Scene Of The Crime: The Deputy's Proof

Minutes later, as she stood beneath the shower spray, her thoughts turned to Josh Griffin. Before Shelly’s death, she’d thought him one of the most handsome, hot single men in town.

He’d only grown more handsome in the past two years. As he’d sat at the table the night before, she couldn’t help but notice on some level how his dark hair enhanced the crystal blue of his eyes.

It had been impossible not to notice how his broad shoulders had filled out his khaki deputy shirt and that he’d smelled of spicy cologne that had stirred her senses on some primal level.

She didn’t want to like Josh Griffin. As far as she was concerned, he was just part of the law enforcement in town that had botched her sister’s murder case. And now he was going to ruin the only thing that made her feel just a little bit alive.

She dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a light blue T-shirt and then made a pot of coffee. The silence of the house was comfortable to her. When she and Mac had shared the house, there had always been shouting and cursing. Now the silence was like an old familiar friend.

Mac had been one of the loudest voices proclaiming the guilt of Bo McBride in Shelly’s murder. But he’d always thought Bo wasn’t good enough for her. Sometimes Savannah wondered about her brother...but she never allowed the perverse thought to take hold.

She sat at the table to drink her coffee and stared out the window that gave her not only a view of her own backyard but also a partial view of her neighbor’s.

Jeffrey Allen was out there now, weeding a flower bed, his bald head covered against the July sun by a large straw hat. Jeffrey wasn’t a pleasant man. In his midfifties, he worked as a mechanic at the local car repair shop and for the past five years or so had had a contentious relationship with the Sinclair family.

She only hoped he finished his lawn work before Josh arrived to check out the tunnel. The last thing she wanted to do was give Jeffrey any ammunition to work with to get her out of this house.

He’d made it clear that he wanted to buy her house for some of his family members to move into, but Savannah had no plans ever to sell.

By eleven forty-five, Jeffrey had disappeared from his yard and gone back into his house, and a nervous energy flooded through Savannah’s veins. Within a few minutes, Josh would arrive and destroy the one thing that had kept Shelly relevant beyond her death.

Savannah was still seated at the kitchen table when Josh appeared at the back door. She wanted to pretend he wasn’t there, ignore the soft knock he delivered, but she knew he wasn’t going to just go away, especially since he could see her through the window.

Reluctantly she got up to let him inside. Josh worked the night shift, like Savannah, and so instead of his uniform, he was clad in a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt.

With his slightly unruly black hair and his usual sexy grin curving sensual lips, he looked like the proverbial irresistible bad boy. He was a bad boy. He was about to rock her world in a very adverse way.

“Good afternoon,” he said when she opened the door.

“Not particularly,” she replied, embracing the alien emotion of the anger she’d awakened with. It felt so fresh, so different from the pervasive grief that had possessed her for so long. “It would be a good day if you’d kept your nose out of my business.”

He frowned, the expression doing nothing to distract from his handsome, chiseled features. “Savannah, I’m not the enemy here.”

Yes, he was. He just didn’t realize it yet. Right now he was the beginning of the end of her world. With even Shelly’s ghost gone, Savannah didn’t know who she was or where she belonged.

“Let’s just get this over with,” she replied. She noticed that he carried a high-beam flashlight, and she walked to the cabinet under the kitchen sink and grabbed a flashlight for herself.

As she followed Josh out the back door, she hoped his shoulders got stuck in the hole, then realized he would probably somehow manage to get out anyway and bring in that backhoe he’d talked about the night before.

She just had to come to terms with the fact that he was about to discover not just her secret, but a secret that had been hidden from the entire town for who knew how long.

As they reached the bush, she stepped in front of him and caught a scent of the sexy cologne she’d noticed the night before. It only aggravated her more. “I’ll go first,” she said and bent down to shove aside the branches to reveal the hole.

She used the narrow earthen steps to go down. “Okay, your turn,” she said and moved away so that he could drop in.

He didn’t use the steps but landed gracefully on the ground. Apparently a three-foot drop wasn’t a big deal for a tall man with long legs.

He clicked on his flashlight and shone it straight ahead. “Wow, who would have thought?” he exclaimed in shock.

From this vantage point, the other passageway entrances weren’t visible. “See, it’s safe as can be,” she said. “The earth is hard-packed and solid.”

He shone his light beyond her. “I want you to take me to where you come up to do your nightly walks by the swamp.”

This was what she’d been hoping to avoid, but she knew there was no way to stop him. “Follow me,” she said in resignation. It would take only about three minutes for him to know that “her” tunnel wasn’t the only one down here.

“Did it ever occur to you that the person who murdered Shelly might have used this tunnel to escape the scene of the crime?” he asked after only a step or two.

“You mean the murderer you all never caught?” The anger was back. She stopped and turned to face him, her light shining in his eyes.

He winced. “You don’t believe that Bo McBride was responsible?”

“No, even though nearly everyone else in town, including all of you lawmen, believed him guilty. I never believed in my heart that he’d hurt Shelly. He loved her more than he loved himself.”

“Did you know he’s back in town to stay?” Josh asked. “And turn that light away,” he added with an edge of irritation.

She lowered the beam to the center of his chest. “He’s been back for over a month. I know he’s living with Claire Silver because the creepy stalker that was after her burned Bo’s family house down. I also know he and Claire are trying to find the truth about who murdered Shelly. When he chased me that night, I already suspected he was back in Lost Lagoon to stay.”

“Look, I’m not down in this dungeon to reinvestigate your sister’s murder. I’m sorry how things turned out and that nobody was ever arrested, but that’s not why we’re down here.”

“You were the one who brought it up,” she replied.

Suddenly she just wanted to get this over with, get back into her silent house where she lived with just memories of the family who had once filled the quiet with life.

She turned around and continued walking, and when she came to the first passageway that shot off the main tunnel, she heard Josh gasp in surprise.

“I thought you said this was just one tunnel, from your backyard directly to the edge of the swamp.” He shone his light down the new tunnel.

Once again she turned to face him. “I lied. There are tons of tunnels down here. I think they run under the entire town, and now that you know that, everything is going to be ruined for me. You’ll feel obligated to tell somebody, and word will get out, and there will be tons of people down here exploring everywhere.”

To her horror, she burst into tears...the first tears she had shed since the day they had buried her sister.

* * *

JOSH WASN’T SURE what shocked him more, the discovery of the other tunnels or Savannah’s unexpected tears. No, they weren’t just simple tears. She leaned against the earthen wall and sobbed as if her heart was breaking.

“Savannah,” he said softly, and he touched her arm. She jerked away and cried harder. “Savannah, please don’t cry.” Not knowing what to do, unaccustomed to sobbing females, he tucked his flashlight into the back of the waist of his pants and pulled her into his arms.

She stiffened against him and then melted into him, crying into the hollow of his throat. Although she was tall, she felt small and fragile in his arms. Her hair smelled of wildflowers, and she fit neatly against him.

It lasted only a couple of heartbeats, and then she twirled out of his embrace and swiped at her tears as if angry at herself for the display of emotion. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

She faced him, the eerie illumination of their flashlights casting dancing shadows on her features. “You just have no idea what you’re taking away from me.”

“Why don’t we continue on, and we can talk about it all when we’re above ground again,” he suggested and pulled his flashlight out of his waistband.

She nodded and turned to lead the way once again. Josh tried to keep pace with her, but he slowed each time he passed yet another tunnel that branched off the one they followed. And there were plenty of branches.

Throughout the walk, he could tell they were descending, although it was impossible to tell just how deep they were beneath the ground.