Page 25 of Finding Home

Maria continued. “They were talking about the fire at Finley Point. I don’t think they knew anyone could hear them, or maybe they didn’t care. The one with the jacket said the fire should have scared Cole off.” Maria’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “The other man said it didn’t matter, because the permit suspension would do more damage than anything else ever could.”

The kitchen was very quiet.

“Before I could hear anything else, a friend stopped to say hello to me,” Maria said, “By the time we finished talking, the men had left.”

Julie exhaled slowly. “Did you catch either of their names?”

“The man with the jacket called the other one Tom.”

The hairs on the back of Julie’s neck rose. Cole had already told her about someone named Tom Abraham who worked for the Sargeson Group. But the police knew his company had missed out on purchasing the property. Surely, they would have looked to see if they were involved.

Julie hunted through her notebook. “The permit suspension they were talking about could be the county review that was filed last week. Or it could have something to do with the environmental complaints the county has received.” Her instinct was to begin mapping out what Maria’s information could mean. But she wasn’t a reporter anymore, and these women were her friends, not sources.

Susan refilled Maria’s coffee cup. “Would you be willing to speak with Sheriff Thompson about what you heard, Maria?”

“If it helps.” Maria straightened. “I thought about talking to her, but I wasn’t sure if I had enough information. It’s not like I recognized either of the men.”

“Overheard conversations have broken bigger cases than this one,” Julie said.

Maria bit her bottom lip. “That’s what my husband just said on the text he sent me.”

Rachel looked at Julie. “You’re already connecting this to other things you’ve found, aren’t you.”

“It sounds like someone wants the resort to fail by discrediting it through official channels. The sabotage and fire just creates pressure from another direction. My guess is that whoever is behind what’s happening wants the property, regardless of what it takes.”

The words settled over the table.

“So the fire wasn’t just vandalism,” Laurel said.

“I don’t think so.” Julie picked up her pen. “From what’s happened, I’d say it was leverage.”

She wrote the word Tom and circled it. Outside, the wind moved through the pines that lined the edge of Susan’s yard, and Flathead Lake lay invisible in the darkness.

Laurel leaned forward. “I don’t know whether the police have spoken to Pete Sawyer, but he could be worth meeting. He owns the property that overlooks the resort. You never know, he might have seen something.” Reaching across the table, she nudged the plate of profiteroles toward Julie. “Now eat one of those before Beth claims the last two.”

“I heard that,” Beth said with a smile before reaching for the one closest to her.

The laughter that followed was real, warm, and uncomplicated. Julie joined in, and this time she didn’t feel like an observer watching the world through a glass window.

After the meeting, she’d let Cole know what Maria had said. But right now, Julie was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Chapter 17

Two days later, Cole spread a handful of county records across the coffee table in his living room.

He’d driven to Kalispell that morning and requested copies of every complaint filed against the resort development. He’d hoped the county staff would be able to tell him who’d filed the papers, but that information was protected under the state’s anonymous complaint provision. He understood it in principle but found it maddening in practice.

In front of him lay seven documents, each one timed to land at exactly the wrong moment in the permitting process. A drainage assessment had been stalled for three weeks, an access review cost them two weeks of meetings, and a bird habitat evaluation had taken a month and a second environmental consultant he hadn’t budgeted for.

Picking up one of the documents, he read through it again. Whoever had written it understood the specific issues of developing a site so close to a lake. Terms like riparian corridor integrity and secondary hydrological impact weren’t phrases everyone used, especially in a small rural community.

His phone lit up on the table. He frowned as he read the reminder for his cardiology appointment. With everything that was happening, it was the last thing he needed. Without thinking too much about what lay ahead, Cole deleted the message and returned to the table.

As he picked up another complaint, someone knocked on his front door. Cole glanced at his watch. Julie had said she’d try and get here within the hour. If her baking class had finished on time, this should be her.

He couldn’t help smiling when he opened the door. Julie stood on the porch with her shoulder bag already sliding off one arm. With a dark blue wooly hat pulled low on her head, and an orange scarf around her neck, she looked cute and happy. Two things that always brightened his day.

Her eyes widened when she glanced past him at the papers spread across the table. “You got them?”