Duncan looked sympathetic, but doubtful. They prove you were in the cottage. Not that you were with anyone. Well get back to you. Please dont leave town.
I have no intention of going anywhere, she snapped. I have a bakery to run. I also have no reason to leave. I want to know who killed Trevor as much as you do. More so, since you seem to think Im a suspect.
If you think of anything else, please give me a call. Deputy Duncan handed her his card.
She watched them both leave, feeling heartsick. The events of the night seemed surreal, a bad dream. Trevor murdered? Herself a suspect? A chill skittered over her skin. Was it possible that shed found the passion shed always longed forin the arms of a total stranger?
MACKENZIE COOPER left the Foresters and walked down the road in the pouring rain to his pickup. Hed had to park a half mile back up the lane because of all the cars. Those cars were gone now, and when he turned to look back, he saw something that sent his heart pounding. The sheriffs car was parked near the rear entrance of the house.
Getting into his Chevy truck, the camper on the back, he drove north down the narrow, winding lake road toward Bandits Bay Marina, where he kept his houseboat. What had happened to cause the sheriff to go up to the house? He had a feeling he didnt want to know.
At the Beach Bar at the end of the pier at the marina, he ordered a beer. Whats all the excitement? he asked the bartender.
Trevor Forester was murdered tonight, the bartender said.
Mac felt as if hed been kicked in the gut. Trevor was dead and Mac had just slept with his fiancée. Talk about bad karma.
He drank his beer, hardly tasting it, and listened to some of the locals talking about how Foresters boat was found floating about a half mile off Inspiration Island. A fisherman found Trevor lying in a pool of blood in the bottom of the boat. Hed been shot twice in the
heart.
Murder was rare enough in this part of Montana. The last one was back in 1997 when some guy was killed on Hawk Island. What made this murder more tantalizing was that the victim was a local and that he was developing Inspiration Island, an island the men at the bar said should have been left alone. They hinted that the island was haunted, which was a good reason not to develop it.
Mac didnt buy into any of that mumbo jumbo. What interested him was that the locals hadnt liked Trevor. Partially because of the resentment they harbored for him and the Forester family money. Partially because Trevor was a jackass who also hadnt been paying his bills of late.
Mac sipped his beer, unable to shake the anxiety hed felt the moment hed seen the sheriffs car at the Foresters lake house. It was just a matter of time before the sheriff found out about Trevors call to Mac.
I think someones trying to kill me, Trevor had said on the phone yesterday, sounding scared. I heard youre a private investigator. I need you to find out who it is before its too late.
It had been Trevors plan for them to meet at the party to discuss the job. Trevor had sent Mac a costume: Rhett Butler. They were to meet at the lake cottage at eight-fifteen tonight. Trevor would be arriving by boat.
Except Trevor never made it. Another boat pulled up. And Mac had recognized the mans voice as he came onto shore with a woman on his arm. Nathaniel Pierce. He and Mac had gone to university together. Mac had forgotten that Pierce had bought a place up this way.
Hed been watching Pierce from the window when the cottage door opened and the woman came in. The last thing Mac wanted to do was see Pierce, so Mac had kissed the woman to keep her quiet.
According to the discussion at the bar, Trevors fiancée was a woman named Jill Lawson. While locals had little regard for Trevor, they had nothing but praise for Jill, although, like Mac, they couldnt understand what she saw in Trevor Forester. Jill owned a bakery in town called The Best Buns in Town.
A name that had more than a little truth to it, he thought. According to the locals at the bar, Jill was a hard worker, a fine-looking, intelligent young woman who baked the best cinnamon rolls in four states, not just in town.
If the locals knew about Trevors other woman, they werent talking. Mac listened to everyone speculate on who might have killed Trevor. It was clear no one had a clue. Mac finished his beer and walked down the dock to his boat, thinking of Jill Lawson. Worrying about her and wondering how she was going to take the murder of her fiancé, given what had happened tonight.
His houseboat was basically a box on pontoons, containing just the basics for living. He had it docked at the farthest slip at the end of an older section of the marina. The cheap seats.
The boat wasnt much, but it was home. It had a flat roof, with a railing around both the bottom and top decks, a retractable diving board and a slide that hed used more for escape in the past than for swimming.
He entered the houseboat cabin without a keyhe never bothered to keep the place lockedand was instantly aware that someone was inside waiting for him. He heard the telltale squeak of his favorite chair, but hed also developed a sixth sense for unwelcome company. It had saved his life on more than one occasion.