“Oh, we had plenty of quality time,” Leo assures me with a chuckle. “In fact, I multitasked during naptime and made some headway on the missing sister case.”
I nearly choke on the scent of cider in the air. “Wait, what? Are you talking about my missing sister?”
“That’s the one.” Emmie nods while adjusting Elliot’s cape as if she’s done it a dozen times already. And I bet she has. “I put him on the case since you two were hitting dead ends. We can be just as good an investigative team as you are.” She laughs, though there’s a hint of genuine pride in her voice. “Maybe better, since we actually sleep occasionally. And sometimes we even sleep with each other.” She winks over at her hubby and he laughs.
“TMI.” Jasper shakes his head at his best friend. “No further details needed.”
“Careful,” I say to Emmie. “That’s what got you into these sleepless nights to begin with.” I shake the thought out of my head. “Wait, you’ve really been investigating my mystery sister?” I look between them, not sure whether to be touched or indignant that they’ve been playing detective without me. “And without telling me?”
“In all fairness, we were going to tell you once we had something concrete,” Leo explains with a wince. “Which, as of this afternoon, we do.”
Jasper raises a brow. “Do share, Deputy. I’m curious to hear your methodology.”
I can’t tell if my husband is genuinely interested or preparing to critique Leo’s sleuthing skills, but either way, I’m suddenly all ears and slightly terrified of what they might have discovered.
Leo pulls out his phone, swiping to a notepad app that’s filled with more bullet points than a corporate presentation. “Okay, so starting with just the username Lovemydoodle, I’ve been following some leads.”
“And?” I lean forward, suddenly very interested and also wondering if I should be taking notes myself.
“Well, I called in some favors at the ancestry site’s customer service,” Leo explains with the casual tone of someone who apparently has contacts everywhere. “They wouldn’t give me specifics, of course, but they did confirm that the account was created using an IP address right here in Seaview County.”
Jasper inches back with surprise. “That narrows it down considerably.”
“Exactly.” Leo nods. “And here’s the interesting part. The account was created approximately three months ago, right around the timeHammie Mae started expanding the farm’s online presence and online store. She mentioned to Emmie that she was learning about digital marketing and family heritage consulting to attract agritourism.”
Emmie nods. “She asked the librarian about genealogy resources, and old Mrs. Henderson saw her at the historical society looking through birth records. The timing matches up with when that DNA account was created.”
My heart skitters across my ribcage like a stone over the water. “Are you saying that Hammie Mae could be...?”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility worth exploring,” Leo hedges with the careful tone of someone who knows he’s about to drop a bombshell. “You know yourself that Hamish wasn’t Hammie Mae’s biological father.”
“I do,” I say just below a whisper. In fact, I found that out last spring when Hammie Mae was on one of my suspect lists.
Leo nods. “And there’s a connection to your father I’m still trying to pin down. And I’m betting it’s staring us right in the face.”
The world seems to tilt slightly on its axis, like when you stand up too quickly after lying down.
Hammie Mae? The girl with the strawberry blonde hair and freckles who looks nothing like Hamish? She already confessed to me months ago that she knew Hamish wasn’t her father—not her biological father anyway. She only found out recently and was pretty upset that her mother was trying to pass her off as someone she wasn’t.
“Bizzy?” Emmie’s looking at me with concern. “Are you okay? You’ve gone pale.”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, though my mind is racing through any and every interaction I’ve had with Hammie Mae, suddenly seeing them in an entirely different light. “It’s just... a lot to process. Like, a metric ton of information.”
“There’s more,” Leo continues, because apparently, he’s determined to completely blow my mind tonight. “I did some digging into the Westoff family history. They’ve owned that blueberry farm for generations, but about thirty years ago, they almost lost it to foreclosure. Then, suddenly, they had an influx of cash that saved the place.”
“Right around the time Hammie Mae would have been born,” Jasper guesses, his detective instincts kicking in with the precision of someone who’s connected the genetic dots like this before.
Leo nods. “Exactly. And guess who was working as a financial advisor to several local farms at that exact time?”
A chill runs through me. “My father?”
“Got it in one,” Leo confirms with the grim satisfaction of someone delivering news that’s both illuminating and devastating. “Your dad was a consultant for the agricultural bank that held the mortgage on the Westoff place. And Nathaniel Baker has never been known for keeping business and pleasure separate, if you catch my drift.”
Oh, I catch his drift, all right. I catch it like a baseball to the face—or more to the point, an oversized blueberry.
Emmie places a hand on my arm with a sympathetic expression. “It’s still just a theory, Bizzy.”
“But it’s a pretty solid theory”—I counter—“based on circumstantial evidence and local gossip.” And also knowing my father’s motives when it comes to women who were not my mother at the time.
