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“Glad you feel that way.” Snagging the handles of the duffel, Chet opened the door, waiting for her to exit then locking up before heading toward his truck.
Gray skies loomed above. Thin clouds stretched out like wispy threads of cotton candy. A light breeze rustled the green leaves. The rain might have stopped sometime throughout the night, but the threat of another storm hovered overhead. The yellow tape still surrounded the vandalized area. The barrier, and what laid within, was like a violent brawl in the bar—something she should ignore but demanding her attention.
The sight was as much of a shock to her system this morning as it had been last night. The ropes might have been cut down, but the sight of them would forever mar the once peaceful view. Unexpected tears welled in her eyes. She’d found a refuge here, and now all sense of safety was gone.
Otto nuzzled against her side, nudging her hand with his nose.
“You okay?” Chet threw the duffel in the back of the truck and rested his elbow on the edge of the cab.
“I keep trying not to think about what’s happening,” she said. “But I can’t hide from it, ya know? It’s right in the front yard.” She flicked her wrist toward the tree, her heart heavy.
An edge of something white was pressed against the green blades of grass. She squinted and leaned forward. “What’s that?”
Chet stomped over to her. “What’s what?”
Mia dodged under the yellow tape to get a closer look. She used the tip of her shoe to scrape off uprooted grass and specks of mud. She flipped the edge of the material over. “Looks like a photo.”
Chet commanded Otto to stay then lifted the tape, ducking beneath it to stand beside her. His sharp inhalation of breath set her on edge, and he crouched low to the ground. He cupped his mouth with a shaky hand. The muscles in his neck went rigid.
Apprehension made her shiver. “What is it?”
“A picture of Laurie and Riley.”
* * *
The crinkled pictureof his wife and daughter stared up at Chet from the large table in the conference room. Not wanting to flake out on Brooke, he and Mia had put together a rushed breakfast after he’d bagged the photo and brought it with him to work. He’d called Cruz to let him know what he’d found, and Cruz had agreed to meet him at the lodge.
Now, Chet sat on the edge of leather desk chair with a bouncing knee he couldn’t control. For the second day in a row, the smiling faces he loved so much looked up at him from moments captured on film. But unlike yesterday, he had no memories associated with this picture. With this moment. As if he wasn’t there when someone snapped a camera, forever memorializing the scene before him. Of Laurie sitting on a wooden glider, smiling at Riley swinging high from the playset in their backyard.
He’d seen this scene a hundred times, could hear Riley’s giggle and demands to be watched as she swung higher and higher. But this particular picture didn’t register in his mind. He hadn’t taken the photo. So who had?
Anger swirled inside him like a brewing storm. He couldn’t take much more. Couldn’t handle yet another punch in the gut.
Lincoln stood at the head of the table, the backdrop of the mountains dominating the window behind him. He’d pushed aside the chair, choosing to stand and gain a better view of all of Chet’s notes strewn across the table. “You saved all of this for three years?” he asked, his thumb propped under his chin.
Chet didn’t want to admit that although he hadn’t been able to look through the file since the case had gone cold, he also couldn’t part with everything he’d collected. “Yep.”
“We have a lot of the same information on file at the station,” Cruz said, sitting across from Chet. Concern crinkled his brow. “But not everything. You never told me you kept looking into all this.”
“You never asked.”
Cruz shot him an are-you-serious look.
“You’d make a damn good detective,” Lincoln said. “Thorough as hell.”
Unable to look at the picture for another second, Chet leaned back in his chair. “You would be too, but what do you think about this? Looks like it’s been folded and unfolded a hundred times.”
Lincoln slid the evidence bag containing the photo toward him. “You sure it’s not yours?”
“Positive.” He kept all images of his past life tucked away. As if having constant reminders of what he used to have around him would increase his pain. Even though he knew that wasn’t the case. The smiling faces of Laurie and Riley just sharpened their memory, chiseled their features in his mind. And if he was being honest with himself, had brought a flood of good memories that had given him something to smile about.
“Could belong to whoever was there last night. Fell out of his pocket,” Cruz said. “It was dark as hell, and Beau might have missed it.”
Chet cringed at the idea that the person who killed his family carried their picture around with him. Obviously taking it out and putting it away numerous times to cause all the damage to the once-glossy paper. “Tell me about the victim you just identified.”
Lincoln worked his jaw back and forth. “I meant what I said about you making a damn good detective, but you’re not an officer anymore. There are things we can’t share with you about this case.”
Chet rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that bullshit. I can help. No need to waste time, because we both know I’ll find out whatever I want to know one way or the other.”
