The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance (Trisha Telep) (Kitty Norville 0.50)

“Then maybe someone tampered with the original.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

He shrugged. “People do all kinds of strange things.”

“But if the picture had been altered, wouldn’t the tampering be fairly easy to spot?”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “Some of the new Photoshop programs can do incredible things. If you’d like, I could have a look at it.”

“Does that mean you’ll take the case?” She extended her right hand across the table.

“I guess it does.” He took her hand in his to seal the deal. A mistake of mammoth proportions. Touching her - even in an impersonal handshake - served as a painful reminder of their past history.

“Thank you.” Noelani smiled.

Common politeness dictated that he should smile back, but all he could think of were those 365 letters he’d written her, one a day for a whole year. She’d never answered a single one. Noelani Crawford was a cold-hearted bitch. He’d accepted that hard truth long ago. Only she didn’t feel like a cold-hearted bitch. Didn’t look like one, either. And that hurt even more.

“Jeez, look at this.”

Noelani glanced across the crowded attic towards Dillon, who was holding up a pair of faded swimming trunks that must have belonged to her father back in grade school.

“I swear your grandmother saved everything.”

Noelani shifted her gaze to the box of old magazines she’d been sorting through and heaved a sigh. “No kidding.”

After an early flight to Hilo, she and Dillon had rented a Jeep for the drive north to her grandmother’s macadamia nut plantation near Honoka’a. There, Lily Yamaguchi had been waiting for them. “About time you showed up, missy!” Lily had scolded before turning to Dillon. “Who’s this?” she’d asked, sounding deceptively innocent, even though she must have been the one who’d set Noelani up by leaving Dillon’s business card on the desk in Grandmother’s office where Noelani was bound to see it.

“Marshal, of course,” Noelani’d nearly blurted, though she’d managed to stop herself in time. Lily’d met her glare with a bewildered look, as if she hadn’t a clue what Noelani’s problem was.

Lily meant well, but Noelani didn’t need her assistance in the romance department. She had a perfectly good almost-fiancé waiting for her in London. OK, admittedly, almost-fiancé was a bit premature since she and banker John Stoddard had only gone out once, a dead boring evening spent trying to make sense of an artsy French film about sex, blood and sunflowers. Still, better a boring banker than a heartless private investigator, even if said private investigator still looked like a cross between a cowboy and a surfer with broad shoulders, wavy dark hair and eyes the exact same shade of blue as the water in Kahaluu Bay.

OK, moron, she lectured herself. Focus on the goal. Only that was the problem. She upended the box, staring in despair at battered copies of National Geographic and Scientific American. She and Dillon had been at this for hours and were no closer now to solving the mystery of her grandmother’s apparent suicide than they had been when they’d first started their search.

They’d begun with the office, which had taken all morning, though the rest of the house had gone more quickly. They were nearly done now, just this stuffed-to-the-rafters attic left to sift through. Although at the rate they were going, they’d be at it for a week.

Noelani carefully flipped through each magazine before stuffing it back in the box. With a heartfelt sigh, she repacked the last one, shoved the box aside, and reached for the next carton in the stack.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered as she got a good look at the contents.

“Find something?” Dillon abandoned the battered chest of drawers he’d been riffling through and threaded his way towards her through haphazard stacks of boxes, crates and old furniture. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” She tried ineffectually to replace the lid with hands that suddenly seemed to be all thumbs.

“Must be something, and something pretty shocking, too. You’ve gone as white as a ghost. Here. Let me.” He took the box from her, tossed the lid aside, and pulled out an envelope, one of hundreds. He stared at it for a few seconds in silence. “What the hell?” He shot her a look that was two parts anger to one part hurt feelings. “You’re a better actress than I gave you credit for, Noelani. I thought you didn’t recognize me, but you’ve known who I was all along, haven’t you?”

“You deliberately brought me here on a trumped-up pretext.”

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. It was Lily. She knew I wanted to hire a private investigator to look into the circumstances of Grandmother’s death. She deliberately left your card where—”

“The part I don’t get is why you kept my letters all these years when you didn’t even bother to open them.”

“You wrote to me,” she said, still not quite believing it.

His eyebrows slammed together. “Damned right I wrote to you. Every damn day for a whole damn year.”

“I never got your letters,” she said. “Grandmother must have ...” She caught her breath on a sob as she realized the enormity of her grandmother’s deception. But why? Why would she have done such a thing? Unless . . . “The kiss,” she whispered. “She must have seen us that day at your uncle’s stables.”

He dropped the letter, grabbed her upper arms and dragged her upright. “What are you saying?”