“So Lucy doesn’t know about Lacey’s involvement with Judy?” June asked. “Not even that they were working together with Vets Without Borders?”
“No,” Margo said. “She’s completely unaware of that. We kept it like that because my mother is busy enough trying to keep this town healthy.”
“Well, I think she’s starting to figure it out,” June pointed out. “Her twin sister is in the hospital with amnesia and the new vet Lacey hired is in a coma and has been revealed to be Gilbert Fry’s older sister.”
“Maybe,” Margo said. “But that’s all she knows.”
“You know you’re going to have to tell her, right?” June told Margo. Her tone became softer. “She deserves to know, and right now she thinks she has an enemy that tried to kill her sister.”
“And the man she’s just gotten romantically involved with again might just be involved with what happened ten years ago,” Holt stated. He knew that was harsh, but these five, or rather seven… eight if you counted his mother, had been playing with fire. Worse, they’d lied about it and put more people in danger. He no longer had time for nice. They needed to hear the harsh reality of what they were facing. “I’m sure you’ve all now realized the consequences of keeping secrets like this.”
“Dad!” Rad hissed a warning at him.
Holt knew his son had feelings for Margo, but he was just as guilty as the rest of them. Maybe even more so, as he was a police detective and knew better.
“I’m not going to apologize or mince words anymore,” Holt told them. “From here on out, none of you are to go anywhere near this case.” His eyes traveled between them and landed on his mother. “And that goes for you too, Mother.”
“I wasn’t involved in this investigation,” Mina told him.
“Keep it that way,” Holt ordered before glancing at Harvey. “How deeply are you involved in all this?”
“I only filmed the interviews and provided technical support,” Harvey told them.
“So that’s a yes!” Holt stated. “You’re in this up to your eyeballs.”
“Yes,” Harvey admitted. “Okay, yes, I played my part in the investigations, too. I’m also heavily invested in finding out the truth about ten years ago.” His eyes darkened with emotion. “My cousin was one of the firefighters who died.”
“I’m sorry, Harvey,” June said. “How did I not know that? Was it Basil or Dylon?”
“Basil,” Harvey told her. “I wasn’t told much about what he, Shaun, Travis, and Dylon were investigating back then.” He glanced at the other before continuing. “I just knew that my cousin was extremely worried by what they had found out.”
“It’s okay, Harvey, you can tell my father what you told us about that day,” Rad told Harvey.
“What was it?” Holt glanced from Rad to Harvey.
“Basil said they were going to meet with someone who could verify what they’d found out,” Harvey told them. “It was his, Travis, Shaun, and Dylon’s day off.”
“But the firefighters on duty that day were in a car accident,” Margo picked up the story. “So Shaun, Travis, Basil, and Dylon were called in for duty.”
“They responded to a forest fire at the campsite.” Willa’s voice was a little hoarse as she recounted her late husband's lastmoments. “They reported in when they arrived at the campsite in the location where the fire was supposed to be. Shaun radioed back to the station asking for the location again as they couldn’t find the fire, and that’s the last time he or any of his crew were heard from.”
“Why wasn’t that in the report?” Holt asked. “According to the report, Shaun called in that the fire was at Gilbert’s cabin. They’d gone in to put it out, and he’d locked the door, then set the rest of the cabin on fire.”
“That’s the report that was put in when Nigel closed the case,” Ace hissed. “But the dispatcher told a different story.”
“Then we need to speak to the dispatcher,” Holt said.
“Good luck finding her,” Rad told his father. “Ace tried, Margo tried, Lacey, Judy, even I tried. She disappeared.”
“So did the call,” Willa told them. “To be replaced with what Nigel had logged in the case file.”
“The recording was doctored?” Holt said, and Rad could see his father’s mind working overtime.
“No. Due to a convenient system upgrade around that time,” Ace explained, “a whole lot of calls were lost.”
“Unbelievable,” Holt hissed.
He didn’t like the way this was going. Someone had to have a lot of clout and or know how to pull off something like this. And his heart grew heavy as the evidence kept pointing to Police Chief Tom Morrison.
