Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (40 page)

“I’ll be damned.”

“Jeb.”

“Eighteen, Mom.”

“But I’m still your mother.”
And your protector.
“You going out early with Zeus tomorrow?”

“No client,” he said. “We’re sleeping in. Good night.”

“Night, sweetheart,” she said.

John would be disturbed at his son’s choice of charter fishing over college. But he’d be proud of how Jeb stepped up for her—maturing faster than she could ever imagine. Life never traveled the way she expected anymore.

Pauley yelled something, muffled by the closed windows and locked doors.

“He talking to us?” Jeb asked over his shoulder.

Callie shook her head and shut off the living room light. “Who knows? Just give him a wide berth, okay? There’s something not right about him.”

Pauley was probably saying the same about her.

Chapter 30

“MOM!”

A toddling Jeb scurried under a table, Callie chasing him much like the scene at the Maxwells’. He peered out, giggled, and vanished like a fairy. Straightening, she scanned the kitchen, the living room, under her bed.

“Mom!”

The little scamp had developed supernatural powers, disappearing yet calling out to tease. Why did his voice sound so old?

Bang. Bang.
“Mom, wake up. Get out here!”

Callie jolted upright. She slung off the covers, grabbed her .38 from the nightstand, and yanked the door open. “What’s wrong?”

Jeb moved shirtless and barefoot in basketball shorts to the kitchen bar and pointed at the breakfast table. Callie slid on her robe.

Out of habit, she stepped noiselessly on the balls of her feet. Entering the bright yellow room, her nightgown barely moved around her legs as she glided in stealth mode, almost expecting the silver dollar and glass of bourbon on the table to jump up and bite.

Jeb approached her side.

“Don’t touch it,” she ordered, moving closer. A 1977 Eisenhower piece. Not from Papa’s collection. A copycat crime? Or had the murderer taken another stash of Papa’s coins she didn’t know about? Her fingers kneaded the seam of her gown.

“What do we do?” her son asked.

Good question.
“First, stay out of this room. Check the doors and windows to see where he came in. Look for anything missing. He always takes a souvenir.” She glanced at the microwave clock. Eight a.m. No question she had to report this, but for the moment she wanted to wrap her mind around what had happened. Her investigative techniques were more experienced than the collective police force, and her analysis could make a huge difference in how this case, her case, might be solved.

She fought to wrap her mind around what the burglar would choose of hers, or Jeb’s. The trespasser took money from the Rosewoods, a necklace from Mrs. Hanson. The NFL ring from Sophie and the mirror from the Maxwells. Before the cops arrived, Callie would like to be able to tell them what tokens had disappeared from Chelsea Morning.

She inhaled deeply. Peters was in jail, so this had to be an accomplice. Hopefully her nanny cams would ID him. The best way to manage this situation was to remain calm, think methodically.

Difficult to do when someone walked through locks like a ghost.

She rewrapped her robe around her, and pissed off, she tied it snug enough to bite into her waist. Touching her personal items ran a close second to touching her, as if stripped in public. But what boiled her blood was the fact someone relaxed over a drink in her house as she and Jeb slept only feet away. But that’s all right. She had the son-of-a-bitch on her cams.

She moved toward Cam One’s hiding spot on a book shelf.
Wait. What?
Gone. She rushed to Cam Two, in a pile of greenery around a candle. Also gone. Cams Three and Four, likewise missing. A deep-rooted chill shook her shoulders. How did he know?

One camera left. Cam Five, the one installed in her entertainment center with the best wide angle view of the living room, kitchen, her bedroom entrance, and two of three exits, remained in place. She studied it closer, pushing down her fear. It appeared bent, cracked, and broken, as if squeezed with a wrench . . . with a foreign cam installed beside it.

When had she last checked them? Yesterday, before bed. Good God, he not only breezed past the locks, but he’d installed his own eyes as well as enjoyed his drink. The bastard had hovered only feet from her bedroom.

He must have secreted a camera days before in order to know where she’d planted hers. Or he was just that damn good to thoroughly search and defeat her devices. In spite of her fear, she respected such abilities.

But if he was serious about harming her, why hadn’t he done so? That thought alone kept her from freaking out at the moment. He definitely had held the advantage. All he had to do was simply open a door.

Recalling her stupid knee-jerk reaction to throw the once hidden bedroom cam against the wall, she grabbed a CD case and wedged it in front of the lens. Son-of-a-bitch’s view was blocked now and fingerprints preserved, not that she expected this guy to have left any.

What had he watched? How much of her life did he know? Scurrying back into her bedroom, her pulse pounding, she prayed three things weren’t touched. Surely he hadn’t had the nerve to come into her bedroom as she slept, but she knew no limits yet to this guy’s behavior. She yanked open her dresser drawer. Bonnie’s blanket rested in its tissue paper. She turned. The family picture of all four of them at the beach remained on her nightstand. In the closet, her Neil Diamond album still hid behind her suit.

In her doorway, she held onto the frame, thinking. Then she knew. The cup from Papa Beach’s house, the one John had bought her in Boston, the one the culprit had already stolen once and left at Papa’s for her to find filled with hot chocolate.

Callie dashed to the kitchen and searched the cabinet over the dishwasher. The cup was gone. She scanned the room, devouring details, hoping to identify his mistakes. Angry impatience tested her resolve to visualize each detail methodically.

“Nothing’s missing in my room,” Jeb said, returning to her side, standing closer than usual. “Why didn’t I hear anything?” The hint of panic in his voice told Callie the danger registered clearly with him.

“Check the doors and windows?” she asked him again as her gaze roamed for more signs of the guy’s presence, to distract herself from her own surge of hysteria wedged in her chest. As she steadied her voice, she worried if the intruder had audio abilities as well as visual.

Jeb rolled his eyes, pain on his face. “Damn it, no, I’ll check them now.” His breaths accelerated as he scratched his neck, his thoughts seeming to scatter.

But she gently took his hand away from its scratching and stilled it. “Stay calm.” She nodded toward the entertainment center, to the odd-angled CD case. “We had eyes on us. May still have, if he hid another cam.”

“Wha . . .”

“Shhh.”

He nodded.

“Good,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed, and then I’ll call the police. You can change, too. Nonchalantly, okay?”

Jeb nodded again and went toward his room. She lifted her phone from her dresser, carrying it in the closet to grab pants and a shirt. She refused to behave as anyone watching would expect her to, like a crazed, emotional woman.

Before she could lift the jeans off their hanger, someone knocked on the front door with ridiculous incessant repetition. Not Sophie. Too loud. Naked, she clutched her robe back around her and hid the phone in her pocket, to hold her weapon ready.

The knocks turned into heavy-repeated blows, followed by a shout. “Callie Morgan, get your ass out here!”

The voice was Pauley’s. “I don’t have time for you,” she said, voice raised to be heard through the glass.

“Did you turn over my garbage cans?”

She blew out with irritation and lowered the .38. “No. Go away,” she yelled.

“No,” he hollered back. “You come out here.”

She ignored him and turned toward the living room. But she didn’t make it to the end of the hall before outside traffic noises suddenly sounded too unexpectedly clear. She whirled, taking aim.

Pauley filled the doorway. “Whoa! Is that how you answer the fuckin’ door?”

Callie held her bearing. No question how the burglar had entered now. She was damn sure she double-checked that lock when she went to bed. A brand new lock not two days old.

Not so much fear as an antsy uncertainty skipped across her shoulders and made her step closer, almost too eager to draw down on this man. “I’ll warn you one time, Pauley, I’m in no mood to fool with you. Get off my property.”

Hearing footsteps climbing the stairs behind Pauley, she tensed, now nervous about brandishing a gun. Lord, don’t let it be one of Seabrook’s cops.

Mason’s head appeared, then the rest of him as he reached Callie’s irritated neighbor.

Pauley turned, and Callie hid the weapon in her robe pocket. “Both of y’all, please go.”

Mason glanced around with uncertainty. “I just came by to ask you to come with me on a run.”

“Not today, Mason.” Not wanting the crime scene violated, Callie moved to the porch, herding the others before her. “Y’all need to go.”

A scowl swept across Mason’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Jeb came out to the threshold, frowning. “Mom? Oh, I thought the cops had arrived. You called them, right?”

As she reached for her son, Callie caught Pauley’s gaze roaming over her. She tightened her robe, the urge to throw him down her front steps overwhelming.

Mason noted the moment of lust and shoved the man. “Get the hell away from her.”

Pauley stumbled back, fright in his face as he windmilled to keep from diving down the stairs backwards. With a last minute save on the banister, he righted himself. “Stupid son of a bitch.” He spun and punched Mason in the gut.

Then he laughed and shifted his attention to Callie. “What you gonna do about that, Miss Detective? All half-dressed and off your game. I just nailed your boyfriend.”

Mason had doubled over with the light punch, but Callie recognized Pauley’s feeble attempt at violence for what it was, a counter statement for the embarrassing afternoon when she’d put his nose in the dirt. However, his lazy lifestyle prohibited anything physical from being lethal. She stepped out of their way, instinctively holding an arm in front of Jeb.

Jerking upright, Mason snatched Pauley by the shirt, set him up properly, and plowed his fist into the man’s jaw, propelling Pauley backwards. He stumbled and brushed past Callie into the house. After dancing for purchase on the rumpled entry rug, he went down on his backside, a whiplash motion smacking his head on the floor.

Mason followed inside, ready to snatch his adversary up off the floor and test his mettle again.

“Don’t,” Callie said. “The two of you—out!”

Pauley’s angry finger shook back at her. “I’ve been assaulted in your house. I’m suing.” He rose to his feet with a stagger. “And I’m not leaving. The police will hear my side on this, right where it happened.”

Jeb stepped between him and Callie. “Speaking of cops, where are they, Mom? They can deal with both this guy and the break-in. Maybe he’s the burglar come back to see how we reacted.”

“Wait a second. I haven’t been in your house.” Pauley stepped in Jeb’s face. The boy braced himself, his posture daring the shorter, older man to try something.

Mason’s forehead creased with puzzlement. “Did the intruder come here last night?”

“Yeah,” Jeb said, his stare still on Pauley. “While we were sleeping.”

“Did you see anything?”

All Callie saw was intent to destroy her confidence and sense of well-being. Raysor was in the hospital, Seabrook busy. Some green cop would only strut and not know what the hell he was doing with all this.

“I saw Peters drive away just a little while ago,” Mason said.

Wait. What?
She snapped around. “Peters was here?”

Mason shrugged. “He pulled out of your drive.”

Instinct held back her response. Peters couldn’t have done this, not unless they’d released him on bail or he’d escaped. In either case, Seabrook owed her a call. Unless something happened to Seabrook, too. Or, as lame as it sounded, the cops were involved.

Who the hell was she supposed to trust? She ran her hands over her forehead, stunned and confused, nothing ringing right about this break-in.

Mason pushed a piece of hair out of Callie’s face, then reached around and nudged the front door closed.

Jeb scowled at the tender gesture. Callie’s posture went rigid at the sudden confinement.

“How did you not hear anything?” Mason asked. “Have you called 9-1-1?”

Nothing made sense. “They arrested Peters for the burglaries last night, Mason. He confessed.”

Mason raised his brow in a brief micro-expression of concern . . . and Callie saw it. She juggled her own split-second of doubt . . . then she remembered the Eisenhower coin left on her table, a silver dollar not from Papa Beach’s collection, and her thoughts began to gel.

Pauley spoke up. “Told you it wasn’t me. You’ve been in my house, but I never came into yours.”

“Shut up, Pauley.” Callie’s personal alarm shot up tenfold, but this wimp wasn’t the man to fear.

Jack Peters had resented residents who’d used Papa Beach, Edisto natives who inadvertently had shirked the handyman. But what had Seabrook told her last night?
You were a good guy, Callie. He liked you.
Even if Peters were loose . . .

Mason touched her shoulder. “Callie? Want me to stay until the authorities arrive?”

She fought the flinch, but her gut feeling gave her away. Mason was lying through his handsome, whitened teeth. She had no time to figure out why. Muscles tightened down her arms and up her legs, instinct telling her to prepare. She eased her hand into her robe pocket.

Mason reached around into her pocket, too, his clean intervention muscling the .38 away. “I don’t think so,” he said as another weapon found its way under her neck. He waved Callie’s piece with a whiff of bravado and then hid it in his pocket.

She recognized a suppressor . . . on what appeared to be her Glock.
He modified my gun!

Her chest tightened. What other lies constituted the illustrious Mason Howard? Assuming that was his name.

“Wait a minute.” Pauley moved hesitantly toward the back door. “I ain’t a part of this.”