weekly trips to the docks, Millay frowned in puzzlement. “Why thank me? I didn’t do squat.”
Olivia placed a twenty on the bar. “But you would have. You had my back. That matters to me more than you know.”
Embarrassed, Millay began to wipe the bar with a frayed rag. “Somebody has to be your wingman when Haviland isn’t around. It was smart of you to leave him with Michel and the kitchen staff instead of bringing him in here. I’m not sure if he would have responded well to Hatcher’s body language. And I am not paid enough to mop up blood.” Millay pointed a finger at Olivia. “Keep me in the loop, okay?”
On her way to the door, Olivia stopped to exchange small talk with a few of the fishermen she knew from either her childhood or as suppliers to her restaurants. Several offered condolences on the loss of her father, saying that he was a fortunate man to have died in his bed with his family gathered around when all of Oyster Bay believed he’d been claimed by drink and the sea more than forty years ago.
“Part of him did die that night,” Olivia said to one of her father’s former crewmembers as she stood beneath the exit sign, a nimbus of neon red illuminating her pale hair. “That storm took my father and gave him another life, another family. And because of that, I gained a brother. I guess we made a good trade, the ocean and I.”
The man had met Hudson at the docks a few weeks before The Bayside Crab House had opened and now knew him as well as anyone. “You can tell he’s Willie’s boy from a mile off. Both of ’em got thunder in their eyes, but your brother has heart too. He’ll stick by you when you need him most. Sometimes it’s the quiet ones who have the most to say.”
Olivia paused, one hand on the door. She was intrigued by the fisherman’s words. Nodding at him in recognition of his wisdom, she stepped outside and was surprised by the feel of rain against her skin. Shallow puddles reflected the streetlights and electric store signs, and the sidewalks had emptied of people. Olivia walked unhurriedly to the Range Rover, relishing the warm rain and the mingling scents of moist pavement and ocean air. She felt both invigorated and poignantly lonely, and the moment she was inside the dry cabin of her car, she dialed Rawlings’ number.
When he answered, she could hear the din of conversation in the background.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she began, experiencing a pang of disappointment. She’d wanted Rawlings to be alone, to be available to her need, but he clearly wasn’t.
“Hold on,” he commanded, and she could sense him distancing himself from the noise, seeking out a quiet, private place. After a few seconds he said, “I never thought I’d see Haviland without you.”
Olivia started the car and turned her headlights on, shimmering raindrops refracting in the beams. “You’re at The Boot Top?”
“It’s Jeannie’s birthday. This is where she wanted to come, and since it’s the big five-oh, her husband said the sky was the limit. We’re just finishing up dessert now.”
Imagining Rawlings’ kindhearted sister enjoying a slice of Michel’s decadent hazelnut chocolate mousse cake, Olivia pushed down on the accelerator, rocketing the Range Rover through an intersection, water splashing from her tires onto the shiny, black road. “Can we meet for an after-dinner drink in the bar?”
“As long as we stick to coffee,” Rawlings agreed. “I have more work to do tonight.”
Olivia said, “I’ll order coffee for you, but I need something with a little more kick.”
The Boot Top’s parking lot was far from full, but it was past nine on a Monday night, and most of the restaurant’s patrons would have finished with their meals. There were others, however, like Jeannie and her family, who were still lingering over coffee and dessert.
Lately, Michel’s cakes, tarts, and mousses had become even more seductive than usual, and he took great pride in his artistic presentation. His reputation was growing to such an extent that he refused to take any time off, and Olivia worried he might soon collapse from sheer exhaustion.
Entering by the front door, Olivia immediately sought out the hostess and gave her instructions to tell Jeannie’s waiter to comp their entire meal. She then made her way to the bar, where Rawlings waited for her at one of the intimate side tables. A steaming coffee mug sat on a cocktail napkin in front of him and a tumbler of Chivas Regal waited for her.
“You’re a saint,” she told him and took a grateful sip before even bothering to sit down.
Rawlings watched her, his eyes glinting with curiosity. “What’s on your mind?”
“I have another suspect for you,” she said and, without further preamble, told the chief about her conversation with Raymond Hatcher. When she was done, Olivia concentrated on her cocktail, giving Rawlings the silence he needed to digest all she’d imparted.
After two or three very long minutes, the chief put his elbows on the side of his chair, made a temple with his fingers, and rested his chin on his fingertips. “We got the lab results back. The fibers found on Mr. Plumley’s neck matched those on his robe. In other words, he was strangled by the sash of his own robe.”
Olivia recalled the red welt striping the flesh of Nick Plumley’s throat. She said nothing and waited for Rawlings to continue.
“I believe the killer wore latex gloves. Trace amounts of latex were found beneath Mr. Plumley’s fingernails, along with bits of bread and cream cheese from his breakfast.” The chief frowned. “But there’s something odd about these results.”
“Such as?”
Rawlings stood up and walked behind Olivia’s chair. He leaned over, close enough for her to smell coffee and chocolate cake, and put his forearm around her right shoulder. He then pressed his arm backward into the soft flesh of her throat.
“Pretend I wasn’t being gentle,” he whispered into her hair, his breath caressing her neck and sending a pulse of desire through her body. “What would you do?”
Olivia curled her hands and reached for the chief’s ropy forearms. She locked her hands on to his flesh, attempting to free herself from his hold, when in truth, she longed for him to put his lips on the skin just below her jaw line. She wanted to turn her head and capture his mouth in hers, to lock her fingers in his thick hair, pushing the world and all of its interferences away for just a moment.
“See? You’d scratch and claw at my arm, desperate to breathe, doing anything in your power to break free.” Rawlings resumed his seat across from Olivia. He averted his gaze, and she knew he’d felt her hunger for him, that it had shocked him with electricity, like water dripping onto a live wire.
Reaching for her glass, Olivia nodded. “You expected to find the killer’s skin under Nick’s nails.”
“Yes. The nails obviously weren’t cleaned, so I’ve begun to believe that Mr. Plumley also wore gloves.”
Several thoughts vied for attention once the chief voiced this theory. Olivia remembered Shala Knowles and her fellow curators donning their white gloves to examine Harris’s painting. She also envisioned Ray Hatcher showing up at Nick’s house with the photographs the author was so desperate to examine. Plumley would have gladly put on a pair of latex gloves in exchange for the right to view images of Camp New Bern.
Rawlings had come to the same conclusion. “I need to pay a visit to Mr. Hatcher tonight. There are far too many suspects in this case, too many people who’d take a risk in the hope of walking away with a pile of money.”
“Or for the chance at possessing an original work by Heimlich Kamler,” Olivia pointed out. “There must have been half a dozen art aficionados in the curator’s office. Who knows how many people they told about the painting? They knew my name and that I’d come to Raleigh from Oyster Bay. I would have been easy to find . . .” She trailed off, feeling foolish.
The chief dismissed the notion. “The murderer wanted Nick dead, not you. I don’t know how the painting fits into the case or if it has any connection at all, but I need to find Hatcher before it gets any later.”
He put his hand on her shoulder in passing. “Nice work, Olivia.”
Without turning, she felt him leave. It was as if the room grew suddenly duller, the warmth on her skin where his breath and fingers had touched her was replaced by the cool exhalation of air-conditioning. Even the candle sputtered, sending fractured shadows onto the table where Rawlings’ empty coffee cup sat.
At that moment his sister entered the bar, her cheeks flushed from an evening of celebration. “There you are!” she exclaimed merrily. “You shouldn’t have paid for my birthday supper! We barely know each other.”
Olivia smiled. “Fifty is a milestone. I couldn’t resist the chance to do something to contribute to your party.”
“And maybe impress my brother at the same time?” Jeannie winked impishly.
Holding her hands out in surrender, Olivia had to laugh. “You got me. I did have an ulterior motive.”
