“Me too. A couple weeks later, I got a package in the mail from Shirley. It was Bob’s FBI retirement plaque with his badge mounted on it. They never had kids, and she wrote that he wanted me to have it. It was his way of nagging me from the grave. Funny thing is, I’d just quit my job. I was at loose ends, so I thought, What the hell? I’ll go to the police academy.”

“You didn’t think about leaving the area? Maybe going to a bigger city?” Letty asked.

“Not really. I like it here. Close to the beach, and yeah, I’m around if Ava or Isabelle need me. Now it’s your turn.”

“For what?” Letty asked.

“I’ve just told you my whole life story. And you haven’t told me a damn thing about you. All I know is you showed up at the Murmuring Surf out of nowhere, and even though I told you we didn’t have a vacancy, you wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“I’d been driving for hours, and I was exhausted. And Maya needed to pee,” she said.

“There you go again, avoiding answering my questions,” Joe said. He leaned in close, until she could feel his breath in her ear. “Who are you really, Letty?”

A shiver went down her back. “I’m nobody.”

He slid an arm around her waist. “You’re not married, right?” His lips grazed the skin of her collarbone, and then her neck, and then her earlobe. She felt warmth radiating out from all the places his lips skimmed. Just as his lips met hers he repeated the question. “Married?”

The kiss she returned gave him the answer. She slipped her arms around his neck, fully committed. “No,” she murmured a few seconds later, as he slowly ran his hands under her T-shirt, grazing her nipples with his thumbs.

“No?” He stopped what he was doing, looking puzzled. “You mean, no, don’t do that?”

“No, I’m not married,” she said, kissing him again. “And no, please don’t stop.”

21

VIKKI HILL STARED DOWN AT the screen of her laptop. She blinked. She’d run the search on a whim, with zero expectations. But damned if she didn’t get a hit.

Tanya Michelle Rooney, real name Tanya Michelle Carnahan, had been arrested down in Florida almost exactly five years ago, on charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.

She read the arrest report with interest. It looked as though the woman was mixed up in a scam, along with two male associates. The three of them had set up shop in a motel room and duped their unsuspecting victims into selling gold and silver coins and estate jewelry for far below their actual worth. One report she read put the amount the trio had earned in excess of $150,000. Not a bad profit for less than two weeks of work.