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“Are you sure?”

“Something that looks like a tiny demon in an office is hard to forget.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I ignored it, what else? What is it?”

“Not a demon. It’s a ghost.”

CHAPTER 43

Isabelle left the Old Train Station, pausing briefly to look toward the B&B.

Should she join the Chief? Did he need help?

But she realized to do that was to intimate she didn’t trust him. And she did.

She did.

Instead, she continued across the stone bridge over the Bella Bella to join the forensic team assigned to go through Clara’s home. After hearing they’d so far found nothing relevant, she went to the bistro and was told by Gabri that Clara was in the bookstore.

“Book club meeting.”

Isabelle was half a foot in when Clara looked up. “Did you find something?”

She sounded stressed. Probably because she was stressed.

This whole thing rattled her. What had Peter, what had his repulsive family, been up to so that years after his death, the Sûreté came calling?

“Nothing yet. Can we talk?”

Clara followed her into the bistro where they found a quiet corner. Gabri brought them chai lattes and warm chocolate chip cookies, then left them in peace.

“Did Peter ever mention a great-grandfather named Thomas Morrow—”

“The shipping guy? The one who was killed?”

Isabelle stared at Clara. “What do you mean by that?”

It had been a long time since Clara had thought about Thomas Morrow.

The family seemed very proud of him.

“Prominent,” said Peter’s mother, the old harridan. “In shipping.”

Later, when she and Peter had driven home from the requisite family reunion, at which Clara was again treated as “the help,” Peter had laughed.

“Thomas Morrow wasn’t in shipping. He was one step up from a junk dealer.”

“Tell me more,” said Clara, hungry for anything that brought the mighty Morrows down a peg. Or two.

And Peter did. His great-grandfather organized the salvage of ships that had sunk. It was, in the hands of anyone else, a vital job. In the hands of Thomas Morrow, it was an opportunity. Under his watch, the ships were often sunk on purpose by their owners to collect insurance.

“He was paid well to ‘lose’ the evidence.”

“So that’s where the family money comes from?”

“That and bribes and taking a cut of the valuables brought up from the wrecks. Sometimes taking things for himself.”