But it wasn’t Francona’s voice she heard on the other end of the connection. “Special Agent Harper?”

Jo sat up straight, recognizing the deep male voice. “Yes, sir.”

“This is Preston Neal. Charlie and Marissa’s dad. I just want to say…” Clearly emotional, the vice president paused for a moment, then gave a little cough and continued. “Thank you, Jo. Thank you for what you did for both of them.”

“Just doing my job, sir.”

“You saved Marissa’s life. And Charlie. I need to spend more time with him. It’s amazing how fast the years pass by. He’s sixteen…”

“He’s a great kid.”

“Thank you. His mother and I think so, too.”

Jo was aware of Scott Thorne glowering at her from across the table, as if he could guess whatever she was up to was about to complicate his life. Beth sat next to him. She glanced at Jo, then distracted her trooper boyfriend by putting a dot of butter on the end of his nose. Scott laughed, probably for the first time since he had trekked up the north side of Cameron Mountain after the season’s first snowstorm. The investigation into Kyle Rigby and Melanie Kendall and their murderous network had only just begun. It would be long, thorough and painstaking.

So far, it looked as if Charlie Neal had been dead-on.

But not about everything.

The vice president took a breath. “Jo?”

“Sir,” she said finally, “your son needs to understand that what happened to his sister was an accident. It had nothing to do with this other business.”

“This network of assassins,” Preston Neal said. “Charlie helped?”

“Yes. He has a sharp eye, but he’s a kid. He should be playing lacrosse and acing calculus tests.”

“The challenge for Charlie is that he can do those things and stick his nose in other people’s business.” The vice president spoke with a father’s mix of love, pride and pure frustration. “But you’re okay, Jo? You’ve done so much for my family. Don’t forget to live your own life.”

She thought of Elijah. She’d heard his truck out on the road in front of her cabin at dawn as he’d headed back from what she’d known had been a long night with his sister and two brothers. Jo was already up stretching for her run. The night before, Grit Taylor had decided to join her, saying he could keep up with a girl Secret Service agent, no sweat. He’d told her to be ready at sunup. Since he was the type to dump her out of bed, Jo had been ready. He’d teased her some more as they’d set off. He had kept up with her, too. When they returned to the cabins, Elijah was out skipping stones into the lake.

“The difference between Cameron and me is this,” Grit had said quietly, unusually serious. “I lived and wished I hadn’t. Elijah never thought he’d live, but he’s glad he did. Because of you.”

Then he’d gone inside, leaving Jo to her cold cabin.

Preston Neal went on, as if he could read her mind, “I understand there’s a certain Special Forces solider…”

“We grew up together.”

“Sergeant Cameron is a hero in my book. So is his friend Ryan Taylor. And so are you, Jo. Please. You all be careful.”

“We will, and thank you, Mr.-” She stopped herself, aware of the people around her. “I appreciate the call.”

After she hung up, Jo avoided the questioning looks of her tablemates and finished her scone as she experienced a jolt of reality. What had she been thinking? Life could never be normal for her again in her hometown. She’d left at eighteen, and she now had a job to do. Even if everyone suspected that she’d been given a role in the investigation, she had no illusions. She didn’t belong in Black Falls.

Then her sister kicked her under the table. “Smile, Jo. Lighten up. You’ll catch the bad guys. The good guys didn’t do so bad this round.”

“If we’d managed to take either one of them alive…”

Scott shook his head. “You know better than to second-guess yourself that way, Jo. Rigby had 120 rounds on him. You and Elijah had no other choice. As for Kendall -” Scott shrugged. “She was playing with a rough crowd.”

Beth leaned forward over the small table. “Jo, if you and Elijah hadn’t acted, Nora wouldn’t have survived.”

Jo understood. Her sister had been the first of the medical personnel on the scene after the explosion and had witnessed what it had done to Melanie Kendall. Investigators had concluded that a simple pipe bomb constructed of smokeless gunpowder, black powder, two thin strands of copper wire and a cell phone had been placed under Melanie’s front seat. Someone had called the cell phone, and the electricity from the call was just enough to ignite the lethal charge.

Nora had gone back to the Georgetown home that her mother had shared with her second husband. Thomas was cooperating with police. Detectives were going through Nora and Devin’s research into her father’s fiancée and had already discovered that one of her potential interior decorating clients had turned up murdered. They had travel records to investigate. DNA results would be coming back on both her and her partner in killing. They’d test everything they’d collected in Drew’s cabin for a match.

Jo grabbed her scone and rose, realizing she’d just reminded everyone of what they’d been trying to forget, at least for a few hours. “I should go.”

But Scott pointed at her. “Sit down. Finish your scone.” He smiled. “Some tough Secret Service agent you are, eating scones.” He reached over and slung his arm across the back of Beth’s chair; she settled against him. His smile faded, his eyes still on Jo. “Come on. Sit. We all need to talk. Why should you be any different?”

Hannah and Dominique joined them from the kitchen, and Jo returned to her seat. Beth dived into her second scone without any hint of guilt. Hannah took a tiny nibble of her scone and offered up her theory. “These killers went to a lot of trouble to try to make it look like two kids got in over their heads with each other and died on the mountain.”

“That’s more or less what they did with Drew,” Beth said quietly.

“Do you know what that tells me?” Hannah looked out the window, although it had been dark several hours. “Whoever hired them didn’t want attention focused on Black Falls.”

Scott gave a low whistle. “You’ll make a hell of a prosecutor, Hannah.”

She turned to him with a small smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment. I hope I’m wrong. Either way,” she added, “those of you in law enforcement have your work cut out for you.”

Jo didn’t comment. Dominique shuddered, and they continued in that vein for a long time, until the entire tray of fresh scones was gone. By the time Jo drove back to the lake, she figured she’d have to run a marathon in the morning to burn off her share of the scones.

It was a crisp, clear, late-autumn evening, quiet and downright cold in her cabin. She tried twice to get a call out on her cell phone, but it just wasn’t going to work. Finally she gave up, grabbed her flashlight and walked out the road to Elijah’s house in the woods.

She saw him up on his deck and called to him. “There’s a bat in my cabin.”

He ambled down to her in his canvas jacket and baseball cap. It was bad, she thought. Even the way he walked struck her as sexy. He said, “I warned you about the bats.”

“You’re handy. Think of something.”

He smiled. “Already have.”

Of course, there was no bat. When they got to her cabin, he didn’t bother to look for one, just grabbed her in his arms and fell onto the old iron bed with her. They tore at each other’s clothes-coats, sweaters, wool socks, everything going, tossed onto the floor. Jo felt as if she was eighteen again, bursting with the need for him, wanting nothing more than to make love to bad boy Elijah. But the air was colder than those hot June days and nights fifteen years ago, and she wasn’t eighteen or twenty-five or even thirty-but it didn’t matter. He skimmed his palms over her bare skin, setting it on fire, and she knew she was as in love with him as ever.