Page 8 of Sadie's Guarded Harbor

“It’s sad.” Sadie stepped lightly into the kitchen, taking care not to smash the aluminum cans. “Seems like the guy came from a good family. Probably had every opportunity to make something of his life. How did he end up here? Did you know him?” She opened the cabinets with her glove-covered hands.

Tommy sighed, more depressed than he anticipated by Shawn’s living quarters. Sadie was right. Shawn had every chance to do something—anything—with his life. But he’d wasted it on alcohol. “I always knewofhim. He’s quite a few years older than me. I’ve tried recently to help the guy out, but he wasn’t much of a talker. But it’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone. Especially Shawn.”

Sadie dropped her hand to her side and glared at him with narrowed eyes. “What does that mean?”

Tommy yanked out a pair of gloves from his pocket and stuffed his hands in them. He wasn’t sure what they’d find in this mess, but he wanted to do the job quickly and get the hell out of here. “He was very different when he was younger. All-star athlete. Good student. His dad was a big-shot lawyer for years.”

“Do you think there was more going on than people realized? A seedy secret or pastime he kept under the radar? I mean, how does a kid with everything end with this?” Turning her palm upward, she extended her arm to indicate the gloomy space.

“His mom died while he was away at school. That might have messed with him—not being around when she was dying.” Tommy’s mother’s death clung to him like the plague. He could understand how tragically losing someone close could eat away at you to the point where you turned to the comfort of booze.

Hell, Tommy’s mother’s death wasn’t the only one that tortured him. Losing Vanessa had been just as brutal and difficult to deal with. A familiar ache intensified in his chest, and he rubbed a hand over his sternum. He couldn’t let himself go down that rabbit hole. Couldn’t lose his focus and get sucked into the depression that sat on the edge of his psyche every damn day.

“Are you okay?”

Tommy blinked himself back to the present. “Fine. Just tired.”

Sadie twisted her lips to the side. “Right, you worked the overnight shift.”

He rubbed the mounting tension in his shoulders. Exhaustion dragged him down like gravity. A quick glance at the digital clock on the cable box told him he’d worked fifteen hours straight. He hadn’t realized how tired he really was until he acknowledged how long he’d been working. “Yeah. I need to grab a nap soon.”

Turning her back, she crouched and whipped open the cabinet under the sink. “You should go. No need to babysit me while going through this guy’s place. Chances are low there’s anything here anyway. You can catch up on your sleep while I finish, then we can meet up to make a game plan.”

With her back to him, he didn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. “Can’t wait to get rid of me?”

Standing, she faced him. “You need a break. What’s the point of putting it off? The sooner you get some sleep, the sooner you’ll be back to being a pain in my ass.” She pressed together her lips, a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

“You don’t have a car. It makes more sense for us to go through the trailer together then I can take you to the station before I head home.”

“I’ll call for someone to bring me a cruiser.”

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. His aching muscles screamed at him to succumb to her logic and leave. Besides, even if he tried his hardest, chances of him missing something important while so damn tired were high. Sadie was capable of searching for evidence and bringing it in. Then he could help wade through whatever was found.

But even as he considered taking her offer, a part of him didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Call it childish or pigheaded, he hated leaving her to work the case alone—even if only for a couple hours.

Crossing the living room to a closed door, he cast her a wry grin. “Why don’t I just crash here for a few? Then you don’t have to worry about getting a car, and I can be close to help if you find something important.” He fought to keep amusement from leaking into his voice. No way he’d actually sleep here, but getting a rise out of her was too damn easy.

Sadie crossed her arms over her chest. “You can’t be serious.”

Tommy chuckled. “We’ve been getting along so well. I wouldn’t want you to miss me.”

She moved her mouth as if her tongue coasted over her teeth. “It’s incredible how you can still act like you haven’t a care in the world when we’re sifting through a dead man’s things. A murdered man’s things. It’s up to us to find the killer, or can’t you be bothered enough to take this seriously? I’d think you’d have more respect than that. Especially the way you lost your own mother.”

Red colored his vision. “You don’t know a damn thing about me or why I act the way I do. Not everyone chooses to let the tragedies of their past dictate their present. Their future. Believe me, I take this job and every case I work seriously. I just refuse to let it harden me to someone no one can stand to be around.”

Pain shimmered in her eyes for a beat then quickly vanished. Tense silence filled the air.

Tommy threw up his hands. “Whatever. You want to get your own ride back into town, be my guest. I’ll call you later.”

Frustration boiled in his gut as he stormed out of the trailer and stomped to his car. He settled into the driver’s seat and gripped his hands around the steering wheel. Dammit. He couldn’t let her get to him like that. Not when they had a case to solve together. He was stuck with her for the duration, whether he liked it or not. He better find a way to deal with her.

Sadie stoodin the now-silent trailer and stared after Tommy. She fought to keep the shaking in her hands from taking over the rest of her body. Snapping into autopilot, she lunged for the door and turned the lock. If the tremors took over, if she couldn’t keep them away, she didn’t want Tommy waltzing back to witness it.

She gritted her teeth, his words playing on repeat in her mind. Is that what people thought of her in this town? That she was too hard, too cold? Is that why she had a hard time getting close to anyone in Water’s Edge, choosing to spend all her free time working at the shelter in Pine Valley?

She yanked off her gloves and shoved a hand through her hair, forgetting it was pulled into a ponytail, and her fingers stuck in the rubber band at the crown of her head. She yanked the band free, and her hair fell over her shoulders. She sucked in a deep breath and dropped down on the bench sandwiched between the wall and the four-person table.

What people thought of her didn’t matter. Never had. She was used to living in places with few friends. She’d been doing it her whole life, and that didn’t mean anything was wrong with her. She was a survivor. And she didn’t need golden boy Tommy Wells’ approval of who she was or how she lived.

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