See you soon!
—Ami
I stared at the note for ages, the soft crackling of the fire filling the silence, though the heat provided no warmth to the budding chill in my soul. Was this some kind of a sick joke? Ami was messed up beyond words. So anything was possible. But in my heart I feared this wasn’t a joke.
One of these articles was genuine, and the other an obvious fake.
But if the SEC article was the fake one—meaning Adam had never been under any sort of scrutiny—then why did he hide that version in the files in the locked desk drawer? Had he, as Ami seemed to elucidate, allowed me to find it?
I’d suspected as much at the time, thinking it was a little too convenient for Adam to have forgotten to lock the drawer that evening. But I had convinced myself since then that it had been Adam’s way of allowing me to uncover what Chelsea had once held over his head, a way he could tell me the secret without uttering the words.
But…was it all a lie?
Had Adam ever even been under investigation? Perhaps he just truly lucked out in a trade that had netted him millions. That would explain why I never came across any mention of an SEC investigation when I’d been researching Adam Ward before I even arrived on the island, back in September. Yes, Ami’s words held a disturbing ring of truth to them. How could a story so big remain hidden?
But how in the hell would Ami Hensley know about all of this? Had she somehow been in on the ruse? Had Adam asked her to doctor the original newspaper page? Was the article I discovered a decoy of some sort? Something to throw me off from discovering the real secret Adam held? And did this real secret have something to do with Ami? What did she mean by “trouble is brewing”? And how in the hell did Helena, Nate’s wife, play into all of this? The meaningful glances she and Adam had thrown each other’s way the day she came up to his compound to visit—after the mystery had been solved—now seemed all the more suspicious.
I had so many questions, and this was just the beginning.
Dear Lord. Was the SEC story a setup to throw me off the trail of what Adam had really been hiding? Still was, apparently. Was his deception a way to steer me away from uncovering the real secret Chelsea had been blackmailing him with? Maybe.
If the SEC stuff was all just a smoke screen—one Ami had obviously been in on from the way things were looking—then Adam had never actually told me what his fiancée had held over his head. And if he cooked this up as a diversion, then whatever the real secret was, it had to be something far worse. That possibility chilled me to the bone.
So, yeah, I certainly would be putting my investigative skills back to work…and soon.
In fact, one of the first things on my agenda was going to be a visit to my one-time best friend, and, more recently, the person who’d attempted to kill me. That was bad. But what was perhaps even worse was that in order to talk to Ami, I’d now have to go to one of the creepiest places in all of Maine—Willow Point.
Chapter One
Over the next week I said nothing to Adam about the letter I’d received from Ami. Sure, Ami was locked away at Willow Point, and one would think she’d have no way of knowing Adam’s secret, but I’d learned from the past that information had an interesting way of traveling around here, and usually the person you least wanted to have that knowledge was the one who obtained it.
So, yeah, I hid the letter in the living room of my cottage—under a loose floorboard. The same place where I’d once kept the files for the Harbour Falls Mystery. Once that task was finished, I concentrated on spending time with Adam and writing my new novel. Thankfully, both endeavors kept me rather busy.
Adam had set up a room in his house as a writing area for me, which was great. Except when he was home working. Then I found it difficult to concentrate. His study was right next to my writing room, and let’s just say it was entirely too tempting to sneak over and distract Adam. It wasn’t all me distracting him, though.
Sometimes I would be typing away on my laptop, minding my own business, and I’d sense Adam’s presence. He had a way of commanding a room even before entering it. More than once I’d glanced up and found the gorgeous Mr. Ward leaning against the door jamb, smiling mischievously, his raven hair all messy from his habit of running his fingers through it, and his blue eyes alight with lust.
My favorite times were when he was dressed casually. Because, though Adam rocked a suit like nobody’s business, there was just something undeniably sexy about the man when he was wearing worn jeans and an untucked button-down shirt. Maybe it was the way the material pulled at his shoulders, showing off their breadth. Or maybe it was how defined his biceps appeared under the cotton, especially when he crossed his arms, often with a knowing smirk. And then there were those jeans, and the way they showed off his ass. Kill me now. In any case, whichever it was, Adam always had me dead to rights when that particular version of him showed up in the doorway.
Unfortunately, there’d be no surprise interruptions today. Adam was over on the mainland, conducting business from an office he’d set up over in Harbour Falls. December on Fade Island was turning out to be very, very snowy, and it had just made sense for him to have a place over there. Mostly so the nasty weather couldn’t disrupt business operations. I thought there may be another reason too, for
