I licked the cone and said nothing. Because I didn't know what to say.
“I'm out of money,” she said, fighting back the tears. “Literally out of money. I'm not even sure we can make it until the end of the summer now. I was hoping for six months and now I feel like I'm hoping for six weeks.” She paused and wiped at her eyes. “I'm going to have to sell this place.”
My stomach knotted and I felt badly for her. “Really?”
She wiped again at her eyes and nodded. “Yes, really. I'm cash poor and there's no equity left in the property because I've borrowed against it. I can get us to the middle of summer, but at that point, I'm screwed. There's nothing in reserve. I'm going to have to sell just to get myself out of debt.” She looked around the clubhouse. “I can't believe I'm going to lose this place.”
I couldn't believe it, either. I often felt like Jake and I were living on the edge financially with the constant repairs needed to our house, but hearing Delilah lay out her situation made me realize our concerns weren't anything compared to hers. I couldn't imagine losing something that you'd poured your entire life into.
She cleared her throat. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to freak out on you there.”
“It's okay. I'm just sorry I can't help.” I smiled at her. “This really is a lovely place.”
She nodded. “It really is. It always has been.” She shook her head. “I shudder at the thought of what might happen if I sell it. I doubt anyone interested in buying it would keep it the same.”
I had to agree. It was a prime piece of land and the resort was behind the times. I doubted anyone would just want to continue doing what Delilah had been doing, leasing out lots for campers.
She gathered up the cash and set it back in the box. She closed the lid and snapped it close. “I'll try to figure something out.”
The screen door to the clubhouse squeaked open. Sheriff Larrabee stood in the doorway, his thumbs hitched in the pants pockets of his perfectly pressed uniform. He nodded at both of us, then took a step forward.
“Afternoon, ladies,” he said.
“Morris,” Delilah said, her tone brisk.
“Thought I'd stop by and give you an update.” He took off his hat, then repositioned it on his head. “Ask a few more questions.”
Delilah rested her hands on the box but not before I noticed they were trembling. “Of course.”
“Initial report is in,” the sheriff said. “Blunt force trauma.”
I processed his words, instantly thinking of Olaf. It was like deja vu.
“Did he...did he hit his head on a tree? Or a rock or something?” I asked hopefully. Maybe it had been just an accident.
“Doubtful,” the sheriff said, his eyes on Delilah. “Looks like someone put him there in the woods.”
“How do you know?”
He turned to look at me. “Because there was a medallion around his neck,” he said. “And it had been hidden in that spot, according to Delilah. Is that correct?” He shifted his attention back to Delilah, waiting for confirmation.
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.