Page 87 of Crosshairs

“Do you have the diary?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

She gaped at him. Surely he hadn’t just asked that question. One look at his face, and Ainsley knew he had. So much for the concern. “Someone’s just shot at me, and you’re worried about a diary?”

“No. You totally misunderstood ... I just wondered if that’s what the shooter was after. That’s all.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said through clenched jaws. “Did you hire someone to shoot at me? Is that diary that important to you?”

He jerked his head back like she’d slapped him. “Are you accusing me of...” He stared at her, his mouth trying to form words that didn’t come out.

“Cora found two diaries and one is missing. Did you go to her house the night she fell? Maybe pushed her out of the way so you could take it?”

“Ainsley Beaumont! What in the world do you mean?” Gran said, kneeling beside her.

She had not heard her grandmother come up.

“She’s not herself.” Gran placed her hand on Ainsley’s forehead. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

Ainsley rose up. “Gran, I don’t have a fever, and I know exactly what I said.”

Her father stood, towering over her. “I can’t believe what you’ve just accused me of doing.”

The hurt in his face took her aback. He turned and marched away. Ainsley used her hands to push herself to her feet. A wave of dizziness hit her. Maybe she shouldn’t have stood. She stumbled to a nearby chair and collapsed in it.

“That probably wasn’t your best move,” Gran said, sitting beside her as she held the ice to Ainsley’s head again.

“Me getting up or the thing with Dad?”

Her grandmother was slow with her answer. “Both.”

“I just call it as I see it.”

“Maybe you’re not seeing clearly.”

Wasn’t she? The thought that her dad might have hired someone to shoot her turned her stomach. But why else had he been so insistent that she come? Were the diaries that important?

What if it wasn’t the diaries but was something else altogether? Like the trust fund she would receive when she turned thirty-five? Her mouth dried.

She caught her grandmother’s hand. “Who’s the beneficiary of the trust if I die before I’m thirty-five?” she asked.

Color drained from her grandmother’s face. “Your father. But I can’t believe you think ... he would never harm you.”

Maybe not, but Ainsley couldn’t stop the tiny seed of doubtfrom exploding. “Did he know I was going to question Connie Hanover?”

“Of course not.” Gran frowned. “I might have told him when he called yesterday afternoon. He asked how your investigation was coming ... but that doesn’t mean a thing.”

Unfortunately, Ainsley had seen the worst in people, the greed that sometimes caused family members to ...

She blocked the thought before Gran could see it in her face.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.” Gran’s broken voice cut Ainsley to the quick, and she raised her gaze. Her grandmother’s pale-blue eyes were shiny with tears, and she looked every one of her eighty-five years.

“You’re right,” she said. “Dad would never do anything like that.”

Gran sagged against the chair and squeezed her hand. “That’s my Ainsley.”

She wished she believed her own words, but there was the trust to consider, and his suggestion that someone shot her to get the diaries didn’t make sense. How would getting her out of the way aid the person? Unless ... itwasher dad—Ainsley was the only person who stood in the way of him getting his hands on them.

No. Reason worked its way into her brain. She’d seen too many evil, sick people in her job. Her dad wasn’t one of them. Genuine hurt had been in his face. She and her dad might not get along, but he wouldn’t physically harm her. There had to be another explanation—it made much more sense that Troy Maddox was the one who shot at her.

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