Page 72 of The Harborer
Shane turned and gestured for her to move past them. “No problem. Cade and I were done here.” He gave Cade a pointed look. “Assuming Cade understood everything we discussed.”
Cade nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir. I did.”
Shane stood alone in the empty hallway after Cade left, leaning against the wall, waiting for Amy to emerge. When she did, he stood tall. “How much of that did you hear?”
She looked at him for a long moment, her features unreadable. “Enough to know you were passing along words of wisdom that you learned from your father.” A stilted beat passed.
“And?”
Her placid expression morphed into something akin to a thundercloud. “And enough to know you were drilling him about my keys. Tell me, Deputy, do you suspectmeof sabotaging my own shop?”
He took a step back. “Sabotage how?”
“Like I’ve been moving things around and acting like someone else is doing it?”
“Are you?”
Her jaw dropped. When she spoke, her voice quaked with anger. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not. There’s shit going on, and your store seems to be at the center of it.” Fuck, he’d said too much.
Her eyes flew wide. “What shit? What’s it at the center of?”
He kept his face impassive. “You tell me.”How much do you know about what’s going on at your store, Amy? How deep are you in this thing, whatever it is?
Her face crumpled. “Shane, tell me! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I was involved in a high-speed chase yesterday while you were at work, and—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried. “You said you had to take care of something at your office. Was that the reason? What aren’t you saying?”
He met her emotional outcry with a wall of indifference. “I didn’t say anything because you were in the middle of a messy breakup and a move, but that’s not the point. I found a map stuffed behind your bookshelf, Amy.”
She froze. “What kind of map? When?” Recognition winked on, and her fury flared. “Why were you going through my office?”
He dragged his hand over his jaw. “I found it by accident.”
“How do youaccidentallyfind something behind a bookshelf? Is this why you volunteered to help me at my café?” The pitch of her voice climbed. “Was that some flimsy excuse so you could search through my stuff? You were pretending to help me, but you were really helping yourself!”
Damn it, this was not going well. Then again, he hadn’t planned on having this discussion with her. Not here, not now. He was blowing it. Big-time. His resolve wavered.
She stabbed a finger in his direction. “Is this because someone who threw drugs from their car happened to be in my parking lot?”
“There was also a text from Micky that didn’t make sense.” Her face contorted as though it was a question mark, and he went on to explain. “It said ‘Keep your mouth shut or you will blow this.’ What did he want you to keep your mouth shut about?”
Her mouth opened and closed, and thoughts—or were those excuses she was grasping for?—seemed to stream behind her eyes. Her expression shifted into one of regret. “He didn’t want me to tell you about Benny.”
Oh fuck.“Why not?”
Her demeanor transformed once more. “I don’t know why, Shane. Micky is … Micky.” Now she poked her finger against her chest. “So based on one text that made no sense and someone in my parking lot, you jumped to the conclusion thatI’msomehow involved in whatever’s going on?”
He should have shut up, pulled her into his arms, and asked her to forgive him for doubting her. But hediddoubt her, and the lawman in him couldn’t stop sniffing for the truth. He couldn’t turn it off. In a calm voice, he said, “What do you know about the map?”
“Shouldn’t I be in some dark, grubby room under bright lights for this interrogation?” She cinched her arms across her chest, her jaw tight. “I don’t know anything about a map. You want to give me some clues here? What happened in this chase of yours? Sounds like you’re tying those together somehow.”
“The driver threw a suspicious packet from the vehicle I was pursuing. I broke off the chase and went back to find whatever they threw out, but when I got there, it was gone. I marked the spot. That precise spot was drawn on the map in your office.” His tone was flat, just like the report he’d filed. “The MO was similar to the vehicle that was seen in your parking lot.”
She gaped at him. Shock shaped her features. Neither of them moved, and suffocating silence hung like a heavy, wet curtain between them.
