The Detective's Secret Daughter

The Detective’s

Secret Daughter

Rachelle McCalla

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Then you will know the truth,

and the truth will set you free.

—John 8:32

To Shirlee, Valerie, Stephanie, Lynette and Terri—my fellow continuity writers—and to Emily Rodmell, the amazing editor who helped us sort through it all. You ladies rock! I wish we could all meet for coffee and pastries at the Sugar Plum Café in Fitzgerald Bay.

Acknowledgment

I didn’t invent these characters. Long before I was introduced to Victoria Evans and her daughter, Paige, or Owen or the rest of the Fitzgeralds, people I’d never met had already wrestled over who these characters should be and where their journeys should take them. Then, in an enormous feat of trust and courage, they handed them off to me, and entrusted me with bringing them to life. To all those who worked together to make the 2012 LIS continuity the series it is, I offer my deepest gratitude and humblest thanks. It is an honor to be a part of these books.

ONE

A police cruiser tore up Main Street in Fitzgerald Bay, lights flashing.

Victoria Evans glanced back over her shoulder from the doorway of the Hennessy Law Office. Who was in trouble now? She half expected the patrol car to stop in front of the police station, but it skidded to a halt on the other side of the street, and a uniformed officer leaped out, running toward the Sugar Plum Café and Inn.

“My shop!” Victoria turned to face Cooper Hennessy, handing off the frosted cookies she’d walked up the street to deliver. “Paige is in there.”

“You’d better check it out.”

Immediately afraid for her nine-year-old daughter’s safety, Victoria didn’t need any urging. She leaped from the stoop and sprinted down the street, reaching her front door just as the police officer, who’d darted around the side of the building, circled back to the front.

Victoria reached for the door handle the same instant he did. Gloved fingers brushed her hands. She looked up past the broad shoulders to close-cropped brown hair. The handsome face turned toward her with eyes as blue as the Massachusetts sky. She knew those eyes too well.

“You can’t go in there,” he warned.

Her heart plummeted to her stomach. “But my daughter—”

“She’s okay. She called 911. I don’t want you contaminating the crime scene. Wait here.” He turned away and rushed inside, leaving Victoria on the porch.

Tumultuous emotions broke like waves inside her heart. She’d already had a crime scene at the Sugar Plum Café and Inn a few weeks before—an ugly break-in that had caused expensive damages. Fortunately no one had been seriously hurt.

What now? Was Paige really okay? Victoria prayed again for her daughter’s safety. Having lost her own mother and father years before, Victoria had no family left besides Paige, and the little girl was dearer to her heart than anyone. She had to force herself to follow the officer’s instructions not to go inside.

It didn’t help who the officer was.

Owen Fitzgerald.

Of all the officers on the Fitzgerald Bay Police Department, why did Owen have to come?

“Mommy!” Blond braids bounced as Paige threw herself through the front door.

“Paige!” Victoria scooped her daughter into her arms, holding her tight for one long moment before looking her over to make sure she hadn’t been hurt. “Thank God you’re okay.” After the horrible incidents of late, especially after that mysterious murder in January, she was relieved to find her daughter unharmed. “What happened?”

Owen’s deep voice answered behind her. “A break-in and robbery. Your safe was punched.”

“What?”

Owen led her back through the inn to the kitchen. “Basically your perp knocked the dial off with a hammer, placed a punch over the central hub and rapped on the tumblers. The tumblers disengaged and he opened the door. A newer safe will lock up if anybody attempts to punch it, but these antiques don’t have that feature.” He pointed across the room to where the Sugar Plum Café’s antique floor safe sat gaping open, empty.

“I’ve been robbed?” Victoria stared at the safe. “I was only gone a couple of minutes. I’d just taken a platter of cookies over to the Hennessy Law Office—barely a block away.”

Owen crouched on level with Paige. “Did you see the robber?”

Paige nodded.

“Can you tell me what you saw?”

Victoria’s first instinct was to shield Paige from questions. She didn’t want her daughter distressed any more than she already was, and she especially didn’t want her talking to Owen. He might recognize the family resemblance and realize who Paige was. But Victoria reminded herself that she couldn’t let her personal history with Owen interfere with his investigation of the robbery.

Someone had stolen the entire weekend’s receipts from the Sugar Plum Café and Inn. And since most of her customers paid for their small purchases of coffee, rolls, pastries and cookies with cash, that money would be irretrievable.

Gone.

Just like her business, if things didn’t turn around soon. Fewer folks had been visiting town. And fewer townsfolk venturing out. Partly because of the blustery weather, but mostly due to the ongoing investigation of the murder of Olivia Henry whose body had been found near the Fitzgerald Bay lighthouse in January. Her murder was still unsolved and her murderer still at large. Victoria prayed the case would soon be solved. Olivia deserved justice, and the people of Fitzgerald Bay deserved peace of mind. Hopefully, once the murderer was caught, business would pick up again. With the added burden of repair bills from the recent break-in, Victoria was barely meeting expenses.

The empty safe didn’t help matters.

Paige faced Owen.

Victoria braced herself. Paige had never met her father. Owen didn’t even know he had a daughter. She’d been putting off their reunion the whole six months she’d lived in Fitzgerald Bay, unsure how she could admit the truth to either of them. Granted, part of her reason for returning to Fitzgerald Bay was so she could clear her guilty conscience and finally do the right thing by telling Owen about Paige. But knowing what to do was easier than working up the courage to actually speak the words to the man who was so much more intimidating now, in his crisp police uniform, with his muscular shoulders and intense blue eyes.

Owen and Paige looked at each other in silence for one long moment—a few seconds that stretched to eternity for Victoria as she considered all that hung in the balance between them. Would they recognize each other? Would some innate father-daughter bond speak to them, giving away her secret?

“My mom wanted me to take the cookies with her.” Paige rolled her eyes as she often did when she thought Victoria was being an overprotective mother. “But I already had my pajamas on.” Paige looked down at her fuzzy fleece pointedly.

“So you stayed behind?” Owen clarified.

He didn’t look up at Victoria, but kept his eyes riveted on Paige.

Did he know? Could he tell? Victoria tried to shake off her fears as Paige continued her story.

“I’m nine years old,” she asserted defensively. “I can stay by myself for a couple of minutes.” The words echoed the argument they’d had before Victoria left.

Victoria tensed, watching Owen’s face for any sign that he recognized the significance of Paige’s age. His jaw tensed. His eyes narrowed slightly. Had he made the connection between Paige’s age and their long-ago relationship and realized the truth? Or was he too focused on his investigation? Much as Victoria knew she needed to tell Owen the truth, this was not the way she wanted him to find out he had a daughter.

To her relief, Owen seemed focused on being a good cop. “Everyone in town needs to be a little more careful these days,” he reminded her gently.

Paige blinked, and Victoria felt a shudder ripple up through her as the little girl leaned more solidly into her arms at Owen’s subtle reference to the murderer at large.

Besides being relieved that Owen hadn’t jumped at the mention of Paige’s age, Victoria was impressed with Owen’s perception. She also wanted to set the record straight. “She wasn’t home alone. Charlotte is here, somewhere.” She looked around the kitchen as though expecting the Sugar Plum Café’s hostess to appear any moment. Now where had she gone?

This time Paige didn’t roll her eyes. “I came downstairs because my mom told me she left a cookie for me.” They all looked to the smooth stainless steel countertop, where a cookie sat undisturbed next to a glass of milk. Victoria had written I Love You Paige in frosting across the heart-shaped pastry, accenting it with silver dragées—Paige’s favorite.

“That was nice of your mom,” Owen murmured.

Victoria felt him looking at her. She kept her eyes on the top of Paige’s blond head. She couldn’t meet his eyes—hadn’t met them in almost ten years, afraid he’d see the truth that was screaming to get out.

“I came down the back stairs.” Paige pointed to the service stairway that opened into the kitchen just behind them. “I heard someone at the back door. That was weird, because Mom went out the front door, and I could hear Charlotte laughing in the dining room under my room, so I didn’t know who would be at the back door. It kinda freaked me out and I stopped.”

“Smart girl.” Victoria planted a kiss on top of her daughter’s head, relieved that Paige hadn’t walked in on their robber. What would have happened then?

“I tiptoed down the stairs. I thought it had to be somebody I knew. But then I remembered about Olivia.” Paige’s voice caught. Olivia Henry’s death had shocked their close-knit town, and obviously made an impression on Paige, too.

Olivia had come to Fitzgerald Bay from Ireland three months before her murder, not really knowing anyone in town. Since Olivia had stayed a few weeks at the inn, Paige and Victoria, being fairly new to town themselves, had quickly formed a friendship with Olivia that had lasted even when the young woman had gone to work as a nanny for Charles Fitzgerald, Owen’s older brother, who was a medical doctor in town.

Now a lot of folks in town thought maybe Charles Fitzgerald had murdered Olivia. Whether he’d done it or someone else, no one had been charged with the crime, which meant Olivia’s murderer was still at large, probably living among them, possibly plotting to strike again. The very thought sent a chill through Victoria as Paige continued to tell the story of her encounter with the robber.

“I stood up on the third step.” Paige darted from her mother’s arms to the back steps that led up to their private apartment adjoining the inn. Her stocking-clad feet perched on the step as she demonstrated how she’d stayed out of sight. “I peeked around the corner.”

“Oh, Paige.” Victoria imagined how close her daughter must have come to being seen.

“It’s okay, Mom. He was messing with the safe. He wasn’t looking at me.”

Owen had followed Paige to the doorway and now looked her in the eye as she teetered on the step. “Did you get a good look at him?”

“It was dark. He had his back to me.”

“But it was a man?”

“Yes. He was a big guy. He looked like that man—” Paige looked up at her mom “—the one we’ve seen.”

“Outside the windows?” Victoria finished Paige’s sentence in a fear-filled whisper.

Though her words were almost too quiet to hear, they sure got Owen’s attention in a hurry. “Wait a minute. You’ve seen this guy hanging around outside your windows? And you didn’t call the police?”

Victoria rushed to explain. “It’s only been a few times. At first it was a fleeting shadow—we thought maybe it was a trick of the light in the blowing snow. Then we saw him on the porch. But the Sugar Plum Café and Inn is open to the public. People take their coffee out on the porch all the time.”

“In March?”

“No.” Victoria began to earnestly wish she had called the police. “But I don’t want to chase off customers. He might have been meeting a friend for dinner. It could have been anything. He didn’t seem dangerous.”

Owen stabbed a glance at the gaping safe. “From here on out, let’s assume he’s dangerous.” His expression softened when he turned back to Paige. “Did you notice anything else about him that would help us identify him?”

“He was humming.”

“Humming?” Owen repeated.

“What was he humming? Did you recognize it?” Victoria had been taking Paige to voice lessons for years, first where they’d lived in New York, then here in Fitzgerald Bay. For a nine-year-old, she had an ear for music and could usually pick up a tune after hearing it only a couple of times.

Paige tipped her head a little to the side. “It was kind of hmm-hmm.” She tried a couple of notes and shook her head, obviously not satisfied that she’d gotten it right. “It reminded me of the Irish ballads I’ve been singing with Mrs. Murphy. Kind of like one of those, but not anything I’ve learned yet.”

“Maybe it will come to you later.” Owen pressed on. “What else can you tell us about him? What was he wearing?”

Paige made her thinking face. “A dark jacket and gloves. He broke the safe and took the bag. And then—” her expression twisted and Victoria realized her daughter might be about to cry “—he broke the cookies.”

Scooping her distraught nine-year-old into her arms, Victoria patted Paige’s back while turning to look at the tall cooling rack where she’d left ten dozen frosted cutout cookies. It had taken her most of the evening to decorate them, between darting up front to wait on the last of the evening’s customers and running the register report before tucking the money into the safe. She’d closed at eight—a mere ten minutes ago.

Now the cookies lay smashed all over the floor, clearly stomped upon. Victoria took a step closer to assess the damage.

“Stay back.” Owen raised his hand, and his fingers brushed her sleeve. “There might be a decent footprint. We don’t want to disturb anything.”

Victoria stepped backward, not needing physical contact with her long-ago beau added to her evening’s troubles. Her heart stuttered at the faint touch of his hand. Was it her imagination, or was he even more handsome than he’d been in high school?

“What’s the fuss in here?” Charlotte Newbright’s plump figure entered the room, and she gasped as she stared at the gaping safe, its locking mechanism collapsed in on itself. “We were robbed?”

Owen turned to the older woman. “Have you been in the building for the last ten minutes? You didn’t hear anything or see anyone?”

Charlotte’s dyed red hair in its choppy, gold-streaked cut fluttered as she shook her head. “I was in the northwest dining room, chatting with your brother Douglas and that pretty little Merry of his. Such a darling couple.” With that pronouncement, Charlotte planted her hands on her hips and turned to Victoria. “Everything was in the safe already, wasn’t it, dearie? You ran today’s report just before you left.”

“Yes. The whole weekend’s receipts,” Victoria tried to stifle the deluge of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. “We were too busy for me to make it to the bank Saturday morning. Friday through Sunday were in that safe.”

Owen looked up from his notepad. “You’d already cleared out the cash register, even though Douglas and Merry were still here?”

“Oh, yes.” Charlotte waved her hand, answering for Victoria. “We close at eight on Sundays, you know, and they were the last ones here. When I asked them if they wanted dessert, they knew it was close to closing time, so they paid for their meal before I brought them their pie. Told them to take as long as they needed. Got to talking with them—such sweet folks.”

Victoria realized Charlotte might jabber on infinitely if she wasn’t interrupted. Her friendliness was an asset to the Sugar Plum, especially since Victoria preferred to stay in the kitchen, but the woman didn’t always know when to stop talking. “I’d just totaled out the cash register before I left to take the cookies up the street,” she clarified.

“I see. So all the money was in the safe. Can you tell me what was taken?” Owen asked.

Victoria squeezed her eyes shut. Yup, she could tell him exactly how much, but that didn’t mean she wanted to speak the words out loud, in front of her daughter and Charlotte, who would only worry.

“Let’s get you up to bed, Paige,” Charlotte suggested. “It’s almost bedtime.”

“But my cookie—”

“You can bring it upstairs.”

Paige’s eyes brightened and she consented to going upstairs with Charlotte. Victoria felt a rush of relief, glad Paige was leaving the room before Owen recognized anything of himself in her, or caught on to the significance of her age. As long as he didn’t find out when Paige’s birthday was, he likely wouldn’t make the connection.

As the two headed for the door, Owen cleared his throat.

Victoria tensed, fearful he’d ask Paige a telling question.

But his words were innocent enough. “Is my brother still here?”

“They left just before I came into the kitchen.” Charlotte shook her head. “I locked the front door after them. I’m sorry we didn’t see you come in or he might have come back to see for himself what was up, him being the police captain and all. But those two wanted a booth in the back corner, out of the way and to themselves. Didn’t even bring that little boy of hers with them, and you never see Merry without Tyler.” She gave her tongue a meaningful cluck. “That’s serious romance, if you ask me, getting a babysitter and all.”

“Thank you,” Victoria whispered to Charlotte gratefully. “Good night, Paige. I’ll be up to tuck you in shortly.”

“Take your time,” Charlotte said with a wink.

Victoria wasn’t sure what the wink was for. Because Charlotte was removing Paige from the potentially traumatizing crime scene? Or because she was leaving Victoria and Owen alone? Charlotte had her own ideas about Victoria’s need for a man in her life, but Victoria had made it clear she wasn’t interested in romance.

“Paige?” Owen called her back before she reached the steps. “Can I ask you one more question?”

Paige turned back to Owen, patiently looking at him with eyes so much like his—because they were his. Fitzgerald blue eyes.

“When is your birthday?”

“January 10.”

“And you turned nine this year?”

“Yes.”

Victoria worked up the courage to look at Owen. His attention was on Paige, and though he kept a kind smile on his lips, his blue eyes had hardened.

“I’m sorry I missed it by almost two months. Happy birthday, a little late.” He dismissed her with a wave, and she carried her cookie happily up the stairs with Charlotte huffing along behind her.

Owen stared after the little girl as she disappeared from sight.

She couldn’t be.

She had to be.

Was Paige his daughter? Owen flipped to the calendar at the back of his notebook and counted off the months. Nine months before January 10 would have been April 10. Ten years before, he and Victoria had been together until mid-May.

His head swirled and he tried to think. Victoria had left him, running off with Hank Monroe right after graduation. Paige was Hank’s daughter. Everybody knew it.

Except the calendar indicated otherwise.

Owen shook his head. Focus. He had to focus on the investigation. Ever since Olivia Henry’s death two months ago, the Fitzgerald Bay Police Department had fallen under intense scrutiny. Folks claimed they’d bungled the investigation of Olivia’s murder. People were demanding answers, afraid there was a killer loose among them.

He couldn’t yet answer the question of who killed Olivia Henry, but he could investigate this break-in with a straight head, even though questions about Paige’s paternity rose like bile in his throat.

Victoria had stepped around the center island. Was she trying to avoid him?

Determined not to bungle anything, Owen turned his attention to Victoria. “Can you tell me what was taken?”

Victoria looked across at the safe as though envisioning what had been inside less than half an hour before. “A red bank bag—the First Bank of Fitzgerald Bay. It contained all my receipts for the last three days.”

“How much?”

“This weekend was the best I’ve done since—” she swallowed “—since Olivia was found. Almost three thousand dollars. Only about five hundred of that was by credit card. The rest was cash or checks.”

Owen studied her face as she stared at the open safe, either transfixed by its emptiness or else stubbornly refusing to look at him. The top button of her white chef’s blouse was open, and he could see a vein throbbing madly, indicating she was frightened. Of the robber? Or of him?

The date on the calendar taunted him, and in spite of the year clearly printed at the top, Owen’s thoughts rushed a decade back in time. His life had been turned upside down in an instant. His cousin had been killed by Victoria’s father in a car accident, and Victoria had left town without contacting him, though they’d been seriously dating at the time. He’d tried to reach her, to let her know he didn’t blame her for what her father had done, but she’d left before he’d been able to find her, and soon the rumors had started flying.

Victoria wasn’t the only person to leave town abruptly after graduation. Hank Monroe had left, too, and the rumor was that Hank and Victoria had run away together. Owen had wanted to deny it, but then Hank’s father, a respected judge, had told him to his face that it was true. Victoria had only been using him to make Hank jealous. She’d gotten her man. She had no more use for Owen.

For ten years, Owen had tried to convince himself that he was over Victoria, that the only feeling he felt toward her was anger. She’d used him and left him without so much as a goodbye. And now, if the nine months between April and January and Paige’s Fitzgerald-blue eyes were any indication, she’d stolen something even more precious than his heart. She’d taken his daughter.

Victoria couldn’t look at Owen. Had he guessed the truth? She forced herself to keep talking about what had been stolen from the safe. “That might sound like a lot of money, but most weekends I don’t make a fraction of that much, and midweek business is slower still. By the time I pay my employees and cover my costs for food and heating …” As she thought about her expenses, Victoria found herself feeling overwhelmed. She’d needed that income.

But God had seen her through plenty of tough times before, raising her daughter alone on one income. God had provided her with a flexible pastry chef position in New York City, and through that had taught her what she needed to know to run the Sugar Plum. Victoria believed God used everything in her life—even the difficult times—as ingredients for the recipe He had planned for her life.

But what good could God possibly bring from the broken safe and missing funds?

She shook her head. “I needed that money.”

“I’m sorry.” Owen’s words carried emotion, not the formal just-the-facts-ma’am voice he’d been using thus far.

For a second, Victoria was tempted to meet his eyes, to feel that human connection he offered in the sympathy in his voice. But she’d been head over heels in love with Owen when they were in high school. In the six months she’d been back in town, she had yet to spend any time around him. She’d seen him, of course, coming and going from the police station across the street, and her heart had always done a mad dance at the sight of him.

Because she dreaded telling him the truth? Or because she still had feelings for him, even after all these years? Until she was certain those feelings were gone for good, she didn’t want any traitorous emotions sneaking up on her—not with the confession she still needed to make. After all, Owen had every reason to hate her. It had broken her heart to leave him the first time around. She wasn’t eager to find out how upset he might be when he knew the whole story.

She felt fear rising in her heart and, hoping for a distraction, she turned to look at the ruined mess of cookies on the floor. The few that weren’t broken were a lost cause, anyway, never mind that she kept the floor spotless.

Owen must have seen where she was looking. “And the cookies?”

“Ten dozen. They sell for a dollar fifty each, or three for four dollars. It’s less than two hundred dollars lost revenue—”

“But your time …” Owen tapped his pencil against his notepad. “The bank bag I can understand. That’s a lot of money. It makes sense to steal that. But the cookies—what would anyone have to gain by breaking your cookies?”

Victoria looked at the crumbled mess as though she might find the answer there. The sight of the broken cookies, each one a heartfelt labor of love—some of her customers even called them works of art. Why would anyone destroy something so innocent?