Free Death by Devotion (Book #9 in the Caribbean Murder Series) by Jaden Skye Page A

in
here, but she was hungry and when the waiter came over she quickly ordered
eggs, biscuits and coffee. Then she put her heads in her hands for a moment and
closed her eyes. This was a new situation for Cindy. The case was definitely
complicated and she couldn’t depend on Mattheus to help her fully. He was
obviously way too involved.
    “Sleeping?”
a man’s full voice, startled her out of her reverie. Cindy looked up swiftly.  Sean
stood there, smiling. He looked even more attractive than he had at the police
station. Tall, blonde, with a rugged edge to him, he looked as if he should
have been surfing the waves in California.
    “Hi,”
Cindy got up from her seat to greet him. “Thanks so much for coming.”
    “No,
please, sit down,” he replied. “It’s my pleasure.” Then he took the seat
opposite her.
    “I
ordered already, I’m sorry,” said Cindy. “I just was ravenous, suddenly. Hardly
ate anything yesterday at all.”
    “It’s
good to be ravenous,” Sean grinned. “It’s fine, I’ve already had breakfast,
just want some coffee now.”
    The
two of them took a long moment to take each other in.
    “You’re
nothing at all like I expected,” Sean commented.
    Cindy
laughed. She’d been thinking exactly the same thing about him. “And you look
like you belong on a beach, surfing in California,” she replied.
    “That’s
what people tell me,” Sean laughed along with her. “But I like it here.”
    “In
Anguilla?” Cindy was curious.
    “Not
particularly Anguilla,” said Sean. “I like it down in the Caribbean. After a
while it begins to feel like home.”
    How
well Cindy knew that. “It’s addictive,” she said.
    “Yeah,
a good addiction,” he added. “All addictions should be as good as this.”
    The
waiter brought the food, Sean ordered coffee, and Cindy began eating the eggs.
    “So,
this is really your profession?” Sean asked, watching her eat. “Private
detective?”
    “It’s
become that,” Cindy replied, thinking about the offer she’d received to write a
column for the paper back in New York. That seemed like years and years ago.
And New York seemed like it was planted in a totally different universe at the
moment.
    “It’s
interesting,” said Sean, “and unusual.”
    “These
things happen suddenly,” Cindy replied. “My life took a different turn than I’d
expected.”
    “That
happens to a lot of us who do this work,” Sean replied.
    Cindy
knew she didn’t have to say more. She was grateful that he understood and that,
most likely, something similar had happened to him.
    “Everyone
down here on the Police force read about you when they heard you were coming
down,” Sean continued. “It made the guys nervous to have you aboard, but I
appreciate you’re being here.”
    “Thank
you, Sean,” Cindy responded, touched.
    “This
case is trickier than you think,” he went on, his eyes narrowing. “There’s a
pretty big underworld operating nearby.”
    It
was an old story. There was an underworld operating on all the Islands.
    “Tell
me about it,” Cindy looked up at him over her coffee, grateful for his
forthrightness.
    “The
underworld here is not a place for a woman to poke around in alone,” Sean continued.
    “Lots
of the Islands have that going on,” Cindy countered, “I’ve been through it
before.”
    “Maybe
they do, but not like here.” Their eyes met boldly. Cindy was fascinated. “There’s
different levels of crime,” Sean went on, “at the core this place is rotten.”
    Cindy
was startled.  “Like how?”
    “I’ll
tell you little by little,” Sean said, glad that he’d made his point.
    “Tell
me now,” Cindy urged. “We don’t have so much time.”
    Sean
smiled and touched her hand lightly.  “We have all the time we need.  That’s
the first thing I learned about solving tricky crimes. If you just keep at it,
things show up. They have to. It’s the law of the Islands. Snakes naturally slither
out of their hiding places for