Читать книгу Perilous Homecoming - Sarah Varland - Страница 11

ONE

Kelsey Jackson felt the way she always did at the first rumbles of thunder on a too-hot day during tornado season. The electricity in the air was almost palpable, but not in a good way. Everything about being here tonight in this stifling room gave her one of the deepest senses of foreboding she’d ever felt. But tonight was too important for her career to let all that stop her, and Kelsey was Southern, born and bred—she could put on a fake smile, laugh lightly and be pleasant, even to her worst enemy, when the occasion called for it.

That was exactly what she was going to do tonight. No, these people weren’t exactly her enemies, but they certainly weren’t friends, not after they had all turned their backs on her when she left the police force and the town under a cloud of undeserved suspicion.

Just three or four more hours’ worth of this prelaunch party for the Treasure Point History Museum, and she’d be almost home free. The rest of the work she’d been hired to undertake could be done in relative solitude, then she’d be back to Savannah, back to the life she’d been carefully creating there for the last six years.

“You look lovely tonight, Miss Jackson,” Jim Howard, the head of the historical society, said to her as he walked past. He had a woman on his arm whom Kelsey didn’t recognize.

“Thank you.” She smiled as she moved away, toward the edge of the room. She’d ended up in the middle as she was walking, but being the center of attention wasn’t exactly her thing. She was eager to get to the edge. That should help her feel less anxious.

But, Kelsey discovered quickly, even being at the edge of the crowded room where people in black-tie attire were mingling and celebrating wasn’t relaxing. Maybe she should step outside. Get some air.

Gemma O’Dell, a former classmate who was now the museum’s marketing manager, had shown her a private porch off one of the rooms on their tour of the museum earlier that day. Kelsey was fairly certain she remembered how to get to it, and from there she could step out into the cool darkness of the summer night and see if she could relax enough to get her shoulders to loosen up.

The din of voices and laughter grew quieter as she moved out of the main gallery, though there were still small clusters of people here and there in the hallways and side rooms of the museum. The way the place was set up lent itself to small conversation groups like this—it had been built to look like the antebellum plantation home that had stood on this very site for well over one hundred years, until it had been destroyed in an explosion several years before.

Kelsey moved past the library, toward the room with the porch. As she approached, she heard voices. Low. Angry?

It didn’t look like she’d be alone. She should turn around, make herself go out and be social, show the town she’d made something of herself, that she had nothing to be ashamed of.

She took a deep breath, started to swivel on her new heels and walk back the way she’d come, but...

Once a law enforcement officer, always a law enforcement officer.

Four years at the Treasure Point Police Department had honed the observational skills, the attention to detail, that she’d already possessed. Voices like these deserved to be checked out.

So she didn’t turn around. Instead, she walked slowly into the room, like she was just another party guest—which was true.

Her heels clicked loudly on the floor, which would have been a liability if she was still a police officer. The door to the porch stood open, and she could make out shapes, just barely, in the shadows. Kelsey swallowed hard as the muscles in her neck tightened and she began to feel her pulse pounding. What exactly had she planned to do without a badge and a gun?

She glanced down at herself, but sure enough, she had nothing on her that even came close to passing as a weapon. Her cerulean-blue halter dress with the swishy skirt was definitely not dangerous, and neither was the silver bracelet she always wore on her left wrist.

Kelsey hesitated a moment too long.

She heard a crash, followed by a thump, and squinted to try to make out what was happening in the dark. The shadows weren’t there anymore...wait, one was. One person was climbing over the porch railing.

Where was the second?

She thought of the thump she’d heard, a sick feeling swirling in her stomach. Had that been the other person landing on the ground? The red clay on the ground was anything but soft, and even though this was only the second story of the museum, the ceilings were tall and it would be a good fall from this height.

No more investigating for her—she needed to go get help and discover what was happening outside the museum.

Her heels clicked down the hallway, and Kelsey glanced back once to make sure no one was following her. The hallway seemed clear, but she still shivered.

The noise of the party grew louder and Kelsey searched the crowd of guests to see if any of them were officers she knew from her time on the police force. There. Clay Hitchcock—one of the guys on the force who had continued to show confidence in her as an officer even when her last case had gone so wrong. She trusted him, and not just because they were cousins. Kelsey didn’t mind talking to him—though there were several other men within the department she was hoping to avoid during her time in Treasure Point.

“Clay, I need to talk to you.”

“All right.” He nodded without questioning her, something she appreciated.

“Something’s going on outside on the north side of the museum. I went looking for some air, heard low arguing, and then it seemed like there was a struggle outside on the porch.”

“You didn’t go out there, did you?”

She shook her head. “It didn’t seem wise.”

“Wouldn’t have been,” he agreed. “You stay here. Stay involved with the party, don’t draw any attention to yourself.”

Easier said than done. But Kelsey nodded, then watched for a second as Clay hurried away. She felt a longing to be back out there with a team of law enforcement brothers and sisters, helping justice win in the world. But she was used to pushing that feeling away.

She wasn’t a cop anymore; she was an antiques insurance agent, one who was supposed to be wowing the historical society with her personality and giving them a quote on what her company would be able to do for them in terms of insuring the antiques and historical artifacts at the museum. Since it was a private museum and not state funded, the historical society had their pick of companies and there were more than a few in Savannah they could have called. Kelsey’s boss had said that the museum’s representative had specifically mentioned her by name, and so it seemed like her connection to the town—however tenuous it was right now—was possibly the reason they were being given the first chance at this job.

She couldn’t mess this up. Kelsey took a deep breath, put her shoulders back and tried to remember that people didn’t just care about the job you did—they cared about your personality, too. She tried to soften the corners of her mouth a bit and look less like she was scowling.

Kelsey would have been successful, too, except that when she turned to walk to the refreshments table, she ran square into one of the people from her past she would have been quite happy to forget.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The man’s accent was pleasant enough. So was his voice. It was clear he hadn’t recognized her yet—understandable, since her red hair was a bit tamer now than in their high school days, smoothed down and cut in an actual style rather than frizzed and messy. She’d also switched from glasses to contacts since she’d seen him last. She might feel like the same girl inside when she looked at him, but Kelsey knew she looked nothing like she had at age eighteen, which was the last time she’d laid eyes on Sawyer Hamilton.

Hamilton, as in those Hamiltons who owned half of Treasure Point, including the land surrounding this museum. His aunt Mary had given a small parcel of land along with the museum building to the Treasure Point Historical Society, but the Hamiltons still claimed the rest of what had been an immense estate. Sawyer, like all the Hamiltons, had always had everything.

“It’s all right,” she answered even though, really, was it?

In one way, yes it was. It was all right that his gaze had swept over her, taken in her face and clearly liked what he’d seen. Maybe it was petty, but Kelsey liked the affirmation of her attractiveness from the boy who had always made her feel like less, whether he meant to or not.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” He flashed his signature grin, the one that had netted him the title of Mr. Popular in their senior class yearbook. He’d never used that grin on her before, and she was slightly ashamed at the way it gave her chills down to her painted toenails. “I’m Sawyer Hamilton.”

Kelsey smiled back sweetly. Sweet like a glass of sweet tea with twice the usual amount of sugar. Stickily sweet. “We have met, actually. I’m Kelsey Jackson. Good to see you again, Sawyer.”

At the mention of her name, his smile fell and his face paled. Still, he was handsome, with that brown hair not daring to be a bit out of place, those green-blue eyes that sparkled like he was sharing some kind of private joke with you.

Only there were no jokes between the two of them at all.

If anything, the joke had always been, and always would be, on Kelsey.

* * *

She’d grown up well—it was an understatement, but it was all his mind would articulate in that moment. “It’s good to see you again, too, Kelsey.”

Her eyebrows raised slightly and she shook her head. Then turned to walk away.

And then the lights went out. The hum of the electricity in the building—lights, air circulation—was gone all at once, but the gasps from people who’d been plunged into darkness without an explanation filled the void where silence would have been.

Sawyer didn’t move. It was just darkness, no need to panic simply because it was unexpected—although some people were concerned, judging by the sound of shuffling feet.

He tensed as something or someone brushed his left hand. He tried to move it away, but the glancing contact turned into a firm grip from a soft, small, feminine hand.

“Sawyer?”

It was Kelsey’s whispered voice. It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. A moment ago, she’d seemed eager to get away from him and now she was holding his hand? Surely she wasn’t that scared of the dark.

“Yeah.” He matched her low volume. “It’s me.”

“I need to get outside. You always carried a flashlight and a pocketknife in high school. Any chance you’ve got that flashlight now?”

“I’ve got one.”

“Great. Take me to the front door?”

It was less a request than a command, but considering the fact that nothing about this situation made sense, Sawyer wasn’t questioning anything at this point.

He pulled the small flashlight out of the inside pocket of his suit—glad he hadn’t been able to drop the habit and leave it at home. He’d dated a few girls over the years who had made fun of his tendency to be prepared, but Sawyer liked to think it came in handy now and then.

He shone the light on the floor in front of them. Kelsey didn’t release his hand, but allowed him to lead her across the mostly empty middle of the room. It seemed most of the people had pushed themselves back against the walls. There were a few other glowing spots of light in the room—apparently, despite the request from the museum board for people to leave cell phones at a table in the entryway, some people were still carrying theirs.

Finally, they reached the door.

“Thank you.”

She released his hand and then she was gone, running across the lawn with her red hair, curled at the ends, flying behind her, holding her dark blue dress up above her ankles with one hand so she could run.

* * *

Kelsey hadn’t run far from the blanketing darkness of the house when she ran almost straight into Clay. “Did you find anything?” she asked.

He nodded slowly, his face in the moonlight showing no signs of his usual lightheartedness or humor. “We did. Kelsey, it’s Michael Wingate. He’s dead.”

“The curator?” Her eyes widened as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing now, what she’d seen earlier and how they were connected.

“Blunt force trauma to the head is what we’re guessing right now. We won’t know for sure until the ME gets him to the lab.”

“Right, of course.” She nodded.

“Kels? You’re going to have to come to the station. Because if you were in that room and saw some kind of altercation on the balcony, you were the last one to see—or rather, hear—Michael alive before whoever killed him.”

“I’m coming in as a witness, right? Not a suspect.”

The look on Clay’s face said all she needed to know. Treasure Point may be the place that raised her, the happy home for her growing-up years. But almost from the day she’d turned eighteen the town had been nothing but kryptonite for her, some ridiculous weakness that rendered her powerless and made her feel sick. She wished she could just turn around and leave right now. But that wasn’t an option.

She needed this assignment in order to secure her place at the Harlowe Company, a prestigious antiques insurance company in Savannah. But Kelsey also needed this job to finish as quickly as possible, needed to get her feet as far away from this particular bit of red Georgia clay as she could. Treasure Point was nothing but trouble for her.

“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?