Reign of Error (The Worst Detective Ever Book 2) Read online

  I opened my mouth and shut it, considering my words and knowing that anything I said could and would be used against me either in a court of law or of public opinion.

  Finally, I said, “Yes, that could be true. We were chatting right before he went in.”

  Jackson shifted, his laser-beam eyes shooting through me. “What were you chatting about?”

  I did the whole open-and-shut-my-mouth thing again, as I realized how this could all look. “Well, he actually got his hair cut at Beach Combers two days ago.”

  He muttered an uninterpretable “Okay.”

  I already didn’t like where this was going. “I hadn’t ever seen him before. He was just another client on a growing list. I didn’t think anything about it. Then he was beside me at the Polar Plunge, and I just figured it was an it’s-a-small-world type of thing, minus the weird animatronic animals.”

  He let out an unreadable “hmm” as he stared at me.

  Animatronic animals? Come on, Joey. Stop blathering around Jackson.

  “What?” I finally asked, tired of his scrutiny.

  “I’m going to have to take you down to the station.”

  Alarm rushed through me, and all thoughts of robotic, singing animals left my mind. “Why in the world do you need to do that?”

  He took my arm and started toward the cold, frigid world outside. “Let’s not make a scene. We just need to ask you more questions.”

  “Jackson—Detective Sullivan, I mean—please tell me what’s going on.” My alarm turned to panic. Raven Remington 101 had taught me this wasn’t normal. That was right: everything I ever needed to know in life, I’d learned by being an actress.

  His jaw flexed, but he paused. “We found pictures of you in Mr. Murray’s pocket, if you must know.”

  “Pictures? Of me?” My heart pounded in my ears. Why in the world would the man have pictures of me? It made no sense.

  “That’s right. Now, can we talk more down at the station before that nosy reporter over there catches wind of this?”

  I glanced over at a man holding a camera and smiling. Paparazzi? I wasn’t sure. But getting out of here sounded like a great idea. Because stories of my demise had not been greatly exaggerated.

  “I’m telling you, I have no idea how that man ended up with my pictures,” I repeated for the umpteenth time.

  The detective didn’t appear to believe me. That was nothing new. “I’m not saying you knew him. But I am saying he had pictures of you in his pocket.”

  “Are you sure that was his jacket? There were a lot of jackets on that beach.” Even if that was true, the fact that anyone had my pictures and was carrying them around was disturbing.

  Jackson held up a driver’s license. “That’s his name and picture, also found in the coat.”

  “How do you know he didn’t just die of natural causes?”

  “We won’t know for sure until the autopsy comes back,” he said. “But there’s initial evidence that make it appear he put up a fight. Skin under his fingernails. Possible bruising on his shoulders. It’s too early to tell exactly what happened.”

  “Wouldn’t someone have seen someone holding someone else under water?”

  “Not when you consider the sheer number of people in the water. Everyone was splashing, and it was mass chaos.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” It had been crazy out there. We’d been like a flock of seagulls swarming a shrimp trawler.

  “Anyway, those facts mixed with your photos being found in his coat is why we brought you in for questioning.”

  I shivered, but I wasn’t ready to drop my ability to rationalize this yet. “Maybe he’s a fan who wanted an autograph.”

  Jackson held up the pictures. “Do these look like your normal pictures that you’d autograph?”

  I cringed. No, they didn’t. These were strange pictures of me. One leaving Beach Combers. Another standing on the shore at dusk. Still another of me taking out the trash. Each taken when I was unaware.

  I shivered at the thought. “Maybe he’s the unknown part of my super-stalker duo.”

  “That’s . . . quite a title.”

  “Isn’t it though? But think about it, Jack—Detective Sullivan.” Why did I keep reverting to calling him Jackson, as if we were friends? Because we weren’t.

  I had so many reasons not to be this man’s friend. So. Many. Reasons. Yet another part of me remembered the moments Jackson and I had shared. They were few and far between, but they were there. I thought we’d connected—on a deep level, at that—but I’d been wrong. Again.

  “I’ve had this feeling from the start that I somehow knew the stalker without knowing who he was,” I said. “Maybe Douglas what’s-his-name is our guy.”

  “Our guy?” He cocked an eyebrow. He did that a lot. And scowled. Mostly at me.

  “Your guy. My guy. Whatever!” I threw my hands in the air. Hysterics at their best.

  Jackson leaned back, a tiny smile playing at the corner of his lips, but only for a second. Then he snapped back to all business again. “I suppose that is a theory. But the problem we’re looking at right now is you’re our only suspect.”

  “Well, that’s the craziest thing I’ve heard since Kanye stole the spotlight from Taylor Swift at the VMAs. I had no reason to kill him.”

  Jackson did a half eye roll. “Unless he was your stalker.”

  My jaw went slack. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “But is it? That was your theory, after all.”

  “I never had a theory that I killed him because he was my stalker.”

  “No, but you thought he could be your stalker, which would give you motive to kill him.”

  “What . . . I . . . What are you trying to do? Talk me into a corner? I know nothing, Jackson.” My words came out faster and faster as my hackles went up. Yes, my hackles went up. I grew up in a small mountain town, and the colloquialisms I’d learned there reared their heads at the most cockeyed times.

  Someone tapped on the glass window beside us. I’d seen it before on Relentless, and I knew what it meant: new information. New information to make me look guilty or innocent? That was the question.

  “Excuse me a minute,” Jackson said.

  How had I gone from being the guest of honor to being the main act in an interrogation room? What would the mayor think?

  On the bright side, maybe he wouldn’t ask me to do any more polar plunges.

  I pulled the sleeves of my sweater over my hands. Jackson had allowed me to drive here in my own car, provided he could follow me in his unmarked police sedan. I found an old gray sweater in the trunk, which I’d pulled on, as well as some high heels. It wasn’t my best look, but the heels were slightly warmer than my flip-flops. I draped my coat over my bare legs, wondering why they kept this room so incredibly cold.

  This stunk. Plain and simple.

  Whoever had written this script needed to make some changes. Pronto. The problem was this wasn’t a script, and there were no rewrites allowed. Double stunk.

  Finally, Jackson came back into the room. Should I ask for a lawyer? Why hadn’t I thought of that earlier?

  Raven Remington, my fictional alter ego, would have. Or she’d be smart enough to watch what she said. Had I watched anything? Considered a single word I’d said? No, I hadn’t. I might have even blathered more, but at least I hadn’t mentioned any more animatronic animals. I might have brought up the movie Alive and people eating other people though. Why had I brought that up again? Maybe because those people had nearly frozen to death also. I wasn’t sure.

  Jackson definitely knew something new. And I didn’t like it.

  He strode over to the chair across from me, his steps heavy and measured. He pulled the seat out, the metallic sound of the legs scraping against the floor causing my skin to crawl. If he ever wanted to go into acting, I’d totally recommend him for Law and Order. He had the whole intimidation thing down pat. Plus, he was handsome to boot. The cameras would love him, as would all the single lad
ies longing for the perfect fantasy man.

  “Douglas Murray doesn’t appear to be his real name,” Jackson stated.

  “And you’re blaming that on me also?” What would he blame me for next? The fact that The Lone Ranger movie lost nearly $190 million at the box office?

  His lips twisted in a frown. “I didn’t say I was blaming you for his death, Joey.”

  I crossed my arms. “That’s how it sounds to me.”

  “We’re just trying to find some answers.”

  “I’ve heard that one before.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out one more thing. “We found another picture. In a different pocket inside his coat. Do you recognize this?”

  I picked up the photo, and my eyes widened. It was a picture of me from high school. I stood in front of the Roanoke River Gorge after my dad and I had hiked all day—one of our favorite pastimes together.

  The edges of the photo were wrinkled, and it was already yellowing slightly. This wasn’t a new copy of an old photo. My hands trembled as I turned it over. A cry caught in my throat.

  There was my father’s handwriting, crude but strong. He’d scribbled the date on the bottom right corner. Just as he always did.

  Mark Hamill had one of my father’s photos.

  Everything spun around me. This just took this mystery to a whole new level.

  Jackson released me but asked that I remain in town. I knew what that meant. It meant I was a suspect, despite the fact that Jackson said he wasn’t necessarily blaming me.

  Whoever Mark Hamill was, I could only come to two possible conclusions: the man was my stalker, or he was connected with my father. Either way, that picture proved he was somehow connected with me, and I didn’t like that. Especially when considering he was now deader than my career.

  How had he gotten that photo belonging to my dad? Had the man taken it from my dad? Or had my father given it to him?

  The whole reason I’d come to this area was because my father had disappeared without a trace. And that was unlike my responsible, always-there-for-me dad. I had to figure out what happened to him because he was the only person I had left in this world . . . and I loved him more than anything.

  Seeing that photo had stirred up something deep inside me. It had made me remember some of my long talks with Dad. Talks where he’d reminded me that family and faith were everything. Talks where neither of us had said a word, yet unbreakable bonds had been forged as we hiked or whittled wood or fished. When I looked back on the most important moments of my life, those were some of them. Family.

  As I walked out of the police station, my head spun. More than ever, I wanted answers. I wanted to know what happened to my dad. Someone out there knew, and they weren’t sharing that information.

  My bad day felt ten times worse than it had earlier.

  Until a woman stepped in my path, and ten times became one hundred times. She had a microphone, a camera crew, and wore a cheap business suit. I knew what this meant: an on-air ambush.

  “Joey Darling, what do you know about the man who died at the Polar Plunge?” The thirtysomething blonde shoved a microphone in front of my face.

  I froze, totally not expecting this. Nor had I expected the camera.

  My gaze traveled behind her, and I spotted a news van with their call letters emblazoned across the side. The media had caught wind of this and come down from Norfolk, Virginia, where all the local stations for this area were based.

  “He . . . um, he’s dead.” Good one, Joey.

  “We’re aware of that. Was he murdered?”

  “The police are working on it.” I tried to take a step, but she blocked me.

  “Did you know the man?”

  “Who? Douglas Murray?” As soon as the words left my lips, my stomach sank. Had I actually said his name out loud? I was toast, pure and simple. Not even with cinnamon and sugar on top. Just plain, dry, and tasteless bread.

  “Is that his name?” The reporter’s eyes lit like a hunter who’d just locked on her prey.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You said Douglas Murray.”

  “I think I said don’t go smearing. As in smearing my name or what I said.” I am so lame. Just stop talking, Joey!

  “What else can you tell us?”

  My thoughts stopped spinning for a minute. Was this my chance to send a message? To let whoever did this know that I knew about their connection with my father? Was this an opportunity to draw the bad guy out and end this once and for all?

  I didn’t know, but I had to make a quick decision.

  I stared right into the camera, the thespian in me taking charge. “I’d like to say this: whoever is toying with me, I’m not playing these games any longer. I have a message for you. Come out of the shadows and act like a big boy. Only wimps hide and threaten and antagonize from the safety of anonymity. Man up or shut up.”

  The reporter followed behind me, still asking questions, but I ignored her and climbed into my car.

  What had I just done? It didn’t matter because it was too late to take my words back. I’d made my intentions clear and, in the course of it, challenged a faceless villain. I may have just sent an invitation to my demise.

  What had I been thinking?

  Chapter Three

  I stared at the computer screen as I sat at the little corner desk in my oceanfront duplex. Adrenaline pumped through my blood as the implications of everything that had happened replayed in my mind like a broken movie reel. Or Groundhog Day, the movie. No, no . . . I was going to stick with the broken movie reel. It had a bit more style to it.

  Those pictures that had been found in the man’s pocket had stirred something deep inside me, something I was unable to let go of. Something I wouldn’t be able to let go, even if I wanted to. Douglas Murray was linked with my father, and I had to know why.

  Which was what had brought me to my computer and to the Internet in search of answers. It wasn’t a crystal ball, but it was the closest thing I had to one.

  As I studied the words on the screen, trying to let them sink in, I felt someone behind me.

  Zane. He’d come over to my place to hang out after the police station fiasco. He’d brought my favorite drink, a sparkling flavored juice called Izze, as well as guacamole and baked blue corn chips.

  When I’d come downstairs after my shower, he’d been watching Bob Ross on Netflix, so I’d snuck over to my computer, hoping for a moment alone.

  Sneaky, I was not, I reminded myself in my best Yoda voice.

  “Are you really looking up ‘How to ID a John Doe’?” Zane leaned close, so close that I could feel his body heat behind me, and an involuntary shiver went up my spine.

  I quickly shut my laptop, surprisingly embarrassed that he’d caught me doing such a rudimentary Internet search.

  “Yes. Yes, I am. I have no shame.” None that I’d admit to, at least. Hashtag: liarliarpantsonfire.

  Zane nodded slowly at first and then more quickly as he seemed to get used to the idea. “Cool.” He said the word with a surfer-like inflection that always made me smile.

  I leaned back and sighed. My thoughts were more tangled than a fishing net in turbulent waters. “I don’t want to get involved in this investigation. I don’t. But, that said, my picture was found in the dead man’s pocket. I want to know why.”

  Zane perched himself on the wide window frame beside me, forming a striking picture as the remnant colors of sunset smeared behind him over the ocean. Remnant because the sun actually set on the other side of the island, but its east coast gladly shared in the smear of pastels.

  “I thought his name was Douglas or something,” Zane said.

  I pushed my chair back to a more comfortable angle to chat. “That wasn’t his real name. If I’m going to figure out any answers here, I have to figure out who that man was. And since I’m not with the police, that’s going to be difficult.”

  “Why?”

  I let out a pent-
up breath of frustration. “Well, for starters, I have no idea where this guy lives or even how to figure out where he lives. If someone reports him missing, they’ll tell the police, not me. There’s just so much that I don’t have access to. I don’t know where to start.”

  “What did Google tell you? Google is all knowing, right?”

  “Google told me exactly what I just said. Check his personal belongings, his residence, his friends.” I rested my hands on my forehead. “I’m so terrible at this detective thing. I have a case staring me right in the face, and I have no idea how to proceed. I’m a disgrace to imaginary detectives everywhere.”

  Zane pulled up a chair and sat beside me. “No, you’re not. Look at the last case you solved.”

  “I almost died, and I almost got you killed,” I reminded him. “I’m not cut out for this.”

  “You have a whole legion of fans who would disagree. They think you and Raven Remington are one and the same.”

  “Well, the public is wrong. What can I say? We’re day and night, ebony and ivory, Laverne and Shirley.”

  “Laverne and Shirley? I loved that show!” His chuckles faded, and he sat up straighter. “I know how you can get answers.”

  “Pray tell.” I wasn’t holding on to the hope though.

  “The mayor likes you, right?”

  “That’s how it appears.”

  “And he’s looking for publicity for the area, right?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  Zane’s eyes lit. “See if he’ll let you do a Castle/Beckett type of thing.”

  “What?” I had not expected him to say that.

  “You know, the TV show.”

  “Yes, I know about Castle. I loved that show. Nathan Fillion is the one who taught me the ‘Faces of the Soap Take.’”

  “What?”

  “You know, the Did I leave the stove on? expression?” I demonstrated with a concerned look. Then I realized Zane totally wasn’t getting the acting tip and moved on. “Look it up on YouTube when you have the chance. It’s spot on. Anyway . . . I still don’t understand what you’re getting at.”