Sudden Second Chance
Sudden Second Chance
Carol Ericson
A man with too many secrets. A woman with everything to lose.As if the Timberline Trio cold case isn't nightmarish enough for FBI agent Duke Harper, he runs into the TV reporter who loved and betrayed him–beautiful Beth St. Regis. Duke quickly concludes she's not after a sensational story. She's there to solve the haunting mystery of who she really is. But all her questions unleash a killer and Duke steps up to protect her when she becomes a target. Despite their bitter past, Duke finds he's still attracted to Beth and maybe they deserve a second chance. First, though, he has to keep Beth alive–and from discovering the shocking truth about her past…
A man with too many secrets. A woman with everything to lose.
As if the Timberline Trio cold case isn’t nightmarish enough for FBI agent Duke Harper, he runs into the TV reporter who loved and betrayed him—beautiful Beth St. Regis. Duke quickly concludes she’s not after a sensational story. She’s there to solve the haunting mystery of who she really is. But all her questions unleash a killer, and Duke steps up to protect her when she becomes a target. Despite their bitter past, Duke finds he’s still attracted to Beth, and maybe they deserve a second chance. First, though, he has to keep Beth alive—and from discovering the shocking truth about her past...
Her frame trembled beneath his hands. “It was... terrifying... I’m going to hear that sound in my nightmares.”
“What’s it gonna take for you, Beth?”
“To leave Timberline? The truth. I’m going to leave Timberline when I discover the truth about my identity. Otherwise, what do I have?”
“You have me.” He sealed his lips over hers and drew her close.
She melted against him for a moment, her mouth pliant against his. But then she broke away and stepped back.
“I just don’t think you understand what this means to me, Duke. It’s a lifetime of questions and doubts coming to a head right here. All my questions have led me here.”
“You don’t know, Beth. It’s based on feelings and suppositions and red doors and frogs.”
“And that’s a start.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to take that all away from her—the hope—but he’d snatch it all away in a heartbeat to keep her safe.
Sudden Second Chance
Carol Ericson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CAROL ERICSON is a bestselling, award-winning author of more than forty books. She has an eerie fascination for true-crime stories, a love of film noir and a weakness for reality TV, all of which fuel her imagination to create her own tales of murder, mayhem and mystery. To find out more about Carol and her current projects, please visit her website at www.carolericson.com (http://www.carolericson.com), “where romance flirts with danger.”
Cast of Characters (#ulink_5cf241eb-24ec-5443-abcd-9c18174156ec)
Beth St. Regis—The host of the Cold Case Chronicles TV show. She uses the show as a cover to find out if she’s one of the missing children of the Timberline Trio, but she runs into a former adversary...and lover, who will either stand in her way or make her forget all about why she’s in Timberline.
Duke Harper—This FBI agent is sent to investigate the Timberline Trio cold case, but the dead-end assignment turns into a battle of wits and wills when he meets up with the TV reporter who used him for a story but has been on his mind and in his heart ever since.
Heather Brice—Beth believes she might be this kidnapped child and will stop at nothing to prove it.
Bill Raney—His realty business is suffering due to his chronic drinking and poor business practices, and he’s willing to do just about anything to get back on top.
Rebecca Geist—A local Realtor who knows more of Timberline’s secrets than she realizes, which puts a target on her back.
Jordan Young—This Timberline mover and shaker is anxious to put the town’s dark history in the past, but are his motives civic or personal?
Gary Binder—A recovering drug addict and ex-con, he’s either trying to get his life back on track or he’s up to his old tricks.
Scarlett Easton—A local artist and native Quileute, she offers to help Beth get in touch with her past, but she pays a price for her generosity.
Serena Hopewell—A bartender at a local restaurant, she owns a prime piece of property in Timberline. Is she a savvy investor or a savvy blackmailer?
Sheriff Musgrove—The new sheriff in town may be a little too cozy with those who would circumvent the law in order to hide the truth.
For Chuck,
one of the most avid readers I know.
Contents
Cover (#ud3dcf363-b2ae-521e-ae83-539782355b24)
Back Cover Text (#u9d452bc0-e315-5141-b2b1-a89d04fc7deb)
Introduction (#ubb097a66-9613-5822-979e-15b556491c91)
Title Page (#u4ee401f9-379d-5e6a-8940-0d941ccb0f58)
About the Author (#u95cd70af-112b-55a5-bb49-a825897f14ce)
Cast of Characters (#ulink_6baabd7c-5bc8-5002-9918-84ff97f4b5e6)
Dedication (#ude83c637-bc68-54fd-8eda-7b5933595a31)
Chapter One (#u776d1e52-013d-58c2-85f2-29b003b26784)
Chapter Two (#u6a144b01-5661-5fba-8608-948bcdb14d12)
Chapter Three (#u21f731d3-318e-53a4-8777-2043e1380268)
Chapter Four (#u9760995f-254d-55be-a396-1efc8515b703)
Chapter Five (#uf0dc73e1-beb1-5ffb-83c0-852471d7b360)
Chapter Six (#u1749b7fe-7a5b-5ee5-bb71-f555a5e64e11)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_48d0f300-0ddf-50f3-8391-7ccc5212c329)
Beth’s heart skipped a beat as she ducked onto the path that led through a canopy of trees. The smell of damp earth and moldering mulch invaded her nostrils. She took a deep breath. The odor evoked the cycle of life—birth, death and rebirth. She’d smelled worse.
She gasped as a lacy, green leaf brushed her face. Then she knocked it away. If she freaked out and had a panic attack every time she delved into the forest, she’d have a hard time doing this story—and getting to the truth of her birth.
Straightening her shoulders, she tugged on her down vest and blew out a breath. She stepped over a fallen log, snapping a twig in two beneath her boot. The mist rising from the forest floor caressed her cheek and she raised her face to the moisture swirling around her.
The scent of pine cleared her sinuses and she dragged in a lungful of the fresh air. She’d definitely classify herself as a city girl, but this rustic, outdoor environment seemed to energize her.
Either that or the adrenaline was pumping so hard and fast through her veins, a massive anxiety attack waited right around the corner.
She continued on the path through the dense foliage, feeling stronger and stronger with each step. She could do this. The reward of possibly finding her true identity motivated her, blocking out the anxiety that the forest usually stirred up inside her.
She’d convinced Scott, the producer of Cold Case Chronicles, that she needed to come out ahead of her crew to do some initial interviews and footwork. She had her own video camera and could give Joel, her cameraman, a head start. Stoked by the show’s ratings from the previous season, Scott had been ready to grant her anything. Of course, she had a lot of work to do on her own before she got her guys up here. She’d have to stall Scott.
The trees rustled around her and she paused, tilting her head to one side. Maybe she should’ve researched the presence of wild animals out here. Did bears roam the Pacific Northwest? Wolves? She was pretty sure there were no tigers stalking through the forests of Washington. Were there?
As she took another step, leaves crackled behind her, too close for comfort, and she froze again. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and quivered, all her old fears flooding her senses.
She craned her head over her shoulder and released a gusty breath of air. A man walking a bicycle stuttered to a stop, his eyes widening in his gaunt face.
“Ma’am?”
The relief she’d felt a moment ago that it hadn’t been a tiger on her trail evaporated as she took in the man’s appearance. He had the hard look of a man who’d been in the joint. She recognized it from previous stories she’d done on her TV show, Cold Case Chronicles.
“Oh, hello. My husband and I were just taking a walk. He went ahead.”
He nodded once, a jerky, disjointed movement. “Come out to look at the kidnapping site, did ya?”
Heat washed into Beth’s cheeks. She wanted to make it clear to this man that she wasn’t just some morbid looky-loo, but what did it really matter?
“We were in the area anyway, and it’s so pretty out here.” She waved a hand toward the path she’d been following. “Is it much farther?”
“Not much.” He pushed his bike forward, wheeling around the same fallen log she’d stepped over earlier. “They were lookin’ at me for a bit.”
“Excuse me?” Beth tucked her hands into the pockets of her vest, her right hand tracing the outline of her pepper spray.
“For the kidnappings.” He hunched his scrawny shoulders. “Like I’d snatch a couple of kids.”
“Th...that must’ve been scary.” She slipped her index finger onto the spray button in her pocket. “How’d the police get that idea?”
“Because—” he looked to his left and right “—because I’d been in a little trouble before.”
Taking one step back, Beth coiled her muscles. She could take him—maybe—especially if she nailed him with the pepper spray first.
“And because I was there the first time.”
“What?” She snapped her jaw closed to keep it from hanging open. Did he mean he’d been in Timberline at the time the Timberline Trio was kidnapped? He definitely looked old enough.
“You know.” He wiped a hand across his mouth. “The first time when them three kids were snatched twenty years ago.”
Twenty-five years ago, she corrected him in her head.
“You were living here during that time?”
“I wasn’t the only one. Lots of people still around from that time.” His tone got defensive. “It’s just ’cause I had that other trouble. That’s why they looked at me—and because of the dead dog, only he wasn’t dead.”
A chill snaked up Beth’s spine. She definitely wanted to talk to this man later if he was telling the truth, but not now and not here in the middle of a dense forest with only the tigers to hear her screams.
“Well, I’d better catch up to my husband. A...are you going to the site, too?”
“No, ma’am. I’m just taking the shortcut to my house.” He raised one hand.
Then he turned his bike to the right and her shoulders dropped as she released the trigger on her pepper spray.
“Ma’am?”
She stopped, and without turning around, she said, “Yes?”
“Be careful out there. The Quileute swear this forest is haunted.”
“I will and I’m...we’re not afraid of ghosts—my husband and I.”
He emitted a noise, which sounded a lot like a snort, and then he wheeled his bike down another path, leaving the echo of crackling leaves.
Beth brushed her hair from her face and strode forward. He wouldn’t be hard to locate later—an ex-con on a bicycle who’d been questioned about the kidnappings. Maybe he’d have some insight into the Timberline Trio.
She tromped farther into the woods but never lost sight of the trail as it had been well used recently. What was wrong with people who wanted to see where three kids and a woman had been held against their will?
If she didn’t have a damned good excuse for being out here, she’d be exploring the town or sitting in front of the fireplace at her hotel enjoying a caramel latte with extra foam, reading—okay, she’d probably be reading a murder mystery or a true-crime book about a serial killer. The Pacific Northwest seemed to have those in spades.
A piece of soggy, yellow tape stirring in the breeze indicated that she’d reached the spot. Law enforcement had drilled orange caution cones into the ground around the mine opening and had boarded over the top. Nobody would be able to use this abandoned mine for any kind of nefarious purpose again.
She nudged one of the cones with the toe of her boot—it didn’t budge. Wedging her hands on her hips, she surveyed the area. No recognition pinged in her chest. Her breathing remained calm, too, so nothing here was sending her into overdrive.
Not that she’d really expected it. Wyatt Carson had chosen this place to stash his victims because he’d discovered it or had searched for someplace to hide the children, not because he’d known it from twenty-five years before when he was just a child himself, when his own brother Stevie Carson had been snatched.
But one kidnap story might lead to another. Maybe the Timberline Trio had been held here before...before what? If she really were one of the Timberline Trio, those children obviously weren’t dead. So, why had they been kidnapped? Why had she been kidnapped?
There was something about this place—Timberline—that struck a chord within her. As soon as she’d seen that stuffed frog in the window of the tourist shop during a TV news story about the Wyatt Carson kidnappings, she’d known she had to come here. She could be Heather Brice, and she had to find out.
Crouching down, she scooted closer to the entrance of the mine. When Carson had found it, the mine had a cover that he’d then blocked with a boulder. All that had been removed and cleared out.
She flattened herself onto her belly and army-crawled between the cones. Someone had already pried back and snapped off a piece of wood covering the entrance.
With her arms at her sides, she placed her forehead against one slat of wood and peered into the darkness below. She’d like to get down there just to have a look around. Maybe the local sheriff’s department would allow it if she promised to get their mugs on TV.
A swishing noise coming up behind her had her digging the toes of her boots into the mushy earth. She’d just put herself into an extremely vulnerable position—an idiotic thing to do with that ex-con roaming the woods. A branch snapped. She slipped her hand inside her pocket and gripped the pepper spray, her finger in position.
A man’s voice yelled out. “Hey!”
Then a strong vise clamped around her ankle. This was it. In one fluid motion, she dragged the pepper spray from her pocket, rolled to her back, aimed and fired.
The man released her ankle immediately and staggered back, one arm flung over his face.
Beth jumped to her feet, holding the spray in front of her with a shaky hand, ready to shoot again.
Her attacker cursed and spit.
Beth’s eyebrows shot up. The ex-con had gotten bigger...and meaner.
Then he lowered his hands from his face and glared at her through dark eyes streaming with tears. Those eyes widened and he cursed again.
He cleared his throat and coughed. “Beth St. Regis. I should’ve known it was you.”
Beth dropped her pepper spray and clasped her hand over her heart. She’d rather be facing a tiger right now than Duke Harper—the man she’d loved and betrayed.
Chapter Two (#ulink_fd56e8d4-8df8-564e-9d6c-9e2465e7ee95)
Duke’s eyes stung and his nose burned, lighting his lungs on fire with every breath he took. Even through his tears, he couldn’t mistake the woman standing in front of him, her shoulder-length, strawberry blond hair disheveled and her camera-ready features distorted by surprise and...fear.
She should be afraid—very afraid after the way she’d used him.
He kicked at the pepper spray nestled in the green carpet between them. “Is that the stuff I gave you?”
“I...I think so.”
“Then I’ll count myself lucky because that’s expired. You should’ve replaced it last year, but if you had, I wouldn’t be standing upright forming words.” He pulled up the hem of his T-shirt to his face and wiped his tears and his nose.
Miss Perfect would hate that he’d just used his shirt as a handkerchief—and that was fine with him. He peered at her through blurry eyes and she still looked perfect—damn it.
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry. I thought you were an ex-con attacking me.”
She must be referring to Gary Binder, unless there were other ex-cons in Timberline who lived out this way. He’d already done his homework on the case but he had no intention of sharing his info with her. Oh, God, she had to be here for the same case he’d been assigned to investigate.
He narrowed his already-narrowed eyes. “You’re doing a story for your stupid show on the Timberline Trio, aren’t you?”
“That stupid show, as you call it, got a point-six rating last year, more than half of those viewers in the prime demographic.” She tossed her hair over one shoulder as only Beth St. Regis could.
“Junk TV.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oh, my God. That’s why you’re here. You’re investigating the Timberline Trio.”
“What else would I be doing here?” He lifted one eyebrow and crossed his arms. “Do you think I followed you to Timberline?”
Red flags blazed in her cheeks. “Of course not. Why would I think that? What we had was...”
“Over.”
“Yeah, over.” She waved her hand in the general direction of his face. “Are you okay? I really did think you were that ex-con coming after me. Why did you grab my leg?”
“I thought you were falling in.”
“Through that small space?”
“I couldn’t see how big it was.”
“I was fine. As soon as I heard you coming, I got ready for the attack. You told me once I needed to be more careful, more aware of my surroundings.”
“Good to see you’re taking my advice...about something.” He ran a hand across his face once more and sniffled. “Where’s the rest of your crew, or are you a one-woman show now? I guess Beth St. Regis doesn’t need other people—unless she’s using them.”
Her nostrils flared but she ignored the barb. “I’m doing some prep work. My cameraman and producer will be coming out later.”
“And the circus will ensue.”
“If the FBI is involved, there really must be something to investigate.”
She brushed off her jeans that fit her a little too closely, so he kept his blurry eyes pinned to her face.
“Isn’t that why this case is on your radar? You must’ve heard about the new information we got during the investigation of the copycat kidnappings.” He cocked his head. “Come to think of it, I have a hard time believing the old Timberline Trio case is sexy enough for Cold Case Chronicles. Maybe you followed me out here.”
Her sky blue eyes widened for a split second and then she giggled nervously, her hand hovering near her mouth. “I have no idea what happened to you after...that last case, Duke Harper. You dumped me, and it’s not like I’ve been following your career or anything like a stalker.”
A thrill of pleasure winged through his body at her lie. So she’d been tracking him. What did that say about him that the thought gave him satisfaction? It also meant she knew about the royal screwup that had resulted in the death of his partner, Tony.
“That’s okay. I haven’t watched one of your shows, either.” The slight lift at the corner of her luscious lips told him she’d picked up on his lie, too.
“I suppose you’re not interested in joining forces, are you? Pooling our resources? We’re an unbeatable team. We proved that before.”
He snorted. She didn’t deserve an answer to that one. They’d been an unbeatable team in bed, too, but that hadn’t stopped her from playing him.
“What were you doing crawling around on the ground?” He pointed to the cover over the mine.
“Prep work.” She sealed her lips. “Where are you staying while you’re here?”
“Timberline Hotel.”
She raised her hand. “Me, too.”
He pasted on his best poker face. “Makes no difference to me.”
“Do you have a partner with you or are you working alone?”
A partner? The FBI would have a hard time trying to find someone to partner up with him after Tony. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at a gnarled root coming up from the earth.
“Oh, come on, Duke. Whether or not you’re working with a partner is not giving up any classified info.”
He shrugged. He had no intention of giving this woman one morsel of information. She should know that working a cold case was like being exiled to Siberia—for him, anyway. This was punishment and he didn’t want to discuss his failure with her.
“I guess you’ll follow your leads and I’ll follow mine.” He circled his finger in the air. “How long have you been here?”
“Just a couple of days. I’m trying to get a feel for the place. I even brought my own video cam.”
A flock of birds shrieked and rose from a canopy of trees and the hair on the back of Duke’s neck stood up. Hunching forward, he crept toward the tree line.
“What are you doing?” Beth’s voice sounded like a shout and he put his finger to his lips.
Voices carried in the outdoors and those birds had taken off because something—or someone—had disturbed them. The abandoned mine was in a clearing, but dense forest and heavy underbrush hemmed it in on all sides.
The trail from the road had wound past an abandoned construction site to the clearing, and it continued on the other side. The birds had come from the other side.
He reached the beginning of the trail and took a few steps onto the path, his head cocked to one side. Leaves rustled and twigs snapped, but that could be animals going about their business. His gaze tracked through the blur of green, but he didn’t spot any movement or different colors.
City life had his senses on high alert, but a rural setting could pose just as much danger—of a different kind.
He exhaled slowly and returned to the clearing, where Beth waited for him, hands on her hips.
“What was all that about?”
He pointed to the sky. “Those birds took off like something startled them.”
“I told you I saw a rough-looking guy out here on a bike. Maybe it was him.”
“Doesn’t explain why he was hanging around. I don’t know that you should be traipsing around the forest by yourself.” He snorted. “You’re hardly an outdoor girl.”
She kicked a foot out. “I have the boots.”
He opened his mouth for a smart-ass reply but someone or something crashed through the bushes and they both jumped this time. Duke reached for the weapon tucked in the shoulder holster beneath his jacket and tensed his muscles.
He dropped his shoulders when three teenage boys came staggering into the clearing, laughing and pushing each other. The roughhousing came to an abrupt halt when they spotted Duke and Beth.
The tallest of the three boys stepped forward, holding a can of beer behind his back. “Is this, uh, official business or something?”
The other two edged back to the tree line, trying to hide their own beers.
“Nope. I was just leaving.” Duke leveled his finger at the boy. “But you’d better not be operating a motor vehicle.”
“Driving? No way, sir.”
Beth flashed her megawatt smile at the trio of teens. “Do you boys live here? I’m from the TV show Cold Case Chronicles, and we’re doing a show on the old Timberline Trio case.”
“Oh, hey, yeah. My mom watches that show all the time.”
One of the other boys, a pimple-faced kid with a shock of black hair, mimicked the tagline of the show in a deep voice. “Cold Case Chronicles...justice for all time.”
“That’s us.” Beth nodded. “So, how about it? Any of you know anything about that case? Parents around at the time?”
The one who’d spoken up first said, “Nah, we just moved here a few years ago when my mom got a job with Evergreen Software.”
The kid with the acne answered. “Same here.”
The dark-haired boy with the mocha skin who’d been quiet up to now ran a hand through his short hair. “My family was here, but they don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about it.”
“We?”
Duke rolled his eyes as Beth tilted her head, that one word implying a million questions if the boy wanted to pick one up. The teen had better run now if he wanted to avoid that steam train.
The tall, skinny boy answered for his friend. “Levon is Quileute. They believe in voodoo magic and boogeymen.”
Levon punched his friend in the arm and the tall kid dropped his beer where it fizzed out in the dirt. “Hey, man.”
All three boys picked up where they’d left off, crashing back into the woods, cursing at each other and laughing, startling a flock of birds with their raucousness.
“Well, that’s interesting.” Beth tapped the toe of her boot. “I wonder what that boy meant about the Quileute not talking about the crime. Did law enforcement ever question anyone from the tribe?”
“Not that I know of, but I’ll leave that to your superior investigative talents.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s been real, but I gotta go.”
“I guess I’ll see you around, Duke. We are in the same hotel, same small town, same case.”
“Don’t remind me.” He waved over his shoulder and hit the trail back to his rented SUV, putting as much space as possible between him and Beth St. Regis, his mind as jumbled as the carpet of mulch he was plowing through.
She looked the same, except for the clothes. Beth had always been a girlie-girl—high heels, dresses, manicured nails, perfect hair and makeup. The jeans, boots and down vest suited her. Hell, a burlap sack would suit Beth. She had the kind of delicate beauty that shifted his libido into overdrive.
He’d fantasized about those girls when he was a teen growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Philly—the rich girls with the expensive clothes and cars, the kind of girl that wouldn’t give him the time of day unless she wanted to tick off her parents by running with a bad boy.
He’d been drawn to Beth like a magnet for all the wrong reasons. You couldn’t use a living, breathing person to fix whatever you’d missed in your childhood. But, man, it had felt good trying.
When he’d had Beth in bed, he couldn’t get enough of her soft porcelain skin, the way her breast fit neatly into the palm of his hand and the feel of her fine, silky hair running down his body.
The thought of those nights with Beth’s slim legs wrapped around his hips got him hard all over again, and he broke into a jog to work off the steam.
When he got to the car, he collapsed in the driver’s seat and downed half a bottle of water. Just his luck to run into the woman of his dreams on this nightmare assignment.
He dug his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket and called his boss, Mickey Tedesco.
“I was just thinking about you, man. All settled in up there? I hear it’s some beautiful country.”
“Don’t try to sell this, Mick. I checked into my hotel and took a walk in the woods to have a look at where the kidnap victims were held a few months ago, not that those kidnappings had anything to do with the Timberline kidnappings, except that the brother of one of the original victims turned out to be the kidnapper.” He dragged in a breath. “Why am I doing this? Doesn’t the FBI have more urgent cases that need my attention?”
“You know why, Duke.” Mick coughed. “It’s always a good idea to ease back into work after a...um, situation.”
“I’m good to go, Mickey.” His hand tensed on the steering wheel. “I don’t need to be poking around a twenty-five-year-old kidnapping case based on some slim new evidence, which isn’t even evidence.”
“I don’t know. It may not have started out too promising, but you might be getting more than you bargained for, Duke. You might have yourself a hot one.”
A vision of Beth aiming her pepper spray—pepper spray he’d given her—at his face flashed across his mind. “I might be getting more than I bargained for, all right. That bogus Cold Case Chronicles show is out here nosing around.”
Mick sucked in a breath. “Beth St. Regis is there, in Timberline?”
“Yeah.” Mick knew a little about the drama that had gone on between him and Beth...but not all of it.
Mick whistled. “That makes total sense now.”
“It does?” Duke clenched his jaw. “Are they promo-ing the segment already? She doesn’t even have her crew out here.”
“No. It makes sense that Beth’s doing a show about the Timberline Trio because someone sent us an email about her yesterday.”
Duke’s pulse skipped a beat. “About Beth? What’d it say?”
“The email, untraceable of course, said ‘Stop Beth St. Regis.’”
Chapter Three (#ulink_1bcb06a7-dcbc-5a59-b983-66c29b87ce13)
Beth parked her rental car in the public parking lot on the main drag of Timberline and flicked the keys in the ignition. Why did Duke Harper have to be here mucking up her investigation?
She chewed her bottom lip. He’d been sent out on a cold case because of what had happened in Chicago. She’d read all about the botched kidnapping negotiation that had ended in the death of Duke’s partner, a fellow FBI agent. But Duke had rescued the child.
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. Duke had a thing about rescuing children...but he couldn’t save them all.
She plucked the keys from the ignition and shoved open the car door. She couldn’t get hung up on Duke again. This story had presented her with the opportunity to get to the bottom of her identity, and she didn’t plan on letting tall, dark and handsome get in her way.
She locked the car with the key fob and dropped it in her purse. The chill in the autumn air had her hunching into her jacket as she walked toward the lit windows lining the main street.
If she recalled from the TV news story on the kidnappings, the tourist shop was located between an ice-cream place and a real-estate office. She started at the end of the block and passed a few restaurants just getting ready for the dinner crowd, a quiet bar and a coffee place emitting a heavenly aroma of the dark brew she’d sworn off to avoid the caffeine jitters. The Pacific Northwest was probably not the best place to swear off coffee.
A neon ice-cream cone blinking in a window across the street caught her attention. She waited for a car to pass and then headed toward the light as if it were a beacon.
The tourist shop, Timberline Treasures, with the same frog in the window, nestled beside the ice-cream place, and Beth yanked open the door, sending the little warning bell into a frenzy.
A couple studying a rack of Native American dream catchers glanced at her as she entered the store.
“Hello.” A clerk popped up from behind the counter. “Looking for something in particular?”
“I am.” Beth gripped the strap of her purse, slung across her body, as she scanned the shelves and displays inside the store. “I’m interested in that frog in the window.”
“The Pacific Chorus frog.” The woman smiled and nodded. “Timberline’s mascot.”
Beth’s gaze tripped across a small display of the frogs in one corner. “There they are.”
The clerk came out from behind the counter and smoothed one hand across a stuffed frog, his little miner’s hat tilted at a jaunty angle. “They’re quite popular and these are originals.”
Beth joined her at the display and reached for a frog, her fingers trembling. “Originals?”
“These are handmade by a local resident.” She tapped a bucket filled with more stuffed frogs. “These are mass-produced but we still carry the local version.”
“Is there a noticeable difference between them?” Beth held the handmade frog to her cheek, the plush fur soft against her skin.
The clerk picked up a frog from the barrel. “The easiest way to tell is the tag on the mass-produced version. It’s from a toy company, made in China.”
“The color is slightly different, too.” Beth turned over the frog in her hand and ran a thumb across his green belly. She hooked a finger in the cloth tag attached to his leg and said the words before she even read the label. “Libby Love.”
“That’s the other way to tell.” The clerk lifted her glasses attached to the chain around her neck. “Every handmade frog has that tag on it.”
“What does it mean?” Beth fingered the white tag with the lettering in gold thread. “Libby Love?”
“It’s the name of the artist, or at least her mother—Elizabeth Love. Libby’s daughter, Vanessa, makes the frogs now.”
Beth took a steadying breath. She’d already figured her childhood frog had come from Timberline, but now she had the proof. “When did her mother start making the frogs?”
“Libby started making those frogs over forty years ago when Timberline still had mining.” The woman dropped her glasses when the browsing couple approached the counter. “Are you ready?”
While the clerk rang up the tourists’ purchases, Beth studied both frogs. Now what? Even if she’d had a frog from Timberline, it hadn’t necessarily come from this store. And if it had come from this store, any records from twenty-five years ago would be long gone.
The clerk returned with her head tilted to one side. “Can I help you with anything else? Answer any more questions?”
“So, these frogs—” Beth dangled one in front of her by his leg “—this is the only place to buy them?”
“The Libby Love frogs are available only in Timberline, although Vanessa sells them online now.”
“How long has she been selling them online?” Beth held her breath. Surely, not twenty-five years ago.
The woman tapped her chin. “Maybe ten years now?”
“Is this the only store in Timberline that sells the Libby Love frogs?”
“Oh, no. All the tourist shops have them and even a few of the restaurants.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “They all sell for the same price.”
“Oh, I’ll buy one from you.” Beth studied the woman’s pleasant face with its soft lines and had an urge to confess everything. “I...I had a toy like this frog when I was a child.”
“Oh? Did your parents visit Timberline or get it from someone else?”
“I’m not sure.” Her adoptive parents could’ve passed through Timberline and picked up the frog, but their taste in travel didn’t include road trips through rural America.
“It’s always nice to reconnect with your childhood. Can I ring that up for you now or would you like to continue looking around?” She glanced at her watch. “I do close in a half hour.”
Sensing a sale, the clerk didn’t want her to walk out of there without that frog tucked under her arm. She didn’t have to worry. Beth had no intention of walking out of there without the frog.
“I’ll look around for a bit.” Who knew what else she’d discover in there? With her heart pounding, she wandered around the store. She felt close to something, on the verge of discovery.
Maybe in a week or two she’d be ready to track down the Brices and present herself to them as their long-lost daughter who had been kidnapped from Timberline twenty-five years ago. It would be a helluva story for the show, too.
She couldn’t forget about the show—she never did. Being the host of that show had given her the recognition and attention she’d missed from her parents. How could she have put that into words for Duke two years ago without sounding pathetic?
Stopping in front of a carousel of key chains, she hooked her finger through one and plopped it down on the glass countertop. “I’ll take this, too.”
As the woman rang up the frog and the key chain, she peered at her through lowered lashes. “Are you here to do a story on the Timberline Trio?”
Beth dropped her credit card. “What?”
The woman retrieved the credit card and ran her finger along the raised lettering. “You are Beth St. Regis of the Cold Case Chronicles, aren’t you? I recognized you right away. My sister and I love your show.”
“Th...thank you.” Wasn’t that what Beth had always wanted? People recognizing her on the street, praising the show, praising her? Wasn’t that why she’d betrayed Duke Harper?
“I...we...”
“Well, I figured it had to be the Timberline Trio case. We don’t have any other cold cases around here. Our former sheriff, Cooper Sloane, made sure of that with the kidnappings we just had. Could’ve knocked me over with a feather when it turned out Wyatt Carson had kidnapped those kids. Why would he do that when his own brother was one of the Timberline Trio?”
“That was...interesting.”
The woman put a finger to her lips. “I can keep a secret if you want, but I think most people are going to realize that’s why you’re here. Timberline is still a small town, despite Evergreen Software. Word will spread.”
“It’s no secret. I’ll be interviewing Timberline residents and visiting all the original locations.” Beth signed the credit-card slip. “I’m just doing some preliminary legwork right now and my crew will be joining me later.”
Of course, the good people of Timberline would know the purpose of her visit. Word may have already spread, thanks to those boys in the woods. Soon everyone in town would know.
But nobody needed to know her ulterior motive for the story—including Duke Harper.
It would’ve been something she’d have shared with him two years ago, but now they had too many secrets between them. She’d noticed he hadn’t offered up any explanations of why a hotshot FBI agent was wasting his time on a cold case, although she already knew the reason.
Beth hugged the bag to her chest. “Thanks...?”
“Linda. Linda Gundersen.”
“You seemed knowledgeable about the stuffed frog. Were you living here when the three children were kidnapped?”
“No. My sister and I took over this shop when we both retired from teaching in Seattle. She’d dated a man from this area for a while, liked it, and suggested it as a place for us to retire.” Crossing her arms, she hunched on the counter. “That was fourteen years ago when property was cheap. Turns out it was a good move because things started booming when Evergreen set up shop here.”
Beth dug a card out of her purse and slid it across the glass toward Linda. “If you know anyone who’d like to talk to me about the case, have them give me a call.”
“I will. My sister, Louise, would love to be on the show.”
“Does she know anything about the case?”
“No, but she hired Wyatt Carson to do some plumbing on our house.” Linda’s voice had risen on a note of hope.
“I’ll see if my investigation on the story takes me in that direction. Thanks again.”
“Enjoy your frog.”
Beth turned at the door and waved, stepping into the crisp night air. Darkness had descended while she’d been in the tourist shop, and her rumbling stomach reminded her that she’d skipped lunch.
Her hotel didn’t have a restaurant on the premises and the yellow light spilling out of Sutter’s across the street beckoned.
She had no problem eating alone—her job necessitated it half the time she was on the road, and her nonexistent social life dictated it when she was at home.
The plastic bag in her hands crinkled and she decided to make a detour to her car. If she had a bigger purse she’d stuff her frog in there, but her cross-strap bag had no room for her new furry friend and she didn’t want to haul the frog into the restaurant. That part of this story she wanted to keep under wraps until she had more proof.
How many adults looking for answers had made the pilgrimage to Timberline, believing they were Stevie, Kayla or Heather? But she had a strong feeling she’d been here before.
She withdrew the frog from the bag and kissed him before stuffing him back in the bag and dropping it on the passenger seat. She’d kissed plenty of frogs in her day, but this one really was going to make all her dreams come true.
She locked up the car and strode back to the restaurant. It had just opened for dinner and a sea of empty tables greeted her—no excuse for the hostess to stick the single diner by the kitchen or the restrooms. She nabbed a prime spot next to the window, ordered a glass of wine and started checking the email on her phone.
Every time Beth looked up from her phone, more and more people filled the room, and she began to notice a few furtive glances coming her way. Linda had been right. News in a small town traveled fast.
If the locals showed an interest in the story, it would make for some good TV. She and her crew never went into these situations with the goal of actually solving the mystery, although a few times they’d gotten lucky. She’d gotten lucky when Duke had shown up during her story two years ago—lucky in more ways than one.
That Cold Case Chronicles’ investigation had led to the arrest of a child killer who’d been living his life in plain sight of the grieving families. It had been one of her finest hours...and had cost her a budding relationship with Duke.
When the waitress brought her a steaming bowl of soup, Beth looked up just in time to see Duke walk into the restaurant.
She ducked her head behind the waitress and peered around her arm.
The waitress raised her eyebrows. “Everything okay?”
“Just thought I saw someone I knew.”
“In Timberline, that’s not hard to do even if you are from Hollywood.”
“LA.”
“You are that host from Cold Case Chronicles, aren’t you?” The waitress had wedged a hand on her hip as if challenging Beth to disagree with her.
“I am, but I don’t live in...” She shrugged. “Yeah, I’m from Hollywood.”
“I wasn’t here during the first set of kidnappings but—” the waitress looked both ways and cupped a hand around her mouth “—I could tell you a thing or two about Wyatt Carson. I used to date him.”
“Really?” Everyone seemed to want to talk about Wyatt, but that case was one for the books. “Did he ever talk much about his brother and what might’ve happened to him?”
The waitress’s eyes gleamed. “A little. I could tell you about it...on camera. I’m Chloe Rayman, by the way.”
“We’ll talk before we commit anything to video, Chloe.” Beth held out her card between two fingers. “If it’s something we can use, I’ll have my cameraman film you when he gets here.”
“Oh, I think it’s something you can use.” Chloe plucked the card from Beth’s fingers and tucked it into the pocket of her apron.
Even if Chloe didn’t have anything of importance to add to the story, the waitress would want her fifteen minutes of fame anyway. Beth’s challenge on these stories had always been to separate the wannabes from the people with hard facts. Sometimes the two types meshed.
Beth lifted a spoonful of the seafood bisque and blew on the hot liquid.
“Digging in already, huh?”
She’d taken a sip of the soup and choked on it as she looked into the chocolate-brown eyes of Duke Harper. She dabbed a napkin against her mouth. “Dive right in. It’s the only way to do it.”
“It’s the only way you know.”
“I’d invite you to sit down—” she waved at the place across from her “—but I’m sure you have important FBI business.”
The wooden chair scraped the floor as he pulled it out. “The only important business I have right now is dinner.”
She gulped the next spoonful of soup and it burned her throat. What possible reason could Duke have for joining her for dinner? Maybe he wanted to grill her for information this time.
“The seafood bisque is good.” She drew a circle around her bowl of soup with her spoon.
Chloe returned to the table, practically bursting at the seams. “Are you Beth’s cameraman?”
“Would it get me a beer faster if I were?” Duke lifted one eyebrow at Chloe, who turned three different shades of red.
“Of course not. I mean, what kind of beer would you like?”
“Do you sell that local microbrew on tap here?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have that and the pork chops with the mashed potatoes, and you might as well bring me some of that soup she’s slurping up.”
Beth dropped her spoon in the bowl. “Why did you join me if you’re going to sit here and insult me?”
“That wasn’t an insult. Are you getting overly sensitive out there in LA? You used to be a tough broad, Beth.”
Rolling her shoulders, she exhaled out of her nose. Duke liked to needle her. It hadn’t bothered her before—when they’d been in love. But now that he hated her? She couldn’t take the slightest criticism from him.
“Pile it on, Duke. I can take it.” She set her jaw.
“Relax, Beth. Your slurping made the soup sound good. That’s all I meant.”
Relax? Was that a jab at her anxiety? She squeezed her eyes closed for a second. If she didn’t stop looking for innuendos in his conversation, this was gonna be a long dinner.
She scooped up a spoonful and held it out to him with a surprisingly steady hand. “Try it.”
He opened his mouth and closed his lips around the spoon. “Mmm.”
Heat engulfed her body and a pulse throbbed in her throat. My God, she couldn’t be within five feet of the man without feeling that magnetic pull. And he knew it.
She slipped the spoon from his mouth and lined it up on one side of the bowl just as Chloe brought Duke’s beer and another bisque.
“Are you done, Beth?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She pushed her bowl toward the eager waitress.
When she disappeared into the kitchen, Duke took a swig of beer and asked, “What’s up with the waitress? Is she your new best friend or what?”
“She dated Wyatt Carson and thinks that’s going to get her camera time.”
“You have that effect on people, don’t you? They tend to fall all over themselves in your presence.”
She stuck out her tongue at him and took a gulp of wine. She needed it to get through this meal.
“Interesting case, Wyatt Carson.” Duke flicked his bottle with his finger.
“I know, right?” Beth hunched forward. “Why do you think he did it? Hard to imagine he’d want to put other families through that hell when he’d suffered the loss of his brother.”
“One of two things.” Duke held up two fingers. “Either he missed the attention and limelight of those days when his brother went missing or he really did just want to play the hero. He kidnapped those kids and then rescued them. Maybe he thought he could get past his survivor’s guilt by saving other children when he couldn’t save his brother.”
“Twisted logic.” Beth tapped her head.
“Do you want a slurp, er, sip?” He held his spoon poised over his soup. “I had one of yours.”
“No, thanks. I have some fish coming.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know the camera adds ten pounds. You still run?”
“There are some great running trails here. Did you bring your running shoes?”
“Of course. Running is the only thing that kept me sane...keeps me sane with the pressures of the job.”
“Same here.” So the loss of his partner must’ve weighed heavily on him. Did he suffer from that same survivor’s guilt as Wyatt Carson?
“You doing okay with all that—” he circled his finger in the air “—panic stuff?”
“I’m managing.” Did he care? He’d acted like he wanted to strangle her today in the woods. Of course, she’d just nailed him with some expired pepper spray.
“How are your eyes? They still look a little red.”
“I’m managing.”
Chloe brought their entrées at the same time and hovered for several seconds. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Not for me.”
Beth shook her head. “No, thanks.”
As Duke sliced off a piece of pork chop and swept it through his potatoes, he glanced around the room. “Does the entire town of Timberline know why you’re here?”
“I don’t know about the entire town, but everyone in this restaurant has a pretty good idea by now, thanks to Chloe.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” His lips twisted into a frown.
“How else am I going to investigate, to get information?” She squeezed some lemon on her fish and licked the tart juice from her fingers.
Duke shifted his gaze from her fingers to her face and cleared his throat. “I guess that’s how you operate. Stir up a bunch of trouble and heartache and move on.”
Beth pursed her lips. “None of the original families is even here anymore. Wyatt Carson was the last of Stevie’s family in Timberline. Kendall Rush, Kayla’s sister, blew through town, got caught up in Wyatt’s craziness and then hightailed it out of here. And Heather’s family... They moved away from Timberline, to Connecticut, I think.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“I always do, Duke.”
“What I can’t figure out—” he poked at his potatoes “—is why you were attracted to this cold case. It hardly has all the elements you usually look for.”
“And what elements would those be?”
“You know—sex, drugs, grieving families, celebrity.”
She chewed her fish slowly. Duke hated what she did for a living—had hated it then, hated it now. She didn’t have to answer to Special Agent Duke Harper or anyone else.
She drained her wineglass. “I was following the copycat kidnapping story and got interested in the old story, like a lot of people. There seemed to be heightened interest in the Timberline Trio and talk of some new evidence, so I figure I’d capitalize on that. Right up my alley.”
“Excuse me, Ms. St. Regis?”
Beth turned and met the faded blue eyes of a grandmotherly woman, linking arms with another woman of about the same age.
“Yes?”
“I’m Gail Fitzsimmons and this is my friend Nancy Heck. We wanted to let you know that we were both living here at the time of the Timberline Trio kidnappings and we’d be happy to talk to you.”
“Thank you.” Beth reached into her purse for her cards, ignoring Duke’s sneer—or what looked pretty close to a sneer. “Here’s my card. I’ll be doing some preliminary interviews before my crew gets here.”
Nancy snatched the card from Beth’s fingers. “You mean we aren’t going to be on TV?”
Duke coughed and Beth kicked him under the table. “I can’t tell yet. We’ll see how the interviews go.”
When the two ladies shuffled away, their silver heads together, Duke chuckled. “This is going to be a circus.”
“And what exactly are you doing to work this cold case?”
“I have all the original case files. I’m starting there.” He held up his hands. “Don’t even ask. You can do your interviews with Wyatt Carson’s ex-girlfriend’s ex–dog sitter’s second cousin.”
“Don’t dismiss what I do. I helped the FBI solve the Masters case.”
“You helped yourself, Beth.”
Chloe approached their table. “Dessert?”
“Not for me.” Beth tossed her napkin on the table.
Pulling his wallet out of his pocket, Duke said, “Just the check.”
“You paying?” Beth reached for her purse. “I have an expense account.”
“And you’re using it to pay for your own dinner. I’m using my per diem to pay for mine. I don’t want any commingling here.”
She lowered her lashes and slid her credit card from her wallet. Was he talking about just their finances?
“Got it.” She tapped her card on the table. “No commingling.”
A loud voice came from the bar area of the restaurant, and chatter in the dining room hushed to a low level—enough for the bar patron’s words to reach them.
“That TV show better not start nosing around. If anyone talks to that host, I’ll give ’em the business end of my fist.” The man at the bar turned to face the room, knocking over his bar stool in the process.
His buddy next to him put a hand on his shoulder, but the belligerent drunk shook him off.
“Where’s she? I’ll toss ’er out right now on her fanny. Tarring and feathering. That’s what we should do. Who’s with me?” He raised his fist in the air.
A few people snickered but most went back to their dinners. Duke didn’t do either. He marched across the room toward the bar.
Beth groaned as she scribbled her signature on the credit-card receipt and took off after him. Duke had always been a hothead, and it looked like he hadn’t changed.
“What did you say?” He widened his stance in front of the man. “Are you threatening the lady?”
“You with that show, too?” The man looked Duke up and down and hiccuped.
His friend picked up the stool and shoved his friend into it. “C’mon, Bill. Take it easy. Who knows? Being featured on TV might increase our property values.”
The man, his dark hair flecked with gray, shook his head and stuck out his hand. “Sorry about that. My friend’s a Realtor and has had a little too much to drink. I’m Jordan Young.”
“Duke Harper.” Duke gestured toward Beth. “This is Beth St. Regis, the host of Cold Case Chronicles and the woman your friend was threatening.”
Jordan Young dismissed his drunken friend with a wave of his hand. “It’s the booze talking. His sales numbers haven’t been great lately, but it has nothing to do with the recent publicity we’ve been getting. Hell, Kendall Rush’s aunt’s place sold for top dollar. He’s just ticked off that he didn’t get that listing.”
He took Beth’s hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m a big fan of the show, Ms. St. Regis.”
“Thanks.” She nudged Duke in the back. “Are you a Realtor, too?”
“Me?” He chuckled. “Not really. I’m a developer, and I have a lot more to lose than Bill here if things go south, but that’s not going to happen—Evergreen Software will make sure of that.”
“You need to tell your friend to keep his mouth shut about Beth.”
“Duke.” She put her hand on his arm. His stint in Siberia hadn’t done anything to temper his combativeness. “I’m sure he’s not serious—at least about the tar-and-feathering part.”
Young winked. “Good to see you have a sense of humor about it, Ms. St. Regis, but I can understand your...coworker wanting to be protective.”
Duke didn’t correct him. If the residents of Timberline knew all about Cold Case Chronicles looking into the Timberline Trio, they didn’t seem to be as knowledgeable about the FBI putting the case back on its radar. Maybe Duke wanted to keep it that way.
“You can call me Beth.” Her eyes flicked over his gray-streaked hair and the lines on his face. “Were you here at the time of the initial kidnappings?”
“I was. Sad time for us.” He withdrew a silver card case from his suit jacket and flipped it open. “If you’re implying you want to interview me, I might be available, although I don’t know how much I could contribute.”
She took the card and ran her thumb across the gold-embossed letters. “You’d be the first one in town without some special insight.”
“Can you blame them?” He spread his hands. “A chance to be on TV and talk to the beautiful host?”
“Thank you.” The guy was smooth but almost avuncular. Duke could wipe the scowl from his face, but she didn’t mind that another man’s attentions to her irritated him.
“You should take care of your buddy here.” Duke jerked his thumb at Bill, still resting his head on the bar.
“I’ll get him home safely to his wife. Good night, now.” Young turned back to the bar. “Serena, can you get Bill a strong cup of coffee? Make it black, sweetheart.”
Duke put his hand on her back as he propelled her out of the restaurant—with almost every pair of eyes following them.
As Duke swung the door open for her, Chloe rushed up and patted her apron. “I’ll be calling you, Beth. I don’t care what Bill Raney says.”
“Looking forward to it, Chloe.”
When they stepped outside, Duke tilted his head. “Really? You’re looking forward to talking to Chloe about Wyatt Carson?”
“You never know what might pop up in a conversation. Maybe Wyatt remembered something about his brother’s kidnapping that he never told the cops.”
“Why wouldn’t he have told the cops?”
Beth zipped up her vest. “Because he turned out to be a nut job.”
“Seems to be no scarcity of those in this town.” He hunched into his suede coat, rubbing his hands together. “Where are you parked?”
“In the public lot down the block. This is Timberline. You don’t have to walk me to my car.”
“Just so happens I’m parked there, too.” He nudged her with his elbow. “There have been two high-profile kidnapping cases in Timberline. I wouldn’t take your safety for granted here. There might be more people here who feel like Bill.”
“I’m hardly in danger of getting tarred and feathered...or kidnapped.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets and lifted her shoulders to her ears. She may have already been kidnapped from Timberline once. What were the odds of it happening again?
Duke followed her through the parking lot to her car anyway, occasionally bumping her shoulder but never taking her hand. What did she expect? That they would pick up where they’d left off two years ago? Before he’d accused her of using him? Before she’d used him?
As she reached the rental, her boots crunched against the asphalt and she jerked her head up. “Damn. Somebody broke the window of my car.”
“Safe Timberline, huh? Maybe Bill did his dirty work before he hit the restaurant.” Duke hunched forward to look at the damage to the window on the driver’s side. “You didn’t have a laptop sitting on the passenger seat, did you?”
“No, but...” Her ears started ringing and she grabbed the handle of the car door and yanked it open.
Someone had taken the bag from the gift shop. Collapsing in the driver’s seat, she slammed her hands against the steering wheel. “My frog. They took my frog.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_a0d7ae78-934f-58ec-9b73-a2fd25fac7c7)
Duke’s eyebrows shot up at the sob in Beth’s voice. Someone had smashed the window of her rental car and she was worried about a frog?
“Beth?” He placed his hand against the nape of her neck and curled his fingers around the soft skin beneath her down vest. “What frog, Beth?”
She sniffled and dragged the back of her hand across her nose. “Some frog I bought in a gift store. I... It’s particular to Timberline.”
“I’m sure they have more.” He released her and braced his hand against the roof of the car. Why was she overreacting about a frog? She must be driving herself hard again, maybe even succumbing to those panic attacks that had plagued her for years.
Because she didn’t even know about the warning the FBI had received about her. He’d debated telling her but didn’t want to worry her needlessly about an anonymous email. Who knew? The emailer may have sent the same message to Beth or her production company. Maybe that was why she was breaking down over a frog.
“You can replace the frog. Will your insurance fix the window on the rental car?”
“I’m sure I’m covered for that.” She leaned into the passenger seat and peeked beneath the seat.
“It’s gone?”
“Yep.”
He kicked a piece of glass with the toe of his boot. “You’re not sitting on glass, are you? The window broke inward, so there’s gotta be some on the seat.”
“There wasn’t.” She climbed out of the car and gripped the edge of the door as if to keep herself steady and upright. “He must’ve brushed it off.”
“We’re reporting this.” Duke pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolled through his contacts and placed a call to the Timberline Sheriff’s Department. “We have some vandalism, a broken car window, in the public lot on the corner of Main and River.”
He gave them his name and a description of Beth’s rental car before ending the call.
“Are they coming?” She cupped the keys to the car in one hand and bounced them in her palm.
“Of course. This isn’t LA.” He grabbed her hand and held it up, inspecting the dot of blood on the tip of her ring finger. “There was some glass in the car. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Her wide eyes focused on the blood and she swayed—another overreaction. She seemed to be taking this break-in hard. Maybe she did know about the warning against her—and he didn’t mean Bill’s drunken threats.
Grasping her wrist lightly, he said, “Come with me to my car down the aisle. I have some tissues in there and some water.”
By the time they reached his rental, she’d regained a measure of composure. “Idiots. Why would someone go through all the trouble of breaking a window on a rental car to get to a bag of stuff from a tourist shop?”
“Maybe if you hadn’t left your bag on the passenger seat in plain view.” He unlocked his car and reached into the backseat for a box of tissues, and then grabbed the half-filled bottle of water from his cup holder. “How many times have I told you not to leave things in your car?”
“Let’s see.” She held out her middle finger. “Must’ve been a hundred times at least.”
“Very funny. It’s your ring finger.” At least she’d come out of her daze.
“Oops.” She held out the correct finger and wiggled it.
He moistened a tissue with some water and held it against the bead of blood. “Apply some pressure to that. Did you get cut anywhere else?”
“Not that I can tell.” She tipped her chin toward the cop car rolling into the parking lot. “The deputies are here.”
As two deputies got out of the car, Duke whispered in Beth’s ear. “That’s what I like about Timberline. Two cops come out to investigate a broken window and a missing frog.”
She stiffened beside him but a laugh gurgled in her throat.
She’d sure grown attached to that frog in a short span of time...unless there was something else in the bag she didn’t want to tell him about. With Beth St. Regis, the possibilities were limitless.
The first deputy approached them, adjusting his equipment belt. “You call in the broken window?”
“And a theft. I had a bag in the car from Timberline Treasures.”
The second deputy pointed at Beth. “You’re Beth St. Regis from that show.”
“Do you watch it?”
“No, just heard you were in town to dig up the old Timberline Trio case.”
“I think Wyatt Carson already did that.” She jerked her thumb at Duke. “You do know the FBI is looking into the case again, too.”
The officer nodded at Duke and stuck out his hand. “Deputy Stevens. I heard the FBI was sending in a cold-case agent. The sheriff already turned over our files, right?”
“Special Agent Duke Harper.” He shook hands with the other man. “And I have the files.”
The other officer stepped forward, offering his hand as well. “Deputy Unger. We’ll do whatever we can to help you. My mother was good friends with Mrs. Brice at the time of the kidnapping. I was about five years older than Heather when she went missing. That family was never the same after that. Had to leave the area.”
Beth was practically buzzing beside him. “Deputy Unger, could I interview you for the show?”
“Ma’am, no disrespect intended, but I’m here to help the FBI. I’m not interested in being a part of sensationalizing the crime. We’ve had enough of that lately.”
“But...”
Duke poked her in the back. “You wanna have a look at the car now?”
“Sure. We’ll take a report for the rental-car company and insurance purposes. Probably a kid or one of our local junkies.”
Duke asked, “Do you have a drug problem in Timberline?”
“Crystal meth, just like a lot of rural areas.” Unger flipped open his notebook and scribbled across the page.
When they finished taking the report, they shook hands with Duke again. “Anything we can do, Agent Harper.”
“Well, they weren’t very friendly.” Beth curled one fist against her hip.
“I thought they were very friendly.”
“Yeah, you get the cops and I get Carson’s ex-girlfriend’s dog walker’s cousin.”
“Second cousin’s ex–dog sitter.”
“Right.” She tossed her purse onto the passenger seat of the car and hung on the door. “Thanks for seeing me through the report...and the words of advice.”
He was close enough to her that the musky smell of her perfume wafted over him. “Do you want some more advice, Beth?”
She blinked. “If you’re dishing it out.”
“Find another case for your show. Get off this Timberline Trio gig. Since I’m in the Siberia of cold-case hell anyway, I can even toss a couple of good ones your way.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that? You must really want me off this case.”
“It’s not me.” Raking a hand through his hair, he blew out a breath. “Someone else wants you off this case.”
“What? Who? Bill?”
“We got an anonymous email and I don’t think it was from Bill Raney.”
“That’s crazy. The FBI got an email about little, old me? How did anyone even know I was doing a show on the Timberline Trio?”
“How long have you been in Timberline?”
“Two days.”
“We got the email two days ago.”
She sucked in her bottom lip. “You think it’s someone here?”
“It has to be, unless the station has been doing promo for it.”
“Not yet. We wouldn’t release anything about a story we haven’t even done yet. It might never come off.”
“Then it has to be someone here in Timberline or someone related to someone in Timberline. You haven’t exactly been shy about your purpose here.”
“No point in that. But why contact the FBI?” She snapped her fingers. “It must be someone who knows the FBI is looking into the case, too. Maybe this anonymous emailer figures the FBI will have some pull with me.”
Duke snorted. “Mr. Anonymous obviously doesn’t know you.”
“You know what’s strange?”
“Huh?”
“Why didn’t this person warn off the FBI? If it’s someone who doesn’t want me looking into the Timberline Trio, why would this same person be okay with the FBI dredging up the case?”
“I have no idea. Maybe he thinks Cold Case Chronicles has a better shot at solving the case than the FBI.” He scanned her thoughtful face. “That was a joke.”
“It’s strange, Duke. I suppose you tried to trace the email.”
“With no luck.”
“Must be someone who’s computer savvy, which isn’t hard to find in this town with Evergreen Software in the picture.”
He captured a lock of her silky hair and twisted it around his finger. “How about it, Beth? Why don’t you back off? I’ll find you another case, a better case for your show.”
“You don’t really think I’m in danger from an anonymous email, do you? I get a lot of anonymous emails, Duke. Some are unrepeatable.”
“What about this?” He smacked his palm on the roof of the car. “Someone sends a threat and then someone breaks into your car. Do you think it’s a coincidence?”
“Could just be a tweaker like Unger said. Besides, this could be good for you.”
“How so?”
“If someone who was involved in the disappearance of the Timberline Trio twenty-five years ago wants me off the case and is willing to harass me about it, you might be able to pick him up and actually solve the case.”
“You think I’d use you, put you at risk to solve a twenty-five-year-old case?” He clenched his jaw.
She swallowed, her Adam’s apple bobbing in her slender throat. “I...”
“Just because you did it, don’t expect the same treatment from me.” He backed away from her car. “Drive carefully.”
* * *
WITH TEARS FLOODING her eyes, which had nothing to do with the cold air coming through the broken window, Beth glanced at Duke’s blurry headlights in her rearview mirror.
He hadn’t forgiven her, despite his concern for her safety tonight.
Maybe that concern was all a big act. Maybe the anonymous email was a lie. Why would someone want to warn her away from the case but not warn the FBI?
Unless this someone knew her true identity. Did someone suspect her real purpose for highlighting the Timberline case?
She pulled into the parking lot of the Timberline Hotel with Duke right behind her. They even got out of their cars at the same time. He followed her inside, but made no attempt to talk to her.
She dreaded the awkward elevator ride, but he peeled off and headed for the stairwell. Once she stepped into the elevator, she sagged against the wall.
Was the warning to the FBI connected to the break-in? Had the thief grabbed the bag because she’d left it out, or had he wanted to send a message by taking the Libby Love frog? And what was that message?
She slid her card key in the door and leaned into it to shove it open.
She dropped her purse on the single chair in the room and sauntered to the window, arms crossed. Resting her head against the cool glass, she took in the parking lot beneath her.
Did Duke have a better view? If he’d taken the stairs, his room was probably located on the lower floors. The hotel had just five. Who was she kidding? Duke could run up five flights of stairs without breaking a sweat or gasping for breath. The man was a stud, but not the overly muscled kind. He had the long, lean body of a runner.
She banged her head against the window. No point in letting her thoughts stray in that direction. He’d been concerned about her tonight, but that could just be because he wanted her out of the picture.
Little did he know, she had more at stake here than good ratings.
She could tell him, confess everything...well, almost everything. He already knew that she’d been adopted and hadn’t been able to locate her birth parents. If she explained to him her suspicions about being Heather Brice, maybe he could help her. Maybe he’d share the case files with her.
She pivoted away from the window. If she told him that now, he’d suspect her of spinning a tale to get her hands on the information he had. She wouldn’t go down that road with him again.
Sighing, she swept the remote control from the credenza and aimed it at the TV, turning it on.
With the local TV news blaring in the background, she got ready for bed. Snug in a new pair of flannel pajamas she’d bought for the trip, she perched on the edge of the bed to watch the news. She hadn’t made the local news—not yet.
She switched the channel to a sitcom rerun and flipped back the covers on her bed. Her heart slammed against her chest and she jerked back as she stared at the head of the Libby Love frog positioned on the white sheet, his miner’s hat at a jaunty angle.
Chapter Five (#ulink_c319453b-4144-5f3a-acd8-77bbba238bc5)
Beth slammed the frog head on the reception counter, squishing the hat. “Where did it come from?”
The hotel clerk’s eyes popped from their sockets. “Ma’am, I’m sorry. I have no idea how it got in your bed. Perhaps it had been washed with the sheets and the maid thought it belonged to you.”
“This—” she shook the head at him until some white stuffing fell onto the countertop “—does not look like it’s been through an industrial washing machine. It looks brand-new, except for the fact that it’s been ripped from its body.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know. I can talk to the maids in the morning.”
“What’s going on?”
Beth gulped and swiveled her head to the side. What was Duke doing down here? Might as well get it over with.
“I found this—” she thrust the frog head toward him “—in my bed when I got back to my room.”
He held out his hand and she dropped the head into his palm.
“What the hell? Is this the frog you bought earlier that was stolen from your car?”
“Stolen?” The clerk turned another shade of red. “I can assure you, we don’t know anything about any theft.”
Beth released a long breath. “I don’t know if it’s the exact same toy I bought, but it’s the same kind. So if the thief who broke into my car didn’t put it in my room, it’s a helluva coincidence that someone else did.”
The hotel clerk reached for the phone. “Should we call the sheriff’s department?”
Duke tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling of the lobby. “Do you have security cameras?”
“Just in the parking lot, sir. We can check that footage to see if anyone drove into the lot without coming through the lobby.”
“That’s a good idea. It would’ve been within the past ninety minutes. Do you have a security guard on duty...” He glanced at the man’s name tag. “...Gregory?”
“This is Timberline. No security guard.” Gregory lifted his hands. “Sheriff’s department?”
“Will they come out for a stuffed frog head?” Beth crossed her arms over her flannel pj’s, recognizing the ridiculousness of that statement. At least she didn’t feel as if she were choking as she had from the moment she’d seen that frog in her bed. Duke had that effect on her—a calming, steadying presence.
Too bad she had the opposite effect on him.
He gave her a crooked smile. “You heard Gregory. This is Timberline. They’ll come out for a stuffed frog. It’s not just the head. It’s the fact that someone broke into your room and put it in your bed...and the smashed car window before that. You want to report and document all this.”
Gregory picked up the phone. “I’ll call it in. We may learn more tomorrow when the housekeeping staff comes in. I’ll make sure we question all of them thoroughly. The night crew was here until about an hour ago, so they could’ve been here when the, uh, frog was put in your room.”
“Thanks, Gregory.” Beth tucked her messy hair behind her ears and flashed him one of her TV smiles. “I’m sorry I got in your face earlier. That frog rattled me.”
“I understand, ma’am. If you and the...gentleman—” he nodded toward Duke “—want to help yourselves to something from the self-serve concession while you wait for the sheriffs, it’s on the house.”
“Don’t mind if we do. Thanks, Gregory.” She crooked her finger at Duke and then charged across the lobby to the small lit fridge and rows of snacks, her rubber flip-flops smacking the tile floor.
She yanked open the fridge door with Duke hovering over her shoulder. “You’re still in your pajamas.”
Leaning forward, she studied the labels on the little bottles of wine with the screw tops. “Excuse me. I didn’t have time for full hair, makeup and wardrobe once I realized someone had been sneaking around my hotel room beheading frogs.”
She wrapped her fingers around a chilled bottle of chardonnay and turned on him, almost landing in his arms. She thrust the bottle between them. “What were you doing wandering around the hotel?”
His dark eyes widened. “Are you accusing me of planting the frog? I was with you, remember?”
“Now who’s being sensitive? The thought never crossed my mind, but you were headed toward the stairwell the last time I saw you.”
“I stepped outside for some air. My room was stuffy and I couldn’t sleep.” He held up the frog head. “It’s a good thing I did. You looked ready to gouge out poor Gregory’s eyes.”
“I was spooked.” She ducked back into the fridge. “Do you want a beer or one of these fine wines?”
“I’ll take a beer.” He ran his hand down the length of her arm. “Must’ve freaked you out seeing that frog in your bed.”
She handed him a cold beer. “It did. The fact that it was just his head made it worse. Was that some kind of warning?”
“Is this story worth it?” He took the mini wine bottle from her and twisted off the lid. “For whatever reason, someone doesn’t want you digging into this case, and this person is willing to put you through hell to get that point across.”
“Would you quit if someone started warning you?”
He twisted off his own cap and took a swallow of beer. “It’s different. If someone started warning the FBI off a cold case, it would give us reason to believe we were on the right track.”
“Maybe I’m on the right track.”
“You just got here. It seems to me that some person or persons don’t want a story on Timberline. Having the FBI investigate is a different ball game. Maybe these warnings to you are designed to stop you from dragging the town of Timberline through the mud again. You know, reducing the real-estate prices, like Bill said.”
She took a sip of wine. “You saw the people at the restaurant. Most were eager to help.”
“There could be two factions in town—one group wants the attention and the other doesn’t. The ones that don’t want the limelight have started a campaign against you—a personal one.” He clinked his bottle with hers. “Give it up, Beth. Move on to something else. I told you. I have the cold-case world at my fingertips now and can turn you on to a new, sexy case.”
She took another pull straight from her wine bottle and gritted her teeth as she swallowed. “I’m not going to quit, Duke. I want to investigate this case.”
“Evening, Ms. St. Regis.” Deputy Unger swept his hat from his head. “Gregory told us you had some more trouble tonight.”
“It’s the stuffed frog stolen from her car.” Duke held out the frog head. “Someone planted it in her hotel room.”
Unger whistled. “Someone really wants you gone—I mean off this story.”
“Can you check the tape from the security camera in the parking lot?” Beth put her wine bottle behind her back just in case Unger thought she was a hysterical drunk. “Gregory said the hotel had cameras out there. Maybe someone will appear on tape who’s out of place.”
“I spoke to him on the way in. Gregory’s getting that ready for us right now. Let’s go up to your room and check it out. See if there are any signs of a break-in.”
Duke proffered the frog head on the palm of his hand. “The frog’s been manhandled by a bunch of people, but maybe you can get some prints from it.”
Unger pulled a plastic bag from the duffel over his shoulder and shook it out. “Drop it in. We’ll have a look.”
They all trooped up to her hotel room and Beth inserted the card with shaky fingers. She didn’t know what to expect on the other side of the door.
Nothing.
Everything was the way she’d left it, covers pulled back on the bed and the TV blasting. She grabbed the remote and lowered the volume. “It was there, on the middle of the bed, beneath the covers.”
Unger looked up from studying the door. “No signs of forced entry. You’re on the fourth floor. Does the window open?”
“No.”
He had a fingerprinting kit with him and dusted the door handle and the doorjamb. Once he finished asking a few more questions, he packed up his stuff. “I’ll have a look at the footage now. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”
Duke stopped him. “One more thing, Deputy Unger. A Realtor by the name of Bill Raney was making some threats against Beth in Sutter’s tonight.”
“We’ll talk to him. That man’s been on a downward slide lately. I can’t imagine him out breaking car windows and sneaking into hotel rooms, but you never know what people will do when their backs are against the wall.”
Beth sighed. Why did this have to be happening on the most important case of her life? Maybe if she just explained herself publicly. She honestly didn’t care who had kidnapped her twenty-five years ago and she wasn’t interested in putting Timberline in the spotlight again. She just wanted to confirm her identity. She wanted to go to the Brices with proof. She wanted to go back to a loving home.
She’d already made a mistake. She should’ve done her sleuthing on the sly. She should’ve come to Timberline as a tourist, taken up fishing or hiking or boating. She’d just figured she had the best cover. Nobody would have to know her ulterior motive. Nothing would have to get back to the Brices until she was sure.
“Ms. St. Regis?”
She looked up into Deputy Unger’s face, creased with concern. “Are you okay? Gregory offered to move you to another room.”
“I think that’s a great idea.” Duke tossed her suitcase onto the bed. “In fact, the room next to mine on the second floor is empty.”
Beth’s mouth gaped open. Duke must really be worried if he wanted her rooming right next to him. Today in the forest he’d acted like he’d wanted to strangle her.
“That might not be a bad idea—if you’re insisting on continuing with this story.” Unger slung his bag over his shoulder and walked to the door.
“Deputy Unger, who exactly doesn’t want the old case dredged up from the cold-case files?” Holding her breath, she watched his face. He didn’t. He’d made that clear before.
He shrugged. “People like Bill. People with a lot to lose—think property values, reputations, businesses—those are the people who want to put this all behind us. The executives at Evergreen about had a fit when Wyatt Carson kidnapped those kids and struck fear into the hearts of their employees—the people they’d lured here with a promise of safety and clean living.”
“I don’t see how a crime that occurred twenty-five years ago can still tarnish the luster of a city.” She grabbed her vest from the back of the chair and dropped it next to her bag on the bed.
“C’mon, Beth.” Duke scratched his stubble. “You’ve been doing the show long enough to realize what can happen to a town when all the dirty laundry is hung out for everyone to see.”
“Maybe I won’t end up doing the story. Maybe I won’t even call my crew out here—but it won’t be because someone wants to scare me off. It’ll be because I decide to call it quits.”
“Whatever you say, Ms. St. Regis.” Unger pulled open the door. “Just keep calling us, especially if these pranks start to escalate.”
“Escalate?” Beth licked her lips. “It’s just a story, just a town’s rep.”
“You’d be surprised how far people will go to protect what’s theirs.”
She and Duke ended up following Unger back to the reception desk to switch her room to the second floor—next to Duke’s.
Unger scanned the footage while they waited and shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Anyone coming in or out of that parking lot is accounted for as a guest of the hotel.”
Gregory slipped her the new card key. “As I said, Ms. St. Regis, I’ll question housekeeping tomorrow morning and we’ll try to get to the bottom of how someone got into your room. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t.”
Duke got that fierce look he must’ve learned on the mean streets of Philly and Beth shivered. It meant a lot to have a man like Duke on your side—if you weren’t stupid enough to throw it all away.
Gregory even looked a little worried. “I’ll keep you posted, Ms. St. Regis.”
Duke took the suitcase handle from her and dragged her bag toward the elevator.
She shuffled after him, yawning. “I am so ready to call it a night.”
Duke gave her a sideways glance and stabbed the button for the second floor. The elevator rumbled into action and Beth closed her eyes. The wine had made her sleepy, and she felt the lure of a comfy bed with no surprises in it, although she wouldn’t mind one surprise—a prince instead of a frog.
The elevator lurched to a sharp halt and Beth’s eyes flew open. “Whoa. This thing needs service.”
The elevator had stopped moving but the doors remained shut.
“Oh, God, not another prank—as Unger called it.” Her gaze darted to Duke’s face, still fierce but set, his jaw hard.
“I’m the one who stopped the elevator.”
“What?” She braced her hand against the wall of the car. “Are you crazy? What did you do that for?”
Duke crossed his arms and widened his stance as if she could pull off an escape from the car.
“You’re going to tell me what you’re really doing in Timberline, and you’re going to tell me now or this elevator isn’t going anywhere.”
Chapter Six (#ulink_51e0960a-b1e7-5ebb-9571-417220439887)
Duke felt a twinge of guilt in his gut as Beth’s pale face blanched even more. Was she claustrophobic, too? He knew she had those panic attacks, and if she started down that road he’d cave. He had a weakness for this woman.
“I...I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here to do a Cold Case Chronicles episode on the Timberline Trio—come hell or high water.”
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Carol Ericson
A man with too many secrets. A woman with everything to lose.As if the Timberline Trio cold case isn't nightmarish enough for FBI agent Duke Harper, he runs into the TV reporter who loved and betrayed him–beautiful Beth St. Regis. Duke quickly concludes she's not after a sensational story. She's there to solve the haunting mystery of who she really is. But all her questions unleash a killer and Duke steps up to protect her when she becomes a target. Despite their bitter past, Duke finds he's still attracted to Beth and maybe they deserve a second chance. First, though, he has to keep Beth alive–and from discovering the shocking truth about her past…
A man with too many secrets. A woman with everything to lose.
As if the Timberline Trio cold case isn’t nightmarish enough for FBI agent Duke Harper, he runs into the TV reporter who loved and betrayed him—beautiful Beth St. Regis. Duke quickly concludes she’s not after a sensational story. She’s there to solve the haunting mystery of who she really is. But all her questions unleash a killer, and Duke steps up to protect her when she becomes a target. Despite their bitter past, Duke finds he’s still attracted to Beth, and maybe they deserve a second chance. First, though, he has to keep Beth alive—and from discovering the shocking truth about her past...
Her frame trembled beneath his hands. “It was... terrifying... I’m going to hear that sound in my nightmares.”
“What’s it gonna take for you, Beth?”
“To leave Timberline? The truth. I’m going to leave Timberline when I discover the truth about my identity. Otherwise, what do I have?”
“You have me.” He sealed his lips over hers and drew her close.
She melted against him for a moment, her mouth pliant against his. But then she broke away and stepped back.
“I just don’t think you understand what this means to me, Duke. It’s a lifetime of questions and doubts coming to a head right here. All my questions have led me here.”
“You don’t know, Beth. It’s based on feelings and suppositions and red doors and frogs.”
“And that’s a start.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to take that all away from her—the hope—but he’d snatch it all away in a heartbeat to keep her safe.
Sudden Second Chance
Carol Ericson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CAROL ERICSON is a bestselling, award-winning author of more than forty books. She has an eerie fascination for true-crime stories, a love of film noir and a weakness for reality TV, all of which fuel her imagination to create her own tales of murder, mayhem and mystery. To find out more about Carol and her current projects, please visit her website at www.carolericson.com (http://www.carolericson.com), “where romance flirts with danger.”
Cast of Characters (#ulink_5cf241eb-24ec-5443-abcd-9c18174156ec)
Beth St. Regis—The host of the Cold Case Chronicles TV show. She uses the show as a cover to find out if she’s one of the missing children of the Timberline Trio, but she runs into a former adversary...and lover, who will either stand in her way or make her forget all about why she’s in Timberline.
Duke Harper—This FBI agent is sent to investigate the Timberline Trio cold case, but the dead-end assignment turns into a battle of wits and wills when he meets up with the TV reporter who used him for a story but has been on his mind and in his heart ever since.
Heather Brice—Beth believes she might be this kidnapped child and will stop at nothing to prove it.
Bill Raney—His realty business is suffering due to his chronic drinking and poor business practices, and he’s willing to do just about anything to get back on top.
Rebecca Geist—A local Realtor who knows more of Timberline’s secrets than she realizes, which puts a target on her back.
Jordan Young—This Timberline mover and shaker is anxious to put the town’s dark history in the past, but are his motives civic or personal?
Gary Binder—A recovering drug addict and ex-con, he’s either trying to get his life back on track or he’s up to his old tricks.
Scarlett Easton—A local artist and native Quileute, she offers to help Beth get in touch with her past, but she pays a price for her generosity.
Serena Hopewell—A bartender at a local restaurant, she owns a prime piece of property in Timberline. Is she a savvy investor or a savvy blackmailer?
Sheriff Musgrove—The new sheriff in town may be a little too cozy with those who would circumvent the law in order to hide the truth.
For Chuck,
one of the most avid readers I know.
Contents
Cover (#ud3dcf363-b2ae-521e-ae83-539782355b24)
Back Cover Text (#u9d452bc0-e315-5141-b2b1-a89d04fc7deb)
Introduction (#ubb097a66-9613-5822-979e-15b556491c91)
Title Page (#u4ee401f9-379d-5e6a-8940-0d941ccb0f58)
About the Author (#u95cd70af-112b-55a5-bb49-a825897f14ce)
Cast of Characters (#ulink_6baabd7c-5bc8-5002-9918-84ff97f4b5e6)
Dedication (#ude83c637-bc68-54fd-8eda-7b5933595a31)
Chapter One (#u776d1e52-013d-58c2-85f2-29b003b26784)
Chapter Two (#u6a144b01-5661-5fba-8608-948bcdb14d12)
Chapter Three (#u21f731d3-318e-53a4-8777-2043e1380268)
Chapter Four (#u9760995f-254d-55be-a396-1efc8515b703)
Chapter Five (#uf0dc73e1-beb1-5ffb-83c0-852471d7b360)
Chapter Six (#u1749b7fe-7a5b-5ee5-bb71-f555a5e64e11)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_48d0f300-0ddf-50f3-8391-7ccc5212c329)
Beth’s heart skipped a beat as she ducked onto the path that led through a canopy of trees. The smell of damp earth and moldering mulch invaded her nostrils. She took a deep breath. The odor evoked the cycle of life—birth, death and rebirth. She’d smelled worse.
She gasped as a lacy, green leaf brushed her face. Then she knocked it away. If she freaked out and had a panic attack every time she delved into the forest, she’d have a hard time doing this story—and getting to the truth of her birth.
Straightening her shoulders, she tugged on her down vest and blew out a breath. She stepped over a fallen log, snapping a twig in two beneath her boot. The mist rising from the forest floor caressed her cheek and she raised her face to the moisture swirling around her.
The scent of pine cleared her sinuses and she dragged in a lungful of the fresh air. She’d definitely classify herself as a city girl, but this rustic, outdoor environment seemed to energize her.
Either that or the adrenaline was pumping so hard and fast through her veins, a massive anxiety attack waited right around the corner.
She continued on the path through the dense foliage, feeling stronger and stronger with each step. She could do this. The reward of possibly finding her true identity motivated her, blocking out the anxiety that the forest usually stirred up inside her.
She’d convinced Scott, the producer of Cold Case Chronicles, that she needed to come out ahead of her crew to do some initial interviews and footwork. She had her own video camera and could give Joel, her cameraman, a head start. Stoked by the show’s ratings from the previous season, Scott had been ready to grant her anything. Of course, she had a lot of work to do on her own before she got her guys up here. She’d have to stall Scott.
The trees rustled around her and she paused, tilting her head to one side. Maybe she should’ve researched the presence of wild animals out here. Did bears roam the Pacific Northwest? Wolves? She was pretty sure there were no tigers stalking through the forests of Washington. Were there?
As she took another step, leaves crackled behind her, too close for comfort, and she froze again. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and quivered, all her old fears flooding her senses.
She craned her head over her shoulder and released a gusty breath of air. A man walking a bicycle stuttered to a stop, his eyes widening in his gaunt face.
“Ma’am?”
The relief she’d felt a moment ago that it hadn’t been a tiger on her trail evaporated as she took in the man’s appearance. He had the hard look of a man who’d been in the joint. She recognized it from previous stories she’d done on her TV show, Cold Case Chronicles.
“Oh, hello. My husband and I were just taking a walk. He went ahead.”
He nodded once, a jerky, disjointed movement. “Come out to look at the kidnapping site, did ya?”
Heat washed into Beth’s cheeks. She wanted to make it clear to this man that she wasn’t just some morbid looky-loo, but what did it really matter?
“We were in the area anyway, and it’s so pretty out here.” She waved a hand toward the path she’d been following. “Is it much farther?”
“Not much.” He pushed his bike forward, wheeling around the same fallen log she’d stepped over earlier. “They were lookin’ at me for a bit.”
“Excuse me?” Beth tucked her hands into the pockets of her vest, her right hand tracing the outline of her pepper spray.
“For the kidnappings.” He hunched his scrawny shoulders. “Like I’d snatch a couple of kids.”
“Th...that must’ve been scary.” She slipped her index finger onto the spray button in her pocket. “How’d the police get that idea?”
“Because—” he looked to his left and right “—because I’d been in a little trouble before.”
Taking one step back, Beth coiled her muscles. She could take him—maybe—especially if she nailed him with the pepper spray first.
“And because I was there the first time.”
“What?” She snapped her jaw closed to keep it from hanging open. Did he mean he’d been in Timberline at the time the Timberline Trio was kidnapped? He definitely looked old enough.
“You know.” He wiped a hand across his mouth. “The first time when them three kids were snatched twenty years ago.”
Twenty-five years ago, she corrected him in her head.
“You were living here during that time?”
“I wasn’t the only one. Lots of people still around from that time.” His tone got defensive. “It’s just ’cause I had that other trouble. That’s why they looked at me—and because of the dead dog, only he wasn’t dead.”
A chill snaked up Beth’s spine. She definitely wanted to talk to this man later if he was telling the truth, but not now and not here in the middle of a dense forest with only the tigers to hear her screams.
“Well, I’d better catch up to my husband. A...are you going to the site, too?”
“No, ma’am. I’m just taking the shortcut to my house.” He raised one hand.
Then he turned his bike to the right and her shoulders dropped as she released the trigger on her pepper spray.
“Ma’am?”
She stopped, and without turning around, she said, “Yes?”
“Be careful out there. The Quileute swear this forest is haunted.”
“I will and I’m...we’re not afraid of ghosts—my husband and I.”
He emitted a noise, which sounded a lot like a snort, and then he wheeled his bike down another path, leaving the echo of crackling leaves.
Beth brushed her hair from her face and strode forward. He wouldn’t be hard to locate later—an ex-con on a bicycle who’d been questioned about the kidnappings. Maybe he’d have some insight into the Timberline Trio.
She tromped farther into the woods but never lost sight of the trail as it had been well used recently. What was wrong with people who wanted to see where three kids and a woman had been held against their will?
If she didn’t have a damned good excuse for being out here, she’d be exploring the town or sitting in front of the fireplace at her hotel enjoying a caramel latte with extra foam, reading—okay, she’d probably be reading a murder mystery or a true-crime book about a serial killer. The Pacific Northwest seemed to have those in spades.
A piece of soggy, yellow tape stirring in the breeze indicated that she’d reached the spot. Law enforcement had drilled orange caution cones into the ground around the mine opening and had boarded over the top. Nobody would be able to use this abandoned mine for any kind of nefarious purpose again.
She nudged one of the cones with the toe of her boot—it didn’t budge. Wedging her hands on her hips, she surveyed the area. No recognition pinged in her chest. Her breathing remained calm, too, so nothing here was sending her into overdrive.
Not that she’d really expected it. Wyatt Carson had chosen this place to stash his victims because he’d discovered it or had searched for someplace to hide the children, not because he’d known it from twenty-five years before when he was just a child himself, when his own brother Stevie Carson had been snatched.
But one kidnap story might lead to another. Maybe the Timberline Trio had been held here before...before what? If she really were one of the Timberline Trio, those children obviously weren’t dead. So, why had they been kidnapped? Why had she been kidnapped?
There was something about this place—Timberline—that struck a chord within her. As soon as she’d seen that stuffed frog in the window of the tourist shop during a TV news story about the Wyatt Carson kidnappings, she’d known she had to come here. She could be Heather Brice, and she had to find out.
Crouching down, she scooted closer to the entrance of the mine. When Carson had found it, the mine had a cover that he’d then blocked with a boulder. All that had been removed and cleared out.
She flattened herself onto her belly and army-crawled between the cones. Someone had already pried back and snapped off a piece of wood covering the entrance.
With her arms at her sides, she placed her forehead against one slat of wood and peered into the darkness below. She’d like to get down there just to have a look around. Maybe the local sheriff’s department would allow it if she promised to get their mugs on TV.
A swishing noise coming up behind her had her digging the toes of her boots into the mushy earth. She’d just put herself into an extremely vulnerable position—an idiotic thing to do with that ex-con roaming the woods. A branch snapped. She slipped her hand inside her pocket and gripped the pepper spray, her finger in position.
A man’s voice yelled out. “Hey!”
Then a strong vise clamped around her ankle. This was it. In one fluid motion, she dragged the pepper spray from her pocket, rolled to her back, aimed and fired.
The man released her ankle immediately and staggered back, one arm flung over his face.
Beth jumped to her feet, holding the spray in front of her with a shaky hand, ready to shoot again.
Her attacker cursed and spit.
Beth’s eyebrows shot up. The ex-con had gotten bigger...and meaner.
Then he lowered his hands from his face and glared at her through dark eyes streaming with tears. Those eyes widened and he cursed again.
He cleared his throat and coughed. “Beth St. Regis. I should’ve known it was you.”
Beth dropped her pepper spray and clasped her hand over her heart. She’d rather be facing a tiger right now than Duke Harper—the man she’d loved and betrayed.
Chapter Two (#ulink_fd56e8d4-8df8-564e-9d6c-9e2465e7ee95)
Duke’s eyes stung and his nose burned, lighting his lungs on fire with every breath he took. Even through his tears, he couldn’t mistake the woman standing in front of him, her shoulder-length, strawberry blond hair disheveled and her camera-ready features distorted by surprise and...fear.
She should be afraid—very afraid after the way she’d used him.
He kicked at the pepper spray nestled in the green carpet between them. “Is that the stuff I gave you?”
“I...I think so.”
“Then I’ll count myself lucky because that’s expired. You should’ve replaced it last year, but if you had, I wouldn’t be standing upright forming words.” He pulled up the hem of his T-shirt to his face and wiped his tears and his nose.
Miss Perfect would hate that he’d just used his shirt as a handkerchief—and that was fine with him. He peered at her through blurry eyes and she still looked perfect—damn it.
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry. I thought you were an ex-con attacking me.”
She must be referring to Gary Binder, unless there were other ex-cons in Timberline who lived out this way. He’d already done his homework on the case but he had no intention of sharing his info with her. Oh, God, she had to be here for the same case he’d been assigned to investigate.
He narrowed his already-narrowed eyes. “You’re doing a story for your stupid show on the Timberline Trio, aren’t you?”
“That stupid show, as you call it, got a point-six rating last year, more than half of those viewers in the prime demographic.” She tossed her hair over one shoulder as only Beth St. Regis could.
“Junk TV.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oh, my God. That’s why you’re here. You’re investigating the Timberline Trio.”
“What else would I be doing here?” He lifted one eyebrow and crossed his arms. “Do you think I followed you to Timberline?”
Red flags blazed in her cheeks. “Of course not. Why would I think that? What we had was...”
“Over.”
“Yeah, over.” She waved her hand in the general direction of his face. “Are you okay? I really did think you were that ex-con coming after me. Why did you grab my leg?”
“I thought you were falling in.”
“Through that small space?”
“I couldn’t see how big it was.”
“I was fine. As soon as I heard you coming, I got ready for the attack. You told me once I needed to be more careful, more aware of my surroundings.”
“Good to see you’re taking my advice...about something.” He ran a hand across his face once more and sniffled. “Where’s the rest of your crew, or are you a one-woman show now? I guess Beth St. Regis doesn’t need other people—unless she’s using them.”
Her nostrils flared but she ignored the barb. “I’m doing some prep work. My cameraman and producer will be coming out later.”
“And the circus will ensue.”
“If the FBI is involved, there really must be something to investigate.”
She brushed off her jeans that fit her a little too closely, so he kept his blurry eyes pinned to her face.
“Isn’t that why this case is on your radar? You must’ve heard about the new information we got during the investigation of the copycat kidnappings.” He cocked his head. “Come to think of it, I have a hard time believing the old Timberline Trio case is sexy enough for Cold Case Chronicles. Maybe you followed me out here.”
Her sky blue eyes widened for a split second and then she giggled nervously, her hand hovering near her mouth. “I have no idea what happened to you after...that last case, Duke Harper. You dumped me, and it’s not like I’ve been following your career or anything like a stalker.”
A thrill of pleasure winged through his body at her lie. So she’d been tracking him. What did that say about him that the thought gave him satisfaction? It also meant she knew about the royal screwup that had resulted in the death of his partner, Tony.
“That’s okay. I haven’t watched one of your shows, either.” The slight lift at the corner of her luscious lips told him she’d picked up on his lie, too.
“I suppose you’re not interested in joining forces, are you? Pooling our resources? We’re an unbeatable team. We proved that before.”
He snorted. She didn’t deserve an answer to that one. They’d been an unbeatable team in bed, too, but that hadn’t stopped her from playing him.
“What were you doing crawling around on the ground?” He pointed to the cover over the mine.
“Prep work.” She sealed her lips. “Where are you staying while you’re here?”
“Timberline Hotel.”
She raised her hand. “Me, too.”
He pasted on his best poker face. “Makes no difference to me.”
“Do you have a partner with you or are you working alone?”
A partner? The FBI would have a hard time trying to find someone to partner up with him after Tony. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at a gnarled root coming up from the earth.
“Oh, come on, Duke. Whether or not you’re working with a partner is not giving up any classified info.”
He shrugged. He had no intention of giving this woman one morsel of information. She should know that working a cold case was like being exiled to Siberia—for him, anyway. This was punishment and he didn’t want to discuss his failure with her.
“I guess you’ll follow your leads and I’ll follow mine.” He circled his finger in the air. “How long have you been here?”
“Just a couple of days. I’m trying to get a feel for the place. I even brought my own video cam.”
A flock of birds shrieked and rose from a canopy of trees and the hair on the back of Duke’s neck stood up. Hunching forward, he crept toward the tree line.
“What are you doing?” Beth’s voice sounded like a shout and he put his finger to his lips.
Voices carried in the outdoors and those birds had taken off because something—or someone—had disturbed them. The abandoned mine was in a clearing, but dense forest and heavy underbrush hemmed it in on all sides.
The trail from the road had wound past an abandoned construction site to the clearing, and it continued on the other side. The birds had come from the other side.
He reached the beginning of the trail and took a few steps onto the path, his head cocked to one side. Leaves rustled and twigs snapped, but that could be animals going about their business. His gaze tracked through the blur of green, but he didn’t spot any movement or different colors.
City life had his senses on high alert, but a rural setting could pose just as much danger—of a different kind.
He exhaled slowly and returned to the clearing, where Beth waited for him, hands on her hips.
“What was all that about?”
He pointed to the sky. “Those birds took off like something startled them.”
“I told you I saw a rough-looking guy out here on a bike. Maybe it was him.”
“Doesn’t explain why he was hanging around. I don’t know that you should be traipsing around the forest by yourself.” He snorted. “You’re hardly an outdoor girl.”
She kicked a foot out. “I have the boots.”
He opened his mouth for a smart-ass reply but someone or something crashed through the bushes and they both jumped this time. Duke reached for the weapon tucked in the shoulder holster beneath his jacket and tensed his muscles.
He dropped his shoulders when three teenage boys came staggering into the clearing, laughing and pushing each other. The roughhousing came to an abrupt halt when they spotted Duke and Beth.
The tallest of the three boys stepped forward, holding a can of beer behind his back. “Is this, uh, official business or something?”
The other two edged back to the tree line, trying to hide their own beers.
“Nope. I was just leaving.” Duke leveled his finger at the boy. “But you’d better not be operating a motor vehicle.”
“Driving? No way, sir.”
Beth flashed her megawatt smile at the trio of teens. “Do you boys live here? I’m from the TV show Cold Case Chronicles, and we’re doing a show on the old Timberline Trio case.”
“Oh, hey, yeah. My mom watches that show all the time.”
One of the other boys, a pimple-faced kid with a shock of black hair, mimicked the tagline of the show in a deep voice. “Cold Case Chronicles...justice for all time.”
“That’s us.” Beth nodded. “So, how about it? Any of you know anything about that case? Parents around at the time?”
The one who’d spoken up first said, “Nah, we just moved here a few years ago when my mom got a job with Evergreen Software.”
The kid with the acne answered. “Same here.”
The dark-haired boy with the mocha skin who’d been quiet up to now ran a hand through his short hair. “My family was here, but they don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about it.”
“We?”
Duke rolled his eyes as Beth tilted her head, that one word implying a million questions if the boy wanted to pick one up. The teen had better run now if he wanted to avoid that steam train.
The tall, skinny boy answered for his friend. “Levon is Quileute. They believe in voodoo magic and boogeymen.”
Levon punched his friend in the arm and the tall kid dropped his beer where it fizzed out in the dirt. “Hey, man.”
All three boys picked up where they’d left off, crashing back into the woods, cursing at each other and laughing, startling a flock of birds with their raucousness.
“Well, that’s interesting.” Beth tapped the toe of her boot. “I wonder what that boy meant about the Quileute not talking about the crime. Did law enforcement ever question anyone from the tribe?”
“Not that I know of, but I’ll leave that to your superior investigative talents.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s been real, but I gotta go.”
“I guess I’ll see you around, Duke. We are in the same hotel, same small town, same case.”
“Don’t remind me.” He waved over his shoulder and hit the trail back to his rented SUV, putting as much space as possible between him and Beth St. Regis, his mind as jumbled as the carpet of mulch he was plowing through.
She looked the same, except for the clothes. Beth had always been a girlie-girl—high heels, dresses, manicured nails, perfect hair and makeup. The jeans, boots and down vest suited her. Hell, a burlap sack would suit Beth. She had the kind of delicate beauty that shifted his libido into overdrive.
He’d fantasized about those girls when he was a teen growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Philly—the rich girls with the expensive clothes and cars, the kind of girl that wouldn’t give him the time of day unless she wanted to tick off her parents by running with a bad boy.
He’d been drawn to Beth like a magnet for all the wrong reasons. You couldn’t use a living, breathing person to fix whatever you’d missed in your childhood. But, man, it had felt good trying.
When he’d had Beth in bed, he couldn’t get enough of her soft porcelain skin, the way her breast fit neatly into the palm of his hand and the feel of her fine, silky hair running down his body.
The thought of those nights with Beth’s slim legs wrapped around his hips got him hard all over again, and he broke into a jog to work off the steam.
When he got to the car, he collapsed in the driver’s seat and downed half a bottle of water. Just his luck to run into the woman of his dreams on this nightmare assignment.
He dug his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket and called his boss, Mickey Tedesco.
“I was just thinking about you, man. All settled in up there? I hear it’s some beautiful country.”
“Don’t try to sell this, Mick. I checked into my hotel and took a walk in the woods to have a look at where the kidnap victims were held a few months ago, not that those kidnappings had anything to do with the Timberline kidnappings, except that the brother of one of the original victims turned out to be the kidnapper.” He dragged in a breath. “Why am I doing this? Doesn’t the FBI have more urgent cases that need my attention?”
“You know why, Duke.” Mick coughed. “It’s always a good idea to ease back into work after a...um, situation.”
“I’m good to go, Mickey.” His hand tensed on the steering wheel. “I don’t need to be poking around a twenty-five-year-old kidnapping case based on some slim new evidence, which isn’t even evidence.”
“I don’t know. It may not have started out too promising, but you might be getting more than you bargained for, Duke. You might have yourself a hot one.”
A vision of Beth aiming her pepper spray—pepper spray he’d given her—at his face flashed across his mind. “I might be getting more than I bargained for, all right. That bogus Cold Case Chronicles show is out here nosing around.”
Mick sucked in a breath. “Beth St. Regis is there, in Timberline?”
“Yeah.” Mick knew a little about the drama that had gone on between him and Beth...but not all of it.
Mick whistled. “That makes total sense now.”
“It does?” Duke clenched his jaw. “Are they promo-ing the segment already? She doesn’t even have her crew out here.”
“No. It makes sense that Beth’s doing a show about the Timberline Trio because someone sent us an email about her yesterday.”
Duke’s pulse skipped a beat. “About Beth? What’d it say?”
“The email, untraceable of course, said ‘Stop Beth St. Regis.’”
Chapter Three (#ulink_1bcb06a7-dcbc-5a59-b983-66c29b87ce13)
Beth parked her rental car in the public parking lot on the main drag of Timberline and flicked the keys in the ignition. Why did Duke Harper have to be here mucking up her investigation?
She chewed her bottom lip. He’d been sent out on a cold case because of what had happened in Chicago. She’d read all about the botched kidnapping negotiation that had ended in the death of Duke’s partner, a fellow FBI agent. But Duke had rescued the child.
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. Duke had a thing about rescuing children...but he couldn’t save them all.
She plucked the keys from the ignition and shoved open the car door. She couldn’t get hung up on Duke again. This story had presented her with the opportunity to get to the bottom of her identity, and she didn’t plan on letting tall, dark and handsome get in her way.
She locked the car with the key fob and dropped it in her purse. The chill in the autumn air had her hunching into her jacket as she walked toward the lit windows lining the main street.
If she recalled from the TV news story on the kidnappings, the tourist shop was located between an ice-cream place and a real-estate office. She started at the end of the block and passed a few restaurants just getting ready for the dinner crowd, a quiet bar and a coffee place emitting a heavenly aroma of the dark brew she’d sworn off to avoid the caffeine jitters. The Pacific Northwest was probably not the best place to swear off coffee.
A neon ice-cream cone blinking in a window across the street caught her attention. She waited for a car to pass and then headed toward the light as if it were a beacon.
The tourist shop, Timberline Treasures, with the same frog in the window, nestled beside the ice-cream place, and Beth yanked open the door, sending the little warning bell into a frenzy.
A couple studying a rack of Native American dream catchers glanced at her as she entered the store.
“Hello.” A clerk popped up from behind the counter. “Looking for something in particular?”
“I am.” Beth gripped the strap of her purse, slung across her body, as she scanned the shelves and displays inside the store. “I’m interested in that frog in the window.”
“The Pacific Chorus frog.” The woman smiled and nodded. “Timberline’s mascot.”
Beth’s gaze tripped across a small display of the frogs in one corner. “There they are.”
The clerk came out from behind the counter and smoothed one hand across a stuffed frog, his little miner’s hat tilted at a jaunty angle. “They’re quite popular and these are originals.”
Beth joined her at the display and reached for a frog, her fingers trembling. “Originals?”
“These are handmade by a local resident.” She tapped a bucket filled with more stuffed frogs. “These are mass-produced but we still carry the local version.”
“Is there a noticeable difference between them?” Beth held the handmade frog to her cheek, the plush fur soft against her skin.
The clerk picked up a frog from the barrel. “The easiest way to tell is the tag on the mass-produced version. It’s from a toy company, made in China.”
“The color is slightly different, too.” Beth turned over the frog in her hand and ran a thumb across his green belly. She hooked a finger in the cloth tag attached to his leg and said the words before she even read the label. “Libby Love.”
“That’s the other way to tell.” The clerk lifted her glasses attached to the chain around her neck. “Every handmade frog has that tag on it.”
“What does it mean?” Beth fingered the white tag with the lettering in gold thread. “Libby Love?”
“It’s the name of the artist, or at least her mother—Elizabeth Love. Libby’s daughter, Vanessa, makes the frogs now.”
Beth took a steadying breath. She’d already figured her childhood frog had come from Timberline, but now she had the proof. “When did her mother start making the frogs?”
“Libby started making those frogs over forty years ago when Timberline still had mining.” The woman dropped her glasses when the browsing couple approached the counter. “Are you ready?”
While the clerk rang up the tourists’ purchases, Beth studied both frogs. Now what? Even if she’d had a frog from Timberline, it hadn’t necessarily come from this store. And if it had come from this store, any records from twenty-five years ago would be long gone.
The clerk returned with her head tilted to one side. “Can I help you with anything else? Answer any more questions?”
“So, these frogs—” Beth dangled one in front of her by his leg “—this is the only place to buy them?”
“The Libby Love frogs are available only in Timberline, although Vanessa sells them online now.”
“How long has she been selling them online?” Beth held her breath. Surely, not twenty-five years ago.
The woman tapped her chin. “Maybe ten years now?”
“Is this the only store in Timberline that sells the Libby Love frogs?”
“Oh, no. All the tourist shops have them and even a few of the restaurants.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “They all sell for the same price.”
“Oh, I’ll buy one from you.” Beth studied the woman’s pleasant face with its soft lines and had an urge to confess everything. “I...I had a toy like this frog when I was a child.”
“Oh? Did your parents visit Timberline or get it from someone else?”
“I’m not sure.” Her adoptive parents could’ve passed through Timberline and picked up the frog, but their taste in travel didn’t include road trips through rural America.
“It’s always nice to reconnect with your childhood. Can I ring that up for you now or would you like to continue looking around?” She glanced at her watch. “I do close in a half hour.”
Sensing a sale, the clerk didn’t want her to walk out of there without that frog tucked under her arm. She didn’t have to worry. Beth had no intention of walking out of there without the frog.
“I’ll look around for a bit.” Who knew what else she’d discover in there? With her heart pounding, she wandered around the store. She felt close to something, on the verge of discovery.
Maybe in a week or two she’d be ready to track down the Brices and present herself to them as their long-lost daughter who had been kidnapped from Timberline twenty-five years ago. It would be a helluva story for the show, too.
She couldn’t forget about the show—she never did. Being the host of that show had given her the recognition and attention she’d missed from her parents. How could she have put that into words for Duke two years ago without sounding pathetic?
Stopping in front of a carousel of key chains, she hooked her finger through one and plopped it down on the glass countertop. “I’ll take this, too.”
As the woman rang up the frog and the key chain, she peered at her through lowered lashes. “Are you here to do a story on the Timberline Trio?”
Beth dropped her credit card. “What?”
The woman retrieved the credit card and ran her finger along the raised lettering. “You are Beth St. Regis of the Cold Case Chronicles, aren’t you? I recognized you right away. My sister and I love your show.”
“Th...thank you.” Wasn’t that what Beth had always wanted? People recognizing her on the street, praising the show, praising her? Wasn’t that why she’d betrayed Duke Harper?
“I...we...”
“Well, I figured it had to be the Timberline Trio case. We don’t have any other cold cases around here. Our former sheriff, Cooper Sloane, made sure of that with the kidnappings we just had. Could’ve knocked me over with a feather when it turned out Wyatt Carson had kidnapped those kids. Why would he do that when his own brother was one of the Timberline Trio?”
“That was...interesting.”
The woman put a finger to her lips. “I can keep a secret if you want, but I think most people are going to realize that’s why you’re here. Timberline is still a small town, despite Evergreen Software. Word will spread.”
“It’s no secret. I’ll be interviewing Timberline residents and visiting all the original locations.” Beth signed the credit-card slip. “I’m just doing some preliminary legwork right now and my crew will be joining me later.”
Of course, the good people of Timberline would know the purpose of her visit. Word may have already spread, thanks to those boys in the woods. Soon everyone in town would know.
But nobody needed to know her ulterior motive for the story—including Duke Harper.
It would’ve been something she’d have shared with him two years ago, but now they had too many secrets between them. She’d noticed he hadn’t offered up any explanations of why a hotshot FBI agent was wasting his time on a cold case, although she already knew the reason.
Beth hugged the bag to her chest. “Thanks...?”
“Linda. Linda Gundersen.”
“You seemed knowledgeable about the stuffed frog. Were you living here when the three children were kidnapped?”
“No. My sister and I took over this shop when we both retired from teaching in Seattle. She’d dated a man from this area for a while, liked it, and suggested it as a place for us to retire.” Crossing her arms, she hunched on the counter. “That was fourteen years ago when property was cheap. Turns out it was a good move because things started booming when Evergreen set up shop here.”
Beth dug a card out of her purse and slid it across the glass toward Linda. “If you know anyone who’d like to talk to me about the case, have them give me a call.”
“I will. My sister, Louise, would love to be on the show.”
“Does she know anything about the case?”
“No, but she hired Wyatt Carson to do some plumbing on our house.” Linda’s voice had risen on a note of hope.
“I’ll see if my investigation on the story takes me in that direction. Thanks again.”
“Enjoy your frog.”
Beth turned at the door and waved, stepping into the crisp night air. Darkness had descended while she’d been in the tourist shop, and her rumbling stomach reminded her that she’d skipped lunch.
Her hotel didn’t have a restaurant on the premises and the yellow light spilling out of Sutter’s across the street beckoned.
She had no problem eating alone—her job necessitated it half the time she was on the road, and her nonexistent social life dictated it when she was at home.
The plastic bag in her hands crinkled and she decided to make a detour to her car. If she had a bigger purse she’d stuff her frog in there, but her cross-strap bag had no room for her new furry friend and she didn’t want to haul the frog into the restaurant. That part of this story she wanted to keep under wraps until she had more proof.
How many adults looking for answers had made the pilgrimage to Timberline, believing they were Stevie, Kayla or Heather? But she had a strong feeling she’d been here before.
She withdrew the frog from the bag and kissed him before stuffing him back in the bag and dropping it on the passenger seat. She’d kissed plenty of frogs in her day, but this one really was going to make all her dreams come true.
She locked up the car and strode back to the restaurant. It had just opened for dinner and a sea of empty tables greeted her—no excuse for the hostess to stick the single diner by the kitchen or the restrooms. She nabbed a prime spot next to the window, ordered a glass of wine and started checking the email on her phone.
Every time Beth looked up from her phone, more and more people filled the room, and she began to notice a few furtive glances coming her way. Linda had been right. News in a small town traveled fast.
If the locals showed an interest in the story, it would make for some good TV. She and her crew never went into these situations with the goal of actually solving the mystery, although a few times they’d gotten lucky. She’d gotten lucky when Duke had shown up during her story two years ago—lucky in more ways than one.
That Cold Case Chronicles’ investigation had led to the arrest of a child killer who’d been living his life in plain sight of the grieving families. It had been one of her finest hours...and had cost her a budding relationship with Duke.
When the waitress brought her a steaming bowl of soup, Beth looked up just in time to see Duke walk into the restaurant.
She ducked her head behind the waitress and peered around her arm.
The waitress raised her eyebrows. “Everything okay?”
“Just thought I saw someone I knew.”
“In Timberline, that’s not hard to do even if you are from Hollywood.”
“LA.”
“You are that host from Cold Case Chronicles, aren’t you?” The waitress had wedged a hand on her hip as if challenging Beth to disagree with her.
“I am, but I don’t live in...” She shrugged. “Yeah, I’m from Hollywood.”
“I wasn’t here during the first set of kidnappings but—” the waitress looked both ways and cupped a hand around her mouth “—I could tell you a thing or two about Wyatt Carson. I used to date him.”
“Really?” Everyone seemed to want to talk about Wyatt, but that case was one for the books. “Did he ever talk much about his brother and what might’ve happened to him?”
The waitress’s eyes gleamed. “A little. I could tell you about it...on camera. I’m Chloe Rayman, by the way.”
“We’ll talk before we commit anything to video, Chloe.” Beth held out her card between two fingers. “If it’s something we can use, I’ll have my cameraman film you when he gets here.”
“Oh, I think it’s something you can use.” Chloe plucked the card from Beth’s fingers and tucked it into the pocket of her apron.
Even if Chloe didn’t have anything of importance to add to the story, the waitress would want her fifteen minutes of fame anyway. Beth’s challenge on these stories had always been to separate the wannabes from the people with hard facts. Sometimes the two types meshed.
Beth lifted a spoonful of the seafood bisque and blew on the hot liquid.
“Digging in already, huh?”
She’d taken a sip of the soup and choked on it as she looked into the chocolate-brown eyes of Duke Harper. She dabbed a napkin against her mouth. “Dive right in. It’s the only way to do it.”
“It’s the only way you know.”
“I’d invite you to sit down—” she waved at the place across from her “—but I’m sure you have important FBI business.”
The wooden chair scraped the floor as he pulled it out. “The only important business I have right now is dinner.”
She gulped the next spoonful of soup and it burned her throat. What possible reason could Duke have for joining her for dinner? Maybe he wanted to grill her for information this time.
“The seafood bisque is good.” She drew a circle around her bowl of soup with her spoon.
Chloe returned to the table, practically bursting at the seams. “Are you Beth’s cameraman?”
“Would it get me a beer faster if I were?” Duke lifted one eyebrow at Chloe, who turned three different shades of red.
“Of course not. I mean, what kind of beer would you like?”
“Do you sell that local microbrew on tap here?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have that and the pork chops with the mashed potatoes, and you might as well bring me some of that soup she’s slurping up.”
Beth dropped her spoon in the bowl. “Why did you join me if you’re going to sit here and insult me?”
“That wasn’t an insult. Are you getting overly sensitive out there in LA? You used to be a tough broad, Beth.”
Rolling her shoulders, she exhaled out of her nose. Duke liked to needle her. It hadn’t bothered her before—when they’d been in love. But now that he hated her? She couldn’t take the slightest criticism from him.
“Pile it on, Duke. I can take it.” She set her jaw.
“Relax, Beth. Your slurping made the soup sound good. That’s all I meant.”
Relax? Was that a jab at her anxiety? She squeezed her eyes closed for a second. If she didn’t stop looking for innuendos in his conversation, this was gonna be a long dinner.
She scooped up a spoonful and held it out to him with a surprisingly steady hand. “Try it.”
He opened his mouth and closed his lips around the spoon. “Mmm.”
Heat engulfed her body and a pulse throbbed in her throat. My God, she couldn’t be within five feet of the man without feeling that magnetic pull. And he knew it.
She slipped the spoon from his mouth and lined it up on one side of the bowl just as Chloe brought Duke’s beer and another bisque.
“Are you done, Beth?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She pushed her bowl toward the eager waitress.
When she disappeared into the kitchen, Duke took a swig of beer and asked, “What’s up with the waitress? Is she your new best friend or what?”
“She dated Wyatt Carson and thinks that’s going to get her camera time.”
“You have that effect on people, don’t you? They tend to fall all over themselves in your presence.”
She stuck out her tongue at him and took a gulp of wine. She needed it to get through this meal.
“Interesting case, Wyatt Carson.” Duke flicked his bottle with his finger.
“I know, right?” Beth hunched forward. “Why do you think he did it? Hard to imagine he’d want to put other families through that hell when he’d suffered the loss of his brother.”
“One of two things.” Duke held up two fingers. “Either he missed the attention and limelight of those days when his brother went missing or he really did just want to play the hero. He kidnapped those kids and then rescued them. Maybe he thought he could get past his survivor’s guilt by saving other children when he couldn’t save his brother.”
“Twisted logic.” Beth tapped her head.
“Do you want a slurp, er, sip?” He held his spoon poised over his soup. “I had one of yours.”
“No, thanks. I have some fish coming.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know the camera adds ten pounds. You still run?”
“There are some great running trails here. Did you bring your running shoes?”
“Of course. Running is the only thing that kept me sane...keeps me sane with the pressures of the job.”
“Same here.” So the loss of his partner must’ve weighed heavily on him. Did he suffer from that same survivor’s guilt as Wyatt Carson?
“You doing okay with all that—” he circled his finger in the air “—panic stuff?”
“I’m managing.” Did he care? He’d acted like he wanted to strangle her today in the woods. Of course, she’d just nailed him with some expired pepper spray.
“How are your eyes? They still look a little red.”
“I’m managing.”
Chloe brought their entrées at the same time and hovered for several seconds. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Not for me.”
Beth shook her head. “No, thanks.”
As Duke sliced off a piece of pork chop and swept it through his potatoes, he glanced around the room. “Does the entire town of Timberline know why you’re here?”
“I don’t know about the entire town, but everyone in this restaurant has a pretty good idea by now, thanks to Chloe.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” His lips twisted into a frown.
“How else am I going to investigate, to get information?” She squeezed some lemon on her fish and licked the tart juice from her fingers.
Duke shifted his gaze from her fingers to her face and cleared his throat. “I guess that’s how you operate. Stir up a bunch of trouble and heartache and move on.”
Beth pursed her lips. “None of the original families is even here anymore. Wyatt Carson was the last of Stevie’s family in Timberline. Kendall Rush, Kayla’s sister, blew through town, got caught up in Wyatt’s craziness and then hightailed it out of here. And Heather’s family... They moved away from Timberline, to Connecticut, I think.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“I always do, Duke.”
“What I can’t figure out—” he poked at his potatoes “—is why you were attracted to this cold case. It hardly has all the elements you usually look for.”
“And what elements would those be?”
“You know—sex, drugs, grieving families, celebrity.”
She chewed her fish slowly. Duke hated what she did for a living—had hated it then, hated it now. She didn’t have to answer to Special Agent Duke Harper or anyone else.
She drained her wineglass. “I was following the copycat kidnapping story and got interested in the old story, like a lot of people. There seemed to be heightened interest in the Timberline Trio and talk of some new evidence, so I figure I’d capitalize on that. Right up my alley.”
“Excuse me, Ms. St. Regis?”
Beth turned and met the faded blue eyes of a grandmotherly woman, linking arms with another woman of about the same age.
“Yes?”
“I’m Gail Fitzsimmons and this is my friend Nancy Heck. We wanted to let you know that we were both living here at the time of the Timberline Trio kidnappings and we’d be happy to talk to you.”
“Thank you.” Beth reached into her purse for her cards, ignoring Duke’s sneer—or what looked pretty close to a sneer. “Here’s my card. I’ll be doing some preliminary interviews before my crew gets here.”
Nancy snatched the card from Beth’s fingers. “You mean we aren’t going to be on TV?”
Duke coughed and Beth kicked him under the table. “I can’t tell yet. We’ll see how the interviews go.”
When the two ladies shuffled away, their silver heads together, Duke chuckled. “This is going to be a circus.”
“And what exactly are you doing to work this cold case?”
“I have all the original case files. I’m starting there.” He held up his hands. “Don’t even ask. You can do your interviews with Wyatt Carson’s ex-girlfriend’s ex–dog sitter’s second cousin.”
“Don’t dismiss what I do. I helped the FBI solve the Masters case.”
“You helped yourself, Beth.”
Chloe approached their table. “Dessert?”
“Not for me.” Beth tossed her napkin on the table.
Pulling his wallet out of his pocket, Duke said, “Just the check.”
“You paying?” Beth reached for her purse. “I have an expense account.”
“And you’re using it to pay for your own dinner. I’m using my per diem to pay for mine. I don’t want any commingling here.”
She lowered her lashes and slid her credit card from her wallet. Was he talking about just their finances?
“Got it.” She tapped her card on the table. “No commingling.”
A loud voice came from the bar area of the restaurant, and chatter in the dining room hushed to a low level—enough for the bar patron’s words to reach them.
“That TV show better not start nosing around. If anyone talks to that host, I’ll give ’em the business end of my fist.” The man at the bar turned to face the room, knocking over his bar stool in the process.
His buddy next to him put a hand on his shoulder, but the belligerent drunk shook him off.
“Where’s she? I’ll toss ’er out right now on her fanny. Tarring and feathering. That’s what we should do. Who’s with me?” He raised his fist in the air.
A few people snickered but most went back to their dinners. Duke didn’t do either. He marched across the room toward the bar.
Beth groaned as she scribbled her signature on the credit-card receipt and took off after him. Duke had always been a hothead, and it looked like he hadn’t changed.
“What did you say?” He widened his stance in front of the man. “Are you threatening the lady?”
“You with that show, too?” The man looked Duke up and down and hiccuped.
His friend picked up the stool and shoved his friend into it. “C’mon, Bill. Take it easy. Who knows? Being featured on TV might increase our property values.”
The man, his dark hair flecked with gray, shook his head and stuck out his hand. “Sorry about that. My friend’s a Realtor and has had a little too much to drink. I’m Jordan Young.”
“Duke Harper.” Duke gestured toward Beth. “This is Beth St. Regis, the host of Cold Case Chronicles and the woman your friend was threatening.”
Jordan Young dismissed his drunken friend with a wave of his hand. “It’s the booze talking. His sales numbers haven’t been great lately, but it has nothing to do with the recent publicity we’ve been getting. Hell, Kendall Rush’s aunt’s place sold for top dollar. He’s just ticked off that he didn’t get that listing.”
He took Beth’s hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m a big fan of the show, Ms. St. Regis.”
“Thanks.” She nudged Duke in the back. “Are you a Realtor, too?”
“Me?” He chuckled. “Not really. I’m a developer, and I have a lot more to lose than Bill here if things go south, but that’s not going to happen—Evergreen Software will make sure of that.”
“You need to tell your friend to keep his mouth shut about Beth.”
“Duke.” She put her hand on his arm. His stint in Siberia hadn’t done anything to temper his combativeness. “I’m sure he’s not serious—at least about the tar-and-feathering part.”
Young winked. “Good to see you have a sense of humor about it, Ms. St. Regis, but I can understand your...coworker wanting to be protective.”
Duke didn’t correct him. If the residents of Timberline knew all about Cold Case Chronicles looking into the Timberline Trio, they didn’t seem to be as knowledgeable about the FBI putting the case back on its radar. Maybe Duke wanted to keep it that way.
“You can call me Beth.” Her eyes flicked over his gray-streaked hair and the lines on his face. “Were you here at the time of the initial kidnappings?”
“I was. Sad time for us.” He withdrew a silver card case from his suit jacket and flipped it open. “If you’re implying you want to interview me, I might be available, although I don’t know how much I could contribute.”
She took the card and ran her thumb across the gold-embossed letters. “You’d be the first one in town without some special insight.”
“Can you blame them?” He spread his hands. “A chance to be on TV and talk to the beautiful host?”
“Thank you.” The guy was smooth but almost avuncular. Duke could wipe the scowl from his face, but she didn’t mind that another man’s attentions to her irritated him.
“You should take care of your buddy here.” Duke jerked his thumb at Bill, still resting his head on the bar.
“I’ll get him home safely to his wife. Good night, now.” Young turned back to the bar. “Serena, can you get Bill a strong cup of coffee? Make it black, sweetheart.”
Duke put his hand on her back as he propelled her out of the restaurant—with almost every pair of eyes following them.
As Duke swung the door open for her, Chloe rushed up and patted her apron. “I’ll be calling you, Beth. I don’t care what Bill Raney says.”
“Looking forward to it, Chloe.”
When they stepped outside, Duke tilted his head. “Really? You’re looking forward to talking to Chloe about Wyatt Carson?”
“You never know what might pop up in a conversation. Maybe Wyatt remembered something about his brother’s kidnapping that he never told the cops.”
“Why wouldn’t he have told the cops?”
Beth zipped up her vest. “Because he turned out to be a nut job.”
“Seems to be no scarcity of those in this town.” He hunched into his suede coat, rubbing his hands together. “Where are you parked?”
“In the public lot down the block. This is Timberline. You don’t have to walk me to my car.”
“Just so happens I’m parked there, too.” He nudged her with his elbow. “There have been two high-profile kidnapping cases in Timberline. I wouldn’t take your safety for granted here. There might be more people here who feel like Bill.”
“I’m hardly in danger of getting tarred and feathered...or kidnapped.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets and lifted her shoulders to her ears. She may have already been kidnapped from Timberline once. What were the odds of it happening again?
Duke followed her through the parking lot to her car anyway, occasionally bumping her shoulder but never taking her hand. What did she expect? That they would pick up where they’d left off two years ago? Before he’d accused her of using him? Before she’d used him?
As she reached the rental, her boots crunched against the asphalt and she jerked her head up. “Damn. Somebody broke the window of my car.”
“Safe Timberline, huh? Maybe Bill did his dirty work before he hit the restaurant.” Duke hunched forward to look at the damage to the window on the driver’s side. “You didn’t have a laptop sitting on the passenger seat, did you?”
“No, but...” Her ears started ringing and she grabbed the handle of the car door and yanked it open.
Someone had taken the bag from the gift shop. Collapsing in the driver’s seat, she slammed her hands against the steering wheel. “My frog. They took my frog.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_a0d7ae78-934f-58ec-9b73-a2fd25fac7c7)
Duke’s eyebrows shot up at the sob in Beth’s voice. Someone had smashed the window of her rental car and she was worried about a frog?
“Beth?” He placed his hand against the nape of her neck and curled his fingers around the soft skin beneath her down vest. “What frog, Beth?”
She sniffled and dragged the back of her hand across her nose. “Some frog I bought in a gift store. I... It’s particular to Timberline.”
“I’m sure they have more.” He released her and braced his hand against the roof of the car. Why was she overreacting about a frog? She must be driving herself hard again, maybe even succumbing to those panic attacks that had plagued her for years.
Because she didn’t even know about the warning the FBI had received about her. He’d debated telling her but didn’t want to worry her needlessly about an anonymous email. Who knew? The emailer may have sent the same message to Beth or her production company. Maybe that was why she was breaking down over a frog.
“You can replace the frog. Will your insurance fix the window on the rental car?”
“I’m sure I’m covered for that.” She leaned into the passenger seat and peeked beneath the seat.
“It’s gone?”
“Yep.”
He kicked a piece of glass with the toe of his boot. “You’re not sitting on glass, are you? The window broke inward, so there’s gotta be some on the seat.”
“There wasn’t.” She climbed out of the car and gripped the edge of the door as if to keep herself steady and upright. “He must’ve brushed it off.”
“We’re reporting this.” Duke pulled his phone from his pocket, scrolled through his contacts and placed a call to the Timberline Sheriff’s Department. “We have some vandalism, a broken car window, in the public lot on the corner of Main and River.”
He gave them his name and a description of Beth’s rental car before ending the call.
“Are they coming?” She cupped the keys to the car in one hand and bounced them in her palm.
“Of course. This isn’t LA.” He grabbed her hand and held it up, inspecting the dot of blood on the tip of her ring finger. “There was some glass in the car. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Her wide eyes focused on the blood and she swayed—another overreaction. She seemed to be taking this break-in hard. Maybe she did know about the warning against her—and he didn’t mean Bill’s drunken threats.
Grasping her wrist lightly, he said, “Come with me to my car down the aisle. I have some tissues in there and some water.”
By the time they reached his rental, she’d regained a measure of composure. “Idiots. Why would someone go through all the trouble of breaking a window on a rental car to get to a bag of stuff from a tourist shop?”
“Maybe if you hadn’t left your bag on the passenger seat in plain view.” He unlocked his car and reached into the backseat for a box of tissues, and then grabbed the half-filled bottle of water from his cup holder. “How many times have I told you not to leave things in your car?”
“Let’s see.” She held out her middle finger. “Must’ve been a hundred times at least.”
“Very funny. It’s your ring finger.” At least she’d come out of her daze.
“Oops.” She held out the correct finger and wiggled it.
He moistened a tissue with some water and held it against the bead of blood. “Apply some pressure to that. Did you get cut anywhere else?”
“Not that I can tell.” She tipped her chin toward the cop car rolling into the parking lot. “The deputies are here.”
As two deputies got out of the car, Duke whispered in Beth’s ear. “That’s what I like about Timberline. Two cops come out to investigate a broken window and a missing frog.”
She stiffened beside him but a laugh gurgled in her throat.
She’d sure grown attached to that frog in a short span of time...unless there was something else in the bag she didn’t want to tell him about. With Beth St. Regis, the possibilities were limitless.
The first deputy approached them, adjusting his equipment belt. “You call in the broken window?”
“And a theft. I had a bag in the car from Timberline Treasures.”
The second deputy pointed at Beth. “You’re Beth St. Regis from that show.”
“Do you watch it?”
“No, just heard you were in town to dig up the old Timberline Trio case.”
“I think Wyatt Carson already did that.” She jerked her thumb at Duke. “You do know the FBI is looking into the case again, too.”
The officer nodded at Duke and stuck out his hand. “Deputy Stevens. I heard the FBI was sending in a cold-case agent. The sheriff already turned over our files, right?”
“Special Agent Duke Harper.” He shook hands with the other man. “And I have the files.”
The other officer stepped forward, offering his hand as well. “Deputy Unger. We’ll do whatever we can to help you. My mother was good friends with Mrs. Brice at the time of the kidnapping. I was about five years older than Heather when she went missing. That family was never the same after that. Had to leave the area.”
Beth was practically buzzing beside him. “Deputy Unger, could I interview you for the show?”
“Ma’am, no disrespect intended, but I’m here to help the FBI. I’m not interested in being a part of sensationalizing the crime. We’ve had enough of that lately.”
“But...”
Duke poked her in the back. “You wanna have a look at the car now?”
“Sure. We’ll take a report for the rental-car company and insurance purposes. Probably a kid or one of our local junkies.”
Duke asked, “Do you have a drug problem in Timberline?”
“Crystal meth, just like a lot of rural areas.” Unger flipped open his notebook and scribbled across the page.
When they finished taking the report, they shook hands with Duke again. “Anything we can do, Agent Harper.”
“Well, they weren’t very friendly.” Beth curled one fist against her hip.
“I thought they were very friendly.”
“Yeah, you get the cops and I get Carson’s ex-girlfriend’s dog walker’s cousin.”
“Second cousin’s ex–dog sitter.”
“Right.” She tossed her purse onto the passenger seat of the car and hung on the door. “Thanks for seeing me through the report...and the words of advice.”
He was close enough to her that the musky smell of her perfume wafted over him. “Do you want some more advice, Beth?”
She blinked. “If you’re dishing it out.”
“Find another case for your show. Get off this Timberline Trio gig. Since I’m in the Siberia of cold-case hell anyway, I can even toss a couple of good ones your way.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that? You must really want me off this case.”
“It’s not me.” Raking a hand through his hair, he blew out a breath. “Someone else wants you off this case.”
“What? Who? Bill?”
“We got an anonymous email and I don’t think it was from Bill Raney.”
“That’s crazy. The FBI got an email about little, old me? How did anyone even know I was doing a show on the Timberline Trio?”
“How long have you been in Timberline?”
“Two days.”
“We got the email two days ago.”
She sucked in her bottom lip. “You think it’s someone here?”
“It has to be, unless the station has been doing promo for it.”
“Not yet. We wouldn’t release anything about a story we haven’t even done yet. It might never come off.”
“Then it has to be someone here in Timberline or someone related to someone in Timberline. You haven’t exactly been shy about your purpose here.”
“No point in that. But why contact the FBI?” She snapped her fingers. “It must be someone who knows the FBI is looking into the case, too. Maybe this anonymous emailer figures the FBI will have some pull with me.”
Duke snorted. “Mr. Anonymous obviously doesn’t know you.”
“You know what’s strange?”
“Huh?”
“Why didn’t this person warn off the FBI? If it’s someone who doesn’t want me looking into the Timberline Trio, why would this same person be okay with the FBI dredging up the case?”
“I have no idea. Maybe he thinks Cold Case Chronicles has a better shot at solving the case than the FBI.” He scanned her thoughtful face. “That was a joke.”
“It’s strange, Duke. I suppose you tried to trace the email.”
“With no luck.”
“Must be someone who’s computer savvy, which isn’t hard to find in this town with Evergreen Software in the picture.”
He captured a lock of her silky hair and twisted it around his finger. “How about it, Beth? Why don’t you back off? I’ll find you another case, a better case for your show.”
“You don’t really think I’m in danger from an anonymous email, do you? I get a lot of anonymous emails, Duke. Some are unrepeatable.”
“What about this?” He smacked his palm on the roof of the car. “Someone sends a threat and then someone breaks into your car. Do you think it’s a coincidence?”
“Could just be a tweaker like Unger said. Besides, this could be good for you.”
“How so?”
“If someone who was involved in the disappearance of the Timberline Trio twenty-five years ago wants me off the case and is willing to harass me about it, you might be able to pick him up and actually solve the case.”
“You think I’d use you, put you at risk to solve a twenty-five-year-old case?” He clenched his jaw.
She swallowed, her Adam’s apple bobbing in her slender throat. “I...”
“Just because you did it, don’t expect the same treatment from me.” He backed away from her car. “Drive carefully.”
* * *
WITH TEARS FLOODING her eyes, which had nothing to do with the cold air coming through the broken window, Beth glanced at Duke’s blurry headlights in her rearview mirror.
He hadn’t forgiven her, despite his concern for her safety tonight.
Maybe that concern was all a big act. Maybe the anonymous email was a lie. Why would someone want to warn her away from the case but not warn the FBI?
Unless this someone knew her true identity. Did someone suspect her real purpose for highlighting the Timberline case?
She pulled into the parking lot of the Timberline Hotel with Duke right behind her. They even got out of their cars at the same time. He followed her inside, but made no attempt to talk to her.
She dreaded the awkward elevator ride, but he peeled off and headed for the stairwell. Once she stepped into the elevator, she sagged against the wall.
Was the warning to the FBI connected to the break-in? Had the thief grabbed the bag because she’d left it out, or had he wanted to send a message by taking the Libby Love frog? And what was that message?
She slid her card key in the door and leaned into it to shove it open.
She dropped her purse on the single chair in the room and sauntered to the window, arms crossed. Resting her head against the cool glass, she took in the parking lot beneath her.
Did Duke have a better view? If he’d taken the stairs, his room was probably located on the lower floors. The hotel had just five. Who was she kidding? Duke could run up five flights of stairs without breaking a sweat or gasping for breath. The man was a stud, but not the overly muscled kind. He had the long, lean body of a runner.
She banged her head against the window. No point in letting her thoughts stray in that direction. He’d been concerned about her tonight, but that could just be because he wanted her out of the picture.
Little did he know, she had more at stake here than good ratings.
She could tell him, confess everything...well, almost everything. He already knew that she’d been adopted and hadn’t been able to locate her birth parents. If she explained to him her suspicions about being Heather Brice, maybe he could help her. Maybe he’d share the case files with her.
She pivoted away from the window. If she told him that now, he’d suspect her of spinning a tale to get her hands on the information he had. She wouldn’t go down that road with him again.
Sighing, she swept the remote control from the credenza and aimed it at the TV, turning it on.
With the local TV news blaring in the background, she got ready for bed. Snug in a new pair of flannel pajamas she’d bought for the trip, she perched on the edge of the bed to watch the news. She hadn’t made the local news—not yet.
She switched the channel to a sitcom rerun and flipped back the covers on her bed. Her heart slammed against her chest and she jerked back as she stared at the head of the Libby Love frog positioned on the white sheet, his miner’s hat at a jaunty angle.
Chapter Five (#ulink_c319453b-4144-5f3a-acd8-77bbba238bc5)
Beth slammed the frog head on the reception counter, squishing the hat. “Where did it come from?”
The hotel clerk’s eyes popped from their sockets. “Ma’am, I’m sorry. I have no idea how it got in your bed. Perhaps it had been washed with the sheets and the maid thought it belonged to you.”
“This—” she shook the head at him until some white stuffing fell onto the countertop “—does not look like it’s been through an industrial washing machine. It looks brand-new, except for the fact that it’s been ripped from its body.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know. I can talk to the maids in the morning.”
“What’s going on?”
Beth gulped and swiveled her head to the side. What was Duke doing down here? Might as well get it over with.
“I found this—” she thrust the frog head toward him “—in my bed when I got back to my room.”
He held out his hand and she dropped the head into his palm.
“What the hell? Is this the frog you bought earlier that was stolen from your car?”
“Stolen?” The clerk turned another shade of red. “I can assure you, we don’t know anything about any theft.”
Beth released a long breath. “I don’t know if it’s the exact same toy I bought, but it’s the same kind. So if the thief who broke into my car didn’t put it in my room, it’s a helluva coincidence that someone else did.”
The hotel clerk reached for the phone. “Should we call the sheriff’s department?”
Duke tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling of the lobby. “Do you have security cameras?”
“Just in the parking lot, sir. We can check that footage to see if anyone drove into the lot without coming through the lobby.”
“That’s a good idea. It would’ve been within the past ninety minutes. Do you have a security guard on duty...” He glanced at the man’s name tag. “...Gregory?”
“This is Timberline. No security guard.” Gregory lifted his hands. “Sheriff’s department?”
“Will they come out for a stuffed frog head?” Beth crossed her arms over her flannel pj’s, recognizing the ridiculousness of that statement. At least she didn’t feel as if she were choking as she had from the moment she’d seen that frog in her bed. Duke had that effect on her—a calming, steadying presence.
Too bad she had the opposite effect on him.
He gave her a crooked smile. “You heard Gregory. This is Timberline. They’ll come out for a stuffed frog. It’s not just the head. It’s the fact that someone broke into your room and put it in your bed...and the smashed car window before that. You want to report and document all this.”
Gregory picked up the phone. “I’ll call it in. We may learn more tomorrow when the housekeeping staff comes in. I’ll make sure we question all of them thoroughly. The night crew was here until about an hour ago, so they could’ve been here when the, uh, frog was put in your room.”
“Thanks, Gregory.” Beth tucked her messy hair behind her ears and flashed him one of her TV smiles. “I’m sorry I got in your face earlier. That frog rattled me.”
“I understand, ma’am. If you and the...gentleman—” he nodded toward Duke “—want to help yourselves to something from the self-serve concession while you wait for the sheriffs, it’s on the house.”
“Don’t mind if we do. Thanks, Gregory.” She crooked her finger at Duke and then charged across the lobby to the small lit fridge and rows of snacks, her rubber flip-flops smacking the tile floor.
She yanked open the fridge door with Duke hovering over her shoulder. “You’re still in your pajamas.”
Leaning forward, she studied the labels on the little bottles of wine with the screw tops. “Excuse me. I didn’t have time for full hair, makeup and wardrobe once I realized someone had been sneaking around my hotel room beheading frogs.”
She wrapped her fingers around a chilled bottle of chardonnay and turned on him, almost landing in his arms. She thrust the bottle between them. “What were you doing wandering around the hotel?”
His dark eyes widened. “Are you accusing me of planting the frog? I was with you, remember?”
“Now who’s being sensitive? The thought never crossed my mind, but you were headed toward the stairwell the last time I saw you.”
“I stepped outside for some air. My room was stuffy and I couldn’t sleep.” He held up the frog head. “It’s a good thing I did. You looked ready to gouge out poor Gregory’s eyes.”
“I was spooked.” She ducked back into the fridge. “Do you want a beer or one of these fine wines?”
“I’ll take a beer.” He ran his hand down the length of her arm. “Must’ve freaked you out seeing that frog in your bed.”
She handed him a cold beer. “It did. The fact that it was just his head made it worse. Was that some kind of warning?”
“Is this story worth it?” He took the mini wine bottle from her and twisted off the lid. “For whatever reason, someone doesn’t want you digging into this case, and this person is willing to put you through hell to get that point across.”
“Would you quit if someone started warning you?”
He twisted off his own cap and took a swallow of beer. “It’s different. If someone started warning the FBI off a cold case, it would give us reason to believe we were on the right track.”
“Maybe I’m on the right track.”
“You just got here. It seems to me that some person or persons don’t want a story on Timberline. Having the FBI investigate is a different ball game. Maybe these warnings to you are designed to stop you from dragging the town of Timberline through the mud again. You know, reducing the real-estate prices, like Bill said.”
She took a sip of wine. “You saw the people at the restaurant. Most were eager to help.”
“There could be two factions in town—one group wants the attention and the other doesn’t. The ones that don’t want the limelight have started a campaign against you—a personal one.” He clinked his bottle with hers. “Give it up, Beth. Move on to something else. I told you. I have the cold-case world at my fingertips now and can turn you on to a new, sexy case.”
She took another pull straight from her wine bottle and gritted her teeth as she swallowed. “I’m not going to quit, Duke. I want to investigate this case.”
“Evening, Ms. St. Regis.” Deputy Unger swept his hat from his head. “Gregory told us you had some more trouble tonight.”
“It’s the stuffed frog stolen from her car.” Duke held out the frog head. “Someone planted it in her hotel room.”
Unger whistled. “Someone really wants you gone—I mean off this story.”
“Can you check the tape from the security camera in the parking lot?” Beth put her wine bottle behind her back just in case Unger thought she was a hysterical drunk. “Gregory said the hotel had cameras out there. Maybe someone will appear on tape who’s out of place.”
“I spoke to him on the way in. Gregory’s getting that ready for us right now. Let’s go up to your room and check it out. See if there are any signs of a break-in.”
Duke proffered the frog head on the palm of his hand. “The frog’s been manhandled by a bunch of people, but maybe you can get some prints from it.”
Unger pulled a plastic bag from the duffel over his shoulder and shook it out. “Drop it in. We’ll have a look.”
They all trooped up to her hotel room and Beth inserted the card with shaky fingers. She didn’t know what to expect on the other side of the door.
Nothing.
Everything was the way she’d left it, covers pulled back on the bed and the TV blasting. She grabbed the remote and lowered the volume. “It was there, on the middle of the bed, beneath the covers.”
Unger looked up from studying the door. “No signs of forced entry. You’re on the fourth floor. Does the window open?”
“No.”
He had a fingerprinting kit with him and dusted the door handle and the doorjamb. Once he finished asking a few more questions, he packed up his stuff. “I’ll have a look at the footage now. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”
Duke stopped him. “One more thing, Deputy Unger. A Realtor by the name of Bill Raney was making some threats against Beth in Sutter’s tonight.”
“We’ll talk to him. That man’s been on a downward slide lately. I can’t imagine him out breaking car windows and sneaking into hotel rooms, but you never know what people will do when their backs are against the wall.”
Beth sighed. Why did this have to be happening on the most important case of her life? Maybe if she just explained herself publicly. She honestly didn’t care who had kidnapped her twenty-five years ago and she wasn’t interested in putting Timberline in the spotlight again. She just wanted to confirm her identity. She wanted to go to the Brices with proof. She wanted to go back to a loving home.
She’d already made a mistake. She should’ve done her sleuthing on the sly. She should’ve come to Timberline as a tourist, taken up fishing or hiking or boating. She’d just figured she had the best cover. Nobody would have to know her ulterior motive. Nothing would have to get back to the Brices until she was sure.
“Ms. St. Regis?”
She looked up into Deputy Unger’s face, creased with concern. “Are you okay? Gregory offered to move you to another room.”
“I think that’s a great idea.” Duke tossed her suitcase onto the bed. “In fact, the room next to mine on the second floor is empty.”
Beth’s mouth gaped open. Duke must really be worried if he wanted her rooming right next to him. Today in the forest he’d acted like he’d wanted to strangle her.
“That might not be a bad idea—if you’re insisting on continuing with this story.” Unger slung his bag over his shoulder and walked to the door.
“Deputy Unger, who exactly doesn’t want the old case dredged up from the cold-case files?” Holding her breath, she watched his face. He didn’t. He’d made that clear before.
He shrugged. “People like Bill. People with a lot to lose—think property values, reputations, businesses—those are the people who want to put this all behind us. The executives at Evergreen about had a fit when Wyatt Carson kidnapped those kids and struck fear into the hearts of their employees—the people they’d lured here with a promise of safety and clean living.”
“I don’t see how a crime that occurred twenty-five years ago can still tarnish the luster of a city.” She grabbed her vest from the back of the chair and dropped it next to her bag on the bed.
“C’mon, Beth.” Duke scratched his stubble. “You’ve been doing the show long enough to realize what can happen to a town when all the dirty laundry is hung out for everyone to see.”
“Maybe I won’t end up doing the story. Maybe I won’t even call my crew out here—but it won’t be because someone wants to scare me off. It’ll be because I decide to call it quits.”
“Whatever you say, Ms. St. Regis.” Unger pulled open the door. “Just keep calling us, especially if these pranks start to escalate.”
“Escalate?” Beth licked her lips. “It’s just a story, just a town’s rep.”
“You’d be surprised how far people will go to protect what’s theirs.”
She and Duke ended up following Unger back to the reception desk to switch her room to the second floor—next to Duke’s.
Unger scanned the footage while they waited and shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Anyone coming in or out of that parking lot is accounted for as a guest of the hotel.”
Gregory slipped her the new card key. “As I said, Ms. St. Regis, I’ll question housekeeping tomorrow morning and we’ll try to get to the bottom of how someone got into your room. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t.”
Duke got that fierce look he must’ve learned on the mean streets of Philly and Beth shivered. It meant a lot to have a man like Duke on your side—if you weren’t stupid enough to throw it all away.
Gregory even looked a little worried. “I’ll keep you posted, Ms. St. Regis.”
Duke took the suitcase handle from her and dragged her bag toward the elevator.
She shuffled after him, yawning. “I am so ready to call it a night.”
Duke gave her a sideways glance and stabbed the button for the second floor. The elevator rumbled into action and Beth closed her eyes. The wine had made her sleepy, and she felt the lure of a comfy bed with no surprises in it, although she wouldn’t mind one surprise—a prince instead of a frog.
The elevator lurched to a sharp halt and Beth’s eyes flew open. “Whoa. This thing needs service.”
The elevator had stopped moving but the doors remained shut.
“Oh, God, not another prank—as Unger called it.” Her gaze darted to Duke’s face, still fierce but set, his jaw hard.
“I’m the one who stopped the elevator.”
“What?” She braced her hand against the wall of the car. “Are you crazy? What did you do that for?”
Duke crossed his arms and widened his stance as if she could pull off an escape from the car.
“You’re going to tell me what you’re really doing in Timberline, and you’re going to tell me now or this elevator isn’t going anywhere.”
Chapter Six (#ulink_51e0960a-b1e7-5ebb-9571-417220439887)
Duke felt a twinge of guilt in his gut as Beth’s pale face blanched even more. Was she claustrophobic, too? He knew she had those panic attacks, and if she started down that road he’d cave. He had a weakness for this woman.
“I...I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here to do a Cold Case Chronicles episode on the Timberline Trio—come hell or high water.”
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Carol Ericson
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A man with too many secrets. A woman with everything to lose.As if the Timberline Trio cold case isn′t nightmarish enough for FBI agent Duke Harper, he runs into the TV reporter who loved and betrayed him–beautiful Beth St. Regis. Duke quickly concludes she′s not after a sensational story. She′s there to solve the haunting mystery of who she really is. But all her questions unleash a killer and Duke steps up to protect her when she becomes a target. Despite their bitter past, Duke finds he′s still attracted to Beth and maybe they deserve a second chance. First, though, he has to keep Beth alive–and from discovering the shocking truth about her past…