Locked In Silence (Pelican Bay 1)

“I am,” Nolan said. “Have we met?”

“Um, no, my name’s Blaze.”

“No, it’s not,” the kid piped in. “It’s Isaac.”

“Newt,” Isaac said in exasperation. “Remember what I told you? You’re the only one who gets to call me Isaac.”

“Sorry,” Newt said, though he didn’t seem all that sorry.

“Yeah, um, so Blaze is kind of a stage name,” Isaac murmured. “I guess you can call me Isaac,” he offered. “Anyway, I have something that belongs to you.”

Isaac stepped around Newt and Loki and went to the trunk of his car. Nolan let out a soft gasp when he spied the violin case in Isaac’s hand.

“It’s my violin,” he said softly as Isaac handed him the case. “What are you doing with it?”

Color flooded Isaac’s face and he dropped his eyes.

“It’s you,” Nolan said in disbelief. “You’re the one the cops saw on my apartment building’s surveillance video. You stole the Stradivarius.”

Chapter Nineteen

Nolan

“Yes and no,” Isaac said. His eyes shifted to Dallas who’d tensed next to me when I’d thrown out my accusation.

“Stealing’s bad,” Newt piped in. “Isaac says so.” The little boy sat down in the snow and Loki immediately dropped down in front of him.

“It is,” Isaac said to Newt. “Stand up, buddy. Your pants will get wet.”

“You said I could play in the snow.”

Isaac sighed. “I know I did, but we have to get you some snow pants first, okay?”

“Okay,” Newt responded, but he didn’t get up.

“Look,” Isaac said to me. “I took it, but only because Trey said you wouldn’t give it back to him. Then I saw the news about you being accused of stealing it.”

“You’re friends with Trey?” I asked.

“Friends, sure,” Isaac murmured as he glanced at Newt. “Let’s go with that.”

My stomach sank as I realized what he was saying. So not only had Trey been cheating on me with a woman, he’d been fucking another guy behind my back, too.

“I shouldn’t have taken it, but Trey was pretty convincing and he paid me a lot to get it back for him. When I realized it was a scam, I thought about going to the cops, but I…I just couldn’t,” he said as he glanced at Newt.

I saw Dallas type something into his phone and hand it to Isaac.

“Um, yeah, I sent those recordings to the cops. I started taping Trey when I realized he’d lied to me. I didn’t want to go down for that shi…stuff, you know?”

I didn’t get a chance to respond to Isaac because a couple more cars chose that moment to pull into the parking lot. I glanced at Dallas, who just shrugged. The center could easily go weeks without a single visitor, but for whatever reason, today it was Grand Central Station. If Dallas hadn’t looked so worn out, I would have laughed.

But any thought of humor died out the second I saw the two vehicles that pulled directly behind Dallas’s truck and Isaac’s car.

The sheriff.

And animal control.

Dallas tensed next to me, then straightened from where he’d been leaning against the car door. Isaac reached down to pick Newt up and took several steps back so that he was closer to the front of his car…and Maddox. He seemed panicked and I saw him whisper something in Newt’s ear, causing the little boy to nod his head. I wanted to reassure him the police weren’t there for him, but I didn’t want the sheriff to overhear me.

Sheriff Tulley took his time striding over to us. The smug look on his face was a really bad sign.

“Mr. Grainger, Mr. Kent,” he said with a nod. His eyes shifted to Maddox and widened slightly. “Didn’t know you were back in town, son,” he said.

“I’m not,” was all Maddox said. When the sheriff’s gaze moved to Isaac, I saw Maddox subtly move closer to the pair. Fortunately, the sheriff didn’t linger on the younger man and little boy.

“Mr. Kent, we’ve received several complaints about your,” – he waved his hand around – “business. This serves as notice that a public forum has been scheduled for tomorrow night to address those concerns and what steps will be taken to shut you down, since this place is clearly a threat to the residents of Pelican Bay.” The man handed Dallas a folded-up piece of paper.

Dallas angrily ripped the paper open and scanned it, then started typing on his phone. But the sheriff didn’t even wait to hear what Dallas had to say before continuing.

“We’ve also received a complaint that your wolf viciously attacked a resident who was in the area recently.”

“That’s a lie,” I interjected.

The sheriff shot me a hard look, then handed Dallas a second piece of paper. “This is an order authorizing me to remove the animal from the premises for quarantine purposes and to determine what action should be taken to make sure he can’t hurt anyone else.”