What was done was done.

  No looking back. That motto had helped him survive losing her.

  Forward—he had to keep pushing forward or lose his sanity altogether.

  The crime-scene investigators were finished with the property, so he and Liv were free to do as they pleased. Considering how much stuff Willy had, going through it all thoroughly would take some time.

  His gaze landed on Olivia, who stood in the middle of the living room. Huck just hoped they got through the journey without her hating him even more. He wasn’t sure he could survive another stab to the heart.

  She turned to face him, and the air rushed out of his lungs. His hopes died a sudden death. He would not survive this either way.

  “I appreciate you taking me to...where it happened.” She drew back her shoulders, lifted her chin. “But I’ve got this part from here.”

  While he recovered from her unexpected statement, she surveyed the room and went on, “I mean here—in the house. I’ve got this. I’m sure you have plenty of police work to do on the case without hanging around with me.”

  “There could be evidence here,” he said, finding his voice and a reasonable comeback.

  “If I discover any evidence, I’ll call you.” She walked past him and to the door, opened it. “Thanks again.”

  He felt the knife slice deep between his ribs. He wanted to shake her and demand to know why it had to be this way. Couldn’t they at least be friends? Get along like two people who had known each other their whole lives minus all the emotional stuff?

  But he said none of those things. He made his way to the door. Should have walked on out. Shouldn’t have paused even for a second. But, apparently, he wasn’t that smart.

  He stared down his shoulder at her. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  She looked up at him, her expression firm, her lips tight. “This is the way it is.”

  Maybe it was the fire in her eyes—the absolute blazing determination in her voice—but he felt the burn on his back when he walked out all the way to his SUV.

  He swung open the driver-side door and slid behind the wheel, his frustrated gaze still on that damned door. She stood there, watching him. She wanted to ensure he left. Wanted to watch him go.

  On autopilot, he started the engine, shifted into Reverse and peeled away without taking his eyes off her. He could watch too, by God.

  He slammed on the brakes, hit Drive and roared away.

  Yeah, he was a fool. He slowed his speed. Pounded the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. He was thirty-one damned years old, and he’d just acted like a rebellious teenager.

  Olivia Ballard was the one person in this world who could turn him inside out that way. Make him want to tear something apart...like the life he’d spent a decade building—the one without her.

  His chest tightened to the point he could scarcely breathe. Ten years was a long time but not nearly long enough to forget her. He’d kept hoping someday she would hunt him down and tell him she’d never stopped loving him. That he’d made a mistake when he left and she was tired of waiting for him to admit it. But that was a fantasy that only worked in his dreams.

  The warning that he’d failed to put on his seatbelt finally punctured the haze of anger and frustration blurring his good sense. He slowed, yanked the belt across his lap and snapped the buckle.

  “Idiot,” he growled.

  His cell vibrated, and he dragged it from his pocket. Sheriff flashed on the screen. He hit Accept. “Monroe.”

  “Huck, I’ve asked the medical examiner to have a second look at Willy. He says he can do it today and release the body tomorrow. Pass that on to Olivia, would you?”

  “Yes, sir.” The idea of having to go back and talk to her had his throat going completely dry. “We had a look around at Sunset Rock and along the trail where his body was discovered. Didn’t find anything. Olivia is going through the house and shed again to see if she can determine if anything besides his camera is missing.”

  A sigh echoed across the line. “We may not find any answers, but I’m afraid this is the best we can do.”

  The sad truth was the sheriff was right. Sometimes the answers just couldn’t be found.

  When the call ended, he put one through to Liv. He was too much of a coward to go back and face her again. Mostly because he was damned afraid of what he might say. She didn’t answer, so he left a voice mail.

  In the end, she was right. There was plenty he could do that didn’t involve being in that cabin with her. Willy had friends. Huck intended to interview each one. To stop in all the places he frequented. Talk to anyone who had seen him in the past two or three weeks. What was on his mind? Did he mention any issues? Any trouble with anyone? If Willy had been murdered, murder rarely happened in a vacuum. Someone somewhere had seen or heard something.

  All Huck had to do was find that needle in a haystack.

  Firefly Lane

  AS MUCH AS she didn’t want to, Olivia felt bad for sending Huck away. But she had known that spending so much time with him would have driven her over an edge she might not be able to come back from. It was better if she did this alone. She needed time and space to grieve.

  She had decided to start in Willy’s bedroom. The room wasn’t that large, but it was filled with Gran’s treasures. She’d collected flowers, pressed and framed them. They covered a good portion of the walls. Olivia had always loved them. One of the quilts her gran had made covered the bed. Olivia dragged her fingers over the soft, worn cotton. Her grandmother had been a very talented woman. She wondered if her mother had been the same. Olivia remembered glimpses of her mother. She actually had very few memories at all. Gran had talked about her sometimes. Willy said she didn’t like talking about Laura because it hurt too much. Olivia hadn’t really understood until Huck left. Losing a child was far worse than losing a boyfriend, but afterward Olivia had understood the kind of hurt her gran had suffered.

  She picked up the framed photograph of her mother that had sat on the dresser in her grandparents’ bedroom for as long as she could remember. Olivia looked so much like her mother. Willy had said she was like Laura’s twin. Olivia traced the shape of her mother’s face, the silver chain with its tiny sunflower pendant. Willy had given that necklace to Laura on her sixteenth birthday. She’d worn it ever since.

  Olivia didn’t remember the necklace other than in the pictures of her mother. Laura hadn’t really raised her at all. After Olivia was born, Laura had spent more time traveling with Kasey—Olivia’s father, though the two had never married—than at home with her new baby daughter. She would put in an appearance, Willy had told Olivia because she certainly didn’t remember, only to leave again.

  When Olivia was three, her father had left and never come back. Willy said he’d sneaked away, leaving a devastated Laura behind. She was never the same after he left. Then a year later, she died. Photos were Olivia’s only real memories of her parents, and she couldn’t be sure if she actually recalled those moments or if they were lodged in her subconscious because her grandmother had described the events of each photo to her. As she grew older, Olivia had decided that since Kasey left her, he wasn’t worth remembering anyway.

  Willy was the only man Olivia had ever loved who hadn’t left her.

  She closed her eyes and battled a rush of emotion. He would be here now if not for whatever happened up on that ridge. Damn it!

  Olivia placed the photograph back where her gran had kept it. The woman in the photo was a stranger, just like the man who’d played the part of her father for just a little while.

  One by one, she picked through the drawers in the dresser and bureau as well as the bedside tables. She checked under the bed, under the mattress and in the closet. She straightened up the mess the intruder had made as she went along. Olivia found many things that made her smile, others that made her cry and so many things with which she would never be able to part.

  She made up her mind right then that she would leave this cabin exactly as it was. Whenever she was home, she wanted to stay here and be surrounded with all these things.

  With a deep, reaffirming breath, she moved on to the bathroom, which was a piece of cake compared to the bedroom. Next, she stared at her own bedroom door. Decided it could wait. She’d spent enough time thinking about Huck the past few hours. Looking at and touching all the things she’d kept from their shared childhood was more than she could deal with just now. Her mother’s room was up then.

  Olivia opened the door and turned on the light. She moved through the room, checking drawers and shelves. Beneath pillows on the bed and under the mattress. She set to rights the items that had been tossed aside.

  When she opened the closet door, her mother’s scent, whether real or imagined, filled her nostrils. Her dresses and blouses hung just as they had for more than a quarter century. Shoes lined the closet floor. Olivia slipped her foot into one. She smiled. Fit as if they had belonged to her. A photo of her mother and father together sat on the bureau. It was one of only two or three photos of her dad. She studied the face of the man who had decided she wasn’t worth the effort of being a father. Handsome enough. Tall, slim.

  Olivia found nothing she hadn’t seen before. Noticed nothing missing. She left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

  “Now, for this.” She surveyed the main room.

  For a moment, the task felt overwhelming, and the idea of where to begin was lost on her. She decided to start with the fireplace and that big old painting of her as a young girl.

  Logs were stacked in the fireplace. Even at this time of year there was an occasional cool evening that prompted the need for a cozy fire. She removed the stack, checked beneath the grate. Then moved onto the damper. Nothing except soot.

  Using a chair, she reached above the gun rack and hung the painting back in its rightful place. She touched her gran’s name where she’d painted it across the bottom right corner. A smile tugged at her lips. Olivia hadn’t inherited her grandmother’s talent for drawing and painting. She had a pretty good eye when it came to taking pictures but nothing like Willy’s.

  She climbed down then restacked the logs.

  The rest of the main room was still a mess from whoever had ransacked the place. Like in the bedrooms and bath, she straightened up as she went along. She would be staying here until this investigation was over. When she left, she couldn’t leave Willy’s home in this condition.

  Willy hadn’t been a focused housekeeper. The dust was a little deep. Olivia grabbed a dust cloth and cleaner and decided she’d better take care of that issue as she went along. Gran would have been appalled. Willy would have said he had other, more urgent matters that needed his attention. Like wandering the trails he so loved.

  Olivia understood. Being out there was a calling she couldn’t deny either. She loved her work the same way Willy had loved his.

  Taking her time, Olivia searched, cleaned and tidied. By the time she was finished, it was nearly six. Then she whizzed back through the bedrooms and did a little dusting too. Made herself go through her own room. It wasn’t until she’d put her cleaning supplies away and washed her hands and face that she realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She went back to the fridge and picked through the cheese offerings. Willy had loved cheese, which was good since Olivia loved it too. Crackers were a given. No cheese lover ever allowed himself to run out of crackers.

  She hadn’t realized she was starving until she dug into the cheese and crackers. While she ate, she thought of the past few conversations with Willy. If there was a problem or if he’d been having trouble with someone, why hadn’t he told her? Beyond a bit of noticeable distraction, he’d sounded exactly like he always did. Maybe he hadn’t recognized whatever danger was close. He hadn’t been a young man anymore.

  The thought speared her with pain. She should have come home more often, then she would have seen what he’d obviously hidden from her. Something had been very wrong.

  The idea that Father’s Day was this month and she’d intended to visit him for that weekend nagged at her. She shouldn’t have waited. Something from Sunday morning’s conversation nagged at her. She’d mentioned coming for Father’s Day, and he’d suggested she shouldn’t. He’d made some excuse about air travel not being as safe as it once was and that they should wait until her birthday in September.

  She replayed the conversation. Looking back, it felt off, totally un-Willy-like, that he had urged her so adamantly not to go to the trouble of visiting this month. Why wouldn’t he want her to visit?

  Tossing her paper plate and napkin into the trash bin, she told herself there must have been a problem. He loved her visits. Hurt twisted inside her at the idea. Maybe it was nothing related to her, but something...related to the person who killed him.

  Olivia had to stop herself. Couldn’t bear the idea. She would revisit the possibility later. Right now, she needed to finish going through Willy’s things. She readied herself to start with the outbuildings. The sooner she was finished, the sooner she could consider whatever she found or felt after having verified what was here and what was not.

  Outside, the sun had settled on the treetops, leaving shadows here and there. Olivia started with the barn since that would be easiest. This was where Willy had kept his lawn mower and gardening tools—none of which appeared to have been disturbed. Gran had turned what likely was once a tack room into her personal gardening shed. Her gloves still waited on the wood table where she’d last left them. Her tools and seed pots were perfectly organized. Even the wide-brimmed hat she’d worn faithfully when working outside hung on its hook. She’d repeated the rules of proper outdoor work attire to Olivia a thousand times. Sunscreen, a hat, gloves, good jeans and sturdy shoes.

  Olivia touched the gloves but didn’t pick them up. Willy wouldn’t have wanted her to move them from that exact spot. The dust gathered around them was proof he’d been very careful not to disturb those gloves either.

  Nothing in the barn that hadn’t always been there. Nothing missing.

  The shed was next.

  Olivia had been inside it already when she’d had a quick look to see if anything was missing, so the multitude of familiar scents didn’t hit her quite so hard this time. She focused on Gran’s studio first. It was on the south side of the shed, with windows on three sides facing south, west and east. Until darkness fell, some amount of light filtered into the large room. Willy had given his wife the larger portion of the shed. The brushes and materials she had used lined the shelves along the walls beneath the windows. A large work table held court in the middle of the room. Gran’s easel stood near a wall of windows. Waiting on the easel was a nearly finished painting of a scene in Coolidge Park—one of Chattanooga’s most beloved places.

  A customer had commissioned the painting and would gladly have taken it without the final touches remaining, but Willy had refused to part with his wife’s final work. Olivia was glad he hadn’t. It looked perfect standing on the easel in Gran’s studio. She was very grateful the painting had not been overturned or damaged during the intruder’s rampage of a search.

  Olivia prowled through the drawers in the wood table. She opened wooden boxes Gran used for storage and checked behind every single item cluttering the endless shelves in the studio. She tidied any mess made by the intruder as she went along. Nothing unexpected was found. Nothing missing as far as she could determine. On to Willy’s side of the structure.

  Willy’s workroom and darkroom were closed off from the rest of the shed. The only entrance into the shed led into a small sort of foyer where there was a bench and a place to hang a coat or umbrella. A fridge stocked with water and soft drinks sat in one corner. There was a small bathroom.

  Straight ahead was the set of French doors that led to Gran’s studio. On the north side was the single door to Willy’s work area. The space beyond was plain, no frills. A typical photographer’s studio sans the backdrops since he never did personal portraits. A high table extended the length of one wall. Willy’s computers and printers sat humming, ready to wake up with a single touch. Two stools, one at each work station, waited. Filing cabinets and shelves lined another wall.

  This tidying and in-depth search were going to take some time.

  Olivia started with the computers. She scanned the folders on both. Found nothing but the usual landscape photos. Willy didn’t do people. If a person was in the shot he wanted, he waited until they moved on before taking it.

  Nothing unexpected in his email.

  She checked the shelves, reorganizing as she went. Moved the few items that hadn’t been disturbed and carefully placed them back where they belonged. Then the file cabinets. She opened drawer after drawer, reviewing the contents of each folder it contained. Nothing she hadn’t expected to find. She was very grateful the intruder had not slung files all over the room. He’d apparently run out of steam by the time he reached the shed. His search had cooled noticeably.

  The darkroom was next. It was small, so maybe it wouldn’t take so long.

  She reached for the narrow door. It was locked.

  She shook her head. Of course it was. Willy always kept that room locked. She took a moment to remember where he kept the key hidden.

  A grin stretched across her face. “Oh yeah.”

  She walked back to the more vintage of the two computers, picked up the keyboard and there was the key. Taped to the bottom of the keyboard. Willy kept one in his pocket, but he also kept this spare just in case he lost the one he carried around all the time.