Page 17

She smiled. “It’s just rare I run across a local who doesn’t know who my father is.”

“I’m not a local.”

“Point taken. My father is Gavin Wright. He was tapped to head the CIA back”—her gaze flicked to the album—“probably about a decade after that was taken. He turned it down, though, and started?—”

“He’s a defense contractor.”

“You do know him.”

“Of him.” Forbes hadn’t associated the gorgeous—if nosy—brunette with the talking head he’d seen on the news more than once. “I wonder if he knew Charles. He must’ve, if your mother did.”

“Maybe.” Brooklynn lowered her focus to the album again. “Dad was gone a lot. I’m sure my mother would remember your parents more than he would.”

"Not my parents ." The denial rolled off his tongue off-handedly.

Maybe the Wrights had been a part of…of whatever Dad had been into.

For all Forbes knew, Evelyn or Gavin Wright had killed his parents. Just because their daughter was beautiful and guileless didn’t mean her parents were. Especially if one had been a spy.

Brooklynn tapped the last person in the back row.

Unlike the rest, all of whom were clean-cut and wore business attire, this guy had a thick, scruffy beard and wore a faded plaid shirt.

He looked like a brute of a man with wide shoulders and a thick neck.

The rest were looking at the camera, but this one’s gaze had flicked to Evelyn, and his expression was far from innocent.

“That’s Shane Dawson,” Brooklynn said. “He’s a fisherman. Or…maybe a lobsterman. Something like that.”

“He seems…taken with your mother.”

“Hmm. Yeah. He’s a little creepy.” She leaned in. “Huh.”

“What?”

“He kind of looks like one of the guys from the photo yesterday.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and zoomed in.

Forbes’s gaze flicked from the sixty-something guy in the photo to the younger man hauling the crate. “You think?”

“Same square jaw,” she said. “Same squinty eyes. I mean, obviously, it’s not the same person, but it could be a relative.”

Forbes’s heart thumped. “Does Dawson have a son?”

“I hardly know him, but I can find out.”

“I’ll do it. I don’t want anyone knowing you’re involved.”

She looked up, a tiny smile on her face. “I am involved. I took those photographs. Anyway, I’ll ask my sister. Alyssa will find out everything we need to know.”

Forbes didn’t want either one of these Wright women involved, but Alyssa’s skills could be very helpful. “All right. If she doesn’t mind.”

That settled, Brooklynn looked at the photo again. “Shane and Graham are friends, or at least business associates. I’ve seen them together a lot.”

Forbes scanned back to Graham, an elegant, almost fussy-looking man. What could he possibly have in common with the rough-looking fisherman? And what kind of business could they have?

Perhaps Dawson supplied lobster for the hotel’s restaurant. Was that all it was?

“How do you know all these people?”

“Chamber of Commerce.” Her tone definitely didn’t convey enthusiasm. “I joined after I opened Light and Shadows. If I had to guess, I’d say this photo was taken at a Chamber meeting.”

“Based on?”

She shrugged. “They’re business owners, and they’re in a meeting room at the Wadsworth. That’s where the Chamber meets today, and this isn’t a group that likes change.”

Turned out, his houseguest was a fountain of information. He should have taken notes.

She moved her finger to the front row and indicated a woman. “I don’t know her, though she looks familiar. This one though.” She tapped the next person. “This is Elvis Harper.”

“Elvis?” He’d heard Brooklynn say that name the day before and had imagined a man with dark hair wearing a pale-blue leisure suit.

Not a fifty-something woman in an outfit that would’ve looked right at home in the sixties on the corner of Haight and Ashbury.

Was her jewelry made of… He leaned closer.

Seashells?

“Elvis owns the shop next door to mine,” Brooklynn said. “She’s sort of an odd duck.”

“Sort of?”

Brooklynn smiled. “Nice lady, though. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Maybe. “Didn’t your assistant say she was looking for you yesterday?”

“I called her this morning. She’d just wanted to visit, I guess.”

“Did she ask where you were?”

“I gave her the same story I gave everyone else, that I’m staying with a friend. She told me she’d ‘send peaceful thoughts.’ So if you’re feeling extra peaceful, you have Elvis to thank.”

This was getting weirder all the time. Obviously, Brooklynn didn’t suspect her business neighbor, but Forbes wouldn’t discount Elvis based on her hippie persona.

Brooklynn pointed to the next person, the first of the three men in the front row. “That’s Mr. Webb.” He was a tall man with blond hair and a wide smile. “He owned Webb’s Harborside.”

Forbes noted the past tense. “Did he sell it?”

“He died a few years ago. His family still owns it.”

Brooklynn pointed to the next person, who had a ring of gray hair around his bald head, sharp blue eyes, and a friendly smile. “That’s Arthur Whitmore.”

“The photographer.” Forbes’s gaze flicked to the photo he’d returned to the bookshelf.

“He was one of the kindest men I’ve ever known.” She leaned back. “I got a camera for my ninth birthday. I loved it. Went around taking pictures of everything—people, landmarks, flowers, birds… If I could frame it, I’d snap it.

“I got stacks of pictures back from the lab—you remember when you had to actually develop them?” At his nod, she continued.

“I thought they were amazing. They weren’t, of course.

” Her grin was self-effacing. “But I think, looking back, that they were good for a child’s first attempt.

I was so proud of those pictures. I showed them to my parents and declared that I was going to be a photographer when I grew up.

Mom took me seriously and introduced me to Mr. Whitmore.

Over the course of the next few years, he taught me everything he knew about photography.

He even taught me to develop my own photos and gave me access to the darkroom in his studio.

“Sophomore year of high school,” Brooklynn continued, “I had to do a project for art class. I decided to study the history of Shadow Cove, and with the paper, I added photographs of our local landmarks. Arthur was so impressed that he turned the paper and photos into a full-color book, which he sold at his booth during Old Home Days.” Her smile was shy.

“I was so proud of that, even if only a few copies sold.” She tapped his face on the photo. “I owe so much to him.”

“I assume he’s no longer with us?”

“He passed away a few years ago. He left me all his equipment. It’s out of date now, but I keep it anyway.”

“You said your mom took you seriously. What about your dad?” Not that it was his business.

Brooklynn’s smile faded. “Suffice it to say, Dad wasn’t impressed.”

Forbes didn’t ask, just waited for her to continue.

“He wasn’t mean or anything,” she said after a long pause. “But you know… Mom oohed and ahhed over my photos. Dad said they were fine but that photography was a hobby, not a real job. That I’d better figure out how I was going to make money so I wouldn’t be a ‘nuisance to society.’”

“Nice.”

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “He wasn’t great about the dad things. He wasn’t around as much as Mom, and he didn’t really know how to deal with five daughters.”

“Five?”

“I’m the second. Alyssa—she’s the oldest—is the one who used to work for the NSA. Cici and Delaney are with Mom in Europe, and Kenzie lives in South Carolina.”

Five daughters who needed their father. Five daughters Gavin Wright had neglected.

Forbes’s father had owned a multimillion-dollar corporation, and he’d traveled a lot. But when he’d been home, he’d been a great dad. Good and kind and gentle and generous.

Of course, Dad had gotten his whole family killed.

If Forbes was ever blessed with a family of his own, he would be involved with his children, even more than his own father had been. And unlike Dad, he would protect his family above everything.

Which was why Forbes couldn’t think about romance. Because he’d been in danger since the day he’d witnessed those murders. He wouldn’t drag any woman into the nightmare that was his life, no matter how beautiful she might be.

No matter the way Brooklynn’s grace and generosity showed in her eyes.

Or the way this nosy, beautiful, kindhearted trespasser made him yearn for things he couldn’t have.