Page 59 of Dark Side of the River

“No, I don’t think one dinner will do it. But it’s a start.”

Charlotte shook her head. “It’s never going to happen.”

“Because you won’t allow it? Because you can’t forgive Holden for breaking your heart?”

“You know nothing about it.”

“But I do know. Everyone in this county knows that he broke your heart when he married someone else. He did it because of this stupid feud that goes back years, not because he didn’t love you. All it did was add fuel to the flames.”

Her mother seemed at a loss for words. “You don’t know—”

“I do know that you have never forgiven him.”

Straightening to her full height, she met Tilly’s gaze with an angry one of her own. “You think it’s that simple?”

“No. Love never is. But how long do we have to keep doing this?”

“You can never marry a McKenna.”

Tilly didn’t know how to tell her mother that it hadn’t gone that far. That maybe Cooper had needed to see her today to tell her that they couldn’t see each other anymore, because like his father, he couldn’t marry a Stafford.

“Are you listening to me? I forbid it!”

She stared at her mother. Did she really think she could stop it? “I have to go. I’m meeting a friend for lunch.” It was true. She and Coop were at least friends—if not lovers. Yet.

ATTENTHIRTY,Cooper was already waiting for her. He saw right away that something had happened. She was too quiet, and she was chewing on that poor lower lip. She left her pickup, and they drove toward Baker and the famous burger place.

“I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone,” he said after they’d gone a few miles.

“You’re kind of scaring me, Coop.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to. It’s about Leann. I’m still trying to make sense of what I found.” He told her about the notes in the book. “I’m running a little scared myself. I need answers, but they could come at a cost.”

“Are you okay?”

He knew what she was asking. Were they okay, the two of them? He wished he knew. After his visit with the sheriff this morning, he felt more uneasy about Stu, about the past, about Tilly and this love triangle he’d apparently stepped into.

The problem seemed to be that Stu was the only one who didn’t know Tilly wasn’t in love with him and never had been. He hated what that might mean, what that told him about his old friend.

Stuart had never been in a relationship that lasted very long, Cooper now realized. He couldn’t fault him for that. He didn’t have much of a track record himself. But it did make him question what Tilly said her friend had told her. What Leann had said about Stu. Too possessive.

Cooper was so frustrated with Stu, with all of this. Maybe especially frustrated with the fact that the sheriff had been dragging his feet on everything, including busting the meth lab, finding Oakley’s shooter, asking the prosecutor to reopen Leann Hayes’s case.

He pushed thoughts of Stu away, needing to tell Tilly what he’d found and what that meant for his future. Their future? He told Tilly about Leann seeming to practice how to tell him that she was leaving town. “There was another man she was leaving with, someone she thought I wouldn’t approve of, I’m sure of it. Just as I’m sure she didn’t kill herself.”

*

TILLYFELTRELIEVEDthat he’d told her. She didn’t mention that Stuart had wanted her to talk him out of pushing to reopen the case. “Then who did kill her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe things went sour with the boyfriend, and he killed her. Or maybe there was someone else in the picture, an old lover. I just don’t know, but I showed the notes to Stu and asked him to get the prosecutor to reopen the case. He said he’s too busy right now with Oakley’s shooting. I’m not sure if he will or not. If not, I’ll go to the prosecutor.”

“The same one who still thinks you killed Leann?”

“I know it’s a gamble, but if I’m right, her killer is still out there.”

She listened as he told her about how the notes had been written on a CH4 notepad. “But as Stu pointed out, there were a lot of those notepads floating around.” She knew that the sheriff didn’t think CH4 had anything to do with Oakley’s shooting. Did he also think no member of the staff was the lover Leann was leaving town with?

It scared her that Cooper might be arrested again. But it also frightened her to think that someone had gotten away with murder and was still at large.

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