“Damn these Reeses. Are they ever going to leave this building?”
The officer closed his eyes. “Ah, Chief, you’re on speaker phone.”
“Send her back.”
“Sorry, Ms. Reese.” He looked both ways and hunched forward. “For the record, we’re all looking forward to the day when your brother takes over as chief.”
Devon grinned. “I appreciate that.”
“And I second that emotion.” A petite, fluffy woman scurried from the back and gave Devon a quick hug and patted Michael’s head. “You’re so big, Michael.”
“Kieran, you remember Lucinda Lotts, don’t you? My father’s secretary.”
That session with Dr. Estrada had helped, but not enough that he could immediately place every name and face in Coral Cove. “Of course I do.”
“Good to have you home, Kieran.” She crooked her finger at Michael. “Do you want to have a treat in my cubicle while your mom talks to Chief Evans, Michael?”
Devon mouthed the words “thank you” over Michael’s head, but Kieran held his breath. Would Michael go with her?
Michael looked up at Devon for approval and she nodded. “He already had candy, Lucinda.”
“Oh, we’ll find something better than that.” She took his hand and led him to the back room divided by several cubicles.
Devon blew out a breath and squared her shoulders. “I’m ready.”
Kieran placed his hand on the small of her back and steered her down the hallway. “Don’t expect a warm welcome.”
He rapped on the chief’s door with a single knuckle.
“Come on in.”
The chief swung his feet off the desk when they walked in, and the mayor hid a smile behind a cough.
“Sorry about that, Devon. It’s been a tough day.”
“Tell me about it.” She blew a strand of hair from her face. “Did you have a meeting with Detective Marquette today?”
The chief shot a glance at the mayor. “No. He left yesterday. Didn’t you talk to him?”
Kieran gritted his teeth. This sounded bad.
“I-I did see him…yesterday.” Devon gripped the edge of the desk, her knuckles turning white.
Kieran draped his arm across her shoulder and he pressed her into the chair stationed behind her. She folded.
“What’s this about?” Chief Evans sat forward in his seat.
Kieran wedged a hip against the corner of the desk. “Devon got a message from Detective Marquette earlier, asking her to meet him in the alley after his meeting with you.”
The chief spread his hands. “Maybe it was an old message. I haven’t heard from the detective since…” He scrabbled through some papers in his inbox. Then he punched a button on his phone. “Officer Dickens, didn’t I get some message from Detective Marquette SFPD Homicide this morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have it?”
“It’s out here, sir.”
Chief Evans rolled his eyes. “Then bring it in here.”
Devon held out her phone to the chief. “It’s not an old message. You can see the time, eleven-forty today.”
The chief squinted at the display. “Doesn’t say the meeting is with me specifically, but I guess I’d know if one of my officers was meeting with him. Don’t know why one of my officers would be meeting with him.”
Officer Dickens poked his head into the room, a piece of pink paper from a message pad clutched in his hand. “I have it.”
The chief held out his hand, his fingers wiggling. “Hand it over.”
The officer held it out, and the chief snatched it from his fingers. He perused the note with a wrinkled brow and then slapped it in front of Devon.
She hunched forward to read it, and then dropped her forehead onto the note.
A muscle in Kieran’s jaw jumped and he rubbed a circle on Devon’s back. “What is it? What does the note say, Devon?”
She raised her glassy eyes to his face and swallowed. “Detective Marquette lost his cell phone… Yesterday.”
DEVON FELT LIKE SHE was drowning and her breath came out in little spurts. Her cell phone, in the middle of Chief Evans’s desk, seemed to be emitting some sort of toxic vibe now.
How had the killer gotten Detective Marquette’s cell phone? From there it would’ve been easy for him to text her since Detective Marquette probably had her number stored in his phone. The detective had called her several times since the murder.
Kieran’s low, steady voice cleared the fog in her head.
“…so it’s obvious, the person who’s been stalking Devon stole Detective Marquette’s phone and used it to lure Devon into that alley.”
“Why would you agree to meet someone in an alley based on a text message?”
Devon’s palm itched to smack the chief’s fake incredulous look from his face. “It wasn’t just someone. It was Detective Marquette. Why would I have any reason to believe the detective wasn’t the one sending texts from his own phone?”
She pushed up from the chair, her fingernails curling into the blotter on the desk. “And it wasn’t just some alley. It was the alley behind the police station, for God’s sake. Why would I have any reason to believe I wouldn’t be safe right behind the Coral Cove Police Station?” She smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Oh, I know…because you’re the chief.”
Kieran ran his fingers down her arm, and she resisted an urge to shake him off.
“Devon…”
Her blood thumped in her temples and she pounded her fist on the desk, making the chief’s favorite pen bounce. “I was eager to talk to Detective Marquette because you guys haven’t done anything. Someone’s trying to kill me because he or they have the mistaken idea I know something about Mrs. Del Vecchio’s murder. And you’re not doing anything to protect me. If Kieran weren’t here, I’d be dead already.”
“Our force isn’t big enough…”
She snatched the pen off the desk and threw it across the room. Tyler ducked.
“Not only do you lead a worthless force, your officers are running around stealing.”
“What are you talking about?” The chief remained seated, his hands folded on his desk.
“The night someone took a shot at me at Columbella House, Kieran and I had found a diary. When we went back for it, it was gone.”
The chief’s brows shot up. “Why would one of my men want to steal a diary?”
Devon waved her arms around and Tyler ducked again. “I don’t know. It’s just a general…a general…lack of direction in this department.”
“Well, I’m sure things will be so much better when another Reese takes over this position.” The chief managed a tight smile. “In the meantime, I’ll have an officer start questioning the businesses in the area to see if anyone noticed someone going up or coming down from those rooftops.”
Tyler cleared his throat. “And I’ll certainly see about having the construction company secure its materials until building can resume.”
“Yeah, and you might also want to recover that diary, Mayor Davis, since it could’ve belonged to your former fiancee. You know-the one who dumped you for her sister’s boyfriend?”
She charged out of the room and stormed down the hallway to collect Michael from Lucinda. When she stumbled into the sunshine, Kieran gripping her hand, her pulse began to resume its normal beat.
