Eclipse Bay

morosely. “Said he was looking for a suicide note, but he tore that place apart, y’know? Why would he do that if he was just lookin’ for a note? I mean, if she’d left one, she would have put it in plain sight, don’t you think? Why leave a note if you don’t want it to be found?”
    “You’re right,” Rafe said. “She’d have left it in plain sight.”
    Hannah gripped the edge of her chair very tightly. “Do you recall whether or not Yates pulled out her washer and dryer to check behind them?”
    Dell nodded. “And the refrigerator, too. Like I said, he really went through her stuff. But I know she didn’t jump off that cliff. There was no note. I told him she wasn’t the type to commit suicide. Asked him what he was really looking for.”
    Hannah watched him. “What did he say?”
    “Said he’d know it if he found it. But he didn’t find anything.”
    They all sat in silence for a time. After a while Dell sighed heavily and drained the last of his soda. “I didn’t try to kill your dog, Hannah.”
    “I believe you,” Hannah said. “You wouldn’t hurt an innocent animal.”
    Dell nodded and said nothing.
    “There’s something else,” Hannah said. “Rafe didn’t kill Kaitlin. I really was with him that night on the beach near the Arch. There was no way he could have followed your sister home, let alone kill her and take her body to Hidden Cove. You have my word on it.”
    Dell did not move for a long time. Then he looked at Rafe. “If it wasn’t you, who was it?”
    “Good question,” Rafe said.

    Back in the car, Winston draped the front half of his body over the back of the seat and nuzzled Hannah’s shoulder. She scratched his ears and glanced at Rafe.
    “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.
    “About that lingerie and the videos the Willis brothers found hidden behind Kaitlin’s dryer?” Rafe steered the Porsche in a tight circle and drove down the dusty, rutted road that led away from Sadler’s Auto Rebuild. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Maybe those videos were her nuclear option.”
    “Blackmail material?”
    “Maybe,” Rafe said again. “And maybe Chief Yates suspected something. Maybe that’s why he tore her place apart that night.”
    “But he didn’t find anything.”
    Rafe turned right onto the main road. “Which means that whoever killed Kaitlin managed to recover the videos and the lingerie.”
    Hannah shivered. “Do you realize what we’re saying here?”
    “We’re saying that Dell Sadler was right all along. Kaitlin didn’t die in an accidental fall. And she sure as hell didn’t jump off the Hidden Cove path. She was murdered by someone she was attempting to blackmail.”
    Hannah took a breath. “We’re making some huge assumptions here.”
    He shrugged. “After what almost happened to you and Winston last night, I’m willing to take some very big leaps.”
    “If we’re right, someone murdered Kaitlin because she had possession of compromising videos.”
    “The question is, who in this burg would have committed murder just to keep her quiet about an affair involving some frilly lingerie? Cross-dressing isn’t that big a deal.”
    “Come on, Rafe. You want possibilities? How about some desperate assistant professor at Chamberlain who might have been afraid that his chance at tenure was about to go up in smoke because of those videos? Or try a minister at a local church who would lose his congregation if his taste for ladies’ underwear became public knowledge. And then there’s the crowd up at the institute. Arizona Snow has always been convinced that there are some very unsavory characters up there. Maybe she’s right.”
    Rafe sank deeper into the leather seat. “You’re right. A long list of possibilities.”
    “Then there’s the Willis brothers’ theory that the killer was someone from out of town. Which gives us an even longer list.”
    Rafe’s dark brows met above his shades in a thoughtful frown. “Don’t think so. Her decision to use her nuclear option, as Dell put it, was apparently an impulse. Her victim had to be someone she could reach on the spur of the moment that night. Not someone who had to be summoned from Portland or Seattle or Salem.”
    “Makes sense.” Hannah pondered for a minute. “Okay, let’s try this from another angle. Surely not everyone in Eclipse Bay is into ladies’ lingerie. And not everyone here who is into women’s underwear would commit murder to keep a