I smiled at the young woman who’d just climbed out of a battered SUV. “Hey, Keegan. I was hoping I’d see you.”

“Is something the matter?” Her face took on a pinched look. “Have you heard anything about Ryan?”

Her concern gnawed at my guilt, but if Ryan wanted her to know where he was, he’d tell her himself. And, I suddenly thought, maybe her anxiety was due to her own guilt.

“I talked to the sheriff’s office yesterday,” I said, “and it didn’t sound as if they had any idea where he is.”

“Super.” Her shoulders lost some of their tension. “That’s great. I mean, not that he’s still missing, but if the cops can’t find him, they can’t put him in jail for something he didn’t do, right?”

I sort of nodded, then had a flash of sheer genius. “I hope they don’t start trying to pin other crimes on him, just because they can’t find him.”

“Other crimes? What do you mean?”

“I heard that a piece of artwork was stolen from a cottage.”

“A painting, you mean?” she asked. “I’ve heard that Cade has a summer place here. You know the guy who paints those landscapes you see on every other greeting card?”

“No, a sculpture. Expensive. By a guy who sounded Italian.”

“Conti?” she asked, her eyes narrowing to small slits. “Vittorio Conti?”

I stared. “That’s the guy. How do—”

Her phone blared with a loud foghorn noise. “My boss,” she said, pulling out her phone. “Sorry, Minnie, but I have to go. Talk to you later, okay? Hey, boss,” she said. “I’m just walking in, but I uploaded that code half an hour ago.”

I watched her go, thinking and wondering. The suspicious part of me had a theory that her concern for Ryan might be an act. Maybe, since she was obviously well aware of Conti sculptures, she’d been the one to steal the Valeras’ piece. And whether or not Pug had bought his Conti from a thief, maybe Keegan had killed Pug to steal it and was now trying to implicate Ryan for both crimes.

But in all honesty, most of me was hoping that she was innocent of any of that. I liked her. I flat out didn’t want her to be the killer.

Then again, what I wanted didn’t matter a hill of beans. The important thing was to find the truth.

No matter what.

Chapter 12

By the next morning, I’d convinced myself that Keegan was what she seemed to be: a young woman in the early stages of her career with a wide variety of interests, one of which happened to be art and other of which happened to be Ryan Anderson.

“That’s my opinion, anyway,” I said. “What do you think?”

“Sorry?”