Page 134 of It Runs in the Family

He was right, but I didn’t have much experience with breaking and entering. Then again, we wouldn’t be breaking in. We’d been given the go-ahead.

We walked up to her front door, his gaze taking in the neat landscaping and freshly painted house. Once we were on the short stoop, he knocked and we waited. When no one answered, he gave me a short nod. I stepped off the stoop and picked up the fake-looking rock next to it. Turning it over, I slid the plastic piece open to reveal a house key.

I handed it to Boone, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he pulled a nitrile glove from his jacket pocket and slipped it onto his right hand before removing the key and unlocking the door. When it swung open, he removed the key and handed it back to me.

I stared at his glove with wide eyes.

He gave me a cautious smile. “If they fingerprint the place, we don’t want our prints here. I’ll give you a pair once we’re inside.”

I put the key back into the rock and started to set it down, then stopped. “I got the key out and I’m not wearin’ gloves.”

“They won’t check the rock, and even if they do, Deanna told you where to find the key. It won’t matter if they find your prints out here but not inside, because you can tell them you didn’t touch anything.”

I set the rock down. Boone used his ungloved hand to help me back onto the stoop. I stood in front of him, still holding his hand, my chest pressed to his, his familiar, musky scent filling my nose. I closed my eyes, wondering what it would have been like to meet this man under different circumstances. Then again, we likely would have never met. My life had become so small without me even noticing. I’d done it on purpose, I realized over the past few days, because it was easier not to get hurt that way. People used you and let you down. But now I’d started wondering if I’d been keeping good things out too.

“You okay?” he asked in a husky tone, his breath warm on my face.

I nodded, clenching my jaw as I looked up at him. “Let’s do this.”

I dropped his hand and walked in first, letting him follow. He closed the door behind me and locked it. Then he pulled out a set of gloves and handed them to me.

I reluctantly took them and tugged them on while he pulled on his second glove. “What are we lookin’ for?”

“Good question,” he said, already walking around the perimeter of the small living room. “Sometimes you don’t know until you see it, but the more obvious things are photos, notes, addresses—anything that might tell us where she met him and what they did together.”

While he looked over the living room, I wandered into the kitchen and started opening cabinets. It felt silly, because it seemed unlikely I’d find anything in here.

Until I came to the fridge.

A photo was pinned to the upper left corner with a frog magnet. The frog was wearing a sombrero, holding a set of maracas, and had the word Fiesta on its shirt.

The photo had been taken outside a restaurant and showed five people. Rebecca was in the middle. An intense looking man in his twenties had his arm slung over her shoulder. Selena stood next to Rebecca, her face tilted up and her eyes closed, as though she were enjoying the warmth of the sun. Two men stood next to Selena. One was older, possibly in his forties, but it was the younger one who caught my attention. He looked to be in his early twenties with light brown hair and light eyes. His face was familiar, and I thought I knew why.

“Boone.”

Seconds later, he stood in the kitchen doorway. “Did you find something?”

I pointed to the fridge, and he moved next to me, his gaze landing on the photo. He stiffened for a second, then lifted the frog magnet and removed the photo to study it.

“Is that Cody?” I asked softly.

He nodded, still studying the image, then stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

I gasped and turned to face him. “Boone, you can’t take that!”

His face hardened slightly. “I just did.”

“You need to put it back.”

“Why?” he challenged.

I stared at him in shock. “You know the sheriff’s department is gonna be here lookin’ around as soon as they figure out who Rebecca is.”

“All the more reason to take it,” he said, turning and leaving the room.

I watched him leave in disbelief. What he’d done was wrong, and he knew it, so why had he taken it?

Then it hit me. He was trying to protect his brother.