Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [44]
“You and Elijah make a good team,” she said.
He shrugged. “On certain things.”
She noticed a light come on in a window above the terrace. The shades were pulled, softening the effect. “Many guests tonight?”
“Six. They appreciate having the place to themselves.”
“Is Lauren—”
“She’s gone back to the house with the kids.” He and his wife were renovating an old farmhouse at the four corners up the ridge road. But A.J. obviously hadn’t joined Jo in the cold for small talk and moved right to the point. “Elijah told you about the money?”
“Finally, yes. He should have said something sooner.”
“Don’t blame him. I asked him not to. The lodge doesn’t need that kind of publicity. We’re being more careful.”
“Does Lauren know?”
“No.”
“You should tell her. And tell her Elijah thinks your father was murdered.”
“Thank you for the unsolicited advice, Jo,” A.J. said coolly. “I’ll tell Lauren everything tonight when I get home. As for Elijah, he went through hell earlier this year. If he needs to ask questions, he can ask away as far as I’m concerned.”
“Do you believe your father was murdered, A.J.?”
He inhaled through his nose but otherwise showed no emotion. “You’re blunt, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “He died of hypothermia, that much we know. The rest…” He looked down as he ran the toe of his boot across the stone. “I’m not used to the world you and Elijah live in, Jo. Lauren isn’t, either. Our kids are little.”
“Take care of your family. Let the police worry about anything else. Elijah needs to back off.” She hesitated, her eyes narrowed on Cameron Mountain, a dark, forbidding presence against the blackening sky. “I’m not in Elijah’s world, A.J. Your brother’s a warrior and a hero. I’m neither.”
Her words seemed to take A.J. by surprise, but he was a man of supreme self-control. He raised his eyes to her. “A lot of people around here are proud of you, Jo.”
“Not this week,” she said with a quick, light smile to cut the tension.
“Maybe especially this week.” He seemed to try to return her smile but his didn’t quite take hold. “Elijah is fighting some tough demons. He could use an ally.”
“You’re his brother—”
“I’m not you.” A.J. spared her having to respond by muttering a good-night and heading back inside. When the door was safely shut behind him, Jo exhaled and shivered for real this time. “Yikes, it’s cold,” she said out loud, then bolted for her car. Time to get off Cameron land before she really lost her bearings.
As she drove out along the ridge, the centuries-old sugar maples that lined the road stood out against the still, quiet landscape. She came to what everyone in Black Falls called the four corners, where the ridge road intersected narrow, twisting Cameron Mountain Road. It was the oldest settlement in town. An early-nineteenth-century, white-steepled church stood on one corner; on the corner across from it was a cemetery marked off by a stone wall. A stately, now weathered, clapboard building once used as a tavern occupied a third corner. It was owned by an elderly couple in town, but rumor had it Sean Cameron had his eyes on it. What he’d do with the place, Jo couldn’t imagine. As kids, she and her brother and sister had been convinced it was haunted.
Just past the tavern, the house A.J. and Lauren were renovating, one of the prettiest houses in Black Falls with its graceful trees and mature gardens, was lit up as dusk gave way to night. Jo could have continued a half mile farther down the ridge road to the house where she grew up, and invited herself to dinner. Her father was an experienced law enforcement officer still tapped in to the goings-on in town. She could talk to him about Drew Cameron’s death, the hit-and-run in Washington that morning, Alex Bruni’s ties to Black Falls, Nora Asher’s impulsive camping trip, even Devin Shay and the missing money.
What she couldn’t talk to her father about was Elijah Cameron.
Not now, not ever.
And having just kissed him twice in one day, Jo decided to turn off the ridge road and take the shortcut down the hill to town.
It was dark