His Brother's Bride

“Maybe. Doesn’t make sense that he’d stay here without first getting his stuff from Twin Oaks, though.”

“Especially since his computer was there.”

She’d never noticed how stern Scott looked when he was focused on an idea. For that matter, she’d never noticed such intense concentration in him before. He’d always seemed more interested in getting her and Paul to lighten up.

But he was the smartest man she’d ever met. Scott had a photographic memory, and all through high school he’d never studied for a test, yet graduated with a perfect grade point.

Since they were alone, Laurel pulled out her tape recorder and chronicled a few of her observations—more for descriptive purposes than for solving the case.

“Makes you wonder if someone was really after Cecilia Hamilton,” Scott said, taking up the conversation as if they’d been talking right along. He was checking windowsills and bushes.

“And William just got caught in the middle of things.” She hated to even say the words. William Byrd was not in that kind of trouble. He was not going to be the innocent victim in someone else’s game.

“I’m going to check around some more,” Scott said.

Laurel followed him, partly because she, too, wanted more of a look around. Two sets of eyes were better than one, and they might find some fresh footprints or a matchbox or key ring someone dropped.

She also followed because at the moment, being with Scott made her feel better than standing out in front of the house without him.

* * *

MS. HAMILTON’S GARAGE was empty.

Laurel’s instincts were telling her that they were on to something serious.

“Do you think someone could have been after William and took Ms. Hamilton, too?” she asked.

“Of course it’s a possibility. And maybe someone was after both of them—or neither of them, and they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“One thing’s for sure,” she said, following Scott back out to his car. “It doesn’t make sense that they’re just happily off someplace together, or Byrd would have checked out of Twin Oaks.”

“Or at least called.”

“So whatever happened to Mr. Byrd, it’s serious enough to have prevented him from getting back to the bed-and-breakfast.”

“For several days.”

Laurel buckled herself into the front seat next to Scott. It was beginning to feel like her seat. Like she belonged.

And as much as she liked that, she didn’t like it at all.

It wasn’t fair to Scott, this dependency she was developing on him. She was transferring her grief for Paul into a need to be close to his younger brother. And it wasn’t healthy for her to be feeling such peace inside when she was with Scott.

Scott pulled into the drivew

ay next door to Cecilia Hamilton’s. “I’m going up to ask a few questions,” he said, giving her a sideways glance. He hadn’t looked her straight in the eye all morning. “You want to wait here?”

“Not unless you need me to.”

“No.” He didn’t hesitate. “You’re welcome to come along.”

Laurel was out of the Blazer before he was.

As it turned out, they questioned several of the neighbors and found out very little.

Though they’d all met Cecilia at an open house they’d held to welcome her to the neighborhood, no one had seen her much since then. They’d had a get-together barbecue and swim on Saturday on the terrace of one of the mammoth homes, but Cecilia never arrived.

She drove a white Crown Victoria, and no one had even seen that since Saturday morning.