Page 20 of Artifice (Pros and Cons Mysteries #4)

O live hurried back downstairs.

She needed to talk to Mrs. Potts, even if that meant disturbing her at her private residence.

Someone had been in her room, and they hadn’t merely been cleaning. They’d tried to get into her computer.

That meant someone was either onto her about this case, or that someone from her past had followed her here to try to get more information.

After all, she’d gotten a series of strange text messages lately.

The first one had said: I know who killed your family.

Then she’d received one reading: I know who murdered your family, and you don’t. This has got to be killing you.

Not long after that, Tom Greer, the FBI agent who’d taken her in, had gotten a text saying: Tell Olive to stop looking into her father or else.

When she’d visited her childhood home, she’d found a note reading: Like father, like daughter.

Someone was egging her on, encouraging her to investigate.

And someone else was determined to make her stop.

Olive still hadn’t made sense of everything. But she knew the truth about her family’s deaths was still waiting to be uncovered. The reasons behind it were dangerous and high-stakes.

With a sigh, she remembered the other guests staying here. She’d talked to each of them, and none of them seemed the type to be working undercover.

Then again, no one should look at her and think she was working undercover either.

She hurried through the house and found the door with a sign on the front saying “Private.”

She quickly knocked. “Mrs. Potts? It’s Liv Bettencourt. I have a question.”

Then she waited.

Finally, she heard footsteps.

A moment later, Mrs. Potts answered, wearing a pink housecoat and matching slippers.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Olive started. “I can see you’re unwinding for the night.”

“What’s the matter?” The woman squinted with concern. “You sound urgent.”

“Mrs. Potts, did you go into my room today?”

“No, you told me not to. Why do you ask?” She frowned and crossed her arms, pulling her housecoat closer.

“Someone went through my things.”

Alarm filled her gaze. “What? Are you sure? I don’t know who would have done that.”

“I don’t either. That’s why I’m hoping you can help.”

Mrs. Potts frowned again and then ushered Olive into her room. “My Henry is already asleep, but maybe we should talk in here. We’ll just need to keep our voices down.”

Olive stepped inside but didn’t move away from the door.

“Mrs. Potts, as you know, I’m here because I’m considering donating to Lighthouse Harbor. I have some private information that I don’t want anyone to know about or see. That’s one reason I’m so concerned. I’m also concerned for my privacy, of course.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Potts whispered. “But there hasn’t been anyone here today except me, Henry, and the other guests.”

“No repairmen or deliveries?”

She shook her head. “No, not today. I’ve been here all day, so I would have seen.”

Olive also knew the woman kept the front door unlocked and that she couldn’t hear very well.

“Is there anything missing from your room? Jewelry? Money? Should we call the sheriff?” Mrs. Potts looked mortified at the mention of involving law enforcement, even though she’d been the one to bring it up.

“No, it wouldn’t do any good. Nothing’s missing that I can tell.”

Mrs. Potts stepped closer and lowered her voice. “If you ask me, maybe it was another guest. If I had to pinpoint one—which I would hate to do—but I’d say maybe that Tevin guy did it. I can’t imagine any of the others. Would you like me to talk to him?”

Olive shook her head. “Oh, no. Don’t do that. You’ll definitely be getting some bad reviews if you begin interrogating your guests. Do you have any cameras?”

Regret filled her gaze. “No, unfortunately we don’t. We learned our guests value their privacy. Having cameras out front made them uncomfortable.”

Olive supposed that made sense.

“Is there anything else I could do to make you feel better?” Mrs. Potts tilted her head in a motherly way.

“I can’t think of anything. But let’s keep this between us for now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’d prefer not to draw attention to the incident.” That was the last thing Olive needed right now.

“I can understand that.” Relief crossed her face.

Was Mrs. Potts afraid of something besides the B&B’s reputation? Was someone putting pressure on her to operate in a certain way? To keep her mouth closed? To keep something under wraps?

Olive couldn’t be sure. But she would keep her eyes wide open.

Olive’s mind was still racing as she quickly got freshened up for her dinner with Principal Denarau. She didn’t like the turns this case had already taken. She’d thought this assignment would be fairly low-key, and now it was proving to be anything but.

She changed from her earlier outfit into an elegant but casual navy-blue dress. Then she headed out to meet Principal Denarau. True to her word, Margaret had texted Olive, letting her know when and where the two were supposed to meet.

Just as she walked downstairs at the B&B, the couple who was staying there walked inside, wearing hiking boots and carrying backpacks on their shoulders.

Olive plastered on a smile. “Looks like you guys have been hiking. Did you get wet? That was quite a shower that blew in out of nowhere.”

The woman laughed. “We sure did. But it was worth it. The views were still beautiful.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Sounds like you were gone all day?”

“Left bright and early this morning,” the man said.

That meant that Olive wouldn’t be getting any information from them. But at least she could most likely rule them out as suspects also.

With a smile and a wave, she told them she had to get to dinner and that she hoped they had a nice evening.

Hopefully, by the time she returned from dinner Tevin would be back. She’d texted him, but the text hadn’t gone through, which might mean he was out of range on one of the trails.

She hoped maybe he was able to find out some information.

She quickly checked the outside of her car before climbing inside. She didn’t necessarily think that anyone had planted any trackers or anything dangerous on the car, but it was only prudent to double-check considering the circumstances.

She had gone into this thinking that maybe Colin had run away or been chased away. But then she’d learned of the other two missing students. As she got deeper into the case she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was something even more deadly going on.

That wasn’t the type of news she wanted to deliver to Colin’s parents. And she hoped she was wrong, that Lighthouse Harbor wasn’t as dangerous as she feared.

But she definitely couldn’t rule out that possibility either.