Deadly Christmas Secrets. Shirlee McCoy
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dead. She’d gotten that information from one of the deputy sheriffs who had been collecting evidence at the cabin.
“For now,” Stella said. “My boss has a sister who wants to join the team. If she can convince her brothers to let her do it, she’ll make a good team member.”
“That’ll be nice for you,” Harper said, her gaze fixed on the snowy road and the flakes that drifted lazily in the headlights. The storm had lost most of its strength. If the meteorologist was correct, there’d be rain by morning and just enough warmth to melt whatever remained of the snow.
“We’ll see.”
“You don’t like her?”
“I like Emma fine. I’m just not sure she’s cut out for the work. It’s a tough job, a dangerous one. She’s still a kid.”
“A teenager?”
“Twenty-four.”
“And you’re what? Twenty-five?”
“I’ll be thirty in the spring, but I’ve had a lot of jobs, done a lot of things. Seen a lot. Emma has been...protected. A lot.”
“So maybe it’s time for her not to be. A person can’t grow up if she’s never given the opportunity.”
“A great philosophy in theory, Harper, but letting her grow up in the kind of work HEART does is a quick way to get her killed. Kind of like you, wandering around when a killer is on the loose.”
“The guy is dead, Stella.”
“And someone killed him.”
“Someone? Logan shot him,” she responded, not quite sure what Stella was getting at.
“Not every gunshot wound is fatal. Logan fired a shot that struck the guy, but it wasn’t the shot that killed him. Logan said there were two bullet wounds. The second one was point-blank to the perpetrator’s head.”
Harper hadn’t known that, hadn’t really taken the time to ask much after she’d heard the guy was dead. She’d assumed that Logan’s shot had killed him, and she’d thought the danger was past, that the threat had ended with the man’s death.
“You’re quiet,” Stella said.
“I didn’t realize the gunman was murdered.”
“He was,” Stella said simply. “If you’d asked, maybe you wouldn’t have decided you needed to drive out into a storm to rescue someone who doesn’t need it.”
“Logan was out in the woods for over an hour. He probably does need rescuing,” she responded.
“You’re ignoring my point.”
“Which is?” Harper asked even though she knew exactly what Stella was implying.
“Next time, ask questions so you can have enough information to make a good decision.”
“Going to get someone who’s nearly frozen is a good decision.”
“Not if you’re going to die while you’re doing it.”
“Whoever killed that man is long gone.”
“Says the woman who knows nothing about any of this,” Stella muttered.
“I know that I’m not going to sit around waiting for other people to fight my battles for me,” she replied.
“Great. Good. Wonderful. I just hope that philosophy doesn’t get you killed.”
“Why would it? No one has any reason to want me dead.”
“And yet, people keep trying to kill you.”
Truer than Harper wanted to admit.
She needed to find out what was going on. The only way to do that was to talk to Gabe. He had to know more than she did. Why else would he send someone to find her?
He still hadn’t called.
She’d have to go see him, visit his house in DC with all its fancy furniture and girlie decorations. Lydia had had a field day buying things for the house. She’d had her hand in every room except for Gabe’s office, and it had showed—gaudy and funky and a little over-the-top.
Just like Lydia.
The thought made her eyes burn and her throat tighten.
She and Lydia had been as different as any two sisters could be, but they’d loved each other.
She sniffed back tears that she wasn’t going to let fall, pinched the bridge of her nose, tried hard to think of something other than her sister.
“Things could be worse,” Stella said, speaking into the sudden silence, her voice softer than it had been.
“What?”
“They could be worse, Harper. Always, so we just have to make the best of whatever situation we find ourselves in. Like this one.” She waved toward the snowy road and the flakes still drifting through the darkness. “We’re on the road, probably making ourselves bait for a murderer—”
“That’s comforting.”
“If you wanted comfort, you should have fired up that wood-burning stove of yours, huddled under one of those nice quilts you have and read a good book,” she responded.
“That probably would have been a better plan,” she admitted.
“Too late now,” Stella responded cheerfully. “You wanted this. You got it, so we’ll just enjoy the snow and hope for the best.”
Right. Sounded perfect to Harper.
Up ahead, she could see the entrance to the Dillon property—the old gateposts still sticking out of the ground. No gate. Not anymore. It had come down decades ago. At least, that was what she’d heard from people at church. People in Snowy Vista had long memories, and they remembered the way Arthur Dillon had worked the land, sold his produce at local markets, made a good living for himself and his family.
Then he’d died, and his son Matthew had taken over, run the farm into the ground and then left it for greener pastures. No one knew where he’d gone. The old farmhouse had stood empty for two decades, and then a for-sale sign had appeared in the overgrown yard, jutting up from the corner of the crumbling driveway.
That had been two years ago.
As far as Harper knew, the place hadn’t even had one showing.
She turned onto the driveway, the truck bumping over deep ruts. She got about a tenth of a mile from the house before she had to stop, a police cruiser blocking her from driving farther. Not from the local sheriff’s department. This cruiser was a state police car. Jeb must have called them in. Snowy Vista had a very small police force, and murder wasn’t something Harper thought they’d had to deal with much during the history of the town.
She eased the truck off the driveway and parked it in tangled weeds, waiting as a police officer approached. He motioned for her to roll down the window, his face shadowed by the brim of his hat.
“Ma’am, you’re going to have to turn around,” he said.
“I’m here for a friend of mine,” she responded. “Logan Fitzgerald?”
“You’re going to have to turn around,” he repeated. “No entry to the property by anyone. It’s a crime scene.”
“I know, but—”
“That’s fine, officer,” Stella cut in. “Mind if we wait at the mouth of the driveway? Logan was being questioned by Sheriff Hunter, but he’s finished now, and we’d like to get him home.”
The officer eyed Stella for a moment, then nodded. “Fine by me, but if I catch either of you out of the vehicle, I’ll arrest you.”
“No worries. I’m in no mood to spend