Free Return to Mystic Lake by Carla Cassidy Page A

the nearest grocery store. Once I got up and saw the contents of your pantry and fridge, I knew I was in dire circumstances.”
    She sat at the table and watched as he poured the gravy into a pitcher and then carried the food to the center of the tiny table.
    “Did you know you had fourteen protein bars in there, but nothing fit to eat?” He gestured for her to pick up her fork and dig in. “Maybe you can eat those things, but I need real food, so I stocked both the freezer and the refrigerator.”
    “You shouldn’t have done that,” she protested. Those weren’t the actions of a man who intended to move into another motel room today. They were the actions of a man who had found his roost and had no intention of leaving it.
    “Darlin’, I had to do it—it’s called self-preservation.” He grinned and grabbed his fork. “Now, eat. We’ve got a long day ahead of us, and breakfast is the most important meal to kick-start your body and brain.”
    Oh, she was kick-started, all right. As she ate, she tried to stay focused off the kiss they’d shared the night before, and tried to figure out a nice way to kick him out of her house.
    By the time they were finished eating and had cleaned up the kitchen, she still hadn’t figured it out. Hopefully before the day ended she could make him believe that staying in her place wasn’t a good plan.
    Before they left the house she called her director, who already had the details of what had happened the night before at the motel and was conducting an internal investigation among the handful of people who knew where Jackson would be staying while in town.
    With that issue taken care of, Marjorie and Jackson were on their way to Mystic Lake to begin a new round of questioning. Despite the fact that they’d agreed the night before to be on the road around nine, they got an early start. Neither of them had slept in later than usual.
    Their first stop would be Natalie Redwing’s place. Although they would arrive there fairly early, around eight-thirty, they hoped to catch the woman off guard.
    “You can do the interview with Natalie Redwing,” Marjorie said, and gave the handsome man next to her a quick glance. “Maybe some of that smooth charm of yours will work its magic and we’ll actually get some answers.”
    “Sounds like a tough assignment to me,” he replied lightly.
    She laughed. “Yeah, like breathing.” She turned onto the highway that would take them to the little town. “We also need to talk to Deputy Black and see if he’s heard any gossip about what went down last night and find out if Jeff Maynard has an alibi for the time of the shooting.”
    “I’ve got the names of everyone we need to talk to written down,” Jackson assured her. “We’ll get them all covered today unless something else comes up. What we need to focus on is watching our backs. Last night was a heads-up that somebody is willing to kill to keep us from gaining answers.”
    A residual chill swept through Marjorie as she thought of those moments the night before when the world exploded around her and terror had shot through her very soul.
    “What happened last night doesn’t exactly speak well for Amberly and Cole’s well-being,” she said, the words painful as they fell from her mouth.
    “No, it doesn’t,” he replied after a moment of hesitation. She was grateful he didn’t pretend that the couple was probably just fine and being held captive somewhere for some unknown reason.
    If they were correct, in that Amberly and Cole had disappeared on Friday night, then tomorrow marked a full week that they’d been missing. A part of her was already mourning the two and that only made her more determined to find out the who and the why of what had happened to them.
    It would have been difficult to drive by Natalie Redwing’s mobile home in the trailer park located on the west end of the small town of Mystic Lake without taking notice of it. Painted a brilliant orange, with colorful