BOOK FIVE: Fifth Bullet

*Early June*

There were countless opportunities to put an uncle behind bars, but a woman only had one chance to get him released.

I couldn't mess this up.

I closed the desk drawer at the same time Broadrick walked into my office. His dark wash jeans hugged him in all the right places, and the black Pelican Bay Security polo stretched across the muscles of his arms. I did my best not to drool. I tried to never let him know where he fell on the hotness scale. It might go to his head.

We made eye contact, and I dropped the stack of papers from the desk drawer into the banker's box beside me with a scowl. Broadrick stopped on the other side of my desk and crossed his arms as he stared.

Shit.

That wasn't good. The arms-crossed thing meant he'd found out something I'd done. But what? With so many options to choose from, I didn't want to say anything and give myself away. Broadrick and the men at the fancy security firm where he did consulting work didn't understand the life of being a private investigator. You had to take risks. And sometimes risks led to trouble. It was all in the job description. At least it would be once I typed one up.

"What did you do this morning while I worked out with the guys?" Broadrick finally asked when I didn't start the conversation.

I barely glanced up at him as I did my best to play nonchalant. Also, keeping my eyes down meant he couldn't read the panic in them. If he knew about this morning, the arm crossing meant he was about to get yelly.

To buy me time, I tapped my fingers against the desk in my temporary office space at the Kensington building in downtown Pelican Bay. My time in the beautiful office had run out, and they expected me back in my old crappy office by the afternoon. I appreciated that Pierce-the town billionaire and my best friend's boyfriend-let me use the place, but now I didn't want to leave. I'd grown accustomed to the finer office things. Like clean carpet and working windows.

"Vonnie? This morning?" Broadrick pushed.

I sighed and shook my head. "This morning was so long ago, but I faintly remember eating breakfast with NB."

He nodded.

Hopefully, reminding him of the Jack Russel Terrier that relied on me as his mother helped. You couldn't kill a mother. Who would make sure NB ate dinner? Or reminded Broadrick to take him for his morning walk. Without me, the boys would be hopelessly lost.

"Anything else?" Broadrick asked with a jerk of his head.

I opened the middle drawer of the desk, retrieved two pens, and dumped them on top of the papers in the box. "Not that I remember."

"Oh, really?" He adjusted his stance, widening his legs. Never a good sign. "Did you have a fall and hit your head?"

I crumpled my eyebrows and popped my head up to meet his gaze. "No. Why?"

"Because I can't think of another reason you'd forget breaking into the morgue to view a corpse at 8:17 this morning!"

"Ohhhhh. That." I closed the middle desk drawer and bit my bottom lip to buy myself more time. I needed a fantastic lie to get me out of this one.

He threw his hands into the air. "Yeah, that."

I had a good reason for my maneuvering at the morgue, but I suspected Broadrick wouldn't see it the same way. And I had bigger issues. Like how he found out.

"Did Kelvin snitch?" Kelvin wasn't the most scrupulous of employees. Hence why I used him as my informant whenever I needed information the police refused to share.

Broadrick dropped himself in the chair across from my desk, making the fake leather squeak. "Ridge has camera footage of you crawling in through a back window."

I tapped my fingers against the smooth desktop again. The desk in my crappy office had a scorch mark on the corner from an accidental zapping with my stun gun. This one was too new to have any life marks on it. And sadly, now that I had to leave, I wouldn't be the one to make them. "I had to go in through the window, Broadrick."

"Is that so? Why?" he asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"They had the back door locked." My normal route included Kelvin unlocking the back door and letting me sneak in, but I didn't have time to wait for him today. Plus, he'd started asking for favors. Like getting me to be his pretend girlfriend at a family dinner.

But Kelvin wasn't the problem here. Ridge must have installed more cameras because that window had always been clear in the past. I had to update my blackout map, or who knew what else the nosy former SEALs might catch me doing.

"Ridge didn't put more cameras by the bed-and-breakfast. Did he? Because he has that place covered. Like totally covered. He'd end up with double shots of everything. It would be a waste of money."

Broadrick leaned up on my desk with his elbows. "Vonnie, this is serious."

"I agree." Ridge couldn't just be putting more cameras up wherever he fancied.

"You could be arrested for abusing a corpse."

"Ewww. I didn't touch it. I only looked at it." How gross.

Broadrick rubbed two fingers against his forehead. He seemed tense.

"I had to see the body again, B."

To make sure I wasn't crazy.

The memories from two days earlier resurfaced slowly, blanking out the office area around me until I was once again driving in my car, minding my own business with the music playing a local station.

I stopped at the sign on the corner of Main Street and waited to let the cop car with sirens blazing blast pass me on the main road. My thoughts were on my uncle. The one behind bars in the Pelican Bay jail awaiting his trial. I tried to forget how I'd been the one who gave Anderson the evidence to lock him up, but the thought never stayed away for long.

Rather than continuing straight like I planned, I turned and followed the cop car. The flashing led me right to them. Soon everyone in town would know where they were, anyway. Katy probably already had it up on Facebook.

A mess of police cars, city and county, parked haphazardly at the city dock. The light house loomed in the distance, and a trio of seagulls squawked as they flew overhead. I sat in my car, examining the scene from a distance.

The black Crime Scene Unit van barreled into the lot behind the last car and slammed on its brakes beside the dock. The ambulance to the far right shut off its lights, leaving only the red and blue from the cop cars.

Never a good sign.

I turned off my car and hesitated getting out. A tall man with dark hair and a tan trench coat leaned against a nearby cop car staring in my direction.

Detective Anderson. Er... Chief Anderson.

I'd helped get him into that position but no longer knew how I felt about it. We'd barely talked since he'd executed a search warrant against my uncle on the day of my sister Vivi's graduation. It seemed like such a violation. I'd done him a favor and then he'd turned it against me.

He hadn't apologized for it, which made it worse. It meant he didn't care. Or thought he hadn't been a complete jerk with his timing. Either way, seeing his face made me want to hit him.

A knock on my car window caused me to jerk into the steering wheel as I sucked in a frightened breath.

"What the hell, Bradley?" I said as I rolled down my window.

The on-duty city police officer pointed at Anderson. "Boss wants to see you."