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He swiped at his eyes, shook his head as if he could shake off grief and sadness, and looked at her. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for being authentic. I love that about you. Are you okay?”

“I-I thought maybe he’d recorded something, but thinking it and hearing his voice. And Mom’s. It was…”

She gave him time to finish his sentence, but he only looked away.

“Indescribable,” she suggested.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to keep listening? You can do something else.”

“No.” He sat up straight. “I can do it. Let’s do it.” He stood to resume the recording, but she stopped him.

“Forbes, did you hear what he said? This recording was intended for somebody else. I think your father was a confidential informant.”

* * *

Brooklynn tried to give Forbes his space.

Though he'd insisted he could handle listening to the tapes, after he’d started the recording again, he’d sunk into the chair, propped his elbows on his knees, and held his head in his hands.

Seemed he was just taking in his father’s voice, savoring it.

Brooklynn, on the other hand, made copious notes, stopping the recording when necessary, jotting down every name, every place, every date, every detail from the cassettes.

When she wasn’t writing, she took everything off the large desk and laid out all her notes and all the handwritten notes Charles had hidden in his files.

His final words on the cassettes weren’t significant, only details about a June shipment and when it was due to arrive. There’d been no indication that he knew someone had learned of his duplicity.

The last recording played until, when it reached the end of the tape, it shut itself off, a loud click in the otherwise silent room.

Forbes had hardly moved.

Now, he took a big breath, blew it out, and looked up. His gaze caught on the desktop. “You’ve been busy.” Apparently, he’d been so intent on the voices he’d missed all her activity.

“Trying to get organized.” She searched his face for grief or sadness, but those were gone now. His expression was back to the stoic one that was his norm.

He stood and studied the information they’d gathered. “Any insights?”

She’d been standing too long, and her ankle throbbed. She settled on her chair and propped her leg up.

Forbes bent over the desk, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. His jaw was set, his chin strong. He supported his weight on his arms, bulging his muscles. This man was highly intelligent, incredibly kind, and exceedingly beautiful.

“I think we should look for repeated names and initials,” she said, “see if we can match them up.”

“Good plan.” They set to work.

By the time they were finished, they had a list of twenty name-and-initial pairings.

OT had been mentioned a lot. OT took care of that. OT handled it on his end.

“I think OT is Leo Taggart,” Brooklynn suggested.

“Why?” He didn’t seem skeptical, just curious as to her logic. “His name is Leo.”

“Your father seemed to believe he had a lot of authority and ability to handle the problems as they arose. What if OT stands for Officer Taggart?”

“Wow. That could be true. It’s the best guess we have so far.” Still standing, he penciled the man’s name beside the initials, then tapped the next pairing. “SD could be the fisherman, Shane Dawson.”

“He’s Bryce’s uncle.”

While he wrote that name, she found notes about him in the notebook. “Your father said, ‘SD could be an asset.’” She looked up. “So maybe SD—Shane, if it’s him—wasn’t involved?”

“If Dad really was a confidential informant, then maybe. But if that’s the case, then how did his nephew get involved now?”

“Someone else recruited him.”

“Another unknown someone,” Forbes muttered. He tapped the name Stratton, one of the few people called by name on the cassettes. “Tell me about Maury Stratton.”

“It can’t be her.”

Forbes straightened, his eyebrows high on his forehead.

She knew exactly what that look meant. “I mean, I know it could be. I’m just… I can’t imagine Maury being involved in something like this.”

“She found you in the historical society today. So she could’ve alerted someone.”

Brooklynn’s certainty dissolved. “But why would she…?”

“Money, power. Take your pick. Unless there are other Stratton women around? Owen’s a Stratton, right? Who’s his mother?”

“She was my second-grade teacher.”

“That doesn’t mean?—”

“I know, I’m just saying. She would’ve been in her twenties at this time. Even if she was involved”—Brooklynn waved toward the cassette tape—“your dad made the Stratton woman sound like a bigger fish than I’d guess a twenty-something woman would be.”

Forbes conceded the point with a nod. “Maury, then. Tell me more about her.”

“She’s a Realtor. She started selling real estate in oh-three, opened her own brokerage house about ten years later, and now has a number of agents who work for her. She’s one of the most successful real estate agents on the central coast because she puts her clients’ needs first.”

Forbes grinned. “You’re quite the cheerleader, aren’t you?”

“When I asked her for a bio for the Old Home Days website, she gave me a handwritten copy. I tend to remember what I type.”

“So she could’ve been involved. She’d have been in her forties at the time of my family’s murders, and the woman who was here that night sounded about that age.”

The thought that Brooklynn’s friend, her parents’ old friend, would have been involved in a murder made Brooklynn question everything. If she couldn’t trust a woman like Maury, who could be trusted? Could anyone?

“What did she do before she was a Realtor?”

“Oh!” Brooklynn remembered something that chased her dark thoughts away.

“You’re brilliant, Forbes. That’s exactly the right question.

Maury and her husband—Don or Dirk or something like that—moved to North Carolina.

He took a job in the Research Triangle in Raleigh.

They got divorced years later, and that’s when she moved back. ”

“That was all in the bio?”

“It was a long bio.”

He chuckled, then started to scratch her name out. He stopped, tapping the pencil on the paper. “She was in the photo, though, right?” He looked back at Brooklynn. “The one we looked at the other day?”

She had been, which meant that Maury had been involved in commerce in Shadow Cove even when she was gone. “But why would your father call her LS ?”

“Maybe L.S. and Stratton aren’t the same person. Is Stratton her married name?”

“Yeah. In fact…”

Brooklynn’s words trailed as a thought moved in like the fog. Or maybe a plague.

But it couldn’t be. Of course it couldn’t be.

“In fact what?”

“I’m not sure. Let me… Let’s move on to something else.”

“What are you thinking? Maybe I can help.”

“Nothing. Just…” She waved toward the notes they’d made, not wanting to put words to the notion that had just occurred to her.

Forbes studied her for a long moment, then tapped another letter pairing. “What do you think about MM and Bazz? We still haven’t…”

Her phone vibrated on the desk, loud in the quiet room.

She checked the screen. “It’s a text message from a guy who says he’s a friend of Grant’s.”

“Your cousin?”

“He wants me to call him.” She dialed his number and put it on speaker.

“Jon Donley.” The man had a deep, commanding voice.

“Hi, Jon. This is Brooklynn Wright.”

“Grant forwarded your message to me. He asked me to make sure you’re safe.”

“Is he okay?”

“Better than. Summer’s in labor, so they’re at the hospital.”

“Oh, that’s good news.”

“Yup. Explain these photographs you mentioned.”

“They might be evidence of a crime. I’m worried the local police are involved in what’s going on here, so I wasn’t sure what I should do with them—who I should forward them to.”

“I’m a private detective, not a cop, but I’d recommend you call the state police or the FBI.”

“That could work. We think it’s a smuggling ring.”

“Okay.” His matter-of-fact manner calmed her. This was crazy to her, but for some people, this was another day at the office. “You’re in Shadow Cove?”

“Correct.”

“I’ll make some calls and get you a point person at both state and feds.”

“As long as they’re people we can trust.”

“Of course. Listen, Grant asked me to ensure you’re safe. He’d have called you himself, but apparently Summer can’t breathe without his coaching, which is…”

In the background a woman said, “Attentive men are the best kind.”

“Aren’t you the lucky one, then?”

The woman giggled.

“Sorry about that,” Jon said. “Denise is very excited about the baby.”

From far away, she called, “Don’t lie. You are too.”

He chuckled. “The point is, Brooklynn, we’ve got a nice guest house here where you could stay, and it’s right on our property. Grant and I used to work together, so?—”

“You’re a bodyguard?”

“Used to be. Look, I have no idea what’s going on, but if you have evidence of a smuggling ring, and you think the local cops are in on it, then you’re in danger.”

“I’m aware.” She glanced at Forbes, who was watching from the other side of the desk. “I’m safe where I am.”

“If you ever feel less than safe, call me.”

“I will. Thank you. And thank Grant for me.”

“Sure thing.”

Before he hung up, she said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

Forbes leaned in, clearly curious.

She met his eyes and posed her question to Jon. “We’re trying to figure out something here, and I think it has to do with drug cartels or organized crime, maybe in Canada?”

“Okay.”

“We have this…clue, as it were.” She felt stupid using the word. “There’ve been multiple references to MM and something called Bazz. Or maybe someone? We believe they were involved in smuggling or?—”

“The Montreal Mafia.” The words were spoken as if there could be no doubt. She did doubt, however, until he added, “One of the arms of the organization is run by the Bazzini family.”

Her heart thumped. Bazzini…Bazz.

Forbes straightened. “Jon, this is…a friend of Brooklynn’s. How long have the Bazzinis been operating up there?”