all the time.
If she did, the guy was a lucky man.
She hit the key fob to unlock her van, and he closed his fingers around the handle to open the door. His arm brushed hers, and she startled, then stepped away from him as if he’d burned her.
“Sorry,” he murmured.
She shrugged as if she realized she’d overreacted. Then she slid into the driver’s seat.
He caught the door with his hand before she could close it. “Did you and your father stay in touch?”
She heaved a breath, filled with wary resignation, then shook her head. “No, I haven’t spoken to him in years. Why? You don’t think I had something to do with his death?”
He should consider that theory, but no, it hadn’t occurred to him. “No,” he said honestly.
“Good,” she said sharply. “Because I have a life in Austin, Harrison. I have my own business and love what I do. When I left here, I left everything behind. That included my father.” She clenched the steering wheel with a white-knuckle grip. “No matter how much I despised him, there’s no way I would have jeopardized my career to get back at him, especially now.” A sad expression washed over her face. “He wasn’t worth it.”
She started the engine, pressed the gas and sped from the parking lot.
Harrison stood for a moment, absorbing her statement. Sad that she didn’t feel more grief toward the old man. But then again, Granger didn’t deserve it.
He glanced toward the mountain. Remembering that the murder weapon was most likely a rock, he walked to his SUV, climbed in and drove to Dead Man’s Bluff. He parked, then scanned the area, tormented by the memory of that fateful night Chrissy went missing. The fact that her body hadn’t been found should have given him hope that she was alive, but...he knew the odds.
Was her disappearance somehow tied to Waylon Granger’s murder? He didn’t see how it could be.
But he had to know.
He pulled on latex gloves and climbed from his SUV. The sun beat down on him as he combed the parking area and weeds beside it. He searched the overgrown bushes flanking the old mine, and the weeds jutting up by the swimming hole.
Nothing.
Of course the killer could have tossed the rock into the swimming hole and it could be under water. The wind whistled from the cave, that ghostly sound that stirred the rumors surrounding the place, and he retrieved his flashlight from the truck.
Determined to explore all possible avenues before diving into the swimming hole, he crept inside the entrance to the mine. It was dark as hell inside, cold, and smelled of wet moss, dirt and decay. The scent of urine was almost overpowering, suggesting that curiosity seekers not only ventured inside but used it as a bathroom, too.
Ignoring the stench, he raked the flashlight along the wall and searched the floor. The opening was clear. Cigarette butts, beer bottles and evidence of discarded drug paraphernalia.
He picked up a stick and raked away some of the trash then made his way to the corner where he found an old sleeping bag, two empty tin cans that had held beans and a metal coffee mug. Had someone been living inside?
He shone the light along the wall and spotted a small cluster of rocks in a circular pattern. Burned sticks lay in a pile of ashes in the middle.
His light illuminated the corner of the pile, and he noticed a rock shoved into the debris. He stooped down and raked away the ashes with a stick.
It definitely was a rock, a sharp, jagged one. He peered closer. Something red stained the side of the stone.
He pulled the rock from the pile and examined it. It was almost as large as his hand and could have been used as a weapon.
He sniffed the red substance. It was sticky and held a metallic odor—definitely blood.
Granger’s? He’d have it tested.
Pulse jumping, he carried it from the cave, bagged it and stowed it in his truck. If there were prints on it, he might be able to nail the killer.
His gut tightened with dread.
He hadn’t yet told his family about Granger’s death. It was time he did.
He glanced at the rock on the seat of his truck with trepidation. He just hoped he didn’t find one of their prints on that rock.
* * *
HONEY PASSED THE sheriff’s office as she drove through Tumbleweed. She couldn’t believe Harrison Hawk was sheriff. She’d expected him to leave this small town for something bigger and better. Harrison was smart, had been popular, had girls swooning over him.
His bad-boy sexy, flirty ways had been appealing. But after his sister disappeared, he’d become angry, moody and sullen.
His close-knit family had fallen apart.
Several mothers and their children played in the park at the edge of town where they’d added splash pads for the kids to cool off in the summer heat. Her heart squeezed as a little girl in pigtails with pink ribbons flying in the wind ran toward her mother and threw her arms around her.
Ribbons... Chrissy had loved ribbons in her hair and had collected a box of assorted colors.
Honey turned down the side street that led to Lower Tumbleweed, the street where her father lived. Technically the area was named Lower Tumbleweed because it sat in the lower valley. Although the name held another connotation, implying the families who lived there were lower-class. The families on the street were poor—the children received free lunches and free dental care, and they lived off food stamps.
Taunts from other kids about Lower Tumbleweed echoed in her head.
God, how she’d hated the cruel comments. Had hated that the kids at school knew so much about her. Worse, that the gossip about her mother being a tramp and her father a drunk were true.
At least her best friend at the time, Cora Zimmerman, had a mother who worked hard for a living. Not that Cora hadn’t gotten teased, too, but at least her mother’s job at the hair salon had been reputable.
She hadn’t thought about Cora in a long time and wondered where she was now.
The street sign for her father’s road had been run over and lay on the ground. Tire tracks marred the faded green metal. She knew the turn, though, and made it, her throat filling with disgust when she spotted the dilapidated, run-down houses and yards.
The houses had been small and worn eighteen years ago. Weather and lack of care had sent them downhill. Porches were sagging, boards rotting, paint peeling off, concrete driveways cracking, shutters dangling askew.
Weeds and dead bushes choked the yards, and debris from a recent storm littered what had once been grass. Most of the houses were vacant now, and a couple were boarded up as if they’d been condemned.
Her father’s sat like an eyesore at the end of the street. The once-white wood had yellowed, and her father had substituted a lone brick to replace the broken steps
