Celeste shook her head. “I’d sleep on the floor, first.”

  “No way. Not in my apartment. “

  So it was agreed that they’d share the bed. Being brave about sleeping in the same bed as another guy and playing it off all casual was one thing. When it came down actually doing it, she was uncomfortable. She had committed though, and it was too late to back down. It was hard not to think about Beau, his blue eyes contrasting with his dark hair, and how soon he would be sleeping within inches of her. She yawned and took her shoes off, leaving the rest of her clothes on and crawled between the sheets. Beau said he was going to take a shower first. She thought she would stress and be wide awake for hours, but her body quickly relaxed under comfortable sheets on a cozy bed. Before he got back, she was asleep.

  Next thing she knew, she sensed the sun warming her face, and she turned away from it. A hand rested on her shoulder. She lifted her hand and placed it on an arm. In that half dream state, it seemed as if it was her own. After what felt like a few minutes, the arm wriggled as the hand shook her, when she woke enough to realize she thought she had three arms, her eyes flew open.

  In her panic she gripped the arm, nails digging into flesh. The hand pulled back. She sat up quickly, rubbed her eyes, and looked around. Beau gripped at his arm. The morning light was glaring through the open window above the dark wood dresser. She blinked hard. When the memories of why she was there came back to her, she rolled her eyes and pulled the blanket over her head to go to back to sleep.

  Beau groaned. She felt a giant bounce as he landed on the bed next to her. He prodded her with a finger to her stomach. “Get up. The world is spinning without you.”

  She turned away from him, facing the window, but the sun was in her eyes like that so she covered her head with an arm. He pulled the covers away from her face, his lips brushed against an ear. “Wake up, sunshine.”

  He knew this was dangerous ground. She just looked so comfortable in the bed. He had watched over her while she slept, and tried not to wake her as he went about straitening up his apartment. He wasn’t a slob, but he went longer than he was supposed to at wiping down counters and sweeping. Every once in a while, he looked in on her, her pretty face dreaming, and wanted to kiss her. He tried to tell himself he was crazy. The girl was crazy. And in loads of trouble. And if he was any other kind of guy, he could take full advantage of that. But he didn’t want to do that to her. The more time he spent around her, the more he got to know, the more he realized how she needed someone around.

  And he was beginning to realize how much he enjoyed being around her.

  Celeste feigned sleeping. He dropped his lips to her cheek. He had meant to just whisper, but instead felt a trace of her skin. She dropped the arm away from her face, and smiled at him. The look she shared was trusting, admiring.

  Did he deserve such a look?

  Celeste reached up, putting a hand on his cheek. His lips went to her neck and nuzzled, she forgot why she had resisted him. She forgot why she was there. Forgetting felt good. When he pulled back, he lingered over her and paused. She almost told him not to.

  He bent his head down and pressed his lips to hers, hard. She liked hard kisses, liked his hands as they pulled her closer. She kept her fingers on his chest, parting her. She felt his muscles through his shirt. She wondered about who he really was. What did she really know about him? Did she want to know more about him? Did he really want to know her?

  His lips trailed to her neck again and she forgot about everything. His hands reached up her back, pulling her in. It was a gentle move, bringing her closer. Her mind whirled. A moral instinct kicked in and she pushed away. As much as she was willing, she didn’t know what she was in for, and she was afraid. He laughed lightly, giving her one harder kiss on the mouth before he got up off the bed.

  “Now that you’re awake, I’m hungry. Let’s go eat breakfast.” With that he headed for the bathroom.

  The morning sunlight slowly seeped back into her brain. She was in bed, and the guy in the bathroom was hungry. Wait, not a normal guy. Beau. Beau Andrews, AKA Mr. Sanders’ assistant. Or something. What was she doing? Maybe she shouldn’t get this close. Not even if he kissed hard. But oh, she felt weak, too. It had been a long time since she had kissed anyone. She had forgotten the feelings. The whirligig stomach. The lightness in her heart. The hope for promises and sweet ideas of futures.

  She managed to slip her shoes back on when Beau came out of the bathroom, black t-shirt on now and looking fresh and ready for a new day. She blushed as she stood there trying to brush back her bed head and rub sleep out of her eyes. Her clothes were crumpled. She didn’t know how to talk to him now that he’d kissed her. He crossed that line between a budding friendship and... what was this?

  “No good morning?” He smiled warmly, as if encouraging her to just be friendly.

  “We should talk. Like you said. We’ve been crossing paths for some reason. I’d like to find out why.”

  He left the room and she followed. He grabbed his keys and went looking for his shoes. “Where do we start?”

  “Who are you?”

  He laughed then. “I’m Beau.”

  “No, I mean, what do you do? Where are you from really? Why are you here? Why are you following me all the time?”

  He sat up in the middle of tying his shoe. “I was a cop in Virginia. I quit for personal reasons and then I moved here. I didn’t want to transfer. After that, my cousin talked me into getting a private investigator license and setting up shop here. She mentioned they could use someone like me in the area. A lot of the other investigators are pretty… sleazy.”

  “And now you work for Sanders?”

  He went back to tying his shoe.

  “You won’t tell me?”

  “I can’t.” He stood and moved closer to her, putting a hand on her arm. “Please. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  If Sanders had told him to get rid of her, he was doing a crummy job. But maybe that was the plan. Get her to trust him so he could take her somewhere to dispose of her for good? She shook her head at the thought. That didn’t work. She had to draw the line somewhere. Beau was a good person. She could feel it. He’s been looking out for her. But what about Sanders? “Could you tell me stuff about him? If I asked?”

  “Depends on what you asked. But why don’t you tell me something. Why are you spying on Sanders? I have a theory. I want to see if I’m right.”

  She sighed. “I think he killed my father.”

  His breath caught, and he coughed. The words tumbled over in his head. Killed. Her father. For some reason it had passed through is brain, somewhere deep inside, but he didn’t really take it seriously. And he didn’t pinpoint it to Sanders. “Why do you think that?”

  She told him her theory. How Sanders was the one to find her father. How he took over the company the day after his death was declared and the changes he’d been making. He fished around his computer desk for some paperwork and got out a pen and paper and jotted something down. “So you’ve been watching him, hoping he’d do it again, or show signs of other illegal activity?”

  “If I can catch him at anything, they might look into it further.”

  He dropped the pen and rubbed his hands over his face. “Okay. I’m going to pretend you’re right for a moment. What if he did? Wouldn’t provoking him by watching his house at night be something he’d want you to stop? And would come after you?”

  She sat on the orange couch, folding her legs in front of her, her arms going around them protectively. “If he did, I thought that might make things easier.”

  “You’d sacrifice yourself just to put him in jail?” He walked over and sat on the coffee table in front of her, putting his hands on her smooth, cool feet. “Celeste, you’re spending nights in a car, in the cold, watching a house belonging to someone who you think killed your father. You might be right. Maybe someone killed your father, but your obsession is going to get you killed before you catch him. Maybe that would put whoever did it in jail, but I’d really hate to see you gone in the process. ” He smirked. “I’d never get that cat out of my house.”

  She blinked rapidly and then grinned. “I’ll be careful.”

  “You’re not being careful enough.”

  It was hard to describe the feeling in the pit of her stomach that just knew her father’s accident wasn’t an accident. That instinct told her Sanders and his high ambitions for the company and his impatience made him take the risk. That there was opportunity and motive and a crime scene and she was searching for that final piece that would put it all together.

  She waved her hand in the air, brushing away the thoughts and changing the subject. “Where is Bonehead?”

  They looked around for him, but in that small apartment, there were only a few places to hide.

  Beau gave up after a few minutes. “He couldn’t have gone out the door. It’s been closed the whole time.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s a cat thing.” She shrugged. “He’ll come out in a day or two.”

  Beau’s face cringed. “You see? It’s starting already. You mean I’m stuck with him?”

  “He thinks I moved again. He hates moving. He’ll hide for a day or two and then come out when he’s hungry and realizes there’s not a dog or a Godzilla here to eat him.”

  “Good thing I left my Godzilla in Virginia.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When they got out into the lot, Sanders’ car was gone. She asked Beau how he got it. It was confidential, but he admitted he asked to borrow it. “I wanted you to follow me.”

  As they approached her car in the daylight, she cringed. They left the apartment complex in Beau’s black car. He nagged her until she relented in letting him take her to a car repair place. He said he knew a guy who knew a lot about cars and they went to talk to him about a towing and repairs. The guy knew cars, and he wasn’t charging and arm and a leg. Just the leg. She made him promise only to do operational repairs and to nix anything that was cosmetic.

  After they left and were on the road again, she said, “I still can’t afford it. He’ll be mad when I can’t pay him.”

  “Your father was a big time business owner, and leaves you a huge house in debt with no money? Why don’t you just sell the house?”

  She sunk into the passenger seat. “I worried about losing evidence.”

  “Oh. Well, didn’t he have insurance?”

  “He was in debt, and the house was under mortgage. It takes all my money just to keep the payments up. It’s more than I can afford.”

  “How does a business owner for a company as big as your father’s not have any money to give to his daughter?”

  She shrugged. “You’d have to ask Mr. Chandler. He was his accountant. And Warren helped, too, putting together financial documents and keeping an eye on the reports.” She played with a fringe unraveling on her jeans. “After the funeral, Mr. Chandler told me what it would take to keep the house, that my father had meant to put money away but it was always later. Mr. Chandler said it was his spending on antiques and being really nice to clients and other things. Small bills make big debt.” She mimicked Mr. Chandler, and while she wanted to laugh, she couldn’t. It was true what he said. Her father did spend a lot of money on clients, doing big parties and donating to the Historical Society, not to mention his antique collection. “I never imagined he was out of money. I didn’t know until we went over the accounts when he died. Warren then said if I was insistent on keeping the house, I had to be the one to pay for it.” I reached over, poking him in the arm. “You’re Mr. Detective. Shouldn’t you know all this stuff?”

  “I’m a private investigator. Not Batman. I don’t know everything.”

  When they got to Kiawah, she waved to the security guard, who gave Beau a pass. She unbuckled and jumped out of the car when he stopped the car outside of the garage.

  “He closed his car door and put his hands on his hips, looking around. “It’s a huge house.”

  “The more you have, the more you have to take care of.”

  “How do we get in?”

  She instinctively reached into her pocket and then stopped. “I forgot. I had the locks changed. Can I borrow your cell phone?”

  He handed it to her, and after a quick call, the folks at Rose’s Hardware said keys were left under a seashell on the back porch. She found a set of three keys on a keychain, plus a receipt and a note from Jack telling her what he had done.

  “Nice service,” Beau said. He took the keys from her and tested the lock at the back door. It opened smoothly. “You’ll have to give me their number.”

  They went in through the back door. She stepped inside and took a peek around the living room and front rooms while Beau checked the kitchen and pantry. She met up with him in the hallway.

  “Where’s the dead animal you mentioned?”

  “It’s in the trash bin in the front.”

  “I’m going to look around. You shower. Check the closets before you do. Scream if you see the boogeyman.”

  “Yessir.” She saluted him and ran up the back steps. To anyone else, it might sound like he was giving her orders. It didn’t feel at all like that. She hadn’t been with anyone who so easily knew what she needed and didn’t dawdle with worrying about if he might hurt her feelings. That was not something she was used to. Most guys she did know seemed to think she would break if they told her no or suggest she do something. Like they had to do whatever she said. Yes men. She appreciated that Beau treated her like she was normal. It was comfortable. She liked how that felt.

  She checked the closets. Everything looked the same, and there was no boogeyman. She showered and dug in her dresser drawers for a pair of jeans and a Superman t-shirt. She looked around her bedroom, feeling strange to be back, and yet feeling uncomfortable that someone could have been there. If she were truly honest with herself, she would admit she hadn’t felt the same since her father died. Even if she had moved out on her own at 18, the place had still felt like home when he was alive. Now, it was a shell. A burden. Only she couldn’t let go of it. It was too important. And now someone was watching the house. A shiver slipped up her back.

  Back down in the kitchen, she caught Beau checking inside the cabinets. “I was looking for cat food to take back for Bonehead,” he said.

  She went for the pantry, putting the cat food into an empty grocery bag. “He clawed a hole in it, so be careful if you are pouring it.”

  He took the bag from her. “Why don’t stay at my place for a few nights? It wasn’t too bad, was it? A few changed locks won’t deter someone who kills animals like that for long. Besides, Bonehead might come out of hiding if you’re around.”

  She was secretly hoping for the excuse to stay with him more. Whoever was dropping off dead animals and following her at night was doing a good job of creeping her out. And with Beau she had a lot to learn. He was a private investigator after all. “I have a friend on Folly. She’d let me stay there… But her apartment is really small and doesn’t allow pets. And she talks too much.”

  “I can’t sleep when someone’s talking to me. “

  “I can’t either.”

  He nodded. “Go grab a few things.”

  She packed clothes and bathroom supplies into a small rolling suitcase. She looked around for a moment, and then ran upstairs to her dad’s office to check for anything important and blinked at the desk. Something was missing and she couldn’t place it. Then sheI remembered the files that Warren had given her. Did she misplace them? After a minute of searching, she couldn’t locate them.

  Beau hung up his cell phone. “I’ve got to meet with another client around noon. But I’m hungry. Want some breakfast?”

  “I think someone took some files from my dad’s office.”

  “What files?”

  “Warren gave me a bunch having to do with my father’s estate and some business things. They’re gone.”

  Beau followed her up the back stairs and he looked over the office. Celeste looked again, but the files were certainly gone.

  “It’s the only file missing?”

  “I think so. There’s some old documents in his desk still but they weren’t important. Mr. Chandler went through most of them.”

  He rubbed a palm over his forehead. “I don’t even know where to begin to think.”

  “I need breakfast to think.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  She smiled. “I know where to get a good cappuccino chocolate chip muffin.”

  “... A what?”

  They left Kiawah and she directed him to Folly Beach and to the Lost Dog Cafe. It was slightly off the main strip of Folly Beach, sitting next to a water garden park by the library. A few late lunch stragglers sat at heavy iron tables outside the cafe. One woman held a pug dog in her lap while she thumbed through a Redbook magazine.

  The cafe had a black and white checkerboard floor, a wall of booths and a few tables matching the outside iron sets. A box of dog biscuits sat near the door on a side table, and a little girl scooped one out to take outside to give to the lady with the pug.

  Celeste recognized some of the people lingering at the booths and tables: the hardware shop owner lady in her overalls and boots, one of the hotel’s bar waitresses in heavy sunglasses and sipping coffee. She scanned for a mousy haired girl with violet contact lenses and wearing some type of pagan symbol on a t-shirt.

  “Hey, hussy.” She recognized the voice and turned around to see Kris tucking a brown tray under her arm. She headed behind the counter, ignoring everyone else in line to lean over and chat with them. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing a commercial or have a news interview or something?” She was wearing a black t-shirt with some symbol that probably represented Zeus or Catholic saints or a World of Warcraft something or other. When she realized that Beau was with me, her smile went all weird like she caught Celeste in an affair.