“I’m sorry, but my fingerprints are on the ribbon,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking at first. But I’m sure you want to analyze it. If my dad’s are there...”
Then that would mean that her father had touched the ribbon. That he’d either found it or taken it after he’d killed her.
He’d send it to the lab ASAP.
Two scenarios entered Harrison’s mind. The first—Granger killed Chrissy and hid her body at the bluff. Then he’d returned to visit her.
But where had he hidden her? And why revisit her body now after all these years?
And if he had, who had killed him? Someone who’d discovered what he’d done?
Scenario two—Granger had been at the bluff and either stumbled on Chrissy’s body or he stumbled on the killer, and the killer murdered him to keep him quiet.
* * *
HONEY COULD BARELY look at Harrison.
“Thank you for calling me, Honey,” he said quietly. “I appreciate your honesty.”
Honesty?
More guilt bombarded her. She hadn’t mentioned that she’d been at the bluff that night, too. That if she’d been home, she’d know if Chrissy had come by. And she’d know if her father had done something to Chrissy or if he’d been passed out all evening.
His jaw tightened. “What if I find out that your father killed Chrissy?”
Honey sucked in a sharp breath. She and her father hadn’t been close, but shame engulfed her. “Then we’ll know.”
The darkness in his eyes, a darkness filled with anger and pain, was a reminder that he and his family blamed her for his sister’s disappearance.
If her father had killed Chrissy, he had a right to blame her.
Harrison shrugged. “The search parties never found anything belonging to my sister. Not her backpack or the pink jacket she was wearing or any clothing.”
Honey thought back to the gossip after that night. “Some people thought that was a good sign. They thought she ran away and—”
“She didn’t run away,” Harrison said. “Chrissy may have argued with me and my brothers but she was afraid of the dark and wouldn’t have gone out that night if Brayden hadn’t convinced her to sneak out.” He swallowed hard. “She was also attached to a stuffed doll that she won at a rodeo with my parents. She couldn’t sleep without that rag doll.” He paused, pain riddling his face. “If she was going to run away, she would have taken the doll.”
Now that he mentioned it, Honey remembered the rag doll with the big blue painted eyes and red braided pigtails.
Honey had envied that doll because Chrissy had something Honey didn’t—the innocence of childhood, which allowed her to play with dolls like a normal little girl.
Only Chrissy had lost her innocence—and maybe her life—that night.
“If you find any of those things, let me know.”
“Of course,” Honey said.
“Do you mind if I search the house?” Harrison asked.
Honey stiffened. “Go ahead. I’m not hiding anything.”
His stormy gaze met hers, then he carried the ribbon to his SUV and returned with a flashlight.
Honey’s phone buzzed just as he stepped back inside.
Her business partner, Jared.
She couldn’t stand to watch Harrison comb through her father’s house and her own personal childhood belongings, so she stepped outside to answer the phone.
“I have to take this,” she said as he started to search her father’s dresser drawers. She said a prayer he wouldn’t find anything else belonging to Chrissy as she rushed outside to the front porch.
“How are things?” Jared asked.
“Not good.” Honey bowed her head and fought the panic setting in.
“What happened?”
She hadn’t shared her past with Jared, and she didn’t want to now. “I just don’t like being in my father’s house.”
He murmured that he understood. “When will you be back?”
A heaviness weighed on her. She’d felt trapped here as a teenager. She felt trapped now.
She couldn’t leave until she had answers, until she knew who’d murdered her father.
Until she knew if he was a killer.
An hour later Harrison met Honey on the porch. “I’d like to come back during the day and look around the property.”
Honey paled. “You think my father killed Chrissy and buried her here?”
Harrison shrugged. “I don’t know what to think, Honey. But considering you found one of her ribbons, it’s possible.”
Honey clenched her hands together. She couldn’t argue that point. “All right. Just let me know what time.”
“I will.” He studied her for another moment. He wanted to comfort her, but he had to do his job and it involved investigating her father. That was reality.
Just as reality meant that he had to talk to his family. Tonight.
For both their sakes, he hoped her father hadn’t buried Chrissy on the Grangers’ property.
He climbed into his SUV and cranked up the air as he drove toward the county lab. He dropped the ribbon off with instructions to send the results to his office ASAP.
Dark had set in as he drove through the entrance to Hawk’s Landing. His father had first been drawn to the land because of the birds of prey that flocked to the south end. He claimed it was a sign that this land was meant to belong to him and that he was meant to build a family ranch on the property. He had insisted they keep a section as a natural habitat and sanctuary for the birds.
When he was a kid and needed time alone, Harrison used to ride his horse out to the corner of the property and watch the hawks soar. After Chrissy’s disappearance, he’d found himself out there a lot.
His father had a huge wooden sign carved with the emblem of a hawk and had hung it over the gate to the ranch as a reminder of the birds.
Harrison checked his watch as he parked in the drive to his mother’s Georgian home. He was half an hour late. His mother wouldn’t be happy.
He wasn’t happy, either.
Memories
