“I guess this was a bad idea,” she said to herself, shaking her head. “There’s nothing here.”

She started toward the Jeep, pulled open the door… but something held her back, kept her from climbing up into the seat. She turned and looked around. It was only an instinct, something gnawing at her, that made her close the door again and take a final walk around the house, with sharper eyes this time.

And that’s when she noticed the well-worn path, angling off through the grassy field behind the house, toward a copse of trees in the distance.

Now that was curious.

I wonder where that leads?

Her gaze rose, following the path into the distance. From what she could see, there were no houses back in that direction-no noticeable destination to which the path might lead. Perhaps it led to a garden, or a fire pit where Ray burned his trash.

Yes, that was probably it.

Still, her curiosity was piqued.

Before she had even fully thought it through, she started along the path that cut a fine thin line through knee-high grasses, goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace, and other weeds and wildflowers. This part of the property had obviously been neglected for years. At one time it might have been a well-tended field, lush with peas or beans, carrots, radishes and beets, corn and rhubarb and squash. Strawberries or raspberries might have been grown here, asparagus or new potatoes. But now it had gone to seed and showed no signs that it would change anytime soon.

As she moved further on, the field gave way to a thick fringe of black chokeberry bushes, and then she was in amongst the trees…

… and there it was, partially hidden by the leaves and branches.

There was no missing it or mistaking it. Ten feet or so off the ground, utilizing the thick trunks of a half dozen trees set closely together, meticulously crafted with plywood walls, a shingled roof, and even real windows, was a tree house.

Or rather, Candy thought as a jolt of realization shot through her, a tree fort.

The reality of it all, of what she had just discovered, took her breath away.

“Wow,” was all she could say.

She stood there looking at it, studying it, for what seemed like the longest time, until she finally edged forward, toward it, then underneath it. It was fully a tenth of the size of the small shack in which Ray lived, and looked to be much more richly appointed and much more carefully cared for. It was obvious that Ray had spent not days, even weeks or months, but years tending to his hideaway.

Not unlike Sapphire’s little attic hideaway, Candy thought. Strange how both of them felt a need to hide a part of themselves away from the public eye, and how both of them were irrevocably linked, in life and death.

Shaking away these curious thoughts, Candy looked around for a way up. Finding a knotted rope that hung down from the underside of the tree fort, she gave it a tug, which revealed a spring-operated drop-down ladder that fell neatly into place, with its bottom step resting just a few inches above the ground.

“Wow,” Candy said again.

With a sense of discovery and expectation, she climbed the ladder and emerged at the top into a magnificent room, with a polished wide pine floor, a table and chairs, a rocker in one corner, a built-in bed with a mattress, a wood stove, and just about every imaginable amenity with the exception of electricity, though Candy had no doubt that Ray could have rigged that too if he had a mind to.

And there, sitting at the center of the table, was a red-handled hammer.

Just as Ray had said.

She walked closer to get a better look at it but didn’t touch it. She didn’t want to get her fingerprints on it.

She leaned forward, holding her breath.

Sure enough, on the handle just below the claw head, was a small, almost imperceptible nick-a nick she had put there herself, when she mistreated the hammer while building her booth last Friday, almost a week ago.

This was Ray’s hammer-there was no mistake about it. He had brought it here, to keep it safe.

Which meant the hammer found in Sapphire’s house-the hammer that was used to kill her-had not been Ray’s.

That hammer must have been the one that belonged to Ned Winetrop.

It was evidence that just might prove Ray’s innocence.

Candy knew she had to call the police-she couldn’t keep information like this to herself. Once the police saw what she had found, they would have to release Ray.

She was turning to leave when something else caught her eye-a note card set on a side shelf. She couldn’t say what attracted her to it, except for perhaps the way it was displayed, as if in an honored position. Candy crossed to it, took it off the shelf, and read the typed message on the inside:

Come to my house this evening at 9:30. Bring your toolbox. I need your help.

It was signed Sapphire in a flowery script, with a swooping S and a little heart over the i.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Candy knew instantly what it was. The note Sapphire left for Ray, asking him to come to her house that night-the night she was murdered.

So Ray had been telling the truth about the note too. More proof that he was probably innocent.

Which meant, as Maggie said a few days earlier, the real killer could still be lurking somewhere around Cape Willington.

That thought gave Candy a chill. Suddenly spooked, she put the note back on the shelf, right where she had found it, and climbed back down the ladder. She started off through the trees toward the house, all the while looking around her, expecting at any moment to be ambushed by the real killer. But if there really was such a person, he or she wasn’t hiding in these woods.

Half walking, half running, she passed through the field, circled the house, and climbed into the Jeep. She panicked for a moment when she thought she had lost her keys but found them in her back pocket. “Candy, stop trying to scare yourself,” she muttered as she started up the engine. But as a precaution she made sure all the doors were locked. Then, tires spinning and shooting up clouds of dust and gravel, she whipped the Jeep around and sped back to Blueberry Acres.

She was grateful to see Doc’s truck parked in the driveway. He was out behind the house on the lawn tractor, mowing the yard. Candy waved to him and he waved back, thinking she was just saying hello. When she waved more frantically, he shut down the mower. “What’s wrong?”

“I found Ray’s fort!” she called to him. “And his hammer. I’m calling the police.”

That brought Doc running. He followed her inside and paced impatiently around the kitchen as she called the police station. She talked directly to Daryl Durr, Cape Willington ’s chief of police, and told him what she had found. She agreed to meet him back at Ray’s place in ten minutes.

“Come on,” she said to Doc. Candy was too nervous to drive, so they climbed into Doc’s truck and off they went, down to River Road and across to the Loop at the opposite end of the Cape, then out of town to Ray’s place.

It took the better part of an hour for the police to search the tree house, since they had to conduct a thorough investigation. The hammer, Sapphire’s note, and other items they deemed important went into paper evidence bags. After that, they searched the surrounding woods as well as the inside of Ray’s house again and questioned Candy at length. Chief Durr frowned when he heard her story. “What were you doing out here in the first place?” he asked in a gruff tone. She had thought about how she was going to answer that, knowing she would be asked, and decided it was best just to tell the truth-that she heard that Ray had mentioned something about a fort, and she set out to find it.

“Well, it seems we have some loose lips around the station,” the chief said angrily. “You’re aware that this is an official police investigation, Miss Holliday? And that what you’ve done is completely out of line? Not to mention dangerous?”