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“You went through John’s safe?”

For the first time, Beau seemed to have trouble meeting his eyes. He said curtly, “Yep. When Ms. Madison refused to cooperate, we got a search warrant.”

“You— When was this?”

Beau did not seem to like whatever he saw in Archie’s face. He said in that same brusque tone, “Don’t worry. We took copies of what we needed. Everything’s back exactly as John left it. Which we did not need to do, by the way.”

Archie did not answer. Couldn’t. He wasn’t sure why he felt so…shocked by this revelation. Not just shocked. Sucker-punched. He wouldn’t have objected to Beau’s search of John’s safe, especially when there was the possibility of a financial motive in John’s death—and Beau surely knew that. Yet he had deliberately withheld this information from Archie. There could be a couple of reasons for that, but the obvious one was that Archie was still under suspicion.

“Look,” Beau was still watching him. “It’s called gathering and analyzing evidence. You know how it works.”

Yep. Archie knew how it worked. He knew how professional courtesy worked, too. Or just ordinary consideration—for old time’s sake.

“You said you wanted to get my statement?”

Beau’s eyes narrowed at Archie’s tone. “It’s not personal.”

Archie’s brows rose. “Are you memorizing this or did you want to get your phone out?”

Beau studied him, gave a short, disbelieving laugh and pulled out a small notepad. “Sorry. We’re OG around here, Special Agent Crane. Bear with me.”

Archie ignored the sarcasm. He went unemotionally, briskly through everything that had happened from the moment he arrived at McCabe House to when he’d landed flat on his back on the parkway, seeing stars.

Beau sternly jotted down essential points, and then said, “Do you understand now why I thought maybe staying here wasn’t a great idea after all?”

“Not really. Considering that nobody noticed when someone gained access to my room at Fraser House in order to plant incriminating evidence.”

“That would be a lot harder to do now that you’re in the corner room and the inn is closed for renovations.”

“I’m not hiding out at Fraser House. I guess you can dig up some reason to keep me from staying here—”

“Suit yourself.” Beau cut him off. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Archie regarded him steadily. He said nothing.

Beau gave another of those aggravated not-really-a-laugh laughs, and slapped shut his notepad. “Okay. Thank you. I guess that’s it. If you think of—”

“Was there anything for me in the safe?” Archie was terse.

Beau’s expression grew guarded. “What do you mean? There was a copy of John’s will, the deed to this house, a copy of his insurance policy—of which you are the sole beneficiary—” That definitely sounded pointed and did nothing to calm Archie. “—bank account information, stocks, bonds, and investment certificates—”

“Was there a letter addressed to me?”

Beau’s brows drew together. “A letter?”

“An envelope addressed to me? Did John leave me a letter?”

“No. What kind of letter?”

Archie burst out, “A letter explaining why. Why he left all this for me. Why not Judith or Desi? Why me?”

He hadn’t meant to say it at all, let alone blab it like that. He hated that he couldn’t seem to control his feelings now. Did it have something to do with getting hit on the head? Traumatic brain injury? PTSD? It was exhausting feeling so much all the time, constantly evaluating and reevaluating the past, trying belatedly to understand things he had made a point of forgetting. Trying to forget, anyway.

Beau’s face changed. “No.” He spread his hands as though demonstrating he was not withholding information, not keeping secrets. Or maybe he was just confused. His expression was definitely confused. “There was nothing like that. There were no letters.”

Archie said nothing, mostly because he couldn’t trust that if he opened his mouth, he was not going to be further embarrassed. But Beau misread his struggle for control.

“There was no letter. I wouldn’t lie to you.”