Chapter 24

The scentof roasted coffee and buttery pastries tripped Ash’s olfactory senses the moment he stepped into Blues, Brews, and Books, better known by the locals as Triple B.

One side of a soundproof wall housed a restaurant and bar, the other a coffee shop and oversized Little Free Library. Steele Ridge patrons had their pick of atmosphere and locally-sourced vittles.

When Randi Shepherd opened the doors beneath the iconic blue awnings, the coffee shop had operated only in the mornings. But in the era of How do you want your coffee—hot or cold?, she now kept the shop door open until 8:00 p.m., requiring Randi to double her staff.

Another win-win for Steele Ridge.

After placing his order, Ash skimmed the wall of library books for something to read while he waited for Liv to arrive.

Since he was in the area, he couldn’t pass up a chance to check in on his former colleague. He’d thought of her often after his meeting with Zeke, and wondered how the possible mother-to-be was doing.

The barista called out his name. He grabbed a hardback by T. J. Newman, picked up his black coffee, settled into one of two seats at a postage-stamp-sized table near the window, and flipped to page one.

“Must be a good book,” a familiar female voice said.

Ash blinked away visions of passenger planes sinking to the bottom of the ocean and glanced up to find Liv Westcott.

She raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing on her lips.

He used the dust jacket to mark his place, stunned to find that he’d already ripped through the first five chapters. With surprising reluctance, he set the book aside and rose to greet his brother’s fiancée.

It took every molecule of control in his body not to glance down at Liv’s stomach to see if he could detect the beginning of a baby bump. Instead, he gave her a swift hug before resuming his seat. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

She set her to-go cup on the table, a testament to how engrossed he’d been in Newman’s singular thriller that he hadn’t noticed Liv come in, let alone place an order.

Sliding into the chair opposite him, she said, “Of course.”

She displayed an unfettered smile and looked strangely radiant in her leggings and sports tank top beneath a sleeveless T-shirt.

“Did I interrupt your workout?”

She shook her head. “Brodie has a baseball game today and the weather gods believe we’ll hit mid-eighties. So I dressed for sweat.”

“I’m keeping you from your family.” He pushed his chair back from the table, the metal legs screeched in protest. “We can do this another time.”

She waved off his concern. “Don’t get me wrong, I love watching my son play, especially after he’d forsaken the game for so long. But he’s in travel baseball, and it can be . . . a bit much.”

“But—”

She shook her head and gave him a reassuring smile. “I’ll be back in time to see the last few innings. No worries.”

“If you’re sure.”

“One hundred percent.” Her smile faded. “What’s on your mind?”

“I see the private sector hasn’t vaporized your powers of observation.”

“I don’t need FBI training to notice something is weighing hard on my friend’s mind.”

“I’m here to see how civilian life is treating you.”

“Bullshit,” she said in a low voice, so as not to disturb the other patrons.

He placed his right hand over his heart, as if she’d shoved a knife into the organ. “Ow.”

“If you were checking in on me, you would’ve simply stopped by the Friary.” She sipped her drink. “Which, by the way, you haven’t done for several weeks. Stop by the Friary and see your mother.”

“I’ll pay a social visit soon.”

“You’d better. Grams and Lynette are on the verge of storming your bachelor pad.”

A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Thanks for the warning.”

“Welcome. In keeping with your charade, I’m doing fine. Best decision of my life. Now, what do you want to ask me?”

He could see she wasn’t going to say any more. In one sense, he was relieved. They were friends, but they had never mucked around into each other’s personal lives. Hell, he hadn’t even known she and Zeke were a thing until she’d resigned from the Bureau.

On the other hand, she was a friend, and he needed to know she was okay. He’d figure out how to circle back around to the baby topic later.

For now, Ash slid into agent mode. “You’ve obviously heard about the incident with the governor.”

“A bullet to the brain is more than an incident.”

He wished she was still with the Bureau so he didn’t have to guard every word. Although he trusted her implicitly, he was still a special agent investigating an active case and she was a civilian.

“Look,” she said, keying in on his dilemma. “I know how this works. Why don’t you just ask me what you want to know, and I’ll do my best to answer.”

He studied her for any obvious signs of stress or debilitating morning sickness, but he found none. In fact, she looked healthier and happier than he’d ever seen her.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

He blinked. “Like what?”

A ridge formed between her eyebrows, and her gaze lasered into his. “Zeke told you, didn’t he?”

Shit.

“No.” He lifted his hands in the air, shaking his head. “No, he didn’t tell me anything.” His phone pinged with a text message. Even though he itched to high-tail it out of this conversation, he didn’t dare look at the screen. Not with Liv’s gaze slicing him in half.

“If he didn’t,” she said, “how do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Dammit, Liv. He didn’t tell me. You know we don’t have that kind of relationship.” Anymore.

As if she’d heard his silent qualifier, empathy softened the suspicion in her eyes. A little. “Then how did you know?”

The jig’s up.

“I guessed.”

Her hand smoothed down her T-shirt, as if to test the size of her bump.

“Not visually. When I saw Zeke a few days ago, he was hyper-protective of you.”

“He’s always protective of me.”

“Hence the added ‘hyper.’”

“Please don’t say anything about my pregnancy,” she said in a low voice. “We’re waiting until the end of the first trimester to make an announcement.”

“Understood. Can I offer congratulations?”

“Are you kidding?” Her face brightened as if spotlighted by a ten thousand lumens. “The delay is just a precaution. In case, you know, anything goes wrong. But I’ve been dying to let folks know.”

He rotated his paper coffee cup clockwise several times. “Is Zeke . . . happy?”

“Amidst the worry, yes. Every evening, he kisses my stomach and says, ‘Good night, little agent.’” Pink flushed her cheeks, nearly matching the red in her hair.

The endearment surprised Ash, given how much Zeke hated the Bureau.

But he still fell in love with Liv, despite her being a special agent, at the time.

A petal of hope unfurled.

Until he realized Zeke could have been referring to asset recovery agent.

The petal wilted.

“I’m glad,” he said, shoving back his inner turmoil. “Zeke, both of you, deserve all the happiness in the world.”

Her hand closed over his and squeezed, and Ash felt the prick of tears. He swallowed hard, and slid his hand away.

A heavy silence fell between them, then she asked, “Was your meeting by chance?”

He had to shut down this line of questioning. Zeke would never forgive him if she found out the reason why his brother swallowed his pride and came to him. “No.”

“Did you talk out whatever’s still going on between the two of you?”

“No, but soon, I think.”

“What made Zeke turn into a cave man?”

When he didn’t elaborate, she said, “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“There’s nothing to tell.” He took a drink of his coffee. “He asked me for a favor. I accepted. End of story.”

She didn’t look happy, and he couldn’t blame her. But he’d promised Zeke not to get Liv involved in the school board issue and he would stick to it. That didn’t mean he couldn’t use this opportunity to find out more about Kayla.

“Talk to me about the relationship dynamic between the Krownes and Governor Stokes.”

She spoke in a rush, as if she’d been waiting for him to broach the topic. “The governor and Jillian Krowne were tight, along with two of their classmates, Sybil Barclay and Elsie Henshaw. I believe they all went to the same boarding school or university.”

Sybil’s last name sparked a memory. “I met them the night of the murder,” he said. “Does Sybil have a son?”

Liv made a face, nodding. “Evan.”

He’d been too pre-occupied with figuring out how to get Kayla alone to make the connection at the benefit. “Don’t care for him?”

“I crossed paths with him once. That was enough.”

He wondered if Kayla was equally put off by Mr. No-Neck. Shaking off the twinge of jealousy, he prompted her to continue. “Didn’t mean to sidetrack our conversation. You were saying?”

“Kayla’s close with all of her mother’s friends. Even refers to them as the ‘aunties.’ However, I always sensed she had a closer bond with the governor. Maybe because Victoria was her godmother and took her role seriously.”

Godmother? Interesting.

“A seriousness she passed down to Kayla, who is Brodie’s godmother.”

“So I recently heard.”

“Don’t sound so skeptical. I don’t think there’s anything she wouldn’t do to protect my son.”

“Even breaking the law?”

“That, and more, if she had to. Kayla’s fiercely protective of those she loves.”

“Besides her political rivals, can you think of anyone who would want to kill Governor Stokes?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot since hearing the news. Believe it or not, Victoria was well liked by both political parties. She didn’t make empty promises. Knew the art of compromise. Kept a cool head. She cared about North Carolinians and wanted to enrich everyone’s lives, not just the wealthy. Pretty incredible, considering she came from old—very old—money.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was good. Selfless. Didn’t have any of that entitlement crap most of the wealthy have stamped on their foreheads. She spent a lot of time traveling the backroads of this state. Getting to know the challenges and concerns of all her constituents, not just the ones who helped fund her campaign.”

“Sounds almost too good to be true.”

“She does. But she was the real deal, and North Carolinians had Kayla to thank for such an amazing governor.”

“How so?”

“Kayla’s lobbying firm focused almost exclusively on Victoria’s election for two years. If not for her team’s relentless efforts, Daniel Puge might have been our current governor.”

Hollywood handsome, charismatic, and missing his right eye, Danny Puge had won the hearts of many voters by his gut-punch tale of fighting off a trio of gangbangers before they could rape a fifteen-year-old girl.

A smug look crossed Liv’s face as she continued, “Not long after Puge announced his candidacy for the gubernatorial race, Kayla’s team tracked down the real story behind his horrific accident.”

Ash knew about the video that had brought Puge’s campaign to an epic halt. But he hadn’t realized Kayla was responsible for making it public. “You’ve got my attention.”

“I don’t know the fine details, but someone tipped her off about the video that refuted Puge’s heroic claim. It took her months to locate Luis Flores, the videographer.”

The infamous video revealed Puge hadn’t lost his eye in a heroic street fight, but in a collision with a busted bicycle spoke hidden beneath the murky waters of a local swimming hole. An intoxicated Puge, and his two buddies, had decided that jumping from a rope swing at midnight into dark, impenetrable water would be a blast.

Once the video surfaced, Puge had found himself treading water and no one had been willing to throw him a life preserver.

“Sounds like Kayla approaches lobbying with the same passion as she does art collection.”

“Has she given you the tour?”

He’d noticed numerous artworks before a black-clad Kayla interrupted his sweep of her home.

“Quite a collection.”

“What’s in her house isn’t the half of it. If she pulled all of her paintings and artifacts from the various museums where she has them on loan, she could probably fill a floor at the Met.”

Ash’s grip on his coffee cup tightened, denting the sides. “I thought she had an in-home museum where she kept her collection.”

“Not so much a museum. More of a gallery where she displays her, and some of her mother’s, favorites. The rest are loaned out to museums across the country.” Liv smiled. “Kayla believes art appreciation shouldn’t be reserved for the wealthy alone. She likes the idea that one of her pieces might inspire generations to come.”

Something untwisted in Ash’s chest. He’d always avoided talking about Kayla with Liv, because of her close friendship with the lobbyist. Now he wondered if that might not have been a mistake.

Then he recalled the stack of paperwork on his desk and the upcoming changes Director Tao had announced last week, all thanks to Kayla Krowne’s meddling, and decided donating a few art pieces didn’t qualify her for sainthood. Especially if she’d participated in dozens—maybe even hundreds—of pay-to-play political schemes.

“I heard a rumor that she has a piece that dates back twenty-five hundred-years.” His phone vibrated in his pocket. An incoming call. He ignored it. He ignored everything, including breathing, except for Liv’s next words.

“A partial truth,” she said.

“Partial?”

“She does have an ancient Celtic statue, but it belongs to her mom, Jillian.”