Page 129 of Capturing You

“What about the other men in the picture?”

“Still no word.”

How could it take so long? Could someone working for the state police be in on it?

She was getting paranoid, but could anybody be trusted?

“How about his friend, the so-called Niles?”

“No leads there yet. When we find Bryce, we’ll get his partner’s name. Hang in there, Brooklynn. We’ll figure this out.”

They’d better because she needed to get back to work and on with her life. She needed this to be solved before her mother and sisters returned to Shadow Cove.

Maybe she should call Dad. He could apply pressure. He’d find Bryce and his cohorts. He’d keep her safe.

But he’d be furious that Brooklynn had gotten herself into this mess. He’d probably send her far away, and if she mentioned needing to manage her gallery, he’d scoff as if it didn’t matter.

It mattered to her. She needed to do this without Dad’s interference.

“You can’t stay at your apartment.” Nathan pulled her back to the conversation. “I can pick you up and take you anywhere you want to go.”

But if the police were compromised, and if Nathan could let slip what he was up to…

She hated distrusting people she’d known all her life, but too many people had proved untrustworthy.

“I’m all right. I have a plan.” The seed of a plan, anyway.

“Let me just?—”

“Get Lenny to leave me alone. For now, that’s all I’m asking.” She ended the call, grabbed her backpack and cane, and climbed the stairs to the attic. Before she’d called Nathan, she’d donned her old-lady costume again so she’d be ready to go. Too many people knew she was home. She needed to get out of the building without anybody else spotting her—or trying to stop her.

She crossed to the door leading down to her neighbor’s store and let herself in.

Shadow Cove was busy this time of year, and tourists who spent their days at the beach or on the water often came to town for dinner and shopping.

Elvis Harper’s store should be busy enough for Brooklynn to blend in. The first floor was filled with kitschy souvenirs and more expensive goods, many made by locals.

The second floor housed toys and games, plus inflatables and boogie boards for playing in the surf.

At the door leading into the store’s second floor, Brooklynn paused to listen.

Voices came from the other side. Children playing, some whining. One parent promised ice cream for good behavior.

Brooklynn eased the door open, catching sight of a little boy kneeling beside a small table, playing with a wooden train set. She hobbled down the staircase, hurried to the exit, and stepped into the warm, muggy evening.

Gazing at tourists and locals, she searched for threats, but nobody paid her any mind as she made her way up the street, away from the cove at the bottom of the hill.

The downtown buildings were painted in pastel colors that gleamed in the twilight. She passed the old library, now a bookstore owned by Darcy Webb, Jewel’s sister-in-law. Wife to Logan, owner of Webb’s Harborside.

More silky threads in the spiderweb that was Shadow Cove.

A few blocks up, she reached the major cross street that snaked to the highway. Here, the buildings were farther apart, separated by untamed forest. She walked a block to the north and reached the new library.

Though it was probably a decade old, when she stepped inside she inhaled the new-construction odor that lacked the familiar scent of old books. This was larger than the original town library, brightly lit and shiny.

The librarian didn’t look up from her task, and Brooklynn didn’t announce her presence, not wanting to be recognized. She headed for the section near the door that held books about Maine, the coastline, and Shadow Cove.

It took some digging, but she found the book she’d remembered from her high school project on her hometown, which referenced the Ballentine Mansion. She settled in a little reading nook in the back.