She shook that thought away as she stepped inside, locked the door behind her.
She wasn’t quite ready for that step. Well, shewas, but she needed to make a few choices about…honesty and what a future looked like when someone had secrets as big as hers.
But for the first time since she’d come to Hope Town all those years ago, young, traumatized, and scared… She really wanted to figure it out instead of hide from it.
Chapter Twelve
The sleepover had been a success. Sammy had ridden the high of that party for at least a week. She crashed down the next week when her science grade dipped and Gard had insisted she spend her Friday night working on the lab report she was allowed to redo instead of going to Sarabeth’s softball game after school.
He’d received an epic cold shoulder for that one.
But then Lia had come out with them for Saturday dinner and Sammy seemed to even out again, excitedly regaling Lia with tales of her great debate club practice triumph, shutting up some pretentious senior with herexcellentarguments—Sammy’s words.
Lia just had a way about her with Sammy. Their situations weren’t really alike. Maybe Sammy resented him sometimes, but she knew she was cared for and about. Lia clearly hadn’t had that. Maybe ever.
And still she’d turned out…amazing. Smart and sweet and funny and kind.
Yeah, he had it bad, no doubt. He was surprised Sammy hadn’t called him out on it. He’d catch her watching them sometimes, carefully cataloguing whatever teenagers noticed aboutold people—her words again—having a relationship. But she didn’t say anything about it—except to always push him to include Lia in whatever their plans were. So he assumed that there was some kind of stamp of approval in there.
Gard was currently trying to figure out how to have another night alone with Lia. He didn’t mind holding her hand or givingher a quick, casual kiss in front of Sammy, but that was about it, which left him a bit…frustrated when the only time he ever got her alone was in his driveway if he walked her out to her car, or for their standing Monday lunch date.
Of course, if he let Sammy hang out at Sarabeth’s softball practice Friday after school and then go to a movie in Fairmont like the girls wanted to, hewouldhave at least part of a night with Lia to himself.
But three unsupervised teenagers at a movie theater…was that really wise? Sure, he’d been doing that kind of thing at fifteen, but weren’t times different?
Gard shook his head. Not the time to be going over that again. He was atwork. He’d been trying to finish this report for too long already. He needed to focus onit, not his personal life.
He looked at the computer screen. The inane details he had to put into the system over some found bicycle that no one had reported missing, but he had to log as found property anyway. A particularly annoying waste of time.
He stared at the screen, typed one word before his focus wandered again. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened up a text to Lia.
You free Friday night? Sammy’s going to the movies with the girls.Because didn’t Sammy deserve some normal? And didn’t he?
Yes.
He started typing out a message about maybe going to a movie—not thesamemovie as the girls, but if they were all in the sametheater, that wasn’t beingtoooverprotective, was it?
But a message from Lia came in before he could finish.
Do you want to come over to my house? I’ll make us dinner.
He stared at that brief message. His immediate internal response was:Hell yes. But that meant letting Sammy go to this movie on her own.
And if he let her do that, it meant dinner. At Lia’s. He was desperately curious what that might entail. He hadn’t really seen the inside of her house before.
He could see that she was typing and quickly typed his own response before she took her offer back.Yes.
“You got a minute?”
Gard nearly dropped his phone at Detective Beckett’s voice. He’d been so wrapped up in the text conversation he hadn’t heard anyone come into the room.
Gard cleared his throat, tried to look casual as he put his phone down on the table. “Sure.”
Beckett raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t question it. “I’ve got a picture I’d like you to take a look at.” He set the laptop he was carrying on the table Gard was sitting at.
Gard peered at the picture on the screen and his stomach dropped as Beckett pointed to the woman standing off to the side of what appeared to be a still from security footage.
“Laurel said this looks a lot like your sister,” Beckett said.
