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“Will do, Slade. Have a good evening, Fiona; and sorry about all of this.”
“Me, too, but I’m most sorry for Daniel and those who knew him.”
She pulled on her boots and slipped into her jacket as Slade held it for her, taking her scarf and hat and pushing them down into her bag. Slade was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t a bit like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag—endless capacity and full of all kinds of wondrous things. Slade went out in front of her and opened the front passenger-side door.
“You sure you don’t want me in the back?” she teased.
Slade groaned. “No. Just get in the damn SUV,” he said, laughing.
They headed out of town and passed the time just getting to know one another. Slade was ashamed to admit he didn’t remember Fiona from school.
“That’s okay. You were this god-like senior, and I was a nerdy freshman.”
“I was an idiot back then. I look for a lot more depth in the women I date… when I have time to date. But hey, you would have been closer to Daniel’s class.”
She nodded. “I kept wondering why his name was so familiar. Daniel was a grade above me. He was a sophomore, but I don’t really remember him.”
Slade nodded. “That’s because Daniel was a goth and a tortured artist. Isn’t it stupid how we kept to our groups and never intermixed?”
“In retrospect? Probably, but at the time it was safer. We nerdy girls could worship you from afar and not worry about the cheerleaders killing us.”
“Literally. Some of those girls were scary, and their mamas even more so.”
“As I recall, most of them thought you were quite the catch.”
“Until they found out I wasn’t going to take over the family business and that I’d enlisted in the Navy.”
“Why didn’t you—join your family’s business, that is?”
“Because my brother and sister were better suited for it. With me gone, they got the chance they deserved. And I wanted out. I was tired of being Slade Rafferty the Third. The Navy, and more importantly the SEALs, did more for me than running the family business ever would have.”
“You didn’t come back for your dad’s funeral.”
“I did, but my mother made it clear I wasn’t welcome. She really loved him. I figured if I left it would be easier for her, so I did. After she died, I bought that A-frame not far from the falls. I use it as my get-away place. When Daniel needed a place to stay, I took him there.”
“Do you have any idea who did it?” Fiona asked.
“Obviously someone who read your book, but that doesn’t narrow the suspect field by much.”
“Don’t you think they had to be local or at least nearby?”
Slade glanced over at her. “How do you figure?”
“He was killed up by the falls, right?” He nodded. “And they aren’t easy to get to from this side of the river. The other side is a national park and has all kinds of trails, but the Angel’s Rise side has always been undeveloped.”
“Okay, that makes sense, but I get the idea that you’re going somewhere with this.”
“I am,” she said, nodding. “What if the killer bought the book in my store? It’s kind of a longshot as a lot of people download e-books from various sites. I suppose you could ask the online retailers for their records.”
Slade snorted. “That’ll take a warrant, which I can get, but it’ll take a day or two.”
“You don’t need a warrant for my records.”
“Can we look at those tonight? Would you mind?”
“I wouldn’t mind, but it’s a closed system. It’s more secure that way so I can’t access it from anything other than the computer in the store.”
“That’s fine,” Slade said, distracted by what he thought was a shadow behind them that shouldn’t be there. He’d avoided the main highway, preferring to take a back road out of town before getting on the interstate that went to Bangor.
