His Brother's Bride

But he could push it away. He’d become quite adept at pushing it away. After all, he’d had three and a half years of practice. And a job that was all consuming when he let it be.

A job he was going to do. Now.

“Who else is here?” he asked, his full concentration back on the case.

All but one of the guests had checked out, and Clint’s son, Keegan, was watching Maureen’s children in the kitchen.

“Laurel, our fourth guest, decided to stay on for a couple more days,” Maureen confided. “She’s upstairs, I believe.”

Scott looked down at the notepad he’d pulled from his pocket and jotted aimlessly.

Laurel. A name he hadn’t heard in a long time. And one with which he tortured himself far too often.

For a fleeting second he wondered what “his” Laurel was doing at that moment. Working on some big news story, no doubt. Last he’d heard she’d become a hotshot reporter in New York.

And he was a hotshot detective with the Massachusetts state police. He looked up from the pad, away from the name he’d scrawled.

“Did anyone notice anything suspicious about Byrd at breakfast yesterday?” he asked.

“To the contrary.” Clint shook his head. “He was in a good mood and enjoyed talking to the other guests. In fact,” he added, “we’d been feeling very hopeful since he seemed so pleased with everything. A good review from him would pretty much guarantee our success.”

Having the travel writer mysteriously disappear from Twin Oaks on their opening weekend was going to do exactly the opposite, Scott reckoned.

Determined to get to the bottom of the man’s disappearance as quickly as possible, he asked, “Do either of you have any reason to suspect that someone might be out to sabotage your efforts here?”

Clint and Maureen exchanged a long glance, then Clint shrugged. Maureen turned to Scott.

“Clint doesn’t think so.” She glanced at her brother apologetically. “It’s just...”

“Just?”

She sighed. “Until almost a year ago, I was a detective with the New York Police Department.”

Scott whistled. The Cooper’s Corner grapevine had missed that one. But then—considering Warren’s amazing story—secrets weren’t uncommon with the Cooper clan.

“You retired awfully young,” Scott said.

Maureen shrugged, her long brown hair falling around her shoulders. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t quite the way I’d envisioned,” she said, her New York accent more evident now. After being assured what she was telling him would go no further, she told him about Carl Nevil, the murderer she’d put away well over a year ago. “He swore he’d get his revenge,” she said, her voice steady, though Scott saw her barely perceptible shiver.

“That’s not all that uncommon,” Scott said. “Empty threats made in the heat of the moment.”

Maureen shook her head. “Carl’s brother, Owen, was in prison at the time of Carl’s conviction, doing time for conspiracy to commit murder. He’s been up on drug charges, too, but is out on parole now. A week after Owen was released, the man I’d talked into turning state’s evidence for Carl’s case was killed by a hit-and-run driver outside his own apartment.

“That’s when I determined that I had to get out of New York for good,” Maureen explained. “If it were just me, I’d have stayed and gotten the bastard, but I had the twins to think about. I couldn’t take a chance on leaving them motherless, or worse, on Owen Nevil using them to get at me.”

“The twins are what, three?” Scott asked, still writing in his book. He had a razor-sharp mind and rarely referred to the notes he took while working on a case. But he took them, anyway, for form’s sake.

“Just.”

He nodded.

“My records at the department have been sealed and I’m using my maiden name—on the force I was known by my married name, Maguire.”

Scott’s brows rose. “You’re still married?”

“Divorced.”

“How long?”