She swallowed and nodded, her gray ponytail bouncing.

“Well, maybe he found the medallion,” I said recklessly, trying to come up with something other than a scenario that pointed to murder. Because I could tell who the sheriff thought the prime suspect was. “Maybe he was walking down the trail and saw the medallion. He thought it might be too easy to spot or something. So he decided to move it. Looped it around his neck so he could move through the brush. Tripped and hit his head. And died.”

The sheriff's eyes narrowed and he took a step closer to me. “How did you know it was his head?”

“What?”

“His head,” he repeated. His expression was grim but there was a spark of interest in his eyes. “I never mentioned his head.”

I felt my cheeks color. “Oh, well, I just thought it would be,” I stammered. “I mean, the guy in our coal chute—Olaf—that was what happened to him. I didn't think you could have blunt force trauma to anything else...” I finished lamely.

Delilah had a frown on her face and I realized that she knew nothing about the dead Olaf story.

“That's a nice story you've concocted,” Larrabee said. I waited for him to produce handcuffs and fasten them around my wrists. “But there's just one problem with it.”

Relief flooded me. “Oh? What's that?”

“The brush surrounding the body had been disturbed. Like someone had dragged something heavy through the woods. Something like a body...”

Delilah's fingers drummed the top of the cash box and she stilled them.

“So it was dumped there?” I asked.

“I'm not at liberty to say,” the sheriff responded. “Right now, we're exploring a multitude of possibilities.” He shoved his entire hand into his pocket. “However, we did find something else in the woods.”

It was obvious to me that he had something to show us. He looked at me, then Delilah before  pulling a folded up slip of paper from his pocket. With painful slowness, he unfolded it. Wordlessly, he walked over to the counter and dropped it on the surface.

“Recognize this?” he said to Delilah.

Her face drained of color.

I couldn't help it. I leaned forward to study the paper.

It was a printed deposit ticket, the kind found in the back of a checkbook.

And it had Delilah's name on it.

TWENTY

“They really thought I was hot?” Jake asked.

I'd walked back out to the pool and he was finally waking up from his nap. I'd explained my confrontation with the twins and my conversation with Delilah and the sheriff as we walked slowly back up the hill toward our cabin. I'd made the mistake of including the part about what Mary and Carrie thought of him.

I stopped in the middle of the road and stared at him. “Seriously?”

“What?” he asked innocently.

“I just tell you that the sheriff knows how Harvey died, that he considered me briefly as a suspect and that he pulled out evidence linking Delilah—whose camper we are staying in—to the crime, and all you pull from that conversation is that two crazy girls think you're good looking?”

He shrugged. “I told you. I want a vacation, not a murder investigation. One a year is enough for me. Hell, one a lifetime is pretty much my limit.”

“Fine,” I said, throwing my towel over my shoulder. “I won't discuss it with you. Any of it.”

And I wouldn't. I wouldn't tell him that Delilah had gone silent after the sheriff had shown her the deposit slip and that the sheriff had politely asked me to leave so he could have a private word with her and that my mind was now spinning with all of the possibilities.

“Look,” he said. “I'm a middle-aged man who has been found attractive by younger, nubile women.”

“Nubile?”

“Seems like a good word.”

“It's not. And if I catch you looking at them in any way—”

He grabbed me and kissed me, right in the middle of the road. His body was warm from baking in the sun and he smelled like sunscreen and sweat.

He pulled back from me and looked down at me. “Jealous wives are hot wives.”

My heart pounded against my chest, my breath still missing after the kiss. “I will rip their mouths off if they call you hot again. I will rip their eyes out if they look at you.”

“Hmm.” He smiled. “You're so hot when you're possessive of me. But I told you. No more murders.”

I plucked my towel off my shoulder and snapped it at him.

“Hot and feisty,” he said, laughing. “We need to get back to the cabin so you can work some of that aggression out...”

“Oh, you think you're going to get lucky now? After taunting me?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I think so.”

He was probably right.

I gripped his hand and pulled him up the hill, both amused and irritated. I wanted him to care about the mystery of the campground. But his kiss had smothered my frustration and lit something else. Arousal. He was right. I was jealous. And I wanted to show him how jealous I was.

We were nearly back to the cabin when a golf cart screeched to a halt in front of us, blocking our path.

“Good afternoon,” Copper Marchand said from beneath a floppy brimmed hat. She wore gray sweat pants and a different Minnesota sweatshirt, this one black, and I wondered how on earth she didn't die of heat stroke tooling around in attire better suited for winter. “How are we this afternoon?”

“We are fine,” I said. I glanced down at her feet. She had on different sneakers this time, red ones that looked brand-new, too. “You?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” she said. She peered at both of us. “You look like you both got a little sun?”

“We did,” Jake said. “So we're headed back to the cabin to cool off.”

She smiled at him. “Of course you are. You two do seem to like to cool off quite a bit.”

I wondered if we'd already gotten a reputation as being sex fiends in the couple days we'd been there. Back in Moose River, I had no doubt that we had a reputation because we were always affectionate. And I didn't mind. If the worse thing that people said about me was that I was attracted to my husband, I was more than okay with that. But I thought we'd been discreet so far at Windy Vista.

Maybe not.

“Any more run-ins with Mr. Hackerman?” Copper asked, looking at Jake.

“No, ma'am,” he answered. “And I don't think there will be another one. A one-time thing where my temper got the better of me.”

She chuckled. “Ol' Wayne is pretty good at getting under people's skin, so never say never.”

Jake smiled at her and nodded.

“He was even able to get to Harvey and he wasn't an easy young man to rattle,” she said, leaning back in her seat.

I ignored Jake's frown and looked at the old woman. “Oh? How is that?”

“Harvey was very even-keeled,” she said. The breeze tugged at her hat and she reached her hand up to plant it more firmly on her head. “I don't believe I ever heard him raise his voice to anyone and it was rare to see him get angry over anything.”

She misunderstood my question. “So how was Wayne able to rattle him then?”

She tapped her long fingers on the small black steering wheel. “Well, I'm not quite sure. But about a week ago, I saw them having a pretty good go at it.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were over near the laundry room,” she explained. “And I was just driving down to the clubhouse, minding my own business.”

I wasn't sure Copper had ever minded her own business.

“It was in the morning,” she continued. “Before most folks were up and moving. They were quiet at first, but then it seemed to get a little more heated.” She paused, making sure she had our attention. “And I couldn't make out the entire conversation, but I'm fairly certain Wayne was trying to bribe Harvey.”

“Bribe him?” I said.

She nodded. “There was some discussion of money, mostly on Wayne's part. Harvey kept shaking his head and it looked to me like he was telling him no. Then Wayne pulled out his wallet. Harvey put up his hand, like he didn't want to see it.” She raised her eyebrows beneath the floppy hat. “Wayne was not happy about that and that was when he raised his voice and said, 'Then tell me what it's going to take.'” Her eyebrows dropped. “Harvey leaned toward him, so he was right up in his face.” She glanced at Jake. “Sort of how you and Wayne were at karaoke.”