Cara's stomach dropped for a different reason.
She recognized the man.
Three weeks ago, he'd sat at her corner table for two hours. Coffee and a cranberry muffin. Notebook out. Asking questions about long-time residents, whether anyone had been around twenty or thirty years. The kind of carefully crafted questions that made her nervous because they were exactly the kind she would ask if she were investigating something.
Her mouth went dry.
She could stay quiet. Let them figure it out themselves.Keep her head down, her profile low, her past buried where it belonged.
What would a normal person do?
A normal person would tell the FBI agent that yes, she'd seen the victim, talked to him, might have information that could help.
Except normal people didn't have criminal records that could send them back to prison.
But a good person—the person she was trying to become—wouldn't let a brother stay missing because she was too scared to help.
Lord, I'm trying to do the right thing here. Please don't let it destroy everything.
She took a breath. "I think I’ve seen him before. The man. The…body."
Sawyer spun around. "You recognize him?"
"Maybe? I think so." She wrapped her arms around herself. "He came into the bakery. About three weeks ago? He ordered coffee and a cranberry muffin. Sat at the corner table for a couple hours."
"Did he give a name?" Sawyer pulled out a small notebook.
"No name. But he asked about the town. Said he was interested in local history." She made herself look at the body again, then quickly away. "I told him to check with Mrs. Henley at the historical society. She's been here forever, loves to talk about the old days. I bet she’d know more."
"Three weeks ago." Sawyer's voice went flat. "Same time David went silent."
"What kind of questions about history?" Hale asked, and there was something sharp in his tone.
She shrugged, turning away from the body. "Just... general stuff. How long people had lived here, whether there were any families who'd been around for decades."
Sawyer looked at the body again. The relief that it wasn't his brother was still visible in his posture, but now it was mixed with determination. "My brother was researching the past, too," he said. "Now one's dead and one's missing."
"Maybe your brother lost cell service," Brewer offered. "Happens a lot up the coast."
Sawyer's look could have frozen water. "For three weeks?"
Cara backed away. "I should go. My bakery opens soon."
"I'll need a full statement," Sawyer said, but his attention was already returning to the body, cataloging details. "Everything he said, how long he stayed, anything you remember."
"Of course. I'll be at the bakery all day."
She and Wade turned to leave together.
"That was intense," Wade said once they were out of earshot.
"He thought it was his brother."
"Yeah." Wade's voice was thoughtful. "Man was about to fall apart. Then pulled it together in seconds. That's training."
"Or desperation."
"Maybe both." Wade glanced back. "He's not going to let this go. Connection to his missing brother? He'll tear this town apart looking for answers."
