Leanne slid her tongue over her teeth. “He’s got to be more fun than that geriatric book group you’ve got going.”

“Those ladies aren’t geriatric.”

“Half of them are over seventy.”

“So? They’re nice.”

“I’m not talking about nice. I’m saying they can’t give you the same kind of thrill.”

“No woman can.”

“Not very many men, either,” she said with a conspirator’s laugh.

Claire didn’t find that comment funny. The appreciation in her sister’s voice jammed a shard of fear into her chest. “Wait a second. You’ve never been with him, have you?” The question alone made it difficult to breathe. Say no. Please say no, or I’m going to be sick right here…?. She’d heard the vehicles that sometimes came and went in the night, but she usually didn’t get up to see who was driving. She didn’t want to know. Not knowing made it easier to pretend Leanne didn’t entertain as often as she did.

Her sister winked at her. “I’m not the type to kiss and tell.”

There was no time to push for more. Selina Spangler had walked in for her cut and color.

Myles King got up and closed the door to his office almost as soon as Isaac arrived. “I’m glad you came by. Rusty Clegg asked me to have a word with you.”

Isaac removed his sunglasses. The drive to Libby took thirty minutes, and the sun seemed especially bright today. “Rusty already told me to back off, if that’s what you’re intending to do.”

“Rusty was upset by your conversation, which is why he asked me to intervene. David meant a lot to him.”

“David meant a lot to many people. That’s one of the reasons I believe you owe it to Pineview to confirm that he died the way we think he did.”

Myles didn’t take even a second to respond. “I’m not sure I’ll like what you have to say any more than Rusty did.”

Great, not only had he been tipped off, he’d been prejudiced. Refusing to let that upset him, Isaac took the seat across from Myles. If he was going to get anywhere with Les Weaver, he needed the sheriff’s help. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “Murder one is a serious accusation.”

“Not only that but I don’t want to get the whole community up in arms until I have proof. David’s parents have been through enough, losing him the way they did, and at such a young age. Claire has been through enough, too. She still hasn’t recovered. All you have to do is look at her to know that.”

Which was why Isaac thought it was time to intervene. “You don’t think I’ve considered what you’re saying?”

The sheriff’s chair squealed as he pulled it away from the desk so he could sit. “I guess where I get confused is this—what’s your interest in the situation, Isaac? Why are you getting involved?”

His interest was Claire. Now that she was back in his life, he wanted to be sure she achieved the resolution she needed. But he also knew how quickly everyone would doubt him if he said he was trying to do a good deed. No one would believe it was that simple. Although he hadn’t landed himself in trouble in years, they’d treat him like he was the big bad wolf coming to blow down the poor widow’s house.

The people of Pineview had tolerated—more kindly than some towns would have—an abandoned child in their midst, but they possessed very long memories. They would never let him live down his past. “Someone’s got to make sure it is what it appears to be. Might as well be me.”

“That’s it? That’s all there is to it?”

“That’s it.”

Myles swiveled back and forth as he mulled over Isaac’s response. “But I’m not convinced there’s any connection between David’s death and Alana’s disappearance,” he finally said.

“I think you’re wrong.”

“Do you have any evidence to support your opinion?”

Clasping his hands loosely between his legs, Isaac leaned forward. “No evidence. Yet. But I’ve come across some interesting coincidences.”

Myles opened a notebook. “I’m all ears.”

“First of all, David was researching Alana’s death and was raising enough questions to negate the argument that she ran off. What he was doing would eventually lead to police involvement, which made someone very nervous.”

“I’m supposed to take what you say David was doing on faith?”

“You don’t have to. It’s all in the files.”

“What files?”

“The case files.”

Now Myles was really skeptical. No longer the open-minded listener, he leaned forward. “And how would you know anything about the case files?”

“Somehow, David got a copy of them before he died. They had to have come from your office so I initially thought Rusty must’ve provided them. But when I spoke to him, he denied it and seemed completely unaware that David was even pursuing the mystery.”

Someone knocked on the door, a deputy, but Myles hollered that he’d be out in a few minutes. Then his eyes shifted back to Isaac. “You haven’t mentioned how you know he had any files.”

“Claire found them at the studio the night she was pushed down by that unknown assailant. They had his writing all over them.”

The sheriff dropped his pen. He was beginning to catch on. “Why weren’t they there when I searched?”

“Because I’d already taken them. She was afraid she’d lose them otherwise. They contained information she hadn’t been privy to before. Some progress David had made, like I said. And some conflicting testimony and facts that didn’t quite jive with what she’d been told. Things law enforcement kept from her and the press.”

“Like…”

Was this a test? “Leanne’s absence from school on the day in question.”

His mouth flattened into a thin line. If it had been a test, he’d just passed. “Then you’re right. That had to come from my office. But I have no idea how.”

Isaac couldn’t help him there. “All I know is what I saw.”

The chair creaked as he rocked back. “David having copies of what’s in our files doesn’t mean he was killed because of it.”

“That’s not all I’ve got to tell you.”

“Go on.”

“I went to see the man who shot him.”

At this Myles straightened. “In Idaho?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re damn serious about all of this.”

“I am.”

“And what did you learn?”

Isaac pictured the polished, wealthy lawyer. “He’s a far cry from any hunter I’ve ever met. And he’s not exactly a stand-up guy.”

“You gathered that from one meeting? How long were you there?”

“Not long. He brushed me off as soon as he could, but not before he gave me some song and dance about how devastated he was by what he’d done.”

“Which you didn’t believe.”

Isaac stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “I did at first. He told me he was so traumatized he couldn’t hunt anymore, that he’d got rid of every gun he owned because he can’t bear the sight of them.”

Myles steepled his fingers. “Any man would feel that way.”

“But it was a lie. He still has a whole cabinet full of guns. I could see them from his backyard.”

“They could belong to a friend or family member.”

“They were inside his house. And there was something else that struck me as odd.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s a bankruptcy attorney.”

“That makes him a bloodsucker, not a murderer,” Myles joked.

“But how many bankruptcy attorneys do you know who’ve witnessed a client shoot himself to death?”

Myles got to his feet. “This happened to him?”

“He said it did—right in his office.”

“Why would he tell you that?”

“He thought it’s what motivated my visit.”

“Shit.” Turning, he stared through the slats of the blind.

Isaac stood, too. “So now you have someone who’s accidentally shot a man while hunting and who’s also been involved in another unusual death.”

“Suicide isn’t murder,” he argued, but he didn’t sound nearly as unfriendly or unconvinced as he had when Isaac first arrived.

“Maybe it wasn’t suicide,” Isaac suggested.