Page 75 of Trick of Light
“Amelia bought the house from the Garners. Heather remembered that they stayed in her guesthouse until Keith finished high school. Maybe there’s something in the guesthouse that will shed some light.”
“Another journal, like that old one you found?”
“You never know. We should go back out to Sea Smoke and poke around. It’s not the crime scene, so the police shouldn’t mind.”
He nodded as he clicked the fob to unlock the Land Rover. “I can try to talk to my father too. Maybe I’ll catch him in a lucid but confessional mood. If he helped in the coverup, he must know some of what happened. Or he could have already lost those particular brain cells.”
“It’s a plan.” She gave a weary smile. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’ll be happy to get back to Sea Smoke. That Angus…” She shivered. “Gave me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Same.” He gave her a cautious glance, pausing before they got into the Land Rover. “I know it’s not exactly the same, but that’s the first time I’ve ever been treated as ‘less than’ because of my genetic background.”
“Yeah? How’d that feel?”
“It didn’t feel good. I’m still processing. I’m sorry if I tried to ride to your rescue there. Is that what bothered you?”
“You know something? It did at first, because I can handle that kind of thing on my own. But then I saw just how nasty he was, and how he was treating you almost as bad as me, and then I didn’t care so much anymore. When it comes to that kind of person, I’ll take all the support and good energy I can get.”
He smiled, relieved that he hadn’t inadvertently, and with the best of intentions, screwed things up. “You got it. Whenever and wherever you want it.”
“Oh baby, I like the sound of that” she teased, just as her phone rang. “It’s Heather.”
They both slid onto the Land Rover’s leather seats as Gabby answered her phone. Immediately her glance swiveled to Barnaby. “They let Tamara out of jail,” she told him. “Heather went to check on her and she was already gone.”
“Is she back home?”
“Probably, but that’s not even the weird part. They insisted she post some enormous amount of money as bail. She said she could get it, but it would take a little time. They let her go home in the meantime. I guess that means she’s out on probationary bail? If she can’t get the funds, she’ll go back to jail.”
“I’ll get it for her,” he said instantly. “I’ll call right away.”
“No, they said it couldn’t be Carmichael money because of all the pending charges. So strange. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”
He didn’t have a lot of familiarity with bail, but it sounded sketchy to him.
“Hell no. Who said that?”
Gabby put her phone on speaker and repeated the question.
“Tamara said Detective Hooper told her that,” said Heather.
Barnaby frowned, since he much preferred the other detective, the smart and sardonic Detective Chen. “What about Chen? Where’s she?”
“Apparently she hasn’t been around. She came down with some bug and hasn’t left the inn since you guys went into town.”
“And Luke? Is he onboard with that?”
“Honestly, they’ve been keeping Luke completely out of the loop. How quickly can you get back here? I don’t know what’s going on and I’m worried.”
32
As the water taxi zipped across the whitecaps filling Lightkeeper Bay on a day of sun and wind, Gabby was glad for the anchoring arm Barnaby kept around her. She probably wouldn’t have been thrown off the boat by the swells, but it felt that way.
“I hate to suggest it, but I think we should split up when we get to Sea Smoke,” he murmured in her ear.
“You check on Tamara, I’ll talk to Chen?”
“Exactly.”
“I was going to say the same thing. But why do you hate to suggest it?”
