to repeat the mistakes I made when I stepped out on you?”
Suddenly, the look Jillian had given him in the kitchen seemed to hold more weight than it had before. The second too long that she’d spent watching his hand as it rested on her shoulder. The fact that she’d made beef stroganoff for the first time in ten years. Was there something else happening here?
“You’re not saying—”
“I’m not saying anything.” Jillian stood from the table and poured herself a drink. “Maybe we should just talk another time. You can meet Issac another time.”
“Who?” Ryan asked.
“Issac,” she said. “Carly’s date to the formal. Maybe we can have dinner tomorrow or something.”
“Sure,” Ryan said, looking at her for a minute and then heading for the door.
“Wait.” She followed behind him, stopping only inches from his back, her warm breath falling across his neck. “You forgot your pasta.” She placed the small box in his hand.
Chapter Fifteen
The gentle rumble of his car engine bellowed through the island air. Ryan told his partner that he’d pick her up at home this morning and not to worry about driving to the office. In addition to her house’s being on his way, he wanted a few minutes in the car with her. It was a little childish, but the detective hoped she’d mention his best friend, Jackson. That, or he could find a way to work him into the conversation.
“Hey,” she said, opening the door and sliding in. Shimmering pink lipstick covered her lips. It was light, not the bold red traditionally found on the women one would expect to find it on the South. But after all, Kit Walker wasn’t Southern.
“You’re wearing lipstick,” Ryan said almost immediately.
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess I got tired of being the only person for a two-hundred-mile radius that doesn’t look like Dolly Parton.”
“That’s hardly fair.” Ryan shifted the car into drive and pulled away. “You could never look like Dolly. It takes a lot of money to look that cheap.”
A slow smile crept across her face as the two drove down the twisting Carolina backroads. Ryan had a feeling Royce Wright had probably spent the night at Carolina James’s house. If that was the case, it would be the best chance they had at speaking to him without letting the entire island know what they were up to.
“There should be bridges,” Kit said, her voice low and studied.
“What’s that, now?” Ryan asked.
“Bridges. There should be bridges connecting these islands. Just look.” Her eyes focused out the window. “This is Sullivan’s Island. We’re headed to Mount Pleasant, which is another island. But in order to get from one to the other, we have to go all the way back into Charleston, then all the way around town, just to end up a few miles down the coast. Why aren’t there bridges connecting the islands?”
It was a question the detective had never heard, and certainly not one he’d ever seen as a problem. This was his home, the land he’d grown up in and loved. To him, Lowcountry was perfect the way it was, every road, every outlying island. And honestly, by now, he figured his partner would have warmed up more to the whole place, that she would have learned to understand and appreciate the things that made it unique.
“There is a bridge. Ben Sawyer Bridge. But at the moment, it’s closed. Though if it were up to me, they’d never open it again. There shouldn’t be bridges,” Ryan answered. “That’s why they’re islands. If we keep building bridges, they won’t be islands. And I’m not the only one who feels that way either.”
“Yes, they would.”
“Not the same kind though.” He cleared his throat. “You still don’t get it, Kit. The people who live out here, the ones who populate these islands, they don’t want them connected to everything under the sun. They like the feeling of being surrounded by water, by nature. They want to know that they can wake up, drink some coffee, and take their dogs for walks along the beach, all the while, running into only one road. That’s it. That’s island life down here. Bridges are manmade, and they want nature.”
“I guess I just hadn’t thought about it that way,” she mused, her forehead wrinkling under deep thought.
“Let me ask you something. You grew up in New Jersey, right?”
“Yes.”
“Right.” He glanced at her, her light pink lipstick catching the morning sunlight and reflecting back at him. “The people there, the ones who lived near you. The ones you met on the street. How did they feel about that place, about Jersey?”
“I don’t know. No one ever talked about it.”
“No one talks about it here either.”
“Then, what’s your point?”
“My point is, when you speak to these people . . . like, when you spoke to Ida Taylor, or that girl you told me about when you first moved here, the waitress who offered to take you to the farmer’s market on Saturday even though she’d just met you. They don’t talk much about this place, but even though they don’t say the words, I still know they don’t wanna be anywhere else. I’m asking if when talking to them, you know that too?”
“It’s just different up there,” she said. “I never got the feeling anyone cared much about their surroundings. But . . .” A slow silence fell over her as she tried to understand what her partner had just told her. “Yeah, I know what you mean. These people don’t wanna be anywhere else.”
“Not only do they not want to be anywhere else, but they don’t want their home to feel like anywhere else.”
“I get it. I mean, I don’t know that I truly understand the mentality, but I get what you’re saying. But I don’t think you understand.”
