Read Stonebrook Cottage for Free Online Page A

frothy milk. I think it's café au lait all around."
    Mother and daughters retreated to the kitchen. Sam remained on his feet. Jack tossed the stack of cards and letters on the coffee table and swore once, viciously. Kara suddenly looked flushed and self-conscious, and Sam wondered if she was thinking, picturing, remembering everything about their hours together two weeks ago. He was, but he pushed the images out of his mind, not letting them distract him now that two children were missing.
    He glanced at the top postcard, which was lying facedown, noted the graceful handwriting. Eleven-year-old Lillian Stockwell. Dear Aunt Kara, I saw a snake today. I hate snakes!
    Anything could have happened to Allyson Lourdes Stockwell's children. Anything. Sam knew it, and he knew Jack did, too. And Kara. They were all in professions that taught them that ugly reality, but they didn't need knowledge or experience to tell them the obvious, only common sense. Two middle-schoolers were out there somewhere, thousands of miles from home. It didn't matter if they'd left the ranch on their own. They needed to be found.
    "All right," Jack said heavily. "Tell me what's wrong with this damn bluebird theory."

Three
    K ara couldn't get out of her brother's house fast enough. She ignored the heat and her spinning head, her queasy stomach, and ran down the walk to her car parked on the street. She'd just been interrogated by two Texas Rangers, one her older brother, one a man she'd slept with in a moment of sheer insanity. The more they talked and got into Ranger mode, the less comfortable they were with the events in Connecticut. A near-fatal July Fourth bonfire, an accidental drowning and now two missing middle-schoolers, all involving the political elite of a wealthy New England state—none of it sat well with either Lieutenant Jack Galway or Sergeant Sam Temple. Their instructions to Kara were simple: stay out of it.
    Jack found the injured-bluebird theory unpersuasive. Was the pool deck wet from rain, someone swimming, watering the flowers? What was Big Mike's blood-alcohol level? Who else was at his rented house that day? Who owned the house? Kara had to explain Big Mike's passion for the Eastern bluebird, a native species that had lost ground to the more aggressive starling and English sparrow non-native species that were also cavity nesters and competed with bluebirds in an increasingly scarce habitat. Mike had been a big promoter of bluebird trails, uninterrupted networks of bluebird houses suitable for nesting, thus encouraging a resurgence in the bluebird population.
    Her brother had listened to her, dumbfounded. "A bluebird with a broken leg ends up in the pool of a man who happens to have a thing for bluebirds and can't swim? I don't buy it," he'd said. "Not for one damn second."
    It was obvious his fellow Texas Ranger didn't, either. Kara had tried to insert her own professional opinion into the conversation. "The police need proof of a crime."
    Jack was unmoved. "It's not going to drop out of the sky into their laps. It's their job to investigate."
    "They are —"
    He'd turned his dark gaze onto her, but she'd never been intimidated by her brother. "Then why did a local detective check your story instead of one of the state detectives on the case?"
    "Zoe West is new to Bluefield, but I understand she's like that. Very independent. I'd bet the state cops would slap her down hard if they knew she was meddling in their investigation. It doesn't mean a thing that they haven't called me themselves—I'm the last person anyone would suspect of killing Big Mike."
    She'd hated even saying it. Killing Big Mike.
    "Who else knew he couldn't swim?" her brother asked.
    "I don't know."
    Jack didn't like that, either. There wasn't anything about the events in Connecticut that he or Sam liked. "No one wants the unsolved murder of a governor on their hands. I understand that. If it's an accident, it's over. Everyone can move on. What toes do the