Page 21 of How to Annoy a Mountain Man

At Woodbridge Falls, on March 18th, after a long illness, Mrs. Emma Smith, aged forty-five. Leaving behind husband Charles and daughters Sara, Margaret and Honor.

I reached into my bag, grabbing the list of grave info and map Jonah had drawn. The graves in a line were Emma, Sara, Charles, Margaret, then the nameless grave. Honor’s grave.

I hit print.

I did the same with each member of the Smith family, looking for clues on Honor and her death without finding them.

All I knew for sure was she died after her mother and sister, Sara, but before her father and Margaret.

This was great. Awesome. Amazing… but now what? If I could read the paper from the time Honor died, that would help, but I didn’t know those dates. The missing vital statistics were the answer.

I was sure Mercer had them, and if he was still in town, maybe I could get them.

My phone vibrated in my bag by my feet and I answered it without looking at the name.

“Ms. Hart, I’m calling from Woodbridge County. There’s been an update to your request to access a particular property.”

She rattled off the address I immediately recognized as the cemetery.

“Your access date has been pushed back to November 1st, so you can’t complete any restoration work until after that date.”

That gave me pause.

“May I ask for the reason for the change?” I kept my voice level, but it wasn’t easy.

“I don’t have that information.”

She gave me a few more formalities but I was hardly listening now. The window to solve this was closing.

I didn’t know why my access had changed. Maybe it was because of the problems Mercer had caused, they just decided to refuse all access. I’d have to find out later. Right now, I needed to get those files.

As I was rushing out of the library, I ran smack into Jonah’s chest. I kept my balance with my hands on his chest. The muscle was hard under my palms, his familiar woodsy smell surrounded me.

Memories of last night brought heat to my cheeks but I forced myself to focus.

“I found her. I found her name,” I said, shoving the article under his nose. “We need those records and I think Mercer has them.” He ran his eyes over the short text then grabbed my hand.

“Get in the truck.”

“How are we going to find him?” I asked as I clicked my seat belt.

Jonah glanced over his shoulder then pulled into traffic. “That SUV he was driving is worth more than half the real estate in this town combined. Let’s just drive by the hotels and see if we can spot it.”

“Might as well start with the most expensive hotel, that one off Market Street.”

Woodbridge Falls was a small place and it only took a few minutes to get to the hotel and find the overpriced SUV parked out front.

Jonah nosed his truck into the spot beside it. “SUV that expensive, I bet he parked it right in front of his room so he could keep an eye on it.”

“Assuming you’re right, how do we get the reel? I’d like to walk up there and demand it but he has an ego and I have a temper.”

“We knock on his door and very politely explain that if he doesn’t give us the reel, he’s not going to like what happens.” He shrugged his wide shoulders.

“You’re just going to go up there and threaten the guy? You’re a professional security guard. I figured you had something better than that. I could have come up with that.”

“I don’t see a reason to reinvent the wheel here,” he said and shoved out of the driver’s seat before I could argue with him further.

Jonah banged on the door with his fist and when it swung open, Mercer was standing on the other side of it. He crossed his arms over his lean chest. “What do you two want?”