“He was fine,” Nate assured her.
“I saw him sitting with a woman in the lobby last night,” Cam admitted. “They were close.”
“He was doing what?” Ty asked, his voice going tight.
“They were sitting together, and she had her arm in his and was leaning on him,” Cam replied. “It was weird because she reminded me a little of his ex.”
Another pulse of relief. She sniffled at the thought because when they’d left things, she’d expected him to do what he did—run and isolate himself. Not reconnect with someone from the very past that had torn them apart. “Do you think it was Trina?”
Ty’s hand found hers, and she could feel his relief, too. “Yeah. I think it was. I had a bad moment there, but I don’t think Michael would go from walking away from you to another woman’s bed. He’s not like that. I was worried he would try to leave and get himself killed. I hoped he would talk to her while she was here.” He turned Cam’s way. “Did they seem okay?”
“I think they were having a good talk. Nothing bad,” Cam explained. “I was worried because they seemed pretty cozy. Who is she?”
“Jessie Wilson’s sister. He hasn’t talked to her since Jessie died. He was close to her family, and he cut them out when he went to live on the mountain,” Lucy explained.
“She showed up earlier this week.” Ty sat back. “She came to talk about selling the house he owned with Jessie, but I think she wanted more than that. She wanted to see how he was doing. She cared about him. He was like a big brother to her, and she lost him when she lost Jessie. I think it was hard on her. If he’s talking to her, being affectionate with her, it’s a good thing.”
Nate’s arms crossed over his chest as he regarded Lucy and Ty. “You’re not jealous? You find out the man who walked out on you is snuggling with some other woman and you think it’s a good thing.”
“Like Ty said, Michael didn’t walk away because he was bored and wanted someone else to sleep with.” Lucy didn’t want Nate to think poorly of Michael. “He’s scared to feel anything, and he needs some time to deal with what happened. I know he’s had two years, but that’s what it took for him to start to think about moving on. He was grieving in his own way, and there’s no timer on grief.”
“He told you that?” Cam’s brow had risen, giving him a quizzical expression.
“He didn’t have to. Lucy pointed it out, and I agree with her,” Ty replied. “And you’re both staring at us because you didn’t think we were this smart, but we are.”
“We learned from all the dumbass stuff you guys did. By you guys I mean most of the town,” Lucy pointed out. “There’s always one person in the threesome who’s all wounded and freaked out at the thought of a relationship with one person, much less two.”
Gemma held a hand up. “Cade. It was totally Cade for me. Childhood trauma.”
“Rafe.” Cam nodded. “Dumbass thought we would move to Miami and I would like live in the garage or something.”
Then every eye was on Nate, and the sheriff went the slightest pink and shrugged. “We all know it was me.”
She had to smile because it really had been him. Zane had known he would stay in Bliss long before Nate had committed. “All I’m saying is Michael is our Nate.”
“Or Michael is your Rafe,” Nate countered. “Look, it doesn’t matter who he most closely resembles. I’m glad that you two learned from our mistakes. Did he say anything he shouldn’t have? Because that can happen, too.”
Oh, she’d heard all of Callie’s stories. At least Michael hadn’t left them with nothing but a note and disappeared for years. Yet. “Beyond being worried I might have killed Brock Foster? Not really. He was mostly sad and confused. He hasn’t figured out how to let go yet. We have to hope he doesn’t take forever to come back to us.”
Nate’s expression softened. “If he’s smart, he won’t take too long.”
“But until then, we need to deal with the problem at hand,” Cam said. “The weather is supposed to break this afternoon. Our suspects will likely leave as soon as they can. We have today to figure out what we can about them. I have interviews with all three siblings set up this morning, and we should be getting our initial reports on each sometime today.”
“I’m working on that,” Gemma offered. “I can tell you that the younger sister’s socials are full of really good bags and absolutely no intellect at all. She’s serious about being an influencer, but I’m not sure she knows what the word means. The surviving brother is a frat-boy nightmare just waiting for a sexual harassment complaint. Sonya is the only serious one. She heads one of the divisions of the company. From what I can tell she travels a lot. Her socials are full of pictures from different sites she’s visited. She was recently in South Africa. No significant others for any of them, though Kendall seems to be working her way through all the minor European royalty she can get her hands on.”
“Sonya’s the one I’ve talked to the most.” She liked the other woman, which was why it had hurt to have Sonya point the finger her way. “She’s stable. She seems to take care of the group. From what I overheard, they all have jobs with the company, but she and Brock were higher up than the others.”
Was Michael downstairs having breakfast with Trina? Was he talking to her and realizing it wasn’t so bad to reconnect with the people he’d known?
Was he still in love with the woman he’d asked to marry him?
“I have to think this is about money.” Nate stared at the bag of white powder. “I’m going to have to take this to the lab.”
“And you have to tell them where you got it.” She wasn’t going to put Nate in a bad position.
“Or he could flush it down the toilet and it will be like it never happened,” Ty countered.
This was why they hadn’t immediately come here the night before. Ty had wanted her to think about what they did, had hoped sleeping on it would change her mind about turning the substance in.
She’d always known they would do the right thing. “It might tell Nate something important.”
“Absolutely,” Nate replied. “It could tell us a lot about where they bought it or stole it from. I know Gemma’s worried that the CBI is going to zero in on Lucy and not look anywhere else, but I disagree. I would be far more worried about local law enforcement being lazy than the CBI. They’re good investigators, and they’re used to dealing with complex cases.”
“They’ll also listen to Nate,” Cam added. “And me. We’ve got experience with federal law enforcement, and we both have contacts in the bureau. I agree with Nate. It’s not the best-case scenario, but we can work with CBI agents. And they will see that the timeline is problematic. Lucy would have to have had this on hand when she met Brock. She’s got no priors and no history of violence. Why would she have this hanging around? I’m afraid whoever did this overplayed their hand here.”
“Yeah, it’s better to leave things open when you’re trying to get away with murder.” Gemma had her blonde hair up in a bun. “It’s better to make things confusing than to try to make a direct line to the person you’re trying to set up because that means you’re leaving clues. Clues like who could have put that in Ty’s bathroom. Clues that lead to people we can talk to. Like the maid who cleaned Ty’s apartment yesterday morning. The one I have on camera going in at eleven a.m., eight hours before Brock Foster died, but after the rumors about Lucy moving in would have made the rounds.”