Chapter 7

SEVEN

STEPH WAS GRATEFUL for her big brother, truly. But if James hadn’t left when Tate and Cole drove up, she was going to have to kick him and his helicoptering out. And now she was in Brenda and Greg’s home, struggling to hold it together.

Her heart broke at the grief etched on Greg’s face as he led them into the den. Once seated, Steph held three-year-old Magda on her lap while six-year-old Vince played with his toy cars in the adjacent playroom, visible from where she, Tate, and Cole were. Fourteen-year-old Mark was nowhere to be seen.

An open book lay face down on the end table next to her. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Brenda’s.

Greg swiped his eyes and cleared his throat. “Sorry. I’m still in shock.” He waved to his mother in the kitchen, and she came to take Magda from Steph. The little girl protested until she was given a cup of juice and a handful of animal cookies. Beau, the well-trained German shepherd, raised his head from his bed, but when no one offered him anything, he settled back onto his paws with a disgruntled sigh.

Steph turned her attention to Greg. “I don’t even have the words to express my sorrow or how much my heart hurts for you and everyone who loved her.”

He shot her a sad little smile. “No one does. It’s okay. You don’t have to search for them. You won’t find any that will help.” He drew in a ragged breath. “What will help is catching who did this.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Cole said.

“Yes. Thank you. So, on the phone, you said someone ran her off the road. That there were traces of green paint on her white vehicle. I just washed her car the day before yesterday, and I assure you that wasn’t there.”

Tate nodded. “That’s helpful to know. We thought the paint looked fresh, but your confirmation is good to have.” He waved a hand to Steph. “She wanted to come along and offer support. She’s also the one who found a pink notebook that Brenda had been making notes in. Last night, someone broke into Steph’s house and then mine looking for it. They managed to steal it from my kitchen.”

Greg’s jaw dropped. “What?” he whispered.

“But I took pictures of it,” Steph said. She scooted closer to Greg and held out her phone so he could see one of the pages. “Do you have any idea what kind of code this is?”

He took her phone and studied the pictures. “That’s her handwriting, but I couldn’t tell you what it means or why she would feel the need to use code.”

“Do you know why she was on Youngstown Road at that time of night?” Cole asked.

Greg shook his head, then raked a hand over his short dark curls. “No. We had dinner and then she asked me to put the kids to bed because she had an errand to run. I tried to talk her out of going, but she said it was something that couldn’t wait. I fell asleep in the recliner. Only woke up when an officer rang my doorbell to tell me she’d crashed her car on that curve.” Tate and Cole exchanged a look. Greg caught it. “What?”

“We’ve come to the conclusion that it wasn’t an accident,” Tate said, his voice soft. “We can’t prove it, but evidence suggests someone deliberately made her crash.”

Greg blinked. “Wait, what? How are you getting that from a side swipe? It could have been an accident.”

“If there had just been one area where there was paint, then yeah,” Tate said, “but there were two. Like Brenda managed to keep it on the road after the first one, so the person came back and tried again. This time succeeding in pushing her over the side.”

Greg stared and Cole cleared his throat. “The ME will have more information on her exact cause of death, but I’m sorry, Greg, it looks like Brenda was murdered.”

The man gasped and Steph’s heart broke for him.

He looked at each of them and spread his hands. “But ... but why?”

“We don’t know,” Cole said. “We think it may be related to something she was working on. Something she wrote down in that notebook, since someone went to so much trouble to steal it.”

“I have no idea.” Greg shuddered. “She never talked about her work much, but...”

“But?”

“But she was making and getting phone calls. Calls that she obviously didn’t want me to hear. I never suspected an affair. Brenda wouldn’t do that to me. Every time I asked her about the calls, she would just shrug and say, ‘Difficult client.’ Or ‘Work,’ and then go in another room to talk.”

“We didn’t find her cell phone in the vehicle. Do you have it?”

“No.” He tapped his screen and turned it for them to see. “I tried to check her location. The phone is offline.”

“Yeah,” Cole said. “It’s okay. Will you allow us access to her personal phone records?”

“Absolutely. I can print them off for you.”

“That would be a huge time-saver if we didn’t have to get them from the phone company. Can you go back three months?”

“Of course.” Greg rose, went to the desk in the corner of the room, and with the click of a few keys, sent the printer whirring.

While they waited for the pages to print, Steph let her gaze roam over the pictures lining the mantel. So many of Brenda and her family and friends. Steph was in a few. Tears threatened and she sniffed. “Greg,” she said, “are you certain the break-in a couple of weeks ago was Mark climbing back in his window and not something else?”

He frowned and rubbed his head. “I never saw any evidence that it was anything other than Mark. I’ll admit, Beau barking like he did was disconcerting, but I walked around outside and didn’t see anything or anyone else.”

“Hmm. Weird, but okay.”

“It was weird, but all was quiet up until ... well ... her accident.” Greg went to get the papers from the printer and handed them to Cole. “If you need to go back farther, just let me know.”

“Thanks.” Cole stood. “Appreciate your time. And I’m real sorry about Brenda. I only met her a few times, but she was always so kind.”

Greg nodded.

Tate stepped forward. “If you think of anything else, please give us a call.” He handed the man his card and Greg slid it in his wallet.

Steph hugged Greg, then went to tell the children goodbye. Magda clung to her as expected, and she gave the little girl an extra hug and a tickle so she could leave her laughing. Magda ran to Tate. “Hug everyone goodbye?”

Tate smiled and dropped to his knees. “Goodbye, Magda. You sure are a cute little thing.” The child wrapped her little arms around his neck and squeezed, then did the same for Cole.

Greg swung Magda into his arms and kissed her cheek. He looked at Steph. “Thank you all.”

Steph, Cole, and Tate walked out to the car, and Tate looked at Cole. “Looks like we’re going to be going through some numbers for the next few hours. Your place or mine?”

“Cornerstone Café?”

“Perfect.”

“Is it okay if I come along?” Steph asked. “I can work on the code. And besides, I’m starving.”

The men exchanged a glance and Cole nodded. “Let’s go.”

THE THREE OF THEM sat in a booth in the back of the café with another table pulled up to make room for all the papers. The waitress, Jenny, had finally just left a carafe of coffee on the table and said to wave at her if they needed anything.

Steph had pulled out the papers containing the code. She knew her friend best, and if she kept going over the code, she might figure something out. Tate watched her from beneath lowered lashes. It was more entertaining than going over the phone list for the fifth time. Steph was beautiful inside and out. She’d been so kind and gentle with Brenda’s family. And little Magda. His throat tightened as he remembered the feel of the little girl in his arms and her sweet hug.

“Number, number, number, letter, letter, letter,” she muttered. “Number number number letter, number number number, letter. And numbers with lines under them. What do the lines mean?” A groan slipped from her and she dropped her forehead to the pages in front of her. “It makes no sense. There’s nothing consistent except the letters ENNB that are interspersed throughout the pages.” She went still. “Wait a minute.”

“What?”

She lifted her head. “ ENNB . That’s the initials for Bolin’s Nature Nurture Expeditions, only it’s backward. Maybe she did that as part of the code?”

Tate raised a brow. “Good observation. She worked there and they’re one of her clients.”

“Or it means something else entirely, but I’m going to play with that.” Steph nodded and pointed to the page. “Then there are two letters together every so often and they all have a B in them. Like here”—she pointed—“ BG . And two pages over, BH . And ... a lot on the third page with BB —Benji Bolin? Gage and Helen’s son, maybe? Continuing with the reversed letter idea, BC could refer to Cherry Bolin, their daughter. They all work at Bolin’s and the reversed initials thing works for them all.”

“You figured that out,” Tate murmured. “You’re brilliant.”

She flushed and looked down. “Not really. Once I knew what to look for, it was easy. Also not sure if it’s right, but it does work. I just don’t know what the other letters are for. Or the numbers.”

“Keep working. You’ll figure it out.”

Cole stood. “I’m not seeing anything on this list that’s jumping out at me. Let’s both take it with us and study it a little more at a later time. Maybe giving it some space will help. In the meantime, I think we might want to go talk to Gage and Helen. I know them in passing and have always thought they were good people. I have to admit I want to know why their initials are in a dead woman’s coded note pages, though. I’ll call them and see if they have a good time for us to come by.”

“They may not be in town,” Steph said. “They travel a lot. And I do mean a lot.” She frowned. “Once Cherry and Benji were old enough, they dumped the business on them and started doing their own thing.”

“How do Cherry and Benji feel about that?”

“Cherry’s resented it from day one, but feels like she needs to be there to help Benji. She’s always looked out for him and wouldn’t think of abandoning him to run the place by himself.”

Cole frowned. “I never knew all that.”

Steph shrugged. “Cherry told me that a couple of years ago. I feel sorry for her. She’s basically living her life for her parents and her brother. I tried to get her to take a trip to the beach with Brenda, Lainie, Kenzie, and me a few months ago, and she said she just couldn’t leave Benji alone, that he’d run the place into the ground with his immaturity.”

“Whoa,” Tate said. “That’s a pretty harsh statement.”

“I know. When I asked her about her parents, she just rolled her eyes and said some people should never have children.”

“What!” Cole raised a brow. “I always thought they were great parents.”

“I did too until she said that. Then she laughed and said she was kidding, she was just tired and ready for a vacation that she could never take.”

“Sad,” Tate murmured.

“Very,” Steph said.

Tate stood. “Now I want to talk to them more than ever. I’ll take Steph home and we can go pay them a visit—assuming they’re there. Even if they’re not, I’d like to see the place through the eyes that Steph just gave us. I want to watch Benji and Cherry interact and all that.”

Cole nodded. “I do too.”

While Cole made the call, Tate and Steph walked out to the car. She looked at the pages she’d printed out and bit her lip. “Actually, you know what? While you guys do that, I’m going to investigate a little idea I’ve got.”

“An idea?”

“Something that just occurred to me. I’ll let you know if it pans out. I mean, don’t hold your breath or anything since it will probably go the way of all of my other ideas, but I’ve got to try.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You figured out the reversed initials thing.”

She shot him a small smile. “Thanks.” She hesitated, then said, “Like I said inside, Cherry and I are pretty good friends. Not as good as Brenda and I were, but she and I get together every so often for coffee and a chat. If you decide it would help to have me talk to her about anything, call me and I’ll come on over. I’ll be at the library. Bolin’s is just a twenty-minute drive from there.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Cole joined them. Tate filled him in on the plan, and they dropped Steph at her home so she could get her car and go to the library.

With a frown, he watched her open her garage and climb into her car. “You think she’ll be okay?” he asked Cole.

Cole rubbed his chin, a slightly concerned look in his eyes. But he said, “No reason to think otherwise. Whoever was after the notebook got it.”

“I know, but I don’t like leaving her alone.”

“Because you don’t think she’ll be safe or because you just like being around her?”

Tate snorted. “Both.”

“That’s what I thought.” Cole snagged his phone. “I’ll ask a couple of buddies on patrol to follow her home from the library.” He made the call, then looked at Tate. “Feel better?”

“Somewhat. Thanks.”

Cole pulled away and headed up the mountain while Tate kept an eye on Steph for as long as she was in view. Keep her safe, Lord. I’m not sure I like this idea.