Chapter 21

"Has ‘stay out of trouble' ever worked for you?" Nero asked him as he set his fork down and leaned back in the chair.

They'd been quiet since Lani and Dear left, focusing on their meal and—in Forrest's case, at least—worrying about Rufus and wondering what the fuck was going on. Had Nero accidentally started something when he came to town?

"Nope," Forrest replied once he'd finished the last bite on his plate. "Lani knows that, too."

"Dinner was great, by the way. Thanks for feeding me."

"I like to cook," Forrest said. "Usually it's just me."

Forrest stared across the table at Nero. "What are we going to do until morning?" Regardless of how the day had gone and what they'd learned from Lani and Chief Dear, his guest appeared remarkably calm. And sexy. "Um, I'd rather you didn't go back to the resort until this stuff is sorted out. It doesn't feel safe. Lani said stay here and she meant you too."

Nero was watching him, a small smile on his lips. Forrest shifted in his seat. He never—and by never, he meant with a capital N as in never—invited men that weren't just friends to stay at his house.

"If I stay, will it be a big deal?" Nero asked. "Or can we treat it like an extended sexy sleepover?"

Forrest pretended to think about it for a moment. "I think that would work."

"Plus, you don't have a car. If I leave, you'd be stuck here."

"Honestly, I don't see the downside of being stuck here. I can go weeks without going into town if I have enough groceries. Besides, my new-to-me bus will be arriving sometime next week. I can drive to town in style."

Forrest couldn't wait to see the looks on people's faces when they saw the bus for the first time.

"Cool. I've got these." Nero collected their empty plates and carried them over to the sink.

Forrest watched because he wanted to and because he could. He liked Nero's body as well as his quirky mind. After rinsing the dishes off and sticking them in the nearly empty dishwasher, Nero turned back around.

"I think we should make a murder board," he announced. "Do you have any paper and pens? Markers if possible."

"A what?"

"A murder board. Paper. Pens. You must have heard of them?"

"Yes, but," Forrest sputtered. He'd been thinking about Nero and Nero had been thinking about murder. "Okay, I might have some paper in my office. Let me check."

He did in fact have a partially used ream of eleven-by-seventeen paper and some black and red Sharpies. He had no idea why. Grabbing them, he took the collection back out to the kitchen.

"Will this do?"

"Yep," Nero said, choosing several sheets of paper and laying them out on the kitchen table.

"Okay, let's get started."

* * *

Forrest's bodyached from the crash and he was beginning to rub sleep out of his eyes by the time Nero stepped back and declared the board finished. Several sheets of wadded-up paper had been tossed to the floor after some false starts, and one pen had run dry.

"The only incident I can't really connect is Lizzy Harlow's death. She's older than the other victims and wasn't found in the woods. That doesn't mean that she isn't connected though. It may just mean that we haven't found the link."

Lizzy was just a name with no lines heading from it.

"Ned was male and in his seventies," Forrest pointed out just to be contrary.

"Yes. But you know as well as I do that there's a connection, even if it's not obvious right now. We don't have enough pieces of the puzzle." He turned to look at Forrest. "And I'm afraid that Rufus does."

Nero had drawn boxes along the left side with all the names they could think of, living and dead. Rufus's name was there, as well as Ernst Cooper's and even Forrest's and Lani's. About the only name not listed was Nero's.

While Nero had been working on the board, Forrest had flipped through his grandpa's journals again. Again, nothing stood out. These were just the notes of an apple farmer who owned a couple of horses.

He wondered what had brought together such different-seeming men as Ernst Cooper, Rufus Ferguson, Oliver Cox, and Ned Barker. He remembered listening to them talk out on the patio, their deep male voices a soothing rhythm as he tried to sleep or when he woke up from a nightmare.

"Something bad happened before Lani and I came to live with him, I think—not to Grandpa, I mean at the camp. Do you think that Grandpa, Ned, and Rufus all know what it was? Grandpa died twenty years ago, so why would someone kill Ned now? Is Oliver Cox safe?"

Forrest didn't want to hash over his recurring nightmare. It was just images and sounds, nothing specific. But he was beginning to believe that he'd witnessed something horrific and his brain was doing its best to hide it from him, only to then ambush him in his sleep.

Nero sat down, biting his lip while he thought.

"I think it's vital we talk to Rufus." He tapped the papers. "If we think this is all connected—which we do—then he may be the only key we have left. Yes, Oliver Cox may know something, and he may not be safe if he's on his way back now, but based on Rufus's response to the bones, I think we need to go with that first." Nero started going through each step outlined on his papers. "The heavy rains and storms in the past few months were responsible for the remains being found, we know that. When the news broke, it spread far. So far, in fact, that I decided to come here and didn't keep my reason a secret."

"True."

"But I didn't really get around to asking questions until this week. And then an arson fire destroyed possible information, a murder removed one of the last living friends of your grandfather, who had also died in a similar manner, identities of the remains were revealed, and now Rufus is missing."

"We need to find Rufus."

"There's nothing we can do tonight, and besides, where would we look?"

"Where you found Ned is very close to the trail that leads to Crook's Trail. I don't know exactly where the homestead was, but I'm pretty sure it was that direction."

Nero released a huge sigh. "You believe Rufus went up there alone?"

"Since some of his gear is missing? Yes, I do."

"You said before that your worst fear is that Dina might still be alive and living up there. Do you think she'd be alone?"

"I think all of this could be me making wild conclusions. I wish we knew more."

"Hand me my laptop. Maybe I can find something more." Nero snapped his fingers. "Wait, do you think Magnus would let me look at the copies of the Sentinel that Rufus saved?"

"Only one way to find out." Forrest picked his cell phone up and sent a quick text to Magnus.