“Not even a sniffle.”

  “That’s good.” Propping Isabelle on her hip, she steeled her nerves and jerked her head toward Hunter. “I’d like you to meet Mr. Solozano.”

  He held out his hand. “Call me Hunter.”

  Grace didn’t immediately accept it. So far, no one had been all that welcoming.

  “Hunter is your birth name—or a nickname you acquired because of your work?” Grace asked, finally offering him her hand.

  “It’s my birth name.”

  “Interesting. You don’t hear it very often.”

  He backed away from her to lean against the pillar of the porch. Madeline noticed that his actions were very casual and unthreatening, a far different Hunter than the one who’d visited the farm. “No, you don’t.”

  Grace waited in silence, leaving the burden of the conversation to them. So Madeline jumped into the gap, hoping to ease the tension. “Can you believe the airline lost his luggage?”

  Grace gave them a bland smile. “No.”

  “It should be here tomorrow,” he said.

  “I hope it arrives safely.”

  Silence fell again. “Hunter’s been reading my mother’s journals,” Madeline blurted out. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought up that particular detail. She supposed it was because she felt nervous and was hoping to show Grace that she hadn’t brought him to Stillwater because she doubted Clay or Irene. Hunter’s interest in the journals, something removed from them, meant that the investigation was all-inclusive—even more than Madeline had expected.

  But, oddly enough, the mention of her mother’s journals didn’t seem to relax Grace. If anything, she held herself more rigidly than before. “I thought your mother had burned most of her journals,” she said.

  “Not all of them.”

  Grace turned her blue, enigmatic eyes on Hunter. “And what did you learn from those journals, Mr. Solozano?”

  “Not much,” he said. “Madeline’s mother refers to a couple of people I’m interested in learning more about, though.”

  Grace didn’t ask who. Now that Hunter had Madeline doubting everything and everyone, she wondered if that was because Grace already knew.

  Stop it! I don’t want to think like that…

  “Do you remember anyone by the name of Rose Lee Harper?” Hunter asked.

  “Rose died before I moved to Stillwater,” Grace replied. “I know her father, but only as a slight acquaintance.”

  “He still lives in town?”

  “In the Shady Glen Trailer Park off Digby Road,” Madeline murmured. “He’s a handyman.”

  The shadows deepened as clouds scuttled across the moon, obscuring the finer details of Hunter’s face. But he still looked handsome—and a little mysterious. “Didn’t Mr. Harper come to the farm often?”

  “Not when I lived there,” Grace said.

  “Ray and my father had a falling out before Dad remarried,” Madeline told him.

  “Were you aware of that?” he asked Grace.

  “Madeline might’ve mentioned it.”

  Hunter shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you know what it was over?”

  Several lines appeared on Grace’s normally smooth forehead. “No, but…like I said, I wasn’t around at the time.”

  “I think my father got tired of paying Ray’s rent,” Madeline volunteered. “I once heard them arguing about money.”

  “Do you remember what was said?”

  “Ray wanted more. My father refused.”

  “When was that?”

  “A few weeks before my mother died.”

  “So it was after Katie and Rose Lee were gone.”

  “Yes. I don’t think my father felt quite so sympathetic toward Ray’s financial needs when he no longer had children to support.”

  “Do you have any interaction with Ray Harper now?”

  “No,” Madeline said. “None. Why?”

  The brief flicker of Hunter’s smile curved his lips. “Just curious.”

  “That’s an interesting response, coming from an investigator,” Grace commented.

  His smile widened—Madeline could tell by the glint of his teeth—but he didn’t explain himself. He proceeded to ask Grace what she knew about Katie Swanson.

  “Almost nothing,” Grace said. “Again, I wasn’t around when Katie was alive.”

  The wind was picking up. Madeline wrapped the baby’s blanket more tightly around her, and Hunter turned up the collar of his coat. “Do you recall the reverend ever talking about either of these girls, Grace?”

  She stepped out to wipe some drool from her baby’s chin. With Grace only inches away, Madeline could see, even in the dim porch light, the dark smudges under her eyes. Grace didn’t look as if she was getting enough sleep—and this after positively glowing with happiness since her marriage. Was the baby suddenly fussy at night and keeping her up?

  Or was it because of the panties she’d seen at the police station? The past resurrected, like the old Cadillac…

  “No,” Grace said indifferently. “Any reason you’re asking?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not a big fan of coincidences.”

  If they weren’t coincidences, what were they? Madeline wondered. But confronting that question made her heart beat so hard she was afraid she might drop the baby. So she sat on the nearby wicker loveseat and pretended to be engrossed in playing with her niece.

  Please let this end soon. Let Grace give all the right answers…

  “I’m not sure I see any alarming coincidences,” Grace said.

  Hunter moved away from the pillar. “The girls were both helping Madeline’s father. Both names show up in his wife’s journal. They were both living with Ray Harper. They were only a year apart in age. And they died within six months of each other, just a year before Madeline’s mother. Three deaths within an eighteen-month period. That’s a lot of tragedies in so short a time, wouldn’t you say? Especially for a place like this?”

  “Accidents happen,” she countered. “We lost a teenage girl out at the quarry just last weekend.”

  “How many others have you lost in the past twenty years?” he asked.

  Grace didn’t answer. But Madeline knew that from Rose Lee to Rachel, they hadn’t had any other unusual deaths.

  “There’s nothing to connect their deaths,” Madeline said, speaking up in spite of herself.

  “Isn’t there?” Hunter asked. “Did the police ever catch the driver of the vehicle that struck Katie?”

  His words raised goose bumps on Madeline’s arms. “No.”

  Grace suddenly glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. Kennedy’s got a late meeting, and I promised the boys I’d pick them up from their Grandma Archer’s by eight.”

  Hunter held his finger up to Isabelle, who grabbed hold of it. “Sure. We won’t keep you.”

  Madeline blinked, taken aback by his response. He’d asked about Rose Lee and Katie, which had nothing to do with anything, as far as she knew. And he hadn’t asked about the night her father went missing or the panties that were found in his trunk.

  Grace smiled politely. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  “Thanks for giving us a few minutes of your time,” Hunter said.

  Madeline kissed Isabelle, handed her to Grace and pivoted to head back to the car—only to bump into her private detective, who was standing on the walkway, gazing up at the house. “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Archer.”

  “We like it,” she said. Then she waved and disappeared inside the house.

  Hunter remained where he was, studying the grounds. But Madeline got in the car. By the time he joined her, Grace emerged from the detached garage behind the house and began backing down her long drive.

  “Nice Lexus,” Hunter said.

  Madeline fastened her seat belt. “Why didn’t you ask her about the night my father went missing?” she asked. She knew it hadn’t been an oversight. Hunter was too good for that.

  “Two reasons.”

  She started the engine. “The first?”

  “I’m sure she was prepared for that. She must’ve answered similar questions a hundred times.”

  “And the second reason?” Madeline pulled away from the curb. Please don’t tell me she’s hiding something, too.

  “Haven’t you ever played with a potato bug?” he asked.

  Madeline shot him a look that said he was making no sense. “A what?”

  “A potato bug. If you poke them, they curl into a protective ball.”

  “You’re saying that’s what Grace would do.”

  “Exactly. And what do we have to gain from that?”

  Madeline drove in silence until they reached the outskirts of town and saw the lighted Vacancy sign at the Blue Ribbon Motel. Then she asked the biggest question of all. “So…does she know more than she’s saying?”

  “Yes.”

  Foreboding curled through Madeline’s whole body. “How could the conversation you just had tell you that?”

  “It didn’t,” he said.

  She looked over at him.

  “I’m sorry, Maddy. But the odds aren’t in her favor.”

  Grace’s hand shook as she called Clay on her cell phone from inside her car.

  “Hello?” He’d answered on the first ring.

  “We’ve got problems,” she said. “It’s Madeline’s private investigator.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s even better than we thought.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hunter’s luggage had finally arrived. He sat on the cheap, rickety bed at the Blue Ribbon, staring at his black suitcase while strumming thoughtfully on his guitar. He needed to get some sleep so he could hit the Barker case early in the morning. But something was bothering him. He wasn’t sure what it was. Most likely, it was more than one thing. That message on Madeline’s answering machine. Their encounter with Mike.

  The fact that he wanted to be in bed with her now…

  He was tempted to call her—and if not her, Maria. He wanted to go back home as soon as he finished this job and fight for custody of his daughter even if she wouldn’t speak to him. But he knew that would make her life miserable, that she’d hate him more because of it. Antoinette wasn’t the best mother in the world, but she wasn’t the worst, either. He couldn’t really justify such a fight. He could enforce the visitation agreement, but Maria didn’t want that. Not right now, anyway. Having no good options made him long for a drink.

  The pool hall was only a block away. He could walk there.

  He imagined the music, the crowd, the dim lighting. If it was like most bars, a man could hang around the dark edges of the room and be almost anonymous. Even in Stillwater.

  Focus on something else. Work.

  He’d piled the police files Madeline had provided on the floor. He frowned at the sheer volume of reading material—one entire box with another two behind it—and figured he’d better get started. There was Madeline’s childhood diary to read, too.

  Setting his guitar aside, he hung up the damp towel he’d just used for his shower, flung his wet hair out of his eyes and pulled out a statement by Bonnie Ray Simpson—the neighbor across from the farm—that said she was “fairly certain” she saw the “headlights” of Barker’s car turn into his drive the night he disappeared.

  Unfortunately, “fairly certain” didn’t help him. Neither did “headlights,” considering every car had a pair.

  He put Bonnie Ray’s statement back in the file and moved on to a document signed by Nora Young and Rachel Cook.

  After we finished planning the Children for Christ Youth Group Day, we said goodbye to Reverend Barker in the parking lot of the church around 8:15 p.m. We assumed he was going home. He didn’t mention another destination, and he didn’t appear to have any luggage with him. He turned left, and that was the last we saw of him.

  “Not much there, either,” he muttered. Flipping through pages and skimming headings, he found a document with Clay’s name at the top. It was the transcript of a police interview taken, according to the date, three days after Reverend Barker had gone missing.

  Officer Grimsman: Did you see your stepfather the night of October 4th?

  Montgomery: No.

  Officer Grimsman: He wasn’t there when you came home from school?

  Montgomery: No.

  Officer Grimsman: Was he usually there when you arrived in the afternoon?

  Montgomery: Sometimes. Not always.

  Officer Grimsman: What did he do when he was home? Work on the farm?

  Montgomery: He gave me chores and watched at the window to make sure I got started on them right away.

  Officer Grimsman: Did he give the girls chores?

  Montgomery: Here and there.

  Officer Grimsman: Not as many as he gave you?

  Montgomery: What does that have to do with anything?

  Chief Grimsman: Just answer the question.

  Montgomery: No, but it didn’t bother me.

  Officer Grimsman: Right. You’re different from most other kids, then.

  Montgomery: Who knows? Maybe I am. Like I said, it didn’t bother me.

  Officer Grimsman: Did you find it odd that your father wasn’t home last Thursday?

  Montgomery: You mean my stepfather? No. He’d left a list for me. And my mother said he was at the church. Why would that send me into a panic?

  Officer Grimsman: I suggest you quit being smart with me, boy.

  Montgomery: It was a normal day, okay?

  Officer Grimsman: Did your mother tell you she had plans to go out?

  Montgomery: Go out?

  Officer Grimsman: Didn’t she leave before you did?

  Montgomery: Yes, but you’re making it sound as if she went dancing or…or drinking.

  Officer Grimsman: Why don’t you tell me what she was really doing?

  Montgomery: She left dinner in the oven for Barker—

  Officer Grimsman: Barker?

  Montgomery: Reverend Barker.

  Officer Grimsman: (to Chief Jenkins) Now that’s gratitude and respect. A man takes in a woman and her three kids, puts food in their bellies and—

  Montgomery: (interrupting) Does this have anything to do with my stepfather’s disappearance?

  Officer Grimsman: That’s what I’m trying to find out, smart-ass!

  Montgomery: And this is leading there how?

  Officer Grimsman: Your attitude is a big part of this, buddy. Trust me.

  Montgomery: I don’t trust you worth shit. You’re questioning me without an adult present. I figure there has to be a reason.

  Chief Jenkins: I don’t want your mother to hear what you say, that’s the reason.

  Officer Grimsman: If you can work, party, play pool and please the ladies like a man, you can sure as hell talk like one.

  Montgomery: My reputation precedes me.

  Officer Grimsman: You might not be so smug when this is all over.

  Montgomery: If you have your way, I’ll be in jail.

  Officer Grimsman: Isn’t that where you belong?

  Montgomery: Not unless it’s illegal to hang out with my friends. That’s all I did.

  Chief Jenkins: (to Officer Grimsman) Get back to the point, Roger.

  Officer Grimsman: Fine. Where did your mother go that night?

  Montgomery: You already know where she went.

  Chief Jenkins: State it for the record.

  Montgomery: For the record, she went to choir practice. No secret there. It’s easy enough to check.

  Chief Jenkins: But she didn’t normally attend. That makes it an unusual day, doesn’t it?

  Montgomery: If that’s all it takes to be unusual. Barker called and told her he wanted her there.

  Chief Jenkins: Did that make her unhappy?

  Montgomery: Why don’t you ask her?

  Chief Jenkins: I’m asking you. Did his call start a fight? Did they argue?

  Montgomery: No.

  Officer Grimsman: What kind of mood was your mother in after your stepfather asked her to go to choir practice?

  Montgomery: How the hell should I know?

  Chief Jenkins: I suggest you quit being such a pain in the ass and answer the question.

  Montgomery: She seemed fine. She asked me to watch the girls for her and hurried out so she wouldn’t be late.

  Officer Grimsman: Did your stepfather call to make sure she went?

  Montgomery. Not that I know of, but I wasn’t paying much attention.

  Chief Jenkins: You never talked to him that evening?

  Montgomery: No.

  Officer Grimsman: According to Grace, you got a call.

  Montgomery: It was a friend.

  Officer Grimsman: Who?

  Montgomery: Jeremy Jordan.

  Officer Grimsman: What did he want?

  Montgomery: He wanted me to go with him to Corinne Rasmussen’s.

  Officer Grimsman: And you agreed?

  Montgomery: Yes.

  Officer Grimsman: So you left your little sisters alone.

  Montgomery: They’re eleven and thirteen. I thought they’d be fine.

  Officer Grimsman: Were they?

  Montgomery: (stares off into space)

  Officer Grimsman: Mr. Montgomery, I asked you a question.

  Montgomery: What time is it?

  Officer Grimsman: 2:00 a.m.

  Montgomery: (rubs hand over eyes)

  Officer Grimsman: Tired, Mr. Montgomery?

  Montgomery: I’m sixteen. I think you can call me Clay. Or does Mr. Montgomery make you feel justified in grilling me for hours without my mother in the room?

  Chief Jenkins: The sooner you answer our questions, the sooner you can go home. Your mother has her own questions to answer.

  Montgomery: You only want me to say what you want to hear. (growing more upset) Listen, my mother needs me. Her husband’s just gone missing.

  Officer Grimsman: Your mother will be fine. Irene Barker always lands on her feet, eh?

  Montgomery: Screw you! (restrained by Chief Jenkins)

  Chief Jenkins: Are we going to have to cuff you, boy?

  There was some other writing, but it had been blacked out. From the flow of the conversation, Hunter almost wondered if the chief, or possibly Officer Grimsman had struck Clay, then had the incident removed from the records.

  Officer Grimsman: You ready to talk now?