Page 16 of Storm Warning

“No, I don’t suppose you usually do, but I’m glad you’re making an exception today.”

The door suddenly opened, and Hawk peered inside. “Am I interrupting?”

Remi waved him in. “Deputy Hunter, this is Hawk Beckett. He’s a guest staying in one of the cabins. He was there to help me during both incidents.” Saying it out loud made his appearances sound suspicious, or maybe it was just her take on things.

After she explained what happened in both scenarios, Hawk shared his perspective. Deputy Hunter took copious notes in addition to recording everything with her smartphone. Finally, she looked up at Hawk.

“And you believe the rope ladder was intentionally tampered with. Not worn out from exposure?”

“It looked relatively new and was marine rope, so it would last a while.” He glanced at Remi. “I didn’t have much time to think on it, but that was my first impression. Then there’s the matter of stability stakes being completely removed, as if destroying all evidence a rope ever existed. That seems deliberate enough to me.”

“And you believe the shredding, as you called it, happened recently.”

“It’s hard to say, but again, at first glance, yes, it looked recent.”

“Mr. Beckett, do you have any special skills that would give you the expertise to look at a marine rope and determine at first glance—a brief glance—that it had been recently tampered with?”

Hawk raked a hand over his jaw and sat back, appearing far more uncomfortable with the question than Remi would have expected. She took in his appearance, the scruff on his face, the angle of his jaw, and the sharp, steel-blue eyes. He wasn’t big like a lumberjack, but with the flannel shirt he wore and his broad shoulders, he had that look about him and didn’t much look like a helicopter pilot, at least in his current state.

She wanted to know more about him because he had been there to save her twice in one day. She wanted to know more about him ... just because. Despite her best effort to ignore his good looks and charm and heroism, he occupied her thoughts.

“I’m former military.”

That made sense.

“What branch?” Deputy Hunter asked.

“Army.”

Deputy Hunter nodded as if in approval as she made a note, and that was enough to make him an expert on the shredding of marine rope.

She then turned her attention to Remi. “I’ll share the information with our detective. He’ll decide if Mr. Beckett’s assessment is correct and someone tampered with the rope ladder.”

Remi wasn’t sure how she could question the assessment, especially since the stakes were removed. Then again, she hadn’t seen that for herself and had to take Hawk’s word for it, just as the deputy was.

Driven by fear and paranoia about the past, she could be getting ahead of herself, seeing suspicious action where none existed, and appreciated Deputy Hunter’s fresh look at it.

The deputy scanned her notes. “The tree on the road today, did anyone happen to look at the cause? I mean, was it natural or otherwise?”

“You’re asking if someone felled it so it would stop traffic,” Hawk said.

Deputy Hunter nodded.

Remi shared a look with Hawk. “I didn’t think to look. Taking a log out isn’t all that easy, so I can’t imagine why someone would do that intentionally—especially with the storm bearing down on us.”

“While I agree with you, that’s why you stopped and then you were attacked,” Deputy Hunter said. “Ms. Grant, is there any reason someone would want to harmyou, specifically?”

“No.” With the word and the look both Hawk and Deputy Hunter gave her, she realized that she had just lied. Except she hadn’t. She didn’t know the reason anyone would want to harm her. She could think of much easier ways to do it than trap her with a downed tree and attack her. As for the ladder on the beach, how could anyone have known she’d need to go up that ladder? Or need to go after Paco?

Hawk continued to look at her as if he could infiltrate her mind and learn the truth by sheer will alone. And with the guilt surging through her, the stares she got, Remi wanted to chew a hangnail when she didn’t chew nails.

Should she bring up the two puzzle pieces? The lost memories? She’d come here to hide, and she didn’t feel comfortable telling all her secrets to these two strangers. Without knowing who was behind the puzzle pieces, the demand to remember before it was too late, or the attacks, she couldn’t trust anyone. Not yet.

Not even heroic lumberjack helicopter pilot Hawk Beckett.

And the worst part of it—she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that she hadn’t, through no fault of her own, become involved in something terrible, something horrible, about which she would want no one to know, or at least strangers, untilsheknew. Her mind was blocking it for a reason. Nope. Not telling the deputy yet.

“And neither of you got a good look at this guy?” Deputy Hunter asked.

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