Page 47 of Dangerous Secret

Cooper stood. “I think you need a hug. Come here.” She didn’t hesitate, and Cooper wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you for trusting us.” He stepped back. “We’ll have it back to you in a few days, I promise.”

Only Cooper could walk into a stranger’s house and have her accepting a comfort hug within an hour. After a few more questions, and after promising to keep Madeline informed as to what they learned, they took their leave.

“I hate that she hopes her daughter is alive and that we’ll find her when it’s likely that Veronica’s dead,” Cooper said as they drove away.

“I don’t like it either.” He needed to get in that safe. Then hopefully, Madeline would get closure. Although he’d read the diary from beginning to end when he got home, while Cooper drove them back to Myrtle Beach, Grayson skimmed through it.

The first half seemed to be Veronica writing about normal days, nothing about Pressley. She wrote about some dates she had with various men, nothing unusual for a young, single woman. If she was intimate with any of them, she didn’t share that in her diary.

Around six months before she disappeared, things got interesting. “Listen to this. ‘I met a man tonight at Corksand Cocktails, and there was an instant connection. We clicked in a way that’s never happened with me before. A told me he wants to see me but that he’s in the middle of a nasty divorce. He said his wife’s a bitch and out to take everything he has so we have to keep our relationship a secret until the divorce is final.’”

“No doubt in my mind, A is for Anthony,” Cooper said.

“Has to be.” He skipped farther ahead. It burned that Pressley painted a false picture of Harlow. He read the page he’d stopped on. “Get this. Harlow and Veronica met.”

“That had to be awkward.”

“Not for Harlow. She didn’t know who Veronica was.” He read the page to Cooper. “‘I met A’s wife tonight at the Annual Christmas Ball. I saw her come in with A when they arrived, and she wasn’t at all what I expected. She was dressed like some kind of cult member with her old-fashioned clothes, her hair in a bun and no makeup. Weird. Not at all the kind of woman A would choose.”

“Why would she dress like that?”

“That’s right, you never saw her when she first came to us for help. She was hiding herself, but that’s neither here nor there right now. There’s more. ‘We found ourselves in the ladies’ room at the same time. Of course, she didn’t know who I was. She was really nice and kind of shy. She asked me if I was enjoying myself, and I wondered what she’d think if she knew A had arranged for me to get an invite to the ball. The plan for later was that he’d send her home with his driver, and he’d come home with me. For the first time since meeting A, I felt a little guilty. And what about her supposedly being a bitch? I just didn’t see it.’”

Cooper shook his head. “The man’s a real piece of work.”

“Yes, he is. And he’s going to get his due.” He skimmed ahead some more, stopping when he came to a passage ofVeronica writing about having sex with Pressley. Grayson closed the book. He wasn’t ready for that. Besides, he wanted to start from the beginning and read it through.

“You going to tell Harlow about the diary and what’s in it?”

“I don’t know.” Did she need to hear the sordid details of her ex-husband’s affair? Would she even want to?

They were a few miles from Grayson’s house when Cooper’s phone dinged. He darted a glance at the screen. “That’s a man in Charlotte I have looking for George Pickens.” He handed Grayson the phone. “Put it on speaker.”

Grayson did, then held up the phone toward Cooper.

“Mike,” Cooper said, “I’m with my partner Grayson Montana and you’re on speaker. You got something for us on Pickens?”

“Yeah, and it’s not what you’re going to want to hear. He was killed three years ago.”

“Damn,” Grayson said. “The police know who did it?”

“No, the case has gone cold. He was shot at close range, and the police have the bullet, but no leads. They haven’t been able to find anyone who held a grudge, and it doesn’t appear to be a robbery as nothing was taken from his home. Not that he apparently had much to take.”

Grayson would bet his beach home that he knew who killed a defenseless elderly man…or more like had him killed. He doubted Pressley did any of the dirty work himself.

I’m coming for you, Anthony Pressley.

* * *

Grayson set Veronica’s diary on the kitchen island when he got home. Thinking he was going to need a stiff drink while he read it, he decided to check his emails and messages first. There were a few from his dealerships’ generalmanagers, and he dealt with those easily enough. Fortunately, his father had had good people in place, and Grayson rarely had to do much more than agree with the solutions they’d already come up with to any problems.

He deleted a few spam emails, then came to one from Harlow. When he saw what it was, he was impressed with how detailed it was. Everything he’d asked for was there: Pressley’s normal routine, a list of the people close to him—including things she knew about them—a detailed layout of his house and the code to the safe. He’d call her tonight to thank her for doing such a great job.

Once the emails and messages were dealt with, he intended to get the diary and start on it, but the ocean caught his attention, and he veered to the glass doors. The waves were up today, and since it was too early to start drinking—which he intended to do when reading the journal—he went surfing instead.

Two hours later, he returned to the house, showered, then poured a half glass of whiskey. He’d only read a few pages when his phone alerted. The video from the Ring camera appeared on the screen, and his blood froze. Harlow opened her door and Pressley stood there. She said something as she tried to get around him. He grabbed her arm, pulling her into the apartment, slamming the door behind them. As he dragged her by the arm, they disappeared from view.

Why would she open the door to him? What had she said, and why had she tried to see around Pressley? They should have installed a camera that also recorded sound. Grayson called Cooper.

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