His Brother's Bride

“I can and I will.” Quigg laced his fingers together and leaned forward, looking up from under those bushy brows. His voice was deadly earnest. “We have been after McDormand for years—even before we knew who he was. Before we knew he existed. You’ve seen our only picture. The man is like a ghost. And now he’s slipped up, and you two are the best chance we’ve ever had of getting to the guy. If you think I will jeopardize that chance, then you are very much mistaken.”

CHAPTER TWO

MASSACHUSETTS STATE TROOPER Scott Hunter was just toasting a bagel for breakfast when the phone rang. He’d worked late the night before with all the heavy weekend traffic and was having a slow start this morning.

“Scott Hunter.” He answered the ring, a cup of coffee poised at his lips. If he got through this day, then he could quit pushing for a while. His two-week vacation, the first full vacation he’d taken in three and a half years, started tomorrow.

The adrenaline that had been absent that morning surged when Scott recognized his captain’s voice on the line.

There was a report of a missing person at the new bed-and-breakfast that had opened in Cooper’s Corner a couple of days before. Although the police didn’t under ordinary circumstances get involved with missing adults since they usually had gone of their own free will, Maureen Cooper, the B and B’s co-owner, had requested the favor of a visit from Scott.

Grabbing his bagel, Scott buckled on his holster over his work blues and was out the door.

* * *

THOUGH HE’D LIVED in Cooper’s Corner most of his life, Scott had not yet been inside Twin Oaks Bed & Breakfast. He’d driven by it many times when it was still a private residence owned by bachelor Warren Cooper, and later, while the remodeling was going on.

The Cooper family history was legend around these parts, and Warren had added his own chapter.

Though he’d never married, Warren had a shocking secret in his past. A brief affair with the woman he had loved his entire life had resulted in the birth of twin girls, but Warren and his lover, Helen Webb, could never acknowledge he was the babies’ father. They had turned to each other when news came that Helen’s husband had been killed in the war—news that had later proved to be a mistake.

Helen bore Warren’s children as her husband’s. One of the babies had died as an infant in her crib, and the other grew up to have three children of her own before she died, too, never knowing that Warren was her father.

Only on his deathbed, a few months after Helen’s death, did Warren confess his secret. All three of his grandchildren were notified, and they’d all come to visit in Cooper’s Corner that past year.

Yes, Scott knew the history of Twin Oaks, he thought as he drove up the tree-lined drive. Warren had left the family homestead to his brother’s children, Clint and Maureen, and Scott was only sorry his first visit had to do with work.

The minute he stepped inside the front door, Maureen and Clint both started talking about William Byrd, describing a sophisticated older gentleman who had seemed to be enjoying his stay.

“Byrd didn’t show up for breakfast this morning,” Clint was saying.

“Which was a bit odd,” Maureen explained, “since he enjoyed Clint’s walnut griddle cakes so much yesterday and mentioned that he was looking forward to having them again.”

“But it wasn’t until he didn’t show up for checkout time that we knew he was missing,” her brother continued.

“Have you checked Byrd’s room?” Scott asked, frowning.

“Only to make certain that he wasn’t there,” Maureen said, her lips pinched. “The lock was stuck so we had to use a crowbar to pull the door away from the jamb.”

Scott stiffened. “It had been tampered with?”

“No.” The pair shook their heads as Maureen explained. “It’s been sticking. We just didn’t know it had gotten that bad. It was scheduled for maintenance tomorrow.”

“What about a car? I’m assuming he drove himself here.”

Clint nodded. “A rental,” he said. “Black BMW. It’s not here.”

Could mean that the man left of his own free will and met up with trouble somewhere else. Somewhere completely unrelated to Twin Oaks. Or maybe he wasn’t in trouble at all.

He could also just have partied a little too hard the night before and hadn’t made it home yet. Though that didn’t sound like the fastidious older man the Coopers had described.

“When was the last time Byrd was seen?”

“Breakfast yesterday morning,” Maureen and Clint said in unison.

Brother and sister stood together in the gathering room at Twin Oaks, forming a solid wall against whatever came their way. A pain, sharp and unsuspecting, knifed through Scott as he witnessed their solidarity, followed by a longing he couldn’t deny.

And a guilt that ate insidiously at his insides. A guilt he couldn’t escape.