“One of Wade’s people. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” He finally looked up, his eyes dark. “You were with Wade andCal, you told them about the paintings, and then an hour later someone is ripping up floorboards. Yeah. It’s Hollis.”
“But why?” she asked softly. “Why now, after twenty-seven years?”
“Because he’s involved in that girl’s disappearance,” Grant said, standing up. The knife went into his pocket with a definitive click. “He has to be. You said it yourself—when you told him Burke was reopening the case, he had a look.”
“He covered it quickly,” Izzy reminded him. “But it was there. A flicker of… something. Fear, maybe. Or guilt.”
She set her mug down and reached for her bag.
“Where are you going?” Grant asked, his voice tightening.
“I’m seeing Cal again today. He’s taking me up to the old family chapel near the ridge.”
Grant’s face went white. “Are you crazy? After what happened yesterday?”
Izzy met his gaze, her chin tilting up. “Yeah, maybe. But you don’t need to worry about what I do, Grant. You made that very clear yesterday, remember? Distance. Being realistic. I’m following your lead.”
Grant lunged, his hand slamming onto the counter beside her. He hauled her into that rough, desperate kiss, a collision of teeth and unspoken apologies. It was territorial and jagged, a man drowning.
Izzy shoved him back with a sharp, muffled cry.
“You bastard!” she hissed, her eyes bright with fury. “Don’t you dare. You don’t get to treat me like an inconvenience and then try to mark me like property. Cal is a gentleman. He treats me better than you do, Grant. At least he isn’t afraid to look me in the eye.”
She walked out, the screen door slamming behind her.
* * *
The Sheriff’s Office — Late Morning
Burke leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking in the silence. On the screen, the name Vance Varga vibrated with a cold, Florida energy that had no business being in Jackson County.
“What the hell?” he whispered.
He pulled up a local property map alongside the Varga logistics file. There was no direct link, but then he saw it—the date Vanguard Logistics filed for a temporary landing permit in ’99. It was signed off by the county as “Private Agricultural Transport.”
Burke’s stomach turned. His dad and Wade Hollis had always had a… relationship. It wasn’t the kind of friendship his dad had with the men he went fishing with. It was different. Wade would come by the office, close the door, and talk low enough Burke couldn’t hear through the walls.
But now? Looking at Varga’s mugshot? Burke felt a cold sweat prickle his neck.
What did you do, Pop? Did you look the other way for a friend? Did you let a shark into the pond because Wade asked you to?
He couldn’t sit there anymore. He picked up the desk phone and buzzed the front desk. “Scout, get in here. Bring your topo maps for the Hollis-Talley line. We’re going for a ride.”
* * *
The Ridge Overlook — Mid-Day
The wind was whipping up here, smelling of damp earth and old stone. Grant, Burke, and Deputy Scout Wilson moved through the brush with practiced silence. Scout was the best tracker in the department; he knew every deer trail and jagged outcropping on the mountain.
“We can set the long-range glass up right here,” Scout whispered, gesturing to a flat shelf of rock hidden by a thicket of mountain laurel. “Gives us a straight shot down to the strip. If a plane so much as circles that valley, we’ll see the tail number before it touches asphalt.”
Burke nodded, but Grant wasn’t looking at the landing strip. He was looking further down the ridge, toward the skeletal remains of the old stone chapel.
“Wait,” Grant breathed, his voice tight.
He reached for the binoculars hanging around Burke’s neck and leveled the glass.
Through the lenses, the gray stones of the chapel came into sharp focus. He saw the silver Escalade parked on the grass. And then he saw them.
