North of Nowhere: An Alex McKnight Novel by Steve Hamilton

Author:Steve Hamilton [Hamilton, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
ISBN: 9781250029249
Amazon: 0312983816
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2013-04-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The next morning, I got up early enough to scope out Swanson’s office before heading down to Bay Harbor. I had put away all the papers the night before, and thrown away the cigar butts. But even with the windows open all night, there was still a hint of the smoke in the air. It was not a good way to start the day.

Swanson’s office was in the business district of the Soo, not far from Leon’s office. It was an old brick building on Augusta Street. Somebody had spent a few bucks making the outside of the place look like something out of the 1920’s, right down to the ornate gaslight fixtures on either side of the front door. Either business was going well, or Swanson knew how to fake it.

It was just before eight o’clock, so I didn’t figure to catch Swanson, not unless he was an early bird. I looked in through the door, hoping maybe I’d see his secretary, and really make her day by being the first person she got to talk to that morning. But no luck.

I headed south, settling in for the two-hour trip to Bay Harbor. I-75 took me down to the Mackinac Bridge, and then when I crossed into the Lower Peninsula, I headed southwest on M-31, right down the Lake Michigan shoreline. When I hit Petoskey, I saw Vargas’s store in the middle of town. The sign read “The Vargas Custom Home Center.” I could see a big whirlpool tub in one front window, and in the other some kitchen cabinets made from dark cherry. Everything else was green plants and gold finishings and lots of mirrors. I would have stopped in to say hello, and maybe to ask him about who might have been in my cabin the night before, but I had that ten o’clock appointment and I was running late.

When I left Petoskey behind me, it was just open shoreline again, with the lake on my right and the hills of sand and grass and low trees on my left. The sky was blue, the air was clear—it was a beautiful stretch of land to build on, no doubt about it. I couldn’t blame them for dropping their new town here. And at the same time, I knew the awful truth. Vargas was right. As beautiful as it was down here, it was even better on Lake Superior.

It was only a matter of time.

With that cheery thought in my head, I came around the last bend in the road and hit Bay Harbor. The yacht club was first, with the white gatehouse made to look like a lighthouse. Then the golf club. And then, God help us all, the huge Bay Harbor Equestrian Center high on the hill, overlooking everything.

It was all new money, that was the problem. I already knew all about old money. Hell, the Fulton family had enough money to buy this whole town. They had a cabin not far from Whitefish Point, in fact, if you can call a six-thousand-square-foot building a “cabin.

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