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She was accustomed to the creaks and groans a structure made when it was quiet and during a storm, so she shouldn’t have overreacted.

“I’m just tired. It’s fine. I’m not scared of the wind.” I can’t be. Her nerves were getting the best of her. Her adrenaline was crashing. That was all. She started to move away.

“No, wait.” He ushered her deeper into the kitchen. “Wait right here. Do you have your firearm?”

“No.” She opened the drawer and pulled out a butcher knife. At his frown, she said, “It could work in a knife fight, okay?”

The wind rattled the windows again. Was one of them open? She didn’t remember the wind causing such a chilling noise.

“This is some kind of storm coming in,” Cole said. “I still think it’s the wind, but it can’t hurt to check.”

Cole left her alone in the kitchen for an infuriatingly long time.

Where are you , Cole?

Oh, for crying out loud ... Jo wasn’t going to stand here and wait for the boogeyman, who might have already gotten Cole. She’d started forward when Cole emerged from outside, bringing wind and rain with him.

“You were outside?” she asked.

“How else was I supposed to check?”

“You left me alone in the kitchen with only a butcher knife?”

“It was just the wind. And I got a text. I need to check it.” He pulled his cell out of his jacket and peered at the screen. “It’s from Allison.”

Putting the knife down, she tried to relax. The morbid talk about the skull had set off all her nerves—the monster-house, scary nerves—making her impatient. “Well, what does it say?”

“I’ve asked Allison to search on a connection between your father and Mason Hyde, since they were both involved in the aerospace industry and your father recently met with someone in that same industry after leaving you the message and just before he disappeared.

It’s just one angle to explore, but I think it’s the strongest connection we have.

Allison has gone as deep as she can go online.

She had hoped to find images of them together that might include the others in the photo and help us identify them.

Not all records are available digitally. That means we need to go old school.”

“Old school?”

“Yes. There’s a museum in Seattle at the King County International Airport Boeing Field—the Museum of Flight.

” He stared at his smartphone. “It includes everything about the businesses and technology of aircraft and space. The Pacific Northwest has played an important role in the aerospace industry since the beginning. Looks like it has recently been dubbed the ‘Silicon Valley of space.’” He glanced up at her, his eyes bright with anticipation.

Her brows shot up. Really?

He shrugged. “When you consider that more than half the satellites in low orbit were manufactured in Washington, and hundreds of companies are part of the space cluster, many of them supplying NASA, it makes sense. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

We need to go to the archives at the museum to confirm we’re on the right track. ”

“Archives? Does that mean card catalogs and microfiche?” Please , no.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Jo plopped into a kitchen chair. “This seems so hopeless right now.”

He sat in the seat across from her. “I’ve had experience investigating complex cases, and this feels complex to me. I get the sense it involves something much bigger than we can imagine. Trust me, I’ve honed that instinct.”

“But you can’t know.”

“That’s why we leave no stone unturned. Investigations take time,” he said. “Days. Weeks. Months and years.”

That elicited a smile. “Okay. I’m feeling so much better now.”

A laugh erupted from him, then he grew somber.

“What about Naomi?” she asked. “Are you reporting any of this in your investigation about my mother back to her? She wanted to clear Mason’s name, remember?”

He released a heavy sigh. “I received an email from her today. I have a feeling a family member sent it. It simply said she released me from the investigation. She’d wanted to clear his name, but the stress of it is too much while she focuses on healing.

Again, I can’t see Naomi giving up, especially after being attacked so brutally. ”

She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about or react to that. “Did you respond?”

“I reassured her that I would clear his name and told her to focus on recovering.”

“You’re a good man, you know that?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I just try to do the right thing, though sometimes it’s hard to know what that is.”

“Like saying you would clear his name when you can’t be sure he didn’t kill my mother?”

“I’m reasonably sure that Naomi was correct. This was a setup.”

Jo frowned. That meant her mom had committed a crime. “Naomi said Mom warned him to disappear.”

“She did say that.” Cole stared at the floor as if in thought.

Or maybe this felt as awkward to him as it did to her.

“Well, I guess the museum it is,” she said.

“We just keep chipping away until we find the truth. I hope we can find images of everyone in that picture with Mom and Pop. She must have tucked it into my photo album for a reason. Instead ... instead of in her photo album.” Jo shrugged.

“Maybe she wanted me to find the truth if something happened to her. That photo could be why someone broke into my house.”

“You could be right, Jo. The photo is incriminating in that we know of three people in the photograph who are dead—if we confirm that woman is the reconstructed skull,” he said.

“Besides your father, the other man—if he’s still alive—could also be in danger.

And for whatever reason that danger has transferred to you.

” He stood and paced the kitchen. “Which means following the clues provided by that photo, visiting the museum, could be the most dangerous thing we’ve done yet. ”

“We’re going, Cole. End of story. It’s better than sitting around here and being bored, waiting for answers to come to us.” She stood and then closed the distance without re alizing it. “I mean, unless you just want to sit around here and be bored with me.”

Oh man , am I flirting? Because it definitely sounded like flirting. Wrong time. Wrong place.

His crooked grin sent warmth straight through her.

They were an odd couple, except they weren’t a couple at all.

But she wanted them to be. The more she thought about his explanation of why he hadn’t come back, and the regret and sincerity in his voice, the more inclined she was to accept it and forgive him. To move on and forward.

With him.

He stepped closer and twirled a strand of her hair around his finger. “I could never be bored with you, Jo.” The words sounded strained. “Don’t you know that?”

No. No , I don’t. “A couple of days ago, you didn’t finish what you were going to say. What were you going to tell me? I should have stayed and let you finish.”

And just when she thought he might tell her, he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, then backed away. “Get some sleep. We have an early morning meeting with Sanders and what looks to be a long day.”

“And I’m still recovering from jet lag.” But she left him with a smile on her face because she felt like, finally, they were getting somewhere.

Visiting a museum that might actually tell her what happened ... before ...

Instead of sleeping, she sat in bed and sketched images of her mother and her father, separate and then together.

Another image of the unidentified woman.

Jo imagined her mother creating the reconstruction of the skull and then stepping back to look at her work.

The shock that could have rolled through her at that moment when she recognized the face.

Jo closed her eyes. What had Mom thought?

Had her first thought been that someone had found her?

That it was a warning? Cole was right. They needed to know more about where the body was found.

Where and how. Jo didn’t believe in coincidences, so it was hard to fathom that her mother would happen to process a skull of someone she knew.

Still, it was within the realm of possibility.

Add to the equation her reaction and the danger that followed, and Jo was convinced the reconstruction was part of it all.

Seeing that skull had prompted Mom to finally tell Jo the truth about Dale and about her biological father, though she hadn’t told Jo his name. Weirdly, Mom had claimed she didn’t know.

She didn’t know who Jo’s father was?

Her mother was a liar. And yet, maybe to Mom, the lies had been worth it if it meant protecting Jo.

Well , look at me now , Mom.

Mason Hyde was dead. Mom was dead. Pop was on the run from danger—and certain death.

The woman in the photo was dead, or so that was their working theory.

Was the other man in the photo still alive?

Jo wasn’t in the photograph, but she’d inherited the danger because, what, she knew something?

Something so terrible, so horrific, that her pursuer needed to silence anyone connected to the knowledge?

Jo had no idea, and she was apparently in danger by proximity.

Knowledge was power, as the saying went.

Or, in this case, the appearance of knowledge was deadly.