“Of course,” he said. “You all have a good night.”
Logan exhaled so hard his shoulders slumped forward. “I thought … I don’t know what I thought.”
“You’ll get used to Marco,” Giovanni said, returning to his seat. “He watches this house like a hawk. Nothing gets past him.”
It was meant to reassure, and it seemed to work.
Giovanni excused himself to gather the dishes, and Logan and I lowered ourselves back into the chairs beside the hearth. “All right. You told me about Audrey, what she found out at the cabin, and her being worried someone knew she was digging into the past. What did she think happened to Anne?”
“She thought Anne was murdered. And she was convinced it had been covered up.”
I leaned forward. “Covered up by who?”
Logan shook his head. “She didn’t know. That was the problem. She had all these ideas. I didn’t know whether they were crazy or legit.”
“Tell me about her ideas.”
“She thought a local was involved. Someone her parents may have gone to school with back then, or someone who’d lived near Anne’s aunt. She made a list of people who lived in the Harvest Creek neighborhood during that time and then cross-referenced them online to see who still lived in the area.”
I was impressed.
This girl had been doing solid investigative work.
I was just disappointed it led to her demise.
“Did she suspect anyone more than others?” I asked.
His face tightened. “I don’t know. If she did, she never gave me a name.”
As the fire cracked in the background, I sat quiet for a moment, thinking about all the information he’d given me.
“Where were you when the note was left on your truck?” I asked.
“I skipped school that day. I couldn’t be there anymore. Couldn’t bear to see all the sorry faces of my classmates who didn’t seem to know what to say to me. I drove to the park, just to think. I got out of my truck, walked around. When I got back to it, there was a note under the wiper. That’s when I realized Audrey was right. Someone knew she was looking into Anne’s disappearance.”
I leaned back, letting the weight of his words settle, and then I remembered something about the conversation we were having before we were interrupted by the knock at the front door.
“Earlier, you were saying the last time you spoke to Audrey she mentioned Lost Prairie being a place secrets go to hide. What do you think she meant by that?”
“It’s the reason I decided to go there, to see if what she’d said was more than just a random comment.”
“And?”
“We made a rock pile out there once—you know those smooth, flat rocks that are balanced on top of each other?”
“I believe I know what you’re talking about.”
“When I got to the campsite several days ago, I noticed the rock pile had been changed. The rocks weren’t stacked on top of each other anymore. They were piled up in a circle.” He reached into his bag again, this time pulling out a dirty plastic bag. “I found this under the pile.”
He held it out, and I stood, walking over to get a better look.
At first, it was hard to tell what the bag contained.
Then Logan offered some insight. “I think it’s a bone.”
“It looks like part of a pelvis,” I said. “Do you know anything more about it?”
“I don’t.”
