His Brother's Bride
Clint shook his head. “Never heard of her.”
“She’s not from around here,” Scott said. He’d lived in Cooper’s Corner most of his life and was only a year younger than Ms. Renwick. If she lived around here, he’d know her. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know any Renwicks in the area.”
“I don’t, either,” Clint said. “Not now and not from back when I lived here as a kid, either.”
“You were, what, nine, when your family moved to New York?” Scott asked. He didn’t know much about Clint, except that he was a former architect-turned-innkeeper, a widower with a twelve-year-old son.
Clint nodded, turning slowly and studying the room. “I wonder if the name means anything to Maureen.”
“Good question.” Scott took another look around as well. “We’ll ask her as soon as we get downstairs.”
“You looked in the duffel?” Clint asked.
“Yeah, nothing there but a change of clothes and the usual toiletries.”
Clint shook his head. “Wouldn’t you think he’d have taken them if he was planning to be gone overnight?”
Avoiding the other man’s eyes, Scott said, “Just because he didn’t plan to be gone doesn’t mean that it wasn’t his choice not to return.”
He made a couple more notes on his pad and then slid it into the front pocket of his blue uniform shirt. “We can head back down for now,” he told Clint. “Mind if I keep the key to this room?”
It had opened without the use of a crowbar this time.
“Of course not.” Clint hesitated at the door. “Tell me, Officer, how much of a chance do you think there is that Nevil’s behind this somehow?”
“Ten, maybe twenty percent.”
Scott tried to ignore the pang of compassion he felt as the other man’s gaze reflected his worry.
Scott had a job to do. That’s all that mattered. Ever.
Maureen met them at the bottom of the stairs, her jade-green eyes filled with questions—and frustration. She was probably chafing to get in on the investigation herself, Scott realized.
Like Clint, she had never heard of a Leslie Renwick, either.
“Laurel’s waiting for you in the gathering room,” she told Scott as Clint excused himself to check on the kids in the kitchen. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll head back to my office and see if I can reach the other two families that were here, though I doubt they’ve had time to get home yet.”
Scott nodded, forcing himself not to think back to the Laurel who had once been part of his life.
Shoulders straight, he headed purposefully off to the gathering room to complete the interrogation. He was eager to get to his phone and call in some favors. Put an unofficial trace on Byrd’s missing rental car and on Owen Nevil. He also wanted to go back upstairs and see what he could do with that computer.
He was hoping it would yield some clues.
* * *
SHE WAS STARING OUT the window. Scott stood in the opening to the gigantic living room at Twin Oaks and sucked in air.
Heart pounding, he couldn’t move. Just stared.
She had her back to him, but that didn’t matter. He knew her silhouette front, back and sideways. Recognized the way she held her shoulders completely straight, her neck stiff. That meant she was trying to figure something out—or to remember something.
But even if he hadn’t paid undue attention to things that weren’t his business, he’d still have known it was her. No one else had that yellow hair, though it was shoulder length now.
She was dressed casually in navy capris, a white blouse and white leather sandals. The outfit might have appeared ordinary on someone else, but on Laurel it was pure elegance.
Laurel. Here. Close again.
CHAPTER THREE