Last First Kiss (2 page)

Julie
Rogers, Emily
’s
right hand girl
,
looked up when she saw the three of them approaching the desk.

“Emily, I saw the police car pull
ing
up outside. Is
everything all right?”

“Of course, just a little misunderstanding. The police think I killed that obnoxio
us
m
an
who
dined here last month
. You remember the one with the bald head and black rimmed glasses?”

“He’s dead?” asked Julie.

“So this police officer tells me. Obviously someone else found hi
m just as nasty as we did. I
have to go to the police station with this fine gentleman
,
so I want you to look after this place while I’m gone. Oh, and Mike, from the vet’s office
,
will be by later to check on one of the horses. She’s been acting strange and off her food.”

Julie burst into tears. “Oh Emily, how can
anyone think you’d hurt someone?”

“No
w
, no crying, please
,
or you’ll get me upset and sobbing
,
too. Like I said
,
this is merely a mistake
,
and we’ll get it all sorte
d out at the station. And I
have Wade here to help me
,
too
. I bet you didn’t know he
’s now
a private eye
,
did you?”

Emily winked at Wa
de. He smiled. Private eye
.
Those
words
had a touch of Philip Marlow about
them.

“Do
you have to handcuff me
now
?” asked Emily.

“I don’t think y
ou’re going to run away
,
Emily,” said Albright
.

“No, no, if you have to do it,
then
let’s go ahead and follow protocol. I don’t want you getting in any trouble wit
h your superiors because of me.”

“I can’t watch this,” said Julie
,
diving into the office behind the reception area.

Wade was finding
it pretty uncomfortable
,
too
,
as Emily turned around
,
and the officer pulled the handcuffs off his belt and secured them around her wrists. The sound of metal on metal as the
y closed echoed a
round the room and made him flinch
.

Wade swallowed.

“Those com
fortable enough for you, Emily?”
Wade
managed to say.

“Perfect,” she said. “Oh, I forgot to comb my hair.”

“You can do that when we get to the sta
tion,” said Albright
. “Okay, you ready?”

“Yes, let
’s get this over with. Sooner we do, the quicker I can be back home.”

Wade followed them out of the front entrance. Two guests hap
pened to be coming in
carrying their suit
cases
. They turned and watch
ed
with their mouths open
as
Emily was escorted to the waiting police car.

Wade took a deep breath.

“Would it be all right if Wade rode
with us?” asked Emily. “I thought we could catch up on old times whi
le we drive
along.”

“Emily, no, I can’t do that
,
but I’m
going to follow behind
.
I promise I won’t leave you when
we arrive at the station
,” said Wade.

She nodded. Albright
put his hand on
top of her head as she slid into
the back
seat. In doing so he
ruffled up her neat
grey bun
,
which was probably going
to upset her more than being arrested.
Wade put his cowboy hat back on and pulled
out his sunglasses
as
he walked toward his SUV.

Greenville
police station was about a mile and half away
,
and it was going to be a hellish drive into town for him. Maybe
he should call his dad and ask
him to meet them ther
e. Not that he could do much. He
was a retired cop
,
and what Emily really
needed was a good lawyer. In fact, that’s
who
she should have called to escort her there
,
not him
. However,
Wade
knew why she’d
done it. S
he’d always considered him the grandson she’d never had.

Wade turned on the ignition.
Sugarland singing
“
All I Want
to
Do
”
blared out
of the speakers. He put the vehicle
into gear and hit the gas, keeping a coup
le of car length’s distance behind
the police car. Wade didn’t know whether to turn down the volume
on the radio
or keep it l
oud so
it
would drown
out his thoughts.

He opte
d to keep
it
at its current level
,
but seeing Emily sitting in the back of the car reminded him of the call he’d received from her less than an hour ago.

“Wade, I think I might need your help.”

He’d been in the middle of trying to balance his account books
for his newly launched PI
business when his cell phone had rung
.

“Sure,
what can I do for you?”

He’d expected her to ask him to go over to the B and B to fix a dr
ipping tap, maybe change a tire
on her car
,
but nothing had prepared him for what she’d said next.

“There’s a police officer here to arrest me.”

At first he
’d
thought she was playing a joke on him.
E
mily
did that
sort of thing
now and then.

“O
h yeah, and what’s your crime
? Have you been speeding through town again?”

“
No, the police officer tells me that
I murdered Michael Ambrose.”

Wade had just heard the word
murder
ed
and wondered who’d put Emily up to this
ridiculous
prank.  But then Emily had put the officer on the phone to
talk to
him
,
and that’s when the bile had started to churn in his stomach.

Michael Ambrose
’s
name wasn’t familiar
,
but then he remembered
that last month
Emily had been the talk of
Greenville
when she’d gotten
into a heated argument with the
out-of-
towner. According to the grapevin
e –
and yes, the one in
Greenville
was always very reliable
–
Emily had told him to get th
e hell out of her establishment
and
Greenville
or she’d kill him.

Wade swallo
wed and turned the music up
even
louder.

No, she wouldn’t, not
his surrogate grandma. She
’d
given
him
a good dressing down
once
when he’d swatted a fly in her kitchen
.

“Every creature deserves to live out a long life, no matter how much they annoy us
,”
he recalled her saying.
She’d taken the fly swatter out his hand and rapped his knuckles with it.

She even carried spiders outside in her palm and placed them lovingly on the ground.

Hell, if this went as far as a trial,
he’d get up and testify to those two facts
.

The music changed to
Lady Antebellum’s
“
I Run
to
You
”
. H
e
usually
sang along to this song
,
but he didn’t feel like doing it today. He tapped the steering wheel instead. Wade noticed Albright was turning into the back lot of the police station
.
Wade
wasn’t sure he’d be able to park there
,
so he headed to the visitor’s lot
out
front
.

He shut off the ignition, grabbed his cell phone from
the passenger seat
,
and got out of the SUV. T
he sun passed behind a cloud
,
so
he opted to take off his sunglasses as he made his way to the police station entrance.
He nodded to one of the cops
who held the door open for him.

Wade knew his way around this place because his father had once been a police officer here. He took off his hat as he noticed Albright walking through
to
the processing area with Emily two steps in front of him.

Albright
spotted Wade and signaled for him
to join them.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to mind you being here with her,” he whispe
red to Wade.

“Is she still doing okay?” Wade whispered back.

“I don’t think she realizes just what deep shit she’s in.”

They both looked toward Emily. “She was talking non-stop on the way here. I felt like I was in a scene from
Driving Miss Daisy
,” said Albright.

At least Wade had found something to smile about in this whole ridiculous scenario
.

“You can go and stand with her if you want,” said Albright.

Wade walked over to Emily
,
who was now sitting on a bench ready to be formally booked. He’d brought in his fair share of criminals when he’d worked in
Cheyenne
,
and none of them
had
looked as innocent as Emily.

“There you are
,
Wade.
I was hoping we’d get a chance to chat. Oh, I did hear you’ve been d
ating Cathy Moran for what
?
Two
months?”

Wade nodded. You couldn’t do anything in
Greenville
without the whole town knowing about it. And as soon as he’d taken the new beauty salon owner out for dinner word
had
got
ten
around that the two of them were
an item
. He was pretty sure that this week’s gossip included the fact th
at Cathy had gone to a beauty conference at a hotel in
Jackson Hole
three weeks ago
,
and Wade had joined her there.

“Yeah, I’m dating
.”

“Good for you. And will I be getting an invitation to a wedding anytime soon?”

“I think it’
s too early in the relationship
to say
,” said Wade.

“Don
’t you drag your feet too much because you’ll be old before you know it.”

“Nope, I won’t.”

They were interrupted by Albright who approached them to let Emily know she’d now be fingerprinted and have her photo taken.

“I should have got
ten
my hair done. I mean
,
do a lot of people see these mug shots?”

“You look just fine, Emily,” Albright
told
her as he took the cuffs off her.

Wade leaned against the wall and ran his fingers around the rim of his hat while he watched her being fingerprinted. He coul
dn’t help but smile when she requested that
Albright straighten out the bun on the back of her head.

And she even smiled for
her mug sho
t.
Wade
was almost on the brink of laughter.