“You want company tonight in case the guy skulks around the house?”
Her pulse blipped. “Dad has a meeting and can’t come over until nine. We could order pizza for lunch and go through Lisbeth’s things. I-I don’t really want to do this alone.”
“Sounds like a plan. We can walk off the pizza with a stroll to the ice cream shop for dessert after we eat.”
She jangled the keys in her hand. “I’ll meet you at the cottage, and we can unload Lisbeth’s things.”
“I want to sweep the car too.”
“Sweep? The interior looks spotless.”
“I want to check for any bugs. The police would have gone over the interior well, but they weren’t looking for murder clues. They still think Lisbeth committed suicide. I want to make sure the guy wasn’t tracking her every move.”
“I should check her phone too. There are so many electronic ways he might have kept up on what she was doing and where she was going.”
Having a goal was a shot in the arm for her. The hours together through the afternoon and early evening might help keep her from dwelling on how she’d been failing in her goal. And this was one job she had to finish.
Chapter 28
Joe stared at the bug he’d found in Lisbeth’s car. It was more confirmation that she’d been killed. But why?
He put his phone away. “Craig will send someone by to get the bug.”
Torie nodded and bit her lip when the last piece of clothing was removed, leaving an empty suitcase. “No clues. I connected her phone to some software, and someone was tracking her through it, too, but they’re good, whoever they are. I couldn’t trace it. Maybe the police can though.”
The living room still held the faint scent of a sweet perfume from Lisbeth’s clothing. They’d both had so much hope when they carried the boxes and suitcases into the cottage. Now Torie’s dreams were in ruins along with the discarded remains of the pizza they had for lunch, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Hailey was watching TV in the spare room, and the faint sound of Little House on the Prairie echoed down the hallway.
Torie dropped onto the sofa and stared down at her hands. “Nothing. We’ve spent two hours going through every pocket and poking into every crevice in the suitcases. We’re no closer to an answer than we were when I arrived on Jekyll Island. I don’t know where to look next.”
The quaver in her voice tugged at his heart, and he sat beside her. He moved to put his arm around her before reconsidering the idea. Things were still a little strained between them since he’d learned who she was. Maybe it was him or maybe it was her, but he couldn’t deny he felt constrained around her now that he knew she was the heir to a massive hospitality empire.
“We could search for that hidden safe.”
She got up, and he followed her to the spare room. The TV was too loud, and Joe told Hailey to lower the volume. At least she wasn’t paying any attention to them going to the closet.
He flipped on the closet light, and it shone into the dark crevices. On the back-left wall, he spied the safe. “There it is.” He knelt and tried to open it. “It’s locked. You find any strange keys around?”
Torie knelt beside him and yanked on the lever that didn’t budge. “Just the house key. I’ll ask at the hotel if there’s a key to this.”
They both rose and he trailed her back to the living room. “What was she working on when she was here? Any pet projects she took over at the resort?”
“I asked my aunt for a list of everything Lisbeth had been doing, but she never sent it over.”
“Maybe check with HR.” He glanced at his phone. “It’s only three. You should be able to get someone.”
“Good idea.” She reached for her laptop and typed up an email. “It’s done. I told HR I wanted it within the next fifteen minutes. Sometimes it pays to throw around the Bergstrom name.”
He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the kind of power she was used to wielding. Maybe her best bet of a lasting relationship would be with someone who had the same kind of power and money. He’d always taken pride in taking care of his wife and daughter, of providing for them, even if sometimes that provision wasn’t steak and caviar.
He wished he could believe he was reading too much into the inequality of their statuses, but it felt overwhelming right now.
“Tea or coffee?” she asked.
“Coffee sounds good, but I’ll make it.”
“So you can have it strong enough to dissolve the spoon?” she teased. “I can live with it. I’ll have you know I’ve started adding two more scoops of coffee to the pot every morning. You’re corrupting me.”
“That’s a good thing. There’s nothing worse than weak-as-dishwater coffee.”
He squeezed her hand, then rose and went to the kitchen where he ground coffee and filled the pot. The aroma of strong coffee began to percolate through the house as he got down mugs and pulled out cream for her.
He smelled the scent of her shampoo before he realized she’d joined him. How odd it was that she didn’t wear an expensive perfume like her aunt. She always smelled like soap and fresh air, and he liked it.
She stopped a few feet away. “Are you ever going to forget I’m a Bergstrom? You haven’t been the same with me since.”
Maybe she’d been reading his mind. “It takes some getting used to. You know, the fact that you could buy and sell an entire island without a blink of an eye. That kind of money and power is a little off-putting.”
“Off-putting? Most men I’ve met are only too happy to think about spending it for me.”
He held her gaze for a long minute and his heart squeezed at the vulnerability in her brown eyes. Being judged by her name and wealth couldn’t be easy. And he was just as guilty as the rest of them, only he was assuming she wanted to control him with it all. And maybe she didn’t.
“I like to make my own way. Stand on my own two feet and provide for my family.”
The shadow in her eyes darkened. “Julie didn’t work?”
“Well, yes, she did. She was a paralegal. After Hailey was born, she went to part-time, but she planned to go back to full-time once Hailey was in school.” He smiled. “I see where you’re going with this. I’m being a little hypocritical, aren’t I?”
“Not a little. A lot. In any relationship, there’s give and take. It’s not all give and not all take. It’s not right for you to hold my family name against me. I had no control over which family I came from. It’s much better to judge me based on my character and what I do with what I’ve been given. Do you see me driving a Ferrari or living in a mansion? I’m hardly blowing through money in a reckless way.”
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I give! You’re right, and I’m wrong. I’ll try to do better. I liked your take-charge attitude and the way you cared about other people from the beginning. I need to remember you’re the same person you were last week before I knew who you were.”
The tense line of her shoulders softened, and she smiled. “Think you can do it?”