Fate Actually (Moonstone Cove #2) - Elizabeth Hunter Page 0,24

around here, sometimes they just swallow sound. The creek runs right behind my house, but unless it’s really high in the winter, I hardly even hear it.”

“So you didn’t see or hear anything strange when Whit Fairfield died,” Drew said. “And it looks like your footprints are the only ones we found on the trail so far.”

“I mean, it’s rained since then, so even if there were prints, they’d probably be gone.”

Megan asked, “Did you find any bullets? Casings?”

“Better than that, we found the gun.” Drew crossed his ankle over his knee and his arms over his chest.

“You did?” Megan said. “That’s great news!”

“It was in the creek,” Drew said. “Covered in mud. We’ll see what we can get off it, but I’m not very optimistic.”

“Oh.” Megan deflated. “That’s not good.”

“The main problem I’ve got is that I have a murder victim, and it seems like half the town didn’t like him much.”

Henry snorted. “At least.”

“Exactly.” Drew nodded at Henry. “Whit Fairfield pressured people to sell their land, had numerous affairs with married women, and lied… a lot. But specifically…” Drew frowned. “He was actively pressuring your cousin to sell his land and appeared to be tampering with his business.”

“Hey.” Toni sat up straight. “Nico didn’t have anything to do with this. He’s not a hateful person, and he’d never get involved with anything violent.”

“Fairfield was messing with him, pressuring him to sell his land, and flaunting an affair with his estranged wife.”

“Ex-wife except on paper. Nico doesn’t care about that shit. He wants her to sign the papers and move on. Ask anyone. He’s not jealous about Marissa. And the tampering with the tractor happened after Fairfield was already dead! So that must have been a coincidence.”

Drew shifted in his seat. “His body was found on your cousin’s land, Toni.”

“It was found on a trail! Lots of people know it’s there. It’s marked in hiking guides. There’s a sign on the highway for it. Ferraro Creek Trail. Look it up. It’s not exactly a secret.” Toni felt her anger rising. “Whoever killed Fairfield probably killed him there to make it look like Nico was guilty. Have you thought that someone may be trying to frame him?”

“It’s possible, but I can’t ignore all the other coincidences,” Drew said. “I have to look at your cousin.”

Toni felt like Drew had punched her in the chest. “You told me you trust my judgment. I’m telling you, Nico would never do anything like this.”

“I have to look.”

Henry put a hand on Toni’s shoulder. “You can look at Nico for this,” he said, “but you’re not going to find anything. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Detective Bisset. I promise.”

“Trust me, I’m not stopping with your cousin,” Drew said. “We don’t have a lack of suspects—we have too many.” He looked at them meaningfully. “So really, anything you can give me to narrow it down a little would be very appreciated.”

Toni exchanged a look with Megan and Katherine, but both of them looked as clueless as she was. She had no idea who might have killed Whit Fairfield.

“Not Nico. That’s all I can say right now,” Toni said. “My cousin had nothing to do with this.”

“Do you think he knows?” Megan stood at the sink, staring out the kitchen window as the sun started to set over the hills. The last of the police cars were pulling away.

“Who?” Toni was drained. Henry had left a few minutes after Drew, telling her he was going up to the winery to let Nico know what was going on. She wanted to crawl in bed and fall asleep, but she knew she needed to eat something, and Megan had offered to cook.

“Knows what?” Katherine added. She was staring at Toni’s bookshelves, which were mostly filled with classic-car manuals and gardening and home-repair guides. “You have very little fiction here.”

“I keep the steamy romance novels in my room.”

“Oh.”

Katherine might think she was joking, but she wasn’t. Toni loved romance novels. She always knew how they were going to end, and with all the stress in her life, she liked knowing that things in a book would always end well.

She’d read a book with an intriguing cover that her mom had raved about and read in her book club. At the end, everyone died except for like two people, and the romance she’d thought was developing had been part of the main character’s delusions.

Worst. Book. Ever.

“I mean, do you think Drew knows about us?” Megan walked back to the