Wild Thing (The Magic Jukebox Book 3) Page 6

  Allowed another phone call, he supposed he could call Jeff down in Key Biscayne. The marina manager was the person who’d introduced Ty to Wayne MacArthur. But what could Jeff do for him? He was fifteen hundred miles away. Ty could also tell the police he wanted a lawyer, but like the phone call, he might not be legally entitled to one since he hadn’t been charged with anything. And if they provided him with a lawyer, it would likely be some underpaid, overworked public defender. If Ty was under suspicion for bringing drugs into Brogan’s Point, he’d need someone good.

  He could afford someone good. His bank account was twenty thousand dollars richer than it was a day ago. And he could tap into the trust fund if he had to.

  But as the day trickled away like grains of sand in an hour glass, Ty didn’t make any more phone calls. Either he’d get charged—in which case, he’d accept a public defender long enough to get arraigned and bailed out, and then he’d find his own good lawyer—or he wouldn’t get charged, in which case, he’d walk out of this frickin’ room in this frickin’ police station and buy a plane ticket back to Florida. He no longer had any urge to explore New England on a motorbike.

  He did have an urge to see Monica again, to kiss her one more time, touch her, watch her eyes mist over with passion, and hear her quiet moans as he made her come. But that wasn’t going to happen. She clearly wanted nothing to do with someone who’d somehow, inexplicably, gotten himself into the kind of trouble Ty was in right now.

  Nolan swung open the interrogation room door. Ty didn’t read triumph in his expression. Apparently, the cops crawling around the Freedom with their search warrant still hadn’t found the drugs Ty had supposedly stashed on the boat. With a sigh, Nolan said, “Your lawyer has arrived.”

  His lawyer? He hadn’t requested a public defender.

  That meant Monica must have gotten his message. She’d sent a lawyer. Maybe he would see her again. He had to see her, if only to thank her.

  The man following Nolan had a lawyer look about him, even if his dark gray suit jacket was rumpled and he’d lost his necktie somewhere along the way. The lawyer’s hair was long and floppy, his nose and chin sharp. Ty hoped his legal skills resembled his nose and chin. He needed someone sharp fighting for him.

  “Caleb Solomon,” the lawyer said, extending his right hand for Ty to shake. His left hand gripped a battered leather briefcase. “Monica Reinhart sent me.”

  Hearing her name eased Ty’s tension. So did the lawyer’s handshake, which was firm and confident.

  Solomon shot a look at Nolan. “A few minutes alone with my client, please,” he said. Nolan nodded and left the interrogation room, closing the door behind him.

  Solomon brushed aside the napkin and wrapper from Ty’s sandwich, checked to make sure the video recorder was turned off, dropped his briefcase onto the table, and took a seat across the table from Ty. As he unbuckled his briefcase, he said, “Fill me in. What are we dealing with?” His brusqueness was tempered by a smile.

  Ty decided he liked the guy. Not that he had much choice in the matter. “How did Monica happen to know a criminal lawyer?” he asked.

  Solomon laughed. “She didn’t. She called the attorney who handles the inn’s legal affairs. He recommended me.” He pulled a legal pad and pen from the briefcase, clicked the pen open, and said, “Okay. Tyler Cronin, right?” Without waiting for Ty to confirm this, he wrote Ty’s name down. “Tell me your story.”

  That he didn’t first ask for payment made Ty like Solomon even more. Methodically, with as much calmness as he could muster, he told the lawyer about MacArthur’s having hired him to sail the Freedom up the coast, about how he’d docked it at the North Cove Marina as instructed, how the police had gotten a search warrant and boarded the vessel while he was away, and informed him they believed a shipment of drugs was hidden on the boat. Ty knew nothing about any drugs. All he’d done was what he’d been hired to do: deliver the boat to its slip in the marina.

  Solomon took notes, occasionally nodding, occasionally pinning Ty with a hard, clear-eyed stare. “Have you ever been in trouble with the law?” he asked. “I haven’t had time to do any research on you. The police have, though, so I need to know everything they know.”

  “There’s nothing to know,” Ty told him. “I mean, yeah, the local cops once caught me and a couple of other kids drinking 3.2 beer when we were seventeen, but they just sent us home.”

  Another nod. “Are you acquainted with any drug dealers? Anyone who might have set you up?”

  “Not that I know of. If Wayne MacArthur is using his boat to run drugs up the coast, he hasn’t mentioned that to me.”

  Solomon wrote “Wayne MacArthur” on his pad. “I’ll see what I can find out about him. Is it possible he stashed heroin on the boat without your knowing it?”

  “Heroin?”

  “According to our friend, Detective Nolan, that’s what the cops are looking for.”

  Ty ruminated. “I guess it’s possible there could be something hidden on the boat. There could be some secret compartment I don’t know about. It’s not like I pried off the paneling to see if anything was behind it.” He closed his eyes for a moment, recalling various stretches during the trip—the storm off the Carolina coast, the difficulty catching wind in a stretch of calms east of Delaware, the smooth final leg of the journey. Nothing unusual about any of it. “I didn’t notice any imbalance or unusual weight in the boat.”

  “Let’s say there was twenty pounds of heroin on the boat. Would you notice an extra twenty pounds?”

  Ty shook his head. “Especially not on the ocean. A few hundred pounds I might notice. Twenty or thirty, no.”

  “Okay. As I understand it, the police haven’t found anything yet, and they haven’t filed charges against you. So the first thing we’re going to do is have them release you.”

  “They’ve got my clothes and laptop,” Ty said.

  “We’ll get them to release those items, too.” Solomon stood and offered Ty another smile. Ty wasn’t naïve enough to think his troubles were over, but that smile boosted his mood.

  Solomon ushered Ty from the interrogation room. Just like that, as if Ty had always been free to leave the dreary cubicle. Perhaps he had, but he’d been trying to cooperate, hoping to win Nolan over. Getting up and walking out would have only made him look guilty, or so he’d figured.

  But walking out with his lawyer was apparently allowed. They stopped at a desk in the front room, where Solomon talked with Nolan for a few minutes. A clerk quickly produced Ty’s duffel and laptop bag, and Ty listened as Nolan explained that he should remain in town, that he was a person of interest and that the investigation was ongoing. Nolan asked for Ty’s cell phone number, but Solomon interrupted and told Nolan that all communications with Ty would pass through Solomon.

  Paperwork. Bureaucracy. Affable chit-chat. Ty didn’t doubt that it was all essential, but he was desperate to leave the building, to breathe some fresh air, to learn how much Caleb Solomon’s representation was going to set him back. To find Monica and thank her for not erasing the phone message he’d left her that afternoon and acting as if their paths had never crossed.

  He didn’t have to look far to find her. As soon as he and the lawyer exited the police station into the starlit evening, he spotted her sitting on the hood of a car in the parking lot. She wore jeans and the zippered sweatshirt she’d had on last night. The breeze gusting in from the ocean fluttered through her straight, dark hair.

  She didn’t appear happy to see him. He couldn’t recall ever feeling as happy as he felt to see her.

  Exercising more willpower than he knew he possessed, he resisted the urge to race across the parking lot and sweep her into his arms. Instead, he remained at Solomon’s side, the woven strap of his duffel digging into his shoulder, his hand fisted around the handle of his laptop bag, and simply stared at her. She stared back, her eyes chilly, her expression grim.

  “So here’s what happens next,” Solomon explained. “You come
into my office first thing tomorrow morning—” he handed Ty a business card “—and we work out a strategy. In the meantime, I’ll research this Wayne MacArthur and review the police files. It sounds like all they’ve got is some informer telling them there’s a shipment of a heroin on that boat. They won’t even tell me the name of the informer, although we’ll get that in discovery if it comes to that. Which, I assume, it won’t, because as far as I can see, Nolan’s got nothing on you other than the fact that you were hired to sail a boat. Last I heard, that’s not a crime.”

  “Okay.” Ty took a deep breath. “How much do I owe you?”

  “I’ll send you a bill.” Solomon’s smile was better than a shot of bourbon. It warmed, it soothed. “Ms. Reinhart said you could afford me.”

  “I can,” Ty assured him. “But my money is tied up in a trust fund. I can’t just write a check.”

  “Not a problem. Let’s get this mess straightened out, and then you can raid your trust fund.” He patted Ty’s shoulder and turned toward a sleek black Beemer parked a few spots down from the car Monica was perched on. “I’ll be in my office early tomorrow. Don’t sleep late. I expect to see you there by nine-thirty.”

  Ty watched him stride across the lot to the Beemer, climb in, and rev the engine. Only after he’d driven out of the small lot did Ty turn back to Monica.

  She hadn’t moved. She remained planted on the hood of the sturdy Subaru like a gorgeous hood ornament, her feet propped on the bumper, her chin resting in her hands as she watched him. He started across the lot and she remained where she was. She wasn’t running toward him with arms outstretched, but she wasn’t fleeing in the opposite direction, either.

  A few feet from her car, he halted. He didn’t want to impose on her any more than he already had. “Thank you,” he said.

  She gave her head a slight shake, more in bewilderment than rejection. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you’ve done. I’m not like this, Ty. I don’t take risks—with people or anything else.”

  He wanted to tell her he posed no risk to her. But he knew damned well he did. “I haven’t done anything,” he told her. “Except be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. Or on the wrong boat in the wrong marina. I don’t know why the cops suspect me. I’m not even sure what they suspect me of. All I know is, they’re wrong.”

  “Ed Nolan is a good man,” she said.

  “Even good men make mistakes.”

  Her gaze narrowed on him. Did she think he was speaking about himself, as well? Hell, he’d made his share of mistakes over the years—and he wasn’t so sure he was a good man. But he hadn’t made this mistake—whatever mistake Nolan suspected him of.

  “Well,” she finally said. “Whatever happened, it hasn’t killed you. You’re still alive.”

  There was that. He allowed himself a smile. She smiled as well, tentatively, more a glimmer in her large, dark eyes than a curve of her mouth. “I know it’s late, but I’m hungry,” he said. “How about that dinner I promised you?”

  Chapter Seven

  Fifteen minutes later, they were seated at a table at the Lobster Shack, a dock-side eatery with the best seafood in town. The dining rooms at the Ocean Bluff Inn won on ambience, but, disloyal though it was, Monica preferred the clam chowder at the Lobster Shack.

  Tonight wasn’t a night for linen tablecloths, elegant china, and crystal stemware, anyway. It was a night for rough-hewn wooden tables topped in brown butcher paper, creased paper napkins in a chrome dispenser on the table, warm buttermilk rolls heaped into a basket made of plastic strips woven to look like wicker, and the thickest, creamiest, clammiest chowder on the North Shore.

  The message Ty had left on her voice mail had stolen what little appetite she’d had left after he’d stood her up at the tavern. But the chowder tasted too good, hot and rich, with just the slightest bite of black pepper transforming the soup from comfort food to something special. She spooned some into her mouth, savored the contrast of soft, bland cubes of potato and chewy, sweet clams, and eyed Ty across the table.

  He’d insisted on heading straight for the rest room when they’d arrived. He’d left his laptop bag at the table the waiter had led them to, but brought his canvas duffel with him. When he’d rejoined her after a few minutes, he had on a fresh button-front shirt and his beard was gone. Shaving in the restaurant’s bathroom wasn’t exactly proper behavior, but obviously, he’d wanted to tidy himself up.

  Without the beard, he was even more handsome. His cheeks were lean and tan, his jawline angular. The more of his face she could see, the happier she was.

  Except that she wasn’t happy at all. This man—this stranger—this lover—had gotten himself tangled up with the law. On the drive to the Lobster Shack, he’d told her he was under suspicion for bringing heroin into Brogan’s Point on the boat he’d sailed up from Florida. He’d told her he was innocent, the police hadn’t even found the heroin they claimed was on the boat, and they’d refused to divulge the name of the asshole who’d informed them of this alleged heroin shipment. He told her this was either a huge misunderstanding or someone had set him up for some reason. He told her that he didn’t give a shit how good a man Nolan was; the detective was wrong about Ty.

  She desperately wanted to believe everything Ty told her. But how could she? She didn’t know him. They might have made love, but he was still a stranger.

  The chowder helped her to think, though. So did the glass of cold, crisp Chardonnay she’d ordered. One more sip of each, and she said, “Tell me about yourself, Ty. Tell me who you are.”

  He lowered his spoon, took a drink from the tall, sweating glass of beer beside his bowl, and studied her. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  He mulled that over and nodded. Evidently, he agreed she had a right to ask for everything. “I grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs,” he said. “My dad was a carpenter. He did construction on movie sets, which was cool. He taught me how to build things, how to make them look right. My mom was from Kansas. She went to L.A. as a graduation present when she finished high school, and she met my father on a beach, and she never went back to Kansas. Love at first sight and all that.”

  That he referred to his parents in the past tense sent a ripple of anxiety through her. “What happened to them?”

  “They were killed in an auto accident when I was thirteen,” he told her. “Some crazy kid buzzed out on meth rammed head-on into our car.” He ate a spoonful of chowder and added, “I was in the back seat.”

  She visualized the tattoo on his shoulder: LIVE. When she’d asked him about it, he’d said there had been a time when he should have died, but he hadn’t. “Oh, Ty,” she murmured. “That’s horrible.”

  He shrugged.

  “Were you badly injured?”

  “Among other things, the accident broke my back. There was some concern about whether I’d ever walk again. A body cast and a year in rehab, and I was walking.”

  “But you lost your parents.”

  Another shrug. His words remained measured and stoical, but his eyes flashed with pain and regret. “My dad’s dad lived in Los Angeles, but he was in no position to take on a teenage kid in need of intensive physical therapy. So everyone decided the best thing would be for me to move in with my grandparents in Kansas.” A wry laugh escaped him. “It wasn’t the best thing. They meant well, but we had different world views. They were very conservative, very religious. I could understand why my mom ran off to California and never went back. My grandparents and I fought all the time. They made rules, and I broke them.”

  Wild Thing, Monica thought. The opening chords of the old rock-and-roll song crashed through her head.

  “And there was no ocean in Kansas,” he continued. “I needed the ocean. Land-locked doesn’t work for me.”

  Monica could relate to that. She’d never lived anywhere farther than a short drive from the shore. Brogan’s Point and her four years of col
lege in Boston, with its beautiful harbor—like Ty, she was happiest when in close proximity to a vast expanse of water and the salty fragrance of sea breezes flavoring the air.

  “As soon as I finished school, I did what my mother did and went back to California. I lived with my grandfather there for a while, but he’s kind of a crazy dude. An old surfer. He lives in a tiny house that’s held together with spit and duct tape, and he sells surfing gear in a shop in Venice. He taught me how to surf, how to wind-surf. Then I headed up the coast to Whidbey Island, near Seattle, where my father’s mother lived. Her husband taught me how to sail. I moved to Vancouver and learned how to ski. I moved to New Orleans and learned how to drink bourbon. I moved to Charleston, South Carolina and learned how to restore mansions. I moved to Chicago. No ocean, but Lake Michigan is almost big enough to qualify. I moved to Miami.” Another shrug.

  He’d told her he moved around a lot. He hadn’t been kidding. “Don’t you ever want to settle down somewhere and plant roots?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound too conventional—although if she did, she did. She was a conventional woman, after all. Except for those four years of college, she’d never lived anywhere other than Brogan’s Point, and never wanted to do anything other than help her parents run their resort.

  He tilted his bowl to capture the last of the chowder with his spoon. “I guess if I found a place that made me want to settle down, I’d settle down.”

  And he hadn’t found that place, at least not yet. Surely Brogan’s Point wasn’t the place. Not that Monica expected him to settle down here. Not that she could possibly have any hold on him. Not that she was even sure she wanted to have a hold on him. What he’d told her about himself was both tragic and intriguing, and yet… She still wasn’t sure she knew who he was.

  “How do you support yourself, moving around the way you do?” Another conventional question, she acknowledged. If he decided that she was square and boring like his Kansas grandparents, so be it.