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the back of his head. She was, at least, nice enough not to laugh,
but she still smiled.
    He shook his head. “I’ll go up
alone and have a quick look around,” he offered, still rubbing his head.
    “If you don’t see any bees or
killer vampire bats, I may join you. But if there is so much as an odd buzzing
sound, you’re on your own. And if so much as a dust particle comes down from
there, I’m running for the hills,” she warned him.
    Cole grinned as she glowered.
Apparently, almost giving himself a concussion wasn’t enough to soften her up.
He filed that detail away for later. No sympathy for a manly show of pain.
Mentally, he snorted. Well, he’d just have to work harder to get her sympathy
if he needed to in the future.
    “Gotcha. Buzzing bad,” he
commented as he reached up to pull down the attic stairs. “Do you have a
flashlight?”
    “I’ll go check for one real
fast,” she said and quickly dashed off in search of one.
    She returned a few moments later,
flashlight in hand and turned it on to make sure it worked. “Here you go,” she
said and reached up to hand it to him.
    He reached the top of the stairs
and glanced around the small space. He stood up, careful not to hit his already
aching head, and aimed the small ray of light at the ceiling where he noticed a
light with a pull string. With his free hand, he reached up and pulled down on
the string to turn it on. “There’s a light up here,” he called down as he
turned the flashlight off and set it aside.
    “That’s strange,” she called back
up. “I’ve only been up there a few times, but the last time I was, there wasn’t
a light installed. It’s been about two or three years since, but mom never saw
the use to one since she hardly used the space for anything but storage for her
junk.”
    Cole thought on that bit of
information for a moment, and that too, he filed away for a later time. “Are
you sure you just didn’t notice it before?”
    Exasperated, she said, “Yes, I’m
fairly sure.”
    He browsed around some more,
mindful of her fear of bats and things that went buzz in the night. He didn’t
notice any bats or bees, or even spider webs. For a small, dark space that was
hardly used, there should have been spider webs everywhere. He’d fully expected
a spider-infested room. She may not know it, but her mother had obviously been
using it for something.
    “Lana, I hear no buzzing, and I
don’t see anything that resembles a vampire bat, so I think it’s safe to come
up,” he teased, trying to keep his tone light. He didn’t want to let on his
suspicions until after he gauged her reaction to the room.
    She mumbled something under her
breath as she climbed the ladder. He didn’t hear exactly what she said, but he
decided he probably wouldn’t have liked it anyway.
    Her head poked through the
opening and he bent over to grab her hands and help her into the attic.
    His gaze remained on her as she
straightened and stood next to him. He could tell by the widening of her eyes
that the attic wasn’t at all what she expected. It had obviously changed since
she’d seen it last.
    With all that had happened in the
last twelve hours, he was convinced that Lana’s mother was somehow involved.
    He wished he could check the
attic out more thoroughly—and alone. Sometimes, small creatures found things
that weren’t clearly visible to a man.
    He’d suspected her mother’s
involvement, but now he had proof. On the bad side of things, they found only a
minimal amount of answers and uncovered more questions that needed to be
answered. Every bit of information would help them, even if it left them with
no answers. You couldn’t find those answers if you didn’t ask the right
questions.
    “I don’t understand this,” she
said, her eyes pleading for answers he didn’t have.
    “My guess is your mom used the
attic more than she let on. As you said, Lana, you haven’t been up here in
years. Maybe she had the light installed recently