Nighttime Guardian. Amanda Stevens

Nothing the least bit frightening in here.

      Everything was exactly the way she remembered it, although the plank flooring was a little duller, the furniture a little shabbier. But with her grandmother’s touch almost everywhere, it still felt more like home than any place Shelby had ever lived with her parents.

      The living room was to her left, a long, narrow area decorated with an old-fashioned settee, velvet tufted chairs and a Tiffany-style lamp that gave off a soft, greenish glow. There were ferns everywhere, hanging at the windows that looked out on the river and in terra-cotta frogs and turtles flanking the brick fireplace. The fronds stirred gently under the ceiling fan, and the sluggish movement, coupled with the verdant lamp glow, gave the room an odd, underwater feel that Shelby had never noticed before.

      Leaving the front door open, she went back out to the car to get her bags. The scent of the river followed her back inside. Setting her suitcases in the hallway, Shelby turned quickly to close and lock the door as a sense of aloneness settled over her.

      She wondered if Nathan was still her nearest neighbor, and wished suddenly that she had asked him earlier if he was living in his father’s house. Knowing that Nathan was nearby had once been a great comfort to Shelby.

      But he was right. Things had changed since then.

      She recalled what he’d said about fate playing strange tricks. His words disturbed her, not because of the melancholia they invoked, but because of the edge of bitterness she’d heard in his voice. The hardness she’d glimpsed in his eyes. When she’d thought about Nathan Dallas over the years, she’d pictured him traveling the world, living the fascinating, adventurous life he’d always seemed destined for.

      As a kid, Shelby couldn’t imagine how he could ever top diving for pearls. It had seemed like the most romantic profession in the world to her then, and she’d thought Nathan just about the bravest, most exciting person she’d ever known. She’d suffered from a bad case of hero worship that first summer, but, of course, she hadn’t let him know that. He’d been too full of himself as it was.

      As Shelby had grown older and learned more about the pearling industry from her grandmother, she’d come to understand what a truly grueling occupation diving was. And dangerous, with the river’s treacherous currents and all the fishing nets and lines to contend with.

      Not to mention loggerhead turtles, she thought with a smile. Those particular bottom-feeders had been Nathan’s secret terror, he’d once confided.

      She’d liked knowing that even Nathan Dallas was afraid of something.

      Picking up her bags, Shelby carried them upstairs and down the hallway to her old bedroom. An alcove of windows, draped with lace, looked out on the river, and almost against her will, Shelby crossed the room and stood staring out at the water.

      After a moment, she started to turn away, but a movement on the water stilled her. A series of circles, undulating in the moonlight, grew wider and wider until they lapped gently at the bank.

      Chapter Three

      “Nathan? You got a minute?” Virgil Dallas’s booming voice carried over the usual pandemonium of the newsroom. He stood in the doorway of his office, and when Nathan glanced up from his monitor, his uncle motioned him inside.

      Clearing his computer screen, Nathan smothered a groan. In the three months since his uncle had offered him a partnership in the paper, Nathan had had difficulty asserting his autonomy as editor. He’d entered the relationship on one contingency: that he be allowed complete editorial freedom. He would run the newsroom while Virgil would remain at the helm as publisher and business manager.

      But Virgil couldn’t quite relinquish control. He’d managed every aspect of the paper for over thirty years, and he couldn’t help offering unsolicited advice on everything from the editorials to the obits.

      His uncle’s obstinacy sometimes grated on Nathan’s nerves, but he knew he had to suck it up for one very good reason. He had nowhere else to go. He’d once been an award-winning reporter for one of the most respected newspapers in Washington, D.C., but by the age of thirty, he was finished. Unemployable. A has-been. A freelance hack for the tabloids because no reputable newspaper in the country would touch him after one of his stories had been repudiated as a fraud. He’d trusted the wrong source, and just like that, his career was over.

      The partnership with his uncle was Nathan’s last chance to prove his journalistic worth, to redeem not just his career and reputation, but his self-respect.

      But working at the Argus was proving to be more of a challenge than Nathan had anticipated. For one thing, he’d been astounded to learn how poorly managed the paper had been in the last few years as Virgil’s age and flagging health had taken a toll. Circulation and ad sales were at an all-time low, and the paper relied much too heavily on filler—stories picked up from news services—with no real reporting. If the trend couldn’t be reversed, the Argus was destined to go the way of so many small-town newspapers. First, they would have to cut back from a daily circulation to weekly, and then perhaps fold altogether.

      Nathan couldn’t allow that to happen. He’d poured every last cent he had into the partnership, but it was more than just financial ruin he had at stake here.

      He stuck his head inside his uncle’s office. “You wanted to see me?”

      “Close the door.” Virgil leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head as Nathan took a seat across from his desk.

      At sixty, his uncle was still an impressive-looking man. Tall and muscular, with keen eyes and a thoughtful, if sometimes mulish, disposition, he had the same world-weary air Nathan had seen on editors and publishers of much larger publications. His hair was completely gray and his face heavily lined by a lifetime of deadlines, pressure and—Nathan suspected—hard drinking. He wouldn’t be the first Dallas to succumb to the temptation of the bottle.

      “I heard about Danny Weathers at the diner this morning,” Virgil said grimly.

      Nathan nodded. “I was with the Buford boys last night when they found the body.”

      His uncle unfolded his hands and placed them on the desk, leaning toward Nathan intently. “I heard that, too. What were you thinking, son? What in the holy hell were you doing out on the river with that pair of lowlifes?”

      As always, Nathan grew a little defensive. “I had my reasons. Besides, I’m a grown man. You don’t have to worry about bad influences anymore.”

      “Hell, it’s too late to worry about that,” Virgil blurted.

      “Yeah, I’m a lost cause,” Nathan agreed.

      As if regretting his harsh words, Virgil’s expression softened. “If I thought you were a lost cause, you wouldn’t be here, son.”

      “I appreciate that.” Nathan paused, then prompted, “So, is that what you wanted to see me about?”

      “Partly. I wanted to find out what you knew about the accident.”

      “Not much. Only that I seem to be the only one who isn’t convinced it was an accident. I hope Sheriff McCaid has the good sense to treat this case as a homicide.”

      “Homicide?” Virgil looked as if the word were almost foreign to him. “Why would he do that?”

      “It’s standard procedure. Evidence could be destroyed or lost if he waits for the autopsy results.” Nathan glanced at his uncle. “Of course, maybe that’s the whole point.”

      Virgil gave him a long, worried appraisal. “This isn’t Washington, D.C., son. There’s not some ‘vast conspiracy’ behind every accident.” He put quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “You’ve got to learn to think like a small-town newspaperman, not like some hotshot city reporter. If you don’t, you’re apt to make yourself some real enemies around here.”

      “Isn’t that the purpose of the fourth