Chapter 2 #2
“I only had two things in that drawer, West. The new recipe I’ve been working on for our Halloween beer, and—” Avery bit her lip, her dark gaze skating away from mine.
“And what? What else was in there?” I demanded, knowing I didn’t want to hear the answer.
“My research file,” she gritted out, still not meeting my eyes.
“Research file on what?” I asked slowly, though my gut already knew the answer.
“On the necklace Quinn found in Dad’s cabin,” she forced out, jerking her shoulder free of my grip .
“Are you kidding me?” I exploded. I tried to keep things professional with people I was supposed to protect, but Avery was Griffen’s sister—as good as family—and she was playing with fire. “What are you thinking? Whoever murdered your father is still out there. And that necklace is a dead end.”
“You don’t know that! It’s the only clue we have,” she fired back, her dark eyes blazing with fury.
I wanted to argue with her. She didn’t belong anywhere near that necklace or her father’s case. Ford had been poking around in their father’s business, and he’d ended up framed for murder.
She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin. “I’m going to find out who left the necklace in the cabin.”
“The fuck you are!” I shot back. “Have you talked to Griffen about this? Or Ford?”
“I talked to Sterling,” she said, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “And Quinn.”
“Oh great. Two people with even less experience in investigations than you. This isn’t a game. Or did you forget that someone tried to kill Ford in prison, and before that, they came after Griffen, and they did kill Vanessa when she threatened to spill what she knew?”
Her face paled, but she didn’t lower that stubborn chin.
I stared down into the open drawer, trying to think like a cop and not a surrogate older brother.
“Avery, we’ll talk about you pursuing your father’s killer on your own later—and we’re definitely going to talk about it.
But for now, let’s focus on your break-in.
I’m going to check the door and your desk for fingerprints.
But I need you to think—whoever got in here took the recipe and your file on the necklace.
Any chance the same person could want both? ”
She bit her lip again and looked at the ceiling. “I don’t... I can’t think of anyone who would...” She cut off and let out a sigh. “You should know, I fired Matthew yesterday.”
“Your brewmaster? Why?” I’d never liked the guy. He was conceited, convinced he was God’s gift to beer, Sawyers Bend, and women, not necessarily in that order.
She shrugged. “It was time for him to move on,” she answered cryptically.
“Did he go quietly?” I asked, surprised when she nodded.
“Quietly enough. You know, the typical, ‘You’ll never make it without me, I’ll make you pay.’” Avery rolled her eyes.
“He said that? He’d make you pay?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “But I had the locks changed yesterday. Only Cammie and I have keys right now. And no one has the key to my desk.” Her eyes flicked down to the open drawer. “It doesn’t look like it was forced.”
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t. Where else do you keep your recipes? Were they all in the drawer?”
“Only that one. The rest are all on my laptop. This one was new. I’m still tinkering with it.”
She let out a long breath, seeming to deflate. “It was my only copy. Matt kept his own notes. He wouldn’t have had to steal the notebook for the recipe.”
“The recipe was in a notebook?” I asked. Avery nodded .
“Was that the only thing in the notebook? If someone had opened it, would they have known what it was?”
She shook her head. “It was my everything notebook. I jotted down everything in there. To-do lists, random stuff, and sometimes, recipes I was working on or ideas I was still playing with. Whoever was after the file probably grabbed it thinking they were connected.” She rubbed her palms over her face.
“Fuck!” Tipping her head back, she squeezed her eyes shut.
“What are the chances Matt would let me see his notes on the recipe?” Shaking her head, she answered her own question. “Zero. Considering he hates me. Fuck.”
“Can you recreate it?” I asked.
She lifted and dropped her shoulder. “Exactly? I don’t know. I had different drafts of the recipe. My memory isn’t bad, but it’s not photographic. I have an idea of what I did, but— Fuck! It was going to be so good. And now, even if it’s as good as I hoped, I won’t be able to make it again.”
“Forget the recipe for a second,” I said. “If whoever broke in was after your research, we have a problem. I don’t want you on this guy’s radar.” I stared down into Avery’s eyes, her long, dark lashes doing nothing to hide her frustration.
“Then I guess you’d better help me catch him,” she said.
“Do you think I haven’t tried?” I asked.
I’d been looking for the son of a bitch since the day Prentice was shot, and everywhere I turned, I came up empty.
My eyes dropped to the open desk drawer, my gut icing over as the implications of what this break-in could mean sank in.
“ It’s likely that whoever killed your father also killed Ford’s ex-wife and was behind the assassination attempt on Ford last spring. Now he’s looking at you.”
If I was hoping to scare Avery off, I was out of luck. She glared up at me, that stubborn chin raised, her eyes hot with emotion. “Then I guess you’d better help me track down the necklace before he gets to me, too.”