Page 157 of The Woman By the Lake

“Didn’t say that, but there’s something they’re not saying. It’s something big, and everyone is dead that was involved. I don’t think any of them know who did it. I do know, there’s no reason not to talk about anything regarding that family now, so there aren’t many reasons why you wouldn’t. But one of them is loyalty, and in this matter, loyalty could take the form of not saying shit people might think is whacked and hurting the only thing those three got left, specifically the two brothers, considering their celebrity. That being their reputations.”

“That makes sense,” Nadia said.

“Any way you can press that?” Riggs asked.

Harry shook his head but said, “Rus and I both left the assistant wishing we didn’t have to, in order to keep the cover of this being administrative bullshit. We’re trying to figure out another way to come at her. She knows something more than the others. I can feel it.”

“Like what someone might be looking for on my land?” Riggs pushed.

“Maybe, brother, I don’t know,” Harry replied. “She worked for Roosevelt for five years. Both Rus and I sensed she had feelings for him that went unreciprocated, but they’re still there. She invited us inside, and to start, she’s never been married, so the torch she holds might be lasting. She also has pictures of the two of them together, more than one, but not enough to make it skeevy. Still, my last boss was Dern, so obviously I don’t have photos of the two of us decorating my living room. But I don’t think that’s the norm.”

“I’d call my entire crew buds, and I don’t think they have pictures of me either,” Riggs said.

One side of Harry’s mouth went up before he noted, “One thing that might free our hand is that detective in Seattle. Now that he knows we’re sniffing around, he’s after the powers that be to reopen the case. He does that, it’d give us an opening, which is good. The downside is, I made him promise if he gets the all-clear, he tells me. Not only so we can rip the lid off, but if whoever did this thinks they didn’t get away with it, they may make some desperate moves. Especially if we’re right and they’re the ones who’ve been coming back to this land. They might go into overdrive to find whatever they’re looking for.”

Fantastic.

“You got my word, Doc, you’ll know so you can take measures, and I can too, to make sure you’re good,” Harry promised.

Riggs jerked up his chin.

Harry huffed out a sudden laugh and kept going.

“And, brother, you gotta know, you’ve made Rus’s year. Not like he isn’t settling into the quiet life, seeing as he’s got Cin and Maddy to go home to. But he’s all over this case. In his element. I think Cin has had to call Delphine three times in the last week to send his ass home, and the woman works late at the club. And can’t say Cade isn’t a dog with a bone either.”

“Saw the stack of papers he got through in four days,” Riggs noted.

Harry lifted his chin and the corners of his mouth. “They’re like kids with a thousand-piece puzzle. They’re not gonna get up from the table until the last piece of that fucker is set in place.”

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t be right there if you didn’t have shit like Pugh, Grimes and Bubbles to deal with,” Riggs scoffed.

“I’m not,” Harry returned. “Which means, I’m glad the Haunting of Weaver Cabin and the Mystery of the Missing Fancy Grape Juice is solved so I can get stuck in.”

All three of them laughed at that.

While they were doing it, they heard Ledger come in the back, shouting, “When’s dinner? I’m dying here!” He stopped when he came out of the back hall, then shouted, “Yo, Harry!”

The second mother and child reunion Riggs had witnessed earlier as pertains to Gia—this time with Ledger being the child—asserted itself right then, when she headed him off on his dash to Harry to the point, she nearly knocked Riggs’s son over.

She then took position in front of him, barked ferociously three times at Harry and settled into a scary-as-all-fuck growl aimed his way.

“I think she works,” Harry joked.

“Gia! Friend!” Nadia commanded in a voice she didn’t use at all when Hutch was working with them.

Gia immediately relaxed her stance, whined, then, her tail wagging her body, she went to Harry, sniffed the hand he bent on his stool to keep low for her before she licked it.

Harry petted her head.

Ledger dropped on his knees beside her, declared, “She’s so awesome,” and hugged her full around her middle.

This confused Gia because she couldn’t get Harry’s scratches and lick her boy’s face at the same time.

She didn’t take much time to decide.

She twisted her neck and slobbered all over her boy’s face.

THIRTY-TWO

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