“Try to accept the fact that we may never know what happened to Angela Dennison,” he said after a moment.

  She couldn’t stand the thought. “There has to be a way.”

  Mitch was shaking his head. “Charity, getting involved last time almost cost you your life.”

  True. But it had also made Mitch realize that he cared for her. She wisely didn’t point this out to him though.

  He stood looking down at her as if there was more he wanted to say. She waited for him to ask her to the dance. Or maybe to a late dinner. It had been almost a week since he’d kissed her.

  “Just be careful, okay?” he said quietly.

  She smiled up at him. “You know me.”

  “Yeah, that’s what worries me.” He turned to leave. “See you later.” She hoped so as she watched him go, her lips feeling neglected.

  She got up and locked the front door as he drove away. Then she turned back to her computer. She had a story to write.

  The phone rang. She picked it up, already knowing who it would be.

  “I got that ballistics report you wanted,” said her source on the other end of the line. “Are you sitting down?”

  She sat, even though she already knew the results.

  “Wade Dennison’s gun killed Bud Farnsworth.”

  “You’re the best, Tommy.” A thought had been percolating ever since Mitch left. If she was right and Wade Dennison had hired Bud Farnsworth to do his dirty work, then there would be a money trail. “Tommy, I have another little favor.”

  “Little?” he cried when he heard what she wanted. “Do you realize how many years in prison I could get for hacking in to bank records?”

  “More years than hacking in to the state investigation’s office for a ballistics report?” she asked innocently.

  He laughed. “What’s the name on the account?”

  “Two accounts. Wade Dennison and Bud Farnsworth. And I’m interested in old records—say twenty-seven years ago? Let me give you the dates.”

  Tommy let out a low whistle when she’d finished. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Are you kidding?” She hung up and typed Wade Dennison Fired Fatal Bullet To Silence Kidnapper or Save Wife? Angela Dennison Kidnapping Still A Mystery and stopped, reminding herself that Wade had threatened her life not that long ago. True, he did it in front of the sheriff—and she hadn’t taken it all that seriously. But now…now she wasn’t so sure she didn’t have something to fear.

  Not that it would stop her from doing the story. Or doing a little checking into both Dennison’s and Farnsworth’s bank accounts. After all, she was a journalist whether Mitch liked it or not and she came from a family of the best gossips in four counties. She hated not knowing what was really going on. There had to be a way to get to the truth.

  The problem was Wade might be the only one left alive who knew the truth about Angela Dennison’s kidnapping. Maybe it was possible to make Wade angry enough to do something that would get him caught.

  She began to type again, telling herself that Mitch wasn’t going to be happy about this. Nothing new about that. Too bad, though, that he hadn’t kissed her. She feared that by tomorrow morning when the paper came out, kissing her would be the furthest thing from his mind.

  THE ROAR of the waterfall drowned out Roz’s scream as she tried to fight off the strong arms that grabbed her from behind.

  Frantic, she struggled to regain her balance, to free herself of his hold. As she lost her footing on the wet moss-slick boulder, she felt the earth tilt and all she could see was the dizzying darkness of the water below as she slipped and started to fall toward the gorge.

  The arms around her loosened as if he realized he was going to pitch over the waterfall with her if he didn’t let go with one arm and try to grab something to save himself.

  She drove her elbow into his ribs and heard him let out an oath, but he held on and suddenly she was jerked backward. He took her down with him, both of them hitting hard as they fell under the wide base of a pine tree a few feet from the edge of the falls.

  “Stay away from me,” she cried, scooting back from him as her hands searched for something to defend herself with. Her fingers closed around a chunk of wet wood. She held it up, brandishing the wood like a club, as she struggled to get her feet under her.

  It was dark under the tree. Not even the light from her SUV’s headlamps could reach it. But she could see that he was large as he also rose to his feet. His face was in a shadow, his features a blur, but his eyes— The irises were so pale they seemed almost iridescent in the dim light.

  He advanced on her, his hands out as if in surrender, but she knew he was just looking for another opening to lunge for her again.

  “You come near me and I’ll hit you,” she yelled over the roar of the waterfall as she backed up as far as she could. “I’m warning you.”

  “Fine,” he said and stopped. “Go ahead, jump. I don’t care. My mistake for trying to save you from yourself.”

  She blinked at him through the mist and rain. “Save me from myself? I wasn’t going to jump.”

  “Right. Whatever. Go ahead. Have at it. Believe me, I won’t try to stop you again.” He crossed his arms over his chest. She noticed for the first time that, like her, he wasn’t wearing a coat. His shirt and slacks were soaked. Just as hers were.

  “You weren’t trying to push me off the waterfall?”

  He glared at her. “Are you crazy? What am I saying? Of course you’re crazy or you wouldn’t be up here in the middle of a damned rainstorm trying to commit suicide. And this is the thanks I get for attempting to save your life.”

  “Thanks? You almost killed us both,” she snapped. “And I told you, I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” She shuddered at the thought.

  “Uh-huh. You just wanted to get a good look at the waterfall.” He started to turn away. “Well, have a good look. I won’t bother you anymore.”

  “I saw someone jump.”

  He stopped and turned slowly. “What?”

  “I saw someone in a yellow raincoat jump.” She glanced off to the side toward the waterfall, sick with the memory. “That’s why I rushed over here.”

  “You saw someone?”

  Could his tone be any more mocking?

  “I think it was a woman.” Had she caught a glimpse of long blond hair just before the figure disappeared over the top of the falls? “I saw her—” her voice broke “—lean forward and drop over the edge. When I got to the top of the falls, the yellow raincoat she was wearing was in the water below.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said and looked around. “And this woman who jumped, where is her car?”

  “Right over—”

  “That’s my truck. But you ought to know that. You’ve been following me for the past twenty miles.”

  She looked past her own car, the engine still running, the interior light on since she’d left her door open in her haste. The headlights sliced a narrow swath of pale gold through the pouring rain and darkness. There were no other vehicles. Just hers. And his. Nor had she seen any other cars on the highway tonight.

  “How did this mysterious jumper get out here?” he asked.

  She shook her head, confused. The waterfall was too far from anything for anyone to have walked. Especially this time of year in a rainstorm.

  “You and I are the only ones out here,” he said.

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. She’d seen someone in a bright yellow raincoat, seen the person jump, seen the coat in the water below the falls.

  Even back here under the shelter of the large old pine, she could still feel that falling sensation, the roaring in her ears, the warm spray on her face, feel the watery grave far, far below as her feet slipped on the mossy rock.

  “You had to have seen her,” Roz said trembling hard now but not from the cold.

  “All I saw was you in my side mirror as I started to leave. I saw you throw on your brakes, bolt from your car and run to the edge of the waterfall.”

  He’d been watching her? That’s why he hadn’t seen the person in the yellow raincoat. So he’d just been trying to save her? “If I was wrong about your intentions—”

  He waved off her apology. “Forget it.”

  “We have to call the sheriff.” Even as she said it, she knew no one could have survived that fall into the rocks and water below. It would just be a matter of recovering the body.

  “You have a cell phone that works up here?” he asked. “I tried mine when I stopped. No service.”

  She shook her head. Of course there wouldn’t be any service up here. “I’ll call the sheriff when I get closer to Timber Falls.”

  “You sure you want to do that?”

  She rubbed a hand over her wet face, still holding the chunk of wood in the other. She was exhausted, emotionally drained. She leveled her gaze at him. “I did see someone jump.” She didn’t know where the person had come from but she knew what she’d seen.

  He shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  She hated his scornful tone. Had he really been trying to save her? Or kill her? If he’d just left her alone, she would have been perfectly fine. She was pretty sure that was true. He was making her doubt everything.

  “I have family in Timber Falls,” she said, and hated herself for trying to reassure him that she was the sane one here. “I’m on my way there.”

  “If your family lives in Timber Falls, I’d think you would know the road.”

  “I wasn’t paying attention. I was following you. And I haven’t been up here in years.” She wouldn’t be here at all if she wasn’t worried about her father. When she’d left ten years before, she’d thought nothing could ever get her back to Timber Falls. And nothing had, not even when her father had remarried, moved back and reopened her childhood home. Until now. “I came up here tonight because—”

  “Thanks, but I’d prefer not to know anymore about you,” he said.

  “Are you always this disagreeable?” she snapped.

  “Actually, I’m trying to be on my best behavior right now.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he said, wringing the water from his shirttail. “You should see me when I’m not.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Did I mention that I’m late for a dinner engagement?”

  “Then please don’t let me keep you,” she said.

  He started backing away from her. “And please don’t thank me for saving your life. Really.”

  “No problem. I hadn’t wanted to jump but now that I’ve met you I might change my mind.”

  His laugh held little humor as he turned his back on her and stalked through the rain toward the parking lot and his pickup.

  She headed for her car, still gripping the chunk of wood just in case he was a psycho killer and planned to double back. He didn’t. He went straight to his pickup, climbed in and a moment later the engine turned over and the headlights came on. He drove away without looking back as far as she could tell.

  Her driver’s-side seat was soaked and so was she. Not that she wasn’t already chilled to the bone from everything that had happened.

  She locked her car door, feeling scared and not sure why as she kicked up the heat. There was no other vehicle. Maybe the person who’d jumped from the waterfall had hidden her car somewhere. But why do that?

  As Roz pulled out of the parking lot, tears stung her eyes. She hadn’t imagined the person in the yellow raincoat. And history was not repeating itself.

  Chapter Two

  Rain pounded the windshield, the wipers making a steady whap-whap as Roz drove the narrow road back out to the main highway. She didn’t see the pickup’s taillights. He obviously didn’t want her following him anymore and had sped off to avoid any further contact. Fine with her.

  Stopping at the intersection, she looked through the rain for the detour sign she vaguely remembered seeing earlier.

  It was gone.

  Had he picked it up? He hadn’t seen the person in the yellow raincoat. Was it possible he hadn’t seen the detour sign, either? She shook off the thought. Why had he turned down the road to the waterfall then?

  She hit the gas, even more anxious to get to Timber Falls. The night seemed too dark, too rainy, too isolated. She couldn’t wait to see the lights of town, to get to the house, to see that her father had returned so that all her worry had been for nothing.

  The rainforest grew in a dark, wet canopy over the top of the narrow, winding highway. Rain splattered down through the vegetation, striking the windshield like pebbles as mist rose ghostlike up from the pavement.

  A few miles down the highway, the trees opened a little, and she dug out her cell phone, saw that she had service and called 9-1-1. She related briefly what she’d seen at Lost Creek Falls to the dispatcher and left her cell phone number for the sheriff to call her back.

  When the lights of Timber Falls appeared out of the rain and mist, Roz felt such a surge of relief she almost wept. Home—the feeling surprised her given why she’d left here. This hadn’t been home for ten years. Nor would it ever be again. But right now, she was overjoyed to finally be here, the one place she’d once felt safe and happy.

  She drove down Main Street past the city offices, the Duck Inn bar, the Timber Falls Courier and the Busy Bee. The No Vacancy sign glowed red at the Ho Hum Motel and Betty’s Café was packed, a half dozen cars parked out front. That was odd. She frowned, wondering why everything was so busy given the time of year—and the weather. Something must be going on.

  As she turned down the once familiar tree-lined lane, she felt as if time had stood still here as well. Anxiously she awaited her first glimpse of the large old house where she’d been raised.

  She’d never understood why her father had hung on to the house given the painful memories. He alone had come here over the years, paying to see that the empty house didn’t fall into disrepair.

  But as the structure came into view in her headlights, she was overwhelmed with emotion and thankful that he hadn’t been able to part with it. The house stood fighting back the rainforest, the towering roofline etched black against the night sky. She caught her breath at the sight of it. As a child she thought it a castle. Even now it seemed larger than life.

  This had been home for her first seventeen years. It had been a fun, rambling place with lots of space to play and great hiding places. Her mother always had flowers growing in large pots on the porch and brightly colored curtains at the windows.

  But Roz saw that the pots of flowers were gone—just as the brightly colored curtains were, just as her mother was.

  Roz looked away, fighting the same sorrow she had for the past ten years, and hoped to see her father’s truck and camper parked next to the other cars in the open carport beside the house.

  There were three cars. The new Cadillac her father had bought Emily as a wedding present and two new sports cars, a bright yellow one and a shiny black one. The yellow one belonged to Emily’s twenty-four-year-old daughter, Suzanne, the black one to her twenty-six-year-old son, Drew.

  Roz felt a sliver of apprehension to see that the whole family was here. Her father obviously hadn’t returned. Was that what had brought Suzanne and Drew all the way in from Portland? Had something happened since Roz had talked to Emily?

  Even more worried, Roz parked in front of the house and made a run through the rain to the porch. She stood waiting for her father’s new family to answer the bell. It felt so strange not to be able to just open the door and walk in. But the people who lived here now were virtual strangers. She’d only been around the new family on a few awkward occasions. Even her father had become a stranger the last six months since his quickie marriage in Las Vegas.

  “Give Emily a chance,” her dad had asked after the wedding. “I know this happened pretty fast.” She should say so! “But please try. For me.”

  And she was trying. Really.

  She rang the bell and managed a smile, relieved to see the door opened by her newly acquired stepbrother Drew, the least objectionable member of her father’s new family.

  “Hey, you made it. I was starting to worry about you,” he said, flashing her a big smile. Drew was blond, blue-eyed and drop-dead handsome if you went for that type. Roz didn’t. She found his classically featured face devoid of character with no sign that he’d experienced life, although he was only two years her junior.

  Drew’s saving grace was the fact that he was the only member of his family who seemed to care one way or another about her. His interest in her definitely wasn’t romantic. Roz suspected he paid attention to her because it annoyed his mother.

  He hugged Roz, then stepped back in surprise. “You’re freezing.” He ushered her inside out of the cold and dampness. “What happened?”

  She knew she must look like a drowned cocker spaniel, her strawberry-blond hair a tousle of damp curls. “I had a…flat.” She really didn’t want to get into her “detour” or what she’d seen at the waterfall.

  “Has anyone heard from my father?” she asked as she stepped in.

  Drew shook his head. “Sorry.”

  She glanced past him, trying hard not to cry. She hadn’t realized how scared she was, how worried that something had happened to him. If only she hadn’t missed his call the other day.

  What little of the house she could see had changed more than she could have imagined. When Roz’s mother, Anna, had been alive, the house had smelled of baked bread and brownies. This house smelled of cleaner, new carpet and fresh paint.

  Her father had warned her a few months ago that Emily was doing a little redecorating, but it still came as a shock to see everything of her mother gone. Through the French doors, she could see the living room. All of the beautiful old things her mother had collected had been replaced with new, modern furniture.

  That wasn’t the only shock. While Roz’s mother, Anna, had loved vibrant colors, it seemed Emily was partial to indistinguishable shades of off-white. The furnishings didn’t fit the house any more than Emily did, she thought uncharitably.

  “Don’t worry, all of your mother’s things have been moved up to the attic,” Drew said, following her gaze. “Your father insisted everything be saved.”