Page 88 of Smokescreen

Olive grabbed a box of tissues from Reid’s desk and handed them to Hannah.

She blew her nose, then wiped her eyes. Then she started the process again.

The woman was basically a blubbering mess. Olive honestly felt a little bad for her.

“After I worked at Yellowstone and before I came here, I took a job with a ranch in Montana,” she started. “The owner there accused me of stealing some of his wife’s jewelry.”

“Did you?” Reid asked.

“No! I would never.” Hannah shook her head. “But his wife never liked me, and I knew she wanted to get rid of me and hire someone older and more matronly, for lack of a better term.”

In other words, the wife had been jealous of Hannah or afraid her husband might be attracted to her.

“Go on,” Reid said.

“The owner was between a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes,” Hannah said. “I think he knew his wife was lying, but he couldn’t tell her that. So in order to keep the peace, he fired me.”

“I guess that didn’t make it on your résumé?” Olive asked dryly.

“Of course not.” Hannah squeezed the skin between her eyes. “There’s a three-month gap in my employment record, and I told any potential employers that I’d been looking for another job during that time. No one thought anything of it.”

“Keep going,” Reid said.

Hannah sniffled. “Then I got a text message, and it became clear that someonedidknow about it. They threatened to tell you I was a thief unless I did exactly what they said.”

Blackmail 101, Olive mused.

“And what exactly did they say?” Reid readjusted the position of his crossed arms.

Hannah drew in a shaky breath. “The sender told me to hang one of the dolls in Olive’s room and to lock her in the attic.”

That meant the sender knew about the dolls in the attic. The sender also knew when Olive had gone into the attic.

If what Hannah was saying was true, that meant the sender was close—that he probably even worked here on the ranch. That narrowed things down quite a bit.

“So why were you in the office just now?” Olive asked.

“They wanted me to leave this.” Hannah held up an envelope.

Reid bristled. “What’s inside that envelope?”

Hannah pulled out the paper and showed it to them, reading the words there:

Olive isn’t who you think she is. She’s nothing but trouble.

Whoever sent that message didn’t know Reid was already aware of Olive’s true identity. She counted that as a plus. This person wouldn’t be able to hold that fact over Reid’s head, and it still left Olive with the upper hand.

“Do you have any idea who’s responsible for these threats?” Olive asked.

“I have no idea.” Hannah turned to Reid. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to do any of this. You’ve got to believe me. I love my job here. Are you going to fire me?”

“I need to think this through,” Reid told Hannah. “For now, take the rest of the day off.”

She nodded, more moisture flowing down her face. She pressed another tissue over her eyes.

“You’re dismissed,” he finished.

Hannah stood and fled from the room.

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