he rounded the curve.
He thought of Matt, wondered if his friend had done the deed yet. He decided not quite, because once he had, Shelby would surely get a call or text from Emma Kate.
He hoped it was soon. He could keep a secret, but they made him itchy.
He glanced over at Snickers, riding as any self-respecting dog would, with his head out the window, his tongue happily lolling. As impulses went, the dog was a good one.
It didn’t take long to establish Callie in the backyard. Her kid heaven included her prized bubble maker, a puppy and the old family dog.
“Just look at Clancy, running around like a puppy himself. I think Snickers has taken five years off him with this visit.”
“She’s still got a couple more pups over there.”
“I think the one’s enough right now. I’ll go get my laptop so you can relax. Why don’t I get you that beer first?”
“I’ll take it.”
While he waited, Griff considered the what-ifs. If her computer had been compromised, as his had, it could mean the Ridge had some sort of cyber thief trolling. That might make the most sense.
But it struck him as odd that both his and hers would be targets, and pretty much back-to-back. That played as more personal, more direct, to his mind.
He let the possibilities roll around in his head as he stood at the kitchen door, watching the two dogs play tug-of-war with his homemade toy while Callie danced around them in a flood of bubbles.
Moving to the Ridge hadn’t been an impulse like the puppy. He’d thought long and hard about it, considered the angles, the pros, the cons. But the decision had been, like the pup, a good one.
It was a good life here. Quieter than Baltimore, but he liked the quiet. Some culture shock here and there, but he knew how to adapt and adjust.
And wasn’t it interesting—or fortuitous—that months after he’d settled in down here, Shelby had come home? He might just make tomorrow’s word “serendipity.”
“Oh, Griffin!”
“What?” He spun around. “Somebody was in your comp, too?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look. The Master Suite.” She said it with a flourish, with capital letters. “It’s wonderful, it’s gorgeous. I knew it would be. I saw it happening, but finished, it’s— I’m going to have a whole box of tissues handy because Mama’s going to cry buckets of joy and delight when she sees it. It’s all just perfect, just what she wanted. And you left it sparkling clean.”
“Just part of the service.”
“You put flowers in there.”
“Also part of the service for exceptional clients.”
“Your exceptional client’s going to cry happy tears and take a soak in that big tub the minute she gets home. When I can afford a house, you’re hired.”
“I’ll put you on the list. Let’s have a look at that.”
“All right.”
She put the laptop on the counter, booted it up.
“Have you downloaded or uploaded anything today?”
“Clay sent a couple more pictures of the baby this morning in an e-mail, but that’s all.”
“Let’s see.” He tapped a few keys, brought up her history first. “Did you go into any of these documents, go to any of these places this afternoon?”
“No.” She lifted a hand, rubbed at her throat. “No, I haven’t touched it since this morning, and then only to check my mail.”
“Shelby, somebody went to these places and into these docs. And you can see here, the data’s been uploaded onto another drive. Copied to another drive.”
“Just like yours was.”
“Yeah, just like mine.” Those clever green eyes sharpened with temper. “You should call your brother.”
“Yes. God. Would you do that? I need to see if— I have to check my banking.”
“You do that now. I’ll make the call.” He stepped back, put in a call to Forrest.
“Everything’s still there.” Her voice trembled with relief. “It’s all still there.”
“Forrest is on his way. You’re going to want to change your passwords. But . . .”
She looked up from doing just that. “But what?”
“It just seems to me if somebody was going to pull money out of your account, he’d have done it. I changed mine minutes after whoever this was hit my comp, but he’s had hours to wipe you out, if that’s the reason.”
“What other reason is there?”
“Information, maybe. E-mails, accounts, sites we frequent, calendars. Most of my life’s on my computer. We’re . . . involved, right, you and me?”
“I— I guess we are.” It felt strange to say it out loud.
“And both our computers are hacked into, about twelve hours apart. Maybe you should take a look around your room, check if anything’s out of place or missing. I’ve got my eye on Callie.”
With a nod, she hurried off.
He glanced out the back door again. All was right with that world. A pretty little girl, rainbow bubbles, a couple of happy dogs, all backdropped by the smoky green hills.
But outside that picture, something was very wrong.
• • •
IT TOOK A LITTLE TIME; she wanted to be thorough. But she found nothing out of place.
“Nothing.” She came back in, waited for Griff to turn from his station at the door. “Everything’s just as it should be. But I checked the computer in Daddy’s office here, and I think someone was on there, too. It doesn’t look like they took anything, but there were searches on it when I know no one was home.”
“Okay. Why don’t you sit down a minute?”
“I’ve got to get dinner going. Callie needs to eat.”
“How about a beer?”
She shook her head, then sighed. “I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine. My nerves are shot. I can’t begin to say how tired I am of my nerves being shot.”
“It doesn’t show. This work?” He picked up a bottle of red from the counter with a blue glass stopper.
“It would.”
“I’ll get it.”
He reached up for a wineglass while she dug out potatoes for peeling.
“Something more personal, you said.” She let the homey task soothe her, tried to think objectively. “My first thought goes to Melody, but I honestly can’t see her thinking of something like this. It’s too complicated.”
“Not Melody. She goes for violence or vandalism.”
She peeled a potato, quickly. “You’re thinking of the murder, but that’s violence. That’s as violent as it gets.”
“I’m thinking connections, and how one thing fits with another.”
“Richard.” Her hands stilled briefly as she looked up. “Richard’s been the root of about all the trouble I’ve had, and the trouble you’ve had comes through me.”
“Not through you, Red.”
“Through me,” she corrected. “I’m not taking blame. I spent too much time taking blame for things I didn’t do, things I couldn’t stop, but facts are facts. Connections,” she repeated, and started on the next potato.
“Okay. If we look at connections—” Griff broke off as he heard the front door open. “That’ll be Forrest. Let’s leave it to the professional.”
“I couldn’t be happier to do just that.”
Forrest walked in, took a beer from the fridge. “Spell it out for me.”
“Somebody got to my keys, and used them to get into the house, then into my laptop like they did Griff’s. I can’t find anything else taken, and I keep some cash money, just a little, in my top drawer.”
“Which is the first place a burglar’s going to look. Move it. Tampon box is a pretty safe place.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, but he obviously wasn’t after cash or valuables.”
“Information’s valuable. Where were your keys?”
“In my purse.”
“Come on, Shelby, don’t be a jerk about it.”
“All right, all right.” She drew in
a breath, picked up the wine. Settled down a bit, she went back to peeling as she related the key hunt.
“I know I had them when I got to rehearsal. I took them out of the ignition. I used the key Derrick gave me, because I can rehearse early sometimes, before anyone gets in. That’s what I did today. I was in and out before anyone came in, so I used them to lock up again when I left, put them in the side pocket of my purse, like always. I always put them there. I’m not careless.”
“Never were. She’s always been an organized soul,” Forrest said to Griff. “You may not get the rhyme or reason why she puts something where she puts it, but she knows where she put it.”
“Saves time. I went into the salon, and I put my purse behind the counter. Nobody would go after my keys who works there, Forrest. I know all the girls there, and most of the customers now. I mean, the regulars. We get tourists and such, but it would be next to impossible for one of them to go behind the counter, dig in my purse, come up with my keys without somebody noticing. We weren’t all that busy today.”
“So it stayed there, behind the counter, until you got it back out to go home, and couldn’t find the keys?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I took it with me to get the lunch orders. So I had it with me when I went to Sid and Sadie, then to the Pizzateria, where they somehow ended up under the front counter. I just figured I’d dropped them out somehow.”
“Which is what you were supposed to think, and would have kept thinking if our honorary deputy wasn’t on the ball.”
“It wasn’t hard to figure it out,” Griff put in.
“I wouldn’t have,” Shelby corrected. “I wouldn’t have given it another thought.”
“Did you bump into anybody, get bumped into, while you were picking up the orders?” Forrest asked her.
“No.” Brow furrowed, she took herself back through the route, as she had over and over again while she’d searched for the keys.
“I hit the lunch places just after the rush, because Jolene came in to apologize, and that took some time. I guess somebody could’ve gotten their hand in my bag, but it seems like I’d’ve known it. I did nearly bump into somebody,” she remembered. “I was hurrying back because I was running behind, and nearly bumped into this man looking for the best route up Rendezvous Trail.”
“Mmm-hmm. He asked you about that, asked for directions?”
“Yes. He was visiting the area and wanted . . .” She shut her eyes. “Oh my God, I’m an idiot. Yes, he asked me for directions, and I showed him on his map, and I had my hands full with the lunch bags. I went right in after, set down the orders, put my purse away, then went around handing them out. It’s the only time somebody could’ve gotten in my purse. When it was hanging right on my own damn shoulder.”
“What did he look like?” Griff demanded, then glanced at Forrest. “Sorry.”
“No need. That’s the next question.”
“He was tall. I had to look up. Ah . . . give me a second.” She carted the potatoes to the sink, washed them off, laid them on the cutting board to quarter them. “White, maybe early forties. He had sunglasses on. So did I—it was a bright day. He had on a baseball cap.”
“Color? Logo?”
“I think it was tan. I don’t remember if it had a logo or anything. He had dark hair—not black, but dark brown, longish. Kind of curled up over his ears. A little gray in the mustache and beard. Very trim, short beard. He looked . . . like a college professor who played football.”
“Big guy, then?”
“Yeah. Big, solid build. Not fat or flabby.” She put the potatoes on to boil.
Nodding, Forrest took out his phone, scrolled through. “How about this?”
She looked at the phone, and the photo of James Harlow. “No, he was a little older than this.”
“Gray in the beard?”
“That, and . . . He had that professor look to him.”
“Take another look, try to see him with the beard, the longer hair. Do a Wooly Willy.”
“I used to have one of those,” Griff commented, and studied the image over Shelby’s shoulder.
“I just don’t . . . He had thicker eyebrows—dark like his hair, and . . . Oh God, I am an idiot.”
“I’m happy to call my sister an idiot at any time. It’s part of my job, but you’re not on this.”
“I was standing on the sidewalk, talking to Jimmy Harlow, close as I am to you now, and I didn’t even think, never had a twinge about it. Even when he was stealing the keys out of my purse.”
“It’s what he does,” Forrest reminded her. “He changed his appearance, and he caught you when you were distracted, asked a common type of question. Got you going over the map so he could pick your pocket, and when he was done with the keys, he made sure you’d find them in a logical place. You’d have put it down to rush and accident, and never checked your laptop.”
“What was he after? What’s he looking for?”
Forrest cocked a brow at Griff. “What do you think, son?”
“I think he was looking to see if between us we’ve got millions of dollars tucked away, or know where to find it.”
“Why you?” Shelby demanded. “I understand why he’d think I might know. Even believe I had to know.”
“We’ve been spending a lot of time together since you got back.”
“I know you’re sleeping with my sister,” Forrest commented. “Your euphemisms are wasted on me. You move back to the Ridge, and pretty quick you hook up with this one,” he said to Shelby, “who relocated here not that many months ago. A person, especially one who lives on the grift, is bound to wonder if the two of you don’t go back a ways further.”
“He killed Melinda Warren, so it’s just him now.” Griff considered. “He’d get it all, but he has to find the jewelry, the stamps first. You’re his only link to it, Red.”
“I don’t know where it is, or if Richard sold it and blew the money, buried it or put it in some Swiss bank account. And this Jimmy Harlow wouldn’t find anything otherwise on my computer. Or yours, Griffin.”
“We can hope that’ll be enough for him,” Forrest said, “but we’re not going to count on it. I’m going to contact the sheriff, run all this by him. What’s for supper?”
“Ham, mashed potatoes, butter beans.”
“Sounds good. That your dog out there, Griff? The pup you got from Rachel Bell over your way?”
“Yeah. Snickers.”
“He’s starting to dig in my mama’s delphiniums. She’ll skin you both for it.”
“Oh shit.” Griff bulleted outside, calling for the dog.
Forrest grinned, leaned back on the counter. “I don’t much like thinking about my sister having sex.”
“Then I advise you not to think about it.”
“Doing my best not to. Some people,” he continued, “it takes you a while to warm up to, then maybe you make a friendship, or maybe you don’t. Other people, something just clicks, almost like you think, Hey, I remember you. From where, who the hell knows, but there’s that click. You know what I’m saying?”
“I guess I do.”
“With Griff, something clicked. Took a little while with Matt, but I think we’d have gotten around to it. It was Griff who shortened the time it took.”
Taking his phone off his belt, Forrest keyed in a number. “What I’m saying is, he’s a friend, and a good one, and knowing the kind of man he is, I’m adding on he’s a lot more what you deserve than the last one.
“Yeah, Sheriff, hope I’m not disturbing your supper,” Forrest began, and wandered away as he made his report.