“coping.”
No one had mentioned that David’s belongings had been moved to this attic, but Claire supposed it was understandable that they would be. Rosemary had a large family and a crowded house. She probably didn’t want to encounter her dead son’s possessions every time she retrieved the holiday decorations. The studio already held what remained of Alana’s life, and nobody ever used it. This must have seemed like the perfect solution.
Closing her eyes, Claire reached out for the warm presence she’d occasionally felt since David’s death. She wasn’t a superstitious person, certainly didn’t believe in ghosts that rattled chains and haunted people, but she did have faith in the power of love to create a bridge between this world and the next. She’d felt some comfort since he died. It was almost as if he visited her now and then to make sure she was all right.
She wished she could feel him now, but the pain was too sudden and too acute. Grappling with it required all her focus.
“Why’d you leave me?” she whispered. The tears that rolled down her cheeks were nothing new. She cursed them, wished she could get beyond them, but the senselessness of his death, the fact that she’d lost David so soon and couldn’t imagine ever loving someone else in quite the same way, didn’t help.
She almost shoved his boxes out of sight, pushed them to the back so she wouldn’t have to see the thick black letters that seared her to the bone: David’s. They were only inanimate objects he’d once owned. As badly as she wanted him, David wasn’t here anymore, and he never would be.
But she didn’t push the boxes away; she pulled them closer. She’d spotted something that struck her as odd. On a two-foot-by-two-foot box, third from the bottom, David had scrawled his own name. She recognized his writing—but not this particular box, which she would’ve noticed since it was white and all the ones she’d used were brown.
Why had she never seen this before? She was positive it hadn’t come from her house....
Once she opened the flaps, she knew why. He must’ve stored this above his parents’ garage before he went to college. If she had her guess, it’d been brought here in an effort to keep all his possessions together.
Fresh longing filled her as she touched the soccer and basketball trophies, the varsity letters he’d never sewn on a jacket, a pen set he’d made in wood shop. Then there were the cards she’d given him when they first started dating. They’d gone to high school together, were an item for two years before he left for college, so she had the same homecoming and prom pictures.
Unable to spend any more time with those memories for fear she’d undo the progress she’d made in the past few months, she began to close the box when she decided to see what was inside a fat accordion-style file folder tucked between some old sweaters. It looked far too businesslike for the seventeen-year-old David who’d packed up the rest of these things....
When she opened it, she realized why. This folder wasn’t from that early period. It was from after they were married. And what it contained shocked her so badly, she had to put her head between her knees so she wouldn’t faint.
Jeremy Salter hung back in the trees, watching. It was pitch-black, but that didn’t matter. The night- vision goggles his father had given him for Christmas worked beautifully. He’d also received a Swiss Army knife—he loved collecting things that would help him survive in the wilderness. He imagined himself as the next Rambo.
But Claire had no survival skills. She didn’t belong out here, especially after dark. If she wasn’t careful, a bear or a pack of wolves could attack her. Or even a man. Men were by far the most dangerous animals on earth.
His father used to say that; his father had also proved it.
She must like it here, he mused. She came often enough. But not so much lately. Not once David was killed. Since David’s death, she didn’t do much of anything, except cut hair all day. Then she’d curl up on the couch, eyes glued to the TV. But he usually got the impression that she wasn’t watching the program. She’d stare at the screen without blinking and soon the tears would start.
She missed David and didn’t know how to go on without him.
Jeremy understood how that felt.
So what was she doing in her mother’s old studio? Trying to get herself into the same trouble David had? Didn’t she know that some secrets should be buried and forgotten?
She’d be fine if only she’d let the past go. Then he’d be fine, too.
Sometimes he wished he could tell her that. Promise her that everything would get better if she could just go on her way. She was so beautiful and smart and nice. Everything a woman should be. Any guy would love to be with her.
Including him. Especially him. Not that he’d ever have a chance. He was too…different. He’d always been different.
Her flashlight had made it possible for him to track her movements to the loft, but then the light disappeared.
Had she turned it off? Was she sitting on the floor, crying? Missing her mother the way she missed David?
Or did she have some other reason for being here? She’d slipped away from the park so cautiously, it’d certainly felt as if she had a purpose.
He needed to get inside the cabin to find out. But he hesitated to go that close. What if she caught him?
That could be dangerous. For both of them.
But if he was quiet enough, she’d never have to know. He’d been watching her for years, hadn’t he? And she’d never caught him yet.
2
David had a copy of the case files on her mother. Everything was here, from the missing-persons report to the last interview. Claire had seen some of this before, but even she hadn’t been privy to all of it. How had he come by this much information?
He must’ve gotten it from Sheriff King. Either that or he’d called in a favor from his old hunting buddy, Rusty Clegg. Rusty had been a deputy for the past six or seven years. It helped to have a friend on the force.
But what felt so strange about finding this was that David had made his own notations on many of the reports and interviews. It was almost as if he’d picked up the investigation where the sheriff had left off.
Why hadn’t he told her what he was doing? The dates on the log he’d kept correlated with the first year of their marriage and included a number of entries in the months leading up to his death. The last time he’d written anything was two days before the accident. She found detailed information on her stepfather and Leanne, plus her mother’s only sibling—a sister living in Portland, Oregon—and a complete chronology of Alana’s last movements.
Some of it Claire didn’t want to read. It brought back That Night, the longest night of her life, during which every adult she knew, including her stepfather, was out searching. She and Leanne hadn’t been allowed to leave the house. They’d waited for their mother, or some word of her, praying all the while for her safe return—to no avail. When the sun came up, their stepfather and one friend after another checked in with the bad news that they hadn’t been able to find any sign of her.
Reluctant yet determined, Claire’s eyes skimmed the handwritten
