grunt.
“Back to Mary Beth.” She switched subjects. “You think this mystery man—if there is one—killed her, then came back later and tossed her room, looking for some evidence proving they were in an illicit relationship?”
“It’s a starting point. Nothing else to go on.” He nudged her to get moving again. “Once we talk to this Ashley, maybe we’ll know more.”
Caley knocked on Ashley’s door. A moment later, Ashley opened it and eyed Shepherd with a mix of confusion and what Caley could only define as intrigue. For a man as rough around the edges and intimidating as Shep, he held some physical qualities that would make a girl swoon.
Like his lips—heart-shaped top with a protruding lower one. Crazy-soft-looking. Paired with bluish-gray eyes framed by thick dark lashes, he had zero trouble attracting female attention. And that wasn’t including the mysterious scar and superhero physique.
The rumors she’d heard said Shep had never been in a committed relationship, but he’d dated the way a man with a cold went through tissue. Box after box.
No, that wasn’t the kind of man Caley was interested in. So the attraction had to stay simple. Appreciative. Besides, he was a soldier. And she’d vowed long ago that she wasn’t marrying a soldier or a man who worked in law enforcement of any kind.
Too risky for the heart.
Shep narrowed his eyes. Uh-oh. He’d caught her gawking. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “This is my...” What was he? Her brother’s friend? “Friend. He’s stopped in for a visit.”
Shep’s eyebrow, the one without the scar splitting the hairs, rose.
“I wanted to talk to you about Mary Beth. Can I come in? We? Can we come in?” Caley asked and shoved her way inside, a good measure away from Shepherd.
“Sure,” Ashley said, opening the door wider to accommodate Shepherd’s frame to enter without brushing her. “I think I was the last person to see her. She was in the equipment room around eight last night.”
Why would she be there? Unless she really was going out to kayak or fill the oxygen tanks for an upcoming dive.
“What’s in the equipment room?” Shep asked.
“Boats, diving equipment, anything we use out on the water for work or play.” Caley slumped on the edge of Ashley’s bed. “Did she say if she was going out, Ashley?”
“No. She said she left her beach bag in there.” Ashley pawed her face. “If I’d pressed for the truth maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I knew she was lying and I let her. To each her own, you know?”
“Sure. How did you know she was lying?” Caley asked.
“She’d been going out late at night. Several times in the past few weeks. I approached her about it, but she said she wanted to be alone. Not to worry. But why would you want to be alone that late at night? She seemed shifty. Distant.”
“That’s what Billy said,” Caley said.
“I think she was cheating on him. Or about to break it off for good.” Ashley collapsed in her desk chair. “Billy thought so too.”
Shep might be right. There could be a mystery man involved. “She never confided in you? About another guy?”
“No. She knows how tight me and Billy are. I guess she thought I’d tell him. But I wouldn’t have.”
“Anyone else she might have talked to?”
“Toby. He never liked Billy much. And Mary Beth had been spending a lot of time down in the lab with him. At first I thought maybe they had something going on, but he’s engaged and a stand-up guy. I don’t see him cheating. And honestly, I don’t see Mary Beth doing something like that either.”
Neither did Caley. Shep’s eyes held skepticism.
“If you remember anything else, please tell me.”
“I heard her parents came last night and took her stuff. A few of us went to her room this morning and it was empty. Like she was never even here.” A tear leaked from her eye. “I can’t believe this.”
Caley wrapped her in a hug. “I know. If you need anything, call me.” They left her room and were down the hall when Shep spoke.
“Let’s check out the equipment room. See if we can find that bag she was hunting for. If there was a bag. Maybe there was something of extreme importance in it. Something that got her killed.”
“Okay. And I hate to think it, but you might be right, Shep. She might have met someone who needed to stay a secret.” And if that were the case, they had to find him.
* * *
Shep had rolled the interviews with the interns around in his head in between trying to figure out why Caley had been gawking at him outside Ashley’s door earlier this morning. Like she was admiring him in a more than friendly way.
He’d shoved the ridiculous notion aside and followed Caley around for the remainder of the morning, keeping out of her way while she worked. He and Caley had lunch once again in the cafeteria, and now they were inside the aquatic center, where he stood in the hub of a group of tourists while Caley shared sea turtle migration patterns and habits and advances in research.
The passion in her voice held his attention captive along with the thirty other tourists hanging on every word. But he had to pull his thoughts away from her hypnotic voice and focus on the case and his plans to keep Caley protected if the intruder from last night returned. A possible murder wouldn’t stop Caley from her daily routine. Life had to go on. Just like in war. No way to make time freeze when a comrade had been lost. Fighting and protecting lives didn’t come to a standstill because people grieved. Caley wasn’t a solider like most of the Flynn family, but she was proving she was a fighter by standing here continuing with her spiel on sea turtles and not crawling into a hole to hide.
He admired that about her. Admired her brain. The woman was ridiculous smart. And gentle. Patient. Okay, this was not pulling his thoughts away. This was fixating on a woman who was so out of his league it wasn’t even funny. Back to the assignment.
The best working theory was Mystery Man wanted to stay hidden, which explained his motive to toss Mary Beth’s room, looking for a piece of evidence that would have exposed their relationship. But why kill her? Had she threatened to tell someone about them? Tracking down Mary Beth’s actions over the past few days was imperative, but no one seemed to know where she’d been.
Someone was lying.
Twelve interns working and living together day after day and no one could tell them where the girl went? Shep wasn’t buying that.
Caley finished her talk and handed the crowd off to another staff member and photographer. Tourists loved their pictures.
Caley shoved her glasses on the bridge of her nose—he could tighten those for her if she wanted—and strolled toward him. “Did I bore you?”
“No.” Boring would be the last adjective to describe Caley Flynn.
“You even listen?”
Had she wanted him to? “I know loggerheads can get up to three hundred pounds and fishing gear is their biggest threat because they can get caught in longlines.” He enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing mild shock on her face. Yeah. He listened. Hard not to.
But then she grinned and it sent a blip to his heartbeat. “Have you ever seen them swimming in their habitat? It’s amazing.”
“Maybe,” he said. “To be honest I wouldn’t know one turtle from the next, but I planned to do some diving off the cays. On my cruise. Now, I’ll know that the leatherback’s carapace is black with white splotches while the green turtle has a light or dark brown carapace. And it’s sometimes shaded with olive. Oh, and the carapace is the hard upper shell.”
Caley