The Cottages On Silver Beach

“I’ll take care of it. Only two of them are occupied right now, so it shouldn’t take me more than an hour.”

She didn’t want to think about who was staying in one of those cabins.

Elliot had been there for a week, and though she had seen him coming and going, she had somehow managed to avoid being face-to-face with him since the night of the girls’ softball game.

“I’m so sorry.” If anything, Verla’s voice sounded weaker than it had at the front end of their conversation.

She pushed away thoughts of her unwanted guest. “You have nothing to apologize for, honey. You didn’t ask to get the flu. Now, go home and rest and don’t worry about anything for the next several days. I can organize the housekeeping crew and make sure they step up to take care of the workload. I prescribe sleep, chicken noodle soup and daytime television. In that order.”

“Yes, Dr. Hamilton.”

“Do you think you’re okay to drive home? I can have someone on the staff take you.”

Verla rolled her eyes. “It’s three blocks. I think I’ll be fine.”

Megan didn’t doubt it. Verla was agile and strong as a mountain goat, tough enough that even with the flu, she could probably parkour all the way home.

“Take as long as you need. I’m not heading to Colorado for another week, and even if you’re still sick when it’s time for me to go, the rest of the staff can fill in.”

“I hate to leave you in the lurch, but I don’t think I’d be much good to anyone until I kick this.”

Megan ushered her out the door with all the assurances she could muster. As soon as she closed the office door behind Verla, her smile slipped away. Drat. She didn’t want to do this. Why did Verla’s remaining workload have to include the cottages?

One would be relatively easy. The occupants of Hummingbird Cottage were a couple in their sixties, both retired schoolteachers, who were spending the week bird-watching and hiking around the area. They were quiet and pleasant, both tidy as could be.

The other one, however, was the cottage next to hers, Cedarwood Cottage. Elliot Bailey’s temporary home.

She could probably skip it for another day or two but that seemed cowardly, especially considering he had been there a week and the cottage hadn’t been cleaned by her staff in that time.

He seemed to be keeping busy, doing his level best to avoid everyone. He went jogging around the lake every morning and sometimes again at night, his arm still in a sling and held tight to his body. She had also seen the occasional take-out delivery and he had come back once with a few bags of groceries.

Not that she was watching him or anything.

At night while she was glued to her computer, editing photos, she would look over and see lights still on at the cottage next door. Sometimes the curtains moved when she looked over, as if she had just missed him standing there, looking in this direction.

In a way, she found it rather comforting to know that she was not alone in her after-midnight creative endeavors. It formed an odd connection between them. She and Elliot were both makers, toiling away in the dark hours when most others were sleeping.

She rolled her eyes at herself. Her attraction to him made no sense whatsoever. Except for their apparent shared affinity for working after hours, the two of them were complete opposites. She considered herself creative, impulsive, drawn to color and light and energy.

He was a tight-assed stick-in-the-mud.

Mr. Roboto. That was the nickname she and her friends used to call him.

It wasn’t kind and it probably wasn’t a fair assessment. While he might seem serious and focused on the outside, the books he wrote offered a different perspective. They were full of insight into the human character, deft turns of phrase, even clever humor that always took her by surprise.

She wasn’t going to think about him anymore, she told herself. He had already occupied entirely too much of her time on a day she had so much to do. She loaded up the inn’s golf cart with cleaning supplies and clean linens, then headed for the rental cottages.

The schoolteachers were gone for the day. At the inn’s complimentary breakfast—which Elliot had yet to enjoy—they told her they were driving to Stanley for the day in search of red-naped sapsuckers. Whatever the heck those were.

As Hummingbird Cottage was currently vacant, she decided to start there. It made sense, she told herself. She wasn’t simply delaying an unpleasant task.

This would be her workout for the day. She always worked up a sweat scrubbing floors, changing sheets, wiping out bathtubs. It wasn’t the most exciting job in the world, but she loved making the rooms and cottages of the Inn at Haven Point sparkle for their guests.

She didn’t mind the physical labor. As long as she had headphones and a good audiobook to hold her attention, she could clean for hours. She turned on the latest thriller by one of her favorite authors, grabbed her cleaning tools and headed into the cottage.

Unfortunately, she was a little too efficient. She was still listening to the first chapter by the time she finished straightening up after the orderly bird-watchers.

One down, one to go.

She walked out of their cottage, leaving behind the lemony smell of the cleaning spray they used.

Elliot’s vehicle was there, parked behind the cottage. Seeing it made her insides tremble with nerves. She didn’t want to face the man but had no idea how to get out of the task now.

With luck, maybe he would refuse housekeeping services. Sometimes when people rented the cottages for longer than a few days, they preferred not to be bothered and wanted to clean up after themselves.

As much as she dreaded talking to him again, she had to ask.

She walked up the porch, inhaling the sweet blooms of the lilac trees along the porch as she went. This was secretly her favorite of the five cottages. The view was the same as the others, but the flower boxes seemed to bloom more vibrantly and she loved the little pine tree cutouts on the shutters.

She gripped her supplies tightly with one hand and knocked on the door with her other fist.

Only the lap of the water against the shore at Silver Beach and the twittering of the Steller’s jays that nested in the big pine tree next to the cottage answered her. After a long moment, she knocked again. “Elliot? It’s Megan. I’m here to clean your place.”

She still heard no response and stood there, torn by indecision for several moments. She wanted to trot down those porch stairs and head back to the main building, leaving him to deal with his own mess.

She couldn’t do that. Verla said he had been there a week without housekeeping services. That may be the way he preferred it, but she needed to hear it from him.

The inn had a reputation for immaculately cleaned rental properties, one she and Verla protected with vigor. She wasn’t about to let him give them a less-than-perfect review in that department.

She tried one more time then convinced herself that he must be taking a run or perhaps he had walked up to one of the restaurants in town for brunch with someone in his family. After knocking hard a third time with no answer, she finally used her passkey to open the door.

She hadn’t been in the cottage since Elliot took up his temporary residence a week earlier. It shouldn’t have surprised her how quickly he seemed to have made it his own. A jacket had been draped over the back of the sofa, a tin of cashews sat next to the sofa and a pair of binoculars rested on the window seat overlooking the lake. Maybe Elliot had more in common with the bird-watching schoolteachers than she might have guessed.

Beyond that, the entire surface of the kitchen table was covered in papers, along with a sleek dark gray laptop.

What fascinating case was he writing about this time? She had a wild temptation to leaf through the papers but quickly turned her attention to cleaning the place, not comfortable invading his space more than she already was.

The cottage really didn’t need much beyond what the housekeeping staff liked to call a spit and polish.

She quickly straightened up the bathroom, hung fresh towels, remade his bed and ran the vacuum around, muscles tensed as she waited for him to show up.

After she had wiped the last countertop and dumped the last wastebasket, she finally couldn’t help herself. She eased over to the table and glanced down at the manila folder on top of the stack of papers. Just a peek, she told herself. She was dying to know what his next book would be about so she could tell Verla.

With the sound of her heartbeat loud in her ears, she glanced toward the door one last time, then casually opened the folder halfway for a little peek. She caught the words Haven Point Police Department along the top and realized these were copies of an official police file.

Was he working on a local case? Her gaze sharpened and she opened the folder all the way. It only took an instant to pick up one clear name.

Elizabeth Sinclair Hamilton.

Her sister-in-law.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT WAS HE doing with the case files for what was still an open investigation? She dropped the cleaning wipe on the table and leafed through the folders, growing more sick to her stomach with every passing second.

File after file, all marked with the same case number as the cover page. These were all part of the investigation into that terrible time that had changed everything for her family.

Her breathing came fast and hard, and she tasted bitter bile in her throat. The usually pleasing lemony scent of the cleaning supplies suddenly seemed to choke her.

Her instincts were to pick up everything, even his laptop, and throw it all into the lake.

The thought only had a few seconds to register when she suddenly heard the click of a key in the lock. Before she could make her frozen limbs cooperate to drop the files, the door swung open and Elliot stood in the doorway.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice as sharp as a new chain saw.

She had been working at the Inn on Haven Point for years, since her grandmother took her in after her mother died. She knew this was an egregious invasion of a guest’s privacy. If she had found one of her housekeeping staff snooping through a guest’s files, that person would have been fired on the spot.

She knew she was horribly in the wrong but she couldn’t focus on that right now. All she could think about was the scope of his betrayal.

Elliot stepped into the room. “Put that down. I had things in a particular order. I hope you haven’t rearranged anything.”

She stared at him. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

He didn’t look at her. “It might seem like a jumble of files to you, but I have a system.”

“You son of a bitch.”

It was the least offensive of the names she wanted to call him but everything else seemed to clog in her throat. She couldn’t seem to think straight, her thoughts a wild snarl of anger.

“I don’t believe my mother would appreciate you calling her names,” he said stiffly.

Now she wanted to throw him in the lake, along with all his files.

“How dare you?” Her hands were shaking and the sick feeling in her stomach seemed to be spreading through the rest of her.

He gave her a cool stare. “I’ll remind you that I’m not the one who broke into your place and started digging through your belongings.”

In another moment, smoke would be coming out of her ears, she was sure of it. “I was cleaning the cottage! Making your bed, changing your toilet paper, dumping your trash. Twice-weekly housekeeping service is provided to the cottages. It was listed in your rental agreement.”

“It’s not necessary. I don’t like my things bothered.”

“Again, are you freaking kidding me? This isn’t about me reordering a few pieces of paper. This is about you dragging my family through hell again! You’re writing a book about Elizabeth’s case, aren’t you?”

He met her gaze with an impassive look of his own. The man never gave anything away. Did they teach FBI agents how to go all stone-faced at Quantico? He must have aced that class, as he’d been practicing since elementary school.

“No,” he finally answered.

She narrowed her gaze. His hair was wet and it took her a moment to realize it was drenched with sweat. He had been running again. He wore long shorts and a Denver Rockies T-shirt that clung to the muscles of his chest. His right arm was still in a sling and she couldn’t imagine all that bouncing around could be particularly healing.

He had no right to look so good, damn him. Not when he was a sneaky, underhanded snake.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” he answered firmly. “The book I’m writing concerns a serial killer in Montana who preyed on hitchhikers in the seventies and early eighties.”

She frowned. “Then why do you have all of Elizabeth’s files? What does a serial killer in Montana have to do with a missing mother in Idaho? Do you think they’re connected?”

A little bubble of hope rose in her chest. How terrible, that she could actually want to cling to any possibility that someone else might have been involved in Elizabeth’s disappearance, even a serial killer.

She didn’t want Elizabeth to be dead. She just wanted to prove Luke had nothing to do with her disappearance.

Elliot quickly squashed that half-formed possibility.

“No,” he said bluntly. “James LeRoy Barker was killed in a shoot-out with local police three years before Elizabeth disappeared. He was dead and buried in an unmarked grave outside Great Falls before she ever vanished.”

Megan despised herself for the little niggle of disappointment. She truly didn’t wish harm on Elizabeth. She, like everyone else in town, only wanted answers.

“If this isn’t part of the book you’re writing, why do you have these files?” she asked again.

For a long moment, she wasn’t certain he was going to answer her. He shifted position almost imperceptibly then finally spoke. “The Lake Haven County Sheriff’s Department took over the investigation after my father was shot. The case has been cold for some time, though the investigation is still active. I asked Marsh if I could take a look at the files while I’m in town.”

“Can he do that? Just loan out police files willy-nilly?”

“There was nothing willy-nilly about it. I’m a sworn officer of the law, Megan.”

His words chilled her. “What are you saying? Is this an official FBI investigation now?”

Again he paused, obviously weighing his words carefully before he would respond. “No. I’m looking out of my own curiosity. This was the one case that haunted my father—and still haunts Marsh and Cade. A young mother of two small children, someone we all knew, disappears without a trace in the dead of night. The investigation is at a standstill. Everyone is frustrated by the lack of progress. Marshall and I decided a pair of fresh eyes looking at the files could only help the investigation.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “That’s where you’re wrong. It would hurt very much.”

“I don’t agree.”

“Of course you don’t! You have no idea what things are like here for Luke.”

His lips pursed. “He’s not in prison, so things can’t be that bad.”

“He might as well be! Imagine how you would like being tried and convicted without ever being charged with a single crime. As far as some people around Lake Haven believe, Luke killed his wife and got away with it. He and the children can’t go to the grocery store in Shelter Springs without whispers and rumors trailing after them like cats after dead trout. That’s Luke Hamilton, the man who killed his wife. I heard he killed her, chopped her into pieces and threw what was left into the middle of the lake.”

That was the least offensive of the things she knew Luke and the children had overheard at various times.

“Gossip can be vicious.”

“You have no idea. And it’s not even behind his back sometimes. People come right up to him and tell him he should be in prison.”

To her endless frustration, Luke never hit back. Whenever she was tempted to stand up for him, he would simply shake his head, place a steadying hand on her arm and say the same words.

Let it go. It doesn’t matter. We know the truth. I didn’t hurt Elizabeth. The answer to where she went has to be out there. Someday we’ll find out the truth.

She wasn’t as sanguine as he was, facing down the haters with her brother’s typical quiet patience. The reminder of all those slings and accusations made her fists clench again.

“Luke is just starting to put his life back together again. His business has picked up and Cassie and Bridger are doing better. The other kids at school no longer bring it up every day. Sometimes two or three days can go by without someone mentioning her. They’re moving on, Elliot. The last thing any of us needs is for some hotshot big-city FBI agent to waltz in and start stirring up the past again.”

“I’m only looking over old reports. That’s all.”

That wasn’t all and both of them knew it. If people found out someone like Elliot—considered a hometown hero by many, the very antithesis of Luke—was combing through Elizabeth’s case file, the sludge would come bubbling up to the surface again. All the old accusations and false claims. She couldn’t bear it.

“You can do it somewhere else.” She faced him down, willing her lips to stop quivering. “Gather your things and get out of my cottage.”

He looked startled. “What? Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m joking? I take threats to my family very seriously indeed. Get out.”

“I paid in advance for two more weeks.”

“So I’ll refund the balance. Do you honestly think any amount of money you could pay me would be worth letting you put my family through hell again? There are other rental properties in town. Find one of those.”

“I don’t want another one. I like this one. The bed is comfortable, it has a great view and it’s quiet. No one bothers me here.”

“Too bad for you. What you like or want stopped being important to me the moment I saw you were digging into Elizabeth’s case again.”

He leaned a shoulder against the door frame and studied her with an intensity that left her feeling exposed and disquieted. “I must admit, I find your reaction interesting. What are you so afraid I’ll find in those files?”

She glared. “Nothing! I just don’t want you dragging up the past.”

“I would think any loving family who lost someone important to them would want to know the truth about what happened to her.”

“Of course I want to know. But I would prefer an unbiased investigator, not someone who already has an ax to grind against my brother.”

“I am an unbiased investigator,” he said, sounding stung.

“You haven’t been unbiased in seven years! Admit it! Luke used to be a friend, but from the moment Elizabeth disappeared, you’ve been clear about what you think. You made up your mind he was guilty from the very beginning, didn’t you?”

“I’m only interested in the facts. There was blood found in their home. Elizabeth’s blood.”

“That could have been left there days or weeks before she went missing!”

“Or it could have been left by her that night when her husband killed her.”

“Except he didn’t! I know he didn’t and some part of you knows that as well.”

“I can’t be certain of anything.”

Though she knew where he stood from his actions and his attitude since Elizabeth’s disappearance, hearing his blunt words still cut through her. “How can you say that? He was your friend. You know him. You know he is not capable of hurting a woman, especially not someone he loved as much as he loved Elizabeth.”

“I have a police report here that would say otherwise.” He picked up one of the files from the bottom.

Megan knew what it was, what it had to be, and suddenly she wanted to cry. The tears welled up in her throat and she had a hard time swallowing past them.

This was why Luke was the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance. One moment—and one sad, troubled woman.

“Yes, you can see the police were called by the neighbors who reported a domestic disturbance. But as you read the report, you can see no charges were ever filed against my brother. The report was of shouting and crying coming from the house. Not of anyone actually witnessing abuse. Your father wrote on the file misunderstanding.”

She had seen the report. And more than that, she knew Elizabeth’s fragile emotional state leading up to it.

“Women are often afraid to file charges,” Elliot said. “The law requires that one of the parties should be removed from the home temporarily during the investigation. Clearly, that didn’t happen on the night in question. I’m not sure why, but that’s not the point. The disturbance was reported to police, which indicates something happened that night.”

“It indicates nothing, only that Elizabeth was mentally unstable before she disappeared. You’ve got that in your reports, too, don’t you? She was on medication for postpartum depression. She wasn’t acting like herself. Luke was afraid to leave her alone with the kids, for crying out loud. He paid a babysitter to care for them in the day, worked a full-time job, then came home to take care of them all night.”

He continued gazing at her in that stony, emotionless way that made her want to scream, as irrational as Elizabeth in those last months.

She sighed. “I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath. Your mind is made up. Nothing I say will convince you that Luke is a victim here, just like his children. He lost his wife, they lost their mother, but Luke hasn’t been allowed even a moment to grieve for Elizabeth. The people around Lake Haven are too busy whispering about him and throwing around baseless accusations.”

“Not completely baseless.”

“Fine. Then wholly circumstantial. If the Haven Point Police Department or the sheriff’s office had anything more concrete against him, they would have filed charges years ago. Instead, he’s been hung out to dry to face the whispers.”

Despite her best efforts to hold them in, a hot tear escaped and slipped down the side of her nose. She swiped at it angrily even as his gaze seemed to sharpen. She wasn’t upset that she cried, only that he saw her at it.

“I want to know the truth,” Elliot said quietly. “Yes, Luke was my friend. So was Elizabeth. If she’s out there somewhere, I want to find her.”

“While staying at my inn, eating my breakfast, walking my stretch of beach. And I’m just supposed to stand by and give you a place to sleep while you ruin my brother’s life? What kind of woman do you think I am?”

CHAPTER FIVE

THAT WAS A question with no easy answer. He had always been fascinated by Megan Hamilton. With each passing day he spent living next to her, he was finding her more irresistible.

There was something so enticing about her, something fresh and bright and genuine. In the mornings when he was running along the lakeshore, he would see her from a distance as she greeted some of the inn guests or walked her grumpy-looking dog and he had the weirdest feeling, warm and soft like he was being bathed with sunshine.

At night, he would look over while he was working and see her lights on next door and he would remember what Verla McCracken had said, that she was a fan of his work. The idea of her reading the words he had written somehow inspired him to work harder.

He had heard other writers talk about their primary reader, the person they pictured while they wrote and imagined reading their words. Now that person in his head was Megan.

This fascination with her had to stop. It was completely ridiculous. He had been telling himself that for years. She was not his type at all. He preferred professional, composed, intellectual women whose agendas closely matched his own. Not sweet-faced photographers who had once been in love with his brother.