Deputy's Secret (Welcome to Covendale Book 3) Page 2

  Good thing she’d brought a sleeping bag too. She’d probably need it again tonight.

  Inside, she heaved a sigh at the bare house that should’ve been at least partway to being livable. This wasn’t exactly the best start to an exciting career as a reporter. She had to admit, she’d envisioned things a bit differently. More urban, for one. Definitely more furnished.

  She grabbed the heavy duffel and strode back out the door she’d left open, trying to sling the bag over her shoulder as she went. And walked straight into something that felt like a brick wall.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess your doorbell doesn’t work.”

  Emma blinked rapidly and stepped back. The brick wall had a deep voice with a bit of a drawl. She looked up into startled brown eyes and a rugged face with the hint of a smile, attached to a powerful body. The guy looked like a football player, and sounded like a god.

  She shook herself. “Doorbell? Are you…selling something?”

  He laughed. “No, ma’am.”

  Ma’am? Was this guy for real? “Um,” she said. “Well, excuse me, then. I’m kind of late.”

  “Do you want some help with that?” He nodded at the duffel bag.

  She scowled. “No. Who are you, anyway?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Nick Donovan.” He smiled, flashing the most adorable dimples she’d ever seen. “I’m your new neighbor. And you’re Emma Reid.”

  Her mouth fell open. “How did you know that?”

  “Well, it’s a real small town.”

  “You’re kidding. That small? I mean, does everybody know my name already?”

  He grinned. “I might’ve heard you shout your name to those movers.”

  “Oh.” Her shoulders slumped, and she felt the beginning of a headache coming on. She really couldn’t stand here with this Nick guy all day—a stranger who’d randomly showed up at her door, even if he was her new neighbor. “Well…uh, Nick. I have to go. Like I said, I’m late.”

  “All right,” he said. “Sure you don’t want some help with that, ma’am?”

  This time she let her annoyance show. “No. I don’t need a big strong man to carry my bag for me, thanks. Excuse me.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged and walked away.

  She held back a sigh. Maybe she’d been a little rude, but she didn’t even know this guy. She should probably apologize or something.

  But then she realized he was heading for her car—and opening the back door.

  “Hey!” She walked to the driveway, struggling to hitch the duffel bag up. “What are you doing?”

  Nick smiled. “Opening the door for a lady with a heavy package.”

  “I didn’t ask you to—” She stopped and blew out a breath. “Okay, look,” she said. “I get it. You’re a nice, polite small-town guy. I’m sure there’s a lot of girls around here who appreciate all those muscles, but I’m not one of them. I’ve got this.”

  The instant she said it, her face flushed hot. She was probably turning twenty shades of red right now. Why did she have to mention muscles?

  A tight expression flashed across her new neighbor’s face, and for a moment he stood very still. It reminded her of something she couldn’t quite place. Finally, he reached out and closed the car door with deliberate slowness. “You’re right,” he said softly. “You didn’t ask for help. And I apologize for offering.”

  Her mouth flattened. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s all right. You’d better get to wherever you’re going, Miss Reid.” With a kind of half-wave, he walked down the driveway and headed for the house next door.

  She couldn’t help noticing he hadn’t called her ma’am that time.

  Well, she was really starting with a bang here. No furniture or belongings, late for her first day on the job, and a fight with her new neighbor to kick off the morning. She loved this place already.

  Teeth clenched, she yanked the car door open and threw the duffel in. She’d just go to the newspaper office and get the whole being late thing out of the way, and then pretend the day was starting over.

  After all, it could only get better from here.

  * * * *

  Nick put his uniform on slowly, calling himself eight kinds of idiot. He shouldn’t have even talked to his new neighbor. Normally he wouldn’t—he’d gotten into the habit of keeping a low profile, making himself as unremarkable as possible, and not getting too close to anyone. Most people in town knew him as “that nice deputy” but couldn’t come up with his name if they tried. He had to keep it that way.

  There was also the brief, strange sense of recognition he’d felt. He swore he’d seen her somewhere before. But aside from a senior trip to Cancun in high school, where he definitely hadn’t bumped into this woman, he’d only been in Covendale and Greenway.

  She wasn’t from Covendale. That left Greenway…and made her a dangerous proposition.

  The best thing for him to do would’ve been to politely ignore the woman moving in next door and continue keeping to himself. But she’d obviously been having some problems with the movers, and there didn’t seem to be anyone helping her or welcoming her to the neighborhood. So he thought he’d offer both.

  He had to admit, the fact that she was adorable didn’t hurt.

  But the minute he’d tried to help, her claws had come out. Then she’d fixated on his muscles. At first that really threw him, and he had to remind himself that no one automatically assumed a guy with muscles must have a secret identity as an illegal fighter.

  Well, at least she hated him now. So he wouldn’t have to worry about getting too close.

  He headed out and drove to work, lost in thought. The nightmare that had lasted a year so far was almost over—two more fights, and his debt to Ankles Martello would finally be paid. Today was Monday, and he’d run the next fight this Friday. Then he’d finish it two weeks later.

  Every day, he told himself it was worth it. His father’s operation had been successful. In fact, once he recovered he’d felt better than he had in years. And his mother had cried for a week straight when Nick told them he could pay for the surgery. They’d have plenty of years left together now.

  But he could never let them find out how he’d gotten the money. They knew it was a loan, and that was enough.

  He arrived at the police station ten minutes before his shift started, as always. And as always, Sheriff Tanner was already in his office with a cup of coffee from Sweet Sensations, the donut shop down the street. Nick headed straight for the coffee machine to start the first pot of the day, expecting to hear Lolly Simmons’ cheerful morning greeting any minute. She always came in a few minutes after him. Nick suspected the receptionist timed it so she wouldn’t have to start the coffee, since she found out he’d do it for her.

  But the first voice he heard was Sheriff Tanner.

  “Hey, Donovan.” The sheriff stuck his head out of the office and glanced around the room, like he wanted to make sure no one else was there. “Could you come in here a minute?”

  “Sure thing, Sheriff. Let me just get this started.” Nick spoke evenly, despite the slight twinge of his nerves. Every time Bradford Tanner called him into the office, he was convinced he’d been found out.

  He switched the machine on and went into the office. Without looking up from the folder lying open on his desk, the sheriff said, “Close the door, will you? And have a seat.”

  Nick did, and his nerves twinged harder. “Is everything okay?”

  “Nervous? That makes you a suspect, you know.” Tanner looked up and grinned. “Relax, Donovan. It’s good news—more or less.”

  He had to work not to let his relief show. “Well, that means it’s not entirely good.”

  The sheriff laughed. “You’re smarter than you look, son. The good part is, you’re about to get a promotion.”

  Nick’s brow furrowed. “I am?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. If anyone’s going to get promoted, it’s you. Your fellow deputies are a
bunch of clowns…and I’m pretty sure you know that.” Tanner gave him an intense, unreadable look. “Anyway, I’m making you the official press liaison. That’s the bad part.”

  “How’s that, Sheriff?”

  Tanner sighed. “Call me Brad, will you?”

  “Um…”

  “Let me be honest with you here, Nick.” The sheriff leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk. “You’re a good deputy. But you’ve been here for a year and a half, and you’re still bumbling around like Barney Fife.”

  Nick frowned. “Who?”

  “Old television show. Never mind. The point is, you have a lot of potential and I want to see you live up to it. You can start by acting like we’ve been working together all this time, and calling me Brad.” He straightened again. “Go on. Try it.”

  “Okay…Brad.”

  “See, that wasn’t so hard.” The sheriff closed the folder and pushed it across the desk toward him. “This promotion isn’t much,” he said. “It’s tedious, possibly even boring. I’m giving it to you because I want you to take a more active role in what we do around here.”

  “Right.” Nick took the folder slowly. This was not a good development—a more active role meant the sheriff would be paying closer attention to him. He had less than three weeks to go, so this couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  But right now, he had to act happy. He forced a smile and said, “What’s a press liaison?”

  “Well, it’s a fancy term that means you sit down with old Fitzy from the Banner once a week and tell him about everybody we fined or arrested.”

  “The newspaper?” Nick said.

  The sheriff nodded. “Fitzwarren Hughes has been writing the police blotter longer than the paper’s been around,” he said. “He’ll come in with his tape recorder and his notebook, and you’ll give him a rundown of activity for the previous week. You’ll have to speak slowly. And he’ll ask you to repeat things a lot. Takes about two hours, all told.”

  “All right.” He could handle talking to an old reporter for a few hours a week. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  “You’ll also give any press conferences we have,” the sheriff said. “Considering that happens about once every three years, I guess it won’t overload your schedule too much.” He smirked, and added, “For all this, the sheriff’s department will pay you the princely sum of an extra dollar an hour. After taxes, that’ll net you about twenty bucks a week.”

  Nick managed an actual laugh. “Great. I can finally afford that Lamborghini I’ve always wanted.”

  “That’s the spirit, son.” Sheriff Tanner smiled and laced his hands behind his head. “Now, you’ve got about an hour until Fitzy comes in. I’ve got a meeting this morning, but I’ll check in with you this afternoon to see how it went. Best go study that massive file you’ve got there on Covendale’s criminal elements.”

  “I’m on it.” He stood with the folder. “Thanks, Sheriff—er, Brad.”

  “Sure thing. You deserve it.”

  Nick headed for the bullpen, at once relieved and suspicious. This promotion seemed all right, if a bit unexpected. But he couldn’t help wondering why the sheriff had suddenly decided they should be pals.

  He only had to last three more weeks. Then he could put this double life behind him, and start actually living.

  Chapter 2

  “You’re late.”

  Emma sighed and sat down across the desk from her new boss. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. The moving truck—”

  “Just don’t be late tomorrow.” Thomas Halstead, the editor-in-chief of the Banner, was a wiry man with a wooly moustache and an unkempt mane of graying hair that made him look kind of like Albert Einstein. He opened a desk drawer, extracted a thick manila folder and dropped it in front of her. “You’re covering crime and entertainment. Don’t worry, not much of either happens around here. And you’re due at the police station in about forty-five minutes.”

  Frowning, Emma reached slowly for the folder. “For what?”

  “What do you mean, for what?”

  “The police station,” she said. “Why am I going there?”

  “To get the weekly reports.”

  “Oh.” Weekly sounded good. Maybe she could actually make a name for herself here, in a small-pond kind of way. There couldn’t be that much competition. “So that’s a regular feature?” she said. “I’ll have to think of a great headline for it, then. Like…the Covendale Crime Corner. What do you think?”

  Mr. Halstead stared at her.

  “What? Too cozy?”

  “We already have a headline,” he said. “Police. Blotter.”

  She cleared her throat. “Well, I guess that’s…descriptive.”

  “It’s what newspapers call the weekly police report, Miss Reid. I suppose they didn’t teach you that at Prescott.”

  “I must have forgotten.” She smiled, hoping she looked pleasant and understanding. Fighting over a headline for small-town police reports wasn’t worth it. She had a bigger agenda, and she intended to start pushing it now. “Mr. Halstead?” she said. “I have a lead for a great story, and—”

  “No.”

  She reined in a knee-jerk reaction. “You didn’t even hear it yet.”

  “All right.” The editor folded his hands on the desk. “Tell me about your great story.”

  That didn’t look like a very open and interested posture. But Emma plowed ahead anyway. “Here’s the thing,” she said. “There’s this kind of underground club where they hold illegal fights every Friday night. All the fighters wear masks, because a lot of them are regular, respectable people. They’re out there beating the crap out of each other. They could be your friends and neighbors. And I want to expose them.”

  Mr. Halstead raised an eyebrow. “And where is this…club?”

  “Up in Greenway.”

  “Miss Reid. Have you seen our newspaper?”

  “Um…yes.”

  “And what does it say across the top? Does it say The Greenway Banner?”

  One corner of her mouth twitched. “No.”

  “That’s right. It says The Covendale Banner. So you’re going to report on what happens in Covendale. Not Greenway.”

  Her mind raced. No way was she giving up on her prize story—not this easily. She’d worked too hard on this. For the past year she’d gone back to The Vault over and over. Watching the fights, getting to know the regulars. She’d started talking to one of the security guards, and she was this close to having him let her get a glimpse at the back rooms, where the fighters went after they finished.

  The fighters. That was the connection. “What if one of them lived in Covendale?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The fighters,” she said. “What if I find out that one of the masked fighters lives right here in Covendale? Someone you know, someone you see at the grocery store or the town park. Someone who reads your paper.”

  Mr. Halstead sighed. “I’ll tell you what, Miss Reid,” he said. “If you find proof that one of these…masked men is a resident of Covendale, we’ll run the story. If he’s prominent in the community, I’ll even give you a bonus. But I want real proof.”

  She grinned. “Great! I’ll talk to my contact, and—”

  “And you will pursue this story on your own time. Not the newspaper’s. Understood?”

  “Fine. I can do that.” She wasn’t about to let the editor’s lack of interest deter her. This story was all hers, and she was going to break it. “So I guess I’ll head to the…police station now. Right?”

  “That’s correct. Oh, and see Miss Franklin before you go. She’ll show you to your desk.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Mr. Halstead.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Do try to be as enthusiastic about the police blotter as you are about these masked men of yours.”

  “I will.”

  Emma left the editor’s office with the folder and paused for a moment, smiling to herself. She’d done it. Okay, so maybe she
hadn’t officially been assigned to the story, but she had permission to get it. And she’d already been chasing it on her own time. This Friday, she’d head out to Greenway and make her play with the security guard.

  The Hammer would be there. He fought every other Friday, and he hadn’t been up last week. It was probably too much to hope he was from Covendale—but it’d be amazing if he was. The perfect storm. He was big, brutal, and undefeated. And wouldn’t Covendale love to know if there was a monster in their midst?

  She could see the headline now. Covendale’s Monster: Prominent Citizen Leads Secret Life as Masked Fighter.

  When she walked into the organized jumble of desks that was the main room, there were three people in it. Two were men, so she assumed the red-haired woman sitting at a corner desk with her feet propped on it was Miss Franklin. She’d been hired by the receptionist, Mrs. Eichorn, and had only met Mr. Halstead for a few minutes the first time she was here. He hadn’t seemed terribly impressed.

  Well, she was going to impress him soon.

  She went over to the corner desk. “Are you Miss Franklin?”

  “Oh my God.” The redhead looked up and smiled. “Did Einstein tell you to call me that?”

  Emma smirked. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the resemblance. “No. It’s just the name he gave me.”

  “Of course it is.” She swung her feet down and stood, holding a hand out. “Hi, I’m Cheri. Sports and lifestyle. You must be Emma.”

  “I am.” Emma shook hands. At least Cheri had a reason to know her name already, unlike some neighbors of hers who hadn’t quite left her mind all morning—though she really wished he would. “Crime and entertainment, I guess.”

  “Yeah, you’re taking over Fitzy’s beat.” She pointed to the man sitting at a desk across the room, who looked about ninety years old. He was typing away on a laptop, even though there was a desktop right next to him. “He’s semi-retired, as of today. Only doing his column now, right, Fitzy?” She shouted the last few words.