After a slight detour to clean themselves up and try to look presentable, they went down to the kitchen and found Maude at the table and Frank leaning back against the stove, the silence in the room thick enough to cut. As Preston and Ashley entered, Maude looked up at them hopefully, then slumped with dejection when Preston shook his head.

“We couldn’t find the lighter in either of their rooms.”

“And I don’t have it on me, look,” Frank said, tugging out the inside of his pockets. Maude narrowed her eyes over at him, but didn’t question his display of innocence.

“We think Larry probably lost it,” Preston said. “When the snow clears and we can get some of the staff in, we’ll do a full search for it.”

She smiled sadly at him, something like appreciation, and they all startled a little when Karen crashed into the room behind them, heels click-clacking on the solid floor.

“There’s a phone ringing out in the foyer,” she said, breezing past them and heading straight for the coffee machine.

Preston inclined his head, saying, “Excuse me,” and went off to investigate. A moment later, clearly feeling supremely awkward, Frank followed him.

Ashley considered what to do next, whether to slip away and finally take the second shower she’d been wanting all day, or stay and have some coffee, wait for Preston to return. She still hadn’t had time to fully process what had happened between them, so swept up in the intimacy of it, of finding pleasure in another person’s body, of not getting enough of each other.

Not just anyone’s body—Preston’s. This was very specifically him. Everything she’d achieved with him, from showing her body to making love, it was all on him. She’d had offers the past few months—of course she had. A new doctor in pediatrics had courted her for a few weeks, pulled all the classic flowers-and-chocolates moves, but in the end she’d never quite felt the moment was right to even kiss him, let alone fall into the kind of intimacy she’d found with Preston in just a few short days.

And she’d even joined a dating site briefly, went on a total of three dates. The third date she’d thought she’d struck gold—a chef at a five-star restaurant, affable and funny, with a twinkle in his eye that made her want to smile without reason. But when it came time to call him back and arrange the second date, she found she never really had time, always an excuse, a late shift here, a headache there. Nothing made her want to take the leap and get closer to another man, despite how much she’d liked him.

Not until Preston, and he’d had her since day one. Way back at Cami’s wedding, when she’d lost control of her senses and thrown herself at him in a closet before drowning in embarrassment and fleeing. And then Maggie’s wedding, when she’d very nearly slept with him—and she hadn’t stopped him because she didn’t want to have sex, or didn’t feel it was right. But because she wasn’t confident enough to let herself go. Not after all that crap she had to endure from her ex.

He’d swept all of that away with some patience in front of a mirror, a few well-timed words, and a pleasurable method of making her confront herself. And what she’d seen, what he’d made her see—she didn’t hate it. All this time, she’d been viewing herself through the eyes of her ex-husband, and Preston meticulously cleared her vision, brought her back to a time when she found her curves sensual and womanly. When she looked in a mirror, she saw someone a man could find appealing—the person she’d thought she was before her husband had verbally beaten it out of her.

Preston had found that person, and he’d teased her to the surface. And now when Preston took her into a public hallway and dropped to his knees in front of her, when he tasted the very essence of her and then, after, fed her his cock—it didn’t make her want to run, or question her own appeal. It didn’t worry her that Preston might not be as turned on as her. It made her want to find the nearest flat surface and spread herself wide, expose each inch of her body and let him stare, and feel, and want.

Because he did want her. He practically radiated it. And the feeling it gave her was heady, almost like she had some kind of power over him, that she could make him bring her pleasure in whatever way she wanted—

She had to stop thinking about it all, before her brain went all mushy. She decided to examine all the latest information in the murder case—that was what she should do. Not focus on Preston and his magic tongue and fingers and cock. The murder. The fact that they were amongst a murderer, their lives at risk. She needed to stay focused on what mattered.

Even if she felt, deep down, that there was little else more important right now than Preston, because he’d given her back something she held more precious than anything else in the world—herself, control over her body, and her belief in it.

Now, Maude and her behavior with Larry’s body. Think. Frank and the strangeness of his financial claims. She felt, through the haze of her libido, as if she was on the edge of a breakthrough, that she had all the right puzzle pieces in her hand, and she just had to put them in the correct order, slot them into place until they made the picture of Larry’s murderer.

She looked at Maude, made a decision, and headed over to take the seat opposite her at the table. “Does the lighter have sentimental value?”

She’d startled Maude out of her morose thoughts with her question, but it was Karen who answered, from over by the stove.

“Oh, please. That useless bit of junk.”

Maude scowled. “It was our mother’s,” she called behind her to Karen. To Ashley, she added, “And it’s worth a lot of money.”

Tutting, Karen brought her mug over to the table, giving her sister a withering look. “All the millions we inherited, and you’re still hooked on that bit of scrap.”

Maude didn’t say anything to that, she just watched Karen take a seat and locked eyes with her, some kind of message passing between them.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Ashley said. “Preston told me it was a ski lift accident.”

Karen studied her a moment, face inscrutable, then said, “Cable car.” She brought her mug up to her lips and blew away the steam. “Tragic mechanical accident.”

There was something about Karen’s plain, emotionless tone that alerted Ashley to the way Maude was very pointedly not looking at either of them.

Ashley cleared her throat, heartbeat kicking up a gear without any real reason. There was a chill in the air, and it was nothing to do with all the snow outside.

“Were you there?”

“We were with them on the trip, yes,” Karen said, words carefully formed and measured. “It was for Maude’s eighteenth birthday.”

“So you were both adults when they died.”

She was putting two and two together, but she didn’t know if she was coming up with four or a wild forty-five. Two teenagers, of legal age to fully inherit without restrictions, on a skiing trip that saw the sudden death of their wealthy parents…

“We didn’t kill them, girl,” Karen said, visibly bristling at whatever she saw on Ashley’s face. “Yes, the timing was fortunate, but that doesn’t mean—” Then she stopped suddenly, eyes narrowing, and drawled, “Wait. Do you think we killed that disgusting creep Larry?” There was the twist of a smirk on her face, something wholly unpleasant.

All of a sudden, Ashley very much wanted to be far away from these two women.

“I don’t think anything,” she said, scraping her chair back. It was Maude who gave her pause.

“You’d be wise to quit while you’re ahead,” she said, soft and dark, while Karen beside her sipped her coffee with deliberate leisure.

In the seconds that followed, with the sisters staring at her, a silence descended in the room that made all the hairs on the back of Ashley’s neck stand on end.

She couldn’t help but feel as if she’d just been threatened.

It was a relief when Preston returned, smiling and rubbing his hands together. “That was the police,” he said. “They’re clearing a path and believe they’ll be here by nightfall.”

“Oh, finally,” Maude said. “My cat will be going out of his mind.”

But Ashley was hardly paying either of them any attention. Karen Fregel hadn’t taken her eyes off her, the corner of her mouth lifted in a calculated sneer, expression something close to suspicion.

It felt like a warning.

Apparently she had no self-preservation instincts, because Ashley made her way to the sisters’ room, intent on getting inside. If she could find something handwritten, and if that handwriting matched Larry’s supposed suicide note…

“What are you doing?”

She jumped, hand on the door knob, and looked over at Preston guiltily. He stared back vaguely amused with her, but cautiously so, like he expected to not like whatever answer she had for him.

She scrunched up her face and hazarded, “Snooping?”

Sighing, rubbing a hand over his brow, he groaned, “Ash…”

“I just wanted to check something,” she said quickly, keeping her voice hushed. “Where are the Fregels right now?”

“Still in the kitchen I think. Why?” His eyes narrowed, studying her face, clearly trying to work her out, see beyond her front to the thoughts racing through her mind. “Do you think they killed Larry?”

She said nothing, but she was pretty sure her expression gave away her suspicions. It wasn’t as if she was certain, but the way Karen had been with her, and Maude looking as if she was keeping quiet for a reason… She had to at least check.

He rolled his eyes and pulled the master key out of his pocket. “You’ll need this,” he said, and she could’ve kissed him. “I’ll wait here, let you know if they come back.”

“You’re actually the best!” she said, taking the key from him and beaming her biggest grin.

“Yeah, yeah. Hurry up.”

Heart racing with a morbid sort of excitement, she slotted the key into the lock and opened the door, then exchanged a nod with Preston and slipped into the room. It was almost identical to Preston’s and smelled of rich perfumes, with last night’s ball gowns draped over the bed and the curtains still pulled tight, blocking out daylight.

Observing her surroundings for a moment, Ashley knew she didn’t have much time and needed to be smart here. She was far more likely to find information in the luggage than the furniture, so she zeroed in on the small case sitting in the armchair.

The only things in it were two packets of cigarettes and an iPad mini. Nothing handwritten. But the tablet drew her attention, and taking a chance, she pressed the power button. To her surprise, it lit up, no security code required.

It was open on an internet browser, four tabs pinned in place—an email account, an online shopping order, a car rental company nearby…and Preston Alcott’s Wikipedia page.

That last tab gave her pause, making her stomach swoop a little—that she had some kind of romantic entanglement with a man important enough to warrant his own Wiki page, and a long, detailed page at that. Choosing to peruse that in her own time, she instead swiped over to the email inbox.

There was nothing of note, just various reports and notifications, a dozen frantic messages from a Jenny who Ashley figured was an assistant of some description, judging by the many panicked requests to find out if the sisters would be making this meeting or that.

In the sent emails folder, she found some things that made her freeze on the spot.

The first to catch her eye, from an afternoon several weeks ago, was an email that simply said “Signed and sealed” from Karen Fregel, with an attachment tagged on. Ashley opened the attachment in preview mode and scanned it quickly, heart gradually sinking down to her knees when she realized what she was looking at.

It was a contract that made Karen and Maude legal part owners of one of Larry Rohan’s businesses—his biggest venture, judging by the amounts listed—signed by both sisters and Larry himself. The email had been sent to a legal office, and Ashley mentally filed the name away for later.

The second email was the one to make her blood run cold.

From Karen again, sent to an unknown “Simon”, with the words “He’s gone, and you know what that makes us? Twice as rich.”

Oh god. Was it possible that the sisters had bumped Larry off just so they could take control of his business, become majority shareholders and add to their millions?

She had no more time to dig further—a noise outside made her startle and shove the tablet back into the case, hurry to the door, and slip out. Preston was still there, leaning against the wall, and it had apparently been him who’d made the noise because she could see nothing else out here.

“Find anything?”

“Yes,” she said, moving close to him and lowering her voice. “I found a contract that says they’re part owners of—”

He glanced over her shoulder, widened his eyes for an instant, and then pulled her in for a sudden bruising kiss. A bit unexpected, yes, and strange timing, but she went for it nonetheless. The breath caught in her chest, all thoughts grinding to a screeching stop, as her whole body glowed with abrupt, intense, all-consuming heat. She was like a switch he’d turned on with one sweep of his tongue against hers, and she was weak, needy, craving more of his touch, all he would give her.

Then she heard the very obvious clearing of a throat behind her, and reality swept through her brain. He’d kissed her because he’d seen one of the sisters coming, and in that moment of panic, he didn’t know how else to shut her up and save her from exposing herself as a snoop.

She pulled away from the kiss, wiping a thumb over her mouth, and turned to find Karen Fregel staring at her, eyebrow quirked. Burning bright hot, feeling the wickedly sensual presence of Preston behind her, she muttered, “I’m just gonna go for a shower,” and brushed past a clearly amused Karen.

She glanced behind as she hurried away, nearly stumbling over her feet when she saw the dangerously calculated glint Karen was still carrying in her eyes as she watched her go.