Heat flooded my face. “We’re investigating a murder.”
“We’re always investigating something. Doesn’t mean you have to die a nun.” Dottie’s eyes, magnified behind her cat-eye glasses, were entirely too knowing. “The man looks at you like you’re water and he’s been wandering the desert for forty days. It’s actually painful to watch—all that want with nowhere to go.”
“Leave her alone,” Hank said, though his eyes crinkled with amusement in the rearview mirror. “Not everyone moves at your speed, Dottie.”
“My speed got results. You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Because you told me my beef bourguignon was adequate and then invited yourself over the following Tuesday to see if I could do better with coq au vin.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
I pressed my fingers against my mouth, trying not to laugh. They were terrible together in the best possible way—sharp edges that somehow fit.
“Dash is…” I started, then stopped, unsure how to finish.
“Waiting,” Dottie supplied. “Very patiently, I might add. But patience runs out, honey. Even for sheriffs with sad eyes who look like they stepped out of a film noir.”
“I haven’t noticed?—”
“Liar.” Dottie turned back around, studying me in the visor mirror. “You’ve known him five weeks now. Long enough to know if you can see yourself spending your life with him. Either you can or you can’t. Sitting in the middle just wastes everyone’s time.”
The question landed with unexpected weight. Could I see myself spending my life with Dash Beckett? The thought should have terrified me—it had only been five weeks, barely enough time to know someone’s coffee order, let alone their soul. But the problem wasn’t whether I could imagine it. The problem was that I could imagine it too easily, and that scared me more than not being able to imagine it at all.
“He keeps things close,” I said finally. “His past, why he really left undercover work, what he’s running from—because he’s definitely running from something. I can see it in the way he watches doors, the way he goes quiet sometimes like he’s somewhere else entirely. And I don’t know if he’ll ever trust me enough to let me in.”
“So you’re worried he’s got secrets,” Dottie said.
“Everyone has secrets. But his feel…bigger. More dangerous. The kind that might matter.”
“Then ask him,” Hank said simply. “Straight out. No dancing around it. You want to know who he is beneath the badge, you ask him to tell you.”
The landscape had begun to shift as we approached Beaufort—marsh giving way to neighborhoods, then to the historic downtown with its antebellum architecture and tree-lined streets. Live oaks created tunnels of shade that dropped the temperature ten degrees, their branches arching over brick sidewalks and wrought-iron balconies. Beaufort had the unhurried elegance of old money that didn’t need to announce itself, gardens tended by the same families for generations, history preserved in every careful detail.
Bay Street was busier than expected for a Tuesday afternoon—tourists browsing shop windows, locals running errands, the steady flow of people that kept small downtown districts alive.
“There’s the hardware store,” Hank said, slowing as we approached a brick storefront with cheerful red lettering. “But good Lord, look at this parking situation. There’s not a spot anywhere.”
He was right—every space along Bay Street was occupied, cars parked bumper-to-bumper along the entire block.
“Drop us off in front,” Dottie suggested, already gathering her purse. “You can find parking and meet us inside. No sense in all of us circling like vultures.”
“You sure?” Hank asked, but he was already pulling up to the curb.
“We’ll be fine,” I assured him, tucking Frank Holloway’s folder—the one containing all our questions—into my handbag. “Two harmless ladies asking questions about old times. What could possibly go wrong?”
“That’s what people say right before things go spectacularly wrong,” Hank muttered, but he was unlocking the doors.
Dottie leaned over and kissed his cheek—quick, casual, the kind of gesture that spoke of intimacy and comfort rather than passion. “We’ll be careful. Find a good spot for the Buick. You know how you get when someone parks too close to your doors.”
“That’s because people don’t understand the concept of personal space,” Hank said, but there was affection in his mock indignation.
We climbed out onto the brick sidewalk, and I watched Hank’s powder-blue Buick disappear around the corner, still searching for that elusive perfect parking space. The afternoon had turned warm—not quite oppressive, but enough to make me grateful for the shade of the storefront awning.
“Ready?” Dottie asked, squaring her shoulders like a general preparing for battle.
“Yep,” I said. “Cool as a cucumber. That’s me.”
The bell above the door chimed as we entered—one of those old-fashioned shopkeeper’s bells that announced customers with cheerful authority. The interior of Holloway’s Hardware smelled like sawdust and motor oil, metal and paint thinner, WD-40 and possibility. All the scents of creation and repair mixed into something oddly comforting, like stepping into a place where broken things could still be fixed if you had the right tools and knew how to use them.
