Page 68 of The Woman By the Lake

“Though, you could charge someone if they’re still around, and this guy didn’t do the crime,” Rus piped up.

Now Harry was interested, and Riggs knew when he demanded of Rus, “Talk me through that.”

“Wasn’t here, but say this guy didn’t actually do it. Why would a man confess to a crime he didn’t commit, and set a fire that would destroy all evidence?”

“Taking the fall for someone else,” Harry answered.

“Someone he loves a whole fucking lot,” Rus replied. “This guy have kids?”

“He did. If I remember right, they were in Seattle,” Harry told him.

“How old were they?” Rus asked.

“No clue. I wasn’t in the department when that happened,” Harry shared.

“The old sheriff do due diligence?” Rus pushed.

“Again, I wasn’t on the force then, but I could guess, and my guess would be a good one that would be a big fat no,” Harry answered.

“So maybe it was someone else,” Cade put in. “Someone else who’s still around.”

“Shit,” Harry muttered.

“So maybe we pull the case file?” Rus suggested. “Just to have a look for curiosity’s sake.”

Harry nodded.

“Why are you opening this can of worms, Doc?” Cade asked Riggs.

Riggs looked to him.

“There’s this shit, and there’s also the mess of both Whitaker brothers’ estates,” Riggs said. “There’s also Lincoln doing seven years’ time, only to get out and then kill himself. Why would he wait to do that? Why would he do it at all? Why are the estates such a mess? And we all know there’s no such thing as ghosts, but not everyone who’s ever tried to stay on that land got creeped into believing a ghost story. Shit’s been going down. Real shit. The kind that runs people off. This tells me, fifteen years, someone has worked hard to keep people away from that cabin, my house, and the whole lake.”

“You have any incidents occur while you’ve been there?” Rus asked.

Riggs turned to him. “One, no. Two, I’m known as a man you don’t mess with. Three, I’m known as a man who doesn’t believe that ghost story shit. And four, I’m out of that house more than I’m in it.”

“So, someone could need the place clear because they’re looking for something they haven’t been able to find, or they know something is there they don’t want someone to find,” Harry deduced. “Someone who might have killed two people and got away with it.”

“That was what I thought,” Riggs said.

“You remember any of this?” Harry asked Cade as Riggs felt his phone vibrate against his ass with a call.

He pulled it out as Cade answered, “Heard about it, but I didn’t live here then.”

“You got time to go over that file with me and Rus?” Harry asked Cade as Riggs checked his phone and saw it was Nadia.

Immediately, and without a word, he got up, walked across the room and took the call.

“Hey. What’s up?” he asked.

His stomach dropped when he heard the panic in her voice as she said, “I’m in my car at your house, but you’re not here.”

“Why are you at my house?” he asked, and he felt the room go wired at the vein of urgency that snaked through his words.

“Because I went into town to experience that Aromacobana place, got back, and someone had broken into the cabin.”

He put his hand over the phone and announced, “Someone has broken into Nadia’s place.”

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