Chapter 69

Annie sometimes found herself back at Cookie’s yellow house. Nobody had rented it yet, and it was still wide open. She loved to walk through those empty rooms. It was a place of peace and quiet. Even though it hurt that Cookie left them, Annie still found the place that her friend had called home to be comforting. Strange.

She looked out the huge window at the mountain range—a place of splendid beauty, especially with the first snowfall lying in clumps on the grass and on the trees.

“Pretty, huh?” Someone came up behind her.

She turned around quickly, startled. It was Detective Adam Bryant.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, smiling. “I thought I might find you. Mike said he thought you might be here.”

Mike and Bryant had struck up a friendship. Annie wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“What’s up?” she said and smiled back.

“I wanted to thank you, once again, for not reporting on the FBI involvement and all that,” he said.

“Sometimes, even when you know the truth, it’s best not to write about it. Thanks for telling me everything,” she said.

“You had me cornered.” He laughed, and then his deep-dimpled smile faded quickly. “I’m still pissed about it.”

“C’mon,” she said. “You had no idea.”

“I should’ve known they were setting me up, using me. I should’ve smelled that a mile away. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve outlived my job as a cop. Maybe I’m getting too slow-witted,” he said, his head tilting, brow knitting.

“Funny, I just said the same thing to my husband about reporting,” she said. “But there was no way you could have done anything about it—even if you had known the FBI was setting you up or setting up Cookie. You would have still kept her. You would have still done your job. Even though it came down to this, justice was served.”

“Let’s hope it will be served, that Zeb will get convicted,” he said.

Bryant walked over to the other side of the window, looked out to the mountains. “I didn’t know why they wanted me to keep Cookie. I just knew that I had to. That’s all they told me. Just wanted her out of the way. Me too, evidently. I wanted you to know that. I had orders from them. They were supposed to be working with us. But you know how that goes. FBI comes in and trumps all of us.”

“I hope that she’s okay,” Annie said, suddenly feeling warm and taking off her parka. She sat down on the floor. “I’ve been going over the scenarios.”

He sat down next to her. “You know, me too.”

“I think of that scrapbook she had, full of tarot cards, bits and pieces of hair, crystals, maps.”

He frowned.

“I’m just saying that it felt like she was here for a reason. She researched Cumberland Creek, yeah. But there was more to it than that.”

He shrugged. “What are you thinking?”

“Undercover agent?” she said.

“Witness protection program?”

Their eyes locked as they sat together on the floor, the winter sun streaming in, the sunlight reflecting off the bright snow. Annie felt a sudden rush of heat or embarrassment and felt her face reddening. Was this the flush of attraction? She shrugged it off and thought of her husband immediately. She stood up.

“I’m sorry. I’ve got to go,” she said.

Could she be friends with or even attracted to this cop? He was infuriating, maddening, and yet . . . Mike was right. He was basically a good guy. She could not write up the story in a way that would make him look like an ass. Yeah, ten years ago, she’d have done it and not flinched. But she was a different person today.

“Oh yeah. Yeah, sure,” he said. “Oh wait, I have something for you. Come out to the car with me.”

She trailed behind him and watched him open the car door.

“Close your eyes,” he told her.

“What? C’mon,” Annie said. “Are you serious?”

This was a side to him she’d never seen. Playful. Who’d have thought?

“Close them,” he said.

“Okay,” she sighed. “Whatever. Get on with it, Bryant!”

“Hold out your hands,” he told her.

She did so.

“We found this when we were traipsing around up on the mountain. It’s a bit torn up in some places. Missing pages. Kind of ragged. But I thought you might want it.”

A heavy item was placed in her hands. Cool. Metallic. She felt a warm wind come over them as she opened her eyes and read what was written in beautiful hand-printed letters: “Cookie Crandall’s Scrapbook of Shadows.”