The slope was treacherous, steep and slippery with moss and spray from the waterfall. He clung to rocks and tree limbs and did his best to keep his feet under him. To make matters worse, he was quickly soaked to the skin from the spray.

  He slid down the last few feet to the creek bottom and stood for a moment looking back up at the waterfall—and the huge rock at the top where he’d first met Rozalyn the night before. Just seeing how far up it was made him dizzy and sick to his stomach. If she had fallen or been pushed—

  He didn’t even want to think about that. Maybe he hadn’t rescued her, hadn’t saved her life. Maybe she would have kept her footing and not fallen from the top of the waterfall—let alone jumped. Maybe she wouldn’t have done a swan dive off the widow’s walk railing last night, either.

  But that was why he was here, wasn’t it? He told himself he just didn’t know and if there was one thing he hated, it was not being one hundred percent certain. It’s why he’d become a scientist.

  Next to him the water churned and splashed over the rocks, roaring on down the narrow canyon. He stared into the deep green holes as he walked from the base of the waterfall downstream. He was looking for a yellow raincoat, one he didn’t expect to find. How crazy was that?

  He shook his head, disgusted with himself. He had better things to do and little time. But he wanted desperately to believe her. That was the bottom line, wasn’t it? He wanted to believe a woman who didn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth—and shouldn’t. If he wasn’t crazy, he damned sure was some kind of fool.

  He moved along the slick moss-covered wet rocks, following the creek as it cut down through the gorge. He told himself he wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for that detour sign. This morning he’d checked. There was only one road off the highway and that came to a dead end here at the falls. He’d called the road department as well.

  No mistake. Whoever had put that detour sign there hadn’t been authorized to do so.

  No, he thought, the person who’d put it there had wanted to get someone to turn off to the falls last night.

  Him? Or Rozalyn? There hadn’t been anyone else on the highway and with the pouring rain and the lack of traffic this time of year, Ford didn’t think it was just an idle prank. Someone had known they would be driving up this way last night and had been waiting for them.

  Except he didn’t think the detour sign had been put there for him. That meant someone had wanted Rozalyn to see a suicide from the top of the waterfall. And it was too much of a coincidence that Rozalyn’s mother had also jumped to her death.

  It was a wild theory given he had no proof. Especially for a scientist who operated on fact. Ford prided himself on only believing in things he could see and prove.

  But dammit, he’d seen a detour sign in the middle of that highway last night. That’s why he’d turned off onto the dead-end road. And that’s why Rozalyn had followed him. Unfortunately, she’d been the only one to see someone jump from the falls. Because he’d already turned around and was leaving the waterfall parking lot last night. He shouldn’t have seen anything. If he hadn’t just happened to look in his side mirror—

  Around several bends in the creek, the falls became only a dull roar in the distance. The water slowed, pooling and circling in the rocks. He was no longer looking for just a yellow raincoat anymore. He was looking for a body. If there had been a detour sign, then there’d been a jumper and that meant there was a body down here somewhere.

  And that meant that Rozalyn hadn’t imagined it.

  He turned another bend, not sure how far he’d gone when he caught a glimpse of something that stopped his heart dead. He swore, slipping and almost falling as he stumbled forward. No yellow raincoat. No, not even close.

  In a narrow space between two large rocks were wedged the fingers of a slim hand, the nails painted bright red.

  Chapter Nine

  Roz hugged Charity and they started chattering as if they’d seen each other only yesterday rather than several months before.

  “Let’s go sit in a booth,” Charity suggested, grabbing a piece of half-eaten banana cream pie and her diet cola. She didn’t look any different than she had the last time Roz had seen her in Seattle a few years ago. Except she seemed to glow with happiness.

  Roz hadn’t missed that kiss the sheriff had given Charity. “I see some things haven’t changed,” she said as they slid into a booth.

  Charity grinned. “Can you believe it? I might convince Mitch that I’m the only woman for him yet.” She sobered and reached across the table to clutch her hand. “Oh, Roz, I was so sorry to hear about your dad.”

  Roz had forgotten how fast news traveled in Timber Falls. “He’s going to come out of the coma and be all right.”

  “Of course he is,” Charity agreed. “I’m sure he is just so glad you’re here. Just as I am. The last time I saw your dad was a few weeks ago when I accosted him on the street. This black pickup had been following me and your dad was driving a black pickup—”

  “Someone was following you?”

  Charity waved that off. “Long story. Anyway, it wasn’t the same black pickup obviously. Rather embarrassing since your dad’s new wife was with him.”

  “So you met Emily.” She didn’t have to ask Charity what she thought; she knew her friend too well.

  Betty came over to say hello and take Roz’s order and then they were finally alone again.

  “What’s this I hear about Ford Lancaster staying at your guest house?” Charity whispered.

  “It’s a long story.” She felt her cheeks flush.

  “A long story I’m going to have to hear some time. He really is good-looking, isn’t he? I saw him when he was in town a couple of weeks ago. Didn’t Emily know who he was?”

  “She says she didn’t.” Roz frowned. “Ford was in town two weeks ago?”

  “Ford, is it?” Charity grinned. “Two weeks ago almost to the day. He was sitting right over there at that table by the window. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him and Betty told me who he was.”

  Roz couldn’t believe her ears. He hadn’t mentioned being in Timber Falls before. “You’re sure it was Ford Lancaster?”

  “Tall, dark and intense?” Charity said.

  “That’s him. But you left out conceited, rude and generally nasty.” Except in the shower. “Charity, he thinks my father’s fall wasn’t an accident. He thinks someone might have pushed him. We’re going up into the mountains this morning to see if we can find any evidence.” She didn’t mention the “bones” her father had supposedly found right before his “accident.”

  “We?” Charity echoed.

  “Don’t get any ideas. I wouldn’t trust Ford as far as I could throw him.” Ford had left out the part about him being here two weeks ago. Before her father had gone into the woods? Or right after?

  “It seems odd he would be worried about your father.”

  “Doesn’t it though. It turns out that Ford is the son of John Wells, Dad’s good friend who used to hike with him? Ford’s parents divorced when he was young and his mother remarried, thus the Lancaster.”

  “Aha,” Charity said. “So he wrote that article about your father’s photos—and his father. Oooo, small world, huh?”

  Roz nodded. “Tell me about it. Not only that, strange things have been happening ever since I hit town. Even before I arrived.” She told Charity about what she’d seen at Lost Creek Falls.

  “Roz, that’s horrible.”

  “And last night…” She sighed. “I walked in my sleep.” She didn’t want to get into all the details, especially the part about Ford Lancaster saving her—again—if he was to be believed. Or about the possibility that she’d been drugged—if she actually had been.

  “I’m not sure of anything or anyone at this point,” Roz admitted. “Especially Ford Lancaster. He seems to always turn up whenever I need him.”

  Charity quirked a brow. “Not a bad thing to have in a man.”

  Roz had to laugh. “You are such a romantic. Ford Lancaster is the most arrogant, infuriating, obstinate man I’ve ever met.”

  “So you say,” Charity said with a half smile.

  Wishing she hadn’t let the friendship lapse, Roz reached across the table for Charity’s hand. “It really is good to see you. I missed you so much, but after my mother…died, I just couldn’t face Timber Falls.”

  “I know. I should have made an effort to get up to Seattle more often,” Charity said. “Just tell me what I can do to help your dad.”

  “There is nothing at this point except mention him in your prayers.”

  “You got it. So you and Ford are looking for some sort of evidence that it wasn’t an accident.”

  Ford had warned Roz not to mention to anyone that her father might have found something in the woods that might be Bigfoot bones. If word got out, everyone and his brother would be up there looking, trying to solve the mystery and making it even harder for her and Ford. There were enough people in town looking for Bigfoot as it was.

  “We just want to take a look,” Roz said. “I’m not convinced but it gives me something positive to do while I’m waiting for Dad to regain consciousness. I’m sure once he does, he’ll be able to tell us what happened.”

  Charity nodded. “Hopefully, he just fell and that’s all there is to it. I’d hate to think anyone would hurt Liam.”

  “Me, too.” Roz had left her cell phone number with the hospital. Now she gave the number to Charity.

  Betty slid the breakfast special in front of Roz, and refilled her coffee cup and Charity’s diet cola. The café was filling up fast so Betty only visited for a minute and was gone.

  “It must be hard for you to come back here, especially to stay in the house,” Charity said.

  Roz nodded, tears stinging her eyes. “I miss Mom so much. Being in that house just makes me wonder why she did it, you know?”

  “Yeah. That is one of the hardest things about a suicide when there is no note. You always wonder why.”

  Roz wiped her tears and looked toward the street as a bright red sports car swung into a parking space out front and a young dark-haired woman emerged. She stalked toward the café, flinging open the door, and charged toward their booth, the bell tinkling wildly behind her.

  Roz watched in shock as the woman stormed over to them, gaze locked on Charity, a newspaper rolled up in her hand.

  “Stop printing lies about my father!” the woman screamed, throwing the rolled-up paper at Charity. “I’ve warned you. If you say another word about my father I’ll…I’ll burn that stupid newspaper of yours to the ground with you in it!”

  The woman turned and stormed back out. Roz watched in amazement as the brunette climbed into the red sports car and sped off, tires squealing. “Who was that?”

  Charity was busy ironing the wrinkles out of the newspaper on the café table—and smiling. “You didn’t recognize her? No, I guess you wouldn’t since she went to private school and was seldom home during her formative years. That was Wade Dennison’s daughter, Desiree.”

  Roz stared at her friend. “Dennison Ducks?” She looked after the red sports car, then down at the headline in today’s paper.

  Turning the newspaper so she could read the first part of the story, Roz learned that Wade Dennison’s gun had been used to kill his foreman Bud Farnsworth, and that Farnsworth had allegedly been involved in the kidnapping of Angela Dennison and responsible for the murder of Nina Monroe, one of the decoy painters at the plant.

  “Charity? You were almost killed?”

  She nodded, then said conspiratorially, “There are some people in this town who believe Wade shut Bud up before he could implicate him in the kidnapping.”

  Roz was shaking her head in disbelief. “You think Wade was involved in his own daughter’s kidnapping?”

  “I said ‘some’ people.”

  “Right.” Roz wished she didn’t know her friend so well. “Charity, Desiree just threatened to burn down your newspaper with you in it. I think you should call Mitch and tell him.”

  Charity’s eyes twinkled. “Maybe you’re right about calling Mitch.” She smiled and toyed with the bracelet on her wrist.

  “A gift from Mitch?” Roz asked, admiring the bracelet.

  Charity nodded shyly.

  Roz felt a stab of envy. Charity had never wavered when it came to her love for Mitch. Roz had never known any man who could make her look like that, and her fear was that she never would. Hearing the café door open again, she turned and realized she was hoping to see Ford Lancaster fill that doorway.

  MITCH SPOTTED the dark blue pickup parked in the lot at Lost Creek Falls as he pulled in. He parked his cruiser and walked to the top of the falls in time to see Ford Lancaster clambering up the steep side of the creek gorge.

  Lancaster didn’t seem in the least surprised to see him. But he did look guilty—something Mitch had come to recognize after ten years as a sheriff in a remote part of Oregon.

  “Morning, Sheriff,” Lancaster said casually enough. He was younger than Mitch had expected, and reminded Mitch a little of his older brother Jesse. There was a wildness about him that Ford Lancaster seemed to keep well hidden behind his no-nonsense scientist veneer.

  What worried Mitch was that Ford seemed to have already conned Roz. And now Ford Lancaster was at the site of an alleged suicide. What was he doing here? More to the point, what was he doing back in Timber Falls? And just how involved was he with Roz—and Liam Sawyer? Enough that he thought Liam needed protection. Now why was that?

  They were all answers Mitch planned to get. “Looking for something?”

  “Same thing you are.” Ford’s pale aquamarine eyes gave nothing away.

  Mitch would have distrusted him just based on what he knew of him. He definitely didn’t like him hanging around Roz.

  “Did you find the body?” Mitch asked. Which begged the question, why Ford Lancaster would risk his neck to climb down into the gorge to look for a body to begin with when he’d already said he didn’t see anyone jump and thought Rozalyn Sawyer had just imagined it.

  “There is no body.”

  “Is that right?” Mitch marveled at the man’s arrogance. “What makes you so sure of that?” Bodies often got caught in the rocks or in tree limbs and didn’t come up for weeks, even months.

  “I found this.” Ford stuck his hand in his pocket.

  Mitch was startled to see what he withdrew. A mannequin’s hand, the painted bright red nails chipped.

  “There are broken parts all down the creek about a quarter mile.”

  Mitch took the piece of plastic and turned it in his fingers. “You think this is what Roz saw last night? A mannequin falling off the top of the falls?” He frowned down at the slightly curved fingers.

  “Someone hid in the trees at the top of the falls and pushed it off, yes, that’s exactly what I think.”

  Mitch glanced toward the large old pine that grew out over the rocks at the top of the waterfall. “It was pouring last night. Odd time for a prank.”

  Ford nodded as Mitch shifted his gaze back to him. “There was a detour sign in the middle of the highway at the falls turnoff. Whoever planned this knew about what time Rozalyn would be coming up that road.”

  “Someone staged this explicitly for her?” Mitch asked in surprise. “Why?”

  Ford shook his head. “All I know is that I found some footprints where I think he waited for her to drive up. He already had the mannequin hidden in the trees at the top of the falls. When she started to turn around, he rushed through her headlights wearing a bright yellow raincoat so she couldn’t miss him.”

  “Roz said she thought the jumper was a woman,” Mitch pointed out.

  Ford nodded. “If you ask Rozalyn, I’m willing to bet she’d tell you the person had the hood up on the raincoat the first time she saw him or her. Anyway, as I was saying, the person rushed to the top of the falls, made the switch behind that tree, putting the raincoat on the mannequin and pushed it off, staying hidden in the trees and darkness. I think he or she stayed hidden long enough to witness Rozalyn’s reaction—or lay in wait.”

  Mitch shook his head. “Don’t tell me. He planned to push Roz off the falls.” This man seemed to have all the answers.

  Ford shrugged. “I don’t think the person who did this expected me to be on the road last night—let alone that I would race back to save her. I was starting to drive off. If I hadn’t glanced in my side mirror and seen her go tearing over to the falls, who knows what would have happened.”

  “That makes you a hero,” Mitch said. Not likely.

  Ford made a face as if he couldn’t see himself a hero any more than Mitch could. “It’s just my theory of what happened.”

  Mitch nodded. “And a damned interesting one, too. You seem to have it all worked out. Lucky for Roz that you were here.” Or was it?

  FORD COULD HEAR the accusation in the sheriff’s tone. He’d known what he was up against. He was an outsider in this close-knit community. Worse, his name seemed to be legend.

  “As a scientist, I’ve uncovered my share of hoaxes,” he said.

  “Yes, I recall that about you. Handy that when we find your prints on this hand you have an explanation for that, too.”

  Ford gritted his teeth, curbing his impatience. “You have a better theory than mine?”

  “Not yet. Where was this person’s vehicle?”

  “I would imagine it was hidden in the trees. I found an old logging road up that way.” He pointed to the south. “It’s practically grown in. The driver would have had to know it was there.”

  “Someone local then?”

  Ford shrugged. “Or someone who had a map of the old logging roads around here.” That definitely opened up the possibilities.

  “How many people knew what time Roz was supposed to arrive?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Sheriff.” But he knew someone had laid in wait for Rozalyn Sawyer up here last night. He didn’t have an ounce of solid proof. The mannequin, the footprints, all circumstantial. But he knew in his heart that this whole show had been for her.