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Cole’s mind seized up. What?

This news slammed him in the gut, knocking the breath from him when he should have been prepared for anything. He tried to keep it together for Jo and in front of Rick.

Why hadn’t Rick prepared him for this? Called him immediately. Something. For that matter, why hadn’t his client contacted him? This was her brother, after all. But maybe the news was just now getting out that he had been murdered, and she’d only just been informed.

She might very well decide to cancel the investigation.

Then again, she might still want to clear her brother’s name.

All of these thoughts bombarded him at the same moment.

Fury boiled inside that the detective hadn’t shared this earlier.

Then again, Cole got it. Despite his friendly first-name-basis facade, Detective Rick Wilson wanted to see Jo’s reaction to the news for himself.

Maybe he didn’t know the details of Jo’s experience on the ferry, and even if he’d been able to get information on that from the WSP detective, Rick might not have believed her story.

That she’d witnessed the murder of the very man Wilson was searching for in connection with both the ATM murder and her mother’s . .. was in some ways ironic.

Yeah. Cole got it. In fact, he understood it so well, he was surprised that Rick hadn’t knocked on the door of the safe house, surprising them, to ask his questions face-to-face and see Jo’s reaction to his big-reveal moment in person.

Next to him, Jo’s breaths quickened. “I ... I don’t understand. I thought—” She looked at Cole for help.

Don’t bring your father into this ... at least not yet.

Initially, he believed Jo had possibly been targeted because she’d been a witness to the murder.

Or at least seen someone standing over the victim.

The fact that the killer tried to drown her in the car with the victim—who they now knew was Mason Hyde—confirmed that she’d witnessed his murder, and the killer wanted to get rid of the witness.

The danger her father had brought had always been on the table, and Cole had since shifted toward that being his main concern.

He sat back. Think , think , think. He was usually quicker on his feet. But this news was the proverbial wrench thrown into the gears of his multiple theories.

But ... Mason Hyde? “What was he doing there on the same ferry with her?”

Cole fought the need to scrape both hands through his hair. To get up and pace the room.

“It would appear that Mason Hyde was looking for you, Ms. Cattrel, and he found you,” Rick said.

“It’s a shock, really, hearing that he was the victim. I don’t understand how he found me or why he would look for me.” Jo shook her head.

“If I haven’t made it clear, my working theory here is that after Hyde’s face was identified by your mother as the man caught committing murder at an ATM, he confronted your mother, and within the hour she’s dead. He finally finds you and comes after you.”

“You say ‘confronted.’ What exactly did the video show? I don’t need to see it.” She wasn’t sure she could bear to watch it.

“The conversation looked, well, secretive but also heated.”

“And what’s his motive to come after me?” she asked. “That aside, it’s been a few years. Why come after me now?”

Those questions needed answers, and the best man to provide them was dead. Jo’s eyes held the same question as she flicked her gaze to him.

When neither of them said anything more, Rick continued.

“Look, I don’t know how her death and the danger to you are connected or why.

I can’t say with absolute certainty that he killed your mother or that he was the source of danger, but I like him for this.

Even though, yes, there are still a lot of unknowns, I didn’t want to leave you uninformed and take the chance that the danger to you ended with Hyde’s death. ”

Cole had a few questions of his own. “Do you have any leads on Hyde’s murder? Have you talked to the detective on the ferry killer case?” he asked.

“The WSP hasn’t shared any leads with me. But I believe our investigations are intertwined, and you’re at the center of them, Ms. Cattrel. Is there anything you can tell me? What have I missed?”

“This is all a shock to me,” she said. “I can’t exactly think straight at the moment.”

“Understandable,” Rick said. “I admit I was stunned to learn this news.”

Just how much did the Washington State Patrol investigator share with Rick? It didn’t sound like Rick knew about Jo’s father, and despite his initial reservations, Cole would share that information now.

“There’s another leg to this. The reason that Jo was in Seattle to begin with was that she was on her way to look for her father, who left her a cryptic note that he could have led danger to her.

The ferry incident happened when she was returning home from Seattle.

You should be aware that since then, there have been two more attempts on her life.

” Cole explained about the vehicle that tried to run her off the road and then . .. the bomb and her father’s warning.

The detective remained composed and didn’t appear surprised at the news, even though some of it could have been new to him.

“I share this to let you know that the danger to Jo didn’t die with Mason Hyde, if you’re leaning that way.”

Rick’s brow furrowed, and he clicked his pen. Rocked in his chair. “So is it possible that on the ferry, Jo was the target, and Mason was in the way?”

Cole liked this detective. But he absolutely hated the direction this had taken. “It’s possible.”

Rick suddenly sat forward, his face filling the screen. “All of this aside, any ideas why someone would want to harm you, Ms. Cattrel?”

“None. If I knew, we could have solved it three years ago and been done with it.” Her voice shook, but she kept her chin high.

Cole squeezed her trembling hand.

Shoot, his body shook with anger, so he understood. “Is there anything else on the Michigan side of this investigation that you’re looking into that you haven’t shared with us?”

Rick scratched his stubbled chin. “If I come up with anything more, we’ll be in touch. I hope you’ll keep me in the loop.”

Cole suspected Rick was holding back. That’s what detectives did. They rarely shared everything, if anything, and Rick had actually shared more than Cole thought he should. Then again, he was just trying to get to the bottom of a barrel full of too many disconnected, floating parts.

“I’d appreciate the same,” Cole said.

Rick acted like he was done, then he stared, looked between Jo and Cole. “Jo, stay safe. Keep her safe.”

Then he ended the meeting.

Besides heavy sighs and quickened breaths, the only other sounds were the wind battering the house and the waves crashing against the rocks. Cole stood and moved to the window. The marine fog had lifted with the wind. Everything Rick had shared left him more confused than anything.

“This was a lot to absorb,” Jo said.

He turned from the window. “Let’s get some more coffee and think about next steps.”

He really wanted her distracted so that he could read Allison’s email, which could have informed him before the detective had knocked him off balance. But it could be about something else entirely.

At the kitchen counter, Jo gripped her mug and stared out the window. In a place like this, the view stole the show.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “Mom identified this guy as the one to have committed a crime. Then he talks to her in a parking lot, and then she dies.” She set the mug on the counter a little too hard.

“ Then , as if he knows about the anonymous tip or that the police have learned his identity and are looking for him, he comes out here to find me . Me , on a ferry. I never leave Hidden Bay . How did he even find me? Why was he after me? I had nothing to do with any of it. I’m not sure why Mom told me to hide.

Why couldn’t she at least have told me who I was hiding from and why? ”

“This means we’re missing something or more than one something.”

“What do I do now?”

“You stay safe here with me. We do our best to try to piece this together.”

“So let me get this straight. You and Rick have a theory that the danger my father led to me, the person behind it— the ferry killer —took out the person behind the danger coming after me from my mother’s murderer. Have you ever heard of such a weird case?”

“I’ve seen stranger things, Jo. I think once we unravel this, it’ll make sense. The truth is out there.”

And right now, it felt like that truth might just be lost somewhere in a galaxy far, far away.