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Paradise glanced at the clock. Nearly five. Jenna had put a pork roast in the Crock-Pot first thing this morning, and the

aroma made her mouth water. All Paradise had to do was come up with side dishes and dessert. Finishing supper had helped occupy

her hands and her mind.

The boys had been her constant shadow, and so far they’d played Uno and made cookies together. She’d enjoyed it more than

she’d expected. She’d been on edge for two hours, knowing what Blake and Jenna must be going through. How could Creed suspect

them? It was so unfair.

Isaac sidled up with a pan dotted with various sizes of cookies. Chocolate smeared his mouth. “See my cookie.”

Levi pointed to one that had a hat made of chips. “That one’s mine. And that one—the zombie with the teeth.”

“Very nice! Chocolate chips for eyes and the teeth are perfect. You boys are great cookie makers.” They’d doubled the amount

of chocolate chips, but they would be tasty even though they were lopsided and a little too moist. “Let’s pop them in the

oven.” She took the pan and slid them into Jenna’s second oven.

She checked the potatoes au gratin, and they would be ready in another half hour. Homegrown green beans from Jenna’s freezer waited in a pan with bacon for her to warm up. When was the last time Paradise had prepared food for other people? Probably years. It made her feel part of the family here, which was dangerous.

The front door opened, and Jenna called out, “We’re home in one piece.”

Paradise wiped her hands on the red gingham apron she’d donned and followed the boys, who dashed off to meet their mother

and brother.

Isaac was already on Blake’s shoulders when they entered the kitchen. “Smells good.”

“I helped!” Isaac said. “We made cookies. Since we were so good, could we use Daddy’s telescope tonight?”

“I’m sure Blake could be talked into that,” Jenna said.

Levi clung to his mother’s slim form like a spider monkey. “Mine is a zombie with chocolate chips for teeth.” He bared his

own teeth and growled.

Jenna gave a mock shudder. “You might have to eat that one.”

Levi shook his head. “Blake is brave enough to bite its head off.”

Suppressing a smile, Paradise flipped on the burner. “I’ll cook the green beans.”

She checked the cookies and the potatoes again. Just a few more minutes. She grabbed forks and shredded the pork, then checked

the oven again. The cookies were perfect, and so were the potatoes, so she pulled them out.

Blake’s presence filled the room. “I’m starved. I don’t think I got lunch.”

“It’s ready.” She’d already set the table. “Want me to fix you a plate?”

“I can do it.”

“How did the interrogation go?”

“It’s clear he’s out to pin this on me or Mom. Maybe both of us. He took DNA, but Hez told us to refuse the polygraph.”

“I’ll bet that fired up Creed.”

Blake snagged a hot cookie and juggled it from hand to hand. “It did.” Gooey chocolate clung to his fingers after he popped

pieces in his mouth.

Her gaze lingered on the chocolate around his firm lips and she imagined the taste. She gave a slight shake to her head to

reprimand her stray thoughts. “Creed’s attitude cements what we have to do. We’ll have to find the culprit.”

“I’m game.”

He gave her a warning glance when his mother came into the room, and she understood he didn’t want to worry Jenna. She’d likely

tell them to let the police handle it, but it didn’t appear that would happen.

Jenna prepared plates of food for the boys. “I hadn’t thought about Frank’s offer to buy our land until the interrogation.”

She set their plates on the table and called them in to eat.

Blake heaped food on his plate and sat between the boys. “I hadn’t either. Are you reconsidering selling, Mom?”

“No, I didn’t mean that, but I’m surprised Frank hasn’t returned.”

“We were emphatic we weren’t interested. Hank had turned him down too.”

“What do you know about Frank Ellis?” Paradise asked.

“He was born and raised in the Gulf Shores area. His houses are top-notch and sell for big bucks. I don’t really know him though.”

The boys scampered from the room and ran to get their iPads for their allotted evening time.

“I do,” Jenna said when they were gone. “I dated him in high school.”

“You never told me that,” Blake said.

She rose and began to clear the table. “It was a long time ago.”

Blake carried his plate to the sink. “Do you think he’d do anything underhanded?”

“Back in high school he was a straight shooter. Time changes people. So many wear masks. Maybe it was always that way, but

it seems worse now. So I don’t know.”

“Hez is on it, and he’ll find out.”

Levi came back into the kitchen. “Blake, it’s dark. Can we look at the moon tonight? Mommy said it was okay,” he said.

Blake ruffled his hair. “I think that can be arranged.”

He never seemed impatient with his brothers. Paradise had forgotten how even-tempered he always was, and she liked that quality

just as much now as she did back then.

***

Paradise waved away flying insects as she surveyed the hippo submerged in the pond. Her wild mane of curls blew in the light

breeze, and the heat brought pink to her cheeks. Blake forced his attention to Bertha. Only her eyes and nostrils showed above

the murky water.

Paradise put her hands on her hips. “How are we going to get her out?”

The hippo was Blake’s favorite animal in the preserve. He’d spent many happy hours fishing beside her. Hez had joined him on occasion as well. “Bertha, I brought something for you.” He got out of the Gator and went around to the back. He held up the out-of-season watermelon he’d paid a ridiculous price for, and he could have sworn he saw the hippo’s eyes light up.

“Look at her,” Paradise marveled. “She’s leaving the water for the melon.”

“And watch how she limps. I noticed it yesterday.”

Bertha lumbered toward them, and he backed away with the melon. She followed the lure of her favorite food, and the limp started

almost at once. “See?” He let her walk a few more steps before approaching her with the melon. No need to cause her more misery.

As he approached she opened her huge mouth, and he deposited the melon inside.

Paradise approached with a thermal tool. “Most hippos are aggressive, but she seems pretty mellow.”

“Bertha came to us as a calf, and I’ve never known her to charge.”

Paradise knelt by the affected right back leg and checked the temperature on the thermal-imaging camera. “The heat in the

joint above her foot is elevated by two degrees. She might have a stress fracture in a toe or in the joint. I’ll give her

an anti-inflammatory, and we should make sure she doesn’t use it much until the temperature reading goes down.”

“So more food and less foraging.” He patted the hippo’s head. “You’ll like that, you lazy girl.”

Paradise started to stand, then stopped. “Wait a second, what’s this?” She peered closer at Bertha’s foot. “There’s something wrapped around her toes here. I’ll have to sedate her to remove it. I doubt she would be accommodating enough to lift her hoof off the ground for me.”

“Probably not.” And he wouldn’t want to run the risk of the hippo injuring Paradise.

She injected Bertha with the sedative. It took several minutes for the medicine to take effect. The hippo staggered toward

the water, then crumpled to the mud before she reached it.

He joined Paradise beside the animal, and when she struggled to lift the heavy hoof, he reached in. “Let me get that. You

see if you can figure out what’s wrong.”

It took all his effort to hold Bertha’s leg up while Paradise fiddled with whatever was causing the hippo’s lameness. “It’s

some kind of wire,” she muttered. “There, I think I’ve got it. You can put her leg down.”

“Gladly.” He lowered the hippo’s leg and straightened. “Maybe it’s not a fracture at all that was causing the pain.”

“Probably not. The wire could have cut off blood flow, which affected her mobility.” She rose from beside the sleeping hippo

and held up the wire.

His stomach bottomed out, and he took the wire from her fingers. This type of thing was a common sight when he was in war

zones. “Blasting cap wire.”

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “Let’s do a sweep of the area around her enclosure. Someone could have planted an explosive device.”

Paradise put her bag of medical supplies away, and he grabbed boots for both of them from the back. “Here, put these on. Most

of the area around here is marshy, and you’re liable to sink in mud to your ankles.”

She paused and slid her feet into them. “Let’s split up. What am I looking for?”

“Maybe more wire attached to a long metal insert. Maybe blasting material. Call me, and don’t touch anything dangerous.”

“Got it.”

He walked toward the north side of the pond while she went the other way through a straggly stand of trees and marsh grass.

Mud tried to suck a boot off, and he paused to yank it back on. Bent over, he saw the ground from a different angle and spotted

a flash of something red sticking up out of the mud. He pulled at it and discovered another length of blasting wire about

three feet long.

This wasn’t good. Who had been out here with this kind of material? He wiped the mud from his hands onto his jeans and grabbed

his phone to call the sheriff’s department. When he explained what he’d found, he was passed to Greene, the last person he

wanted to talk to.

“Another fire?” Greene asked when he came on the line.

Blake could hear the smirk in his voice. The guy should be fired. “No, worse than fire. Explosives.” As he explained what

he’d found, he spotted Paradise walking his way holding a beer can. “Hang on.” He jogged to meet her and saw the blasting

cap wire sticking out the top. “You shouldn’t have touched that. It could have blown up. Set it gently on the ground and back

away.” He wanted to yank it out of her hands and protect her, but that might set it off. “Put it down, Paradise. Right now

and very gently.”

Her amber eyes went wide, and she set it on the mud gingerly, then they both backed away. “Greene, you there?”

“Yeah. What’s going on?”

“Paradise found an incendiary device in a beer can.”

“A beer can?” His voice rose a notch. “We recovered one of those from the fire at your cottage.”

“You never mentioned it.”

“We’re still investigating, and you and your mom are still suspects in that fire.”

“We have alibis,” he reminded the detective.

“There was a timer on it.”

Blake didn’t need the detective to explain what that meant. It changed everything, and the attention from the police would

be squarely back on him and Mom. He ended the call with Greene.

Paradise wore a worried frown. “He’s not taking it seriously?”

“Worse than that. Mom and I are under suspicion. They found a similar device in the house, and it had a timer. Our alibis

mean nothing now. Creed seems certain we torched our own property for the insurance money. And with that suspicion hanging

over our heads, the payout to replace what was lost will be delayed. We’re stuck until the real culprit is found.”

“I’m sorry. What can we do?”

He checked the time on his phone. Four o’clock and his duties were over for the day. “I doubt Hez has dug up anything yet,

so there isn’t much we can do about stuff here. How about we try again to catch the prior sheriff’s wife?”

She smiled, and he spotted the gratitude in her face. It would help him to focus on something else for now. Something other

than how he could have lost her just now, and he’d realized just how deep his emotions still went.