Deception

That had to be it. She hadn’t been thinking about a possible intruder, only about protecting her investment. She needed to start thinking about her safety now. The B and B was secondary. Or was it tertiary now that her sister was back in her life?

Meral held a special place in Jewel’s heart, and from a family who had hurt her, too. Disinheriting, disowning someone had to have cut Jewel in a way Colin couldn’t fathom. And now the sister and husband had suddenly shown up. Why now, after twenty years? And why was Jewel’s life in danger right after they arrived?

He didn’t want to rely on instinct, but neither did he believe in coincidence.

Why would the attacker have come to the attic? To hide? Or was there some other reason? Making assumptions was never a good idea. Colin walked around shining the light on boxes and old luggage, trunks, furniture, toys, knickknacks—some of which he’d seen decorating the B and B over the years. She could have come up here to think on moving some things down. One fact he had—he wouldn’t solve this until Jewel answered some very pointed questions. He wished he had a crime-scene division to gather fingerprints. But Mountain Cove had no budget for that. Investigating this would take good, old-fashioned police work. And anyway, gathering prints didn’t always give an answer or paint the correct picture.

Colin made his way back downstairs to look around the rest of the house for clues. He was torn between hoping that Doc Harland would give him the free and clear to question Jewel further and hoping he’d be told to leave her alone for a while longer. Every time he looked at her, asked her a question, he felt as though he was beating her up. She needed to recover fully, and Colin wasn’t helping.

But she would keep getting hurt until he found the person attacking her. And to track down the culprit, he needed answers.

He heard voices downstairs. A male voice that didn’t belong to David. Maybe one of the guests had returned? Or had Meral’s husband, Buck, finally shown up?

Colin made his way to the first floor and found Meral in the kitchen in the arms of a man nearing fifty, a good ten if not fifteen years older than Meral, around the same age as Jewel and Colin. They both tensed when they saw him. Meral stepped out of the man’s arms.

“Hello, Chief Winters,” she said. “This is my husband, Buck Cambridge.”

Stepping forward, Colin held out his hand to shake Buck’s. The man had a strong grip in return. Well-groomed, graying chestnut-brown hair and a beard framed his mostly square, tanned face. About the same height as Colin—five foot eleven. Stocky but solid. Brown eyes stared back at him, measuring. Gauging.