Page 55 of Unforgotten

His heart swelled. At long last, he and Bethanne were sitting together. Just enjoying each other’s company. Talking about nothing of worth but making the kind of connection he’d dreamed about. “I hope I won’t hurt your feelings with my puzzle prowess.”

To his amusement, Bethanne didn’t look cowed by his ridiculous bragging. Instead, she lifted her chin. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

“Does this mean I can come over again soon?”

“You’re going to have to. I mean, mei mamm is going to want her game table back eventually.”

“Tomorrow night, then?” he murmured. “I don’t want to upset your mother.”

She smiled. “Is that the only reason?”

“You know I don’t want to spend my evenings doing anything else, Bethy.”

She stared at him, seemed to try his words on for size, and then nodded. “I’m glad.”

He was too. At long last, he was courting Bethanne. As he collected another orange piece, he allowed the feeling of satisfaction to seep in.

It felt good.

18

“Mulaney, any thoughts on those cards you pulled from Burke Lumber?” Chief Foster asked after the morning’s roll call.

Still standing in the station’s all-purpose room, Ryan shook his head as he gathered his notes and half-drunk cup of coffee. “Not really, sir. Most of the cards Peggy collected have little information. It all seems pretty run of the mill too. You know, the employees’ birthdays, addresses, spouses’ and kids’ names. It’s the kind of stuff that would usually be in an HR file. There’s only about ten that have more notations.”

His expression sharpened. “And what do those notes say? Do they have anything in common?”

As much as Ryan wanted to have something useful to report, he had to be honest. “I’m not sure. At first, I thought the cards with more notations were the longtime employees.” He shrugged. “You know, like maybe the more Peggy Conway knew about them, the more she wrote. But then I realized that two of the employees have only been working at Burke for less than a year.”

“What do those cards say?”

Ryan barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “They allsounded like personal problems Peggy had with folks. You know, like someone didn’t listen to her advice or looked at her—or her son—strangely.”

“Her son?”

Ryan rubbed the back of his neck. “I need to dig a little deeper into that, though I hate to waste time following a lead that has nothing to do with anything.” He shrugged again. “It could be that those notecards are nothing more than a personal assistant on a power trip with an ax to grind.” Thinking of some of the cases he’d worked on in the past, he added, “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

The chief nodded. “Good point. How private were these cards? Do you think Walker Burkholder knows about them?”

“I don’t know. My gut says no, but I could be wrong. Again, it could simply be Peggy’s way of recordkeeping. Maybe Mr. Burkholder likes to send birthday cards to employees or something.”

“Yeah, or he wants to have a way to remember someone’s wife or kids without digging into the personnel file.” Chief Foster nodded as if he liked the sound of that. “Sounds like it’s time for a private conversation with him, then, Mulaney.”

“Yes, sir. But if you don’t mind, I want to check one more thing. Peggy told us about the two cards that were missing, but I’m starting to wonder if more are missing and she didn’t want me to know.”

“What possible reason could she have for that?”

“There’s no telling. But it’s not like she has a good reason for using her time at work to write down gossip and snarky comments either.”

“Point taken.”

“Has the fire inspector told you anything more?”

“Yeah. It was set on purpose. They found the accelerant. A bottle of bourbon.”

“Whoa.”

“Right? Whoever set it could’ve chosen any number of things that would be hard to trace. This bottle of bourbon might be a good clue.”

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