Wild Thing (The Magic Jukebox Book 3) (16 page)

“I
already am involved,” she said.

His
gaze tightened on her, his dazzling blue eyes so intense she could practically
feel the heat of them on her cheeks as he searched her face. He must have
figured out what she’d meant when she said she was involved: not involved with
his legal issues. Involved with him.

Involved.

In
love.

And
she would help to clear his name, and then he’d leave.

Yet
she couldn’t
not
help. “It could go the other way, too,” she pointed out
to Detective Nolan and Caleb Solomon. “This Mr. MacArthur—or Mr. Smith—might
wind up saying something that would prove Ty was guilty.”

That
possibility seemed to please Detective Nolan. He clearly believed Ty was
complicit in the drug dealing. If there was a chance Monica could help to prove
that, he would want her on his team. “All right,” he said. “Let me talk to the
DA and start the paperwork. As soon as we hear back from the crime lab, we can
get this process rolling.” He pushed back his chair, the wooden legs squeaking
against the linoleum floor, and stood.

“Can
I have a few minutes alone with Monica?” Ty asked, glancing from Detective Nolan
to Caleb Solomon.

The
lawyer turned to Detective Nolan. “He hasn’t been charged,” he reminded the
policeman. “Give them a few minutes.”

Detective
Nolan pressed his lips together in disapproval, but started toward the door. He
waved in the direction of the mirror and said, “I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

Ty
waited until the men left the room, shot an annoyed glance at the mirror, and
then reached across the table and gathered Monica’s hands in his. His touch
turned her on, but more than that, it moved her. There was something sweet and
gentle and protective about it.

“I
don’t want you to do this,” he murmured.

“Why?
Don’t you want to nail that bastard?”

“Of
course I do. But not if it puts you in danger.”

“You’d
rather rot in jail?”

“Than
put you in danger? Yes.”

His
answer was so forthright, she fell deeper in love with him. Miles deeper.
Light-years deeper.

She
reminded herself once more that he was going to leave. If she was successful at
getting the boat’s owner to admit that Ty had nothing to do with the drugs, Ty
would be released, free to go. Free to travel to wherever he wanted to live
today, or tomorrow, or a week from now.

It
didn’t matter. She loved him. She would do what she could to exonerate him.

More
than that… “I
want
to do this, Ty,” she said. “Not just for you. For
me.”

“Why?
Jeopardizing your safety—how is that good for you?”

“I
heard the song,” she said, struggling to find the words to explain. “At the
bar. ‘Wild Thing.’ It—I don’t know. It made me wild. It set me free.
You
set
me free. And now I can set you free.”

He
studied her face, his hands tightening around hers, his thumbs brushing her
wrists. The caress sent shivers of longing up her arms and into her heart. She
wanted to climb over the table, settle in his lap, wrap her arms around him and
kiss him until they were both gasping with pleasure.

But
Detective Nolan and Caleb Solomon were watching them through the one-way
mirror. So she only gave his hands a squeeze in response and said, “Trust me.”

It
wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. It was that he didn’t trust MacArthur, or
Nolan, or some guy from the Drug Enforcement Administration, or anyone else who
could place Monica in danger if he made the slightest mistake.

And
Ty could do nothing to protect her. He was stuck in this ugly holding cell. Not
exactly luxury accommodations like what he’d had at the Ocean Bluff Inn—a room
he’d used ridiculously little, since he’d spent most nights in her apartment.
He should have brought her to his room for a night. He wondered if she’d ever
experienced a night as a guest in her family’s establishment. He wondered if
sex with her would be different in a different bed. It sure as hell had been
different on those wooden steps leading down to the beach.

His
groin twinged with arousal. Not much he could do about that. He leaned back
against the chilly wall behind the bench in the holding cell where he was
seated, and where he would have to sleep. Did Nolan and his law-enforcement
buddies honestly think Ty would flee the jurisdiction if they released him? If
he’d intended to split, he could have been gone days ago. Why would he have
first helped them find the drug stash if he planned to do a disappearing act?

Whatever.
Caleb had told Ty the police could legally hold him without charging him. So
here he was, being held.

He
and the lawyer had reached the first-name stage. Caleb had even stopped back at
the cell after he, Monica, and Nolan conferred with the guy from the DEA, and
when Caleb had reappeared, he’d been carrying a large waxed-cardboard container
of clam chowder from Riley’s and a plastic spoon. This chowder wasn’t as good
as the stuff he’d had with Monica at the Lobster Shack, but it was a shitload
better than the sandwich of bland meats and limp lettuce a uniformed officer
had brought him. What had she called it? A grinder. Stupid name. In Florida,
they’d call it a Cuban sandwich, and it would taste much better.

Not
that he cared. He didn’t have much appetite, anyway.

He
heard the faint buzz of the fluorescent light fixture illuminating the corridor
outside his cell, and the low din of voices yakking in the precinct room down
the hall. Were they talking about him? Talking about Monica? Filing the
paperwork that would allow her to wear a wire and walk into the lion’s den?

How
could he let her do that?

How
could he stop her?

Why
was she willing to take such a huge risk for him? Was it all a game to her? An
extension of her high school theater experience? A big adventure?

Damn.
He
was her adventure. He’d taken her for a spin on a motorbike, and now
she was getting to go undercover on a drug bust. File under: Big excitement for
a small-town girl. Why else would she do this risky thing for him, when she
knew he wasn’t going to stay in Brogan’s Point? He was her fling, her brief
vacation from her sane, sober life.

In
the distance, he heard a telephone ring. The sound triggered another memory, a
song suddenly blasting through his skull:
Wild Thing
. He didn’t believe
in magic, let alone that a song or a jukebox could be magic. Yet that song… As
the lyrics said, it made Monica’s heart sing. Maybe Ty’s, too.

He
just hoped that, if she got the okay and wore the wire and had her walk on the
wild side, her heart would still be singing when it was all over.

***

She’d
wanted to call her best friend, Emma, and share this with her—but she couldn’t.
If she’d wanted to tell her parents—which she definitely did
not
want—she couldn’t. She couldn’t discuss what she was about to do with anyone
other than Detective Nolan and the man from the Drug Enforcement Agency office
in Boston.

They
had drilled her on everything she needed to know: Danny Watson had been Wayne
MacArthur’s local dealer until his arrest a few weeks ago. He’d been the one to
tell the police that there would be drugs on the boat Ty had sailed up from
Florida, only he thought the boat belonged to someone named Smith. Wayne
MacArthur had taken a flight from Miami to Logan Airport that morning, and had
landed shortly after noon. Both Ty and Danny Watson had provided the police
with MacArthur’s cell phone number. Monica sat with Detective Nolan and the DEA
agent in a small, quiet office in the police station, and she phoned MacArthur,
setting her cell to speaker-phone.

“Hello?”
His voice was gruff and gravelly. A smoker, she guessed.

“Mr.
Smith?” she asked. Having Mr. Nolan and the DEA agent seated so close to her
made her self-conscious. Seeing them distracted her. She closed her eyes.

“Who’s
calling?”

She
didn’t want to give her name—or a false name—so she ignored his question. “I
got your number from Danny Watson. I used to, like, get my stuff from him? But
I guess he’s not available or something?” She wanted to sound vague, young,
different from who she really was.

“Where
are you?”

“I’m
in Brogan’s Point. And…like, I’d really like to get some stuff.” She added a
slight tremor to her voice, the desperation of a drug addict, or so she hoped.
“Danny said you could help me?”

He
muttered a curse that she sensed was directed at Danny Watson, not at her.
“Yeah, sure. It’ll have to be later, though. I’m not even at my house yet.”

“Do
you want me to come to your house?” she asked, opening her eyes and exchanging
a glance with the men huddling around the desk where she sat.

“No.
Not my house. Meet me—” he paused for a moment, apparently thinking “—in the
parking lot of the North Cove Marina. Nine o’clock tonight. If you’re not there
at nine, I’m leaving.”

“Nine
o’clock. Okay. Thank you.” She again tried to infuse her voice with desperation,
tempered with abundant gratitude that this wonderful drug dealer was going to
save her from the agony of heroin withdrawal.

She
heard a click, and then the DEA agent leaned across the desk and pressed the
disconnect button on her cell. “Very good,” he said.

A
man on the far side of middle age, he looked oddly formal in a pressed gray
suit and burgundy tie. Detective Nolan was dressed for a Saturday, in a polo
shirt and khakis. Monica had already figured out what she’d wear that night:
old jeans, sneakers, and her hoodie. She doubted MacArthur would recognize
her—surely he hadn’t attended the high school’s production of
You Can’t Take
It With You
a decade ago, and he’d never been a guest at the inn—but with
her hair flopping in her face and the hood of her sweatshirt covering her head,
she’d be practically anonymous.

The
DEA agent was still holding her cell phone. “You understand, there’s no wire
involved,” Mr. Nolan explained. “We have to add an app to your phone, and it
will record everything. You’ll have it in your pocket, you’ll turn on the
speaker, and we’ll hear and record everything. Much safer than wiring you.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll
be parked about a block away in an unmarked van. We’ll hear everything you have
to say. If you feel you’re in danger, say the word ‘crazy.’ Say, ‘You’re
crazy,’ or ‘This is crazy,’ or ‘I must be crazy.’ We hear that word, and we’ll
swoop in and extricate you from the situation. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“
Crazy
,”
he emphasized.

Monica
nodded. She got it. She wasn’t stupid. Maybe these officers of the law thought
her eagerness to do this was proof that she
was
stupid. Or else they
just thought she was crazy.

She
wasn’t, though. She was determined. Motivated. Tired of being demure and doing
what was expected of her. Just wild enough to believe she could save Ty.

***

She
arrived at the parking lot of the North Cove Marina at ten minutes to nine.
Even though it was a relatively short walk from the inn, she drove there,
slowing a block away from the marina’s entry when she spotted a nondescript van
parked on a side street. In the nighttime gloom, she couldn’t tell the van’s
color—some dark hue, maybe burgundy or brown—but the headlights flashed twice,
the signal Ed Nolan had told her to watch for. She flashed her headlights twice
in response, then continued to the marina.

Only
a few cars were parked in the lot, scattered across the otherwise vacant
asphalt. She didn’t know if any of them belonged to Wayne MacArthur, but she
assumed he would come in a car. She wanted to be in a car, too. She wanted to
have a way to escape quickly if she needed to—she doubted she could outrun the
average man, but her Subaru could get her back to the van in a matter of
seconds, if need be. She also liked the protection her car offered—steel and
shatter-proof windows. Standing all alone in the dark lot would make her too
vulnerable.

Near
the ramp down to the dock, she spotted Ty’s rented motorcycle, its abundance of
chrome trim glinting in the silver glow of a bright lamp attached to the
building, just beneath an eave. The building’s windows were dark. The bike
looked forlorn, abandoned. She was definitely all alone.

As
she’d been instructed, she spoke in a normal voice. “I’m in the parking lot
now. I don’t see anyone here.”

Her
backups in the van signaled that they’d heard her by sending a signal through
her phone, which vibrated in the breast pocket of her shirt for a couple of
seconds. She’d stashed it there so it would be closer to her mouth and better
able to pick up her conversation with MacArthur.

Her
gaze drifted back to the motorcycle. What a shame that Ty was paying a daily
rental on it when he couldn’t use it. She’d taken the liberty of packing his
belongings in his room at the inn, moving them downstairs to her apartment, and
checking him out. She hoped that wasn’t too presumptuous of her. Not that she
expected him to move in with her when he was finally sprung, but she saw no
reason for him to be paying the inn’s hefty nightly rate while he was living
rent-free as a guest of Brogan’s Point’s finest. If he wanted a room at the inn
once he was cleared and granted his freedom, she would find him one. The
reservation crunch wouldn’t begin until Memorial Day weekend, six days from
now.

Beyond
the motorcycle, beyond the building, she counted the boats and slips, trying to
recall which was the one Ty had sailed to Brogan’s Point. The police had
removed the yellow tape surrounding the impounded boat so as not to tip
MacArthur off. All she could see in the uneven radiance from the spotlight on
the building and a moon smeared with thin clouds was a forest of masts,
silhouette-black, swaying gently as waves rocked the sailboats. All she could
hear was the quiet whoosh of the wind and the clanking of hooks and rings
against the masts. It was such a familiar sound to her, she hardly noticed it.

She
did notice a shadow moving along one of the docks. She checked her watch: nine
o’clock. The shadow moved toward the building. Definitely a man. A tall, limber
man carrying a small duffel bag. He strode up the sloping gangplank, heading
for the parking lot. “I think this is him,” she said, and after a second, her
phone vibrated against her chest.

She
raked her hand through her hair to tousle it, then pulled the hood of her
sweatshirt over her head. She’d circled her eyes with gobs of black eyeliner,
figuring she ought to look, if not skanky, at least not like the clean-cut,
well-groomed woman she was. Once her hood was firmly in place, she eased open
her car door and swung her legs out. She moved slowly, cautiously. She didn’t
want to startle the guy. He might have a gun or something. He was a drug
dealer, after all.

He
stepped into the wide oval of light shed by the lamp, and she suppressed a
smile as she studied him.
He
was the clean-cut, well-groomed party at
this rendezvous. He wore a tailored shirt, khakis, and deck shoes. The duffel
he carried appeared to be leather. His hair was too short to blow in the breeze
rising off the water. His face was square, his features symmetrical. He looked
like the sort of man one might run into at a prep school reunion.

“Mr.
Smith?” she asked, remembering to speak in a slangy, jangly way, her voice as
disheveled as her hair.

He
continued toward her, moving in determined strides. She dug her hands into her
hoodie’s pockets and hoped she looked like a helpless junkie. The few roles
she’d played in high school drama club productions didn’t qualify her for an
Equity card, but she remembered how to create a character from the inside out.
For the next few minutes, she had to believe she was a drug addict eager to buy
dope. She had to live it.

“You’re
the girl I spoke to on the phone?” he asked.

She
nodded. “Thanks so much for meeting me. I would’ve taken care of this with
Danny Watson? But I couldn’t. He was…” She shrugged.

“Yes.
He is,” MacArthur said, choosing to be as vague as she was about his local
distributor’s fate. He moved out of the light, but her eyes had adjusted enough
to the night’s gloom that she could make out his crisp, genteel features. She
inched a few steps closer to him. The closer she stood to him, the more clearly
her phone would pick up his voice. “I don’t believe you told me your name,” he
said.

“It’s
Mary.”