Page 43

“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.

Had the mansion’s eccentricities been mentioned? Could Forbes’s enemies know about the secret hiding places if they did any research at all?

Maybe.

She’d barely had time to process what she’d learned that morning, that Ford was Forbes. That the man she knew had lost his parents and his sister to murder. That he was trying to solve their murders, not because he was writing a book but because the killers needed to be brought to justice.

She didn’t want Forbes to get hurt. If somebody could learn about the house’s secrets, then she needed to let him know.

And maybe there were more secrets he didn’t know about.

After skimming the first few chapters and finding nothing helpful, she reached the center section of glossy photographs.

She stopped on one and stared. It wasn’t people or old images of the mansion. It was a blueprint of the house’s first floor.

Notations with arrows pointed out the secret staircase and the hidden hallway that led to the basement door. Other arrows pointed to hiding places and hidden compartments.

All the secrets were right there for anybody to find. But a caption at the bottom of the page told her this was the only sheet of the blueprints uncovered, that the rest of them had gone missing.

She checked the book’s copyright—mid-nineteen seventies, decades before The Network had started operating.

Even if they got ahold of this book, they wouldn’t know anything about the hiding places on the second and third floors.

She snapped a photo of the page and texted it to Forbes.

The first-floor hiding places aren’t safe, but the blueprints of the other floors seem to have been lost.

He responded immediately.

We need to talk.

No. I just wanted you to see this.

She added the information she’d learned about the seagull logo.

I haven’t found the logo of the charter boat company, but it’s a lead you could follow. Also, Nathan says Bryce is still missing. No info on Niles from him or Alyssa.

Her phone vibrated. It was Forbes.

She ignored it. But he called again. And then he texted.

After we talk, I’ll leave you alone. But considering everything, I deserve the opportunity to explain.

She squeezed her eyes closed. She didn’t want to talk to him, but he’d saved her life, maybe more than once.

Perhaps he had earned the right to a conversation.

A moment later, he texted again.

Please?

Fine.

Aside from the librarian, the library was empty. Leaning on her cane, the pebble in her shoe reminding her to move slowly, Brooklynn made her way to a small room off the back, closed the door softly, and dialed.

Forbes answered with, “Thank you for calling.”

“You wanted to explain.”

“Can we talk in person? Let me take you back to the house.”

“Just say what you have to say.”

She braced for an argument, but he didn’t pressure her.

“I was going to tell you today, but Grandmother?—”

“You’re blaming your grandmother for lying? Very nice.”

“I’m not blaming her.” His tone was hard. “I’m just explaining. My legal name is Ford Baker, has been since I was eight years old. That wasn’t a lie.”

“Why?”

“Grandmother feared I was in danger, so she?—”

“No. I mean, why were you going to tell me?”

“Oh. Because… You know why, Brooklynn.” The words were softer now. “Because you mean something to me.”

How could one sentence both warm her heart and send ice to her veins?

She didn’t know how to respond. It was possible he was being honest with her.

It was just as likely he was lying, considering he barely knew her.

She didn’t know him at all.

“Why does your grandmother think you’re in danger?”

“I’ll tell you that, but not over the phone.”

And there it was. Dangle a carrot to get her to do what he wanted.

She’d been manipulated too many times to fall for it again.

“I’m not going to tell anybody who you are, Forbes. I’m not going to tell anybody anything, so you don’t have to keep lying to me. You don’t have to pretend this is something it’s not.”

“I’m not…” He blew out a breath. “I’m worried about you. I’ve spent the entire day searching for you.”

Heat burned her eyes, and she squeezed them closed. “Sorry you wasted your time.”

How she wished he really cared about her. How she wished she could trust him. But how could she trust a man who’d lied to her from their very first meeting?

He had an agenda, and he was worried that she’d mess it up.

Simple as that.

“I promised to keep your secrets, Forbes , and I will. One of us can be trusted.”

“I’m looking for you because you’re in danger. I care about you.”

“I can take care of myself. You can cross me off your list of things to do.” She ended the call and slumped in a chair.

What was she doing here, trying to help him solve his mystery? She needed to trust the police to figure out what was going on.

She needed to get out of town until this was all over.

She would, as soon as her stupid tears stopped.

* * *

In the library bathroom, Brooklynn took the pebble out of her shoe, figuring she wouldn't see anybody else tonight, then checked her old-lady makeup. It was waterproof, so her tears hadn’t washed it away.

She adjusted the itchy wig, reminding herself to play her part, though she probably wouldn’t see anyone she knew between the library doors and the Uber she’d called to pick her up.

It would deliver her to her Bronco parked at Frizzel Automotive a couple miles down the road.

She’d grabbed her extra set of keys at her apartment.

She would just…drive away, which was what she should’ve done on Monday when this whole thing started. She should never have stayed at the mansion.

Studying her image in the mirror, she saw a sixty-something woman with Brooklynn’s red-rimmed eyes looking back at her.

She shouldered the yellow purse, grabbed her cane, and pulled open the bathroom door.

The hallway was darker than it’d been before.

She reached the entrance to the large room with rows of bookshelves. The lights were out.

Was the library closed?

She glanced at her phone’s clock. It was seven forty-five. Maybe the librarian had decided to close early? Odd that she hadn’t done a sweep to make sure nobody was there.

Great. This was Brooklynn’s reward for sneaking in. Hopefully, no alarm would sound when she snuck back out.

The front-facing windows let in a little light from the glow of the town and the fading sun. Cane swinging at her side, she headed that direction, aiming for the bright-red exit sign over the front door.

A noise stopped her.

“This way,” a man whispered.

“I’ll guard the door,” another answered.

Brooklynn recognized those voices.

She’d heard them from the inside of a very dark cave. And then again from inside a spider-infested box.

Bryce and Niles had found her. But how?

She shifted to the end of a bookshelf just as, on the other end, a man shined his flashlight between the stacks. When he moved on to the next aisle, she dashed in the other direction.

Her heart was thumping so hard that she feared he’d hear it.

In a corner between a wall and a shelf, she watched the first man’s flashlight beam toward the hallway where she’d just been.

There was probably an exit in that direction, which he’d find—and watch.

The other man said he’d guard the front door.

She was trapped.

Silently, she crept toward the librarian’s station. If she could get there and out of this very open space, she could call 911.