Just keep going!
She plowed forward and wondered if anyone would spot her vehicle, hidden within the crowded parking lot at the hotel. If someone checked license plates against those guests registered . . .
Don’t think about that. You’ll be fine. This shouldn’t take too long. Just in and out.
She picked up her pace, her own doubts chasing her through the night. This was probably a wild goose chase, but she had to do something.
James was a liar. And worse.
But a murderer?
That seemed a little—well, make it a lot—far-fetched. But who knew? At the clearing where vehicles were usually parked, she cut to the back gate and, following a previously broken path, made her way to the woodshed, out through the dark, dusty-smelling room and to the attached back porch. It was long and broad, with several doors opening off it to what, Megan had told her, were an old root cellar and oversized closet, past a laundry area to the back door. She tried it, but the knob wouldn’t turn in her gloved hands. She’d expected as much and, praying that James’s dog wasn’t on the premises, leaned over and let herself into the kitchen by crawling through the large dog door cut into the lower panels. It was a tight fit, but not impossible, and she squeezed through without too much difficulty. Once standing, she didn’t move—and strained to listen.
She heard the hum of the refrigerator over the rumble of air being forced through old heating ducts, but no click of toenails on hardwood, no low growl from the darkened rooms.
No dog.
Good.
She let out her breath, but her heart was pounding, and that stupid little voice in her head was screaming: What the hell do you think you’re doing? Slowly, using the flashlight app on her phone, she picked her way through the rooms, sweeping the bluish beam over the mess.
When she’d left James at Valley General, he’d been determined to be released, so there was a chance he was already on his way back here. She didn’t have much time.
What she expected to find at his home she didn’t know, but she couldn’t just wait around for James Cahill to “regain his memory” or the police to turn up anything on Megan. Time was ticking away, and her sister—make that her reckless sister—was in trouble. Rebecca was sure of it.
Did she really think James had harmed Megan?
As much as she distrusted him, she couldn’t quite believe that.
But what did she really know about him?
And then there was his involvement with Sophia Russo. Not a surprise, really, but Sophia worked for him. Rebecca had seen her through the windows of the hotel, serving at the bar, her blond hair shimmering in the dimmed lights as she mixed drinks. Megan had told her about Sophia, about the fact that every time she turned around, she saw the woman.
“I can’t seem to get away from her,” Megan had said in a phone conversation. “She works at the restaurant and the farms, and she’s everywhere in town. I know Riggs Crossing is a small town, but not that small.”
“Maybe she’s following you or checking you out.”
“It’s weird,” Megan had said.
And Rebecca hadn’t said what was uppermost in her mind:
Maybe she wants to be you.
At the very least, Sophia had wanted James Cahill.
Now Rebecca eased through James’s home. The house was a wreck, the police obviously having searched it thoroughly. Good. But she had to step carefully around debris left on the floor as she made her way from kitchen to dining area to the base of a staircase and the living room, where her phone’s light showed a raised hearth, the bricks stained a dark crimson in one corner.
James’s blood?
Or Megan’s?
Or even someone else’s?
Her stomach rolled at the thought as she imagined a body falling against the sharp bricks, head bouncing with a sickening crack. Then she thought of the bandage around James’s head, the sling supporting his arm, his supposed amnesia.
Stepping slowly into the room, she felt her skin crawl. She walked to the fireplace and touched the darkened brick with the fingertip of her glove. She tried to imagine the scene, the fight. Megan was mercurial, she knew that, and she was upset; that too was a fact. And she’d left this place on her own; Rebecca knew that as well. But something had happened.
It crossed her mind, not for the first time, that Megan could be hiding somewhere, that she was actually fine and just watching this play out, as a punishment to James. And to her.
But that seemed far-fetched.
Even for overly dramatic Megan.
“No,” she said aloud, her voice startling her as she swung the light over the room and then started for the stairs. Old as they were, they creaked as she climbed and reached the second floor. It felt empty, and two of the bedrooms appeared unused. One had only a twin bed, while the other was cluttered with leftover furniture and bags of clothes, books, and odds and ends. Both rooms, like the floor below, had been searched, as had the bathroom at the top of the stairs and the linen closet. She stepped over a pile of towels that had been left on the floor near the railing and moved into the final room on the floor, James Cahill’s bedroom.
As she pushed the door open, her stomach knotted. She felt more of a trespasser here than anywhere else in the house. Her muscles clenched as she stared at the huge bed, the mattress askew, the bedding on the floor. This was the room where James and Megan . . .
Stop it!
She forced her mind back to the task at hand. To find anything, any tiny bit of evidence that might tell her where Megan was.
Like you can do better than the police.
Maybe. She knew
