Page 120 of Capturing You
Wait.
She leaned closer and peered at the top sign.
Arthur Whitmore Photography.
To the left of the words was a seagull logo.
No. It couldn’t be.
She pulled out her phone and checked the picture she’d snapped of the doodles in Charles Ballentine’s ledger and files.
They were the same, right down to the seagull’s beak and the way it interrupted the circle surrounding the bird.
It couldn’t mean anything. Of course it couldn’t. Arthur couldn’t have had anything to do with the murders at the Ballentine Mansion.
He’d been a sweet, tender man, a Christian who’d go out of his way to help.
He wasn’t a smuggler or a killer. No way.
But…but why else would Charles have drawn the exact same logo, over and over?
A logo that had been changed so long ago that Brooklynn had forgotten all about it.
What could it mean?
Rather than worry over it here, she returned to the stacks. Back when she’d worked on her art project, she’d researched the history of Shadow Cove. There was a book somewhere about the Ballentine Mansion.
She skimmed the titles, hoping to find it. Hoping maybe there’d be information in it that could help Forbes.
His name still felt foreign.
She was so focused that she didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late.
She stepped away from the bookshelves an instant before the door opened.
“…lucky that you were there. Just help me get set up, and you can…” When Maury saw Brooklynn, she gasped and froze.
“What’s wrong, Grandma?”
Though Brooklynn couldn’t see Owen, she heard the alarm in his voice.
Maury’s eyes were wide. She covered her chest with one hand and exhaled. “Good heavens, dear. You scared me to death.” Her surprise shifted to worry. “I didn’t hear you… How did you get in?”
“Grandma, this stuff is heavy.”
“Oh.” She stepped out of the way, and Owen hauled two cardboard boxes into the room.
He stopped when he saw her. “Brooklynn? What are you doing here?”
She picked up the book she’d left lying on the table and held it against her chest like a shield. “Can I help?”
He dropped the boxes on the table. “What’s going on?”
She considered making up a story, but what would explain her breaking in? She had to tell them the truth.
“You didn’t see me,” she said.
Maury’s eyebrows lifted.
