Majestic Cove Mysteries Complete Series Box Set Page 3

  “That’s weird.”

  “Isn’t it? I mean, you have a great relationship with Amy. I know it probably rarely happens, but if you and your fiancé do disagree, do you ever act emotionless and wait for the subject to change so you can move on?”

  “Never.”

  “Exactly my point,” Nancy said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I know you said that it terrifies you, but you really need to talk to him about this.”

  “What if it turns out that I’m right? What if he really doesn’t love me anymore?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. That would be absolutely awful.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “But you need to know the truth. Even if it is awful. At least then you’ll know where you stand.”

  Nancy took a deep breath and replied, “I guess you’re right.”

  “I hope you’re wrong about Bill,” Connor said. “Maybe he’s just acting that way because something else is going on in his life that he hasn’t told you about.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “There’s only one way of knowing for sure.”

  “You’re right about that.” Nancy became quiet for a moment. “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure. What is it?” Connor asked.

  “Don’t tell Amy about this, all right?”

  “Why not?”

  “Actually, it would be great if you don’t tell anyone about this. It’s just so embarrassing.”

  “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. None of this is your fault.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  At that moment, their waitress, Jill, returned to their table.

  “Are you sure you don’t want more than just the coffee?” Jill asked.

  “No, this is it,” Connor said.

  Jill turned her attention to Nancy. “How about you?”

  Nancy glanced at Connor and asked, “Don’t you want some food?”

  “Normally, I’d love some. But I actually have to be going.”

  “Really?”

  Connor nodded. “There’s somewhere that I need to be.”

  “Are you meeting up with Amy?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “All right. Well, thanks for meeting with me.”

  “No problem. I hope things work out for you.”

  “So do I.”

  Connor put some money down on the table. He then got up and walked away.

  Clearly, Nancy didn’t feel like sitting at the table alone. She got up a few seconds after Connor and also exited the restaurant.

  As Connor and Nancy both left, the waitress came to my table.

  At first, I didn’t notice Jill approaching. I was too caught up looking outside at Connor.

  Jill pulled my head out of the clouds. “What can I get for you?”

  I had been in such a daze that Jill’s presence startled me.

  In addition, I had to come up with a quick excuse to explain why I had to leave the restaurant right then.

  I had to follow Connor at all costs. That was my job. I couldn’t sit there at the table and order food.

  I grimaced. “Actually, I need to be going. I just got a phone call from work.”

  “Okay,” Jill said. “But before you leave, are you sure you don’t want to order something to-go?”

  I shook my head. “Not today. Sorry.”

  Jill shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  I got up from the table and left the diner.

  Chapter Seven

  As I reached my sedan, Connor had already gotten into his car and had pulled out of the restaurant’s parking lot. His sedan was currently moving north on Eldridge Boulevard.

  If I wanted to tail him, I needed to get back into my car in a hurry. Once I reached my sedan, I hopped into the driver’s seat, fired up the ignition, and made some tracks to catch up with Connor.

  Luckily, Connor wasn’t exactly burning rubber. It wasn’t too difficult to close the gap. Within thirty seconds, I was only a few cars behind him.

  The real question became, what was Connor’s next destination? He told Nancy that he had somewhere to be. Was that home? Or elsewhere?

  About fifteen seconds later, Connor turned left onto Wilson Avenue. He then slowed down as he approached the Majestic Cove Motor Lodge. Talk about a dingy place. It seemed like a motel that was built for affairs. Over the years, I had spent a lot of hours staked out in the parking lot of that place. That parking lot had become like a mobile office for me.

  If a person was going to cheat on their spouse, this was probably the cheapest place to do it. The Motor Lodge didn’t technically charge by the hour, but the cost-per-night was the lowest of any place in town. There was a good reason for that. The motel offered zero frills. The accommodations were as basic as possible. Just a bed, a TV, and a bathroom.

  Personally, I would never stay there. I couldn’t imagine how many bed bugs were in those rooms. Also, I wasn’t in a relationship. But if I was, I would definitely never cheat on my significant other.

  This situation wasn’t about me, however. It was about Connor. Did a romantic rendezvous await him at the motel? I was curious to find out.

  I began speaking to myself again. “Are you meeting up with someone here?”

  That certainly seemed likely.

  Imagine my surprise then when he didn’t actually turn into the parking lot of the motel. Instead, it turned out he was slowing down so he could pull up to a pump at the gas station that was located next to the motor lodge.

  “Wow. I’m really jumping the gun today. I’m also coming to a bunch of incorrect conclusions. Am I off my game or what?”

  I parked on the street across from the gas station as Connor pumped his gas.

  A thought popped into my mind as he finished up.

  I scratched my chin and said to myself, “He could just be filling up his tank before heading over to the motel.”

  It was a decent theory, but it turned out not to be true. When Connor left the gas station, he continued down Wilson Avenue, leaving the motor lodge in his rearview mirror.

  How odd.

  Usually, cases didn’t shake out this way. There weren’t typically quite so many starts and stops. Most often, the subject went to one location after work. Or on their lunch break. Then I would stakeout in front of that place and get the information I was looking for.

  Connor had really thrown me for a loop. And he wasn’t even done yet. Right then, I had no clue if Connor was cheating on Amy or not.

  I got a little antsy as I followed Connor.

  “You’ve certainly had a busy day,” I said. “Where to now?”

  ***

  A few minutes later, I got an answer.

  Connor’s car turned right onto Tilden Lane. It was safe to assume that he was headed home. After all, he did live on this street.

  As he pulled into the driveway of his mid-century home, I paid close attention to the front door. Part of me was expecting a woman to be standing there, waiting for him.

  That wasn’t the case.

  Connor’s car parked in the driveway. Connor then got out of his vehicle, went up his walkway, and entered his house. As he closed the door behind himself, a look of confusion came to my face.

  “Hmm. If you were just going to go home, then why did you tell Nancy that you had somewhere to be?” I asked.

  Something about this situation didn’t quite add up. I felt like I was staring at a nearly completed puzzle that happened to be missing a piece.

  A new theory came to me.

  “Maybe you just got tired of talking to Nancy and felt like heading home.”

  With Connor back inside his house, I set up shop on the street a few houses away. It would be too obvious if I parked directly across from his home.

  At that point, there was no telling how long Connor would remain inside his place. He could stay there overnight. I might not see him again until morning. Then again, perhaps he had just briefly stopped at home to get changed. Or to pick up something. The next few hours could be very interesting.

  This was a lot more reminiscent of my typical experience during a case. I would sit outside of a location, unsure of what would happen next. This could go on for hours. Or I could end up staked out there in a number of shifts over the course of a few days. There was no way of telling.

  That level of mystery just happened to come with the territory.

  Chapter Eight

  One of the worst parts of the job were the stakeouts. Notice how I said one of the worst, and not the absolute worst. That dubious distinction went to the act of being chased by an irate subject. It had only happened a couple of times, but they were both terrifying.

  The first time, I was staked out in front of a low-rent motel. I had just taken a photo of an unfaithful husband for one of my clients. Unfortunately, I was also spotted in the process. Once Malcolm Tilden spotted the camera in my hand, he blew his top. He immediately ran over to my car and looked like he wanted to strangle me. If I wasn’t so quick to fire up the ignition of my car and speed away from the scene, Malcolm might have attacked me.

  What a disaster that would have been. Malcolm wasn’t messing around. I saw a fire in his eyes as he barreled toward me. He knew exactly what was at stake. If I showed my client the pictures I had taken, it would be the end of his marriage.

  Luckily, I escaped by the skin of my teeth.

  After that experience, I briefly questioned my career choice. Things could have gone much worse. Especially if Malcolm had a weapon on him. Or if he was a little bit faster on his feet. I was so glad that neither of those things happened to be true.

  When I trained to become an investigator, I was warned about the potential dangers of the job. I had heard a bunch of horror stories. I knew that something terrible could possibly happen to me. At the same time, I also realized that those awful experiences were incredibly infrequent.

  For example, Leonard McKay, the investigator that I trained with, had been on the job for over thirty years at the time, and he’d only felt threatened on a handful of occasions. Most of his stories were second or even third hand.

  As it was, I had been on the job for over three years before Malcolm Tilden chased me. Even so, I still came away from the experience completely shaken.

  Ultimately, it took me the better part of a week to make a decision about my future. I told myself there were drawbacks to every profession. Besides, I happened to be really good at this.

  That said, while I decided to stay the course and remain an investigator, I definitely kept my eyes peeled more than ever after that.

  Given all that, you’d think that I would be more prepared the second time I got chased by a subject. Guess what? It was still a terrifying experience for me.

  If something like that did ever happen again, I had a feeling that it would terrify me as well. In my experience, there were some things in life that you could never truly get used to. Danger was one of them.

  Never mind the fact that I had self-defense training. Or that I also carried a can of pepper spray in my purse. I was definitely prepared for trouble. But just because I knew how to handle myself didn’t mean that I craved danger. In fact, the opposite was true. If it was up to me, I would never need to use that can of pepper spray for the rest of my life.

  It would be great if every case went smoothly. Deep down, I knew that was a pipe dream. But I could still pray for the best.

  Those rare exceptions aside, stakeouts were normally a boring activity. They were a test of my patience. I could sit in my car for hours without anything to show for my efforts. Actually, scratch that. On rare occasions, I would spend multiple shifts sitting in my car over the course of a few days and come away with nothing. That was brutal. I wasn’t the most patient person in the world to begin with. Although, ever since I had become an investigator, I had developed more patience. Mostly out of necessity.

  While I sat there, deep in thought, my phone rang.

  I grabbed my phone and checked the caller identification screen. I saw my mother’s name listed.

  ***

  I loved my mother dearly, but she had the tendency to be very long-winded. Andrea Clue didn’t seem to know the meaning of the term brevity. Or, she just had no interest in it.

  After three rings, the call went to voice mail. I figured that my mom would just leave a message that I would listen to later.

  That didn’t happen.

  Instead, my phone rang again. After glancing at my phone, I saw my mother’s name listed again.

  Wow. It wasn’t like her to call twice in a row like this. What was going on? Was she in trouble? Was there some kind of an emergency?

  Suddenly, I had to know for sure. I couldn’t take any chances. What if this was serious and I didn’t answer the phone?

  I whispered a quick prayer to myself. “Please don’t be an emergency. Please be okay.”

  I knew I was jumping ahead to the worst-case scenario, but if something happened to my mother, I would never be the same again.

  There had already been enough tragedy in my life. Four years ago, I had lost my father. I would never forget the moment that my life changed forever.

  I was on a stakeout, much like this one, when I received a call from my mother. When I picked up the phone, she had some terrible news for me. According to my mother, she had just sat down at the kitchen table to have dinner with my father when he had a heart attack right in front of her. Apparently, it all happened incredibly fast. My mother called 9-1-1 immediately.

  Since we lived in a relatively small town, paramedics arrived at the scene less than ten minutes later. Despite how quickly they sped over to my parents’ house, it didn’t matter. It was already too late. By the time they got there, my father was already dead.

  As devastating as my father’s death was for me to deal with, it was infinitely worse for my mother. After all, they had been together for over forty years. They had built a life together. Then, in one instant, everything changed.

  For it to all happen right in front of her, and for her to be completely helpless to stop it, only made matters worse. I felt so bad for my poor mother.

  These days, when I was on a stakeout and I received a call from my mother, the call would trigger some awful memories. How could it not? I tried not to linger on the past for too long, but sometimes I felt like I was powerless to stop it.

  One of the things that really got to me was the fact that I never got a chance to say good-bye to my dad. Sure, in the months leading up to his death, every time I saw him, I told him that I loved him, but I still would have liked to say some final words to him before he passed away.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the way things played out. On the flip side, at least we had not gotten into an argument the last time that I spoke with him. In fact, our last conversation had been a pleasant one. We spent a lot of our discussion joking around. Then, at the end, we briefly talked about grabbing a donut later that week at his favorite bakery in town. He had abstained from indulging in donuts for a while for health reasons, but he felt like he’d earned a treat.

  As for my mother and I, we had always been close. After my father’s sudden passing, our bond become tighter. We were all that we had left.

  So, if something was wrong with my mother right then, I would lose it.

  ***

  I hit the accept button on my phone and took the call. “Mom, is everything all right?”

  “Have you heard the news?” my mother replied.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Scott Webster is back in town.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Why do you sound so nonchalant? You haven’t seen him in four years.”

  “I understand that.”

  “And now here he is, back in Majestic Cove—”

  “Mom, I hate to cut you off, but is this the only reason that you called me?”

  “I thought you’d want to hear the news. This is a big deal.”

  “You could have left a message.”

  “Why would I do that? I want to talk to you about this.”

  “Before we continue, I just want to be sure of something. You’re not experiencing an emergency of some sort, are you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “It’s just that I’m in the middle of a case.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize that. Are you chasing someone down?”

  “I’m doing a stakeout.”

  “In that case, let’s talk.”

  I chuckled. “Mom, you’re incredible. I told you, I’m conducting a stakeout.”

  “I know how stakeouts work. They can feature long periods of inactivity.”

  “You got me there,” I replied. “I’ll tell you what. As long as we keep this conversation brief, I’ll stay on the phone with you. But if anything happens related to my stakeout, I’m going to have to hang up the phone right away.”

  “Fair enough,” my mother said. “Do you know why Scott’s back?”

  “I thought you would tell me,” I said.

  “I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

  “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Of course, I do. I thought you were the engine that drove the rumor mill in this town.”

  “I do have my limits.”

  “That’s news to me.”

  Just then, a car pulled into Connor’s driveway.

  My eyes widened. “Mom, I have to go.”

  “All right. Take care of yourself.”

  I hung up my phone and grabbed my camera.

  I was incredibly interested in seeing who was inside that car. It definitely wasn’t Amy. She didn’t drive a white car.

  After the car came to a stop, a blond woman got out of the vehicle. The woman headed up Connor’s driveway and approached his front door.

  A few seconds after the woman rang the doorbell, Connor swung open his front door.

  He immediately gave the woman a big smile.

  That wasn’t all.

  Connor also gave the woman a quick kiss on the lips.