He listened as Annie explained the long shot of a link between Rex and Rose.
“So my best guess is that Rex reminds her of her uncle, and that her uncle hadn’t been ‘nice’ to her. To what extent, I have no idea.”
Tenting his fingers together, John kept his eyes on his cuticles and seemed to half listen to her words. When she was finished, he merely said, “Interesting.”
She pushed her chair back. “I get the feeling you don’t really mean that.”
“We’ve already run background checks on all your tenants, including Rose. My dad remembered Clive Atkins; we ran one on him, too. Nothing came up, not even a speeding ticket for either of them.”
So he’d already known about Rose’s uncle. Annie’s agitation rose. “The current situation is hardly a speeding ticket, John.”
He rubbed his hands over his face. “I know that, Annie. I’m only trying to tell you that if there’s a connection between Rose and Rex, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Bella.”
It sounded as if her instincts had been right about that. But she wasn’t finished. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the rock and set it on the table.
“And this is . . . ?” he asked.
“It came from Rose’s room. I thought you might want to see it.”
He picked it up and studied the message. “ ‘Come back to me’?”
“It’s one of many rocks, all of which Rose has painted with a word or two, mostly messages of hope. Things like ‘Love,’ ‘Peace,’ and ‘Be Kind.’ Like the stones that were scattered around the island early on in the pandemic. Only these are all heart-shaped.”
“How many?”
“Around a hundred. More or less. I didn’t count them.”
“They’re all in Rose’s room?”
“Yes. There’s also lacquer and paint and a couple of brushes, so it’s pretty obvious she’s doing the painting. I thought you might want to compare it to the lettering on the note.”
He studied the rock a moment longer. Then he asked, “And when did you get this?”
“Today.”
He eyed her as if she were a suspect. “After we’d learned that Rose was gone,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Well,” Annie replied, “yes.”
“And you did not have her permission to enter her room without her being there?”
So there they were: John’s by-the-book morals, which no doubt served the Edgartown Police Department well, but were a big, fat pain in the neck when it came to Annie’s trying to solve a crime.
“Rose left last night without saying where she was going. Because she is a woman alone, I was concerned. She’s my tenant, John, and I take the health and safety of all of our tenants seriously. I entered her room for a wellness check. I don’t think there’s a law against that.”
John sighed, then stood up. “I’ll turn it over to Linc and bring him up to speed.”
She stood, too, and stuffed her hands in her back pockets. “Does that mean you’re blowing it off?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. But I’m going off island for a couple of days. There’s another lead I need to follow up.”
Shifting her stance, Annie knew that the “lead” must be important. John wouldn’t leave the Vineyard for an hour, never mind a couple of days, not at a time like this. “Can you tell me where you’re going? Or why?” she asked quietly. Sometimes she really did understand that he was the professional, not she. Sometimes she berated herself for forgetting that, for acting as if she knew more about crime and criminals because she’d learned a smidgen while doing research for her books.
He hesitated, as if trying to decide if she was trustworthy. She tried not to take it personally.
“No one seems to be looking for ransom money. So we’ve been trying to find out if someone wants to settle a score. The only person on our radar was Bella’s birth father. Remember him?”
Annie pressed her fingers to her cheeks. “Stephen Thurman?” She didn’t want to say she’d already thought of him, but had discounted his involvement because of the way he’d said he wanted no part of the illegitimate “kid,” and he had dared them to try to do anything about it.
