44 Cranberry Point

He shook his head, and privately Grace was pleased but she recognized that her response was purely selfish.



"I figured the committee would get higher bids on a younger man. I recommended Cal Washburn."



"Your trainer?" Grace had met Cliff's trainer on a couple of occasions and liked him, although he was an intense man who seemed to see straight through her. It was unsettling. As she recalled, he spoke with a slight stutter.



Cliff's mouth moved in the barest hint of a smile. "Cal wasn't exactly keen on the idea."



"But he's willing to volunteer?"



"He didn't say, but he's considering it."



"For someone who loves animals as much as you do..."



The smile that had just begun now appeared full force. "Are you trying to make me feel guilty so I'll agree to this, Grace Sherman?"



Grace smiled, too. "Shamelessly."



He shook his head again. "I'm too old."



"Your name came up right away. Apparently you've stirred up more interest than you realized."



"I suppose you were the one who threw my name in the hat?"



Cliff Harding was the last man she'd recommend, and all because of her own self-interest. "It wasn't me." She didn't like admitting it. "Margaret White was the one who suggested you."



He shrugged as if he didn't know the name.



"She works at the vet's office."



He gestured in a way that implied he might recognize her but he wasn't sure. "I've probably seen her then."



Silence again.



Grace couldn't imagine what was taking the hostess so long. She glanced into the dining areas, but the woman seemed to have disappeared after seating the two parties ahead of her.



"Olivia and Jack are home," she said abruptly, trying to make conversation. The silence was unbearable. She couldn't stand next to this man without being reminded of the high price her Internet indiscretion had cost her.



"So I understand."



Grace hadn't seen Olivia so happy, not in years. At the same time, she seemed to be having a little trouble adjusting to married life. A couple of recent phone calls had left Grace feeling there was some stress between Olivia and Jack, although Olivia hadn't been complaining.



"From what I hear, her ex has been visiting Cedar Cove quite a bit."



Grace froze. When Stan found out that Olivia had decided to marry Jack, he'd come to Grace, maudlin and sorry for himself. In a moment of loneliness, she'd agreed to go to dinner with him. It'd been another instance of bad judgment on her part. The last thing she wanted now was for Cliff to learn about that.



"I think Stan knows he made a mistake," Grace said tentatively. If Cliff knew about her dinner with Stan, he wasn't letting on. "People do that—make mistakes they later regret." Her eyes met his, pleading with him to realize how sorry she was. Silently she implored his forgiveness.



Cliff avoided eye contact. "Stan learned that his regrets came too late, didn't he?"



Cliff was telling Grace hers had, too.



The terrible silence was back.



"Charlotte told me what you did for her and her friends," Cliff said next, as if he couldn't bear the silence either.



Grace was furious every time she thought about Troy Davis arresting Charlotte and her group of elderly protestors. For heaven's sake, Ben Rhodes was a retired admiral! Troy should be ashamed of himself.



"Charlotte was trying to better our community. I felt the least we could do was support her efforts."



Cliff tried to hide his amusement by staring down at the carpet.



"What's so funny?"



"You," he said, raising his eyes. That little smile quivered on his mouth. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."



She was on his bad side, though, and the reminder instantly sobered her.



"Charlotte was thrilled with the community support and she credits you with that."



"I didn't do much."



"You spread the word."



Grace gave a careless shrug. "It wasn't much," she said again. She hadn't phoned Cliff, couldn't bring herself to do it, but in retrospect she wished she had.



As if reading her thoughts, he said. "I would've been there had I known."



The hostess reappeared just then. "Sorry to keep you waiting." She automatically reached for two menus.



Cliff looked to Grace and she saw the indecision in his eyes. It would mean the world to her if he asked her to join him for lunch. She held his gaze as long as she dared.



He stiffened, and his resolve had obviously returned. "Table for one," he said and walked away from Grace.



Nine



Roy McAfee hadn't been a private investigator for more than a few years, but he'd been in law enforcement his entire career. He was retired from the Seattle police force; after a few months, however, he'd thought he'd go stir-crazy sitting around the house doing nothing. Soon after his move to Cedar Cove, he'd hung out his shingle.



Retirement wasn't for him. Some men took to it, got involved in hobbies and interests. That kind of life was too predictable for Roy. Nothing lured him faster than a good mystery, and he didn't mean one between the covers of a book, either.



Few mysteries had intrigued him more than what was happening right here in Cedar Cove.



He sat down at his desk and reached for Bob Beldon's file. If he reviewed the facts as they'd unfolded, perhaps he'd pick up on something he'd overlooked before. He didn't think it was likely, but it wouldn't hurt to refresh his memory.



It all started the night a stranger had arrived on the doorstep of the Beldons' Thyme and Tide Bed and Breakfast. By morning he was dead.



Bob Beldon had notified Troy Davis, and the coroner came for the body. Soon afterward, it was discovered that the man had undergone extensive plastic surgery and carried false identification. For a few weeks there'd been a lot of speculation as to who he could be. Then silence—and things had died down for a while.



From the first, something about their guest had disturbed Beldon. Bob had experienced a recurring nightmare ever since his return from Vietnam. On occasion, he'd been known to sleepwalk.



Roy stopped reading and leaned back in his chair, recalling his initial thoughts when Beldon had asked him for help. Davis had questioned Beldon for the second or third time and Bob had considered contacting an attorney, but hadn't. Instead he'd come to Roy. Not too far into the conversation, Roy had realized that the other man was afraid he might have been responsible for the stranger's death.



Roy was quick to assure him otherwise, although he'd wondered the same thing in the beginning. But Maxwell's door had been locked from the inside and there'd been no sign of a struggle. The fact of the matter was that until recently, they couldn't be sure what had caused the other man's death. The autopsy had shown that his vital organs were in fine shape.



Not long before Bob's appointment with Roy, Grace Sherman had come to him. A year earlier, her husband, Dan, had gone missing. When Dan didn't return, Grace had sought out Roy to help locate her husband. But every lead had been a dead end.



Unanswered questions didn't sit well with him, although he'd shocked Grace with the few things he'd unearthed. One of them was the matter of thirteen thousand dollars Dan had somehow managed to keep from her. Grace had no idea where Dan could've found that kind of cash, which he'd apparently used to buy a trailer. He'd handed over his paycheck every Friday, regular as clockwork. Like most couples, they'd apparently lived month to month.



Then Dan's body had been discovered and with it a suicide note he'd left for Grace. In his last letter to his wife, Dan had described an incident that had taken place during the Vietnam war. He and three others had been separated from their squadron, and they'd stumbled into a village, which they feared was Viet-Cong controlled. Something had hap-. pened, and they'd started firing and before the smoke cleared they'd wiped out the entire village, according to Dan. They'd massacred men, women and children. The event had forever marked him. He couldn't live with himself any longer. Or so the letter had indicated.



Grace had been beside herself, not knowing what to do with the information. Roy was afraid he hadn't been much help. He couldn't really advise her; whatever became of these facts was her decision and hers alone.



Shortly afterward, Beldon had repeated the story Dan had written about in his suicide note. He'd mentioned Dan— they'd been two of the four men wandering through that jungle. He'd told Roy that afterward he and Dan hadn't seen each other for almost thirty years. When Bob had come home to Cedar Cove, they'd completely avoided each other.



It seemed too much of a coincidence that Roy would hear this grisly tale from two different people within such a short period of time. On a hunch, he'd gone to Troy Davis and suggested the sheriff check out the other two men who'd been with Dan and Beldon that day.



Sure enough, one of the men—Maxwell Russell—had been reported missing. The unidentified body had turned out to be his. Why he'd come to Cedar Cove and why he'd carried false identification couldn't be explained, though, any more than his death.



Not until later was it discovered that Max Russell had actually been murdered. Poisoned. There'd been evidence in the water bottle found in Russell's rented vehicle.



Once Russell had been identified, his daughter had visited Cedar Cove to collect her father's ashes. Davis had set up a meeting between Hannah and the Beldons, and as a favor to Bob, Roy had been at the house when she came by with the sheriff. Roy learned then that Hannah's mother had died in a car accident, the same one that had badly burned her father. The burns were the reason for Max's plastic surgery and quite possibly why Bob hadn't recognized his old friend.



The circumstances surrounding the car crash led Roy to believe it hadn't been an accident. He'd probably never be able to prove that. The accident report blamed Russell, but Hannah's father had insisted the steering had disconnected. There was nothing to verify his account.



The door to Roy's office opened and his wife walked in with a tray of coffee and freshly baked cookies. Corrie seemed intent on fattening him up, not that he was making much of a fuss. He certainly wasn't turning down homemade cookies.



"Let me guess what you're reading." That know-it-all glint shone in her eyes. "Could it possibly have something to do with the Beldon case?"



"Smarty pants," he said, grinning up at his wife.



"You're going to solve this if it takes the rest of your life, aren't you?"



Roy was close to the answer; he could feel it. He didn't know what he'd missed, if anything, but eventually his instincts would lead him where he had to go. All he needed was patience but that, unfortunately, seemed to be in short supply.



Corrie poured coffee into the mug, added cream and gave it to him. "I get suspicious when you're this quiet."



Roy leaned back in his chair, the mug in his hand. "I'm sifting all the facts through my brain."



"Do you still think the Beldons might be in some kind of danger?"



Roy didn't know how to answer. He shrugged. "Two of the four men are dead. One was murdered and the other committed suicide."



"What about the fourth man?"



"Apparently Davis has talked to Colonel Stewart Samuels. He told me he didn't think Samuels is involved—but who knows?"



Corrie looked down at the file and picked up the top sheet. "It says here he's up for a Congressional Committee assignment. If news of what happened in Nam got out, it could be disastrous to his career, don't you think?"