On the other end, Raines swore under his breath. “What time?”
“About three,” Garrett answered. “Which puts it only a few hours before Trudy was attacked.”
“Hell.” Raines let the word hang heavy. “Paula just called me this morning, rescheduled her interview. Claimed she’s having car trouble. Now we’ve got her pointing guns at people and maybe cleaning house before I can ask questions.”
Beside him, Isla leaned forward. “She’s had firearms training. It could have been her who shot Trudy.”
Raines’s voice was thoughtful but tight. “It’s possible. I could send deputies out there, but if she’s hiding something, that might drive her off. If she really has Harris, that’s the last thing we want.”
“If she sees cops, she might run,” Isla said quickly. “Or worse, she could take him and disappear.”
Raines grunted in agreement. “Then you two go in quiet. But listen to me, McCall—if you see any sign of trouble, you back off. Understood?”
Garrett’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Understood.”
His training itched for action, but his gaze cut briefly to Isla. She was strong, but she wasn’t mission-ready anymore. Not the way she used to be. He wasn’t about to let her get caught in the middle of a firefight.
Garrett ended the call with Raines, thumb lingering on the screen before setting the phone down on the console. The last of San Antonio slipped away in the mirrors, replaced by open stretches of highway. Strip malls and gas stations thinned out until the land rolled wide and rough, live oaks crowding the fence lines and limestone ridges. The Hill Country opened in front of them, stark and quiet.
He picked the phone back up and hit the voice command. “Text Noah.Meeting Paula. Will update you when possible.”
The device confirmed, sending the words off clean and simple.
Beside him, Isla was already working. She popped open the glove compartment and pulled out one of the Crossfire Opstablets, its matte black casing catching a flash of dashboard light. On her phone, the image from Anais glowed faintly before she transferred it to the tablet.
“I’ll run an analysis,” she said, fingers moving fast as the system booted up. The tablet chimed, secure login waiting, and she keyed in her credentials before dragging the image onto the interface.
Garrett kept his eyes on the two-lane road twisting deeper into the hills. Out here, the landscape was quieter, the woods thicker, the kind of place where anything could hide in the shadows.
Isla stared out the windshield, her voice low but steady. “That image isn’t photoshopped. It wasn’t added in. That man was there. But ‘there’ might not even be Paula’s place. We have no way of knowing unless I go through every second of that drone footage myself.”
Garrett tightened his grip on the wheel. “Then why would Anais lie? Why point the finger at Paula if the footage isn’t clear?”
“Maybe she’s covering for her mom or dad,” Isla said after a pause. “One of them could have taken Harris. It wouldn’t be the first time family went to extremes to protect themselves. With Trudy trying to jumpstart the cold case on Harris’ disappearance, maybe Anais wanted to try to point the finger at someone other than her parents.”
He thought about that in silence, the SUV eating up the miles of road between them and Paula’s property.
“That’s a possibility,” Garrett admitted. “But if that’s what Anais is doing, she deserves an award. She sure as hell did a damn good job of faking how angry she was about missing out on time with her brother.”
The weight of it pressed harder in his chest. Twenty-two years of guilt, now tangled up with more lies and more shadows.
During the rest of the drive, that tension stayed with him. When they rounded a bend and the property came into view, Garrett slowed and eased the SUV onto the shoulder. No other traffic stirred on the road.
He reached into the console for the binoculars and lifted them to his eyes. The place spread out before him, half-hidden by the thick wall of trees.
It was exactly what Anais had described, a former campground.
The main house stood front and center, weathered but sturdy, with cabins scattered across the land. Some looked kept up, paint still clinging, roofs intact. Others sagged into themselves, falling-down shells that hadn’t seen care in decades.
A narrow creek cut through the property, glinting pale under the morning light. Old RV pads lined part of the clearing, cracked asphalt choked with weeds.
The whole place had a quiet, abandoned feel. Too quiet. He saw no one moving, no sound carrying over the trees. But a car sat in front of the house, a faded sedan.
Garrett lowered the binoculars long enough to type in the plates on his dash system. The response came back fast. Registered to Paula Benton.
“She’s here,” he said, his voice flat, the words heavy in the air between them. “Or at least her car is anyway.” Garrett lowered the binoculars and handed them to Isla. “Take a look.”
She adjusted the focus and studied the spread. “During my deep dive on Paula, I found out she bought this place about twenty-five years ago. Bankruptcy property. She got it for next to nothing.”
