Langley clears his throat again. He can’t say it.
So I take a deep breath and finish his sentence. “...and you think if she was kidnapped, it had to be here?”
“Uh, yup.” He frowns down at his pad. The page is blank, but I don’t think he realizes I notice that. “Look, I’m gonna be straight with you, ma’am. This doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“Do senseless acts of violence ever make sense, Sheriff?”
“No, but...dammit.”
He squints, looking out across the sunny afternoon, slow and thoughtful. Sheriff Langley’s not cut out for this kind of sleuthing.
Heart’s Edge shouldn’t be cut out for this kind of crime at all, if you take the town at face value.
On the surface, it’s Pleasantville.
Small-town values, small-town goodness, small-town charm.
Beautiful vistas.
Quaint local legends.
All the heart and warmth and welcome of a place off the beaten path, where no one’s a stranger and everyone’s a friend.
But underneath, it’s totally Stepford town.
Vicious secrets with a smile, and every last one of them could kill you.
I just hope those secrets haven’t gotten Deanna.
“I just don’t get it. Why the kidnapping?” he finally finishes, like his mouth caught up to whatever his brain was turning over. Probably trying to figure out how to handle a crime scene investigation that isn’t cow tipping or someone getting a little too wasted at Brody’s and trying to drive home. “I mean, we got ourselves a pretty standard smash and grab here. Break in, get the cash in the register, get out. Why they gonna go and take your sister?”
I have a thousand answers to that, but none I can give him.
Some things are better left buried. The less people know, the better.
Some things I wish I didn’t know. But there’s something I can do, at least.
Stepping through the shop front gingerly, the glass crunching and crackling under my heeled boots, I pull the sleeve of my thin knit sweater over my hand as I round the shattered display counter. I don’t want to mess up any fingerprints with my own, if Langley ever manages to get around to taking them.
But when I punch in the override code, the cash drawer pops out.
I stare down at the stacks of bills and coins inside.
“It’s full,” I say, my lips numb. “They didn’t take the money.”
They just took Deanna.
“Shit. Huh,” Langley says, scratching his pen into his thinning hair, frowning. “Like I said...don’t make sense.”
“No,” I answer slowly, dread turning my mouth bone-dry. “No, it doesn’t.”
There’s a long, awkward silence.
Langley clears his throat, stops, then starts again, making a confused sandpaper sound before he sighs and hitches his belt up. “Listen, I’m gonna have to call in an investigative unit from Missoula. We just don’t have the resources out here.”
I nod slowly. Good.
Missoula means more people with more experience with crimes above petty theft, who might be able to do something. “How long do you think that’ll take?”
“Don’t know.” He looks uneasy. “You planning on staying here in town?”
“Yes,” I snap. How could I not with my sister just gone?
It’s not his fault, I remind myself. Rein it in.
I know why he’s looking at me so funny. Uncomfortably, nervously, like he can’t believe I’m back here at all.
Small towns have long memories.
So do I.
Wentworth Langley was there that night so many years ago, same as me. I only wish I couldn’t feel the pity party dripping out of his eyes.
Everyone sees me as the sad, tragic girl who lost her illustrious father. The human symbol of a small-town tragedy.
They have no flipping clue what I truly lost that night.
Langley makes an odd scratchy sound in the back of his throat and looks away, embarrassment scrunching on his forehead in ridges. “Well...you wanna lay low, keep it hush-hush, I won’t say a thing. If...you know, if you don’t want to draw too much attention to yourself, Ms. Bell.”
Dear God. I’d rather be invisible.
I hate the way people look at me.
I hate that every time someone looks at me, they aren’t seeing Clarissa Bell.
They’re either seeing my father...or him.
The man they blame for everything. The monster. The outlaw. The demon of Heart’s Edge.
And I can tell, when their eyes go just a little blank, their smiles just a little too plastic, they’re thinking about what a poor victim I am. Or maybe what a fool to have ever loved a madman.
But I’m not a victim.
I haven’t even seen him in so long. Who knows if he’s alive.
Still, as long as I’m here, I can’t escape how deep we’re intertwined.
At least when I’m away from this town, the one sweet reminder I let myself keep only brings joy.
Until a resounding metallic crash comes through the double doors leading back into the kitchen, and I groan. There’s my sweet little joy. Right.
I know that sound.
It’s not a kidnapper. It’s not trouble.
It’s my son, refusing to sit still when I ask him to.
Sure as the sky is blue, when I glance into the parking lot, there’s no little crop of chestnut-brown hair poking up in the passenger seat of my car, where I told him to stay.
Rather, the instant I push the kitchen doors open, there’s a shame-faced seven-year-old boy covered in flour, surrounded by the huge industrial mixer bowls he’s just knocked over.
Deanna must’ve been right in the middle of prepping tomorrow’s batch when she was interrupted.
The thought is sobering enough that I can’t even be mad at Zach.
I don’t have room to be pissed at the people I love. Not when I’m so scared for the only other flesh and blood family I have left besides this beautiful—and dusty—little boy staring nervously down at his feet right now.
“I don’t even know what to ask first,” I say, folding my arms over my chest. “Do I want to know why, or how?”
Zach winces. “It was an accident, Mom.”
“That explains the how. Now how about the why?”
“I just...I wanted to see if it was sugar or flour!” he confesses meekly, and I sigh.
What he means is, he was hoping it was sugar he could steal for his insatiable sweet tooth.
He gets that from his father.
I know from experience. But I push that thought aside before those memories, those idyllic nights, can rise up to make me hurt with the memory of what could’ve been.
There’s no room in my life for could-have-beens.
Only for the present.
And it’s a life I’ve made all my own. Piece by painstaking piece, all for a son I love more than anything.
Sighing, I reach out to draw him closer, ruffling his hair, making it snow flour down the shoulders of his already-dusty jacket. “Come on, ZZ-boy,” I say. “There’s really nothing else we can do here. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I almost don’t recognize the man behind the counter at the Charming Inn.
Half a lifetime ago, I remember playing with Warren Ford as a kid.