That wasn’t good. “Did they always come like this? Hand-delivered, no postmark?”
She nibbled her lip. “No. They didn’t have a return address, but they had a stamp and postmark.”
Fuck. That was even worse. “Do you remember the cities from the postmark? Were they all mailed from the same place?”
“The cities?” she repeated. She blinked rapidly, then let her head fall back against the wall with a thunk. “The postmark says where it was mailed from. Holy shit, I’m such an idiot. I never even checked. I just threw them in the trash.” She squeezed her eyes shut.
“You’re not an idiot, Lennon. But we’re going to take this seriously now. I need you to tell me everything.”
She opened her eyes and looked at me. “I just told you everything. There’s nothing else.”
My gut was telling me there was something else here. “What brought you to Mercy River Ranch? How did you find us?”
“The brochure. One of those mailers you send out.”
Brochure? I stared blankly at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She pushed to her feet. “I’ll show you.” She went to her bag, rummaged through it, then pulled out a folded brochure and handed it to me. “This showed up. The same day as a stalker postcard, actually.”
“I’ve never seen this before.”
I flipped through, feeling like I was looking at an alternate reality. It was a glamourized, dude ranch version of Mercy River. No mention of veterans or first responders, just tranquility, trail rides, and spa sessions. Fucking hell.
I scanned the QR code with my phone. It took me to a website proclaiming to be Mercy River Ranch, but I knew for a fact that it wasn’t ours.
“Fuck, Lennon.” I scrubbed a hand over my face.
“What? What’s wrong?” Her gaze bounced anxiously from my face to my phone and back again.
“You didn’t come to Mercy River Ranch by accident. You were lured.”
20
LENNON
Sheriff Sherwood had suspicious eyes.He kept them pinned on me while Jeremiah explained the situation, visibly growing more suspicious with every word. Like it was somehow my fault a creepy stalker was sending me perfumed postcards. He had a tough, wiry look to him. Shaggy, salt-and-pepper hair, bushy black eyebrows, and a thick white mustache that covered his upper lip. This was Grace and Emma’s father? It was hard to believe. They were made of sunshine. Sheriff Sherwood was all granite.
“My prints are on it. So are Lennon’s.” Jeremiah handed over the bagged postcard. “It might be a long shot to pull anything from it, but it’s worth a try.”
The sheriff accepted it without taking his eyes offme. Apparently, we were all in grave danger that if he so much as blinked, I would immediately commit crimes. “I’ll send it to the lab.”
We kept the staring contest going as Jeremiah got into the part about the website and how I came to Mercy River Ranch.
“The booking link on the fake website takes you to the booking link on our real website. It’s pretty seamless, and unless you’re paying close attention to the website address, you wouldn’t notice that the fake one is different.”
“Smart.” His gaze finally released mine. I was offended by the implication that if brains were required, I was off the hook. “You talk to Mateo Alvarez about any of this?”
“Mateo is out on a trail ride with the other guests. He’ll be back this evening. The website is gone now. I tried to pull it up to show you when we got here. That means whoever set it up knows we checked it. They’re covering their tracks.”
Sherwood drummed his broad, blunt fingertips on his oak desk. “This is well within his capabilities.”
Jeremiah cocked a brow. “It’s a website that links to another website. A high school student could do it.”
“You have any high school students working at the ranch? Because whoever built that website wanted Lennon here for a reason. They didn’t try to send her to Hawaii or Vermont. They brought her here, toMercy River Ranch. Mateo is a computer genius who happens to be a part-owner of the ranch. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but I’m not going to stake Lennon’s safety on it.”
“Wait, what? You can’t possibly think Mateo had anything to do with those postcards,” I said.
The hitch in Sherwood’s bushy eyebrows told me hecouldpossibly think that.
