My Killer Vacation — Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Myles

didn’t kill that guy. Swear to God.” Judd“I Forrester swipes sweat from his brow. “Believe me, I wanted to. I came this close. But he was breathing when I left.”

For once in my life, I wish my gut feelings weren’t so stubborn. Intuition is telling me this man didn’t kill Oscar Stanley and, shitty as it sounds, I wish he had. That would make wrapping up this case and moving on a whole lot easier. As soon as Forrester opened his mouth, unfortunately, a little voice whispered in the back of my headyou’re not going anywhere yet.

I left Taylor’s place about two hours ago and rode a couple more to Worcester. The chief of police over at Barnstable PD—the department on the Cape that responded to the crime scene—is extremely reluctant to give me any information pertaining to the case. There isn’t a single cop alive who jumps for joy when a bounty hunter,

or in this case a freelance investigator, rolls into town and starts digging into the same crime with a lot less red tape to deal with, but it sure as hell lights a fire under their asses.

It took a promise yesterday to share any information I stumble across for the chief to spill the news that Forrester made bail. Tracking the man down was up to me, though.

The chief drew the line at sharing Forrester’s address.

Thank God I have the internet for that. And when those searches don’t pan out, I can still tap my contacts in Boston. I guess I can’t be too mad about the police keeping me out of the loop, since I’m not sharing the threatening note Taylor and I found. I’ll share it with them eventually.

But there’s no harm in getting a hard start holding the new piece of evidence, if it turns out to be relevant.

I attempt to refocus on the man sitting across from me.

The fact that Forrester made bail so fast should have told me they didn’t have a lot of evidence that he killed Oscar Stanley. Needed to see it for myself, though, so I could confidently cross him off the list of suspects. I’m not quite ready to do that yet. Not when he had motive and opportunity. But the honesty ringing in his voice is causing my heartburn to act up.

There’s potential meat to this case. Meaning, I’m not getting away from Taylor any time soon. And I really, really need to get away from her. I’m sitting here, sure, but my mind is on her. Her safety. I know damn well what happens when I get emotionally involved in a case. Last time that happened, the outcome was so unacceptable, I turned in my detective’s badge. Like it or not, Taylor Bassey is

involved in this situation. Hell, I haven’t even been able to eliminate her or Jude as suspects yet. She’s going to be in the periphery of this investigation and she is a too beautiful, too interesting distraction that I cannot afford.

And I don’t like the way she makes me feel.

I don’t need her surprising me or challenging me. I just want to remain an impartial observer of life. A blow-in. Just passing through. I haven’t even spoken to my parents or brother in three years, because attachment to anything and anyone after what happened on my final case with the Boston PD? It fucking hurts. I hate the weight of attachment sitting on my chest. Connections to people are nothing but responsibilities—and I don’t want them. I don’t need people around to be disappointed when and if I fuck up. And in this line of work, fucking up is inevitable, right?

People die. They go missing. God help a man if the victim ends up being someone he’s started caring about. So yeah, I don’t need my head muddled by a woman or I’ll lose sight of my job here. To solve a murder.

Then I can get back on my bike and get the hell out of

here.

The sooner the better.

I lean sideways in my chair to access my pocket, taking out the letter found beneath Stanley’s floorboards and I lay it on the table in front of me. Forrester doesn’t react.

There’s no recognition there, but I ask anyway. “Do you

recognize this envelope?”

“Nope.”

I take out the letter, unfold it and smooth it out, not taking my eyes off him once. “Did you send this to Oscar

Stanley prior to murdering him?”

“No! Jesus, I told you a hundred times, I didn’t kill that piece of shit.”

I replace the letter in my pocket. “Do you own a firearm?”

He hesitates. Wets his lips and looks around.

That’s a yes, but he’s reluctant to share.

The cops must have asked him this question, right?

Why does it seem like the first time he’s answering this question?

“Look, I don’t have the authority to fine you for not having permits. Just tell me how many.” I click open my pen. “And what models.”

I already have information on his registered weapons, but what he’sactually holding could differ. Drastically.

There’s always something extra hiding somewhere.

Sighing, he rubs at his eye sockets. “Couple of thirty-five millimeters for hunting. A Glock for protection. Nothing crazy.”

He’s not looking me in the eye. “And which one doesn’t have a permit?”

A bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face. “The

Glock,” he sighs.

“Mind if I take a look at it?”

“I loaned it out to a buddy,” he says. Too quickly?

Even though Forrester is acting shady, there is something that doesn’t place him at the scene for me. He doesn’t have an alibi—claims to have been home alone. But there is something cold and precise about a bullet in the center of a man’s head that doesn’t speak to this man’s

temperament. There are two dozen pictures framed on the walls depicting his hunting accomplishments and in every single one of them, he’s surrounded by friends, antlers in one hand, a can of beer in the other. When he beat up Oscar Stanley, he had an audience, too. His daughter and all of her friends.

Forrester wouldn’t be satisfied with a quiet, solitary killing. For my money, it doesn’t fit, even if I can’t quite cross his name off the list yet.

We go over his story one more time, me searching for those subtle changes that can often break a case open, but he’s firm on details and getting impatient with me in his kitchen. It’s late afternoon by the time I get on my bike and head back to my motel on the Cape. With evening turning the highway into a sea of headlights, I try and fail not to think of a certain brunette with green eyes. Not a simple feat when her frilly red panties are burning a hole in my pocket.

Walking into my rented room a while later, I take them out, laying them flat on the nightstand. Smoothing the see- through panels that run vertical at the hips. Just a peek of skin.

Does that mean she’s a tease in the sack?

Yeah.

Yeah, I bet she’d work me up good before letting me drag these off. Fill her up tight.

What the hell am I doing carrying around her underwear?

These urges Taylor has woken up inside of me in such a short space of time…they’re not typical for me by any

means. I’m not the jealous type, but I didn’t like the asshole assistant smiling at her. I’ve never been possessive, but when she was underneath me…I could feel her wanting to be dominated. She liked my hand on her throat. She liked being pinned. And the way she turned to me for reassurance after all of it? I have no experience with soothing women. That idea would have been laughable as recently as this morning. Still, I somehow knew exactly what to do. For Taylor. Like we communicated without saying a word.

Meanwhile I couldn’t even communicate withactual words in my first disastrous marriage? Jesus. Nah, I must have imagined those tugs of intuition with Taylor.

No way I’d be good for her. I’d be in it for the fucking.

She’s the kind of woman who emotionally invests in everything. Crying over pandas and shit. Christ. Thinking about her in red lace panties is the last thing I should be doing, because I’m not just fantasizing. Not just thinking of

how good the sex would be.

I’m thinking of her… Smiling up at me.

Telling me how good I’m making it for her.

I’m thinking of her fingers in my hair and all over my

back.

I’m thinking of…the trust in her eyes.

“Nope. No, no, no.” I swipe the panties off the nightstand and shove them back into my pocket. “Going to

return them. You are giving them back.”

So she can wear them for another man?

Suddenly, my jaw feels like it’s about to snap.

Which is why when my phone rings, I am too distracted to look at the caller ID. I simply thumb the green button and bark, “This is Sumner. What do you want?”

“Hello, Myles Sumner.” Taylor’s exhale in my ear turns a slow crank in my belly. “Shouldn’t a bounty hunter have an intimidating nickname? Like Hellhound or Lone Wolf?”

“Only if they’re an overinflated asshole.” Hearing her voice in the middle of the mental tug-of-war she inspired isn’t doing great things for my patience. But I’m not impatient withher. I’m annoyed at myself for being so damn relieved to hear from her. “Why are you calling me, half pint? I’m busy.”

“Oh.” A long pause ensues. I can hear the ocean in the background. Waves. Louder than they sound from her rental house. Is she on the beach? I don’t know, but the longer the silence stretches, the guiltier I’m feeling for being so abrupt with her. If my guilt isn’t a red flag that this woman has the ability to make me feel shit I don’t want to feel, what is? “Well I don’t want to interrupt whatever

you’re doing…”

Thinking of you in red panties.

Thinking of you moaning, telling me my dick is the

perfect size.

“I’m working a case, Taylor.”

“Right.” She sighs and another arrow of guilt nails me in the stomach. “So I should just bag the murder weapon myself and bring it to the police?”

My brain snaps into focus like a rubber band. “What?”

“Sorry to bother you—”

“Taylor.”

“Hmm?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m on the beach, maybe a quarter mile from our house?” The wind carries her words away slightly and I don’t like it. I don’t like her standing on a windy beach in front of a gun, especially after the sun has set. Not without me there. “Jude met some surfers today and they invited us over for burgers. They have a really good view of the ocean and it looked so beautiful, so I brought my drink down here. I was just going to get my feet wet, but I started walking. I saw something shiny in the brush. Before you ask me, I haven’t touched it.”

I’m already halfway out the door of my motel room, keys in hand. “Do you know the name of the street you’re on?”

“No. We walked here on the beach. We didn’t drive.”

Why is my skin suddenly layered with clammy sweat underneath my T-shirt? “Call your brother and tell him to come wait with you until I get there, Taylor.”

“Oh no.” Her tone suggests that whole idea is preposterous. “I don’t want to interrupt his good time. He’s finally beginning to relax. Myles, losing Bartholomew has been very hard on him. This would only stress him out again.”

“Ahh. God forbid we get stressed.” I switch to Bluetooth on my jog through the parking lot. “There hasn’t been a murder or anything.”

She sniffs. “You should know that sarcasm makes me shut down. There was a very sarcastic bully who lived next door to us growing up. He called me Shaquille O’Neal in front of the whole neighborhood. All because I was short. I

couldn’t walk by without him demanding I dunk on their hoop in the street. To this day, I cry every time I see Shaq, which is very unfair. By all accounts, he’s a lovely man.”

My teeth are grinding together.

To keep from growling or laughing, I have no idea. I’ve lost my fucking mind.

Now I’m also roaring out of the motel parking lot at fifty miles an hour, skidding sideways on the main road and correcting my bike in the direction of Coriander Lane. “Did you walk east or west on the beach?”

“What am I? A compass?” I can picture her wrinkled nose. It makes me ride faster. “We walked down the staircase that leads from the end of our block down to the beach. And we hung a right. Does that help?”

“Send me a pin of your location.”

“Oh yeah. I can do that.” My phone buzzes in my pocket a moment later and I pull over long enough to map a route to the closest block to where she’s waiting on the beach.

“Do you have all of the necessary equipment for evidence collection?”

Do not even think of smiling. You’re on a slippery slope.

“Yes, Taylor,” I sigh.

“Fabulous. Then I’ll see you in a while—”

“Oh no.” My hand tightens on the handlebars. “Don’t

you dare hang up.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re alone in the dark and there might be a murderer in the area.”

“Are you worried about me, Myles? Not only am I out here alone and defenseless. But I should mention that my

emergency stash of panties has been mysteriously depleted. I’m worried we might havetwo criminals on our hands. A murderer and a panty thief. This has to be some kind of record for Cape Cod.”

“You’re very funny, half pint.” Red lace. My thumb pressing through the materialright there, rubbing until she’s wet.God. “You just found the potential murder weapon and you want to discuss underwear?”

“I just find it curious thatyou are clearly a thief and yet I am a murder suspect.”

“I don’t suspect you. There just hasn’t been cause to eliminate you yet. And if you want to get technical, miraculously finding the murder weapon doesn’t exactly

exonerate a person.”

“I wish I hadn’t called you.”

That statement definitely shouldn’t make me feel like I swallowed a lit candle, right? “That’s fine, Shaquille,” I say, to play defense against the burn. “Just don’t hang up.”

She gasps.

The sound of the ocean immediately cuts out.

“Great.” The guilt is back. Thicker than ever. “She hung up.”

With a gritted curse—and my nerves running loose in every direction—I pick up speed.