by Becky Wade
“What do you think about staying with one of your sisters for a few nights?” he asked.
“I think it’s unnecessary. Like I said, gated. Security system.”
She could feel reluctance flowing from him. But he didn’t have the grounds to insist she stay with her sisters.
She had logic on her side, anyway. Fans who were avid enough to drive all the way to Merryweather on a weekday for a glimpse of her were a little strange, perhaps. But none of them, even the two who hadn’t immediately left when Corbin had asked them to, had exhibited any kind of threatening behavior. It was highly unlikely that her fans wanted to do her harm. It was far, far more likely that they simply wanted photos with her, autographs, or a quick conversation.
“I’ll follow you to your house,” he said.
“Also unnecessary.”
“I’ll follow you.”
She glanced at his Navigator several times in her rearview mirror as they covered the distance from the inn to Bradfordwood.
Willow was responsible. She was the one her parents, her sisters, her friends, and her business associates looked to for stability. The word maturity summed up her identity, her role in her family, her professional calling card in the world of modeling. Yet Corbin was the one who had immediately handled the situation back at the inn.
She could have managed it. Would have. But for once, she hadn’t needed to do the mature things and take the mature steps. He’d done that—
Great Scott! She would not soften to Corbin because he’d shooed off some fans and stuck around until the police arrived.
And walked her to her car.
And was now following her home.
Corbin was far more dangerous to her than any fan could ever be.
He drove past Bradfordwood’s gate in order to tail her all the way to the garage. At no point, not even along the public roads, had she spotted any fans of hers lying in wait. Nonetheless, Corbin sat in his car, watching, as she made her way to the door that connected the garage to the interior of the house.
She lifted a hand in parting, hit the button to close the garage door, and escaped behind Bradfordwood’s protective walls.
Willow let out a shriek that night around eight when her phone rang.
“It’s just your phone, Willow,” she whispered.
She’d done the right thing when she’d shrugged off Corbin’s suggestion that she stay the night with one of her sisters. Yet as darkness had fallen over the Hood Canal, Willow’s imagination had turned jumpy. She’d switched on every light downstairs. She had the TV going. And she’d double-checked the security system and the locks on all the doors and windows.
When she saw an unfamiliar number listed on her phone’s screen, she considered not answering. But chances were good that it might be one of the police officers calling.
“Hello?”
“I’m just checking on you. Everything okay?”
Corbin. Her heart stuttered with one part dismay and one part renegade pleasure. “Everything’s fine.” She muted the TV and settled cross-legged onto the den’s sofa. “How did you get my number?”
“I stole it off Charlotte’s phone a few days ago when she was in the bathroom.”
“Ethical as usual. You’re breaking another ground rule by calling me.”
“I know. I’m pretty smug about it.”
“I’ll be hanging up now—”
“No sign of crazy stalker fans?”
“None.”
“Good.”
She’d forgotten how deliciously comforting his voice sounded over the phone. When they’d been far apart during the months they’d dated, she’d done her best to be ready for bed and snuggled under the covers in advance of his nightly call. While they’d talked, she’d let his voice pour into her. After their conversations, she’d closed her eyes and smiled herself to sleep.
“I’m sitting at my computer researching serial killers,” he said. “Which isn’t how I dreamed of spending my retirement from football.”
“Sometimes dreams don’t pan out.”
“How come the boss isn’t the one spending her evening researching serial killers?”
“Because she doesn’t enjoy serial killers.”
“Me either.”
“But, see, you’re just my lackey.”
He laughed and the timbre of it warmed her. “What time will you be leaving Bradfordwood tomorrow morning?” he asked.
“Are you asking that because you’re a serial killer?”
“No.”
“A crazy stalker fan?”
“No.”
She waited for him to say more. Silence. “I leave for the inn at 6:45 every weekday morning.”
“I’ll wait for you outside Bradfordwood and follow you to the inn, just to make sure that your fans aren’t there to greet you.”
Stop it, she wanted to snap. Stop being protective and thoughtful. “No, you don’t have to—”
“Good night, Willow.”
Click.
Thank you card inside wooden box:
Josephine,
When I showed up at the treatment center, I was expecting to have to suffer through my time there. I was dreading it. Then I met you. You were the best part of my day, every day. I didn’t end up hating my stay at the center. How could I? You were there.
Thank you for taking an interest in me and caring about me. You’re not two-faced like a lot of beautiful women are. You’re honest and loyal.
I left the treatment center because the doctors decided I’d gotten better. But if I did get better, it wasn’t because of them. It was because of you.
I really miss you.
Jeremy
Chapter
Eight
Corbin was waiting outside Bradfordwood’s gate for Willow when she left for work the following morning, as promised.
“I was more comfortable with you when you were thoroughly evil,” she murmured darkly as she drove past his Navigator.
When they arrived at the inn, everything was as it should be. Even so, Corbin insisted on staying while she prepared and served breakfast. He cleaned up after her in the kitchen while keeping an eye on the inn’s parking lot through the window over the sink.
She was just about to put her foot down and demand he leave when more of her fans appeared. Corbin immediately called the police. Then he talked her into printing the inn’s logo and each registered guest’s last name onto blue pieces of paper that the guests could place on the dashboard of their cars. That way, he reasoned, they and the police could determine at a glance which of the cars in the inn’s parking lot were legit and which were suspect.
Corbin Stewart was no stranger to fame. No stranger to protecting privacy.
“You’re not my director of security,” Willow said to him as he aligned the blue papers into a neat stack. She felt a little guilty for failing to inject sting into her words. Sting would be safest. She was letting herself down by failing to inject sting. Yet he was being so decent this morning that she couldn’t quite manage it.
“You have no director of security,” he said. “Which concerns me.”
“The police are on it.”
“The police aren’t always nearby.”
Once the inn had been put back to rights after breakfast service, Willow prepared to leave.
“I’d like to stay a little longer,” Corbin said. He sat at the kitchen computer, one foot set on the opposite knee, his wide back leaning against the desk chair.
“I can’t stay. I’m meeting Melinda for lunch.”
“I’ll stay without you.”
“Oh. Ah . . .”
“Afraid I’ll steal the silver?”
“Very afraid.” If he was half as good at stealing silver as he was at stealing hearts, then none of the inn’s treasures were secure.
“I’ll keep out of sight back here. I won’t steal the silver, and I won’t eat the leftover French toast. But I will call the police if I see any trespassers.”
&nbs
p; In the end, she let him stay. If he wanted to donate his time to watch over the inn, what was it to her? She wouldn’t be here. And if she wasn’t in proximity to him, she wasn’t susceptible to his appeal.
“I’m interested in Josephine’s charm bracelet,” Willow said to Melinda.
The two of them were ensconced in Melinda’s restaurant of choice, the dining room at her country club. Plates of salad and glasses of iced tea rested before them. Beyond the window adjacent to their table, rain fell steadily over outdoor tennis courts devoid of players.
“Josephine received that charm bracelet as a high school graduation gift from our mother’s parents,” Melinda said.
“Did she add each charm individually?”
Melinda nodded.
“Do you think you can tell me the significance of each charm?”
“I can try.”
Willow consulted the photograph she’d taken of the bracelet. “Sand dollar.”
“Our aunt and uncle have a beach house in California. Our family used to spend time there every summer. Josephine loved it. It was one of her favorite places.”
Willow took notes on her phone. “Cross.”
Melinda had just taken a bite of salad and held up a finger while she chewed. After swallowing, she dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Josephine became a Christian when she was around ten. There were times when she seemed strong in her faith and times when she seemed to drift. But, overall, her faith was important to her.”
“The Liberty Bell.”
“Hmm.” Melinda appeared to think it over. “I don’t know.”
“Heart lock?”
“Perhaps Alan gave that to her as a gift at some point?”
“Eiffel Tower?”
“Josephine studied abroad in France one summer during college.”
When they’d covered all the charms, Willow set her phone aside. “I wanted to ask you about the Polaroid pictures inside Josephine’s box of the inside of Josephine’s car. Charlotte said that Alan had taken them.”
“Yes.” Melinda zipped up her Nike jacket. “When Josephine didn’t come home in time for dinner the day she disappeared, Alan went out looking for her. He drove around town until he found her car, parked across from Penny’s Diner. He went inside Penny’s, expecting her to be there. But, of course, she wasn’t.”
“When we had lunch at your house, you said that Josephine met with Paula the morning of the day she vanished.”
“Right.”
“And they met because Josephine was rumored to have been having an affair with Paula’s husband.”
“Yes. They met at Columbine Park. Paula and Keith’s son was around three at the time. I think Paula asked Josephine to meet her there because she didn’t want Keith to know about the meeting, and she was hoping the playground equipment would occupy her son while she and Josephine talked.”
“So at some point after Josephine left the park, she drove to Penny’s Diner.”
“That’s right.”
“And no one who worked at Penny’s or near Penny’s saw her that day?”
“No one.”
“And no one knows why she parked there.”
“No one knows. When Alan didn’t find Josephine inside Penny’s, he assumed she was shopping nearby. He couldn’t find her, though, in any of the stores. So he decided to search the Pacific Dogwood Trail. Are you familiar with that trail?”
“No.” Nora’s mother had been killed while walking alone on a park trail. Her death had scarred Willow’s dad, and for as long as Willow could remember, he’d been very protective of his daughters. He’d never allowed his girls to go hiking unless in a large group, which had been fine with Willow. After what had happened to Nora’s mom, she’d never been eager to strike off solo down a wilderness path.
“There’s an easy loop at the base of the Pacific Dogwood Trail,” Melinda explained. “A few longer, more difficult hikes branch off from that, but it seemed unlikely to Alan that Josephine would have taken any of those, so he stuck to the loop.”
“Why did it seem unlikely that she’d have branched off?”
“Because she’d left the house that morning wearing a casual dress and sandals that had a little bit of a heel to them.”
It didn’t sound as though Josephine had been planning on hiking. Willow jotted more notes. “Did Alan take the Polaroids after he completed the trail?”
“Yes. By the time he finished the trail, it was around seven thirty p.m. and the sun was starting to set. He was really worried, so he went home, got his camera, and raced back to her car to take pictures.”
“Why did he want to take pictures?”
“I believe he wanted to show them to the police. After he took them, he drove to the police station.”
“If he gave them to the police, then why aren’t they still in the possession of the police?”
“I have no idea.” Melinda scooted her plate a few inches away.
“In one of the Polaroids, I saw that Josephine’s keys were tucked under the floor mat. Did she usually leave her keys in that spot?”
“Not that I can remember. She was a practical person, and leaving your keys in your car for anyone to find isn’t practical.”
Willow sampled some of her salad, thinking through everything Melinda had told her. “I read a thank-you card from Jeremy to Josephine. Who’s Jeremy?”
“Do you remember me mentioning that one of Josephine’s patients at the treatment center became a suspect in her disappearance?”
Willow nodded.
“That’s Jeremy. He was a troubled young man a few years younger than Josephine.” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “Yes, he was released a few weeks before Josephine disappeared. Yes, he had a crush on Josephine. But I never thought he had anything to do with what happened to my sister. He was with his mother on April twelfth. He had an alibi.”
Mothers sometimes lied to protect their children. Willow set her fork aside carefully.
“I love Charlotte,” Melinda said. “I’m glad to see her take initiative on something. . . . I just wish, I really wish, it wasn’t this.”
“I know,” Willow said. And she did. She understood. “A science fair project about whales is probably more Charlotte’s speed.”
“Exactly. A science fair project on whales would be a lot less troubling and would give Charlotte a far greater chance at success.”
“She’s passionately focused on this case,” Willow said.
Melinda rolled her lips inward. “That’s just how Josephine used to get, too. Passionately focused. Once Josephine set her mind to something, no one could talk her out of it. She was as persistent as the day was long.” She paused. “Which might have been her undoing.”
Later in the day, when Willow returned to the Inn at Bradfordwood to make cookies and lattes and check in two new sets of guests, she found Corbin inside the inn’s kitchen. He informed her that more of her fans had arrived during her absence and that he’d called the police.
Cody’s tweet had been deleted less than twenty-four hours after it had gone up. Still, there was no chance of putting the cat back in the bag. Some of the people who’d seen Cody’s tweet announcing her location had retweeted the information to their followers. And some of their followers had taken the news to other social media sites.
Her whereabouts were only of interest to a small group of her most rabid supporters. A much smaller subset of that group lived near Merryweather. And a much smaller subset of that group had taken the initiative to journey to the inn. Still, that final group was sizable enough to have created a recurring issue.
The next day, Thursday, followed an almost identical pattern. Corbin accompanied her to the inn that morning. Three of her supporters made an appearance during the day. He called the station each time. The police responded quickly, and on every occasion, escorted her fans from the inn’s property peacefully.
When she pulled out of Bradfordwood’s gate on Friday morning, she found the street empty of C
orbin. It appeared that he’d finally grown bored and come to the (justified) realization that he had better things to do with his time than keep an eye on her and her inn.
Several seconds passed as she looked both ways for a gray Navigator. Nope. He wasn’t coming.
She turned her Range Rover onto the road and told herself she should be relieved that Corbin hadn’t shown. Having him in her space at the inn, having to look at him every time she turned around, talk to him, smell his soap . . . it had muddled her head.
However, relief was not what she felt in response to his absence. Instead, she almost felt . . . sorry?
It dawned on her that she’d been looking forward to seeing him. She hadn’t meant to! But the evidence was in the extra time she’d spent doing her hair and choosing today’s long white top, scarf, leggings, boots, jacket.
She groaned.
What was she doing? Over the past few days, she’d allowed Corbin to involve himself in her fan situation. She’d allowed him to wash her breakfast dishes, joke with her, and call the police for her.
She needed her emotional soldiers, the ones who’d always protected her. She needed them back at their posts immediately. What was that term? Stat? Stat, soldiers! Back at your posts!
When she reached the inn’s parking lot, she was encouraged to see that every car in the lot had a blue paper with the inn’s logo printed on it lying on its dash.
She walked to the back of her SUV and was lifting the box of croissants she’d picked up at the Edge of the Woods bakery from her trunk when she heard the sound of tires crunching gravel.
Corbin? She leaned back to get a look at the approaching car.
Not Corbin.
The car appeared to be a Mitsubishi that had been souped-up. Its paint job was reminiscent of The Fast and the Furious. No blue paper on its dash.
She quickly closed her trunk and began walking along the path to the inn, carrying the box of croissants.
“Willow!” a man’s voice called. “Willow Bradford.”
She glanced back.
A tall, heavy-set young guy—this must be the one Corbin had said weighed three twenty—hurried toward her. He had olive skin, a shaved head, a goatee, dark eyes. “Hold up a second,” he shouted.
