Love Inspired Suspense April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Laura Scott (free e reader .TXT) 📕

Before the marshals whisked her away to start a new life under a new name in a place where she’d be surrounded by strangers.

THIRTEEN

While waiting for darkness to fall, Duncan continued using Slade’s computer in an attempt to investigate the murder that started all of this.

The killing of Roland Perry.

Duncan had tried to find something on Roland Perry before but had come up empty-handed. Now he tried again, using the Wyoming DMV access provided by Ranger Paul Davidson.

There. He finally got a match. Roland Perry had a Wyoming driver’s license with an address listed in Cheyenne.

Excited to have a lead, he searched for the address. Then frowned at the screen when the building that popped up was an old abandoned store.

“What’s wrong?” Chelsey asked.

“I found a guy named Roland Perry, but the address in Cheyenne is an old abandoned building.” He turned the screen to show her the small and less than flattering DMV photo. According to the license, Roland Perry was five feet ten inches tall, weighed 175 pounds, had brown eyes and light brown hair. His date of birth was listed November 12 and he was thirty-six years old. “I don’t suppose he looks familiar?”

Chelsey scooted her chair closer for a better look. She stared at the image for a long moment. “Maybe,” she finally admitted. “I just can’t remember where.”

A spurt of adrenaline hit. “Was it possible he was in the hotel dining room with the rich guy, too?”

She grimaced. “No, I don’t think so. I seem to remember him wearing dusty jeans, T-shirt and steel-toed boots, as if he was one of the construction workers.”

“When would you have seen one of the construction workers?” Duncan asked.

Her expression cleared. “I remember now—he was one of the guys Brett brought over when we were discussing the plans for the hotel expansion.” She pulled the drawing over. “See, we were thinking of adding a wing to the north, this way, with high-end suites. I don’t remember this guy going by the name of Roland Perry, though. I think he was introduced to me as Ray.”

Ray as a nickname to Roland? Maybe. “You think he actually worked boots on the ground for Coyote Creek Construction?”

She nodded. “Yes, but I have to say, he seemed to be more interested in the hotel itself, asking me about my parents and how long we owned it. He seemed interested in the fact that our hotel once belonged to my grandparents, and my great-grandparents before that. He also asked a lot of questions about Elroy Lansing’s land.” She frowned. “You really think this is the man who was murdered?”

Duncan didn’t believe in coincidences, and this one was no exception. “According to his driver’s license it appears that way. But I still don’t exactly understand why he’d be viewed as a threat enough to murder him.”

“Maybe Brett was wrong about who he saw that night,” Chelsey said.

There was no denying Brett had lied to them more than once. But the local police had also claimed no one had seen the guy in a few days. And other than a fake address and a driver’s license it seemed the guy didn’t exist anywhere else online, certainly not on social media.

What did it all mean?

It still bothered him that the rich guy, Travis Wolfe, might be involved. He wished there was a way to bring Wesley Strand in for questioning. In his experience, loyalty to a boss went only so far when you were the one faced with doing jail time.

But he wasn’t the cop in charge here. Just a concerned citizen trying to keep an innocent woman safe.

“Find something?” Slade asked, entering the kitchen.

Duncan quickly filled the marshal in on what he’d found about Roland or Ray Perry, including Chelsey’s meeting with him and Brett at the hotel.

“You’re right, it doesn’t make any sense.” Slade sighed. “Let me make more calls, going higher up the chain this time to find more about this guy’s identity,” Slade said. “The last time I checked, we were told the guy didn’t exist, but that’s clearly not the case if you found a driver’s license for the guy. There’s something fishy going on here, and I don’t like it.”

Duncan silently agreed. He thought for a moment about how he’d tried to go undercover, not taking a new identity, but pretending to be someone he wasn’t in an effort to identify who had killed Max Callahan, the Milwaukee chief of police and patriarch of the Callahan family. It wasn’t an easy task, that was for sure.

Could this Ray or Roland Perry have been doing something similar? There was no evidence that he was anything other than a construction worker, except for the fact that Brett claimed he was murdered.

And normal, average, everyday construction guys didn’t get murdered for no good reason.

He really, really wanted to see what, if any, evidence Brett actually had in his honeymoon folder.

Slade was on the phone for a long time, listening without saying much. Duncan sensed that he was being sent higher up the chain and wondered what that meant.

“Duncan?” Chelsey’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“What is it?” He leaned forward to take her hand in his. The ache in his chest intensified at the thought of not seeing her again after tomorrow. Even though they’d been reconnected for only a short time—days, really, since the moment Brett had been murdered—he felt as if he would be leaving a piece of his heart behind.

Not that Chelsey had asked for his heart. Or even indicated that she felt the same toward him. Despite having expressed her doubts about marrying Brett, he didn’t think she was interested in jumping into another relationship, with anyone.

Including him.

And that had been okay, at first, but now? Despite his efforts he realized his feelings toward Chelsey had become...complicated.

“When we go to the hotel, we should look through Brett’s room, in case I’m wrong about the honeymoon folder.”

“I agree,