Deep Autumn Heat (29 page)

“Drugs?” exclaimed Lexie. They were going to have a lot to tell Cole. Where was her phone?

“Yeah, the Feds just labeled it a Schedule 1 drug, but those guys were pros. I’m guessing
they were cutting it with other stuff. Maybe cocaine.”

All she needed to hear was the word “cocaine.” “I think my cell is in my right-hand coat pocket,” Lexie said with urgency. “Can you reach it?” Buster stuck his hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. “I have Cole’s cell programmed in. He asked me to do it in case Frank showed up.” She shook her head. Being attacked by drug dealers was a million times worse than dealing with Frank.

Buster dialed the number, and in a few terse words, he explained what had happened.

“Cole’s on his way out here,” he said. “He’ll pick up whoever’s left. Could you, ah, drop me by the doctor’s office?”

Lexie gave him a sharp look. “You know you’re hurt badly, then.”

“Yeah,” he laughed ruefully. “You get to be as old and as worn as I am, and you can feel it. The skin wounds are just superficial, but I think I have a couple of broken ribs.”

“Oh, God,” Lexie said, her voice choked. “Can you call Julie Kensington to let her know we’re coming? Her office number’s programmed into my phone, too.”

Buster started scrolling through her contact list. “Don’t worry, Lexie. I’ll heal. Besides, I’ve had worse.”

“You’ve had
worse
?”

“Spent six years on the amateur boxing circuit. Spent another two underground.”

Lexie was almost afraid to ask. “What does ‘underground’ mean?”

“You’ve seen
Fight Club
?” he asked.

“I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s kinda like that.”

“Isn’t that something you do when you’re young? Not that you’re old,” she said hastily. “It’s just that your body would probably take a lot of wear and tear.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. I spent a few years after that acting as a bouncer for some of the high-end nightclubs in Boston. Then I got tired of all of that and I learned how to cook.”

Lexie was quiet for a few minutes as she absorbed what Buster had just told her. “Buster,
I can’t believe it took getting beaten up for you to share all of this with me. Thank you.”

He gave her a small smile that looked more like a grimace. “Should have known you wouldn’t have guessed. Cole’s known for some time. Had me pegged as an ex-fighter the moment he laid eyes on me. Said my hands gave me away.”

Lexie rolled her eyes. “Of course he knew. Those Grayson men know everything.” She snorted. “Or they think they do.”

As they entered Star Harbor’s historic downtown area, the pavement turned to cobblestones. Lexie tried to drive as carefully as possible over the bumpy road so as not to exacerbate Buster’s pain. Still, she noted that every time she ran over a particularly hard bump, his typically stoic gaze wavered.

They arrived at the doctor’s office in short order. Lexie parked and helped Buster inside. Within moments, Julie, her nurse, Lisa, and her receptionist, Cloris, had swarmed around Buster and whisked him back to one of the patient rooms.

“Lexie,” Julie called out to her as she was heading down the hall with Buster in tow, “feel free to let yourself out. This is going to take awhile.”

That was fine by Lexie. She slipped out the front door and back into Buster’s truck.

The morning had not gone at all as planned. Now, in addition to having no produce, she also had no grill cook. “Great. Just great,” she muttered to herself, feeling guilty for dragging Buster to the Grange, on top of everything else.

At least she could take care of the produce. She drove to Martins’ Market, and in record time, everything that was needed for the day was loaded into Buster’s truck. She hadn’t had time to select the perfect carrots or blemish-free eggplants, but honestly, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

She drove back to the LMK, parked behind the restaurant, and stormed through the back door, startling her staff, who were in various stages of preparation for the breakfast crowd. Glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall, she did a double-take.

Seven-fifteen. Had she really been gone for only an hour?

“All right, everyone, listen up,” she said loudly. Everyone dropped what they were doing and turned to her. “Buster has been hurt.” There were gasps from the group. “He won’t be returning today. I’ll tell you what happened later, but right now I need someone to cover the grill.” Scott Watkins raised his hand. “Great, Scott. You got it. Next, I need three folks to help me carry in the produce. It’s in Buster’s truck outside.” Three of her larger male staff members immediately ran to the kitchen’s back door. Lexie walked to the sink and began to scrub her hands clean. “Isis and I will take produce prep. Isis, an update, please.”

“We prepped what little produce we had. Proteins are under control. Muffins, coffee cake, and morning buns are out and in the display case. Croissants are baking, and cakes are on deck to be iced.”

“What about dining room setup?”

“Rachel supervised everything and we’re ready to open. Coffee’s up and places are set.”

“All right. Sounds like things are decently under control. We’ll be playing catch-up with the bulk of the produce, but we’ll just have to make sure we get it done.”

Isis nodded.

Then her team brought the first load of produce through the door, and for the next three hours, Lexie lost all rational thought.

* * *

By ten-thirty that morning, Lexie was ready for a hot bath and a warm bed. She felt like she’d been run through a wringer. As the breakfast service was winding down, she wasn’t at all surprised to see Cole Grayson walk through her front door. When he’d dropped her off at the LMK that morning, he hadn’t been in full uniform, so he must have changed after examining the scene at the Grange.

“Lexie,” he said politely, tipping his hat, then taking it off completely as he moved into the restaurant. “Do you have a few minutes to come down to the station to talk to me?”

Lexie glanced around. Everything was under control, and now was as good a time as any. She reached back to untie her apron. “Yes. Have you talked to Buster? Is he okay?”

“Buster’s fine. He’s in good hands.”

“Thank God! Just let me check with Isis to make sure everything is under control in the kitchen. I’ll just be a moment.”

Cole nodded his assent, and Lexie went back to the kitchen. Things looked relatively calm. “Isis?”

“Yes, Lexie.”

“You’re in charge again. For about an hour. Prep lunch as planned. We should be back on track.”

Isis glanced at the dried blood on Lexie’s jeans. “Lexie, what’s going on? The servers heard some rumors about you guys getting into some kind of trouble this morning. And I heard that all of Mashpee Road is blocked off near the Grange where you and Buster were—”

Lexie cut her off. “Isis, don’t worry. We’re fine and we’re not in any trouble. I’ll explain everything later, I promise. For now, the most important thing you can do for me is to make sure the LMK is running smoothly.”

Isis nodded and turned back to her work. As Lexie passed back through the door frame to the dining room, she heard Isis calmly calling out orders to the line cooks. And for the first time that day, Lexie smiled. The LMK was definitely in good hands.

Cole was waiting where she’d left him, and he escorted her to his squad car. As soon as they started to drive, he began to question her.

“Why did you and Buster go to the Grange this morning?”

“To pick up our produce.”

“Isn’t that usually delivered?”

“Art’s been dropping the ball recently. I talked to him this morning and he told me to go pick it up myself. Why? Did you talk to Art? Is he involved?”

Cole set his lips in a straight line before speaking. “We don’t know yet. We’re still trying
to contact him.”

“I can’t believe he’d knowingly allow his warehouse to be used for something like this. He’s been scatter-brained, but he’s not evil. And he’d have to be pretty stupid to send us over there for a produce pickup, knowing what was happening.”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Cole repeated. “How many people were at the Grange, not counting you and Buster?”

“I saw three, but I didn’t look inside. Buster may have seen more. Why? Did you get the three guys who attacked us?”

“Yes, but we believe there was at least one more who got away.” He glanced over at her. “I’m going to have to ask you these questions again for the record, you know.”

Lexie nodded. “I know. I can’t believe this is happening.”

“I’m just glad no one had a gun on them when they found you.”

Lexie let out a brief, nervous laugh. “Star Harbor is such a safe, unassuming town. Why would people like that set up shop here? What exactly was happening at the Grange?”

Cole hesitated, as if debating whether or not to tell Lexie the whole story. Then the expression on his face changed, and Lexie knew he was going to talk. “You know there’s a huge East Cost drug-running operation from Canada to Miami. Boston was originally a big way station, but the cops there have been cracking down. Based on a few clues, this being the latest, my old partners at the Boston Police Department and I now think that operation has been moved, in part, to Star Harbor. You and Buster inadvertently stumbled upon one of the distribution centers for the drugs we believe are being run through the town. We think there’s more than one center, but the Grange seems to have been the main one.”

“Will the men you caught talk?” Lexie asked, totally stunned and simply trying to absorb it all.

“Seems like at least one will, but there’s no telling how much he knows about the full operation. Still, any piece of information we can get will be helpful.”

They arrived at the sheriff’s station, and Cole escorted her inside. Rhonda Lee, her hair in
its usual teetering bouffant, looked at her with abject pity as she was ushered into a conference room.

Lexie spent the next hour with Cole and Hank, fielding questions about her trip to the Grange, the fight, and their drive back. Lexie thought she was a sight less useful than Buster. After all, she hadn’t even seen anything. But Buster had been taken to Barnstable County Hospital in Pocasset, and Cole hadn’t had the chance to interview him fully yet.

After she’d told them all she could remember, Cole asked Hank to drive her back to the LMK.

“I’ll be by later this evening to take you back to the Bishops’ place, okay, Lexie?” Cole asked, slipping out of cop mode and into friend mode.

“Okay. Give me a call before you come over, all right?”

“Will do.”

Lexie allowed Hank to hand her into a squad car. He drove through the streets carefully, as if recognizing that she had been shaken up enough for one day.

“Lexie,” he said, his warm baritone voice filling the space in the car, “if there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Lexie read between the lines. He wasn’t pressing her, but he was definitely offering more than just his services as a deputy sheriff. Hank was a good-looking man with a wide, warm smile. She wished she were interested. It would have been so easy to fall into a relationship with him. But she needed to follow things through with Sebastian. “Thanks, Hank. I appreciate it,” she murmured.

“Anytime, Lexie. I’d never want to see anything happen to you.”

They arrived back at the LMK just as the lunch service was about to begin. Though she was exhausted, Lexie was more than happy to have work to do that would keep her mind off everything she’d seen that day.

But snatches of the morning kept trickling back to her in spite of her best efforts. Perhaps it was the shock wearing off, but she couldn’t keep the images out of her head. The look on
Buster’s face when he told her to run. The sharp point of the hook carried by one of the drug runners. The nauseating crack of broken bones. The blood pooling on the ground.

Lexie shook her head to stave off the nausea and dizziness that threatened to overtake her. What a horrible surprise it had been to find out that the Grange was being used for drug trafficking! And what an unexpected revelation to find out that Buster was a former fighter!

Now she knew where his quiet intensity came from—how he was constantly watching, waiting, weighing, sizing things up.

It actually made Lexie feel a whole lot safer to have him around. Or it would once he was fully recovered. Again, the flash of guilt shot through her. It seemed as though she was putting her friends in jeopardy just by virtue of her very existence.

Cole hadn’t blamed her, but she blamed herself. Was she bringing all of this upon herself? No, that was a silly thought. How could she have foreseen that Art’s warehouse was being used for some nefarious purpose?

Still, the phrase
if only
kept running through her mind. If only she’d gotten a different supplier. If only she’d just forgotten about the damn produce that day and fired Art on the spot. If only she’d stayed in the truck, Buster could have escaped and driven them both to safety without her getting in the way. If only she’d run when he’d told her to run.

She couldn’t shake the troubling thoughts from her head, no matter how many cups of coffee she poured or how many slices of cake she served.

Lexie had both hands squarely on the steering wheel of her little Honda as she sped down I-95 toward New York City. She’d made good time through Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and was now driving through Connecticut.

The rhythmic bumping of her car’s wheels passing over the pavement divisions in the road was strangely soothing. With each successive mile, Lexie felt an unusual sense of relief that she was moving farther and farther away from Star Harbor. Away from the trauma of the past few weeks.

She remembered the horrified looks on her employees’ faces when she’d told them about what had happened to Buster. The shock and disbelief that something so horrible could happen in Star Harbor. After Cole had held his press conference and Buster had returned to the LMK to a hero’s welcome, Lexie had been mentally and physically exhausted. She’d left as soon as Buster was well enough to take charge of the LMK—a day earlier than expected. After all that had happened, she’d been more than relieved to pack her things and leave town.