The response didn’t surprise Garrett. He knew that Raines was just as frustrated as they were. Maybe more. He’d gotten no answers from Anais’ and Leah’s interviews, and while Paula had been more or less cooperative, she certainly wasn’t dishing out any helpful answers either.
Garrett slid the phone into his pocket, and he looked at Isla, who already had her jacket in hand. “Raines is meeting us. He wants us to move in quiet.”
“Quiet works,” she said. Her voice was calm, but the heat in her eyes told him she was keyed up the same as he was.
They didn’t waste another second before heading out the door.
The night pressed in around them, the drizzle hissing against the windshield as Garrett guided the SUV along the two-lane road. The wipers clicked in a steady rhythm, clearing the beaded mist from the glass, but the damp chill still crept into the cabin. He kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift, his eyes on the stretch of blacktop cut through dense clusters of trees.
Beside him, Isla had her laptop open, the glow casting a soft light across her face. She tapped a few keys, then turned the screen slightly toward him. “Here’s the property.”
Garrett flicked his gaze down long enough to take in the image. A modest house, maybe twelve hundred square feet, sat at the center of a decent-sized clearing.
The land around it stretched wide, several acres of rough pasture edged by timber, with no close neighbors in sight. A gravel drive cut back toward the house, and a weathered shed leaned on one side of the yard. The place had the kind of isolation that reminded him of Paula’s campground property, only scaled down.
“If Marion is Paula, how the hell could she afford both this place and the campground?” he asked.
“She got an inheritance,” Isla said, her eyes still on the screen. “Insurance money, too. Both her parents were killed in a car crash when she was twenty-six, the year before Harris was taken. From what I found, she would have come out of that inheritance with enough cash to buy outright if she wanted.”
Garrett let that sink in as the rain picked up, streaking the glass. He pictured Paula, flush with sudden money but maybe grieving for her parents. Also recovering from cancer and desperate for a child. Then, buying herself not just one isolated place but two. Places perfect for hiding secrets.
He eased his foot on the gas, pushing them closer to the answers he both wanted and dreaded.
Isla’s voice cut through the low hum of the engine. “Maybe Paula isn’t Marion Cole though. It could be Leah. But then again, I can’t see Leah buying a place like this. Not when she had unlimited funds. Why would she settle for modest when she could afford anything she wanted?”
Garrett kept his gaze forward, jaw tight. “Maybe that’s exactly why she would. She could have bought it knowing it’d be the last place anyone would look for her and Harris. People expect rich women to hide their secrets in mansions, not rundown farmhouses.”
Isla’s brow furrowed, her fingers still hovering over the keyboard. “Good point. But Randall could have done it too. He didn’t have her money back then, but he could have mortgaged the place and paid it off once he married Leah.”
Garrett considered that, the tires hissing over wet pavement as his thoughts churned. “Yeah. That tracks. I can’t dismiss it. But either way, whoever bought it would have needed help. A nanny, someone. They couldn’t stay tucked away here 24/7. They had lives in San Antonio, work, appearances to keep up.”
Isla made a sound of agreement. “I can run a search on nannies in case this property doesn’t pan out. After all, the place could be owned by a real Marion Cole who has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Do the search on the nannies,” Garrett said. “If this is a bust, we need another angle ready.”
Isla rested her elbows on the laptop, tapping her fingers as if already sorting through search parameters in her head. “I can pull old childcare registries, licensing databases, even classifieds. Someone who worked as a nanny back then might still be around.”
His grip tightened on the wheel. He hated the idea of false trails, of chasing ghosts when Harris’ life might still be in play. But Isla was right. They couldn’t afford blind spots.
Garrett slowed to a crawl, easing the SUV onto the shoulder where the brush grew thick. The tires crackled against loose gravel before he killed the headlights, plunging them into darkness. The drizzle tapped against the windshield like fingers drumming out a warning.
Isla closed her laptop and set it on the backseat, her movements quiet, deliberate. She leaned forward, eyes locked on the narrow gravel drive cutting through the overgrowth. “This place looks like it hasn’t been touched in years,” she whispered.
Garrett lifted the binoculars, letting them adjust to the dim light ahead. The house sagged in the shadows, the porch railing bowed and paint long since peeled away. But the glow of a single lamp bled through the curtains in the front room. Behind the thin fabric, he caught the faintest shadow shifting, someone moving inside.
“Got activity,” he muttered, passing the binoculars to Isla.
She pressed them to her face, holding her breath. “I see it. Someone’s definitely in there.” She shifted the angle, narrowing in on the car parked by the front steps. It was angled just enough to block both plates. “Damn. Can’t see the license plate numbers.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t find out who’s inside,” he reminded her. “Question is whether that shadow belongs to Harris… or to the person who’s been hiding him.”
Garrett’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He slid it out and checked the screen. A text from Raines.
Three minutes out.
He let Isla know, then kept his eyes trained on the house. The shadow behind the curtains was gone, though the lamplight still glowed steady and warm. Too steady. As if someone had left it on as a decoy.
By the time another vehicle rolled up, headlights killed, Garrett’s gut was already in a tight knot. Raines climbed out, rain spotting his jacket, and joined them without a word. Together, the three of them moved toward the gravel drive, the drizzle soaking into their hair and clothes. The only sounds were the muted crunch of their boots and the patter of rain through the overgrowth.
