2 Dead & Buried (15 page)

Morgan felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “Seriously? But she didn’t do anything.”

“I know, sometimes the wheels of justice move backwards.” Delphine patted Morgan’s arm.

“It’s okay, guys, really. Go—take care of things at home. Brandon’s bringing me a lobster dinner and I’ll be quite comfortable here.” Celeste waved them off and Morgan saw Cal and her sisters reluctantly turn toward the door. Their tense faces echoing Morgan’s worries.

They filed past Celeste, hugging her through the bars and saying good-bye. Delphine was already halfway down the hall when Morgan got her turn. Celeste grabbed her arm and held her back.

“Make sure you study that map. I don’t know why you need to, but you do.” Celeste’s ice-blue eyes drilled into her own and Morgan felt an electrical current surge through her veins.

She nodded and Celeste let go of her arm. “Now get out of here … I’ll see you tomorrow. Oh and Nana says be nice to your guest.”

Morgan frowned at her.
Guest?
She was still wondering what Celeste meant when she climbed into Cal’s car in the parking lot.

She didn’t have to wonder for long.
 

Luke was waiting on the front porch when they got home. Sitting in the white wicker settee drinking a beer next to Jake, who was in one of the rockers. Making himself right at home.
 

Cal ran over and the two of them got re-acquainted with the usual back slapping and hand shaking. They’d been friends before Luke left and, as far as Morgan knew, hadn’t seen each other since.

Morgan’s stomach flip-flopped as she approached the porch. Probably from all the excitement with Celeste, she reasoned. Surely it had nothing to do with how good Luke looked sitting on
her
porch drinking one of
her
beers.

“How did it go? Where’s Celeste?” Jake stood from his rocking chair, greeting Fiona with a peck on the cheek.

“Delphine couldn’t get her out until tomorrow.” Morgan felt her chest squeeze as she said it and she realized she was surprisingly close to tears.

Cal paced the porch. “Is there nothing we can do?”

“Short of going down with a nail file in a cake and breaking her out, I don’t think so,” Jake said. “She’ll be okay. Is there anyone else in there?”

“The other cells were empty,” Jolene replied.

“She’ll be fine, we don’t get too many criminals in there so she’ll probably be alone … I guess I should say
they
don’t since I’m officially on leave.” Jake pressed his lips together. “Besides, my contact at the station assured me they’d treat her like a queen. Probably be like a vacation for her.”

“Yeah, she did say someone named Brandon was bringing her lobster.” Cal frowned.

Jake nodded. “That’s Brandon Burchard. He’ll take good care of her.”

Morgan noticed Cal’s frown deepen.

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use a drink.” Fiona reached for the door handle and everyone lined up behind her. Except Luke.

“Does someone want to fill me in on what’s going on?” He frowned over his beer.

“Morgan will.” Fiona shot over her shoulder as she went inside.

Morgan glanced at the door, then at Luke, her stomach flopping around like a fish out of water. They were alone on the porch.
 

Why did that make her so nervous?

 
Luke reached over and grabbed her hand, pulling her to the settee beside him.
 

“What’s wrong, you look upset.” He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear sending her pulse skittering like a frightened rabbit.
 

“Celeste got arrested for murder.” Her voice cracked on the last word and the tears she felt sting her eyes earlier, threatened to spill out. It made her feel vulnerable. She hated feeling that way. She noticed that Luke had pulled her down close to him and she slid away to the other side of the settee. At least she could think better over there.

“Jake filled me in a little. He didn’t tell me too much though. Probably didn’t know how much he should tell me … I guess he doesn’t trust me fully.” Luke turned his sea green eyes on her. “Do you?”

Morgan’s breath caught in her throat.
Did she?
 

“Well, you
have
helped us out of a few spots now. But you’ve been gone for so long. I don’t feel like I know you anymore.” She picked at the wicker arm of the settee, avoiding his gaze.

“I’m the same person I always was. Just a little better traveled.”
 

Morgan looked at him and realized he had slid a little closer to her. She pressed herself into the corner.

“Well, you’ll excuse me if I’m not brimming over with trust. You disappeared out of my life ten years ago and I haven’t heard a word from you since.” Morgan tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach and act nonchalant, as if that was old news that barely affected her now.

He sighed and took a pull on his beer. Staring out at the ocean, he rubbed his dark short cropped hair which made it stick out as if he just got up. Out of bed. Morgan tried to push the memories of other times, when she’d seen his hair like that, out of her mind.

He put this beer down and turned to face her, his arm up on the back of the settee. She suddenly became very interested in studying her hands which were clasped in her lap.

“I didn’t want to just walk out of your life. But I had to do what was right for you. It wasn’t fair for me to expect you to wait for me.” He put his thumb under her chin and gently turned her face toward him. “I thought about you every day.”

Her heart squeezed in her chest.
Did he really?
She realized he’d slid over even closer to her. Suddenly, he was leaning toward her. She could smell the spicy scent of his after shave and feel the heat radiating from his body.
 

She flattened her palm on his chest to push him away, except she didn’t push very hard. Beneath his thin shirt, she could feel hard muscle and the steady beat of his heart. She wondered if it was beating as fast as hers as she watched his lips get closer.

Before she knew what was happening, her eyes were drifting shut and his lips were brushing against hers. Tenderly at first, then pressing harder. She sighed and relaxed into his kiss.
 

“Meow!”

Belladonna jumped up onto Luke’s lap and they jerked apart like two teenagers caught necking behind the rectory.

“Hey, this looks just like the cat you used to have.” Luke reached down to pet the cat who had curled up in his lap and was staring up at him adoringly.
 

“It is.”

Luke wrinkled his brow at her. “It’s the same cat?
 
She must be ancient by now.”

Morgan bit her lip as she thought about that. How old
was
Belladonna? She’d had her since she was a kid, which would make the cat in her late teens.
 

How long did cats live, anyway?
 

Her stomach clenched thinking her cat might be nearing old age. She’d never thought much about it, but Belladonna had always been around—she didn’t know what she’d do without her.
 

Morgan realized her earliest memories included the cat. That’s impossible, she thought. It must have been a different cat. Her mother always doted on the cat and probably got another one that looked just like her when the first one passed.
 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the cat thwacking her arm with her tail as Luke petted her. She’d never heard Belladonna purr so loud.

“So anyway, tell me about the key, did you find the lock it fits in?”

Morgan took a deep breath and told him about the search in the attic and the leather map.
 

“In fact, we were trying to figure it out when Overton came to the door and arrested Celeste.”

“Can I see the map?”

“Sure, it’s right inside.”
 

Luke dislodged Belladonna from his lap and she grunted out a discontented “mew” as the two of them went inside.

“The map’s in the informal living room. You remember where that is?”

Luke smiled that disarming smile he had and Morgan’s stomach turned inside out.
 

Why did he have to be so damn handsome?
 

He started walking toward the room and she couldn’t help but check him out. He’d always been tall and well built, but she could see that he’d put on some weight in the past ten years. And judging by what she’d felt through his tee-shirt, it was pure muscle.
 

Thinking of that reminded her of their brief kiss and she felt her cheeks heat up. She pushed away any of
those
type of thoughts about Luke before the heat could spread to other parts of her body.
 

It was just as well the cat had interrupted their kiss. She couldn’t deny she was still attracted to Luke, but he’d be gone after this was all over and where would that leave her?

In the living room, the map had been spread out on the table again and everyone was discussing the various instructions so intently they barely noticed Luke and Morgan.
 

Jake glanced over. “Hey Luke, what do you make of this? It says two steps as the crow flies. What does that mean?”

Luke rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Usually it means straight ahead without having to go around an obstacle.”

“That’s strange, there’s no obstacle there.” Jake pointed to a spot on the map then looked out the window.

“Well, sometimes they wrote up trick maps, or put the instructions in backwards or in code,” Luke said. “In case the map fell into the wrong hands.”

“I guess that explains why we dug the hole in the wrong place last time,” Morgan said.

“That’s right! I thought we had followed it wrong, but what really happened is that it was written backwards.” Jolene pointed out the window to where they had dug up the box. “See how we were digging over there, but the box was found on the opposite side of the yard.”

“So, do you think this map could be written backwards or in some sort of code?” Fiona raised a brow at Luke.

“It could be.” He stared down at the map. “It’s impossible to tell but the thing is you need to be really careful in case the treasure is booby trapped.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Cal looked up at them, wide eyed. “I had forgotten that pirates routinely did that. We could blow ourselves up.”

“Not only that, but now that the pirates know you have the key and are getting close, I’m sure they are going to step up their efforts to try to get the treasure from you.”

Morgan’s heart squeezed. Luke was right, the danger was getting worse and there was no sign of it letting up. She knew she had to do something to stop it. She just wasn’t sure exactly what.

“I’m not sure I like the way things are heading—we need to be proactive instead of waiting for them to attack us,” Fiona echoed Morgan’s thoughts.

“What prompted Overton to arrest Celeste?” Luke asked.

“He was poking around in her car and saw something the same shape as the murder weapon,” Fiona replied

“And what was that?”

“Kettle bells.”

“Huh?” Luke cocked an eyebrow at her.

“They’re like weights for exercising, but they have a handle and a round ball on the bottom. You kind of swing them around.” Jolene made swinging motions with her arms.

Luke ruffled his hair and looked out the window. After a few seconds he turned back to the group

“Are they about this big?” He cupped his hands making about a seven inch circle.

“Yes!”
 

He nodded then did more staring out the window.
 

“Okay, I think I have an idea that might help us get the treasure hunters off your back
and
give Overton the real murder weapon, which will clear Celeste and put the real killer in jail.” He looked around the group, staring each of them directly in the eye in turn.

“But I’m going to need one of you to act as a decoy.”

Morgan felt bats flapping around in her stomach as everyone stared at Luke in silence.
 

A decoy?
 
That sounded dangerous.

“I’ll do it,” she blurted out.

Luke narrowed his eyes at her. “Morgan it could be dangerous.”

Duh.

“No, it should be me,” Jake volunteered.

“Or me,” Cal added.

Luke sighed. “It has to be one of the girls. Otherwise
I’d
do it. The treasure hunters won’t bite if it’s a guy. They’ll be expecting it to be one of the Blackmoore sisters and … well … they won’t be as intimidated by a woman.”

“Well, that settles it, then. I’ll be the decoy. I’m not letting Fiona or Jolene do it.” Morgan’s mind was made up.

Luke raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. “I guess you’re right. I don’t like it, but there’s no other way.”