curiosity aroused, he unfolded the corners of the towel, realizing right away the item was too small to be a DVD case. In fact, it was only about three-by-five inches, and was actually a book.
Reading the title, he held back a smile. Though the color illustration on the front was graphic, it was also artistic. As, he’d heard, was this particular book.
“Do you see?” she asked, tapping the tip of her finger on his desk with a sharp little peck. “Filth.”
“Ma’am, this is a copy of the Kama Sutra.” Not Big Tits and Dongs on Parade.
“I can read, Chief Santori,” the woman said, her tone as tart as her personality.
“I don’t think this book is considered pornography. In fact, it’s a revered, ancient Indian text, I believe.”
“Smut,” she said, leaning forward and whipping the book open. She swiped her fingers through the pages, angrily tapping at the illustrations. “Just look!”
“Umm. Interesting,” he said, trying to figure out how that could go there. “Where did you get this?”
“It was discovered on the very streets of our town.” She fanned herself with her hand. If she’d had some smelling salts on hand, he’d bet she’d use them to fortify herself for this horrible mission she’d undertaken. “A child found it. Can you imagine? A vulnerable child.”
Oh, hell. That was pretty awkward. “Who was it?”
“Annie Morgan’s son, Tim.”
Mike frowned. If he was remembering correctly, the Morgan boy was a senior in high school. Not exactly an innocent first grader emotionally damaged by glimpsing some artistically drawn sexual positions.
“Annie discovered it in his room.”
Huh. Tim Morgan should find better places to hide the stuff he didn’t want mommy to see. Hell, Mike and his brother Leo, who’d shared a room growing up, had pulled the grating out of their heater element to stash their Playboy magazines and condoms.
“How did the book come to be in your possession?”
“Well, Annie was hysterical and called her sister, who’s the hairdresser of the daughter of my bridge partner.”
Yadda, yadda. And the book had eventually found its way into the hands of the town’s arbiter of good taste and dignity.
“Did Tim say where he got it?” he asked, betting she’d say it was from another kid at school and that all of them were rotten little sinners.
“He said he found it on the ground in the municipal parking lot, right near the school! Can you imagine?”
A bell went off in Mike’s mind. He froze, his heart pounding as a strong suspicion washed over him.
Lindsey had come to the island with a case of erotic books and toys. He hadn’t noticed this one in her box of tricks, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t hers. Had she perhaps had this one in her car, and had it then fallen out in the parking lot?
Or, wait...the laptop bag. She’d dropped it yesterday when he’d followed her out of the coffee shop. She’d been flustered and in a hurry, digging for her keys. If, for some reason she’d put the book into the case, it was possible that it had fallen out without her realizing it.
“Well, what are you going to do about this?”
“Mrs. Franklin, there’s nothing illegal about somebody being in possession of this book. You can walk into any bookstore on the mainland and buy it.”
“Well, it’s illegal here!”
“No, ma’am, it isn’t,” he replied, knowing he was right. He’d memorized the town charter and local ordinances. There was nothing prohibiting sexy illustrations.
That was handy for old man McBride and what he had hanging up on the office wall of his gas station. Mike still hadn’t gotten over the man’s cartoon porn, and would never be able to watch a Disney movie again without remembering McBride’s artistic talents.
Mrs. Franklin shot him a warning glare, her deep frown lines going from each side of her pursed mouth down to her jaw. “I think I’m better acquainted with the law around here than you. I want the perpetrator found and arrested.”
His anger rising, he snapped, “Should we put up the stocks and have the villain displayed in the town square, too?”
The older woman jerked her head up, apparently shocked at being talked back to. Mike had always tried to remember to respect his elders—and his employers—but this was beyond ridiculous.
“You do realize you are still on probation here, Chief.”
“I couldn’t possibly forget it,” he admitted. The couple of months remaining in his agreed-upon trial period had never seemed as long as they did right now.
“I am telling you, do your job and arrest this purveyor of smut.”
He rose from his seat, leaning over his desk, his hands flat on top of it. “And I’m telling you, there’s nothing illegal about this book.” His eyes narrowing and his jaw clenching, he added, “There’s not a damn thing you, or I, or anyone can do about it, except to remind people to please be careful not to drop their private reading materials on the ground.”
That was exactly what he intended to do. Tonight, in fact. Because if Lindsey was, indeed, the owner of this manual, he needed to tell her that she’d lost it, and who had found it. He certainly wasn’t going to let her walk in blind to that school Monday morning and encounter a firestorm of gossip. Knowing Mrs. Franklin, there would definitely be lots of that. Hell, she’d probably demand that the principal call an assembly so they could grill every kid to find the “pervert.”
Shaking with indignation, the woman who was, technically, one of his bosses, stood up and yanked her purse against her chest. “We’ll see about this.”
“Careful of the step as you leave,” he reminded her, crossing his arms over his chest, not budging an inch.
She opened her mouth then snapped it closed. But the thrust-out jaw and narrowed eyes said she wasn’t going to let this drop.
That could be a problem, not just for him, but also for Lindsey. And for her friend Callie Parker, who sure didn’t need to add a heaping of hometown scandal to what sounded like an already pretty full plate. Callie had recommended Lindsey to the school administration. If the busybodies found out Lindsey had been the one to drop what they considered “filth” close to the school grounds, they’d crucify her—and Callie, too.
So it was time he found out if his theory was true, that it was indeed Lindsey who had lost the book. It was also past time to uncover what else she’d been hiding. Because if she was just a schoolteacher, then he was just a kid playing cops-and-robbers. Maybe whatever secret she was keeping might explain why she was so reluctant to pursue any kind of relationship with him. Considering how intense their chemistry was, something big had to be holding her back.
He wanted to find out what that something was. Because he hadn’t been kidding when he’d told her yesterday that he
