The Sunstone Brooch : Time Travel Romance Katherine Logan (no david read aloud TXT) 📖

ye didn’t invade my privacy to talk about Churchill’s education.”

She hesitated a moment before answering. “I just took a call from a detective with the Cambridge Police Department.”

Elliott removed his reading glasses and placed them on top of the iPad. “I assume ye mean Cambridge, Massachusetts, and not Cambridge, England?”

“Yep!” she said.

He couldn’t imagine why the police would call Penny, so he didn’t waste time trying to guess. “What’d they want?”

Penny rubbed her belly and wiggled to get comfortable. “Have you talked to JC lately?”

He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Let’s not dance around a police investigation, lass. What’d they want?”

“The detective was calling Billie Malone.”

“Ye haven’t been Billie Malone in three years.”

“He tracked Billie down through the catering business, and my former partner gave him my mobile number. He’s investigating the disappearance of a woman from a house in Cambridge.”

Elliott’s chest tightened as if a big brown bear had him in a hug, squeezing the last breaths from his body. “Go on,” he said, although he knew where this was leading.

“When he entered the details surrounding the woman’s disappearance into a national database, my name popped up.”

Elliott pushed to his feet and walked over to the window with a view of the James River. “It was the smell of peat. Wasn’t it?”

“That’s two for two. You’re on a roll.”

He glared at her. “If ye’re afraid to tell me, just spit it out. Ye have my word, I won’t yell, and right now ye’re the only person in this family that applies to.”

“Okay, if you promise.”

He shot her with another one of his infamous death rays and raised his arms in surrender.

“Okay. Message received.” She adjusted the pillows. “The detective said there was a nasty smell in the hotel room when I disappeared, and the police report described it as the smell of peat. He asked me where it came from. I told him the odor was in a jewelry box I purchased and that it took several months to get rid of the smell. He seemed satisfied, so I asked the woman’s name. When he told me, I said I’d met her before, and only then realized I’d probably made a mistake, but I couldn’t retract it.”

The Hulk-hug tightness around Elliott’s chest squeezed even tighter. “Is she a woman you knew at West Point?”

“No, she’s JC’s friend, Ensley Williams. You’ve met her. She’s George Williams’s cousin.”

Elliott pounded his fist into his other hand. “Shite. When’d she disappear?”

“Thursday night. But, Elliott, here’s the thing. The detective already knew I’m married to the president of Montgomery Winery and that James Cullen Fraser’s mother owns it.”

“How the hell did James Cullen worm his way into this story?”

“I asked the detective the same question. He said JC and George were both in Cambridge for meetings. They met at the Porcellian Club Thursday night. From there, they went to pick up Ensley and take her to dinner. But she wasn’t at the Williams’s house. All her stuff was there, including her phone. They got worried, and George called the police. The detectives came and interviewed them, and then George filed a missing person report.”

“Does the detective suspect foul play?” Elliott asked.

“He didn’t mention it, and I didn’t ask.”

Someone else knocked on the door, and before Elliott could say come in or go away, David opened it. He looked at Penny on the sofa, then at Elliott pacing. “Looks like I’m too late. Ye heard about Ensley?”

“Aye,” Elliott said. “Come in. How’d ye find out?”

David entered and closed the door. “I have alerts set to notify me if a woman goes missing and the investigation mentions the smell of peat. I just got my first one about thirty minutes ago and pulled up a missing person report filed by George Williams.” David directed a question to Elliott, “Did JC call ye?”

“No. Penny got a call from a detective in Cambridge.”

David glanced at Penny. “I guess he got yer name from a national database?”

She nodded. “I thought you were going to scrub the details of my disappearance so nobody could find me.”

“I decided to leave it alone. If my alerts failed, I figured ye’d get a call.”

Penny stood and rubbed her back. “You should have warned me. I would have prepared for a conversation with a detective.”

“I don’t buy it,” David said. “Captain Penny Lafitte is always prepared.”

“Maybe once, but now I can’t even find my feet.” She wiggled her eyebrows playfully. “Have you seen them anywhere?”

David gave her a side-body hug. “Ye sound just like Kenzie when she was pregnant. Ye’ll be fine.” He crossed the room and poured a cup of coffee. “What did the detective say?”

“That my name popped up when he entered ‘missing woman’ and ‘peat smell’ into a national database. I told him the smell was in a jewelry box. Then he mentioned that he interviewed James Cullen and that I worked at a winery owned by his mother. He thought that was an interesting coincidence.”

David sipped from his mug. “The detective did his research. Did he sound suspicious or sound like he suspected foul play?”

“Elliott asked that, too. The detective didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. But he did ask if JC knew about the smell in my jewelry box. I told him that as far as I knew, it was so insignificant that there wasn’t any reason to mention it.”

“Good answer.” Elliott was looking out the window at the twin girls kicking a soccer ball around the yard while listening to Penny. “Did the detective ask how long ye were gone?”

“He did, but I had a feeling he already knew the answer. I told him I snuck out to spend time with a married man in Barataria. That pretty much ended the conversation.”

“Where’s JC now?” David asked.

“He’s MIA,” Elliott said.

David topped off his mug and carried it to the other window with a view of the yard and the river and watched his daughters play soccer. “Call George. He might know where JC is now.”

“Then I’d have to