Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk #3) - Samantha Young Page 0,105

him with it. Just as Ian and Rosalie Devlin would have to bury their goddamn son.

Murder.

It was in my thoughts almost constantly.

Murder had rocked our quiet seaside town.

No one much liked Stu Devlin. I detested him for attacking Bailey and getting away with it. But he’d deserved jail time—not two bullets in his chest.

As I worked away at a hammered silver bowl I was making for Old Archie to give to his woman Anita, I longed for music to drown out my morbid thoughts. Instead, I tried to concentrate on the bowl. Old Archie had been a regular at Cooper’s for as long as I could remember. That was until almost two years ago when his “lady friend” Anita was diagnosed with a spinal tumor. He got sober for her and had been helping her through what we all assumed would be her final months.

To everyone’s happy shock, Anita was in remission. She’d spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, but she would live. Archie had seen Anita eyeing one of my handmade silver bowls a while back, and their anniversary was coming up, so he’d commissioned one for her.

I wished it would take my mind off Stu Devlin’s death and Freddie Jackson’s subsequent disappearance, but it couldn’t.

Michael had called to tell me about Stu’s murder, knowing it would be all over Hartwell soon enough. He’d been abrupt on the phone. I worried about him. While everyone huddled together in groups throughout the coming days, talking in whispers whenever they saw one of the Devlins out and about, Michael was hunting Freddie Jackson.

Two days after the news broke, I’d been working in my workshop when Michael stopped by to see me. My music had been blaring like it always was, and it was the first time I’d seen Michael truly angry at me since we’d left Boston.

“There’s a suspected killer on the loose, and your shop door is open while you’re blaring fuckin’ rock music! Does that not seem a little careless to you?” he’d yelled.

It had taken everything within me not to argue back. But he looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and he was only yelling because he was concerned. So I let it go. I promised I wouldn’t listen to my music while I worked until Jackson was found.

To thank me, Michael had given me a quick, hard kiss on the forehead and told me he wouldn’t be around much until he caught Freddie.

I understood that, but it troubled me. I remembered that even as a young cop, Michael had taken so much on himself. There was a whole sheriff’s office out there looking for Freddie, but I knew Michael would feel responsible for catching him.

It had now been seven days since Stu’s murder. Vaughn was shadowing Bailey wherever she went. Cooper hovered over Jess, his sister Cat, and his nephew Joey. No one believed Freddie would deliberately come after anyone, but the murder had freaked us all out. Rumors were flying about Freddie’s connection to the Devlins. We’d all discussed it at Cooper’s. Our favorite theory was that Freddie had done a lot of illegal things for Stu, whom he considered his best friend, and when he’d started getting shifty about Michael’s presence in town, he’d turned to Stu for help. It was possible Stu, the sneaky ass that he had been, had made it clear the Devlins would let Freddie swing in the wind if anything ever came to light about his criminal activities.

But why kill Stu? That was the part that still didn’t make sense.

My Led Zeppelin ringtone blared into the room; I jerked in fright.

Goddamn it.

I was so on edge.

Putting down my tools, I slid off the stool and crossed the room to where I’d left my cell on a cabinet. It was my dad.

“Hey,” I answered. He’d been calling every day since the news of Stu’s murder broke. “Everything okay?”

“I’m okay, Bluebell. I … uh … I wondered if you’d spoken to Mike lately?”

I frowned. “No. He’s out looking for Freddie.”

“Well, I … uh … look, I know things are complicated between the two of you but I just got off the phone with him, and he doesn’t sound so great.”

Surprised, I took a moment to process everything about that sentence. “You talked with Michael?”

“Yeah.”

“How much do you talk to him?”

“Dahlia,” he said, sighing. “We don’t talk about you. Much. And when we do, it’s never about whatever is going on with you two. I just … he doesn’t