Kiss of a Stranger (Lost Coast Harbor #1) (21 page)

Her search took several hours. By the time she finished, she hadn’t found a drop of evidence Oliver was involved in questionable activities…and she’d worked the half-day she promised her boss. She could go home. Go back to Gabe.

Before leaving, Maddie confirmed that the pharmacy bag was in her purse. At least in that way, they could be safe.

Safe.

She strode back into Oliver’s office and lifted the seascape painting he kept behind his desk, revealing the safe. It was a modern one with digital numbers, and this time she didn’t have the six-digit code. It wasn’t his birthday, forwards or backwards. It wasn’t the machine’s default. It wasn’t his name spelled out on a number pad.

Flummoxed, she stepped back. What was important enough to Oliver that he might use it as his password? His siblings both had five-letter names. He didn’t have a pet. He didn’t follow any sports teams. She didn’t know what his favorite book was.

Come to think of it, she didn’t know much at all about Oliver Hastings.

She shook it off. That wasn’t true. He was kind and selfless.
Be kind
, she typed into the keypad.

Nothing.

She followed it up with
be good
, then
be nice
. She knew she was grasping at straws, but if there one thing she was certain of, it was that Oliver was a good man, one who truly believed in handing out second chances. Losing hope, she typed
second.
“Of course not,” she muttered.

Then the safe door swung open on
chance
.

“Ha!” she cried in triumph. “I
do
know him,” she said, then began rifling through the contents. She found several stock certificates, two thousand dollars cash, his passport, and a handgun. The last one surprised her, but plenty of people in town believed in their right to carry. She didn’t expect Oliver to be one of them, but at least the gun wasn’t loaded. The bullets were stored in a separate case, and it didn’t look like any of them had been used.

All in all, there was nothing unusual, except that all the items rested on top of a small black box.

She eased that out of the safe, then froze. Her name was on the lid of the box. “Maddie’s living expenses,” the label said. She only paused a moment before opening it.

It was filled with money.

Twenty packets of bills were stacked on top of each other. Each packet contained ten thousand dollars.

Why the hell did Oliver have two hundred thousand dollars in a box with her name on it?

She replaced the box in a hurry, making sure to put the other items back in the same location. She rehung the painting, tipping it a bit to make sure it was at the same crooked angle as before. Oliver would never know she was there.

Maddie hurried home. She spent the entire walk trying to find any reasonable explanation for the cash. Maybe it was an old documents box that just happened to have her name on it.

And a description of how she should use the money.

Maybe he would tell her to deposit it, and then he wouldn’t pay her for five years.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find a believable reason for her name to be anywhere near that much money.

Unless Oliver wanted her to have it. Two hundred thousand dollars would go a long way toward living expenses in an expensive city like Palo Alto.

And then, with Gabe presumed dead and Maddie safely in another city, everyone who suspected that Hastings Shipping was involved with illegal activities would be taken care of.

With each step closer to her house, Maddie grew more afraid she would need to say words she once believed impossible. When it came to Oliver Hastings, Gabe might be right.

The doorbell rang.

Gabe froze. He was preparing eggs in Maddie’s kitchen, wrapped in nothing but a towel. He wasn’t exactly fit for company.

Also, he was supposed to be dead.

The doorbell rang again, then someone knocked, insistent.

Gabe checked the wall clock. Just past noon. Maddie said she’d try to get home for lunch. Maybe she forgot her keys.

He turned off the heat on the stove, then crept into the living room. Before he could peer through the keyhole, a key slid into the lock.

He breathed out a sigh of relief. It just took her a moment to find them, that’s all.

Or someone else still had a set—a detail he remembered just as the door swung open to reveal Maddie’s former roommate.

Bree’s eyes widened. “Well. This is unexpected.”

Gabe looked over her shoulder, panicked. There were no houses on the other side of the street, so no neighbors might see him. Even if there were, Adam Rogers’ looming presence would have blocked their view.

“Uh, hi.” He raised the spatula he still held. “Do you want a late breakfast?”

To their credit, the Rogers siblings didn’t gawk or ask stupid questions. They stepped inside and closed the front door.

“I know Maddie doesn’t have enough ingredients in this house for a meal.” Bree held up a large bag. “I brought bagels. Thought she might need some grief carbs.” Her eyes scanned his body, registering each muscle. “Looks like she’s out of mourning.”

Gabe gestured at the towel. “I’d put on clothes, but I don’t have any.”

“Fine with me.” Bree’s expression was pure mischief.

Adam was less convinced. “One of my guys left a bag behind when he skipped town. I was going to give his stuff to charity, but you look enough like a charity case right now. Hang on.”

He returned with a bag full of clothes. The t-shirt was a bit tight and the jeans a little loose, but they more or less fit—and decreased the chance he’d accidentally flash Maddie’s best friend.

“She should be back soon,” he told them.

The siblings sat side by side on the couch, their bagel feast spread before them.

Bree spread cream cheese on two bagels and held them out. “Plain or onion?”

Gabe sat cross-legged on the floor across from them, then reluctantly took the plain. He didn’t want to give Maddie any reason to avoid kissing him.

Bree sat back in triumph. “I knew it.”

Adam ignored his little sister’s test. “Want to explain why you’re not dead?”

Gabe glanced at Bree, then back to the man who knew some of his secrets.

Adam claimed the onion bagel before his sister could take a bite. “Bree only pretends like she says whatever comes into her head. You can trust her.”

Bree looked between them. “This about the guns from six years back?”

Gabe glared at Adam. “You told her?”

Bree rolled her eyes. “Settle down, He-man. I’m not an idiot. I figured it out the first time I met you.”

Both men gaped at her.

“Come on. I read the papers, and I’m capable of remembering more than six years back.”

“Then why did you let her get close to me?” Gabe tried not to glare at Bree. Unreasonably, he thought Maddie’s friend should have tried to protect her from an ex-con.

“Because you’re innocent, obviously. Why else would you be back here? The only people who come to Lost Coast Harbor are either looking for something or they’re hoping to never be found. Well, this would be a damn stupid place to hide, since everyone knows what you did. Have you found what you’re looking for yet?”

Gabe shook his head in disgust. “Nothing. I still think it was Hastings, or at least a Hastings, but no idea which one. There’s no proof. We’ve got a bunch of random information, but none of it means anything.”

“I disagree.” Adam took a bite of his bagel, then made them wait for him to chew and swallow before continuing. “You may not know
what
you’ve found, but you’ve definitely found something. If you’re hiding out, I’m guessing the explosion wasn’t an accident. No one would blow up an entire boat if they didn’t have to. Someone thinks you’re a threat.”

Gabe wished that was true. “Except someone tried to kill me the first day, before I knew anything.”

Bree shook her head. “Not the same. That could pass as a dock accident. This can’t. Someone took a pretty big risk to get you out of the way. So think, jailbird. What do you know?”

Gabe sorted through the events of the last two weeks. “Everything Adam learned. I know how the docks work, but so does everyone else down there. I have a bunch of documents on my phone, but Maddie cleared most of them and the rest are gibberish. And there’s a file on me that someone seems to want.” Gabe pointed to the manila folder on Maddie’s coffee table.

Adam finished his bagel and brushed off his hands. “It’s a place to start. Let’s get to work.”

Gabe only hesitated for a second before handing over the file that contained his life story. Somehow, these two strangers already believed in him. He could try believing in them, too.

“Forward the docs on your phone to me.” Bree flipped through his file. To his surprise, she didn’t pause when she hit the section with his juvenile record. “There’s a lot here. Stuff I wouldn’t imagine your average person could get.”

“I’m sure they had a PI,” Gabe noted.

“Mmm-hmm.” She didn’t sound convinced. Bree withdrew her laptop and a few cords from her oversized bag. “Never leave home without it,” she announced. A few seconds later, it was booted up, and she began to give orders. “I’m printing off the pages from Hastings’ office. Have another look at the so-called gibberish ones, because Hastings is not a man to keep nonsense around out of a sense of whimsy. I’ll trace these other docs back to their source.”

In silence, they began working together, looking for anything in those papers that might be the downfall of the wealthiest company in town.

Twenty minutes later, that’s how Maddie found them. Bree waggled her eyebrows at her friend, but she also made room on the couch so that Maddie could read the files over her shoulder.

There would be time for teasing and gossip later. First, they were going to prove a dead man was innocent.

Chapter Twenty-Two

G
abe had no idea what the hell was happening.

Three people he’d known a little over two weeks were fighting for him. He said he was innocent, and they believed him. It felt like a world he gave up on long before had flung its doors open and invited him in. A world of friends and family and people who weren’t looking for the first chance to fuck you over.

Gabe grinned to himself and turned back to his file. “Plea agreement.”

Bree snatched it from his hand, read the heading, then tapped her keyboard, fingers moving at something close to light speed. “Nope. Public record. Anyone could get it, so there’s no trail to follow. Next.”

He flipped the page over and called out the next one.

Adam and Maddie were still trying to make sense of the Hastings docs. The other man passed a sheet to Maddie. “Gee, look,” Adam deadpanned. “It’s another page full of numbers.”

With a grimace, she added it to the reject stack.

So it had been for the last hour. They all studied the documents, looking for anything unusual—but no one knew what that might be.

They were just finishing the last of the bagels when the doorbell rang. Everyone froze.

Bree took charge first. “Get in the closet. That’s where I hid my dates when Maddie came home early.” Bree grinned at Maddie, unabashed. “I thought it was rude to rub your face in all the happy naked time I was getting.”

Maddie blushed bright pink. Gabe followed the color as it rose in her cheeks. With great effort, he didn’t drag Maddie into the closet with him for a very grown-up round of Seven Minutes in Heaven.

When the door closed behind him, he could no longer see the room, but the walls were thin enough that he could pick up every sound.

“Who is it?” Maddie called, her voice a bit strained.

Papers rustled as the others hurried to clean up the work.

“Open up, Mad. You’ve got some explaining to do.” He didn’t recognize the voice, but the others did. Even in the closet, he heard their collective sighs of relief.

The steps to the door were too fast to be Maddie’s. “Erin! Come in and help us,” Bree said.

It was a shame no one was there to see Gabe’s look of horror, because he imagined it was a doozy. Exactly how many people could know a secret before it stopped being a secret?

Another set of footsteps when Erin stepped inside. They were solid and sure, and he had an instant image of the woman who’d been with Maddie at the bar, pretty and so confident he couldn’t imagine anything ruffled her.

Except she sounded a little ruffled right now. “Maddie, there’s a rumor around town.”

No one said anything while they waited.

“Did you really buy three boxes of condoms this morning?”

Bree whooped. “I
knew
it.”

Without seeing her, Gabe knew Maddie was mortified.

“I’ve been worried about you all morning, because I really thought you had feelings for Gabe and were probably heartbroken, and then I learn from a bunch of strangers you plan on having three boxes’ worth of sex in the foreseeable future. What the hell? More importantly, who the hell?”

“Who knows about this?” Maddie asked.

“Well, I just came from the diner, where there was a pretty involved discussion of how you planned to use them. Several people thought you were already sleeping with Declan, but Kelly Jones said you didn’t put out, which is why he broke up with you. Gavin Donnelly said his brother would never do that. Two others said you were secretly dating that ‘dangerous-looking fellow’—that’s a direct quote—and they weren’t interested in changing their story when they heard he was dead. And Harold thought you were probably just being optimistic after all this time.” She paused long enough to take a breath. “Oh god. Tell me it’s not Adam.”

Bree burst into laughter.

“I’m not sure if I should be offended,” Adam said.

Maddie groaned. “Fucking small town. Isn’t there some pharmacist code about confidentiality?”

“Maybe, but Mrs. Wandsworth has no such code, and she was there when you bought them.”

“That’s not fair,” Maddie said. “She’s not even five feet tall. How was I supposed to see her over the shelves?” She muttered a few uncomplimentary things under her breath. Gabe was able to pick out “nosy old hag.”