7

“Please pass the rolls.” Logan dropped his cloth napkin into his lap and kept his elbows off the table.

One of Logan’s most favorite places in the entire world was his grandmother’s table. Jane Sutton was an eccentric and headstrong woman. Instead of using a normal grandmother nickname, she had chosen to be simply called Jane by her grandchildren. But Logan adored every one of Jane’s quirks. Her love was the one constant in his entire life.

His father had died when he was two, and his mother had moved to Arizona when Logan was twelve, leaving her children behind. Adult Logan understood that his mother had not been cut out to be a parent and that it had likely been Jane’s idea to keep Logan and Cate with her. Jane had known her daughter’s limitations. But teenage Logan had been angry and hurt and had hated Widow’s Island with every cell in his body. He’d gone to college on the mainland, then joined the army, only coming back to Widow’s to visit his grandmother.

But when he’d been in the desert, all he’d wanted to do was come home. He’d missed his grandmother’s cinnamon rolls. He’d missed the cool sea air and the forest. When he’d discovered the state forest ranger job was open, he’d taken it. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stay on Widow’s Island, but for now, being here seemed right.

Jane handed him the bread basket, then passed the butter dish.

“Where’s Cate?” Logan buttered a roll.

“Having dinner with Henry.” Jane cut a large square of lasagna and transferred it to his plate. “I made an extra lasagna, and she dropped it at Tessa’s house on her way. That poor girl has her hands full. I thought she could use the break. She’s not going to be able to manage her mother alone much longer.”

“No.” Logan remembered the dark circles under Tessa’s eyes.

“I’ll bring it up at the next meeting of my knitting group.”

The Widow’s Knitting and Activist group was the reason the island had been an early adopter of recycling. Its current project was raising money to help islanders overwhelmed with medical bills.

“Many of the ladies have dealt with ailing husbands,” Jane added. “I’m sure they’ll have suggestions. What did you do today?”

“I’m assisting her with her murder investigation.”

“I know.” The laser gaze Jane set on him meant one of two things. Either he was in trouble or she had ideas about his relationship with Tessa. The thought of his grandmother taking an active interest in his love life made Logan sweat.

Jane cut a smaller slice of lasagna for herself and set it on her plate.

“Does anything happen in this town that you don’t know about?” Logan teased.

Jane’s eyes gleamed. “I should hope not.”

“On that topic.” Logan cut into his lasagna. The scent of melted cheese and tomato sauce wafted to his nose. His stomach rumbled. “Have you heard about any strangers staying in town?”

“Do you think a stranger killed the artist?”

“We don’t know.” Logan forked food into his mouth. The lasagna tasted as good as it smelled.

Jane picked up her fork. “I’d hate to think one of our Widow’s Island residents was capable of such a terrible act.”

Logan agreed, but he had to be objective. He’d seen firsthand what terrible acts men were capable of committing. “Whoever it is, we will find him.”

“I have complete faith in you.” Jane reached over and patted his hand as if he were in high school and worried about a test. “Do you remember Mrs. Duvall? She owns the Harbor View Inn.”

“I do.” Vaguely.

“At today’s knitting group protest, Patty was complaining about one of her guests, a man with a New York accent. Patty said he looked shady. She’s afraid he might stiff her for the bill. She ran his credit card deposit the minute he left the counter.”

Logan drank milk and tried not to laugh at his grandmother’s use of the words shady and stiff. “Do you know how long he’s been there?”

She nodded. “He checked in yesterday.”

Dante had been from New Jersey, and now a stranger with a New York accent was staying at the inn. After dinner, Logan was going to drop by the inn’s lounge for a beer.

“Are you going to check him out?” Jane asked.

“Probably,” Logan answered noncommittally.

“Will you take Tessa? It’s cold, but the sky is clear tonight. The view of the harbor would be romantic.”

Logan shook his fork at Jane. “I do not need a matchmaker.”

“You’re thirty-five and still single. Do you even have a girlfriend?” At Logan’s silence, she said, “Then maybe you do.” Leave it to Jane to tell it like it was.

“Considering how widows vastly outnumber widowers on this island, maybe I should stay single,” he joked. “Besides, I’ve known Tessa since we were kids.”

“She’s a grown woman now,” his grandmother said.

“Yes. I’m aware of that.” Very aware.

“Good.” Her smile was far too pleased.

“Anyway. Tessa doesn’t like to leave her mother alone at night. I’ll check out the guest before I bother Tessa. It’s not a crime to have a New York accent.”

He ate a slice of homemade apple pie. Then he carried the dishes to the kitchen, scraped them, and put them in the dishwasher.

“You don’t have to clean up,” Jane protested as she put the leftovers in the fridge.

“Between you and the army, I am as trained as a man can get.” Logan grinned.

She flicked a dish towel at him. “In that case, you can put out the trash before you leave.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

An hour later, Logan parked in front of the Harbor View Inn. The moon glimmered on the shifting waters of Harlot Harbor. He jogged up the wide steps and onto the porch. The dark-wood lobby smelled like furniture polish over mustiness. Logan paused as the sound of Elton John’s “Honky Cat” being played on an oboe reached him.

Logan went through a doorway next to the registration desk into the Breakneck Taproom. A fire blazed in the fireplace. In front of it, Herb Lawson finished his song and lowered his oboe. Three people seated on the couch clapped. Someone brought Herb a beer. He and his oboe had been a Thursday-night tradition for generations.

He slid onto the leather barstool, waved for the bartender, and ordered a local ale on tap. Only three other stools were occupied, with men watching a hockey game on the TV over the bar.

George had been the bartender at the taproom for as long as Logan could remember. At least seventy years old, he didn’t need a wig or beard to play Santa every Christmas. His bartending job supplemented his Social Security.

George tilted and filled the glass, then set it in front of Logan. “You want to run a tab?”

“No. I’ll cash out.” Logan sipped his beer. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” George wiped a water ring from the bar.

“Have you seen a New Yorker in the hotel lately?”

George nodded. “There was a guy in here last night with a heavy East Coast accent.”

“What did he look like?”

“About six feet tall, dark hair, maybe thirty years old,” George said. “He was wearing a black leather jacket. He didn’t stay. Took his burger to go.”

Logan rested both elbows on the bar and leaned closer to George. “Too bad it would be against the rules for you to tell me what room he was in.”

“It sure is.” George flipped through a stack of receipts.

Logan dug out his wallet. He removed a twenty and handed it over. George went to the cash register and punched some buttons. Ripping off the receipt, he wrote something on the back, then turned around and handed it to Logan with his change. Logan turned over the receipt and read 224 Nick Garcia.

“I also can’t tell you that he called in a room service order about thirty minutes ago.” George smiled. “Or that the kitchen has been slow tonight.”

So Garcia is probably in his room.

“Do you know if the ferry is running tonight?” Logan asked. There was only one way off the island.

“It is.”

“Thanks, George. Keep the change.” Logan stuffed his wallet back in his pocket.

George waved his thanks and turned toward another customer. Abandoning his beer, Logan walked out of the bar, crossed the hotel lobby, and hustled out into the cold.

Room 224 was a ground floor end unit in one of the long buildings on the hillside that overlooked the harbor. Logan debated his options. He could stake out the room. The parking lot would grant him a clear view of the entrance. Then again, if Garcia had just ordered takeout, maybe he was in for the night. Logan did not feel like sitting in a cold SUV all evening.

He checked his watch. Nine o’clock. The last ferry would leave in an hour. He’d watch the room until then. Once the ten o’clock boat had left the dock, Garcia couldn’t leave Widow’s Island until the seven a.m. ferry.

He moved his SUV to a shadowed space facing the unit. A few minutes later, a hotel employee carrying a tray approached the room and knocked on the door. Logan lowered the vehicle window to listen.

The door swung open, and a man in jeans and a too-tight long-sleeved T-shirt stepped into the light cast by the porch lamp. “My food better be hot.” His New York City accent was slurred. His lip was swollen and scabbed in the middle. He signed for his food and closed the door.

Had Garcia received his fat lip in the scuffle with Tessa?

Anger surged in Logan’s chest. Though a fat lip was not hard evidence that the New Yorker had been the man who’d attacked Tessa, Logan didn’t like the coincidence. But Logan had limited authority outside of the park.

What to do?

He didn’t have to debate the issue for long. Fifteen minutes later, the door opened again, and Garcia stepped outside, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He hurried toward a path that led to the parking lot closest to the main road. If Logan had been preparing to make a hasty, quiet exit, that’s where he would have parked.

Logan climbed out of his SUV. He couldn’t let the man leave the island. He crossed the asphalt and stepped onto the path, intercepting Garcia.

“Nick Garcia?” Logan stared at his fat lip. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Garcia sized Logan up, his gaze settling on Logan’s park services patch. “Who the fuck are you, head of the Boy Scouts?”

“Logan Wilde, state forest ranger.”

“You’re not a cop.”

“No,” Logan admitted.

“Then it looks like you’re lost. This ain’t the park.” Garcia moved to step around Logan.

Logan blocked his movement. “Where were you this morning?”

“None of your business.” Garcia sneered.

“I’m working with the local sheriff’s department on the investigation of Frank Martin’s murder. Did you know Frank?”

Moving with an agility Logan did not expect, Garcia ducked around him and sprinted for the lot. Logan went after him. The road sat on higher ground than the hotel. The parking lots were terraced and separated by strips of grass and trees. Each tier was higher than the previous one, with the final parking area level with the road.

Garcia raced across the blacktop and bolted up the embankment to the next lot. In city shoes, he slipped halfway up the slope, going down on his knees in the wet grass. He scrambled to his feet.

Logan’s hiking boots gave him better purchase on the slick ground. Plus, Garcia looked like he favored TV and burgers, while Logan ran on the park’s trails every morning and was still army ranger fit.

He caught up before Garcia had run twenty feet. He reached forward and snagged Garcia’s leather jacket at the shoulder, then yanked backward. Garcia’s feet kept going, and he went down hard, flat on his back with his head lower than his feet. The air whooshed out of him with an audible grunt. He lay on the sloped ground, gaping like a fish out of water, the wind clearly knocked out of him.

He sucked air for a few seconds, then wheezed, “I’m gonna sue.”

“Go for it.” Logan grabbed him by the bicep and hauled him to his feet. “But first, we’re going to have a talk with the sheriff’s deputy, the one you assaulted this morning when you broke into a crime scene.”

“You can’t prove anything.”

Logan leaned close. “Then why did you run?”

Garcia tried to jerk his arm from Logan’s grip. “Get your hands off me.”

“Yeah. That is not happening.” Logan frog-marched him toward his room. “Behave yourself, or I’ll knock you on your ass again.”

“Where are you taking me?” Garcia shivered. His jeans were wet from his slide in the grass, and his jacket wasn’t zipped.

“Back to your room to wait for the deputy. Unless you want to wait out here.” Logan shrugged. “That would be fine with me. I’m dressed for the weather.”

“You can’t arrest me,” Garcia whined. “You’re not a cop.”

“Which is why I’m calling one now.” Technically, Logan had law enforcement power. Unfortunately, once he left the park, that authority became a little murky. But he wasn’t letting a potential murder suspect get away.

Logan pulled out his phone one-handed and called Tessa. As much as he hated to bother her, he didn’t have a choice. He pressed the speed dial number he’d assigned to her that morning.

The phone rang several times before she answered in a groggy voice, “Logan? What is it?”

Shit. She’d been asleep.

“I’m sorry for waking you. I’m holding a Mr. Nick Garcia in the parking lot of the Harbor View Inn. He has a New York accent and a big fat lip. Do you want to talk to him, or do you want me to contact whoever is on call tonight?”

Fabric rustled on the other end of the line. “I want to talk to him. I’ll be right there.”

Tessa hung up. Logan and Garcia had reached Garcia’s room.

“Do you want to wait outside or in?” Logan couldn’t force his way inside without a warrant, and he didn’t want to compromise any evidence that could be in the room.

“Might as well go inside.” Garcia trudged over the threshold. “There’s nothing incriminating here.” He spoke with the certainty of a man who had experience eliminating evidence.

Logan followed him into the unit. Garcia perched on the edge of the bed, glaring at Logan in defiance.

Was Garcia a thug or a killer?

Logan turned the desk chair around to face the bed.

“I didn’t kill him,” Garcia blurted out. “You can’t frame me.”

“But you know that he’s dead.”

“Well, yeah. Everyone in town was talking about it.”

“Then why did you break into his place?”

Garcia’s temper got the best of him. A vein on the side of his neck pulsed, and his face reddened. “He ripped off my mother, that’s why. I just want to get back what he owed her.” Garcia’s jaw tightened with indignation. “He charmed her into letting him stay in her extra bedroom, then he stole her ATM and credit cards. That little shitbag cleaned out her bank accounts.”

Garcia huffed. “I got here the other day and did a little surveillance. When I learned he was using a fake name, I figured he didn’t have a bank account. He’d have the cash stashed somewhere.”

“How much did he steal?”

“Twenty thousand bucks.” Garcia jabbed a finger at Logan. “I know it’s not a fortune, but it was all she had. It’s the principle of the matter. He stole from my ma. I’m disappointed that he’s dead ’cause I wanted to punch him in the face.”

“So you didn’t kill him.”

“No,” Garcia said. “I just wanted what’s owed to her. Not a penny more.”