Traces of Guilt

SEVEN

Joshua Thane

Josh found himself on full alert, anticipating Grace’s appearance. He figured she would come by the bait shop, as Ann had, rather than call, so he found reasons to stay around the dock rather than go out on the lake as he normally did. At dawn Tuesday, he went into Carin for groceries, his dogs with him, and then came back to his shop, which wouldn’t open for another hour. Those who needed bait before hours helped themselves from the outdoor cooler, leaving cash in the honor box.

He pulled around to the pier side of the parking lot. A slender woman with shoulder-length light-brown hair was perched on one of the picnic tables, feet dangling, hands tucked in the pockets of a down jacket against the cool morning. He took a breath, stepped out of the truck, and let his dogs out. The two Labradors rolled on the grass and then ran to the docks to explore. He turned toward his visitor.

She looked at him. “I’m-”

“Grace Arnett,” he finished with a smile as he approached. “I remember you, Grace. I made you a valentine in the sixth grade.” He thought the small, blond, blue-eyed girl she’d been back then the most beautiful person in the world. Two years behind him, she’d been in the fourth grade, and he had ridden his bike in circles, waiting for her class to dismiss so he could give her the valentine before she got on the bus. He could still remember her surprise and pretty blush, the dropped gaze, when he handed it to her. Her thank-you was soft and sweet and had lingered in his mind for a long time.

“I still have it,” Grace told him with that still-familiar smile, “tucked away in a box of childhood keepsakes.”

“Nice, Grace. I don’t have a box, but I do keep the memories.”

Her eyes held a sadness. The years had knocked the naïveté out of him, and he recognized what it was. He now knew a victim when he saw one. He didn’t let his smile fade, for he was glad to see her, no matter the circumstances. He got them cold drinks from the cooler. “Ann mentioned you might stop by. Are you passing through town or staying awhile?”

She pushed away a strand of hair blowing across her face. “That depends a bit on you,” she said, her voice low. “No one in town knows I’m here, and I’d like to leave it that way for now.”

“Sure thing. But now you’ve got me curious.”

“You know my history.”

Puzzled, he nodded, but answered what she seemed to be asking. “Your parents went missing when you were two, your uncle became your legal guardian and raised you here. He was killed in a hunting accident when you were fourteen. I know child services moved you away, but I don’t know details from there. I do know I missed you. A lot.”

She smiled. “Thanks for that. I went to Trevor House in Chicago, lived there while I finished high school. Ann has friends with history there.”

“Since then?”

“Odd jobs mostly. Bookkeeping, inventory, office temp work. That kind of thing.”

“Still draw those cartoons?”

She seemed surprised he remembered. “I’ve published a few, have a monthly gig for a magazine now, mostly providing the better ones I’ve already done. But occasionally I have a new idea worth the time to sketch out.”

“Good for you-congratulations.”

She dipped her head in thanks, nodded toward the shop and the boats. “I can see you’re thriving on your lake.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve always been a bit possessive about Carin Lake.” He took a seat on the other end of the picnic table. “Business is winding down for the year now that November is rolling by.”

He drank more of his soda and without staring tried to get a good picture in his mind of her at twenty-seven. The last mental images he had of her, she was fourteen going on fifteen. She’d turned into a graceful woman, if a nervous one, he noticed, as she turned the bottle between her hands.

“I need a favor,” she said, averting her eyes.

“Ann said you might ask. You’ll find a receptive ear.”

“I’m told your two dogs are used by the cops in searches, that they’re trained as… what is it, cadaver dogs?”

“They are. Ann pass on that nugget to you?”

“Paul did.”

So she knew both Ann and Paul well enough to be comfortable on a first-name basis. That was good to know. “What’s the favor?”

“I want you to help me search my uncle’s property.” She looked over at him. “For human remains.”

He opened his mouth, then quickly shut it, gave himself a moment for her words to sink in. “You think your uncle killed your parents?” he finally asked, shocked by the thought of it but determined to hold his tone even.

Grace looked away again. “He had money troubles, then suddenly he had none. The property is two hundred acres, forty of it lake-inlet water and mature forest. I know it’s hard to make a car and two people disappear. He could have, though.”

He thought about her conclusion, the painful implications that would have arisen for Grace even to be thinking such a question. No wonder Ann was stressed about this.

Grace looked over at him. “Will you help me search?”

Josh felt slightly sick. “Yes, I’ll help you, Grace. But when we search, and likely find nothing, what then?”

“I’ll sell the land knowing I at least looked. The farmland already has a buyer, the woods and access road will attract somebody who likes to hunt.”

“You’ve let the property sit for years, the land leased out to be farmed. Why sell now? Has something changed recently?”

“It’s simply time. I don’t like facing old ghosts, but it needs to be done.” She stood, placed the bottle in the recycle bin. “I’ve rented a motor home and will be staying at the campground down the road-slot twenty-nine. I was thinking we could go over to the property, look around, decide how best to do the search, then plan a schedule that works for you. I’ll help however you direct. Hopefully I won’t be in your way.”

“Well, it takes two people to do a search and record the terrain covered so there’s no doubling back over grids.” He stayed at the table, studying her. She looked tired, tense, but otherwise in good health, so she could probably handle a tough four-hour walk, turn around and repeat it again after a break. Adding volunteers wouldn’t help really; more than two people would just impede the dogs’ work. And he doubted Grace wanted word to get around about what they were doing.

But he much preferred that she stay at the campground while he did the search with one of his brothers instead. She didn’t need the cruel reality of what might be found. “I’d rather someone else help me, Grace,” he said. “Searching for remains this old can be done, but it requires near perfect conditions for the dogs to pick up a scent. The ground around the gravesite had to be firm enough that an air cavity formed, trapping the decay, but loose enough now the odors can rise.” He kept his voice neutral as he deliberately gave her some of the gruesome details, watching to see if she got shaky. She’d turned to face him, had paled, but then simply sat and waited.

“The dogs will inevitably alert on animal remains, even though they try to distinguish the difference. There are going to be numerous false positives that will have to be dug up and checked. Someone else will be working behind me with a shovel. It’s going to be long, hard days pushing through underbrush and crossing rough terrain, looking for something I really doubt we’ll find after this much time.”

“Josh,” she said, her voice low, “I’ve lived with this for twenty-five years, wondering where my parents are. The rawness of this reality… a search to find them? At least I’m looking. I want to be-need to be-out there. I’ll handle it.”

He slid off the table. “Then we’ll give it our best effort, Grace. If the ground reaches the freeze point or we get the first snow, this all will have to wait until spring.”

She nodded, stood, and pushed her hands back into her pockets. “I’m sorry, I should have told you already, but I’m not expecting this to be free. I’ll pay for your time and your dogs’ effort. You’ve got a business and a life, and it’s a big request.”

“If we find something, you can make a donation to the K-9 fund. My time’s my own to give, Grace. Don’t worry about it.”

She studied him, then nodded. “You can tell your brothers and your parents about this, if necessary. Please limit it to that. I’m not ready to deal with a reporter or curious neighbors.”

“Understood. Get yourself settled in at the campground. Once the bait shop is open, I’ll drive down and join you. We’ll go over to the property and take a look, make a plan. We’ve got good weather today, and we’ll take advantage of it.”

“I appreciate it, Josh.”

“I’m glad you came back. No matter how this unfolds, it’s nice to see you again.”

Grace nodded her thanks, and Josh watched her walk to her car.

She wants to find her parents. Her murdered parents… What had Ann let him walk into? He knew Ann was flying in today and so he sent her a text: Grace asked her favor. Call me when you have privacy to talk.

Evie Blackwell

“Ann, you wanted to talk about the Dayton case this morning?” Evie asked, finishing a donut and reaching for her coffee. They were getting an early start at the post office and that suited her, as Day Four of her vacation needed to cover a lot of ground.

“Yes.”

“Where do you want to begin?”

Gabriel, who had brought the glazed donuts and coffee with him, took another and slid the box down to his father. Caleb pulled out a chocolate long john for himself. Evie shook her head when Caleb silently asked if she wanted the box back. She was getting spoiled with how the Thane men fed her. She liked Gabriel’s dad. He was a salt-of-the-earth type guy who said a lot with few words.

“Summary first.” Ann took a last bite, stretched her legs out, looking relaxed. She already told Evie that she had flown out of Chicago before dawn, had been thinking about this case all the way to Carin. She now spoke from memory. “The Daytons are an upper-middle-class family. An executive father, stay-at-home mom, one child, trying to have a second child-a good marriage by all accounts. They transferred to Florida with his job, but still have family in Chicago.

“Thirteen years ago they were traveling by car from Florida to Chicago on vacation, stopping at small antique stores, showing their daughter the mountains in Tennessee, horses in Kentucky, farms and cows in Ohio, generally aiming toward Chicago but not on any particular schedule. On the night of Friday, July 24, they stopped at the All Suites Hotel here in Carin County, just off I-42. Six-year-old Ashley Dayton was abducted from the hotel just after nine p.m.

“Her father, Elliot Dayton, was bringing luggage from the car to their third-floor room via the elevator. Her mother, Arlene Dayton, was getting sodas and snacks from the vending machines on their floor, and their daughter, eager to help, took the ice bucket to the ice machine farther down the hall. The mom got back to the room, the father did, the girl did not. The father found the ice bucket on the floor by the ice machine-their room number was on it-but no sign of Ashley. She hadn’t cried out, and neither parent had seen another person on their floor. Elliot rushed down the stairwell to the parking lot while his wife called 911.

“Cops had an AMBER Alert active on the highways and area roads within twenty minutes. Both Carin and State Police swept the hotel, checking rooms and interviewing guests. No one reported seeing the child in the parking lot with anyone other than her parents. No one heard or saw a child struggling. Ashley Dayton, a blue-eyed, blond six-year-old with a pretty smile and outgoing personality, would smile and say hi to a stranger, but had a good security sense about her, knew to stay in sight of her mom and dad. She was grabbed that night, hustled down the stairs, probably out to the back parking lot, and driven away before anyone saw the abduction.” Ann looked over to Gabriel’s father, sheriff at the time of the abduction. “A decent summary?”

Caleb nodded. “They had filled up the car with gas before checking into the hotel, but otherwise hadn’t stopped in Illinois before they arrived here. It’s unlikely they were targeted by someone who knew the family. This was a crime of opportunity by someone at the hotel or someone who saw them at the gas station, which is located across the street from the hotel. Checks of vehicles at the hotel, those who filled up a vehicle at the station during the hour in question, didn’t generate a name we could fit to this. A couple of locals remembered seeing the family at the station, one remembered saying hi to the girl, yet no one observed anyone take an unusual interest in the family.”

Evie made notes as Ann and Caleb talked. She could visualize the scene. By nine that summer night, it would be dark but still warm, people inside in air-conditioned rooms, or outside, heading with purpose to where they needed to go without rushing about it in the heat. Travelers, mostly friendly with each other, sharing a glance at other cars packed like theirs with luggage and kids going somewhere. The hotel would be the same-tourists staying overnight, leaving for another destination at first light. Families rather than business people, Evie thought, as the single business traveler would try to make it home before the weekend.

Truckers, taking advantage of the cooler night hours and the slack in traffic, would be moving their cargo at a good pace, keeping their fill-up times short. Overnight-delivery folks would be starting to refill vending machines and counter snack displays. People would have been out for a meal. At nine o’clock, it would not have been a deserted area. Had the girl been able to break away from her abductor inside the hotel, or at least outside the hotel, someone would have likely heard her crying or seen her running.

A trucker is interesting, Evie thought, someone who saw the girl, had one of those big extended-cab sleeper berths inside the truck, a place to put a child, bound, mouth taped, while he cruised down the highway passing cops. He’d still be on schedule for his deliveries, since the snatch was probably at most thirty minutes from the sighting of the girl at the gas station to her disappearance from the third floor of the hotel. The father would have moved the car to the closest entrance door before hauling in the luggage. Finding the right floor, their assigned room, would have taken only minutes.

Evie felt her heart squeeze with emotion as she could see the sequence play out. Pull around back of the hotel. Use the stairs or the service elevator, glance down hallways, spot the family coming and going. And there she is, coming right to you without her parents, compliments of the ice machine. Scoop her up and you’re gone. Maybe in a delivery uniform, maybe even having stayed at the hotel before or parked behind it to grab a few hours of shut-eye. Hand across her mouth, out the back door, into the cab of the truck, close the door and you’ve got your prize. Pull out, watch the speed, you’re gone before the parents’ cry of alarm alerts people to look around.

Someone who knew the area well enough to make a snap decision and get away with it. Confident. Quick. Maybe he’d gotten another child in the same area before. Evie felt a surge of interest at that idea… not the first time he’d grabbed a child, not the first time from a hotel along the Interstate. Maybe if they looked at those towns within driving distance of the hotel, going back a few years, they might find another footprint pointing to this same perp.

She wrote, Not the first abduction from a hotel along this Interstate for this guy. Where else? When? She underlined the idea so hard, her pen nearly went through the paper. Had someone pursued this possibility or was it a fresh idea? Maybe they had given it only a cursory glance, not gone far enough back in time. Forward in time would be worth checking too, she realized. He successfully snatches this girl and feels lucky, so then after a few years, why not take another one along the same stretch of freeway? Maybe the piece of the puzzle she was looking for was more in the present, in the years since the girl went missing.

Evie tuned back into the conversation. Gabriel was saying, “… a lot of calls came in. She’s a pretty child, there were numerous sightings on interstates all around the Midwest, but none panned out as Ashley Dayton. Without a lead on a vehicle, all the police activity on the roads couldn’t stop this guy from slipping through and away. To cover the bases we did a systematic search of every campground and state park in the county, to see if her abductor sat tight, waiting for the police and public interest to fade before he moved on, but we didn’t find any leads.

“What else?” Gabriel said, more to himself than the room. “This case was highlighted on the ‘help us solve this crime’ TV shows during the second and third years, and that generated more leads on blue-eyed blondes, but again, not this child. The parents still live in Florida. They have two other daughters now. They call every year on the anniversary of Ashley’s abduction to see if there’s anything new, but they mostly gave up hope after about three years.”

“In abduction cases,” Ann mentioned, her voice grim, “most often the child is dead within a day. An alarming number are dead within four hours.”

Evie had heard that stat before, but it always caused a pang to hear it again.

Gabriel studied the crime wall. “So how do we approach it, Ann? Go back to those we can place at the hotel, the gas station? One of them is most likely the abductor or saw who was. But we’ve focused there before without success.”

Evie was studying the photos on the wall. “Maybe it was someone eating at a restaurant nearby,” she said before Ann could reply. She pointed at a photo. “There’s a Denny’s and a Pizza Hut and what looks like an Italian restaurant. They would still be open that time of night. Someone eating at a restaurant or walking across a parking lot could have looked over at the station-it’s well-lit-and seen the girl.”

Gabriel slid forward in his chair. “An interesting idea,” he said, and Evie could tell by his tone that he liked it. “I know video was collected from any business in the area that had security cameras, but I don’t think receipts were pulled.”

“It’s going to be hard to track down names without credit-card receipts,” Evie agreed, “but some diners inevitably would go over to see what was going on at the hotel, check out the gathered cop cars. Locals would remember who else was in the restaurant that night. It’s the kind of excitement you remember even a dozen years later. You’ve talked about it with friends, speculated on the crime, followed the news. Locate a few spectators’ names from cop notebooks, and we can push out from there, see what people remember.”

Gabriel nodded. “Make a note, and let’s pursue it.”

Evie picked up her pen and did so.

A phone beeped a text alert, and Evie glanced at hers, not sure whose it was. Ann scanned hers, typed a quick reply, and pocketed her phone again. “Is the door locked?” she asked.

Evie glanced at the door, surprised by the question. “Yes.”

“It’s a good idea, Evie,” Ann said quietly. “But it won’t be necessary.” She opened her briefcase, removed a manila envelope, picked up a roll of tape and walked over to the crime wall. She visibly took a deep breath, let it out, then tore a piece of tape from the roll.

Ann taped a picture of Grace Arnett, age six, beside the photo of Ashley Dayton, also age six. “Any questions?”

The similarities were heart-stopping, though after a second look, clearly two different girls. Evie was so startled that for a moment she stopped breathing. She saw both Gabriel and Caleb go still. The silence in the room was palpable.

Ann wiped the heel of a hand across her eyes. She turned and held Gabriel’s gaze first, then looked at Caleb. Evie felt herself prepared when Ann looked at her. She understood now why Ann had arranged for Carin County to be the first county, why this case was one of those being worked, why Ann had made sure she was here for Grace.

Ann taped up another photo. “Grace’s uncle, Kevin Arnett, was an age-and-gender-specific pedophile who likely killed Grace’s parents to gain legal guardianship of her. Grace was a blue-eyed, blond two-year-old when he first saw her. Her parents disappeared three days later. Kevin molested Grace from age six to twelve. When she hit puberty and wasn’t as attractive to him anymore, he grabbed Ashley Dayton to recreate his six-year-old perfect princess. It’s probable he killed Ashley that same day. The child is likely buried on the uncle’s land.”

Evie agreed with the whispered word from Caleb. She looked over at Gabriel, his face now gray with shock. Grace would have been at school with the Thane brothers, likely attended the same church. This was a girl they all knew well.

“Ann,” Gabriel said softly, “when…?” He didn’t need to finish the question.

Ann was visibly in pain when she sighed and said, “Grace told me the specifics of the abuse two years ago. I knew as soon as she described what had happened to her that this Dayton case had its answer.

“Grace doesn’t know about this child, and it’s too soon for her to learn of this. She’s still coping with her own history. Knowing her uncle abducted, raped, and killed a child because he didn’t want Grace anymore-something she was relieved about at the time because her abuse was over-is going to devastate her all over again. She’s not ready to deal with this child’s death. She’ll blame herself.”

Evie had met Grace once at Ann’s, remembered a woman in her twenties with a quiet poise, knew the friendship with her went back years. The fine line Ann had been walking was the kind of thing any friend would struggle with, but an officer of the law more than most, with the needs of the living and the dead colliding. Ann could no longer help the child who was gone, couldn’t arrest the uncle who was dead, and so she’d done what she could to help the living victim.

Evie watched the silent communication between Gabriel and Ann, their attention locked in a rich conversation without words. She felt a faint envy at the many years and shared experiences underlying that friendship. Ann would need his support, and Gabriel was offering it.

“Why has Grace come back?” Gabriel asked Ann.

“She doesn’t know about this missing child, but Grace is trying to deal with what she does suspect. She just asked Josh to help her search her uncle’s property for human remains. She’s looking for her parents.”

Gabriel winced and closed his eyes briefly.

Ann let that statement stand for a moment before she continued. “The odds Josh can find those remains after so many years is admittedly low, but he’ll be walking the property to find whatever can be discovered. If Ashley Dayton is buried on the uncle’s land, Josh and his dogs will find her. We let Josh do his work, and we’ll support Grace however we can if there are discoveries out there.”

She paused, sighed, and added, “If we do find the child’s remains, we’ll help Grace to face this. If we can’t find the child, we keep this probable answer to the Dayton case to ourselves and her parents. What we tell them needs to stay pretty high level unless we can formally close the case. I don’t want them seeking out Grace. If we can’t find Ashley’s remains, we don’t tell Grace about the case.”

“We’re not going to cause further pain to a living victim, Ann,” Gabriel agreed, speaking for the group. “Not when it’s Grace Arnett.”

Ann nodded at his reassurance.

Even though Evie didn’t personally know Grace or the uncle who’d done this, she could imagine what others in this room were dealing with. She shook her head, trying to get her concentration back, to see what had to be done first to work the case now laid out in an entirely new pattern. She studied the map on the wall. “Can someone describe the property? What are we dealing with here?” Evie asked.

“About two hundred acres,” Caleb replied, getting up and moving over to circle the area with a marker. “Most of the land is leased out and planted with corn and beans, but Carin Lake cuts into it on the west side. The shoreline and woods here”-he indicated the spot with the marker-“are on the property. There’s good hunting in these thick woods. Probably twenty acres or better of timber are going to have to be searched. The house here,” he said, using the marker again, “is set back from the road a distance. I remember there being a barn or two. The estate trustee kept the house together enough that the roof didn’t leak and the windows were still solid, but it hasn’t been lived in since Grace moved away. I don’t know what Grace has done with it since she reached eighteen and the property was distributed to her.”

“It’s the same,” Ann said. “The house is basically as it was and still unoccupied. Any evidence that remained out there, we’ll find and collect. When we’re done, Grace plans to demolish the house and barns, turn the acreage back into tillable land, and sell the place. She’s got an offer from the man now leasing the farmland. She’ll make a separate arrangement for the wooded acres and the access road with one of the hunting groups in the area. She doesn’t plan to come back here again once this is done.”

Evie thought Grace’s plan to return it to farmland, cut any connection to the place, was the best decision she could make, given the history there.

Ann rubbed the back of her neck, walked over to the crime wall, took down the two photos, and returned them to her briefcase. Evie watched her lock it, understood the gesture.

“I’m convinced Kevin killed Grace’s parents to gain legal guardianship of her,” Ann said as she straightened, turned to the group. “Whether we can prove that and find a way to close the cold case on her parents’ disappearance is difficult to say at this point. But they came to Carin to visit family, vanished from their hotel on a Friday night-a car and two adults-leaving their daughter with a cousin who was babysitting while they went out to eat. They wouldn’t leave a child they loved. They were murdered that night. It’s likely the uncle concealed it all by hiding the evidence on the land he owned. Now, twenty-five years later, we’re going to try to find that proof. And in the process hopefully locate Ashley Dayton as well.

“We need to make sure the search doesn’t leak. Nothing gets written down, entered into a computer, formalized. We leave the initial work to Josh, reevaluate once he’s done. And we keep news of the missing child away from Grace for as long as we can.”

“Ann, does Josh know the full picture?” Gabriel asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“He’s going to have to know.” At Ann’s nod of agreement, Gabriel pulled out his phone and walked to the other side of the room to make a call to Josh.

Evie knew Josh couldn’t walk beside Grace on that property and not know they might locate the remains of a child, not know the farmhouse was a place that haunted Grace with the memories it stirred. She watched Gabriel as he spoke with his brother. His father had been sheriff while this was happening, Gabriel was the sheriff now. Evie didn’t think any of the Thanes would be the same after today. A child had been abused on the periphery of their lives for years, and they hadn’t seen it.

Looking spent, Ann came back to the table and sat down. Evie refilled Ann’s coffee, would have put her phone in her hand and told her to call Paul if she thought Ann would step aside for a few minutes right now. Evie got a brief look of thanks and knew Ann was at her limit.

Evie realized she was the only one in the room not getting personally whipsawed by the revelations and mentally stepped in to take over, started making notes on what had to be done next. There was a high probability before the next two weeks were over that the Dayton girl’s disappearance would be closed with the discovery of her remains. It wouldn’t be a celebration when they closed the case. They would have a success, but at a very heavy price for those who knew the whole truth.

“We need to take another look at her uncle’s hunting accident,” Caleb said.

“Yes,” Ann agreed, sipping at the cup of coffee.

“Arnett’s death looked like a hunting accident,” Caleb went on. “He was shot from an angle indicating the bullet came from above, from the deer blind. He wasn’t wearing anything reflective or bright. Someone mistook him for an animal and fired, then ran from the scene. At the time it didn’t play any other way. An anonymous call came in of a shooting accident. We couldn’t trace cellphones as well back then, but it seems likely it was called in from a road out that way-once whoever did it was away from the scene. What prints could be recovered from the blind were people you’d expect to have used it, and those folks had reasonable alibis for the time in question.”

“Grace didn’t kill him,” Ann said quietly. “I’d lay money on that. It probably was just what it appeared, a hunting accident.”

Caleb gave Ann a reassuring nod. “Actually, Grace was with Josh when her uncle was killed-riding their bikes over by the ice cream shop and then to the library. Grace was the one girl Josh didn’t mind knowing that his affection for books ran as deep as hers. A deputy met up with them at the library so we could keep Grace away from the scene.” Caleb sighed. “This hurts, Ann. Hurts really bad. It surely takes a lot of courage for her to come back. How is she?”

“Still in deep pain. Quiet. Facing that past. Dealing with it. Moving too fast through the memories, in my estimation. I’d say she needed another year before taking this step. But I haven’t been able to shift her from this course. She’s facing it, trying to get through it, get it done and behind her.”

“I never saw it.” Caleb shook his head. “Not in her uncle, not in her. I noticed Grace around town most weeks. Growing up without a mom or dad. The sadness was in her eyes most of the time. She was a quiet girl. But I took it as that. I never once suspected this, and no one told me anything even in confidence that they had questions. I would have acted, Ann. God is my witness, I would have believed her.”

“I know, Caleb. I know.”

“If my boys had seen anything, if she had said anything-”

“She didn’t, Dad,” Gabriel said, rejoining them. “We would have gotten a clue from something she said, I promise you that. We all liked her, Josh most of all. Grace didn’t let us in, not to this secret. Not to this darkness.”

“Josh coming in?”

“He’s with Grace now, on the way over to the property to have a look around, lay out a search plan. I didn’t tell him much. He’ll come by here afterwards, and we’ll tell him.”

“How’s he sound?”

“Determined.”

“He’s a good man when it comes to doing what has to be done,” Caleb said. “Did she choose Josh, Ann, or did you?”

“When it became apparent I couldn’t change Grace’s mind about coming back, I suggested Josh and his dogs as the next step. I figured Josh being a friend would help matters.”

“Good thinking. Whatever we can do for Grace now, we’re going to do,” Caleb said firmly, nodding at each of them around the circle.

Gabriel sat down by his dad. He’s in pain, Evie thought, coping, dealing, but in emotional pain.

“Who else in the county was a victim?” Gabriel asked. “It’s unlikely Grace was his first.”

Caleb looked ill at the remark. “We’re going to have to figure that out now, Son, however painful it is to ask the questions,” Caleb replied.

Ann shook her head. “Grace, then Ashley, may have been his first near home. Kevin Arnett was a careful man. He hid what he was, and did it well if it turns out no one in the community ever suspected him. He spent four years grooming Grace before this started so he could ensure she wouldn’t talk. I’m thinking there may be signs early in his life, before he was eighteen, but after he became a man… I think he was carefully hiding who he was. You’re going to find his other crimes away from the area, not in this county.”

“I hope you’re right, if only so I have one less weight to grieve over tonight,” Caleb said. “It’s bad enough it was Grace.” He looked over at Gabriel. “Depending on how things go, you’ll need to alert the adjacent counties in case they have their own unsolved cases…”

His voice drifted to a stop, and Gabriel said, sounding thoughtful, “There was a felon in our county, a registered sex offender who disappeared abruptly. His body turned up about eighteen months later, behind the truck stop off Highway 19. Wasn’t that roughly about the time Grace’s uncle was killed in the hunting accident?”

Caleb thought back and nodded. “Guy named Frank Ash. He worked with scrap metal at the junkyard. His focus was on young boys, liked to pull them in via their curiosity about sex.

“He didn’t show up at work for a week, on the run before we got a call, toward the end of May. His cabin had the feel of someone gone a while-belongings still there, trash gone bad, milk spoiled. We worked it as a probable murder, but couldn’t find his body, couldn’t nail down where he’d been. We did turn up two boys who admitted he’d molested them after his prison release. We looked hard at their families and figured that was where our answer was, but couldn’t prove it with what we had.”

“Frank Ash disappeared in May. The next year, July, the Dayton girl was abducted,” Caleb said. “Grace’s uncle got killed that fall. Frank’s remains turned up behind the truck stop the following year. I remember we had guys still working that scene when the Florist family disappeared, so it would have been the same week in August. It was a busy few years. The entire department practically lived on overtime.”

Evie carefully listened to the overlap of crimes, got up and went to the timeline on the wall, picked up a marker. Frank Ash gets out of jail, she wrote, molests two boys, disappears and is presumed murdered. Ashley Dayton is abducted, Grace’s uncle killed in hunting accident. Frank Ash’s body is found, Florist family disappears.

Evie turned to face Caleb. “Frank’s body… when it was found, he’d been dead a couple of years?”

Caleb thought over her question, and she saw his eyes widen. “Dead a couple years, likely back to the May when he disappeared. Shot in the chest three times. Are you thinking-?”

“No way did Deputy Florist kill Frank Ash and Kevin Arnett.” Gabriel’s hand moved to rest on his father’s shoulder.

Evie heard the certainty in Gabriel’s statement, faced him and said, “You’ve got two dead child molesters in Carin County and a deputy who abruptly disappears the week a murdered body turns up-”

“Evie,” Ann interrupted. Evie looked her way and saw Ann shake her head slightly. Not, Evie saw, that she didn’t agree with her, but there was a time for everything and this wasn’t the right time. Evie set down the marker and stepped away from the crime wall. The sequence on the board was what it was, and to her it looked like one long crime.

“I’m not saying we don’t look,” Gabriel said, his hand on the table fisted with stress. “But we know Scott Florist. This isn’t him. Not shooting a man and dumping his body behind a truck stop. Not shooting a man from a deer blind. Scott’s the guy most likely to have been trusted by the boys, to have heard about Ash, the one most likely to go arrest the man and toss him back in jail. If anything, I could see it going the other way. If Frank Ash wasn’t dead, I’d have him at the top of the list to have killed Deputy Florist and his family.”

“No, Gabe, Evie’s right to wonder,” Caleb said to his son. “She’s just off on the core question. We’ve got two sex offenders in Carin County during those years. Did we have a third?” He looked back at the timeline, then again at Gabriel.

“Think about it,” he went on, walking over to the crime wall. “Someone in the county is afraid Frank Ash is going to get arrested and say to the cops, ‘I’ll give you someone else who likes kids.’ Someone in the county knows Arnett is molesting his niece, he’s worried when it’s going to become known, and neighbors are going to start looking sideways at each other. Every child is going to get asked by their parents if anyone’s touching them. A third guy is out there and wishing the other two weren’t stirring up questions.

“Deputy Florist worked in the schools, he coached Little League, he was good with kids. Somebody got worried Deputy Florist was the one most likely to figure this out. So kill Frank Ash, Kevin Arnett, then kill Florist and his family to make sure he’s covered his tracks.”

Ann got to her feet and began pacing the room.

Evie wanted to accept Caleb’s summary. One killer simplified everything. “A sex offender hides his behavior, but kills if he must,” she said slowly, thinking it through. “This is too many murders. He would have tried to leave the area before it reached this point.” She studied the sequence again. “Another idea. If it wasn’t Deputy Florist being a vigilante, killing the two people abusing kids and then leaving town abruptly with his family, what if that idea of a vigilante is correct? Someone in the community, maybe a victim of Frank Ash who’s grown up? Kill Frank Ash out of vengeance, realize Grace is being abused, and kill the uncle to help her. He thinks Deputy Florist is getting too close to seeing the truth. One person in the community who took out two bad people in vigilante killings and then had to kill the deputy and his family to stay under the radar.”

Evie looked between Caleb and Gabriel as they considered that possibility. Gabriel slowly nodded. “A victim carries a lot of anger around. Murder isn’t a stretch. But a panic murder of a deputy and his family? I don’t see it, Evie.”

Ann walked back to rejoin them. “I’m not saying don’t explore down that road, Evie, but step back for a moment and look at something.” Ann picked up a marker and moved to an open sheet of paper. “We’ve got a dead offender who likes older boys, a hunting accident that kills one who likes younger girls, a deputy and his family who disappear. Each crime a year apart. We want them linked because it simplifies matters, but look at the facts. They are different victim sets, different MOs. We’ve most likely got three years of random crimes, not one linked event.

“Unless you see Deputy Florist as the instigator, you have to bring in a new person to link the three cases. I’m not ready to go that way. And I’m not willing to see a good cop as a killer without a strong piece of evidence pointing us in that direction. The Florist family did a total disappearance. They left behind bank accounts, everything they owned, their pets. The case file reads that they were murdered. The facts indicate these are different crimes.”

Ann tapped the board. “Frank Ash was killed by one of his victims or by a family member of one of his victims. That person is likely still in the community. They wouldn’t feel much guilt over what they’d done; they’d more likely feel satisfaction.

“Grace’s uncle was a hunting accident. Whoever did it probably moved away from the community or died an early death of a heart attack. It’s hard to live with accidentally shooting and killing a man, then stay put in the community around his friends for a dozen years. We know now that Kevin Arnett was a monster, but at the time of his death, he was thought to be an upstanding member of the community.

“The Florist family murders were most likely someone who hated the deputy, who seized the opportunity to kill him and his family. It was probably someone linked to him via the job. Or it was a random crime. Maybe a carjacking en route to the campground. Someone needed that truck and camper and took it by force. With either, the person responsible is likely long gone from this area.” Ann laid the marker down. “Different victim sets, different MOs, across three years. We’re better off to work the cases separately. If and when they cross, then we follow that thread.”

Evie accepted Ann’s point. If they were linked crimes, it was going to show up as they pursued them individually. One approach didn’t preclude the other. She needed to dig further into who Scott Florist had arrested over the years he’d been a cop.

“Back to Grace,” Ann said. “Josh looks for the remains of Grace’s parents, for the child Ashley Dayton. I’m going to spend as much time with Grace as I can, will try to convince her to trade off with me so I’m out searching with Josh. But we mostly stay out of Josh’s way and let him work. So while that’s going on, we shift directions and look at the Florist case once again. Where were you on ideas for it, Evie, before this quagmire opened up?”

Evie had to mentally regroup even to follow the question. The Florist case seemed like ages ago, rather than just yesterday. “Umm, let’s see, Gabriel was looking for people in the community violent enough to kill a family of three, to kill a child. I was looking for a trigger for them to have done so. We’ve found a doctor the couple may have been seeing for counseling. We have a meeting with him scheduled for tomorrow.”

“Yeah? That’s great news,” Ann said, pleased. “Stay with that for now. It will be interesting to hear what the doctor has to say. The list Gabriel is putting together sounds like a good candidate pool for the crime.”

“Ann,” Gabriel said, “going back to Grace and her uncle’s land. We need to get forensics to go through the buildings on the property.”

Ann nodded. “I’m thinking later this week, once Grace and Josh have established a routine. We can arrange forensics to go out when Grace will not be there. I don’t want to crowd her.”

“It’s going to take long days over a couple of weeks or more to search that much land, and that’s if the weather cooperates,” Gabriel noted. “Will she accept more of us going out to help?”

“The Thane family, I think, but she doesn’t want this known in the community. She’s not going to be comfortable with deputies out there,” Ann cautioned.

“Ann,” Evie said, “where should Grace stay tonight? There’s plenty of room at the house.”

“I’ll see if she’ll come into town. If she won’t, you and I will go her direction. She’s rented a motor home and is staying at the campground near Josh’s place.” Ann looked around the group. “Anything else we need to talk over?”

“It’s a hard thing, what you brought us today, Ann,” Caleb said. “A hard thing. Not easy on you, not easy for Grace. But we had to know.”

Ann held his gaze, nodded. “I’m sorry it’s here, Caleb.”

“Criminals like this have a way of weaving their way into a community. Let’s fully root this one out. Whatever Grace needs from us, you let us know.”

“I will, Caleb.”

“Ann.” Gabriel waited until she looked his direction. “You and I need to talk later tonight.”

Ann gave a slight smile. “Same place, same time?”

“Works for me.”

Evie saw their unspoken conversation and once more wished she had a something like that. She didn’t have anything like it with Rob at present. Gabriel turned to her and said, “Evie, why don’t you ride with me? We’ll go out to the uncle’s land, meet up with Josh and Grace. She can ride with us back to her camper while Josh comes in to talk with Ann and Dad. Josh will need some time after he hears this.”

“Sure.” Evie went to get her jacket and several water bottles, glad for the reason not to be here any longer. She wasn’t sure she could manage watching Joshua Thane learn the truth about Grace Arnett’s childhood. Some things ripped a person’s heart out. She paused before she left to rest her hand on Ann’s shoulder, share a look in sympathy as well as comfort. Ann would need to be the one to tell Josh. Evie wished for her friend’s sake that the day would soon be over.

Evie didn’t know what to say to Gabriel as he drove out of Carin. She could see he was anywhere but in the present, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. This cut personal and deep with him, and she could practically feel the guilt rolling off him. Not saying anything didn’t suit Evie, but what to say was a mystery. All the Thanes were protective, and Evie was beginning to pick up on just how deep that characteristic ran. She deliberately interrupted his train of thought. “You and Ann. That friendship goes back a lot of years.”

He glanced over at her. “Yes, it does.”

“The two of you seem close-like a brother and sister with lots of shared history.”

Gabriel smiled, put his attention back on the road. “An interesting way to put it. We are very good friends.”

“It’s never been romantic?” Evie kept on, because it forced Gabriel off what this day had been.

He shrugged. “She was the Midwest Homicide Investigator when I met her, working around the clock to solve a homicide in the next county that spilled over this way. A mom and two girls shot to death in their bedrooms. Ann figured out it was a revenge killing, but not the ex-husband, not a boyfriend. They arrested a guy who thought the mother was responsible for the death of his daughter. The mom, her girls, his daughter had gotten pinned down in the middle of a holdup at a mall store. His daughter got killed, they survived. So he killed her and the daughters. You get to know someone when you’re working a case that many hours. She’d sleep in the car between interviews, but otherwise didn’t stop until it was solved.”

Evie tried to picture that intensity. She knew Ann, she had worked cases with her, but this picture was new. “I haven’t seen that side of Ann. She’s mellowed some?”

“Some. Mostly she retired. There was the pace of the MHI job-she’d finish helping with one homicide case, then get called to another. I insisted we talk about something personal over meals just so we wouldn’t have the crime scene images to deal with while we ate. That started the friendship. That and the fact she wasn’t trying to impress me or get my attention-she was just doing her job. She made a serious impression that summer. When she got married, Paul also became a good friend.

“Josh knew her better than me initially. He and his dogs had started with the state’s K-9 group. He’d mention Ann occasionally, what she was working on. I started carving out some time when she was in this area to help her out or I’d track her down at a conference. You can’t touch on a subject and not find Ann has an interesting opinion to offer.”

“How often do you get together?”

“In person? Maybe a couple of times a year. Either Ann or Paul, or both. It depends on what’s going on. I probably talk to Paul more often.” He paused to point through the windshield. “Up ahead on the right. That’s the Arnett place.”

Evie turned her head. It looked like a typical farm, with neatly planted rows of crops in the surrounding fields, a faded-red barn, in the distance a thick line of trees. The lake inlet would be that direction, she thought. The house wasn’t in view yet. Gabriel turned off the road. The drive in was pitted with deep potholes, and a spreading layer of weeds had pushed up through the crushed-rock surface.

Gabriel parked behind the truck by the gate. They could see Josh and Grace walking on the far side of the overgrown pasture just at the tree line. The house was up ahead on the right, a traditional two-story country home probably built in the ’50s, with a steep roof and wraparound porch. It was desperately in need of paint, but otherwise still standing tall. “Do we wait here or go join them?” Evie asked.

“I think wait here,” Gabriel replied. “We’ll want a look at that house later when Grace is not here, so we have a sense of how much time has decayed what’s inside. Sun-rotted fabrics is hopefully the worst of it, along with resident spiders and mice. If water has been kept at bay, the structure itself should still be in good shape.”

Evie got out of the truck, leaned against it with her arms crossed to ward off the chill of the November day. She tried to imagine growing up on this farm-barn cats, chickens, maybe a goat or two, maybe pigs, certainly cattle. The way the gates were configured, she didn’t see any sign that there had been horses. “Grace would take the bus to school from here?”

Gabriel leaned against the truck beside her. “The school bus came by this area just after seven a.m. She’d ride it to school in the morning, have breakfast there, finish classes, come back on the bus in the afternoon. She’d be here unless her uncle brought her into town for something in the evening. He did that frequently, as I remember-they weren’t that secluded out here. It was part of his charm, and he was well-liked around the community. A social man, having to raise a young girl. More than a few ladies in town were thinking he would marry once he became her guardian, but he never chose to do so. Obvious now…” His voice drifted off. He shook his head. “Back then,” he continued, “he was focusing on the farm, raising his niece, and pushing the cops to figure out what had happened to his brother and wife. When Grace got older, come summer she’d ride to town on her bike, hang out at the lake or the library. Her uncle treated her well in my memory of things, and that’s what’s so painful now. If she wanted to be in town, he’d bring her, she’d go shopping with other girls, go to the ice cream shop with friends. People thought he was an okay guy, doing a decent job as a replacement father.”

Evie glanced over at Gabriel, could hear the hard emotion in his voice. “You know as well as I do,” she said quietly, “that many people are excellent liars and can hide well who they are and what they do. You were only a teenager back then. You saw what he wanted you to see. And Carin worked to his advantage. This farm and town were the extent of her world, and he controlled it, all its parameters. By taking away her parents, he made sure he had absolute ownership of that girl’s life-from toddler to teen.”

Gabriel kicked at the dirt, jammed his hands in his pockets. “You sound so calm. I haven’t felt this much rage in decades.”

“I won’t try to touch the emotion of this, it would eat me alive. But I’ll do whatever I can to help Grace get her answers, and maybe find a measure of peace.”

“Paul said you don’t mentally carry a case home with you, that you do that as a gift to yourself.”

“It sounds cold, but yes, he’s right. I won’t let this inside. I’ll be eternally grateful I didn’t endure that kind of childhood, empathize with Grace’s pain, then do my level best not to let it get any further. I can’t do my job if I can’t walk away from it. These cases will always keep coming. I can’t carry the load, so I try very hard not to attempt it.”

“I’m not going to say you’re wrong in that approach. Not today.”

Evie looked over the pastureland, at the line of thick woods, then at the smaller yard around the house. Finding Grace’s parents would close a lot of questions. The obvious hiding place would be out in those woods, buried deep, undisturbed for as long as the man had owned the land. “Do you think her parents are buried here?”

“If the uncle killed them, it makes sense. But he knew this county as well as anyone. He could have buried them, demolished the car in a hundred different places. For her own reasons, Grace must believe it to be here. I’m not inclined to ask her why she thinks that, to ask if the uncle said something one day that got her wondering. Her asking to do the search is enough for me.”

Evie nodded. She tried to make out the features of the two walking across the pasture in their direction. “Regarding Grace, I’ve met her only once, Gabriel. She’s a friend of Ann’s, but she’s not going to know me very well, if at all.”

“Sometimes that’s better, Evie. She’ll see you as just another cop, and that will make it easier to let you help her with this. With me, there are childhood memories to complicate things.”

“She’s going to realize fairly soon that Ann’s told us about her past.”

“I’m sure Ann will let Grace know who’s in the loop,” Gabriel said. “That’s how relationships with friends stay together. It’s going to be healing, in a way, for Grace to be with people who aren’t treating her with kid gloves or keeping her at a distance. That said, Evie, a piece of advice?”

“Sure.”

“Grace has survived by hiding. So that’s where she thinks her security rests. I wouldn’t mention something to her she doesn’t bring up first.”

“That makes sense.” She looked over at him. “Gabriel? An observation of my own. You’re going to do fine with her, all the Thanes will. You care too much not to.”

“Thanks for that.”

They watched Josh and Grace coming toward them. Evie thought she looked stressed, maybe a bit thin, but mostly the woman she remembered. Evie saw Josh take hold of Grace’s hand as they drew near. Grace didn’t pull away, something Evie was thankful to see.

Gabriel went to meet them. “Hello, Grace.”

“Gabriel.” She smiled. “It’s been a long time. I heard from Josh you’re sheriff now. Guess I better behave myself.” They chuckled, and Evie was impressed at the woman’s effort to remain relaxed.

“Taking after Dad.” Gabriel gestured back toward the truck. “You remember meeting Evie Blackwell, a friend of Ann’s?”

“Yes. Hello, Evie.”

Evie smiled as she walked over, held out her hand. “Hello, Grace.”

Gabriel shifted his stance, resting back on his heels, hands tucked into his pockets-clearly trying to find the right words. “Ann’s told us you’re searching for your parents, Grace. We’re going to do everything we can to help you out with that, get you whatever answers are here to find. Ann wants to come walk it with Josh at times, as I will, and my father too, so we can cover as much ground as we can while the weather is decent. It’s going to be taxing for you to be out here every day.”

“I appreciate that, Gabriel. I do. But for some of this, most of it really, I simply need to do this.”

Gabriel nodded and looked to Josh. “You’ve got a plan in mind now that you’ve seen the property?”

“I think the dogs can clear the pastureland and the area around the house rather quickly. We’ll flag whatever the dogs find and leave it to someone else to check out. There will be false-positives, animal bones and the like, given it’s a farm and good hunting land. My focus is to keep the dogs moving.”

“Sounds good,” Gabriel replied, clearly relieved they wouldn’t be stopping to check out every location themselves. “Let me, Dad, and Will do the shovel work. There’s a lot of land to cover here.”

Josh nodded. “That’s my thinking also. We walked back to the lake to get a sense of it. The shoreline has turned into steep bluffs, undercut by the rising water in the spring and fall. So we’re not looking to search the shoreline itself, other than from a boat.

“There are numerous animal trails in the woods. The deer blinds have been set up on the obvious ones, the underbrush cut back so that a vehicle can get through and close to the blinds. I think we’ll check those spots next, let the dogs search the animal trails. After that we’ll start a systematic search-from one point in the pasture straight through the trees to the water, then back to the pasture. Like a checkerboard, moving west to east. We’ll work daylight hours, with a break as often as the dogs need to stop, until we’re done. Probably two or three weeks, depending on the weather and how the dogs handle it as we push through the woods.”

Evie could tell Josh was providing a lot of details, not for their sakes but for Grace, who would do best with more information rather than less.

Josh opened his truck’s tailgate, pulled over a cooler, offered Grace a water bottle and opened one for himself. “I need to run into town, pick up a couple of GPS readers, marking flags, get the topology map for this place enlarged by sections, put together water, jerky, doggie treats, that kind of thing, then pick up the dogs. We’ll do a few hours yet today while the light is still good. See if we can’t clear the area by the house.”

Gabriel nodded. “Grace, how about we give you a lift to the campground while Josh goes into town? Josh can pick you up there after he collects the dogs.”

“That’s a good idea, Grace,” Josh concurred. “You had an early morning. Get yourself a nap while you can. I’ll come your way about three. We won’t stay till dark, but we’ll get a start at least.”

Grace considered the group, nodded. “I’ll take your advice as this unfolds, Josh. Ann says you’ve done more of these searches than anyone around.”

“Today will mostly be training on how to mark the maps, and you’ll get a feel for how the dogs work. Why don’t you pack some snacks for us-whatever’s handy. We’ll get a decent meal once we’re done tonight.”

“I can do that,” Grace said.

“I’ll call if the time changes.”

Evie motioned toward Gabriel’s truck, and Grace walked over to it. As Evie followed, she heard Gabriel mention, “Josh, you’ll probably find Ann and Dad at the old post-office building.”

“I’ll find them,” Josh said.

Evie chose the backseat in the extended cab so Grace could sit up front with Gabriel, hoping a conversation with him would break the rather cautious politeness among them.

Gabriel settled in the driver’s seat, and Grace said, “I appreciate you doing this.”

“It’s no problem. I’d say it’s the job, but it’s a lot more personal for us than that. All the Thanes would like to see this settled for you, Grace.”

Grace nodded and looked out her window. They drove mostly in silence to the campground.

What is there to say? Evie mulled over in her mind. I’m sorry your parents were murdered, it has to be hard looking for their bodies, and by the way, we know what happened to you here? There weren’t words to bridge those kinds of realities, and she didn’t think it wise to try. At least not yet. She caught Gabriel’s glance in the rearview mirror and gave him a brief shake of her head. There would be better moments than this one for a conversation over the next couple of weeks.

Gabriel Thane

Gabriel slowed as he read lot numbers, pulled to a stop at Lot 29. “Nice campsite, Grace. You’ve got a good view here,” he said, looking for something-anything-to say.

Grace stepped from the truck, paused to smile back at him. “Lovely view and I like the camper. It has a microwave and a TV, shower and queen-size bed. I’ll be comfortable. Thanks for the lift, Gabriel.”

“You’ll call if there’s anything you need, right?”

“You know I will.”

She raised a hand in farewell and walked to the motor home, unlocked it. Gabriel watched her step inside, waited as Evie shifted to the front seat.

“I’ll drive the long route into town,” he said, “show you the turnoff to Will’s place when you want to pick up your dogs. That will give Josh time to hear the full story from Ann and Caleb before I bring you back to the post office.”

“Want me to help with the shoveling?”

Gabriel shook his head. “You’ve got two cases to pursue during this working vacation of yours. The only thing left to do on the Dayton case is to find the burial site, and it’s likely where Josh is looking. It’s going to be many hours patiently waiting for the dogs to indicate something, digging up animal remains to clear those flags, before we find the little girl’s body. We’ll get it done, but there’s no use in taking up your time on the search here when there’s another case needing your focus.”

He glanced over, saw a look he couldn’t interpret. “Feeling left out of the action?”

“No. Nothing like that. Just struggling to get back momentum for what I was working on yesterday.”

“Ann’s bombshell still has aftershocks, and it’s going to take more than a few days to absorb them,” Gabriel agreed. He thought about yesterday, the sense of breakthrough he’d felt when Evie posited the idea that Scott and Susan had been seeing a marriage counselor, the sense that finally some progress was being made on the case.

“Evie, you need to know that for this community, the Florist case is even more significant than the Dayton one. A family disappears, a deputy… besides their relatives, no one in Carin County would be more pleased to see it resolved than the cops who work here. You’d be doing us a big favor to stay focused on it. You’d be doing me that favor.”

She offered a small smile. “I understand. Thanks. Want to come by the post office for a while?”

“I’d like to, but Dad and I need to talk, and Will needs to hear from me what’s going on. While Grace is in the area, it’s going to be a Thane family matter. Anything you need from me?”

“Not at present. Keep in mind lunch tomorrow, the interview with the doctor. I’d like your impressions of him.”

Gabriel nodded. “I’ll make sure the time stays open.”

He pointed out the turnoff for Will’s, then turned back to town through the forest where Evie had originally met up with the deer. He slowed so she could see the spot.

“No warning he was coming, just a glimpse before the collision,” Evie said, turning to see the gash in the tree. “Makes me wonder if there haven’t been a lot of such accidents on this road.”

“Between county deputies and the state highway patrol, we work a lot of car and animal collisions around the lake,” Gabriel said. “You want me to stop to pick up something to eat?”

“Sure. Something I can carry in for Ann and me. That Italian place you mentioned-is spaghetti-to-go an option there?”

“Definitely. Let’s make it for three.”

Gabriel stopped at the restaurant, and Evie stepped out of the truck. “I’ll get the order started. It shouldn’t take long.”

Gabriel texted Will and then called his father, learning he was on the way home. That set his plan for the next few hours. Stop at the office, confirm all was quiet there, go visit with his father, go talk to Will, then out to the farm with a shovel. He’d leave Evie out of that part, at least for now.

Evie came back with three lunch sacks, set his in the back. Gabriel felt her look. She said, “You’re shutting me out, aren’t you?” She pulled a breadstick out of a bag, broke it in half, handed him a piece. “Too many moving parts, this one doesn’t need Evie, so start segmenting the people and figure out what needs managing next.”

“It’s not that.” He took a bite of the breadstick. “Nice addition to the lunch, and it’s hot.”

“I’m not complaining, Gabriel,” she said around her own bite, “just noting your body language.”

“It’s called triage,” he said with a comfortable shrug. “Sheriffs do it all the time.”

“Understood. Take me to the post office so I can huddle with Ann, and go do whatever’s next on your list. You can mark Evie off that list of yours. I’m good.”

He smiled at her tone. “I might keep you on the list simply as the one not in trouble-or making trouble. You haven’t told me a joke today. I’m told you’re good at them.”

Evie considered the request for a moment. “Okay. A guy passes a homeless man on the street, holding a sign asking for lunch money,” she began. “He stops, pulls a twenty out of his wallet, but says, ‘First, I’d like to ask you some questions. Are you going to use this twenty to buy a drink? Cigarettes? Bet on a pony?’ The homeless man replies, ‘No, sir. I gave up all those things years ago.’ The guy puts the twenty back in his wallet and says, ‘Come home with me, have a shower, I’ll find you a change of clothes, my wife will fix us a good home-cooked meal.’ Startled, the homeless man answers, ‘You’re sure, sir?’ Guy smiles, says, ‘I want my wife to meet someone who doesn’t drink, smoke, or gamble.’”

It took a second, but then Gabriel laughed. “Going to try to improve your husband one day, Evie?”

“I plan to marry well, so he’ll mostly be a livable type of guy right off the bat.”

Gabriel laughed again as he came to a stop in front of the building. Evie swung out of the truck. “Stop long enough to eat, Gabriel.”

“I will, Mom.”

She waved and headed inside.

He needed that light moment. He scanned the street and didn’t see Josh’s truck. Gabriel felt his smile fade, wondering where his brother may have gone. Somewhere to do some painful grieving, he suspected, before he had to get back to Grace and present a calm face. It was going to be that kind of day. He hoped he was up to doing the same.

Gabriel parked in the front drive at his parents’ home, pocketed his keys, walked up the steps to where his father was sitting on the porch, a cigar in one hand. They appeared only in the rarest of occasions, and this one qualified. Both he and his dad had taken some hard hits over the years, but nothing like this. A child victim of horrendous abuse in their midst, and they hadn’t seen it to reach out and help. He could see the shared pain in his father’s gaze.

“Grace back at her campsite?” his dad asked.

“Yes.”

Caleb poured a mug of coffee from the thermos nearby, motioned for Gabriel to help himself. “Your mom went into town to speak with Ann. I’ve told her.”

Gabriel nodded, not surprised, and took a seat on the porch with his own mug. “How did Josh take it?”

“Went very, very quiet.”

Gabriel nodded again. He wasn’t sure how a person processed the fact that a girl you cared deeply about had suffered so greatly. “One of us needs to update Will.”

“I’ll go tell him,” Caleb offered. “The Thane family faces this together. However we can help Grace, we’ll do it as a unit.”

“I think Josh will be the major one helping her.”

“She has to let him in first. I think she does what she must, then runs as far as she can from this place.”

“And he’s liable to follow.”

“He’s got strong convictions. Grace is one of those, I’m thinking.”

Gabriel sighed and stretched his legs out, thought about the week ahead. “You think the Dayton girl’s remains are out there?”

“She’s there. As soon as Ann put up that photo, I knew she would be.” Caleb leaned over to pour more coffee. “Invite Grace to dinner tomorrow, let’s start putting comfortable friends around her. I don’t want her brooding out there, alone and back in Carin where the memories are the strongest.”

“I’ll mention it to Josh, have him bring her this way when they’re done at the farm tomorrow.” Gabriel found his sense of time was out of kilter, had to concentrate. “Just four days ago, it was a normal November around here.”

Caleb’s smile was sad. “Wasn’t normal-we just hadn’t seen the dark spots yet. Evie strikes me as being a good cop. She’s kind of young for the job, but that crime wall on the Florist family shows real progress in a short time, particularly given that she started out getting all banged up.”

“Yeah, she’s got some ambition in her,” Gabe noted. “A good thing, considering what she’s tackling. I’ll be around, Dad, if something comes to mind I need to know.”

Caleb nodded. “Get some rest later. Tomorrow’s sure to be a challenging one. For everyone.”

Gabriel pushed to his feet, set his mug back on the small table. “No one’s out there to arrest for this terrible crime, Dad. Two beautiful little girls…” He shook his head. “That’s what makes it all so awfully tough. I can’t provide the justice Grace should have, needs to have. Or the Daytons…”

“God can, though,” Caleb said quietly. “Let it go, Son. This isn’t yours to carry. It’s going to bust you if you try.”

“Yeah.” Then he said again, “You’ll tell Will?”

“I will.”

“Ask him about Evie’s dogs too-if he’s all right with keeping them a few more days. Evie will want to have them around; they’d be a welcome distraction. But she also could benefit from a few more days just reading the files. She’s still stiff, and cautious about that back of hers.”

“I’m sure he’s fine about having them there. You know Will and his animals.”

Gabriel smiled. “If it’s got four legs-for that matter, two-he’ll tend it like a mother hen. I never figured out how he’s kept that trait, being as how he grew up with me.”

“It’s why being a combat medic suited him so well. You guys tumbled over each other on everything, but if someone else tried to come at either you or Will or Josh, you suddenly became the Three Musketeers.”

They both laughed. “Get on about the job, Gabriel,” Caleb said. “I know it’s sitting heavy today, but you’ll shift and bear up under this, we both will. Just give it time.”

“Yeah. See you, Pop.” Gabriel laid a fist lightly on his father’s shoulder, headed back to his truck feeling lighter than when he arrived. He’d stop by his place for a shovel and get on with what had to be done.

Joshua Thane

Josh desperately wanted a few hours on the water. He needed the time alone, but it wasn’t going to be possible. He gathered up the necessary supplies in town, exchanged a few polite words with those he had to, and pushed down the sick feelings as best he could. There were moments in life when perceptions shattered, and his just had in a way he’d never experienced or expected.

He’d had his idealized image of Grace, and someone had just ripped a curtain back to show what he hadn’t seen all those years ago. He mostly wanted to wrap her up in a hug and cry with her, and if that emotion didn’t spill over today, he’d be a fortunate man.

Grace wouldn’t want it known, surely wouldn’t want him to know the truth. Ann had told him only because the cop in her had to alert him to the likelihood that there were other remains out there. He’d searched in this kind of situation with Ann before. He knew that look on her face, the tone in her voice. Ann figured there was a better than even chance his dogs could find the Dayton girl’s remains on the farm.

Grace had lived with what had happened to her on that farm for decades now. He’d lived with it for a couple of hours. The best thing he could do was give it time. Without even knowing it, he’d let down a friend, for she’d been that and more to him. He hadn’t known she needed help, hadn’t been alert enough to catch the signals, and that was going to take some time to grieve and accept. He wasn’t going to let her down again if he could possibly help it.

He understood the sad eyes now, but he wasn’t going to let her sorrow push him away. She was too important to him to let that darkness stain what he remembered of her. But for the time being he’d have to deal with staying quiet, calm, matter-of-fact, the friend she needed.

He collected his dogs at the house, drove the short distance to the campground, glad Grace was nearby rather than in town. Word would get out eventually that she was back, and he’d do what he could to downplay it as anything more than a short return to visit Carin.

Grace must have seen his truck coming. When he pulled in, she was waiting for him with cooler in hand. He pulled in a deep breath and disciplined his expression. He could do this. He would do this.

He smiled as he stepped from the truck. “You’re a timely one, Grace. I think that was true of you back in school too.”

She approached the truck. “Being late, unless someone is bleeding, is just plain rude.”

His smile faltered. Her uncle used to say that. Thankfully she didn’t see his reaction as she climbed in on the passenger side. Okay, not so controlled as I thought. He’d do well to avoid anything that brought up memories of the past. “You may remember my dogs’ father. These two boys are Duke and Slim.”

They both were looking at her through the back window. She laughed and greeted them by name. “They’re wonderful.”

“They travel everywhere together, always curious about what the other has found to do. They love a belly rub, and they’ll lick you to death if you let them.”

Josh settled on the driver’s side after finding a place for the cooler. “I’m going to take a few minutes to go hook up a small camper I take out to the field. It’s parked at the other end of the campground. If the dogs need a break, or a rain shower comes in, I’ve got shelter at hand.” And it removes the need to have to go into that farmhouse.

As they drove up to the camper, Grace asked, “Anything I can do to help?”

“After I get the truck lined up, you can take the driver’s seat, tap the brake, test the turn signals so I can check them once I’ve got everything hitched together.”

“I can do that.”

He expertly backed in. They both stepped out, and he turned the crank to lift the wheel and settle the camper onto the truck’s hitch.

“You must camp a lot,” she observed.

“I live on the lake, make my living from it, so I try to camp around it when I’ve got a few free days. Makes me better appreciate the experience tourists come here to find.” He flashed her a quick grin. “It helps that the bugs don’t bother me.”

“You’re lucky. They love me.”

“Which reminds me. Sunscreen and bug spray are in the backpack behind the seat. You’ll want to make use of both.” He connected the wire plug from the truck to the camper. “Okay, let’s check the lights and we’ll be ready to go.”

“That easy?”

He nodded and walked to the back. “I’m a man who keeps things simple,” he called as she settled behind the wheel. “I park it with everything locked down, all set to go out again.”

The lights worked fine. Josh tossed aside the wood blocks he used to anchor the wheels, took the driver’s seat again, and eased the camper out. “We’re good to go, Grace. Find us a radio station you like, then tell me something fun you did in Chicago last year. I’m guessing there isn’t much grass and trees for camping up there.”

“Nope, all this green is wonderful.” She reached to the radio.

He’d be asking a lot of questions about Chicago during the hours they walked. Besides it being a safe topic, he wanted to find out about the life she’d carved out for herself there. He needed to understand who Grace was today, and he figured they had a hundred hours or better of conversation ahead of them. He’d start with an easy topic, see what pieces he could discover to fill in a new picture of her.

Josh let his dogs roam the farmhouse yard, stretch their legs after the ride in the truck, get settled into the general scents of the place before he called them over. “Grace, you’ll want to watch for uneven ground-moles have been at work out here,” he told her, feeling the surface soft under his boots.

“I will.” She had on decent tennis shoes, jeans, and she’d worn layers with the jacket so she could adjust to the day’s temperatures. He’d find her a pair of boots for tomorrow to better protect against the harsh terrain.

She’d requested something of him, and finding the location of her parents’ remains would most likely involve spotting land that had settled around the graves, rather than the dogs picking up the scent. But he didn’t bother explaining that to her. He’d had enough experience to know what to look for.

“How will you know if they locate something?” Grace asked.

He knelt and whistled. “They will lie down,” he told her as he lavished affection on the dogs, “or if the ground is too uneven, sit down. They’ll put their paws and nose where the scent is strongest. They can mostly tell whether it’s animal remains to be ignored, but when it gets to a certain age, it’s just remains to them. If I don’t set a dozen red flags in the next three hours, I’ll be surprised.” She looked startled at the number, but nodded.

“The dogs and I work with basic voice commands, unique to each dog. They search best as a team, crossing back and forth over a section of land, working scents together.”

Josh gave the dogs the forward-search command, and they turned from playful Labradors to focused trackers, tails wagging, eager to please, on-task animals. They trotted out ahead, noses down. He’d take them from here to the clothesline post in the first pass. “See how the dogs are moving? That’s work mode. See the difference in their attention?”

“It’s noticeable,” she said, shaking her head in wonder.

“The key thing is to stay behind them, downwind if possible, and not distract them.” He soon whistled to terminate the current search pattern, and the dogs came loping back. He dug out treats, lavished praise on the two again. He let them go exploring on their own for a while. “When they’re roaming in search mode, I’m going to be directing them a bit with my voice, watching the ground ahead of them. My job is to keep the dogs out of trouble and on task. I sure don’t want to run them into a nest of skunks if I can avoid it.”

Grace made a face, then smiled.

“I need you to be the record keeper while I direct the dogs. The GPS reader tells you where you’re standing.” He turned the small piece of equipment on, called up a reading. Numbers lit the screen in soft blue. “The topology maps”-he handed her one-“are indexed on the sides by the last two digits of these readings.” He traced the coordinates on the map to where they crossed and pointed to the spot. “See? We’re standing right here.”

She nodded, looking at the map she was holding.

“What I’d like you to do is mark an X when we start a search pattern, then approximately every football field in length, do another GPS reading and put a line on the map. Do that until I call ‘Search string ended,’ and then you mark an X where we stop. We won’t walk straight lines-it’s more the contours you’re tracking. When we’re back tomorrow, that map will be my starting plan. I won’t repeat ground we’ve already covered, or I’ll intentionally crisscross the ground from another direction. Any questions?”

“So just tick lines along the route with final X’s?”

“You got it.”

“I can do that.”

He appreciated her confidence. “Just to warn you, it’s not as easy as you might think after we’ve been walking for a while. You’ll be watching for obstacles in your path, holding tree branches aside, keeping an eye on the dogs, getting distracted by wildlife and poison ivy. It’s not a simple task being on a search. If you find your attention drifting, speak up. We’ll take a ten-minute break, drink some water. I can’t monitor the dogs, watch where I’m going myself, and correctly judge how you’re doing.”

Grace smiled. “I won’t be a wimp-I’ll speak up.”

“Good. What did you bring for food?”

“Sandwiches. Peanut butter and jelly.”

“Nice. I’ll take one to get started.”

Grace walked back to the truck and the cooler, and he used the time to send a text to Ann, letting her know they were starting. He had a gut feeling the Dayton child was going to be found near the house, or at a location the uncle could easily see, rather than in an obscure corner of the woods. If his fervent prayer was answered, they’d locate the little girl’s body in the first few days, and Grace’s parents-if they were here-within days after that.

He could keep Grace occupied while they searched the fields and woods, but he’d already seen her quick glances toward the house. He wanted it out of their sight just as rapidly as he could make that happen.

He slid his phone back in his pocket, took the sandwich she offered, smiled his thanks. “Ready?” He whistled for the dogs. “Let’s cover some ground.”

He called out the search-forward command again, using the clothesline post to steer a straight course. He watched Grace make the starting X on the map, nodded his approval, and set his pace to one comfortable for her. The dogs would surge ahead in the first twenty minutes, overeager to be on the job, but would settle back to a more normal pace after they were on task for a while.

Ten minutes into the walk, one of the dogs dropped to the ground. The other ran over to check it out, dropping immediately to the ground as well. Josh planted a flag, handed out treats and praise, gave the search-forward command again. He caught the motion as Grace sniffed, wiped her eyes. He dug out a package of tissues he’d stuffed in his jacket pocket, offered them to her.

“Thanks,” she whispered. “Probably just my cat. I had a few burial ceremonies out here.”

He reached over to lightly touch her hand. “I do this for a living, Grace. If you can agree with me that you should be curled up on that couch in the motor home or at Evie’s while this gets done by a couple of the Thane brothers, I’m not going to think less of you for it.”

“I can’t, Josh. I can’t leave this question for others.”

“Did you look for them… your parents, when you lived here?”

“Not consciously, no.”

“Good. You were way too young to be doing it then.”

She reached for his hand in return, squeezed it and let go. He directed the dogs to the left. At least once their painful search was done, it would be over one way or another, and she wouldn’t have to think about this property any longer.

Before long, the dogs dropped to the ground again, and Josh set another flag marking the spot.

Evie Blackwell

The Florist family crime wall was holding any further secrets to itself. Evie rolled her shoulders, thought about pacing a while. She glanced over at her friend, wondering how long to let the silence go before she interrupted. “You okay, Ann?”

“Just tired.”

Evie pushed the last of the breadsticks her way, since Ann hadn’t eaten much of her spaghetti. “Did you call Paul?”

She nodded. “One of the better things about being married, Evie, is that there’s always someone to call on bad days.” Ann picked up the last breadstick, but just nibbled at it.

“We could go out to the farm, search with Grace and Josh.”

Ann shook her head. “Tonight is soon enough. Grace has two ways of coping: bury it inside and do the work in front of her, and the more chaotic kind of coping where she relaxes her guard and the memories come roaring back. The evenings are by far the hardest for Grace. She’ll take some company tonight-the kind who don’t feel the need to talk, who can just hang out.”

Evie nodded. “That’s the kind of friend I can be, if she’ll let me.” She looked at the case wall once more but couldn’t generate further interest in it. “I could be out there helping with the flags…”

“No,” Ann said, “the guys are better at the shovel work. They’ll recognize animal remains at a glance, while you and I would have to take a photo and ask an expert for an opinion. Besides, you can’t be two places at once, and the Florist case desperately needs solving. What are you doing now? I’ll help. It’ll give me something else to think about.”

“The Florist family finances,” she replied. “Their banker relative thinks money’s missing from the estate.”

Ann pointed to the open files. “Send some of them my way. I can give myself a new kind of headache thinking about money.”

Evie passed over the checkbook registry pages. “I’m trying to figure out how they might have siphoned money to cash without it being obvious.”

“How far back? The month they disappeared? The year it happened?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know which of them was doing it or why. I’m not reading this as a couple heading to a divorce, one of them secretly stashing away funds. And I don’t think we’ve got someone who was simply a worrier, setting aside a rainy-day fund. But the banker’s pretty insistent that the estate’s assets are lighter than they should have been. So maybe it’s there, like the counseling was there, hidden away behind other items.”

Ann started going through the papers in front of her. “How would you siphon cash from your own income, be able to hide it for any length of time?” she asked idly.

Evie had to think about it. “I shop at a number of flea markets. I could make it look as though I paid more for something than I did, then pocket the cash difference.”

“Small amounts, but do that often enough, it adds up,” Ann agreed. “Or stop buying that five-dollar cup of coffee every morning and pocket a thousand dollars in a year. I suppose there are dozens of ways to come up with cash. Which one of them handled the family finances, paid the bills?”

“Susan did. Her bank job suggests she liked numbers and was good at accounting.”

“Start with her. Things she bought for herself, not Joe or Scott.”

Evie pulled over files she’d pored over the day before, but it was like trying to walk through setting concrete. Her mind wasn’t absorbing any of the details. After thirty minutes, she shook her head. “We’d be better off going to see a movie this afternoon, clear Grace out of our heads.”

“I’d like to simply go cry,” Ann said. “Are there any good teary movies playing right now?”

One of the numbers on Gabriel’s phone list was a movie theater in town. Evie pulled out her phone. “You want to go see Mrs. Rushville? PG-13, and reviews say it’s guaranteed to make you cry. Let’s see… it starts in twenty minutes.”

Ann pushed away the file. “I’ll need Milk Duds or something to go with it.”

Evie smiled. “I can deliver on that. Come on, I’ll drive.”

“I’m going to freeze in that car of yours.”

“It’s got a heater that could melt a glacier. You’ll be fine.”

Evie sent a text to Gabriel that she and Ann would be at the movies, hoped he wouldn’t think it entirely frivolous. “You want to split a large popcorn too?”

“Sure. Maybe I’ll eat more of it than the lunch.”

Evie nodded. She was on vacation. She wasn’t going to feel guilty for helping a friend. If ever someone needed a break, it was Ann. And I wouldn’t mind one either, she thought as they climbed into the convertible.

Gabriel Thane

Gabriel saw that Josh had brought his camper out to the farm-a place to stretch out, a table for eating, a bathroom and shower if needed. Josh could impose a break on the search when he thought it warranted. A very smart move. No need for Grace to step foot in that house.

Gabriel parked beside Josh’s truck. He could see Josh and Grace walking a ways behind the house, the dogs roaming ahead of them. It looked like they’d covered the east side of the house. Red flags marked where the dogs had gone on alert. Not many, but enough that the ground was going to be yielding something. If any secrets, that was another question.

Gabriel took a shovel to the first flag and began to turn over the dirt. He found bones down about a foot, cleared aside soil with a gloved hand and recognized a raccoon, surprised it was buried so near the house. He dug another foot around it and two feet further down to confirm it wasn’t simply a deceptive covering over something else, then refilled the hole, picked up the flag, and moved to the next one.

He listened as Josh occasionally called out to his dogs, changed their search path, but Gabe didn’t disturb their progress, working flags well back of where the dogs were searching. If he found something that might be human, he would quietly refill and back off the location until Grace was no longer on the scene. Then he’d call in the specialists who would carry out the crime-scene work.

He turned over four holes, finding only chicken bones, wiped dirt off the end of the stakes, and took them back to Josh’s truck. Before the search was finished, he figured he’d dig up a few hundred spots. He moved toward the garage and the next flag. He needed a long-handled shovel if he was going to be doing a lot of this. He’d stop at Will’s for one before he came out again tomorrow.

His phone chimed with a message. Evie and Ann were going to a movie. He smiled. Evie’s idea rather than Ann’s, he guessed, and a very good one. Someone needed to be able to pull them back from the quicksand they were in. Evie was about the only one still able to stand without being swamped by it all. He sent a text back: Good. Next time it’s you and me. GT.

Within the hour, he was done with the marked flags. He settled in the passenger seat of his truck to read a book, forcing his mind to disengage from the recent activity while Josh and Grace continued to search. He needed the distraction of a novel to take him out of this place and the weight of the day-his version of a movie.

He didn’t remember much of what he read, but it did feel as if the tension came down a notch by the time he heard Josh whistle the dogs in for the day.

Gabriel thought about joining them as Grace and Josh toweled the dogs off and brushed their coats free of accumulated burrs. But he saw they were having a conversation, and Grace looked visibly stressed. The best end of this day was to get it over with and leave.

Once Josh had loaded the dogs in the truck and Grace took the passenger seat, Gabriel walked over. Josh came to meet him. “Any change to the plans?”

“No.” Josh glanced back at his truck, offered a low, “She’s stubborn about doing this herself. We’ll be out tomorrow morning, start sweeping the pasture.”

“She knows her own mind on how she feels about everything, what she needs to do.”

Josh grimaced. “Yeah. Anyway, I’ll try to convince her to get some dinner with me, but at the moment she just wants to go back to the motor home. So that’s where we’re heading. Then I’ll take the dogs back to the house, get them settled.”

“The day’s over. Consider that a win, Josh.”

“Not much of one, but I hear you.”

Josh headed back to his truck, and Gabriel waited until they had left before taking a final walk around the search area. He wanted to see if anything in the terrain caught his attention-sometimes a faint depression might have been overlooked.

Satisfied, Gabriel looked at the time, determined he would be back in town shortly after six p.m. He’d find Ann later for a conversation, but for now assumed she would be meeting up with Grace. He’d get himself something to eat, confirm the rest of the county was quiet. Something always needed his attention, but if it was critical, the dispatcher or a deputy would’ve called. He’d stop by the office, clear away what couldn’t wait until morning, leave the rest.

He took a final glance around the farm. A monster had lived here. That terrible truth hurt deep inside him. He’d deal with it because it was what being sheriff required. But it would never fade entirely, this ache for a different history for Grace, her parents, for what might have been.