Brick asked behind her, “Where was this photo taken?” She turned to see that he was pointing at a snapshot that had been stuck into the edge of a framed photograph on the mantle.
It appeared to be one of Tricia. In the photo, her sister was smiling at the person taking the photo. She did look happy. Behind her was a stream and pines.
“Oh, I forgot all about that photo,” Hope cried. “Tricia left it here since she couldn’t take it home. It was her favorite from their camping trip. He said it was his favorite photo of her and gave her a copy of it. I’m sure there were others of the two of them but she never showed them to me. That reminds me.” Hope got to her feet. “She left some stuff here. I thought you might—”
“I’d like it, please,” Mo said and they waited as the woman disappeared through a door and returned moments later with a large manila envelope.
“I don’t know what’s in it. I never looked.” She handed it to Mo. “Tricia said I should give it to you if anything happened to her.”
“Are you serious?” Mo demanded. “When were you going to tell me about this?” She clutched the envelope to her chest and glared at the woman.
“If you hadn’t been such a bitch at the funeral—”
“I’m curious. Why the secrecy?” Brick interrupted. “Why wouldn’t Tricia tell you the man’s name since she told you everything else?”
Hope shrugged again. “I wondered about that, too. I think he was somebody, you know? A name that either I would know or would have heard of. She was so worried that Thomas would find out and maybe do something to him.”
“Or she thought you wouldn’t have been able to keep her secret,” Mo said, still clearly angry.
Hope glared back at her. “At least I knew what was going on.” She raised a brow as if to say, and she was your sister.
Brick surreptitiously pocketed the photo he’d taken from the mantel and quickly got them both out of there.
Once in the pickup and driving again, Brick said, “This makes me wonder if Natalie wasn’t telling the truth about all of it. You knew her. You liked her. She was worried about your sister, worried about Joey. She tried to warn you about what was going on. She was even convinced that Tricia didn’t commit suicide and swears that she didn’t harm Joey.”
“What is the point of debating it now? She’s dead.” All she could think was that caught in this heartbreaking triangle and filled with guilt over Joey’s paternity and health, her sister could have been in such an emotional state that she had killed herself.
“She wasn’t lying about Tricia having an affair,” he pointed out. “I don’t think she was lying about your sister not killing herself.”
“I don’t know,” Mo said, the manila envelope resting unopened in her lap. She saw him check his rearview mirror and not for the first time. “What is it?”
“We’re being followed and have been since we left Hope’s house.”
Chapter Twelve
“You were right,” the PI said into his hands-free device. “She went by the house. She was in there a good half hour. I’m following her and the deputy now.”
He swore as he realized that he’d been spotted. “I’m going to have to let them get ahead of me.” He turned at the next street. He was pretty sure where he could catch up to them again.
“How did they seem when they came out of the house?”
“Hard to say.” He got paid to spy on people, photograph them, follow them. He didn’t get paid to analyze their feelings, but he was smart enough not to say that. “Subdued.” He could hear that the answer didn’t make his client happy.
Ahead, he saw the pickup, but this time he stayed back. “They’ve pulled into a motel and are going inside the office.” He told his employer the name of the downtown Billings motel as he pulled over to wait. “What would you like me to do? It appears they have booked a room and are now carrying their bags there.”
“One room?”
“Yes, they both went into the same room.” Jim listened for a moment. “Right, I can do that. I’ll put the tracking device on the pickup tonight.” Now that they knew they were being followed, he couldn’t let them see him again.
“Once I can track them myself, I think it would be best if I took it from here.”
“You’re the boss.”
“I’ll stop by your office and pay you in cash when I pick up any file you might have made on this.”
The man was worried that hiring a private detective to follow a homicide cop and a deputy marshal might come back on him?
“I understand.” He hung up, telling himself he was glad to be done with this one. But just to cover his own behind, he’d keep a digital copy of his work and the man’s requests. Hopefully, he would never have to use it, he thought as he waited for it to get dark enough to go back to the motel and attach the tracking device to Deputy Marshal Brick Savage’s pickup.
“I’M NOT SURE I’m up to understanding any of this,” Mo said once they were settled into the motel room and she’d taken a peek inside the envelope. She was exhausted—and still upset. Her sister had told Hope to give it to her in case anything happened to her. What had Hope been thinking? Clearly the woman didn’t have a brain the size of a pea.
But what scared her was the realization that Tricia had known there was a chance that something would happen to her. So she’d left whatever was in this envelope for Mo. If only Hope had given it to her right away.
“What is it?” Brick asked
