Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” I asked, thinking idly about the holidays to come.
“I usually eat at my parents’,” West said. “Why? Want to come?”
I looked at him, surprised. I hadn’t gotten that far on a lot of levels. He laughed at my expression. I wondered if I looked shocked or nervous—both emotions were fighting for dominance in my gut.
“You don’t have to,” he said with a smile.
“Maybe you guys should come to Heartstone,” I offered before I thought about it. Instead of wishing I’d kept my mouth shut, the idea settled. Did I want to be on the hot seat in West’s mother’s dining room? No. But could the Garfield family fold into the mayhem of Thanksgiving at Heartstone Manor? Definitely. Edgar would be there. Harvey would probably show up, too, which would give West’s dad some company.
“That’s an idea,” West said. “I don’t know if my mom would go for it, but we can figure it out.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’ve got time.” A thought popped into my head. “Sterling thinks Harvey and Edgar know something.”
“They know a lot of things,” West said. “She thinks they know something about what?”
“My dad’s murder,” I said, taking another sip of coffee.
West’s eyebrows raised, his eyes on the road, and he made a sound in his throat I couldn’t decipher.
“You don’t think so?” I asked.
“I haven’t ruled anyone out,” he said. “It’s possible. Prentice had a lot of secrets, and if anyone knew them, it was Edgar, Harvey, or maybe my father. But I don’t know.” West shook his head. “My gut says none of them would have let Ford go to jail if they’d had evidence to stop it. Be arrested, maybe. But once he pled guilty for a lighter sentence, once those charges went officially on his record, I don’t know. I can’t see it, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
“Sterling didn’t like the way Harvey seemed to know we’d found the designer’s address. I thought that was weird, too.” I waited for his response, curious how that had landed for West. He lifted his chin and glanced my way before fixing his eyes back on the road.
“I hear you. That felt weird to me, too.”
“Shit,” I said under my breath.
“I don’t want to think Harvey’s in on anything, but he let the necklace get stolen,” West said, “and he didn’t report it to me. He was thick with your dad. His hands are not entirely clean. Nothing I can arrest him for, but…”
I nodded. “I know what you mean. And then he’s nosing around to see what we know. It’s just weird.”
“I can’t arrest him for being weird, but I’m with you. I didn’t like it.” He let out a sigh. “I’ve been considering the possibility that I have a leak.”
“I hate not knowing who to trust,” I said, not liking the idea that there was anyone at the police station who didn’t have West’s back. “Any idea who?”
West let out a short laugh. “It could be anyone,” he said. “I thought I knew this town when I became police chief. I thought it’d be a cinch. I’d spent a couple of years working in Charlotte, got some big-city police work under my belt. I thought I could roll back into Sawyers Bend, and handle stuff just fine.”
“It didn’t work that way?” I asked, suddenly curious. I was in high school and college back then and hadn’t really clocked West being gone. Then he’d been back and took over as police chief. He’d slid into the role so seamlessly that it seemed like he’d always been police chief.
“Everybody has secrets,” he said. “No one is exactly who they seem to be. And when you’re the police chief, you learn a lot you’d rather not know.”
I didn’t bother to ask for details. West understood discretion. “I don’t want to know everybody’s secrets,” I said. “Just this one.”
West shook his head. “I have a feeling when we finally get the answer to that one secret, it’s going to open up a can of worms.”
“Hmm.” I had nothing to say to that. He might be right. He might be wrong. It didn’t matter. I wanted to know who’d killed my father and tried to put Ford in jail for the rest of his life. Who’d come after my family over and over since my father had been killed. I wanted the answer. I’d deal with the fallout later.
We lapsed into silence, West finally switching on some music. As we left the valley and climbed up to Wolf Mountain, the small town where the jewelry designer lived, the trees grew denser, the roads narrower. We made a wrong turn but finally found the overgrown gravel drive marked only by a single mailbox that clearly led to her house.
West stopped at the head of the drive and checked the rusted mailbox. It was stuffed full of letters and advertising circulars. He shut it and climbed back in the SUV. “There’s a good chance she’s not home,” West said as our tires crunched down the drive.