Page 17 of Secrets in Calusa Cove

“How about you take these cuffs off,” Eliot said.

Dawson ignored the man. However, he removed James’s handcuffs and went about fingerprinting and taking the man’s picture before putting the cuffs back on and repeating the process with Eliot. Once he was done with that, he allowed each of them to make their phone call.

He tucked them into the cell, which had been lonely the last four days since old man Jenkins had been on his best behavior. All that meant was he hadn’t shot his mouth off and threatened to shoot Ed Cooney’s roosters.

Talk about small-town problems. Only Dawson knew that, given the chance, Jenkins would absolutely blow the heads off those roosters.

“You can’t keep us here,” James said. “That’s what my lawyer said. He’s on his way here now.”

“Good.” Dawson rubbed his temple. “When he gets here, I’ll go over the paperwork and release you to him, but you boys are facing possible jail time, so until your lawyer gets here, you’re not going anywhere. Might as well get comfortable.”

“This is an utter abuse of power,” Eliot said. “We have a federal license to have dynamite. We’ll have your badge for this.”

Dawson wasn’t going to get into a pissing contest with these assholes. He’d grown up with idiots like them—rich trust fund types who thought their shit didn’t stink. They thought that money could solve their problems, and maybe, sometimes it did.

“Take it up with the judge.” Dawson turned and marched himself down to the small kitchenette behind the main desk and made a cup of coffee. Flashes of his childhood bombarded his brain. He’d been dirt poor as a child. He’d gotten picked on at school because his clothes had come from a secondhand store—or worse, his mom had brought them home from the rich family she’d worked for as a maid.

They’d paid her crap money and treated her worse.

His dad had been their groundskeeper, and his nana their cook. Everyone in his family had to work, and they’d still barely made it.

When his parents had died, things had gone from bad to worse. His nana hadn’t been very old, but she’d had health problems, and by the time Dawson was twelve, he’d handed all the money he’d earned from washing people’s high-end cars to his nana to help keep the lights on. He’d kept that business until he’d joined the Navy, but he’d also worked two other jobs in the summer, and in the winter, he’d worked at the local grocery store and plowed driveways.

He’d been working his entire life. He wasn’t bitter. Not at all. He was proud, and he knew his parents and Nana had been, too. He’d made something of himself. He’d done what everyone had told him was impossible. However, being around assholes like that brought him right back to his ten-year-old self and being beat up on the playground by Wendall with his stupid-looking fancy shoes.

“The evidence is all logged in,” Anna said. “The judge sent over the bail bond paperwork. Easy-peasy.”

He jumped. “Jesus, you scared me.” He turned, raising the mug to his lips. He blew and took a long, slow sip, savoring the bitter flavor. Best freaking coffee in town. It was always the simple things that got Dawson. He didn’t need much. A place to rest his head and hang his coat. He took being a minimalist a little too seriously, though he hadn’t done that on purpose. It had just happened, and he was content. “You have to be the quietest person I’ve ever met.”

“My husband says the same thing, except for when we’re?—”

“Too much information.” He shook his head. “How is Mo? I haven’t seen him around lately.”

“He went to visit his mom.” Anna snagged her chair and plopped down in it. “She’s not liking the new nursing home. However, she doesn’t know she’s in a nursing home. Doesn’t even know who Mo is anymore. She thinks he’s some old friend of hers from high school.”

“That’s sad. I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “It’s supposed to be the best nursing home on this coast, and it’s killing us to pay for it. I just wish it was closer to Calusa Cove. It’s only two hours away, but Mo hates going for just a few hours, and she had Covid last month, so he couldn’t go at all.”

“That’s rough.” Dawson often wished he had a parent to worry about. Losing them at such a young age had been hard. Sometimes, he could barely remember them. He often tried to conjure up their voices and failed. When his nana had died, he’d lost the last blood relative he had, and it often weighed heavily on his heart. “His mom is lucky to have you both.”

“Yeah, Mo’s a good egg,” Anna said. But her forehead crinkled. Stress lined every inch of her face. There was more to that story than she let on, but it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about it. He had to respect that. “So, what’s going to happen to those two idiots back there? This is about the most excitement we’ve had since Remy had to arrest his boss for smuggling drugs into Calusa Cove.”

“That had to have been a shock for this town.” That arrest hadn’t ever settled right in Dawson’s gut. Not because he didn’t believe that Trevor was guilty, because the man was guilty as the day was long. He also knew that Remy was a good cop. Dawson knew Remy and the rest of his deputies had had nothing to do with it, which was why they were still with the department.

However, Dawson didn’t believe that Trevor had acted alone. He wasn’t the mastermind. He was the guy who’d turned a blind eye. He’d allowed it to happen, maybe took a cut, but he hadn’t been the man in charge. However, no drugs had been found since. No chatter came from the DEA or any other law enforcement agency. And Dawson had been poking around. It was only a matter of time before someone tried it again.

“Was the town shocked? Yes and no,” Anna said. “But, you and me, we’ve had that conversation before.”

“Yeah, we have.” Dawson nodded. “You mentioned more than once that Trevor had dabbled in coke when he was a kid. That his old man knew about it and hadn’t busted him. Why had Trip done that? Everyone in this town loved Trip. Said he was a good cop. He was fair and reasonable but firm and didn’t let anyone get away with too much. So why let his son become a cop if he had a drug problem?”

“No offense, but you don’t have kids.” She arched a brow. “I’d do almost anything for mine, short of murder, and even then, I might consider it.”

“Don’t say stuff like that to me, and just because I don’t have kids doesn’t mean I don’t understand the bond. But Trip had a duty to this community. Trevor shouldn’t have been allowed to become a police officer in the first place if his dad knew he had?—”

“I worked for both men,” Anna said. “When Trevor went to the academy, he was clean. The only thing Trip was guilty of was not tossing the book at a seventeen-year-old child. Trip did, however, tell Trevor to either clean up his act or get out of town. Trevor left Calusa Cove for ten years.”

“Didn’t he leave about the same time as Paul Massey’s kid did?”

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