“And what did you learn?”
Isaac pictured the polished, wealthy lawyer. “He’s a far cry from any hunter I’ve ever met. And he’s not exactly a stand-up guy.”
“You gathered that from one meeting? How long were you there?”
“Not long. He brushed me off as soon as he could, but not before he gave me some song and dance about how devastated he was by what he’d done.”
“Which you didn’t believe.”
Isaac stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “I did at first. He told me he was so traumatized he couldn’t hunt anymore, that he’d got rid of every gun he owned because he can’t bear the sight of them.”
Myles steepled his fingers. “Any man would feel that way.”
“But it was a lie. He still has a whole cabinet full of guns. I could see them from his backyard.”
“They could belong to a friend or family member.”
“They were inside his house. And there was something else that struck me as odd.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s a bankruptcy attorney.”
“That makes him a bloodsucker, not a murderer,” Myles joked.
“But how many bankruptcy attorneys do you know who’ve witnessed a client shoot himself to death?”
Myles got to his feet. “This happened to him?”
“He said it did—right in his office.”
“Why would he tell you that?”
“He thought it’s what motivated my visit.”
“Shit.” Turning, he stared through the slats of the blind.
Isaac stood, too. “So now you have someone who’s accidentally shot a man while hunting and who’s also been involved in another unusual death.”
“Suicide isn’t murder,” he argued, but he didn’t sound nearly as unfriendly or unconvinced as he had when Isaac first arrived.
“Maybe it wasn’t suicide,” Isaac suggested.
Myles blew out a sigh. “I admit these coincidences are odd, but…the suicide must’ve checked out.”
“If the police did their homework, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get a look at their findings. The details might shed some more light on Les Weaver.”
No response.
“Come on, all I’m asking is that you poke around a bit. Learn how and why someone died in his office and figure out whether or not he had any connection to Pineview. He claims he came here alone, for the first time, without knowing a soul. A check of his phone records for the months leading up to David’s death would tell us if he was having regular conversations with anyone in this area. And if he was…”
“We could have a killer on the loose,” Myles finished.
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18
When Claire opened her eyes, she could tell she hadn’t been sleeping long, and the clock confirmed it. 1:58 a.m. Why was she awake? She wanted to sink back into the nothingness she’d just left—and would have if not for the odd noise that nudged her toward consciousness.
It sounded like someone was at the back door.
Was it Leanne? She couldn’t think of anyone besides her sister who’d come over so late…?.
In the next instant, she sat bolt upright. Leanne wouldn’t be at her back door in the middle of the night. Someone was trying to get in. She could hear the click, click of the knob as it turned back and forth.
Who was it? And why was that person here?
Wondering if maybe those noises hadn’t been as distinctive as she’d first imagined, if maybe it was just some animal rustling around, she got out of bed and tiptoed into the living room, where she could peer around the corner and through the moonlit kitchen.
She hadn’t been imagining anything. The dark shadow of a man stood on the other side of the glass.
Her heart jumped into her throat. As she watched, too panic-stricken to move, he left the door and went around to press his face to the window over her sink.
Claire screamed before she realized it was Isaac. Then her chest heaved as she tried to recover from the fright he’d given her. Why was he prowling around her yard?
He’d heard her. She saw his head turn in her direction. He probably couldn’t see her, since she was hidden behind the wall and it was darker inside than out, but he jogged to the front, where she met him as he stepped onto the porch.
“What are you doing here?” she cried. “You scared the shit out of me!”
He didn’t seem chastised; he seemed concerned. His eyes ran over her from head to foot. “You’re okay?”
Why wouldn’t she be okay? Before he’d disturbed her, she’d been getting some much-needed rest. “I’m fine, why?”
“Someone called me from a pay phone. I’m pretty sure it was a man, but even that was hard to tell. He had the mouthpiece covered and was talking so low I could barely hear. He said, ‘Claire’s in trouble.’”
“Are you serious?”
His hair stood up on one side as if he’d just rolled out of bed himself. “Do I look like I’m doing this for kicks?”
“No, but…” Her heart rate still hadn’t returned to normal. “That’s so strange. You don’t have any idea who it was?”
“None.”
“When was this?”
He rubbed a hand over the razor stubble on his chin. “Twenty minutes ago. Just long enough for me to drive over here. Everything looked so peaceful when I arrived, I thought it had to be somebody’s idea of a joke to scare me like that. So I was checking things out, trying to see if there was any reason to worry.”
Claire had been so exhausted she hadn’t even taken off her makeup, but she was too uneasy to be sleepy now. “Why would anyone crank-call you about me?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? It could’ve been someone who heard about what happened at your mother’s studio and thought it would be funny to send me on a fool’s errand.”
Or someone who’d heard they were seeing each other and wanted to determine whether he cared enough to come to her rescue. She wouldn’t put that past a couple of the women who talked about him incessantly.
That was the extent of it, she told herself, but then she remembered the call she’d received from the person who’d asked if she’d hired a P.I. She’d forgotten to tell Isaac about that. Life had been such a whirlwind since then she’d scarcely thought of it herself.
“That call must have come from Les,” Isaac agreed when Claire had described the brief conversation. “Besides you and me, no one else knows I told him I was a P.I.”
Had he called Isaac, too?
Either way, the idea of a raspy-voiced caller foretelling her doom sent chills down her spine, especially after that incident on the Fourth of July. “Sorry someone put you to so much trouble,” she said. “That’s a long drive in the middle of the night, especially for nothing.”
“That’s okay. I’m glad it was for nothing.” Shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he leaned against the door frame. “So…did you have fun with your date tonight?”
She hadn’t expected him to confront her about Owen. She’d thought the fact that she was dating other men would be one of those things they wouldn’t talk about, even if they did continue to see each other. He didn’t want to commit to a relationship, but he didn’t want to lose her, either. That pretty much left ignoring the other men in her life as his only option. “It was okay.”
His gaze shifted toward her bedroom. “Is he gone?”
“What difference would it make to you even if he wasn’t?” she countered.
He studied her carefully. “I’m not very good at sharing.”
“We’re just friends, remember?”