“He’s got you wrapped around his paw. If I let him in he’s going to sleep with us,” Jason warned, a chuckle in his voice. “Are you sure?”

She was and Jason opened the door. The pup must have heard the latch because he ran into the bedroom, jumped on the mattress, and curled up next to Brinley. She wasn’t in any danger but she couldn’t have been any safer with Huck on one side and Jason on the other.

“Can you sleep okay?” he asked, scratching Huck behind the ear. “You’re on his side of the bed so he might get pushy.”

In answer, Brinley scooted closer to Jason and pillowed her head on his shoulder. “Then I hope you don’t mind sharing your half.”

From the look on his face Jason didn’t mind in the least. She cuddled into his large frame and let sleep take over. Tomorrow they’d have to think about the case again but tonight she’d think only of the two of them.

And maybe even let herself imagine…a future.

Chapter Nineteen

‡

“Let me do the talking, okay?” Jason asked, giving Brinley a sidelong glance as they pulled into the driveway of Wendell Barnes’s home near Bozeman. The house looked remarkably like her own Craftsman home right down to the rockers on the front porch. “Dad gave me a few pointers on talking to him.”

“No problem.” She climbed down from the truck and took in every detail with a shudder. “This is spooky. Do you see the resemblance?”

Anyone that had seen both houses couldn’t miss it. Even the flower beds and bushes were located in the same spots in the front yard.

Fucking weird.

If Wendell Barnes was trying to recreate his life in Tremont he’d done a decent job. It made Jason wonder what the inside looked like.

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Jason said as they tromped up the front porch steps to ring the doorbell. Peter Anderson had called his friend Wendell to ask if he would talk to Jason. They’d received the all clear but Peter had warned his son that Wendell wasn’t thrilled about digging up the past and to tread lightly.

The door swung open and a man about the age of Jason’s own father stood there. Jason didn’t know what he’d been expecting but Wendell was tall with broad shoulders and a square jaw. Despite graying hair and a lined face, the man would still be considered quite handsome.

“You must be Jason Anderson. We met when you were a boy but you probably don’t remember it.”

Wendell stepped back so they could enter and Jason put his arm around Brinley. “This is Brinley Snow, Mr. Barnes.”

They all shook hands and then followed him from the foyer to the living room. Jason and Brinley sat down on the couch while Barnes sat in a chair to their right. Brinley’s gaze was darting all around the room, her eyes wide, and Jason knew why. The same as outside, the inside was a mirror image of her own home right down to the built in book shelves in the living room and the mirrored banquet in the dining room. The only difference was the color scheme and Jason knew that Brinley had spent weeks repainting and decorating when she’d moved in.

“So you want to talk about Linda,” Wendell began and then looked up when an attractive woman came through from the kitchen with a tray of lemonade. “Ah yes, I asked my wife Lynn to bring us some refreshments. Lynn, this is Jason Anderson and Brinley Snow.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” The dark haired woman sat down and poured four glasses of lemonade and then offered Jason and Brinley a plate of cookies. “Are both of you police officers?”

The shock Jason had felt when seeing Lynn Barnes for the first time was making it difficult to concentrate. There had been a picture of Linda Barnes in the police file he’d gone through. An attractive brunette with a trim figure, she could have been this woman’s double.

Spooky as shit. The longer he spent here the stranger it became.

Did Lynn – hell, even the name was almost like Linda’s – have any idea she was a dead ringer for Barnes’s deceased wife?

A quick glance around the house revealed no family pictures or memorabilia, only two black and white framed photos of the mountains and a lake. But then Barnes wouldn’t need photos of the past when he was still living in it.

“I’m actually a police consultant, Mrs. Barnes, and Brinley is a civilian. I just want to thank you for speaking with us today. I’m sure talking about the past is not something you want to do.”

Wendell Barnes sniffed in disapproval. “No, it is not. I’d appreciate it if you would ask your questions so we can be done with this.” He patted his wife on the hand. “You can ask anything in front of Lynn. She knows the whole story.”

“Let’s start there then. What do you remember from that night, Mr. Barnes?”

Jason deliberately kept his question open-ended. Guilty suspects tended to start where they felt the most vulnerable instead of at the beginning of the story.

Barnes sat up straight and crossed his arms over his chest, a huge body language give away that he didn’t feel like being open and honest. “I suppose you want to know why I was at the lake that night. Well, I’ll tell you. Linda and I had an argument and I went for a drive. That’s it. Nothing dramatic. Just an ordinary marital spat.”

“That’s not what you told the police that night,” Jason countered, watching the man’s expression closely. “You said you were fishing.”

Barnes’s lips twisted in derision. “I’m no fisherman and the cops knew it. I just knew that if I told them the truth they’d think I’d done it. Hell, they thought it anyway so I needn’t have bothered. But I didn’t shoot Linda. I loved her.”

He loved her so much he’d married her a second time, but with another woman.

“What else do you remember?” Jason prodded. Interesting the first thing Barnes mentioned was his shaky alibi.

“It was an evening like any other.” Barnes shrugged carelessly. “We watched some television and that’s when we argued. I went out for a drive. I pulled over because I was tired and fell asleep. That’s where the police found me. That’s all I remember. I told your father I wouldn’t be much help.”

“You’re helping more than you know. Do you have any idea what happened to the gun you owned? It’s never been found.”

“I hated that gun.” The man had a look of distaste that appeared genuine. “I only bought it because we’d been robbed. As for what happened to it, who knows? We had people in and out of the house all the time. Our friends. Workmen. Damian’s friends too.”

Jason had been able to find out very little about Barnes’s progeny. “Your son had friends over quite a bit?”

“All the time. Pretty much every day. You know how kids are.”

He sure did and that’s why he wanted to talk to Damian Barnes.

“I’d like to talk to him. Do you have a contact number for him?”

“I can get it but he doesn’t know anything. He was out that night.” The older man hung his head. “That’s my biggest regret. That he found Linda. If I’d come home first it would have been me.”

He murmured something to his wife and the woman stood and went into the kitchen for a moment before returning with a business card.

“Here’s Damian’s contact information. He runs a software company in Billings.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate your help.”

Jason tucked the card away in his breast pocket. The police report contained little information from Damian Barnes but there would be no one better to know the true dynamics between Linda and Wendell.

“I doubt he has anything to tell you,” Barnes said gruffly. “He was just a boy at the time.”

“I’m simply trying to be thorough. I’m planning to speak to your sister-in-law as well.”

Barnes laughed humorlessly. “I wasn’t Gail’s favorite person so I can only imagine what she has to say.”

“What is she going to tell me?”

Barnes leaned forward, a grim look on his face. “That Linda and I had a bad marriage which wasn’t true at all. All married couples fight. Gail didn’t understand that. Last time I saw her she was on her second divorce and counting. She did nothing but complain. Nothing was ever good enough for her. More, more, more. That’s all she cared about. She hated our house, our car, our life and she made sure I knew it every time I saw her. Bitch.”