Twilight at Blueberry Barrens (Sunset Cove #3)(53)

Drake couldn’t place the name, but Kate set her water glass onto the table with a clatter. “My neighbor Amelia? The one who reported a Peeping Tom at her house a few weeks ago?”

Dixie nodded. “Poor child. She’s been practically afraid to leave her house ever since. I think she’s going to stay with her grandmother in Portland for a while instead of moving back to the dorm.”

Drake didn’t like the sound of this. He pointed to the ring. “So that came up missing about the same time as the watch? Or do you know when you last saw the watch?”

“I showed it to her when she was here, so I know I had it at least part of her visit.” She glanced at Kate. “You think Paul broke in at some point and stole the jewelry?”

“But why? And why would he be carrying it through the blueberry fields?” Kate rose and went to refill her water glass.

Drake picked up another ring, with a small pale-blue birthstone. “This stuff is hardly worth much. Why would a thief take this kind of thing and hide it? The entire stash probably isn’t worth more than a hundred bucks at a pawn shop.”

Kate turned from the sink to face him. Her blue eyes were somber. “I probably read too many suspense novels, but you know what keeps coming to mind? Trophies.”

“You mean like a serial killer?” Drake shook his head. “You’re reaching, Kate. Paul has his issues, but I don’t think he’s a serial killer.”

Pink tinged her cheeks. “I knew it sounded silly, but we’ve had some issues with a Peeping Tom in the area. And there was Whitney Peece’s murder. It just made me think.”

He touched a bracelet. “Any of this jewelry yours other than the earrings?”

She carried her water back to the table. “Nothing I recognize.”

He locked gazes with her and saw the vulnerability in her eyes. “It wouldn’t hurt to mention it to the sheriff. Maybe he’s had some reports of these items missing.”

“Thank you. I know it’s far-fetched, but I thought it was worth bringing up.”

He turned the clues over in his head even as he stared at the items. He turned to Kate. “Let’s go see the sheriff.”





TWENTY-FIVE


Drake and Kate found the sheriff at a table in the Oyster Bistro. Soft eighties music mingled with the tinkle of tableware and the chatter of the servers and customers.

Colton was talking to a man Drake had never seen before. “Think we should interrupt him? He looks intent. You recognize the guy with him?”

Kate nodded and headed that way. “That’s Jonas Kissner, one of his deputies. You talked to him on the phone the other day. I went to school with him.” She reached the booth. “Hey, guys. I hope you don’t mind if we interrupt you.”

Colton set his coffee cup on the table. “Just having lunch. Let me scooch over. This is Deputy Kissner.”

Drake nodded to the deputy, a redheaded man in his late twenties. Kissner’s pale-green eyes looked him over, and he nodded back. Drake sat beside the sheriff and Kate took the seat opposite him.

“I still haven’t gotten those autopsy reports,” Drake said.

The deputy frowned and the sheriff shrugged. “Maybe I typed the e-mail wrong. Give it to me again on a piece of paper.”

Drake wrote out his email carefully on a notepad the sheriff handed him, then gave it back. “We have some information for you.” He nodded across the table at Kate, who sat in a wash of sunlight that made her dark-blonde hair glow.

She dug in her ginormous bag and pulled out the jewelry pouch. “We have a theory about the contents in this bag.” They spilled onto the table surface when she upended the pouch. “I found it in my fields.”

Drake watched her animation as she explained to the sheriff and his deputy about three pieces of the jewelry they’d recognized. With color in her cheeks, she was pretty enough to snag the attention of every man in the place. But he didn’t like the thought of anyone else ogling her long, shorts-clad legs.

Kate picked up Dixie’s watch. “Over the past year the news has reported break-ins and instances of a man looking in windows. What if this is his trophy bag? He breaks into houses and steals things from women he’s targeting.”

The deputy straightened and shook his head. “Old Dixie is hardly the type to warrant a Peeping Tom’s attention. I think you’re jumping to conclusions.”

Kate tapped the watch face. “I think the real target was Amelia Nicholson. He got Dixie’s watch, too, while he was there.”

Colton pursed his lips and looked over the loot. “I hope you’re wrong, Kate. A man who collects these kinds of things is the type of criminal who might move on to murder.” He looked up at her. “I’m going to take these into custody and have every woman who reported a break-in or a Peeping Tom have a look. If we find more correlation, this thing just got really serious.” He popped a mint and sighed. “Whitney Peece reported a man in her hotel room while she was showering the day before she died. I’d better have her next of kin take a look at these items and see if anything belongs to her.”

Kate hugged herself and shuddered.

“This Peeping Tom guy might have stolen something from her room that night. Many of these criminals start with peeping, then move on to rape and eventually murder.” He nodded toward the bag. “If that’s what we’ve got here, I want to nab him before he goes any further.”