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For some reason he couldn’t explain, the muscles in Luke’s back tightened, and he snagged the receiver before it had time to ring again. “Kinkaid residence.”
“Who’s this?” a male voice demanded. Luke’s fingers tightened over the mouthpiece in a death grip.
“Luke Gates. I’m a neighbor. Ms. Kinkaid isn’t in right now.”
“Where is she?”
Luke’s eyes narrowed, and he thought of all the hang-ups Katie had received. “Who’re you?”
“This is Jarrod Smith, Gates,” the voice said with more than a trace of irritation. “I’m looking for my sister.”
He relaxed a bit. The voice fit. He’d only talked to Jarrod a couple of times, but he was convinced that Katie Kinkaid’s oldest half brother was on the other end of the line. “She’s not here right now.”
“So where is she?”
Leaning a shoulder against the door and meeting the questions in Tiffany’s eyes, he said, “According to Josh, Katie went over to her old place to meet a potential renter.”
“When?”
“Over an hour ago.”
“Damn!” Jarrod let fly a blue streak, and Luke’s momentary feeling of calm vanished into thin air. “Let’s hope it’s legit.”
“What do you mean?” Luke demanded.
“It’s probably just a coincidence, but Isaac Wells, with his lawyer, walked into the police station not two hours ago. He seems to think he’s in some kind of danger from Ray Dean, an excon. He also thought maybe because Katie’s shown so much interest in the story that Ray might want to talk to her.”
Luke didn’t like what he was hearing, and he’d never put much stock in coincidence; the fact that Katie was late at the same time Isaac Wells had suddenly turned up made him anxious. Still…no reason to panic. Not yet. “How do you know all this?”
“I have connections with a friend on the force. We used to be partners. He keeps me informed because I’ve been working on this from the outside. I’d been checking with lawyers in Eureka, where that letter Katie received was postmarked, widened the circle to include Oregon as I figured Wells would want an in-state attorney. I was on the right track, only hadn’t located the guy. Anyway, he and Isaac strolled into the police station this afternoon.” Frustration edged Jarrod’s voice, and Luke decided Katie’s oldest half brother wasn’t used to having his quarry elude him. “Katie wanted to know the minute he came into town, so I thought I’d pass on the information.”
“I’ll let her know,” Luke promised.
Jarrod hesitated, as if weighing whether he should confide in Luke, as if there was something more.
“Anything else?” Luke prodded.
“I don’t know.”
Luke could almost hear the wheels of suspicion turning in Jarrod’s mind. Tiffany was standing by this time, her eyes fixed on Luke’s face, her expression growing more concerned by the second.
“Maybe I’m just borrowing trouble,” Jarrod allowed, “but Wells is starting to claim that Ray Dean has been involved in a lot of crimes the police couldn’t pin on him.”
“How does Wells know?”
“Wells?” Tiffany repeated, her eyebrows shooting up. “Isaac Wells?”
“Because Wells is claiming that he was his silent partner,” Jarrod said. “Says he helped mastermind the crimes and case the places Ray would rob. He left town because Ray was getting out of prison, and he was afraid for his life, or something. Anyway, now he’s willing to turn state’s evidence against Ray Dean in return for immunity from prosecution.”
Luke’s mind was racing ahead. He didn’t give a hoot about Isaac Wells or Ray Dean or how they were involved in crime together. But he sure as hell was concerned about Katie, and it looked as if, because of her articles and the letter Isaac sent her that she published, she might be a link between the two thieves. “Did Isaac Wells write the letter to Katie?”
“That, I don’t know. But if he did, he didn’t contact her again because his attorney wanted him to deal directly with the police.”
Luke’s throat felt like sandpaper. He thought about the crank calls she’d received, about the feeling he’d had that someone had been watching her, waiting in the shadows at the hotel and at her home. Even after she’d moved this close to him, he’d spent more hours than he’d like to admit, sitting in the dark, staring out his window, watching the main house, scouring the darkness for any hint of a prowler. But he wasn’t convinced. “Do you think Katie’s in any danger?”
“I don’t know. Hell, I hope not” But there was a note of apprehension in Jarrod’s voice that Luke couldn’t ignore. “Just let her know what’s going on. When she gets in, have her give me a call.”
“I will,” Luke promised and promptly hung up.
