An Inarticulate Sea Read online

  An Inarticulate Sea

  Tamsen Schultz

  EverAfter Romance

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, New York 10016

  www.EverAfterRomance.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Tamsen Schultz

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Cover Design by Sian Foulkes

  Edited by Julie Molinari

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  Inquiries about additional permissions should be directed to:[email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First EverAfter Romance edition March 2017.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63576-039-2

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63576-257-0

  I’ve decided not to dedicate this book to any one person, but rather to life itself, and all the ups and downs—or potential plots, as we writers like to call them—it brings me.

  Chapter One

  “It should be you,” Carly Drummond said to her partner, Marcus Brown, as they climbed out of their newly issued police SUV.

  “Actually, it should be Ian,” Marcus countered calmly. He was right, of course. But his logic did nothing to assuage her agitation, as unfounded as it might be.

  Roughly, she zipped her jacket against the chill of the fall morning and started toward the door of her friend’s home.

  It had been just over a year since Marcus had been seriously injured in a near-fatal incident. And twelve months since Carly had been appointed to his former position of deputy chief of police. Three months ago, after being deemed fit for duty, Marcus had come back to work. Two months ago, she had requested that Vic Ballard, Windsor’s chief of police, reinstate Marcus as deputy chief of police, but he’d refused and, much to her irritation, left her in charge. Two days ago, she’d had to miss most of a big fall leaf-peeping party she’d been looking forward to for months—a fundraiser thrown by two of her friends, Kit Forrester and Garret Cantona, to help raise money for one of the orphanages they supported—because, once again, duty had called. And to top it all off, just twenty minutes ago, Carly had received a call from Ian McAllister, the county sheriff and her good friend and mentor, telling her that some of Kit’s lingering houseguests had found a dead body.

  Yes, a dead body.

  The last year had not been easy for her—and this day wasn’t shaping up to be much better.

  As Carly reached Kit and Garret’s front door, Marcus came up alongside her and she paused to scan the area. Technically, the house was in county territory, so Marcus was right in that Ian, as sheriff, should be the one leading the investigation. But he’d been tied up with a multi-car accident in the southern-most part of the county, so he’d called in a favor—a favor she couldn’t have turned down even if she’d wanted to.

  “It will be fine,” Marcus said.

  “Says the man who has significantly more experience than I have,” she retorted as she rang the bell.

  She wasn’t actually too concerned about whatever would come next; she was good at her job, had a solid—if small—team, and decent relationships with the assisting agencies. But she was tired—not physically, but mentally—from the last year.

  “I’ve been out of the game for over a year. If anyone is rusty, it’s me,” Marcus countered.

  Just when she was about to point out that, since he had been an MP before becoming a police officer, he still had her beat when it came to the number of investigations he’d been a part of, the door swung open to reveal a striking blonde woman whom Carly recognized from the fundraiser. But because she hadn’t been able to stay very long, she hadn’t been introduced to any of the guests, including this one.

  “I’m Carly Drummond, Deputy Chief of Police,” she said, holding out her hand.

  The woman smiled then opened the door wider. “Dani Fuller, please call me Dani,” she replied, then added, “I think you knew already that Kit and Garret left for Rwanda yesterday.” She tried extending her hand somewhat out to the side to accommodate her exceptionally large, rounded belly. Something resembling shock must have shown in Carly’s expression because Dani laughed. “I’m having twins, I’m actually only six months along, so you don’t have to worry about me going into labor any minute, despite appearances to the contrary.”

  Only moments into the investigation and already she’d lost her “cop face.” Taking a deep breath, Carly pulled on her metaphorical “big girl panties” and straightened her shoulders.

  “Congratulations,” she said. “This is Officer Marcus Brown. Dispatch reported a call about a possible body?”

  “There’s no ‘possible’ about it,” came a voice from behind Dani. A voice Carly remembered more easily than she ought to. This Monday morning just keeps getting better, she thought.

  Drew Carmichael’s tall, lean frame appeared behind Dani’s shoulders. He was tugging on leather gloves while his knee-length black jacket hung open, revealing a button-down shirt that was just about the same blue as his eyes and a pair of dark gray wool slacks. She’d met him a handful of times before: four or five times while investigating an attack on Kit that had happened outside Carly’s old apartment, and then again, several months later in New York City, when she and Kit had gone out for a girls’ night and run into him out on a date.

  Hailing from a wealthy family that ran several businesses out of a New York City headquarters, Drew was a man who wore his wealth and power as comfortably as an old pair of jeans—although he didn’t seem like the type who would actually wear an old pair of jeans.

  But despite his sophistication, he had an odd sort of edge Carly hadn’t quite figured out. Back when Kit had been assaulted, he’d inserted himself into the investigation like he’d had every right to be there. That alone wasn’t a surprise, given his personality, but what had surprised her was that he’d seemed to know what he was talking about. And she had yet to puzzle out why a businessman from New York would have understood the intricacies of a criminal investigation.

  “Deputy Chief Drummond.” As he spoke, he gave a curt nod in her direction; then his eyes darted to Marcus.

  “Mr. Carmichael.” Carly responded with her own nod. “This is Officer Marcus Brown. I assume you’re the one who called it in?” A fact that didn’t bode well. Before knowing Drew was involved, she’d held some hope that the “body” would turn out to be nothing more than an animal decomposed beyond easy recognition. Now, that thin thread of hope vanished, because if there was one thing she’d learned from her interactions with Drew, it was that if he bothered to make an assertion, it was only because it was true.

  “Call me Drew,” he all but ordered. He’d issued the same command several times before, but so far, she hadn’t quite brought herself to follow it. “And no, it wasn’t me. It was Ty, Dani’s husband, who called. He and I were out for a morning walk when we saw her. He stayed with the body; I came back to show you the way.”

  Her eyes bounced to Dani, who seemed concerned about the situa
tion, but surprisingly calm at the fact that her husband was out somewhere sitting with a dead body. Carly had a moment’s reflection on the fact that Kit had some interesting friends.

  Dani smiled. “My husband was a Navy SEAL and also a detective with Portland Vice for several years. While finding a body on a hike, especially here in Windsor, isn’t exactly what he would have expected from his morning, he’s not going to fall apart—and he also won’t contaminate your scene.” She added the last part with a small emphasis.

  Carly felt a flush of embarrassment because contamination of her crime scene was exactly what she’d been worried about, and it hadn’t been very charitable of her to be thinking that way. As a human being, she should have been at least a little concerned about Ty Fuller and his state of mind. Internally, she sighed.

  “Thank you,” she said to Dani before turning her gaze back to Drew, who was watching her with a look of patience that, to her mind, bordered on condescension. “Can you give us a rough idea of where the body is? The medical examiner will be coming along soon, as will the state police, and we’ll need to give them a location.”

  “We followed that path there,” he said, still standing behind Dani in the open doorway as he pointed to a trail that led east, away from Kit’s driveway. “I didn’t have my GPS, so I can’t give you a specific location, but we found her not far from a dirt road about twenty to twenty-five minutes up that trail.”

  Carly turned to Marcus. “Churchkill Road, do you think?”

  Marcus’s eyes went to the path and, after a moment, he nodded. “Probably. Lancaster Road is the main road that goes back into those hills, but Churchkill forks off and follows the ridge when Lancaster turns east. I’m pretty sure the fork happens before that trail comes out,” he said.

  “Were there any distinguishing landmarks on the road that you can remember?” Carly asked Drew.

  He seemed to give the question some consideration before answering. “There weren’t any houses nearby, but when I made my way to the road there was a bend not far to the north of the trail, and from there I could see a farm down in the valley. It had a large yellowish house and two big brown barns.”

  “The Kirby place,” she confirmed. The Kirby family had been providing local beef to the Hudson Valley for generations; their farm was well known.

  “Churchkill Road it is,” Marcus said.

  “Why don’t you take the SUV and wait down where County 17 meets Lancaster Road?” she asked Marcus. “When the State Patrol and Vivi get there, you can lead them up Lancaster to Churchkill. By then, I should have reached the site and will be able to give an exact location.”

  Marcus agreed and she handed him the keys.

  “Is it just this trail here I should take, Mr. Carmichael, or did you turn off at any point?” Carly gestured to the path that clearly started between two trees but was quickly engulfed in forest and greenery.

  “Call me Drew. And I’ll show you the way. As for you,” he said, stepping through the doorway and turning to Dani. “You need to lie down and put your feet up. Ty will have my head if he finds out you’ve been running around while he’s been gone.”

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” Dani retorted with a grin.

  Drew let out a long-suffering sigh. “Dani.”

  Dani let out her own sigh. “Fine, Dad,” she said with obvious sarcasm. Then she turned to Carly and Marcus. “It was nice to meet you, Deputy Chief Drummond, Officer Brown. I wish it had been under better circumstances.”

  Carly smiled, somewhat intrigued by the interchange between these two guests of Kit’s. Their age difference didn’t appear to be more than a few years, but she hadn’t missed the paternal tone of concern in Drew’s voice when he’d issued his order to Dani. The obvious and easy affection between the two surprised her since she’d only ever seen him as cool and efficient.

  Brushing the thought away, Carly stepped back to let him pass by, then she and Marcus followed him onto the driveway as Dani shut the door behind them. Her partner veered off to the SUV, as she and Drew continued toward the woods. She paused while Marcus backed out, then lifted a hand to him as he pulled out of the driveway. He answered with a small wave of his own before turning around the side of the house and out of sight, leaving her alone with the enigmatic Drew in the silence of the fall morning.

  She exhaled into the clean, crisp morning air. The fall, with its cool nights and mornings, had settled in like a familiar blanket over the Hudson Valley. And with the drop in temperatures, the trees had turned the colors of fire; the hills were lit with reds, yellows, and brilliant oranges that contrasted sharply against a pale blue sky.

  It was a beautiful day to find a body.

  “Shall we?” he gestured toward the trail.

  Carly nodded and preceded him into the woods without a word. They walked for several minutes in a silence punctuated by the sound of their feet landing on the dry ground and the occasional call of a bird or rustle of an autumn breeze through the dying leaves. As they walked, Carly turned her thoughts to what might lay ahead.

  She hoped what Drew had come upon was simply the result of a tragic accident. Crime in Windsor, with a few exceptions, was primarily made up of thefts or an occasional assault. Even so, she harbored no illusions about the Hudson Valley. Crime happened everywhere, even amongst the rolling hills and hay fields of her county. Still, she wanted to believe that the people she served and protected wouldn’t violate their own community by committing murder. At least she hoped they wouldn’t.

  With this thought in mind, she took a deep breath, inhaling the comforting scents of fall as they began to climb the slight slope toward the ridge of the hill. It did not escape her notice that, even in hoping for the best, “the best” would still be a dead body.

  “Churchkill?” Drew asked from behind her.

  Coming seemingly out of nowhere, his word interrupted her thoughts and she wondered if she’d missed something he’d said earlier. When she paused and turned toward him to ask, she caught him by surprise. He nearly walked into her, but pulled up abruptly and stopped just short; then he stepped back a few inches to put some space between them.

  “Churchkill,” he repeated, presumably at her questioning look. “It’s an unusual name, but I’ve noticed a lot of towns and roads in this area have the word ‘kill’ in them. I know there were a lot of revolutionaries around here back in the 1700s, but they couldn’t have been that bloodthirsty.”

  That actually made Carly smile: his certainty in the morals of their founding fathers. She shook her head as she turned around and started walking up the trail again.

  “No, they weren’t. Or not any more so than they needed to be, I would imagine. Before the revolution, in the early 1700s, the area was settled heavily by the Dutch.” As she spoke, the trail started a brief but steep ascent. Vain as she was, she tipped her hat to Murphy and his laws and accepted that she was going to be huffing and puffing as she talked. She’d either sound like a phone-sex operator or an out-of-shape cop, and after a fleeting moment’s consideration, she thought it would be significantly more embarrassing to be thought of as the latter.

  “And?” he prompted.

  “The word ‘kill’ is the equivalent of ‘creek’ in Dutch, or in the Dutch language of the time.” She unzipped her jacket then tucked an errant curl behind her ear as they continued. Thankfully, she could see the end of the rise ahead and she knew it would level out after that. “Churchkill Road ends at the Kirby farm now, but back in the day, it continued on and into one of the local hamlets. There’s a church there, and at the edge of the church’s property is a creek. It’s a popular swimming and picnicking area today—and it was back then too.”

  “And because the road was the road that took people to the church creek, it became Churchkill Road,” he concluded.

  “Most likely, yes,” she agreed.

  “And you said the church is still there?” he asked as they started down the now-level path.

  “It is. The whole ha
mlet is still there, but you can’t reach it from this side anymore. There’s a county road, a paved one, that will take you to it now.”

  They walked another minute in silence before he surprised her with another question.

  “You love this area, don’t you?”

  Again, Carly came to a halt—this time at the personal nature of the question—and turned around. From where they stood, she could see the gentle roll of the hills, green fields cut out of the woods, and trees rioting with color.

  She must have paused long enough because, beside her, Drew turned too.

  “What’s not to love?” she asked, not bothering to hide the wistfulness in her voice. Dotted with old farms and new gardens, the county stretched out before them, peaceful and inviting. She could see the old clock tower in town peeking through the trees miles away. In a few hours, she knew she’d hear the siren at the volunteer fire department echoing through the valley as it did every day at noon. The Kirby farm produced fresh local beef, the Zucchini Patch the most sought after fruits and vegetables, and, this time of year, The Apple Barn had apple cider donuts that were, well, not quite worth killing for, but definitely worth the thirty-minute drive. It was a place so achingly beautiful in so many ways—a place that felt very nearly enchanted at times—that she still had a difficult time absorbing the fact that she lived there. That she was a part of it.

  And, as if to give voice to that difficulty, a familiar, uncomfortable feeling began to creep into her mind as she stood there taking it all in. Her chest began to tighten and her heartbeat thudded in her ears as the old recognizable panic set in, reminding her that no matter how much she felt like she belonged there, it could all be taken from her in an instant.

  Abruptly, she turned and started back up the trail.

  “It is lovely,” Drew said, as he followed her.

  Carly let out a little breath. “Yes, it is,” she agreed, because that was what he would expect her to say.