Fifth Bullet—Vonnie Vines #5 – GRAB A PRE ORDER NOW!
Chapter 1
*Early June*
There were countless opportunities to put an uncle behind bars, but a woman only had one chance to get him released.
I couldn’t mess this up.
I closed the desk drawer at the same time Broadrick walked into my office. His dark wash jeans hugged him in all the right places, and the black Pelican Bay Security polo stretched across the muscles of his arms. I did my best not to drool. I tried to never let him know where he fell on the hotness scale. It might go to his head.
We made eye contact, and I dropped the stack of papers from the desk drawer into the banker’s box beside me with a scowl. Broadrick stopped on the other side of my desk and crossed his arms as he stared.
Shit.
That wasn’t good. The arms-crossed thing meant he’d found out something I’d done. But what? With so many options to choose from, I didn’t want to say anything and give myself away. Broadrick and the men at the fancy security firm where he did consulting work didn’t understand the life of being a private investigator. You had to take risks. And sometimes risks led to trouble. It was all in the job description. At least it would be once I typed one up.
“What did you do this morning while I worked out with the guys?” Broadrick finally asked when I didn’t start the conversation.
I barely glanced up at him as I did my best to play nonchalant. Also, keeping my eyes down meant he couldn’t read the panic in them. If he knew about this morning, the arm crossing meant he was about to get yelly.
To buy me time, I tapped my fingers against the desk in my temporary office space at the Kensington building in downtown Pelican Bay. My time in the beautiful office had run out, and they expected me back in my old crappy office by the afternoon. I appreciated that Pierce—the town billionaire and my best friend’s boyfriend—let me use the place, but now I didn’t want to leave. I’d grown accustomed to the finer office things. Like clean carpet and working windows.
“Vonnie? This morning?” Broadrick pushed.
I sighed and shook my head. “This morning was so long ago, but I faintly remember eating breakfast with NB.”
He nodded.
Hopefully, reminding him of the Jack Russel Terrier that relied on me as his mother helped. You couldn’t kill a mother. Who would make sure NB ate dinner? Or reminded Broadrick to take him for his morning walk. Without me, the boys would be hopelessly lost.
“Anything else?” Broadrick asked with a jerk of his head.
I opened the middle drawer of the desk, retrieved two pens, and dumped them on top of the papers in the box. “Not that I remember.”
“Oh, really?” He adjusted his stance, widening his legs. Never a good sign. “Did you have a fall and hit your head?”
I crumpled my eyebrows and popped my head up to meet his gaze. “No. Why?”
“Because I can’t think of another reason you’d forget breaking into the morgue to view a corpse at 8:17 this morning!”
“Ohhhhh. That.” I closed the middle desk drawer and bit my bottom lip to buy myself more time. I needed a fantastic lie to get me out of this one.
He threw his hands into the air. “Yeah, that.”
I had a good reason for my maneuvering at the morgue, but I suspected Broadrick wouldn’t see it the same way. And I had bigger issues. Like how he found out.
“Did Kelvin snitch?” Kelvin wasn’t the most scrupulous of employees. Hence why I used him as my informant whenever I needed information the police refused to share.
Broadrick dropped himself in the chair across from my desk, making the fake leather squeak. “Ridge has camera footage of you crawling in through a back window.”
I tapped my fingers against the smooth desktop again. The desk in my crappy office had a scorch mark on the corner from an accidental zapping with my stun gun. This one was too new to have any life marks on it. And sadly, now that I had to leave, I wouldn’t be the one to make them. “I had to go in through the window, Broadrick.”
“Is that so? Why?” he asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
“They had the back door locked.” My normal route included Kelvin unlocking the back door and letting me sneak in, but I didn’t have time to wait for him today. Plus, he’d started asking for favors. Like getting me to be his pretend girlfriend at a family dinner.
But Kelvin wasn’t the problem here. Ridge must have installed more cameras because that window had always been clear in the past. I had to update my blackout map, or who knew what else the nosy former SEALs might catch me doing.
“Ridge didn’t put more cameras by the bed-and-breakfast. Did he? Because he has that place covered. Like totally covered. He’d end up with double shots of everything. It would be a waste of money.”
Broadrick leaned up on my desk with his elbows. “Vonnie, this is serious.”
“I agree.” Ridge couldn’t just be putting more cameras up wherever he fancied.
“You could be arrested for abusing a corpse.”
“Ewww. I didn’t touch it. I only looked at it.” How gross.
Broadrick rubbed two fingers against his forehead. He seemed tense.
“I had to see the body again, B.”
To make sure I wasn’t crazy.
The memories from two days earlier resurfaced slowly, blanking out the office area around me until I was once again driving in my car, minding my own business with the music playing a local station.
I stopped at the sign on the corner of Main Street and waited to let the cop car with sirens blazing blast pass me on the main road. My thoughts were on my uncle. The one behind bars in the Pelican Bay jail awaiting his trial. I tried to forget how I’d been the one who gave Anderson the evidence to lock him up, but the thought never stayed away for long.
Rather than continuing straight like I planned, I turned and followed the cop car. The flashing led me right to them. Soon everyone in town would know where they were, anyway. Katy probably already had it up on Facebook.
A mess of police cars, city and county, parked haphazardly at the city dock. The light house loomed in the distance, and a trio of seagulls squawked as they flew overhead. I sat in my car, examining the scene from a distance.
The black Crime Scene Unit van barreled into the lot behind the last car and slammed on its brakes beside the dock. The ambulance to the far right shut off its lights, leaving only the red and blue from the cop cars.
Never a good sign.
I turned off my car and hesitated getting out. A tall man with dark hair and a tan trench coat leaned against a nearby cop car staring in my direction.
Detective Anderson. Er… Chief Anderson.
I’d helped get him into that position but no longer knew how I felt about it. We’d barely talked since he’d executed a search warrant against my uncle on the day of my sister Vivi’s graduation. It seemed like such a violation. I’d done him a favor and then he’d turned it against me.
He hadn’t apologized for it, which made it worse. It meant he didn’t care. Or thought he hadn’t been a complete jerk with his timing. Either way, seeing his face made me want to hit him.
A knock on my car window caused me to jerk into the steering wheel as I sucked in a frightened breath.
“What the hell, Bradley?” I said as I rolled down my window.
The on-duty city police officer pointed at Anderson. “Boss wants to see you.”
Yeah, but did I want to see him?
Officer Bradley opened my car door. I guess no one cared what I wanted. Seemed about right in this town.
I locked it twice after getting out. “High crime around these parts.”
Officer Bradley shook his head as he led the way toward Anderson. Like they thought I’d get lost along the way.
“They’re bringing out the body now and we’ll have to have her IDed,” Anderson said as we approached him.
“A body?” I asked, not making eye contact.
He stuck his hands in his pockets. His police badge hung around his neck. “You didn’t know? I figured that’s why you came.”
“No, I was on my way to get an iced coffee.” My mother spent most of her nights cursing at me for ruining her family, so I hadn’t been sleeping well. That and the guilt kept me awake. I needed the caffeine more than normal.
“A whale-watching cruise boat found her floating about ten feet off the dock. Looks like they might have dumped her further out but not weighed her down enough, and she made her way back.”
“She?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t seen her yet, but that was the radio call.”
A set of wheels vibrated against the uneven pieces of dock as two men maneuvered a stretcher toward the waiting ambulance. A thick black bag jiggled with each bobble of the stretcher.
“They’ll head to the morgue,” Officer Bradley said.
“Might as well have a peek,” I said and started that direction.
Anderson grabbed my arm. “You sure? I haven’t heard a report on the condition of the body. We don’t know how long she’s been in the water.”
His words “in the water” cycled on repeat. What he meant was they didn’t know if she’d become fish food or something worse.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
It wouldn’t be any easier seeing pictures of it later when I bribed Kelvin at the morgue to get me a copy of the coroner’s report.
Anderson unzipped the top of the black bag, exposing a woman’s face down to her neck. Wet hair wrapped around her chin, but otherwise she’d been untouched. Her expression looked almost serene except for the thick black thread crisscrossing between her lips, sewing them shut. It pulled her lips tight, causing splits in the skin.
“Shit,” Anderson said under his breath. “That’s a mob signature.”
“It’s Emma,” I said, turning away from the body.
Anderson zipped up the bag, hiding her away again. “She was our star witness.”
“How do you know her?” Bradley asked, looking a little green in the face.
“I bought a baggie of coke from her in the city park last month,” I said and dropped my head. “She sold for my uncle.”
“Your uncle’s been in jail.”
Right. So, who killed Emma and dumped her in the ocean?
I hadn’t stopped asking that question in two days. Sadly, the morgue visit that morning hadn’t answered it either. I thought if I saw her again, it might help with the case or I’d realize it was all a dream. Neither happened.
Fingers snapped an inch from my face. “Are you okay?”
I leaned back from Broadrick’s gaze and pushed his hand away. “Yes, I’m fine.”
It was only a half lie. I wasn’t fine right then, but I would be eventually. Seeing Emma’s body freaked me out worse than all the other dead bodies I’d seen. Emma and I went to high school together. We weren’t friends, but I’d talked to her. She sold me coke once. Deaths like that hit hard.
“Just stay out of the morgue.” Man, he was not letting up on this morgue thing.
I rolled my eyes at him. “What if I get an invitation to visit?”
The leaves on the fake plant in the room’s corner rattled as the air conditioning turned on. It really wasn’t warm enough to be blasting the AC yet.
“I want the invite in writing with a signature,” Broadrick said and stood up.
“Whatever.” With a thump, I dropped my stapler in the box and stuck the lid on top.
“Let’s go. I’ll drive you to your old office if you’re ready.” Broadrick was already at the door.
I followed him but stopped outside the threshold, turning around to give the room one last long, loving glance. One day I’d be such a great private investigator that I’d pay for the space myself. Except I’d be on the top floor, in the best office they had.
Until then, I had to return to the rundown place that had only one electrical outlet and two bricked-over windows. The ceiling collapsed earlier in the year and then, just as I’d regained control of the space, they’d found my mentor dead in my office chair. I really didn’t want to go back there.
Broadrick took the box from me and placed it in the backseat of his truck as I got into the passenger side. His brand-new big ass Ford was officially longer than our friend Tony’s white behemoth of a truck, and Broadrick never let him forget it.
I waited until he turned onto Main Street before I asked my first question. Town wasn’t that big, so I had to get started on my interrogation quickly. “What angle did you see me climb in the window from?”
“What?” Broadrick asked, forgetting to use his turn signal at the corner.
“The camera of me entering the morgue. Was it from the right or left?” That would help me figure out where Ridge had hidden his newest spy device and develop a way around it.
“I’m not telling you,” Broadrick said and added. “And I’m not showing you the video either.”
“Has anyone ever told you what a killjoy you are?” I asked as he pulled into my old office parking lot.
I guess it wasn’t my old office anymore. This one was my current office again.
A large red and white for sale sign sat perched next to the front door. It looked like someone was getting ready to list the building. But that didn’t make sense.
Broadrick grabbed my box from his backseat and met me at the hood of the truck. The sun made the front of his truck sparkle in the sunlight. I’d once called his vehicle glittery, and he’d given me a twenty-minute lecture on various automobile paint colors. I didn’t bring it up again, even though the glitter was almost blinding. “Did you know they’re selling the building?”
I stared at the sign. “No. Maybe it’s for another place.” Most of the buildings in Pelican Bay were owned by Pierce Kensington, but an independent firm out of Clearwater owned my building. “I’ll have to call Marcie at the office and see what’s up.”
It’s possible new owners would take the time to add more outlet plugs in my space. Maybe them selling the place wasn’t all bad news.
Broadrick followed me to the front door of the building. I stayed a pace ahead and reached it before him. I grabbed the handle and pulled.
Nothing.
I jerked harder.
But still nothing.
“It’s locked.” The door rattled as I yanked on it twice more with all my strength.
Broadrick stepped closer, getting in my way. “Don’t dislocate a shoulder.”
“What the hell?” This didn’t fly at all. I needed an office space. Where would I meet clients, hide evidence, or drink iced coffee? “I’m calling Marcie.”
The phone rang exactly once before she answered. “Hanover and Finch Real Estate. Marcie speaking.”
“Marcie, this is Vonnie Vines. I rent the single office space in Pelican Bay. I’m here now, but the front door is locked.”
The noises of fingers on keyboard keys clanked for a moment and then she rattled off my address.
“Yeah, that’s the one. No one ever locks the front door, but today it’s stuck or something.”
“Oh, honey,” Marcie said, and my stomach dropped. “That building is being listed for sale this afternoon. The partners canceled all current leases.”
“Canceled? You can’t cancel my lease and sell the building.” At least I didn’t think they could.
More keys clicking. “It’s the high crime rate in that area.”
I appreciated how she left out the dead body found in my office. I guess no one wanted a murder building in their real estate portfolio. “What about my stuff?”
Anderson made me leave everything behind when he declared the space a crime scene. I had lots of good stuff in there.
“Let me email maintenance and see if we can get someone over there later in the week to open the door.”
“Later in the week?” I sighed and leaned against the building. My chest seemed tight, and the area behind my left eye hurt.
The keys clicked again, faster this time. “It’s the best I can do.”
“Well, okay then. Thanks. Please tell me when you hear something,” I said and hung up. “They’re selling the building.”
Broadrick nodded. “I figured that part out with the for sale sign.”
“Ha-ha. You’re so funny,” I said, but nothing felt funny about this at all. They couldn’t take my office from me. I needed it. A lot of important stuff happened there. Like the iced coffee.
“Call Pierce and see if you can spend another week in the Kensington building,” Broadrick said, shifting the box to his other hip.
“Brilliant idea. That’s why I keep you around.” I didn’t have Pierce’s phone number because that would be weird, so I called my best friend Katy instead.
It took her more than one ring to answer. “What’s up, Vonnie?”
“Let me talk to the billionaire. I have to grovel.”
