A Deadly Cliche (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

peace.”
    Olivia nodded, her throat tight with emotion. “I know he felt responsible for my mother’s death. I did too. He couldn’t run away from the guilt, but he tried. He took long fishing trips, leaving me alone at home. I preferred to have him at sea, because when he was around, our little house was too small for his grief, the whiskey, and my mother’s ghost.”
    Now Rawlings did come around his desk. He sat down in the chair next to Olivia, his knees touching hers. He put a large, warm hand over her thinner, colder one. “I can see that you want to answer this letter, but as your friend, I have to warn you against doing so. Let’s say that your father is alive and you pay thousands of dollars to discover his whereabouts. You rush to his bedside and then what? What are you hoping for?”
    “I don’t know!” Olivia’s reply held anger, but it was not directed at Rawlings. “Maybe I want to have a copy of his medical history so I can see what I’ve got in store! Maybe I want the chance to call him a bastard to his face before he dies. Maybe I want to spit in his face and ask him what kind of man leaves a little girl all alone day after day and then, one day, abandons her forever!”
    Horrified to notice that tears wet her cheeks, Olivia pulled her hand out from under the chief’s and turned away.
    “You want the truth,” he finished her thought, his tone quiet and soothing. “Even if it opens old wounds or causes fresh ones. You want the truth, no matter what the cost.”
    Her eyes met his. Olivia nodded, grateful for both his words and his gentleness. He understood. He understood everything. “Just promise me one thing,” he said. “If this turns out to be a hoax and we’re able to track down the letter writer, then you hand him or her over to me. If there ends up being no truth, then I will give you something else. Justice.”
    She could have kissed him then. His entire body was radiating a righteous authority and his eyes gleamed with conviction, the muddy brown alive with glints of gold. And she knew at that moment that he would do a great deal to defend and to protect her and that something had changed between them on this day.
    She had laid herself bare to Rawlings and he had treated her naked emotions with care.
    Reclaiming the letter from his desk, Olivia was afraid to look at him again for fear he’d see that she was, at that moment in time, completely in awe of him. Instead, she put her palm on his forearm and let it linger there for a brief second, before rising and pulling open his office door. “I’ll see you Saturday, Chief. Thank you for your time.”
    As she walked away Olivia sensed that she had stirred something inside Rawlings, something that might have been lying dormant in the depths of his heart for a long time.
    She wondered, glancing at the purple crape myrtle blooms beneath his window, what would become of this newfound longing between them.

Chapter 5

    There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.
    —J. R. R. TOLKIEN

    O livia told no one else about the letter. She put it away in a desk drawer at home, beneath a utility bill. Even though it was out of sight, the letter called to her. Whenever she sat down at the desk to work on her manuscript, her concentration was completely ruined by the knowledge of what sat in her bill drawer.
    Until she had found the body on the beach, Olivia had been making steady progress on her novel, becoming fully immersed in her fictionalized version of Egypt during the reign of Ramses the Second. But neither her character, a concubine named Kamila, nor the charisma of the famous Nineteenth Dynasty pharaoh could draw Olivia’s attention from the letter.
    Finally, on Friday, she took the envelope from the drawer, yanked out the single piece of paper, and read the scant lines though she already knew every word by heart. Her computer screen was covered by images of the clothing and jewelry worn by the nobility of Ancient Egypt, but Olivia closed every website window and began a new search. She knew the pull of her novel wasn’t strong enough to distract her from the letter and that she needed to take action. In this case, Olivia required the services of the sharpest private investigator in Wilmington.
    After researching several firms, she made a decision, picked up the phone, and asked to speak to the agency’s