“You what? When?”
“Before I fell down the stairs. When I was sneaking around. I saw him and backed out.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”
“A hundred percent. I take it that guy down there is not your lawyer—Duncan’s son?”
“No, that’s not Connor. There is no lawful reason for Griffin Pritchard to have been in the study.”
“There was another man in there with him. I heard his voice but didn’t see him.”
Tom clutched a handful of his hair. “You’re only telling me this now?”
“I just assumed… When you said your lawyer had been there that morning, I assumed that’s who I saw, and that the other voice was yours. I didn’t think…” She looked down at the man in the blue jacket, who was checking something in the tray of the pickup. “Also, the other guy—the gray coat. Oh wow.” She planted a palm on her forehead. Her headache was back and making up for lost time.
“Amelia,” Tom said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”
“The man I saw, the man in the big gray coat. Remember, I told you that I recalled seeing someone run down a hallway? It was him!”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh, no? But I remember now what we were doing. You were looking for the old clothes and hats to show me!”
“Yeah, in the attic. Was that before we saw the men with the rug?”
“Maybe?”
“So, Griffin was in the study yesterday morning, and then Rhys was running down a hallway in the middle of the night. Whatever for?”
Down by the house, the man in the blue puffer—Griffin—whistled, and two dogs shot out of the front door, baying.
“The hounds,” Amelia said. “I heard those dogs yesterday.”
At a shouted command, the dogs jumped onto the bed of the pickup. The man in the gray coat left the house, slamming the door behind him. He carried two rifles.
Amelia looked up at Tom. “We’re being hunted now?”
Chapter 15
Tom
Tom backed further into the canopy as Rhys jumped into the pickup. It took off, kicking up gravel.
“You said before that they were ‘shady’?” Amelia said.
“Only in the sense that they use somecreativeways to make money.”
“You mean poaching deer?”
“That and… See those?” He pointed at two commercial greenhouses in a field to one side of the house. “Officially, a hothouse flower operation. But I’ve heard from a few mutual acquaintances that they produce the best-quality weed in the county.”
“Really?”
Tom rubbed his forehead. “At least they’re not being bought out by some twenty-something billionaire. But I wouldn’t have thought them capable of hurting anyone. Let’s break in.” He strode in the direction of the house. “We can use their phone to call the police. Maybe even nick one of their quad bikes.” He pointed to a large shed beside the house, where two were parked.
Amelia hurried after him. “The last time we saw Duncan, he was talking about confronting them over the poaching. Maybethey shot him? Mistook him for an animal and then panicked and covered it up?”
“That doesn’t explain why they would be walking by the house at three in the morning with a rug.”
