The Marsh Madness

“Were you?” he said, with narrowed eyes. Narrowed eyes did not look good on him. He had a wide-open cheerful face. His eyes were round and blue. Suspicion wasn’t one of his usual accessories. “Are you sure you didn’t leave the premises?”


Tyler is, after all, a police officer, and at times he talks like one. I should have realized much earlier that would be evidence of a serious incompatibility between us. It bothered me that he’d caught on to the fact we were an impossible match, while I was thinking I’d fallen in love with him. It just goes to show you.

“Sure, I left the premises. I was out and about in my pajamas and your fellow officer didn’t notice, even when I did doughnuts with the Saab right in front of his very obvious police car.”

“It’s unmarked,” Tyler said before he could stop himself.

The other officer stopped and turned around. “No one gets away on my watch.”

Pride goeth before a fall and all that. I grinned at that officer, not at Tyler, and shrugged. “Of course I didn’t leave the premises. I came here to calm down, and now I want to rest. It’s been pretty rough.”

He glanced at his colleague, who now seemed to have decided to pay attention to whatever it was that was going on. I wasn’t entirely sure I knew what that was. I hated being mad at Tyler, but he had brought that on himself. I wasn’t about to forgive that crime, but if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn he was trying to tell me something. He has the kind of face that can’t keep a secret. He probably thought he’d spotted me at the Country Club and Spa, but he couldn’t be sure of it.

And what could he do if he was sure of it?

Arrest me?





CHAPTER TEN





I CLOSED THE door in Officer Tyler Dekker’s face. Our relationship was at an end. He was a police officer, the traditional enemy of the Kellys and the Binghams. He had figured out before I had that these things can’t work.

But I’d been hurt before, and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Not for the first time, I felt a strange gratitude to my cheating hound of an ex, the one who maxed out my credit cards, hoovered up my college fund and left me alone and heartbroken. If it hadn’t been for Lucas Warden being a scumbag, I would never have limped home to my uncles in Harrison Falls and my pink-and-white girlhood bedroom with all those My Little Ponies. I would never have needed to find a job that got me out from under their watch. I would never have lived surrounded by polished mahogany and priceless antiques at Van Alst House. I wouldn’t be comfortable in that huge historic home, with the signora’s wonderful food and my own attic apartment. I wouldn’t be on the lookout for first editions to augment an amazing collection in a climate-controlled room with rosewood shelves, leather chairs and an Aubusson on the floor. Yes, I know, it all came with Vera, of course, and she took a lot of getting used to, but it was still the best job in the world, and I wouldn’t have any of it if I hadn’t been betrayed by Lucas.

“Thank you,” I whispered, to the guy who wasn’t there. “Although wherever you are, I hope you’re getting what’s coming to you.” I hadn’t seen Lucas in more than two years and hoped never to set eyes on him again. Still, I knew if I’d gotten through that awful, humiliating experience that cost me so much figuratively and literally, I could weather this thing with Tyler.