The image hit Garrett like a gut punch. For a heartbeat he couldn’t breathe. It could be Harris. God help him, it could be.
He forced himself to look again, to remind himself that a grainy blur was just that. It could just as easily be someone else.
Beside him, Leah gasped, a sharp sound that tore through the room. Tears welled in her eyes, and she started forward as if she meant to storm out the door that very second and head for Paula’s property. Randall caught her arm and pulled her back, his grip firm but gentle.
“This is exactly why I didn’t show you and Dad,” Anais said quickly, her voice thick with nerves. “I knew it would upset you. We don’t know for sure yet. We need proof that it’s him. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.” Her gaze slid to Garrett and Isla.
Suspicion flared in Garrett’s gut. He leveled a stare at Anais. “Why didn’t you take this to the cops?”
Anais squared her shoulders. “Because Paula has friends at the San Antonio PD. If I hand it over to them, there’s a chance it gets buried. I couldn’t risk that.”
Garrett’s stomach twisted tighter. The image still burned in his mind, a blur that carried twenty-two years of guilt and loss.
Leah’s voice sharpened, rising higher with each word. “We can’t just sit here while she keeps him from us. If that’s Harris—”
Randall tightened his grip on her arm again, his own voice calm but edged with steel. “Leah.” He looked straight at Garrettand Isla. “Will you look into this? Discreetly. I’ll hire Crossfire Ops if I have to. Just… please. Find out the truth.”
“If Paula’s had him all this time, she could have brainwashed him against us,” Leah snapped.
That thought hit Garrett like another punch to the gut. It was possible. God help them, it was possible. Still, he forced himself to keep his head clear. A grainy photo did not equal proof.
“We’ll check it out,” he said at last, his voice firm. “Anais, text Isla and me that photo.” They gave the young woman their numbers so she could do that, and seconds later, their phones sounded with the incoming image.
“Stay put,” Garrett added. “All of you. Isla and I will handle Paula.”
He didn’t say the rest. That he’d be looping in Sheriff Raines whether Anais liked it or not. Anais’s distrust of the cops was obvious, but Garrett trusted Raines. Trusted him to keep this from spiraling out of control.
Anais hesitated, her fingers knotting together. “There’s something else,” she said finally. “Paula might already know we’re onto her.”
Garrett’s shoulders went rigid. “Explain.”
“Yesterday afternoon, after I saw the drone footage, I drove out there. Just to scope the place.” Anais’s voice dipped, uneasy. “She saw me. I swear she did. She came out with a shotgun and leveled it right at me. I left fast, but…” Her eyes darted between them. “She knows.”
The tension in the room shifted, tightening like a wire. Garrett’s tone cut through it. “What time was this?”
“Around three,” Anais said.
Garrett’s jaw clenched. That had been only a few hours before Trudy was attacked. His mind churned, the questiontwisting in his gut. Had Paula been spooked enough to try to clean house? To silence Trudy before her secret came out?
The possibility lodged in him like shrapnel.
Garrett ended the conversation with a final warning. “Stay put. All of you. We’ll handle it.” He didn’t wait for pushback. He opened the door, and Isla followed him out into the brisk morning air.
Once they were off the porch and moving toward the SUV, Isla glanced at him. “You think they’ll actually stay put?”
Garrett pulled open the driver’s side door. “I hope so. But just in case they don’t, we need to get to Paula first.”
Isla slid in beside him, already tapping her phone. Within seconds she had Paula’s address pulled up on the screen. “It’s out in the country. About thirty minutes.”
Garrett started the engine, the SUV rumbling to life. As he pulled onto the street, he gave a voice command. “Call Sheriff Raines.”
The call clicked through, and Raines’s steady voice came on the line. “McCall. You on your way to see Anais?”
Garrett kept his eyes on the road. “We already did. She showed us something, Sheriff. A drone video over Paula Benton’s property. Grainy, but there’s a young man in the frame. Could be Harris. Could be someone else.”
Silence stretched for a beat before Raines asked, “And you believe it?”
“I believe it’s enough not to ignore,” Garrett said. “But that’s not all. Anais told us she drove out to Paula’s place yesterday afternoon, right after she saw the footage. Said Paula spotted her and leveled a shotgun at her.”
