Burton worked a pair of pliers against a loose staple, the metal screeching in the quiet. “Sun’s down, Burke. I’m finishing this line.”
“It’s about the Talley place,” Burke pressed, stepping closer to the barbed wire. “Someone broke in today. Not kids, Pop. Professional. They were searching for something specific, and they knew right where to look. They hit that cabin less than an hour after Izzy Moreno told Wade Hollis she’d found Clara Vale’s paintings.”
That got him.
The pliers stopped. Burton’s shoulders shifted, a slow, deliberate movement. He tested the wire with his palm, then finally straightened. He turned, looking at both of them like he’d been expecting a storm he’d hoped would pass.
“Didn’t figure I’d get both of you at once,” he said.
Burke tried to maintain the lead.
“You got something you want to say?” Burton said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous rumble. “You better go ahead and say it plain.”
Grant didn’t hesitate. “Someone is covering their tracks now, which means there were tracks to cover back then. Did you protect him? Did you bend that badge for Wade Hollis?”
Grant felt the air go cold.
Burton stared at Grant. Not angry. Deadly still.
“You’d better think real hard about what you just asked me,” Burton said.
“Then answer it,” Grant challenged, ignoring Burke’s warning hand on his arm. “A girl goes missing, Hollis is all over the scene, and you close it out like it’s a runaway case.”
Burton’s chest expanded, a slow, deliberate breath. “Let me get this straight. You mean to tell me you came over here to question me on the law? On my integrity?”
He stepped right into Grant’s space, eye-to-eye, two generations of Scott steel clashing in the dark.
“I never broke a law in my life,” Burton rasped, his voice like grinding stones. “And I sure as hell wouldn’t break one for Wade Hollis or anyone else, for that matter. I wore that badge with honor for thirty years. So you boys better think long and hard about the next words coming out of your mouths. Because once you say ’em, you can’t take ’em back.”
Burke stepped back a half-inch, the lawman in him recognizing the absolute, unshakable conviction in his father’s voice. He looked at Grant, pleading with his eyes for him to shut up.
But Grant didn’t move. He was too much like the man in front of him.
“The sketches don’t lie, Pop,” Grant said, his voice lower now, but no less stubborn. “She drew the landing strip. She drew Wade's people loading crates into a Cessna. And she drew you standing in the treeline with your badge, watching it happen.”
Burton held his ground, his face a granite mask in the gathering dark. “I don’t deal in drawings and imagination. I dealin what can be proven in a court of law. There was no body. There was no struggle. There was no evidence of foul play. That is the truth. That is the record. If you think you know better, then you go find it. But don’t you dare stand in my yard and question my honor.”
He turned his back on them. Final.
The sound of the pliers biting into wire again was the only goodbye they got.
30
The Kitchen — Morning
The only sound in the kitchen was the rhythmic, metallic shhh-shhh-shhh of the whetstone. Grant sat at the table, his shoulders hunched, dark stubble shadowing his jaw. He hadn’t slept.
He didn’t look up when Izzy walked in, dressed in her field gear and looking sharper than the blade in his hand.
“Good morning,” she said. Her voice was level, but it lacked any of the warmth from two nights ago.
Grant’s hand stilled. “Morning.”
Izzy poured a cup of coffee, the silence stretching until it felt like it might snap. “How did it go with your father?”
“He’s convinced it was a walkaway,” Grant said, his voice a rough rasp. “Told us we were out of line for even asking. Burke’s carrying on with the investigation anyway. He doesn’t have a choice now.”
Izzy leaned against the counter, watching him. “Who do you think was up there yesterday, Grant? Tossing the cabin?”
