“Riley?”
He hated the doubt he heard in Abby’s voice. More, he hated the person orchestrating this mess. Riley had already vetted everyone on the Belclare police force and come up empty. He’d yet to find anyone who had a beef with Calder, which confirmed his suspicion that someone was using the community to torture Abby. It wasn’t a stretch to see the deadly potential here and Riley had to find a way to head it off.
“I found a scarf last night when I got home,” Riley said, his eyes still on the weapons aimed at him. “It was caught in the door, so I picked it up, looped it over the rail,” he explained. “I don’t have a clue where it came from.”
“You need to come with us, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Wait a second,” Abby said in her no-nonsense chief’s voice. “Put away your weapons.”
Finally. Riley lowered his hands but kept them in plain view. “Thanks,” he murmured to her as the officers complied.
“What evidence led you to Riley’s—the Hamilton house?”
“A tool with O’Brien’s name on it. Everyone in town knows he moved in there.”
“Never tried to hide it,” Riley tossed out.
“Hush,” Abby said. “What kind of tool?”
Gadsden clearly preferred that Riley implicate himself, but he relented. “A hammer.”
With a tight nod, Riley silently vowed that he’d get even with the bastard behind this. “I haven’t kidnapped anyone. I have at least three hammers in the truck. There’s always one on my tool belt. I used one yesterday when we set up the park display and again when we decorated the street. You can check with my coworkers or any of the neighbors.”
“We’ll need to check your story. Let’s take a walk,” Gadsden suggested. “I have a few more questions for you.”
“No.” Abby denied that request. “Do you have any sort of timeline yet?”
“The dock workers who reported the car don’t recall seeing it parked out there before this morning.”
“So you’re thinking this all happened last night.”
Gadsden nodded. “It’s possible the fire was a diversion.”
“I’m starting to agree,” Abby said, giving voice to one of Riley’s developing theories.
He could not afford to waste time in a holding cell. He didn’t think she could afford to be without his protection, even though she didn’t realize that was his real purpose here. Once more he toyed with the idea of telling her the truth, but he wasn’t about to admit anything in front of her officers.
“I found the scarf when I came home for the night.” He just managed to avoid Abby’s gaze. “Around eleven.”
“Did you see him arrive home, Chief?”
“Yes.” She gestured to the door she’d exited. “We have a crime scene inside that needs to be processed. From what I can see—the bed hasn’t been slept in and the coffee that brewed automatically this morning is still waiting in the carafe—Mrs. Wilks was attacked and taken from her home late last night.”
“You didn’t see anyone hanging around before that?” Gadsden pressed.
“No,” Abby said resolutely.
Riley kept studying the policemen. Between the crowd at the pub and the bystanders at the fire, surely they’d heard he’d driven Abby home. What were they tiptoeing around?
“We’d like to take him in for questioning.”
“No,” Abby repeated. “He was with me,” she said with a resigned sigh. “I drove home from the station and Riley met me out front to help me decorate my house. Before that, Danny and Peg can vouch for his contribution to decorating the rest of the street.”
“Yes, ma’am. But after that?”
“After, I took Mr. O’Brien to the pub for dinner. It was a dinner we never finished because Martin Filmore went off the deep end and set our police station on fire.”
Gadsden rocked back on his heels. “And after that?”
In Gadsden’s place, Riley would’ve ducked from the laser glare Abby aimed at him. “I watched him walk over to his house.”
“Did you watch him go inside?”
“No.”
“So you can’t verify his story about the scarf.”
“I can verify everything else, including his character, Officer Gadsden,” she said pointedly.
Riley muted his shock over that statement. She must trust him more than he thought. Well, she had kissed him first. And she’d let him keep kissing her once he’d recovered from the unexpected surprise.
“Yes, ma’am.” Gadsden rubbed his palm over his holstered weapon. “But why frame him?”