If possible, Nora sank her chin deeper into her knees, her guilt and regret palpable. “He told me that when I was his age, I’d know that the people I loved and who loved me would matter to me more than a fight over which college to attend. I made fun of him.” She buried her face in her knees and said, her voice muffled, “He was about to die, and I made fun of him.”

Behind them, Elijah said nothing. Jo felt the heat of the fire and her own fatigue, her own regrets. “Drew was also a wise man, and he’d have understood that you were eighteen and trying to figure out your life. He had a lot on his mind, more even than I realized. He didn’t tell me everything. It’s clear now that he’d figured out something that posed a threat to some very dangerous people.”

Nora raised her head off her knees, but still didn’t look at Jo. “He asked for Alex’s help. I don’t know about what-I didn’t hear any specifics. But Alex was mad at me, and he took it out on Drew. Now they’re both dead.”

“I guarantee that the reasons they’re dead have nothing to do with you or your behavior that day.”

Elijah finally came closer, and he got down next to Nora, tucked one finger under her chin and raised her eyes to him. “Listen to me. Okay?” He waited until she nodded, then dropped his hand and continued. “My father didn’t die because of you. He and then Alex died because they got too close to a network of paid killers. Melanie and Kyle were a part of that network. We don’t know all the particulars yet. We might never know.”

“Melanie…”

“Her own people killed her. She screwed up by getting involved with your father. That complicated things for them.”

“Because Devin and I started checking her out-”

Jo broke in. “No, Nora. Because Melanie was who she was. If she’d just been an interior decorator, she wouldn’t have cared all that much about what you and Devin were up to.”

Nora didn’t respond right away. Then she sat cross-legged, her fatigue and distress evident in the dark circles under her eyes, in the tremble of her lower lip. She addressed Elijah, speaking quietly. “If Alex and I hadn’t had that fight, maybe he’d have listened to your dad. Maybe they could have stopped these guys.”

“If my father had known he was onto a bunch of paid assassins,” Elijah said, “he’d have gone to the police, not to your stepfather. Whatever he knew got them nervous enough to kill him.”

“That awful woman…Melanie…” Nora paled when she spoke the name of her father’s dead fiancée. “What she said about your dad…”

“There’s no question in my mind that my father would have exchanged his life for mine without hesitation. It’s not what happened, but I hope he died believing his death meant I would live. I hope he had that consolation.”

“He was a good man. My mum and dad…”

“They’ve made their mistakes. Right now, your father, especially.”

“I don’t want to go to Alex’s funeral.”

“Go,” Elijah said bluntly. “Give yourself that chance to say goodbye.”

Thirty-Eight

Elijah entered the Harper kitchen for the first time in more than a decade, but it hadn’t changed. He wasn’t surprised. Wes Harper had a dozen canning jars of applesauce lined up on the round oak table. He’d let Elijah come in. Elijah took that as a positive sign. It was five days since his ordeal on Cameron Mountain with Jo, Nora and Devin.

Most of the reporters who’d descended on Black Falls in the first twenty-four hours after Kyle Rigby and Melanie Kendall had died on Cameron land had departed.

There’d been no official mention of paid killers at work.

Jo was still on the lake, running every morning, consulting with her law enforcement colleagues. Her Secret Service boss had flown in and out again in one day. Mark Francona had struck Elijah as a serious hard-ass. Elijah had offered him use of his canoe, in case Francona and Jo wanted to paddle across the lake before it froze solid. Francona didn’t seem to think that was funny.

Grit Taylor and Myrtle Smith had arrived the morning after the storm and showed no sign of leaving anytime soon. Grit had set up in the most isolated and removed of Jo’s rundown cabins. Myrtle had checked in to the best room at Black Falls Lodge. Her presence was just the distraction A.J. and Lauren needed-Myrtle loved the idea of a luxury spa at the lodge.

The younger Cameron siblings had returned home. A.J., Elijah, Sean and Rose had sat up last night in front of the fire at the lodge and talked until dawn.

When he’d left for the lake, Elijah had known what he had to do. He didn’t care that Jo had been back in his life for just days. In a way, she’d always been there, for as long as he could remember.

“I’d like to talk to you, sir,” he said to Jo’s father.

Wes Harper had a black permanent marker in one hand. “Drew was right,” he said as he wrote the date on the cap of one of the applesauce jars. “I never cut you a single break.”

“Because of Jo.”

“Yeah.” He looked up at Elijah with eyes that were darker than his daughter’s but still bore a resemblance. “I didn’t make up reasons to get in your face, but I was harder on you than I ever was on anyone else, before or since. Maybe you’ll be the father of a teenage girl one day and be able to forgive me.”

Elijah shrugged. “I forgave you a long time ago. You probably saved my life. You probably made it possible for me to ask your daughter to marry me.”

Harper’s hand stopped in midair.

Elijah didn’t falter. Not this time, he thought. Not ever again where his love for Jo was concerned. “I’d like your support.”

Harper set the marker on the table and steadied his cop gaze on Elijah. “It would be an honor to have you as a son-in-law-if Jo’s crazy enough to have you.” Still, he didn’t smile. “If she won’t, Elijah, then that’s it. Never again. Let her go for good this time.”

“She’ll have me.”

“Yeah.” Harper almost smiled. “I know.”

“I realize we haven’t been together that long.”

“Fifteen years, Elijah. Longer. She had her first crush on you when she was six. Hopeless.” But Wes Harper wasn’t a man for a lot of talk, especially about matters of the heart, and he grabbed up his marker again and said, “Those two killers-Rigby and Kendall. There are more where they came from.”

It wasn’t a question, but Elijah nodded. “Yes.”

“Jo?”

“She won’t tell me, but I think she’s working the investigation.”

Her father sighed. “I don’t mind telling you this whole business scares the hell out of me. To have a daughter in the Secret Service…”

Elijah recognized the fear of a father for a child. “Jo’s a chip off the old block, Chief Harper. She doesn’t cut anyone slack, either.”

Harper gave a satisfied smile. “Good.” Then he added, “And it’s Wes, son. Just Wes.”

It was cleaning night at the Three Sisters Café. Jo had scrubbed the stainless steel sink in the kitchen and was about to start on the counters, but then quiet, lovely Dominique pulled a tray of scones out of the oven and that was it. “Time for a break,” Jo said, and she, Beth and Scott grabbed scones, plates, silverware and small pots of butter and jam and took them out to the dining room.

Hannah and even tireless Dominique promised to join them in a few minutes. For the first time in days, their lives weren’t centered on the close call on Cameron Mountain. Even Devin, recovering rapidly from his injuries, had taken Toby to a movie, an act of normalcy that their older sister obviously welcomed.

But as Jo broke off a piece of scone, her cell phone rang. She winced at the intrusion and expected it was Mark Francona, who had sentenced her-his words-to a few more weeks, at least, in Vermont. Francona didn’t care about her getting Charlie Neal by the ear anymore. He was more interested in finding assassins. He had seized on her presence in Black Falls and figured it was meant to be, a product of his intuition and brilliance. “Buy a snow shovel,” he’d told her. “You’re going to be in the frozen north for a while.”