"I think you do. We all do." Josh’s voice was tinged with sadness.

"Naturally, after Lynn talked to Richard, she would have approached Tara. She’s the CFO. She would know about the finances."

"Tara never said anything about that." Noah looked at Josh. "Did she say anything to you?"

Josh shook his head sadly.

"Of course she didn’t," Sam said. "Tara couldn’t have an audit happening. She was embezzling from the company."

"Now, wait a minute," Noah said. "If Lynn knew about that, she would have told me."

"I don’t think Lynn knew. But if she wanted the financing, they would have to scrutinize expenses. So she must have mentioned that to Tara, and it must have been that night. It was probably the only time she had her alone after she talked to Richard. Maybe she still didn’t want to tell the rest of you until she was sure of what would happen with the financing."

Tara must have been out of excuses—she sat there silently.

Sam continued. "I’m not sure how it happened. I imagine Tara tried to talk her out of doing an audit, and Lynn insisted. Maybe Tara snuck up on her later that night in the woods, or maybe she lured her there. Or maybe Lynn didn’t mention the audit until that night when they were on the beach and it erupted into an argument. Tara hit her with a rock on the beach and killed her then pulled her clothes off to make it look like she had an accident while swimming. But her bra must have floated away, and her pants got snagged. Tara shoved her in the river, tossed the phone in after her, then folded up her clothes and added her own bra so no one would notice one article of clothing was missing. Isn’t that right, Tara?"

Tara dissolved into tears. "I didn’t mean any harm. I was just borrowing the money. I was gonna pay it back when we released the new game and were all rolling in the dough."

She looked up at her friends through her tears, begging them to believe her, but now they were all pushing their chairs back away from her. "I didn’t mean to kill her, but she accused me, and we argued, and then we started fighting. The next thing I knew, I had smashed her with a rock. I had to do something. So I pushed her into the water, hoping it would look like an accident. I threw the phone in too so no one would see if she had calls from that finance guy."

Josh buried his face in his hands. The others looked stunned.

"No. I don’t believe it." Noah looked at Tara in disgust. "And you tried to blame it on me?"

"Unfortunately, we have the evidence to prove it. And now a confession." Sam nodded to Kevin, and he went over to Tara, taking her elbow, gently lifting her from the chair. He read her her rights as he walked her out of the room.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Kevin glanced in the rearview mirror at the redhead in the backseat of the police car. She’d cried for a while at first but was quiet now, looking out the window. Accepting her fate.

The White Rock police station was too small to keep anyone overnight. They only had one cell, and it was used rarely. Mostly for drunks to sleep it off. But this girl would be locked up until she could go before a judge, and Sam had asked him to drive her to the county jail. Sam had never asked him to do that before—usually he relied on Jo or Tyler.

Sam had never asked him to sit in on an interrogation before, either. Pride warred with regret in Kevin’s chest. Did Sam trust him and want him to be part of the team?

Would Kevin’s little side job put that in jeopardy?

Watching Sam get the redhead to confess had been interesting. He admired the way Sam went about it. Forcing her hand into admitting she’d done it. Kevin could learn a lot from Sam, and it had felt good to be in on things for once instead of sitting on the sidelines.

And now he felt guilty because passing along that information he’d been paid to look for felt like spying on Sam and Jo. It felt like a betrayal.

The information wasn’t anything that would hurt Sam or Jo. It was just general stuff. Stuff that might help them, or at least that was what Kevin wanted to think. Especially if Sam and Jo weren’t doing anything wrong. And he was pretty sure they weren’t.

But if his contact was right and Sam and Jo and Tyler had been a part of something that wasn’t on the up and up, then he didn’t want to be an insider in their little club. It was his duty to expose that, right?

Something sharp unfurled in his chest, obliterating his earlier cozy feelings of inclusion. He wasn’t really sure who wanted that information. The large sum of money he’d been offered had been enough for him to accept with no questions asked. But he had to wonder if the sheriff’s department or state police would be paying him so much money. Did they even pay officers on the side like that? Heck, he hadn’t even really given them much information yet at all, and they still kept sending money.

The redhead’s sorrowful sniffle caught his attention, and he looked in the rearview mirror again. According to what he’d heard in Sam’s office, the girl had screwed over her friends. And now she looked miserable. She’d lost her friends and her freedom. Kevin just hoped what he’d done wouldn’t end with similar consequences.

After Kevin hauled Tara away, the campers sat in Sam’s office in disbelief. None of them had wanted to believe they had a killer in their midst. Sam wasn’t surprised—you never knew what was lurking around underneath the surface when it came to people. When they finally left, they said they were planning to pack up and head home. None of them had any enthusiasm for camping.

Reese had just taken Lucy out for a walk when Kevin came back. The three of them leaned against Jo’s desk, coffee mugs in hand. Jo passed around the donut bag.

"So I was wondering. How did finding the bra in the river help you figure things out?" Kevin asked.

Sam thought he saw something flicker in the officer’s eyes that he hadn’t seen before. Interest. Sam realized that was one of the reasons he’d never really taken to Kevin. He’d never seemed interested in the cases. Until now. Maybe it was because Sam had never included him as he had in the office here. Might be a smart idea to include him more often.

"Actually, I should’ve figured it out earlier. When we were at the campsite after we discovered the body, Tara was making lunches for the campers. She only had six lunches," Sam said.

"So? They were going hiking, right? Makes sense they would be making lunches," Kevin said.

"Sure. Except there were seven campers. Why was Tara only making six lunches? Because she knew one of the campers wouldn’t be joining them."

"Why even make the lunches?" Jo asked. "She had to have known that Lynn would be discovered missing. Even if the body washed downriver and wasn’t found, they wouldn’t have gone hiking if she was missing."

Sam shrugged. "Keep up appearances, I guess. She couldn’t very well refuse to make the sandwiches. Then everyone would know something was up. She must have been not thinking straight and subconsciously not made one for Lynn since she knew Lynn wouldn’t be eating lunch that day."

Jo squeezed her donut in the middle, causing a blob of jelly to poke out of the hole. She swiped at it with her finger then licked it off. "Yeah, but there was no motive for Tara. At least not that we could figure, so why would we be scrutinizing everything she did? I wouldn’t beat myself up for not noticing that."

"The signs were there. Company doing badly. Tara was the CFO." Sam chewed his donut thoughtfully. "She was very clever, though. When her initial plan of making it look like an accident didn’t work, she adapted pretty quickly. Like how she told us that Lynn borrowed her bra. She knew she put it in the pile. Probably, no one would have noticed that if Lynn’s death had been ruled accidental, but with us asking questions, she was afraid it might come up, and telling us Lynn borrowed it was the perfect way to explain it being there."