Page 154 of Secrets Along the Shore

“Richard Taybolt, the guy?—”

“The guy who owns the property where they found Kamden Avery,” I interrupt.

“Exactly. He left a message early this morning. Seems he’s remembered something he failed to mention when we interviewed him the first time around.”

“What?”

“That’s just it. He didn’t say in his message. And now…I can’t seem to reach him.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

I’m prettysure I break the sound barrier driving to Richard Taybolt’s place.

D.I. Neeley wasn’t all that concerned about Taybolt, suggesting that he probably just stepped away from his phone, and couldn’t justify sending a deputy out there simply because the man wasn’t picking up.

I, on the other hand, have a bad feeling about it. I can’t pin it on one thing in particular, because it’s actually several things when taken together. Things that make this case lookoff.

The private investigator tailing me.

Fogerty insisting he wasn’t responsible for Kamden Avery’s murder.

Fogerty’s assassination.

John Parry’s missing message to the sheriff’s department, followed by him being run off the road.

If I were an outsider looking at this case, presented with the facts we have now and asked for my opinion…I’d have to say it seems like these aren’t random events. It feels an awful lot like there’s some kind of orchestration going on.

Orchestration means planning. It means resources and execution. It means someone or something bigger than Kurt Fogerty or any single individual is working behind the scenes. If that’s true, it changes the nature of the game and the players entirely.

It would also mean that D.I. Neeley might be very, very wrong about Richard Taybolt’s safety.

I roar into Taybolt’s driveway and fly to the front door, pummeling it with my fist. “Mr. Taybolt? Mr. Taybolt? Are you there? It’s Sophie Walsh, with the sheriff’s department. Mr. Taybolt?—”

The door rips away from my hand, and I find myself staring into the red, glaring face of a wispy-haired man in his eighties. “What intheworld are you doing?! What is wrong with you?” he blasts at me.

I’m so relieved, I don’t even care that he’s angry. “I was…we were…worried about you, Mr. Taybolt. I’m an investigator with the sheriff’s department. We’ve been trying to reach you since you called this morning.”

“What? No—oh, good night,” he says, huffing exasperatedly and shaking his head. He turns away from me and stomps back into the house, leaving the door open. “Dang phone,” he grumbles.

I take his leaving the door open as an invitation to follow. I move deeper into the ranch-style home, into what I presume is his den, and he begins throwing things around, apparently searching for his phone. A newspaper flies into the air, along with a sweater.

“Granddaughter got it for me and convinced me to turn off the land line, but now I can’t ever find the blasted thing. I had it in here, last I—Ugh, here it is.” Richard Taybolt turns back toward me, cell phone in hand. He squints at it disapprovingly before bringing it even closer and tapping on the screen.

“Yeah, I see where you called.” He looks at me over the top of his glasses. “Good night! Y’all called a lot. What’dya think, I died or something? I’m notthatold.”

“No, sir, we?—”

“Think y’all overreacted a bit?”

“Uh, yes, sir. We may have.”

“Hmm,” he grumbles, then motions for me to take a seat on a maroon-and-teal striped chair that must have been super popular in 1993. Richard lowers himself into a matching chair on the other side of a heavy cherry side table.

“You’re not who I talked to last time,” he says.

“No, sir?—”