Harper hid her surprise. It had been a long time since they’d had a drink together.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
He looked down the empty street. Not a single car had passed while they talked.
“It’s a bit late, I guess. You know any place that might be open?”
“How about the Shipwatch?” she suggested. “It’s the old white and blue hotel on the main street. It stays open late.”
“Sounds good. I’ll follow you.”
Harper got back into the Camaro and sat still for a second. What were the chances that they’d pass each other like that? There’d been a time when he would have been the first person she called tonight. He was a good cop and, despite everything, one she trusted.
Maybe this was fate.
He stayed behind her as the road curved around the edge of the island to where the Shipwatch sat, just off the main beach. With snow-white walls and nautical blue trim, the 1950s hotel was a blast from the past. Known to everyone in town as “the Shipwreck,” it was the island’s main late-night hangout.
The parking lot behind the building was half empty. Harper parked at the back, out of habit. Luke pulled up next to her.
“This place is a bit eccentric,” she warned him, as they walked across the asphalt to the hotel bar.
“I think I can handle it,” he said, with a slight smile.
They could hear the Eagles wailing from the jukebox even before they opened the door. Inside, the cool air smelled of spilled beer. It wasn’t crowded, but everyone who’d made it this far was in it for the long haul.
“Fresh blood!” a drunk man cried, pointing as they crossed the empty dance floor to the bar.
Luke gave Harper a raised eyebrow, but all he said was, “Beck’s?”
She nodded. “I’ll grab a table.”
She took a seat near the door and leaned back, scanning the room. There were about ten people left. Most of them were wasted. As the song shifted to another bouncy oldie, the drunk—a red-faced man in an Atlanta Falcons T-shirt—began to dance unsteadily, a beer bottle in his hand.
Luke was chatting with the bartender. She was tiny, with short black hair and a silver hoop in her nose. He said something that made her laugh as she popped the caps off the beers with quick, practiced moves and slid them across, making eye contact.
Harper couldn’t blame her. With his rangy good looks and country-boy smile, Luke could charm the fur off a cat.
God, she missed him.
When he reached her a few minutes later and handed her a bottle, he said, “I figured you didn’t want a glass.”
Shaking her head, she took a sip. The beer was ice cold. She hadn’t known how much she needed it until that moment.
“Oh, this was a good idea,” she murmured, leaning back in the unyielding wooden chair, and trying to clear thoughts of her father’s past from her mind.
“How’d it go at the Rayne house?” she asked.
He gave a slight shrug. “We didn’t find any bodies. It’s always harder when they don’t leave the corpses lying around.”
“So you didn’t arrest anyone?” She held up one hand. “Off the record, obviously.”
“No. The house was pretty clean.” He paused. “Got to say, though, I heard a lot about you tonight.”
“Me?” She didn’t hide her surprise. “From who?”
“Allegra and Hunter. They kept asking me to call you. Said they’d only talk to me if you were there, too.” He gave her a curious look. “What’d you do to convince them that you’re their champion?”
“Nothing,” she insisted. “I’ve only met them a couple of times.”
She was being disingenuous. After all, she’d spent the last two days trying to win them over. And it had worked.
“Well, they seem pretty hung up on you. Hunter in particular. He kept wanting to call you. We had to take his phone away. Is something going on between you two?”
His tone was elaborately casual, but there was a tension beneath the words.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
His doubtful expression didn’t change.
“Come on, Luke. They’re just kids.”
“They’re our age.” He set his bottle down. “They’re not children.”
“Well, they’re not habitual criminals either,” she said. “They didn’t understand what was happening. I just tried to explain how it works.”
A suspicious look crossed his face. “What exactly did you tell them? This is a criminal investigation. You shouldn’t be telling them anything.”
“I told them to call the cops,” she said, exasperated. “I told them to talk to you guys. I told them everything would be okay. That’s it. Give me some credit.”
He held her gaze for a long moment before relenting. “I’m sorry if I sounded accusing. I’m just tired.”
Harper watched as he took a drink, gazing out across the bar. She didn’t know what to make of this. Was he jealous of Hunter? That would be ridiculous. After all, he was the one who had a girlfriend, according to the police station rumor mill.
Either way, they needed to get to safer ground.
“What do you make of Cara?” she asked, after a beat.
“Man.” He blew out air from between pursed lips. “That girl is something else. If I choose to believe her, Xavier was a saint, she loved him, a monster snatched him from the beach, and her heart is broken.”
“Do you believe her?” she asked.
He hesitated, holding his beer halfway to his lips. “I’m not sure, yet.”
“You really didn’t find anything in the house?” she pressed. “They don’t strike me as criminal masterminds.”
“Nothing conclusive,” he said. “No kill zone. Traces of blood in the kitchen sink but Allegra had cut her finger cooking dinner the night before.” He stretched his shoulders as if they ached. “We’ll test and see if there’s DNA.”
“But you still like them for it?”
“They’re the closest to him,” he said.
He didn’t have to say more. Killers rarely come from far away. Except in her mother’s case.
The thought jarred her, distracting her instantly from Xavier Rayne.
Pushing her half-empty bottle aside, she leaned forward. “Can I tell you something that happened tonight? It’s got nothing to do with the case.” She kept her voice low, but he must have heard the change in her tone, because his brow creased.
“Shoot.”
“I got a text, from that guy.” She didn’t have to say which guy she meant.
Luke searched her face. “What did he say?”
Talking fast, she told him what she’d learned. When she mentioned Martin Dowell’s name, he held up one hand to stop the flow of words.
“You’re not talking about Martin Dowell, as in Southern Mafia Martin Dowell?”
She nodded. “You’ve heard of him?”
“Your father defended that piece of crap?” His face hardened.
She dug through her bag for the printout of the photo she’d found of her father standing next to Dowell in front of the Atlanta courthouse, and slid it across to him.