Chapter One
The sea crashed on the rocks, and the tide tried to drag her back under but she resisted its pull. She forced open one eye, the lid weighted like a manhole cover.
To keep it open, she focused her dry eyeball on the filmy white curtain billowing into the room from the French door ajar to the balcony. Another wave from the ocean below made its presence heard as it broke and then clawed at the rocky shore. She could almost taste the salt from the sea spray on her tongue.
She licked her lips. The air in the room lay heavy upon her, and she still hadn’t managed to open her other eye. She lifted a lethargic arm and rubbed her closed eye, hoping to stimulate it.
She blinked against the stinging sensation and rubbed again, smearing moisture across her cheek to her ear. Had she been crying in her sleep? That deep, dark slumber she couldn’t seem to shake?
Raising her hand in front of her face, she wrinkled her nose. Not tears, blood. She hadn’t had a bloody nose since she was a kid. She pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers, sniffing, and her nostrils flared at the tinny smell that seemed to invade every pore.
The odor revived her, stunning her like a prod. She jerked her bare limbs beneath the silk sheets. She bolted to a sitting position, the back of her head hitting the headboard. Pain, all out of proportion to the tap of her skull against the wood, coursed through her body, and she gagged.
As if that bump had awakened every nerve ending in her body, her right hand began to throb. She spread out her fingers, the red cuts on her hand standing in stark relief against the white sheets.
What the hell happened? Why was she bleeding, and why was she naked in her ex-husband’s bedroom?
She scrambled from the bed, tripping over something soft on the floor in the semidarkness. Gasping, she fumbled for the light switch on the wall next to the bed and jabbed at it with her thumb.
Her gaze dropped to the floor, and she staggered back, her mouth agape. A scream gathered in her lungs but lodged in her chest, choking her instead. Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath. Somewhere deep down inside, she knew vomiting would only make this situation, whatever it was, much, much worse.
Her self-preservation, one of her strongest instincts, took control of her brain and her eyelids flew open. She extended her leg and with her big toe, she prodded the shoulder of her ex-husband, crumpled on the floor.
Her investigatory digit met cold flesh, and the reality rushed in on her, just as surely as those waves were rushing to shore outside that window. She clapped a hand over her mouth and hissed through her fingers, “Niles?”
The s hung in the air and only the drapes floating into the room whispered a response.
She fell to her knees and crawled toward Niles’s still form. Covering two fingers with the bedspread that hung to the floor, she placed them against his neck. The once-vibrant man, who couldn’t seem to sit still for a second, didn’t have one ounce of life left in his body.
She sat back on her heels and surveyed the opulent bedroom she’d painstakingly decorated a lifetime ago. What had happened in this room?
She dug a knuckle into her temple. She couldn’t remember coming into the bedroom with Niles last night. She’d come back to the house with him in his car after the drink they’d shared at the Marina Sports Bar. He had the file she’d wanted to see in his home office.
He did so much work from home she didn’t figure it for a ploy. Niles didn’t need ploys. He’d moved on to another woman shortly after their separation. Hell, who was she kidding? He’d moved on to multiple women before the separation.
Then what? Had he drugged her? She ran her tongue around her dry mouth. Had he not wanted to show her the file?
She peered at her hands and the cuts on her right palm. Her gaze darted to the bloody wounds gouging Niles’s back. He’d been stabbed...to death.
They’d fought last night. They always fought. That was why they’d got divorced. Civilized people divorced. They didn’t kill. She hated Niles, but she never wished him dead.
The breeze filtering in from the open door tickled her ear. She shook her head. Not just dead. Murdered. And she’d blacked out...again.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins, and she sprang to her feet. Her head swiveled back and forth, her gaze tripping over her clothes in the corner. Why had she taken them off? She dragged in a deep breath. If she panicked now, she’d get herself into even deeper trouble.
Get dressed. Get out.
As she tiptoed to the jumble of clothing, a building dread accompanied each step. There could be only one reason for her to strip off her clothes: if they were soaked with blood. She leaned forward, pinching the material of her blouse between two fingers and pulling it free from the pile.
The spotless white silk had her releasing a noisy breath. She grabbed a handful of the black slacks and shook them out—dry as a bone. As dry as her mouth.
Her underwear had been dislodged from her slacks and fell back to the floor. She scooped up her bra and panties and put them on over her cold, clammy flesh. Had she showered at some point last night?
She pressed her nose against the skin of her upper arm—not sweaty, but not exactly fresh, either. She crept into the bathroom and nudged the light switch with the side of her hand, casting a warm glow over the gray tiles with their bright blue accents.
No droplets of water appeared on the floor of the walk-in shower. No damp towels littered the bathroom or hung on the racks. She edged up to the vanity and peered at her reflection in the mirror.
A pair of wide violet eyes stared back at her, and a smear of blood created a line from the corner of her eye to her ear. That was her own blood from the cuts on her right hand. She didn’t have a speck of Niles’s blood on her. She stuck two fingers in her mouth and then rubbed the red streak from her face.
If her clothes weren’t bloody and she hadn’t taken a shower, surely she’d be covered in his blood if...? But she’d blacked out.
She spun away from the mirror and scanned every corner of the bathroom. Nothing looked out of place—except her standing here in her underwear.
She whipped a hand towel from the rack and wiped the light switch, and the sink and shower faucets for good measure. Then she rushed back into the bedroom and erased her fingerprints from the light switch in there, too. She didn’t have to wipe down the entire house, as she’d been here recently. Hell, she used to live here.
She inspected the bed, squinting at the pillow and sheets, searching for strands of her dark hair and blood from her cuts. Those would be damning, but she couldn’t afford to spread even more of her DNA around by going into the laundry room and washing the bedding.
Then she crouched beside Niles’s dead body and studied the cuts on his back and the ripped, slightly freckled flesh. She shivered.
She looked at her hand, the thin red lines of the cuts creating a horizontal pattern on her palm. She reached up and buried her fingertips in her hair, tracing over a tender lump on the back of her head. Had she and Niles had some kind of fight? A physical altercation? Could his killing have been in self-defense?
She bunched up her hand into a fist and pressed it against her stomach. Self-defense when she stood to gain 100 percent control of Snap App? Self-defense when everyone knew they had been fighting over the company for months?
Nobody would believe her—not with her past. She couldn’t afford to be at another scene involving a dead body.
She picked up the towel and continued wiping down surfaces in the bedroom. With a brisk nod, she dropped the towel to the floor and picked up her slacks next to it.
She slipped into the black pants and gasped, patting the pockets. Her lashes fluttered as she huffed out a breath. She’d left her phone at home last night on the charger. Her battery had been dying lately and she couldn’t be happier about it now. She didn’t need her cell phone signal pinging in this house at this time.
She pulled her blouse over her head. As she reached for the top button, she grabbed threads instead. Her button had popped off—the oversize multicolored, highly unique button.
With her head pounding, she dropped to her knees and ran her hands across the wood floor and underneath the dresser. Her fingers stumbled across the button and she slid it across the floor and dropped it into the pocket of her slacks. Then she stepped into the high heels placed next to each in perfect alignment.
She scooped up the towel and gave the room a final look over her shoulder from the bedroom door. She froze. The knife.
What if the knife had her prints on it? Her head swiveled from side to side. What knife? She hadn’t seen a knife anywhere.
Her gaze slid to Niles’s body. He had stab wounds on his back, but what about his front? If she rolled him over, she could leave more evidence of her presence here. If she didn’t, she could be leaving a murder weapon with her prints on it.
She kicked off her heels and approached Niles. She feared him now more than she ever had alive. Still gripping the hand towel, she pushed at his inert form enough to tilt it on its side. Before he fell back to the floor, she’d determined there was no knife beneath him—nothing beneath him except more blood. This had been angry overkill.
It hadn’t been her anger that had killed him. But then she’d blacked out.
She grabbed her shoes in one hand and shuffled out of the room backward, as if she expected Niles to jump up and point an accusing finger at her, and then turned and jogged down the curved staircase, sweeping the towel along the banister for good measure. She and Niles had come back to the house for some file, and she still had every intention of leaving with that file.
She scurried into Niles’s home office and scanned the clean surface of the mahogany desk. She and Niles hadn’t even made it far enough to get the file. But she knew exactly where they were.
With the towel still clutched in her hand, she dropped her shoes and crouched before the desk drawers, pulling open the bottom one. She shoved the hanging files aside and then snatched a letter opener from a pencil holder on the desk. She jammed the point into a circular release at the bottom of the drawer and slid open the false bottom.
She released a sigh. The labels indicated the file folder she wanted was on top of some other folders and a few other items. Niles must’ve got it ready for her. She removed the folder, replaced the false bottom, closed the drawer and wiped down everything.
Gripping the folder in one hand, she turned away from the desk and tripped to a stop when she saw two crystal tumblers on the counter of the wet bar. She yanked the towel from where she had it draped over her shoulder, rinsed out both glasses, wiped them down and put them back on the shelf behind the bar.
The computer had to be her next stop, to check the footage from the security cameras. Covering the mouse with a tissue from Niles’s desk, she navigated through the security software.
She drew in a quick breath as her mouth dropped open when she realized the system had been disabled. Had Niles done that earlier? Had his killer? Had she?
Now she needed to sneak out of here...and find herself an alibi.
CONNOR DUG HIS feet into the sand and squinted at the surfers battling the heavy surf—and each other.
He pulled out his video camera, zoomed in and started filming the Cove Boys and their antics in the water. Summer might’ve ended but the rowdy group of surfers who ruled the cove with a belligerent localism never stopped when they thought outsiders were riding their waves.
Connor caught the Cove Boys dropping in on others’ waves, cutting them off, yelling and making rude gestures. This footage would help with the lawsuit.
The Cove Boys’ aggressive behavior had its desired effect as, one by one, the harassed surfers came to shore in defeat.
A couple approached him, their boards under their arms. The man reached back and yanked down the zipper of his wetsuit. “Are they always like that?”
“Yep.” Connor held up his video camera. “But we’re trying to stop it. Some local surfers who don’t like the reputation of the cove are bringing a class action lawsuit against these guys—and I just captured some solid evidence.”
“Good. It’s about time someone did something about these guys.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Connor saw a surfer clambering from the surf and coming at him. He turned, widening his stance on the wet sand, his muscles tense.
Jimmy Takata, one of the Cove Boys, threw down his board. “What’s up, Wells? What’s the camera for?”
“Whaddya think? You guys can’t stop even when your attorney tells you to lie low.”
Jimmy lunged at him, and Connor dropped the camera on top of his bag and raised his hands. “You wanna go there?”
“You’re playing with fire, Wells.” Jimmy leveled a finger at him. “Your old man doesn’t rule this town anymore, and he did a crap job when he did.”
Connor’s eye twitched behind his sunglasses. “Aren’t you kinda old to be playing beach bully, Jimmy?”
“Never too old to protect your own. Besides, you’re not a cop anymore, so stop trying to recapture your glory days.” Jimmy guffawed as he scooped up his board and waded back into the water.
Connor crouched and stashed the camera in his bag. Then he hitched it over his shoulder and scuffed his bare feet through the dry sand to the line of cars on the road above the beach.
He slid behind the wheel of his truck and tossed the bag on the seat next to him. Gripping the steering wheel, he let out a breath. If he could help break the stranglehold the Cove Boys had over the best surfing spot in San Juan Beach, it might go a little way toward restoring the town’s former luster.
It seemed a million years ago since his father patrolled this small beach community as its police chief and the residents could trust each other and trust authority. Then the drugs moved in and all that ended—along with his father’s life.
Connor swallowed the bitterness that flooded his mouth and took a swig of the warm water from the bottle in his cup holder. He’d leave this place, as others had, if it weren’t for the land and his father’s dream. Didn’t he owe that to him?
Someone rapped on his window and he jumped. He peered through the glass at the couple from the beach and powered down his window.
The guy stuck his hand into the open space. “Thanks, man.”
“For what?” Connor jerked his thumb toward the beach. “They’re still out there intimidating people.”
“Yeah, but if that lawsuit prevails and those idiots are slapped with an injunction, they’re going to think twice about their localism—and your video footage should help.”
The woman held out a business card. “If the attorney needs witnesses, give me a call. We’d be happy to help.”
“Thanks.” Connor plucked the card from between the woman’s fingers. “I’ll give this to the lawyer filing the lawsuit.”
With a wave of his hand, Connor cranked on his engine and pulled away from the gravelly shoulder, spitting dust and sand in his wake. After a few miles, he made a turn to the east, away from the coast and the town of San Juan Beach.
The narrow, two-lane road wound into the low-lying hills and the early-fall temperature rose several degrees as he escaped the sea breeze. The hotter the better. His grapevines needed the warmth.
On the way to the house, Connor pulled over and jumped out of the truck. He cupped a bunch of grapes in his palm and sniffed—the sweet had started to overpower the tart—right on time, even though this crop wouldn’t be the harvest for the wine. He had to wait another year for that.
Good thing he was a patient man.
As he made the last turn, he hunched over the steering wheel and squinted at the white car in his driveway. Someone had ignored the no-solicitors sign posted at the entrance to his property—probably another one of those Realtors. That shiny cream-white Lexus looked exactly like a Realtor’s car.
His jaw hardened, and he threw the truck into Park. He pushed out of his vehicle at the same time a woman emerged from the Lexus.
As she floated toward him, her hands held out, Connor blinked. Her perfume wafted toward him and enveloped him in her spell. When she reached him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his shoulder, her chestnut hair lifting in the breeze, his capture complete.
Her warm breath caressed the side of his neck as she whispered in a husky tone, “I’m in trouble, Connor. And I need an alibi.”
Copyright © 2019 by Carol Ericson