Disappointment flowed through her. She’d hoped he would take her in his arms and tell her he would help her find out for sure, but he hadn’t. He’d called her a good friend. There was no need to fool herself any longer. Scott Michaels was just like everybody else in her life. He didn’t want her, either.
After a moment, she cleared her throat. “I think it’s time we left for work, but first let me get my mother’s journal. I want to go back over some of the entries and see if I can figure out her connection to the Elena.” She turned back to the dresser and opened the drawer where she had placed the diary. She gasped and whirled to face Scott. “It’s gone.”
He strode toward her. “What do you mean?”
“The diary. I put it in this drawer yesterday morning, and now it’s not here.”
He looked down at the open drawer. “Are you sure this is where you put it?”
“Yes, I always keep it here. I put it in there before I left for work, but I didn’t get home until late last night. I didn’t check it then.”
Scott shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. Why would anybody take it?”
“I don’t know, but it could have been anytime yesterday.” Tears gushed from her eyes. “Oh, Scott, my mother’s diary. What am I going to do? That’s all I had of her.”
He turned and hurried toward the door. “Let’s ask Treasury if she saw any suspicious people here yesterday.”
Treasury looked up from kneading a mound of dough when they walked in the kitchen. Lisa rushed to her. “Treasury, someone’s been in my room.”
The elderly woman pulled her hands from the dough and picked up a towel. “Is there anything missing?”
“My mother’s diary. It was in the dresser drawer, and now it’s gone.”
Treasury wiped her hands and shook her head. “I sure hope I don’t have a guest that’s a thief. Was there anything else missing?”
Scott shook his head. “Not as far as we know. But I want you to think back to yesterday. Did you see anyone who acted suspicious around the house, maybe somebody out of place like they didn’t belong here.”
Treasury’s forehead wrinkled in thought, but after a moment she shook her head. “No, not that I recall. Just the usual delivery people and my guests.”
Lisa covered her face with her hands. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Think again, Treasury,” Scott said. “Are you sure you didn’t see anybody else?”
“No, just Lisa’s cousin Jeff.”
Lisa jerked her head up and stared in astonishment at Treasury. “Jeff? Where did you see him?”
“He was in the upstairs hallway. I had just come out of cleaning one of the guest rooms, and I spotted him. He said he had stopped by to see you, but you weren’t here. I thought it was kinda strange that he didn’t know you’d be at work at that time of morning. He thanked me and left.”
Scott leaned closer. “Did you see him come out of Lisa’s room?”
Treasury shook her head. “No, but come to think of it, I did hear a door close before I stepped into the hall.”
Scott turned to Lisa. “Didn’t you lock your bedroom door before you left yesterday morning?”
“I did. How could he have gotten in?” She had no sooner uttered the words than the answer came to her. “Jeff’s father was the island locksmith, and Jeff still has all his tools.”
“Maybe that explains how the intruder got in your locked house,” Scott said.
Lisa’s heart thudded. “You don’t think Jeff could have been the person who did all the damage to my house and then killed Wayne instead of me?”
Scott pursed his lips. “It’s possible.” His cell phone rang, and he glanced at the caller ID. “This is Brock. I’ll tell him we need to pick Jeff up for questioning right away.” He put the phone to his ear. “Brock, I was just about to call you.” Scott’s face suddenly paled. “Where?”
Lisa inched closer to Scott. “What is it?”
He held up a hand to silence her and listened for a few more moments. “I’m at Treasury’s now picking up Lisa. We’ll be right there.”
Lisa grabbed his arm as he ended the call. “What’s happened?”
“That was Brock. He’s out at the beach. Some tourists found a body there this morning—and he wants us to come down.”
Lisa frowned. “Why me?”
Scott took a deep breath. “Because the dead man is Jeff. He’s been shot.”
Lisa pressed her hand to her mouth and sank into a kitchen chair. Treasury hovered over her. “Lisa, darling, are you all right?”
Concern for her lined Treasury’s wrinkled face. Kate, Betsy and even Scott had often referred to her as their second mother, and Lisa could understand why. Treasury cared deeply for everyone around her, and she never failed to offer comfort where needed. At this moment Lisa needed someone to lean on, and she was glad Treasury was there.
She put her arm around Treasury’s waist and hugged her. “I’ll be fine. I just can’t believe Jeff is dead. In spite of all his problems, he was still family.”
Treasury nodded. “Of course he was.”
Lisa sighed and pushed to her feet. “I suppose I’d better go with Scott now. I’ll see you when I get back.”
“My patrol car’s out front,” Scott said. “Let’s go.”
Lisa trudged through the house and onto the front porch. A group of laughing teenagers rode down the street on bicycles, and in the distance she could see gulls circling over Silver Lake Harbor. It looked like any other day on Ocracoke, but it wasn’t. Jeff, her last relative, was dead, but her real father was out there somewhere. An overwhelming desire to find him filled her.
Scott nudged her in the back, and she started down the steps. Earlier Scott had said he wanted to be her friend, but he hadn’t made any promises about a relationship. He had, however, once promised he would help her find her father. She hoped he would follow through on what he said. At the moment she needed to put her sorrow at Jeff’s death and her feelings for Scott aside. It was time to concentrate on discovering her father’s identity.
A small crowd hovered near the road when Scott stopped the patrol car at the beach entrance. Lisa was out of the car almost as soon as it stopped. Brock and two EMTs stood near the edge of the water looking down at Doc Hunter, who knelt beside the still form of a man on the sand. Scott caught up with Lisa when she was about halfway to Brock.
He grabbed her arm. “Lisa, don’t go any closer. Wait here.”
She bit down on her lip and nodded. “Okay.”
Scott eased forward and stopped beside Brock. “I brought Lisa. She’s waiting back there. What do you have so far?”
“Nothing much. Some tourists out for an early-morning walk found him. He has several gunshot wounds. Until Doc tells me differently, I assume that was the cause of death. Doc says the body will have to go to the state lab in Raleigh for an autopsy, and you know how backed up they are. It may be weeks before we get any results on whether or not they found DNA or anything else we can use in the case.” He glanced back at Lisa. “I’m glad I caught you while you were still with Lisa. As the only living relative, she’ll have to identify the body.”
“Before you talk to her, there’s something else you should know.”
Brock listened as Scott related what had happened at the bed-and-breakfast. When he had finished, Brock gave a low whistle. “So you think Jeff may have been the one who’s caused Lisa’s problems?”
“It makes sense.”
Brock nodded. “Yeah, it does.” He glanced back to the body on the beach. “But this presents us with another problem.”
The same thought had repeated in his head all the way to the beach. “Yeah. Maybe Jeff wasn’t the one who wanted Lisa out of the way. Whoever killed Jeff could have
his own reasons for making sure he didn’t talk.”
Brock pushed his sunglasses up on his nose. “And the only thing he could do was silence Jeff forever.”
Brock and Scott stared at the body again, and Brock nodded. “That sure makes sense, all right. The only problem is I have no idea how we’re going to prove it.” He glanced over his shoulder at Lisa. “Let’s go talk with her.”
Lisa didn’t move as they approached her. Her gaze flitted from Scott to Brock. “Scott said Jeff is dead.”
Brock nodded. “He is. I’m sorry, Lisa.”
She exhaled. “I am, too. He was such a happy boy growing up. His life changed a lot when he started doing drugs in high school. I really thought we had a good relationship, but Scott thinks he might be the one who broke into my house.”
“That’s right,” Brock said. “I have some news to share with you. Yesterday I received the latest phone records for your cell and home phones. The last call to your house was from the same cell phone that sent the first texts, but the last text was from a different number.”
“This doesn’t make sense.” She frowned and shook her head. “Jeff was on the ferry on his way to the mainland when my house exploded.”
Scott glanced at Brock. “It sounds like the perfect alibi, doesn’t it? But the fire chief still thinks a spark from that ringing phone set off the explosion. Jeff could very well have made the call from the ferry. As for the other text, maybe someone closer made the second one.”
Lisa’s body trembled, and she wrapped her arms around her waist. “I can’t believe Jeff would hate me so much to do this.”
Brock put his hand on her arm. “At this point it’s only conjecture. We’ll search his house, though. If we find anything to support our suspicions, I’ll let you know.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Brock. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”
He bit his lip. “I hate to ask this, but I need you to give us a positive identification of Jeff. You can do it here or at the health center.”
She took a deep breath. “I’ll do it here.”
Brock led Lisa to the body, but Scott hung behind and scanned the crowd that had grown in the last few minutes. Grady Teach appeared to have a captive audience for spewing the latest tale he would soon be spreading throughout the village. When Lisa, looking a little green around the gills, stepped back beside him, Scott grasped her hand. “Are you all right?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “I’m okay.”
He stared at her a moment before he turned to Brock. “Do you need me for anything else? Or is it all right for me to take Lisa back to the station?”
“I’ll finish up here and meet you back there.” Brock turned and headed back to Doc Hunter, who had risen to his feet.
Scott grasped Lisa’s arm and pulled her toward the police cruiser. She didn’t speak as he drove back through the village. When he stopped in the police station parking lot, she swiveled in the seat, dried her tears and faced him. “I’ve been thinking about Jeff all the way back, and I think I understand why he may have been willing to hurt me.”
“Why?”
“When our grandmother left me the house, I could tell he was angry, but I thought he’d gotten over it. After all, she had paid out more on his drug treatment programs than the house is worth. So he really got more from her than I did.”
“A lot of good it did him,” Scott sneered.
“I thought it had, but maybe he was still using and needed money. Do you think he thought with me out of the way the property would pass to him?”
Scott shrugged. “I don’t know, Lisa. He could have wanted money, and somebody was willing to pay him to do those things.”
She raised a brow. “What are you talking about?”
He wanted to take her hand in his. Instead he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Somebody killed Jeff. Right now we don’t know why. It could be a drug deal gone bad, but it could have been something worse. It’s possible somebody didn’t want him to tell what he knew about all your problems.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe that. Why would anybody hire Jeff to hurt me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ve looked at this case all wrong. When you surprised the intruder in your house, he could have killed you while you were unconscious, but he didn’t. Then when he trashed your house, it was more like he was angry at you instead of wanting to hurt you. It wasn’t until later that the text messages began and your house blew up.”
Lisa frowned. “But what does that all mean?” Her forehead wrinkled as if she were in deep thought, and then her eyes grew wide. A small gasp escaped her mouth. “Those things happened after the article about me finding the journal appeared in the paper,” she whispered.
Scott nodded. “That’s right. Maybe somebody on this island doesn’t want what’s in the journal made public.” He pointed to the police station. “Let’s go inside and wait for Brock. We need to discuss this together.”
They climbed from the car and headed toward the building. With each step Scott glanced over his shoulder. At this point his belief about the reasons behind Jeff Wade’s death was just a theory, and he had no idea how to find out the truth.
He glanced at Lisa. Her eyes streaked red from crying sent a protective surge of emotion spiraling through him. He had promised her he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and he intended to keep that promise. Now it appeared finding Jeff’s killer might be the only way he had to keep his word.
FOURTEEN
Lisa had no idea how many times she had glanced at the clock since she and Scott had arrived at the police station. It had been hours since they’d left the beach, but Brock still hadn’t arrived. With Deputy Lewis out on patrol, Scott had roamed the office all morning like a caged animal and had barely spoken two words to her.
She clenched her teeth and stared at the computer screen. She felt like jumping out of her skin waiting for Brock to update them on the investigation.
Ten interminable minutes later, the front door opened, and he finally walked in. She winced at the tired look in his bloodshot eyes. He set the police equipment bag he held on Lisa’s desk and dropped into a chair beside her. He rubbed his hand across his face and glanced up as Scott came out of the break room. “Glad you’re here, Scott. I want to run some things by you.”
Lisa jumped up from her chair. “Let me get you a cup of coffee. You look like you need one.”
He shook his head. “I’m okay. I’ve been up all night on duty and have it again tonight. As soon as I catch you two up on what’s happened, I’m going home to bed.”
Lisa sank back into her chair. “Did you search Jeff’s house?”
Brock nodded. “Yeah. And we found this.”
He opened the equipment bag and pulled out a polyethylene evidence bag. Lisa gasped at the sight of her grandmother’s ring inside. “Where did you find it?”
“In a dresser at Jeff’s house. This was beside it.” He pulled out another bag that contained a cell phone. “We dialed the number of the phone that sent the first texts to you, and it rang.”
“What about my mother’s journal?” Lisa asked.
Brock shook his head. “Sorry. We didn’t find that, but we’ll search again.”
“What could he have done with it?” She hit the desk with her fist. “I can’t believe I was so naive. Jeff came to the health center the day after my attack and acted concerned. And all the time he was the one who had hit me over the head and taken my grandmother’s ring. I wonder why he didn’t pawn it.”
Scott leaned closer to get a look at the ring. “He probably was waiting until he thought it would be safe to get rid of it.”
“But there’s something I don’t understand,” she said. “I received a threatening text while we were stil
l at my house after the explosion. If Jeff was on the ferry, how did he know I hadn’t died?”
Brock shrugged and pushed to his feet. “I don’t know yet, but we’re going to find out. It reinforces our theory of another person being involved. If we’re right and he killed Jeff, you may be in more danger than ever. We’ve got to keep a closer watch on you than ever before.”
Lisa glanced at Scott, but his face didn’t reveal how he felt about Brock’s suggestion. “I appreciate that, but you can’t protect me forever.”
Scott frowned. “But we want to, Lisa.”
She shook her head. “No. You and Brock have all you can do without adding me to your list.” She turned to Brock. “I’ve already taken up too much of Scott’s time. Deputy Lewis is here in the daytime, and I’ll stay close to Treasury’s house in the evenings until you’ve solved Jeff’s murder.”
Brock glanced at Scott and back to her. “There’s a problem with that scenario, Lisa. I talked to Sheriff Baxter this morning, and Jason is being called back to the mainland. It’s just going to be Scott and me for now until he can send someone else.”
“Even more reason for me not to be a bother to you.”
“Lisa, I’ve told you from the beginning we’re just doing our job,” Scott said. “All we want to do is protect you.”
The curt tone of his voice shocked her. He couldn’t have made his feelings any plainer. She was the victim of a crime, and the time he’d spent with her had been out of a sense of duty.
Before she could respond, Brock spoke up. “Let’s not argue about this. Both of you are right. We’re shorthanded at the moment, and Lisa needs protection. I think I have the solution.”
“What?” Scott asked.
“I recently read about an app for your cell phone that can be used for tracking your friends. It’s easy to download, but your friends have to agree to being tracked. I think the three of us need to download the app and sign up on the website to track each other.” He glanced at Scott. “That way, we’ll know where Lisa is even when we’re not with her.”
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