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flush out George King. You mark my words.”
    “Are you a private dick now?”
    Matilda found that question very funny and broke out into a deep, gut-clenching laugh.
    Natasha was suddenly numb. Murder? Was her father somehow messed up in a murder investigation? She fought to swallow. It was the last thing she had expected to hear. Maybe he would have conned someone. There might have been people in this peaceful town incredibly outraged and believing George King had swindled them out of a lot of money. But murder?
    There was no way her father would ever kill someone. These people had led a slow, uneventful life for too long if they were even considering her dad might have anything to do with a murder. It just wasn’t in his nature.
    Natasha pushed the door open, knowing if she stood there a moment longer she’d hear something that would really piss her off. Besides, the sheriff was waiting for her outside. If she took too long, he’d come looking for her. She didn’t doubt he was a man on a mission and for some reason believed she could help him achieve his goal. But if his goal was connecting her father to a murder, she’d set him straight real fast.
    Matilda and a mailman held coffee cups and looked as if they could be posing for a postcard when she pushed through the door. They stopped talking, and the mailman held his cup in front of him, as if he were bringing it to his lips and seeing Natasha made him forget what he was about to do.
    “Hello,” she said, nodding, then headed past them out the back door. She heard her name whispered before the door closed behind her.
    Natasha needed answers now. One man would have all the facts, or at least more than anyone else in Weaverville, and his gaze locked with hers when she stepped outside.
    The crisp air was dropping in temperature quickly as the sun began setting. Natasha pushed the button on her key chain to unlock the Avalanche but focused on Trent Oakley. He leaned against the back of a black Suburban but pushed away and approached when she neared her uncle’s truck.
    Trent wore a button-down plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Natasha had noticed upstairs how muscular he was. She now saw how his skin was sprinkled with coarse-looking black hair. Trent wore a T-shirt under the flannel shirt, which stretched over broad shoulders. He appeared not to have an ounce of fat on him. The mountain man sheriff kept in shape. If she had to guess, she’d put him in his thirties somewhere, which begged the next question: why was he single?
    Not that she cared. At the moment, he was her adversary. So far he’d been very ambiguous about why he wanted her here. Now she understood it was because he had a murder of some sort on his hands. The sooner she cleared up any thoughts of her father having any involvement with it, the better. This backward town was starting to give her the creeps.
    Trent moved silently across the parking lot, which was impressive given his black boots and the gravel. Her own shoes crunched over the fine white pebbles, but she didn’t care. Any more than she cared how Sheriff Oakley reminded her of a deadly predator, approaching with skills so fine-tuned and a body so virile she imagined every inch of him was hard packed under his rugged exterior. His faded jeans looked comfortable and hugged long, muscular legs. He was tall and his black wavy hair was as dark as a starless sky. He definitely didn’t fit the image of how a sheriff of such a small community like this would be.
    He had a lazy stroll, moving as everyone else here seemed to do. She doubted there was anything lazy about Trent Oakley, though. The way he watched her gave her the impression he didn’t miss a thing that went on around him.
    She was also acutely aware of how he seemed to be studying her, as if trying to understand something about her that he didn’t want to ask. Natasha was beginning to worry that the sheriff, and his town, had drawn a conclusion about some