His eyes skimmed through the property search website as he sought to discover who owned the land around the river. He scrolled down through the legalese and spotted the owner’s name in the middle of the page. His breath caught and the gears in his brain turned in a new direction. It was definitely not public land. Where he’d stood this morning was part of a 260-acre parcel of private property belonging to Joseph and Anna Stevenson.

Lacey’s ex-in-laws.

Never piss off a reporter.

Jack slammed the paper on his desk and tried to call Michael at the newspaper. Jack’s secretary, Janice, had uneasily delivered the afternoon edition of The Oregonian. She’d run down to a newsstand and bought a copy after her mother had called to say her boss was on the front page.

Brody was working his butt off, digging into Jack’s past. The blasted article detailed Jack’s long-ago interview with the Corvallis police when he’d been questioned in the original campus murders. All the facts were accurate, but that didn’t mean he liked seeing it on the front page.

Brody’s voice mail said he was out of town as Jack remembered that last night Lacey had asked Brody about his trip to Mount Junction today. How long was the reporter supposed to be gone? Jack rubbed the back of his neck as he hung up. He leaned back in his chair and glared at the silent phone. Now what? He couldn’t do nothing, but he wasn’t about to ask Lacey for Brody’s cell number. He still felt kind of bad about the DVD incident.

She’d told him to leave her house at four this morning, lecturing him about her relationship with that reporter. He wouldn’t have left, but she’d immediately called her father to come stay with her, and he’d been there within minutes. In the first ten seconds of her rant, he’d learned that Michael Brody was one of her closest friends whom she protected like an angry mother goose. A goose might be smaller than you, but when it was ticked off, honking loudly, and coming at you, you ran in the opposite direction.

He’d get back in her good graces. Somehow.

At least he’d learned she and Brody weren’t dating or something.

Jack put the early-morning embarrassment out of his brain and refocused on the article. Of course, the paper reported that Jack stated he’d had nothing to do with the body in the foundation of one of his buildings. It also said Jack hadn’t been charged with any crime and he’d been cooperating fully with every police request. He should be pleased, right?

But then the paper listed his connections to the old crimes.

It stated he’d owned the old apartment building at the time of the original crimes. Not quite factual, he mused, twisting his lips. Technically his father had owned it back then. Jack had attended OSU at the time of the first disappearances. That was true, but almost a third of the local college grads in Oregon went to OSU.

It stated he’d dated athletes at college. All the women who disappeared were blonde athletes. Brody had dug up a quote from some anonymous source that said Jack had dated blondes exclusively in college. He scowled. All his girlfriends back then were blonde? He thought hard and couldn’t seem to come up with an exception. That didn’t mean he murdered them.

Lacey. Blonde. Athlete. Shit. He threw the paper in his trash and turned his chair to stare out the window at the mountain.

He mentally reviewed the article some more. After reading it five times, he’d committed it to memory.

And Hillary Roske.

Jack dug the front page back out of the trashcan and studied her old picture, searching for memories of their time together. He couldn’t come up with many. She’d been a pretty girl, sweet. But the relationship wasn’t a good match from the beginning.

Her eyes looked back at his, silent, accusing. He remembered being compelled to help find her abductor all those years ago. When he’d worked for the Lakefield PD, she’d always been in the back of his mind. Along with all the other girls.

Now the old cases were back in the limelight and his name had erupted out of the archives like a submerged cork bobbing to the surface. He screwed his eyes shut but still saw Hillary’s perky smile.

He’d dealt with a little bad press before, usually just letting it roll off his back. It naturally came with the territory of being a big, visible company. He didn’t take it personally. He couldn’t if he planned to stay focused on the company. He was proud of the projects they built and proud of where he’d led the business after his father stepped down. If people were jealous of his success, they could get over it.

But this was different.

He opened one eye as the phone rang. He’d told Janice to hold his calls after the third damned reporter had called. This must be important. Janice’s voice came through the intercom.

“It’s Bill Hendricks, Jack. I thought you’d want to talk to him.”

“Yeah, I’d better take his call. Thanks, Janice.”

He set the paper aside and ran his hands through his hair, making the short black spikes stand even straighter. Hendricks was a straight shooter and one of Harper Developing’s biggest accounts at the moment. He and Jack were deep in planning for a condo tower in the hot South Waterfront area. It was promising to be some of Portland’s priciest living space. Jack reached for the receiver. Blunt honesty was always best when speaking with Bill Hendricks. The man could smell a lie from six feet under.

“Morning, Bill.”

“Jack! What the hell’s going on?” Jack wrenched the phone from his ear at the roar. Yep, no words minced here.