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With a huff, Tess pulled herself out of the armchair and shuffled over to the bed. Her slippers were crusted with mud, leaving a trail of flakes of dried mud behind her. Maria offered to wash her slippers after her sprint through the trees. Tess told her no. She needed the visual reminder that, no matter what she thought, she wasn’t really safe here.
She engaged the intercom button. “Yes?”
“Tessa, sweetie, I ha
te to bother you, but Sly is at the door. He’s in uniform so it’s gotta be police business. He says to make sure you’re decent because he’s here to pick you up.” Maria’s confusion became even more obvious as she blurted out, “Were you expecting him?”
“Not him, no,” she admitted, plucking at the belt poking through the nearest loop on her cozy robe. “I actually thought she might send Deputy Walsh over.”
“She? Caity? Oh, no.” Maria’s trill of a laugh seemed even higher through the tinny speaker of the intercom. “She wouldn’t do that. She’s convinced you have poor Mase wrapped around your finger. No wonder she sent Sly. Mase would just coddle you, and we both know Caity wouldn’t like that. Not after the way he hid the story of the note you got from her.”
As if she wasn’t feeling bad enough that Deputy Collins was here to take her to see the sheriff. The last thing she wanted was a reminder that Mason seemed convinced that there was something between them—and that Sheriff De Angelis was all too aware of that fact.
“Hey, um, I was kinda hoping they’d forgotten about me. I’m still wearing my pajamas and a robe. Do you think you could tell Deputy Collins that I’ll be right out as soon as I get changed?”
“Of course. No worries, sweetie.” Her chuckle turned husky. “I’ll keep the deputy company until you’re ready.”
After thanking Maria, she stripped off her robe and tossed it on her rumpled bed. As she pulled on the dresser drawers, looking for something clean to change into, she thought about how Maria’s whole mood changed when Tess told her she wasn’t exactly expecting Deputy Collins.
Maria sure sounded happy to spend some time with the tall, dark and handsome deputy, she realized.
For the first time since Lucas got grazed by that bullet, Tess grinned. And maybe she took a little bit longer than necessary to get dressed.
Having experience with the sheriff’s interviewing style, Tess thought she knew what to expect this time around. Like Sunday, the deputy brought her into the only room with a closed door. She assumed it was an office of some sort for the sheriff, since both times she was told to sit in the plastic chair opposite of a solid oak desk. Sheriff De Angelis sat on the other side, an open notepad in front of her.
Deputy Collins offered her a glass of water, waited for her to refuse, then left the two women alone. At a nod from the sheriff, Collins closed the door behind him.
De Angelis picked up her pen, poised it against the blank sheet of paper and, with a no-nonsense tone said, “Starting from when you left Ophelia, tell me what happened yesterday afternoon.”
Tess did. Going into detail, she explained how Maria needed to take a trip out of Hamlet and, because she didn’t want to stay in the bed and breakfast by herself after her fright from the night before, she asked Maria to show her where Dr. De Angelis’s office was.
Since she couldn’t admit that she just wanted to see the doctor—especially not to his very jealous ex-wife—she made it seem like she was only interested in getting another dose of sleeping pills. Fully aware that the sheriff now thought of her as a pill-popper, she quickly continued. Better a lush and a drug addict than the outsider with her eye on the sheriff’s former husband.
Sheriff De Angelis didn’t interrupt once. Tilting her notepad toward her so that Tess couldn’t see what she was writing, she jotted down whatever interested her. At one point she made a notation, underlined and then circled it. Twice. Tess wished she could remember what it was she had said but she was already three thoughts ahead.
She gamely finished. “—as soon as we got him bandaged up, the doctor drove us back to the B&B. I tried to get him to let me drive—”
The sheriff snorted.
“—yeah, I tried, but now I know that no one is allowed to drive his car except him. Anyway, after he dropped me off, he said he was going to see the sheriff… see you… and tell you all about the freak shooting. At least, I have to believe it was some kind of accident. He didn’t say it or anything, but I got the feeling that Dr. De Angelis thought they were shooting at me. I mean, that’s impossible. Why would anyone shoot at me?”
Sheriff De Angelis set her pen aside. Then, opening her desk drawer, she slipped her notepad inside before pulling out a manila folder. She tossed it on her desk where it landed with a soft thump.
“I’m not so sure they did.”
Tess blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“You just told me how, when I met you outside of the doc’s office, you were in the woods. Looking for a stray cat, right?”
“Yes. I thought I heard meowing so I went to check it out. I told you that yesterday, too. And then you told me that Hamlet doesn’t have strays.”
“We don’t, Mrs. Sullivan. And that makes me wonder what you really were doing in the woods.” The sheriff paused, either for effect or because she thought Tess might actually answer her. Her lips pressed tight together, Tess didn’t say a word. “We found shells a few feet into the trees, not too far from where I saw you. So I'm going to ask again, in case you want to change your mind. What were you doing in the woods?”
Her answer was slow, deliberate. “I heard a cat.”
“Maybe you did. But I think it's more likely you were in there checking out the sightlines, maybe loading a gun—or helping someone else do it.”
It took Tess a second to understand what De Angelis was actually saying to her. She couldn’t believe it. The sheriff was actually accusing her of somehow orchestrating the shooting with… with some accomplice in the woods. That was absolutely crazy.
