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He spun around so fast that Brooklynn nearly crashed into him. Her eyes were wide.

“You got pictures?” he asked. “Of the people who followed you?”

“I don’t think they’re very clear, but it’s hard to tell on my camera’s tiny screen. I thought?—”

“Come on.” He marched away, his heart thumping.

Maybe Brooklynn had caught the faces that had eluded Forbes for months.

He’d had cameras installed to surveil the dock, hidden high in the trees.

Unfortunately, the angle made it impossible to make out faces.

He’d considered lowering the cameras, but he’d worried doing so would be noticed, or that the cameras themselves would be seen.

Brooklynn had surely had a better angle.

In the office, he moved the files he’d been reading to one side of the desk, then opened his MacBook and powered it up. “How do you transfer the pictures? I don’t have an SD slot.”

“My camera connects to Wi-Fi.”

He gave her the network name and password, and she got it hooked up.

“Do you mind if I sit?”

He did mind a little, but moved out of the way. They were her photos, after all.

She settled in the chair, and he stood behind her and watched the screen over her shoulder. He should’ve brought one of his larger displays from his home office back in Boston. He was cursing the small laptop screen now.

The first images were of the Atlantic just as the sun peeked over the horizon. She was scrolling through them quickly.

“Those are…wow.”

He guessed she was smiling at the compliment and angled forward to see her face, picking up her distinctive scent.

Her expression was as serious as he’d ever seen it. Lips pressed closed, eyes laser-focused on the images. Nose scrunched.

He studied the photographs again.

They looked great to him. “Are you not happy?”

“Huh?” Her eyes flicked to him. “Sorry. I was just…” She seemed barely aware that he was there as she advanced the photos.

And then stopped. Her breath caught.

She’d captured the sun shining through a cresting wave. The deep teal color contrasted beautifully with the gunmetal-gray water surrounding it. There was a cliff in the background, a seagull diving on one side.

The other photos had been good. This was spectacular.

And was that…? He leaned forward to get a better look.

“You caught a fish.” He heard the words he’d said and shook his head. But she had, in the image. There was the unmistakable shape of a fish, a silhouette in the wave. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Are you kidding?” She laughed, though the sound wasn’t lighthearted. More…awed. “I could take a million shots and never do that on purpose. That’s…that’s?—”

“Amazing.”

“The power of prayer.” She looked up at him and seemed to realize what he’d said. “You think so?”

“Not that I know anything about photography, but I’d buy that.”

She turned to the screen again. “Maybe. Maybe it’ll work.”

“For?”

“Oh.” She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s not important.”

He got the feeling that it was, indeed, important. But perhaps not so much as catching the men who’d chased her.

She continued scrolling until she reached the end of the sunrise shots.

The next photograph showed boxes, or maybe they were crates, being unloaded from a white fishing boat.

He counted five men. Four hauling boxes, the fifth standing near a Polaris, angled away from the camera.

“The guy who saw me isn’t in the shot. He was below me on the cliff.”

But she’d gotten the other men. “Can you zoom in on their faces?”

She did, starting with a heavy man holding one side of a crate that, based on its size compared to the man, was probably about three feet tall. Forbes thought it was the thick-headed guy who’d been on his porch that morning. Bernie, he’d said his name was.

The guy holding the other side of the crate wasn’t familiar. His features were hard to make out in the shadows. It was impossible to tell hair color or eye color. He was taller than Bernie—six feet or more—but thinner.

Brooklynn scrolled to zoom in on the man pushing the dolly away, but he was facing the forest.

The other dolly-pusher’s face wasn’t clear. He was looking at the man at the edge of the forest, near the vehicle. He acted like an overseer.

Oh. That was Niles. His face was the easiest to make out.

No more information than Forbes had already had, but now there were pictures. Proof of what he’d suspected—that someone was using his family’s private dock for nefarious purposes.

Just like all those years ago.

Bernie and Niles couldn’t have been more than children back then, but who were they working for? Or was it possible these were different smugglers, unrelated to those who’d killed his parents and sister?

“I told the police officer I talked to this morning that I’d forward these.” Brooklynn’s voice pulled him back from his speculations. “I’m going to have to get them onto my phone, and then?—”

“You can’t use your phone.”

“I used yours to call my sister. She accessed mine remotely and installed a VPN. She promises it’s safe.”

“How does your sister know how to do that?” That was some pretty high-tech stuff. What if she got it wrong?

“Alyssa’s a cyber-investigator.” Brooklynn looked over her shoulder at him. “Before that, she worked for the NSA.”

“Oh.” He hoped he schooled his features at the news, but if Brooklynn’s sister decided to cyber-investigate him, would she discover his real identity?

He hoped Brooklynn hadn’t asked her to do that. And he also hoped that a woman who used to work for the government’s most intrusive agency wouldn’t decide to look into her sister’s rescuer herself.

Brooklynn’s smile was back, but she didn’t say anything, just turned her focus back to the computer and sent the photos to her phone. “Alyssa told me not to send the photos directly, just in case. Apparently, everything leaves a footprint.”

“So…?”

“I’ll send them to her, and she’ll forward them for me.”

“Would you send them to me too?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Why?”

“Technically, that dock is on this property. Maybe what’s going on there is related.”

“To murders that happened decades ago?”

He shrugged, going for casual. “You never know.”

She sent the images, then stood and handed him his phone back. “Thank you for letting me use it. And the laptop, and for everything.”

They were standing too close, but there wasn’t a whole lot of room behind the desk. Her nearness messed with his head. If she was going to be staying in his house, then he’d need to get accustomed to her.

Hadn’t happened yet.

“Sure.” He cleared his throat. “Anytime.”

The words brightened her smile, and he realized he’d literally refused to let her use the laptop about ten minutes before.

Since he couldn’t think of anything to say, he said nothing.

“I was poking around in the room you told me I could stay in, and there are some clothes I think might fit me.”

Rosie’s clothes.

He absorbed the emotional throat-punch.

He must’ve schooled his features well because Brooklynn continued.

“They’re small. I think the room must’ve belonged to a teenager, which…

” She shuddered, and her smile dimmed considerably.

“I guess it’s pretty distressing to think of what happened to her.

But at the time, I was just happy to find something to wear.

I took the liberty of throwing some of them in the wash, so I can return your clothes to you tomorrow. ”

There was no way to explain the rage that bubbled inside at the liberty she’d taken.

How could she know what those clothes meant to him?

It was his own fault for lying to her about who he was.

And for putting her in Rosie’s old room.

This house had twenty bedrooms. He could’ve put her anywhere.

He’d chosen that one because it and the master bedroom at the end of the hallway, unlike the rest of them, had been cleaned and dusted.

He’d washed all the linens to remove the musty scent, wanting to feel some sense of normalcy.

Some sense that he hadn’t actually lost everything that mattered that terrible night.

He planned to search those rooms thoroughly, soon. When he thought he could do so without getting maudlin and melancholy. His parents’ bedroom might produce something helpful. He doubted there was anything useful in Rosie’s room.

“I can tell that you mind.”

“It’s fine. Do you have everything you need?”

“I’ll make it work, unless you don’t want me wearing her things.”

There was no reason for her not to, though Brooklynn was inches taller than Rosie and had the curves of a grown woman. He couldn’t imagine anything of Rosie’s would be comfortable.

“I will need soap and shampoo in the shower in there. And some kind of moisturizer.”

“Write down what brands you like, and I’ll take care of it. Let me know if you think of anything else.”

“Okay.”

“FYI, the house has a burglar alarm which I set before bed and anytime I leave. The sirens blare—you won’t miss it. If you hear it, hide. There’s a compartment behind the wardrobe, like in my room.”

“Okay.”

“Or you can go into the spiral staircase, or, in a pinch, the basement.”

She shuddered, and he fought a smile. Spiders.

“I mean the stairs going to the basement, or even just the hallway. The doors on both ends are hidden.”

“Lots of options.”

There were more, but he wasn’t in the mood to show her all the house’s secrets. “Do not leave without telling me. You could set off the alarm.”

“I won’t.”

“You have my cell phone number now. If you can’t find me, text.” Not that he planned on doing much outside the house, but if he got wind of someone at the dock or elsewhere on the property, he’d investigate.

Though it felt like the conversation was over, she didn’t move, letting her gaze roam the office. “I’d love to help you with?—”

“I’m good. Thanks. There’s an upstairs living area. Just go past your bedroom to the end of the hall, where the spiral staircase is. You remember?”

“I remember.”