LITMIR.BIZ

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sank down on a wooden trunk. “Yeah? Seems like you have everything squared away with your family. Close with the sisters, Marco.”

      “Let’s just say I had plenty of excuses not to hear the truth that my father and Marco were trying to deliver.” She sighed. “I’m working on getting rid of that guilt.”

      “I didn’t think it was possible, letting go of guilt.”

      She considered his troubled face. “It’s not easy, that’s for sure.”

      He looked as though he wanted to ask a question. Instead, he stood up. “Getting late.”

      “Yes.”

      “I’ll walk you to your car.”

      “No need.”

      “I know. Gonna do it, anyway.”

      He put a hand on her shoulder to guide her to the steps and it made her pulse quicken. “Her work,” Donna blurted out. “That’s the next place to look.”

      He fastened those rich brown eyes on hers, making something tingle inside. “I’m sure the police will check out the group home. It’s a place called Open Vistas. See if they can glean anything. That’s where I’m headed tomorrow, too. Ridley will be thrilled to see me again.”

      She was sorry when his hand fell away.

      They walked out into the front yard. The house looked peaceful in the moonlight, a picture of tranquility and comfort, the whole street bathed in Christmas cheer. Until Pauline was found, there would be no celebration in his life.

      “I’m on your father’s list, aren’t I?” he said as he opened her car door for her and she climbed in.

      “I don’t know what you mean.”

      “Yes, you do. My sister went to your dad because she was afraid of someone. When she stopped coming around, your father started doing some informal checking and, being the thorough investigator type, he jotted me down there on the suspect list.”

      She winced.

      He thrummed his fingers on the roof of the car. “Why wouldn’t I be a suspect? I’m the beneficiary of her life insurance policy, I think. A natural conclusion. I could have been plotting to murder her or something.” He laughed, bitter and low. “Ridley would love to consider me a suspect in my own sister’s disappearance.”

      His hands were on his hips now, jaw drawn tight.

      “I don’t know what my father was investigating,” she said honestly. “I wish I did.”

      “For what it’s worth, I love my sister. She’s the only person on this earth who knows what a jerk I can be and loves me, anyway. I did not hurt her. I never would.”

      The far-off sound of the waves filled in the silence.

      His eyes searched her face. “Do you believe me?”

      Did she? She’d believed Nate so completely, surrendering her common sense, going along to parties, excusing his drinking and his job hopping, believing every lie he’d told her. But God had saved her and He and her father had never stopped loving her or trusting in her, even when she so richly had deserved it. Did she believe Brent? A man she hardly knew? A man Ridley blamed for a young woman’s death?

      Mist beaded on his hair and she saw in the creases under his eyes, the tightening in his lips, that Brent Mitchell was a man in anguish. “Yes,” she found herself saying. “I do believe you.”

      His mouth opened as if he meant to speak. Instead, he sighed, long and slow, a whoosh of air that mingled with the murmur of the waves against the sand. “Thank you for that,” he said.

      The moonlight glimmered between them, painting dark streaks across his face.

      “I’d better go,” she said. As she drove off, she sneaked a look in the rearview. He stayed there, hands shoved into his pockets, watching her depart.

      She drove slowly along the darkened street. Everywhere, the shadows were thick, impenetrable. A million tiny movements, probably nothing more than the wind on the leaves, made her stomach tighten. Was someone watching her progress? The same man who had held a knife to her throat?

      She double-checked that she’d locked the car doors.

      “Your fear is running away with you. There’s no threat out there in the night,” she told herself, out loud for emphasis.

      Still, she made sure she’d pulled the car in the garage and waited until the door closed before she unlocked the car and scurried into the house.

       FIVE

      Nightmares trickled through Donna’s sleep, forcing her awake before the sun rose. Groggy and lethargic, she put herself through her Pilates exercises until her stiff muscles finally cooperated. Since the accident that had broken her back and temporarily paralyzed her, pain was a constant companion and no doubt a lifelong one, but Donna was determined to beat it back to a manageable level. She had a quick temper, but she’d begun to funnel her anger into her exercise. “Defeat the pain every day,” her father had said.

      Her eyes flicked to the closet where her wheelchair was stowed, a reminder of how she’d once given up completely in the face of her paralysis. She’d surrendered her will and her future to hopelessness, shoving away everyone who loved her and the God she imagined did not. Dark times that she would not revisit. A knock at the door startled her. Remembering the skin-crawling sensation of being watched from the night before, she crept to the door on tiptoe.

      One glance through the peephole and she knew she was in trouble. Two very determined sisters stood on her doorstep at six fifteen on a Thursday morning, and Angela was holding a white bag. Gallagher-sister determination plus doughnuts was a powerful combination.

      Meekly, she opened the door. “Isn’t it a little early?”

      Candace thrust a cup of coffee into her hand. “Only for someone who has been out late at night.”

      She flinched. “How did you find out?”

      “Coronado is a small town. Marcy Owens lives across the street from Pauline’s place. She saw you there and texted me. So why exactly were you prowling around strange houses where there may or may not have been a crime committed?”

      “Alone,” Angela added, sitting on the sofa and fishing out an old-fashioned glazed doughnut that she offered to Donna. “Don’t forget that she was all alone.”

      Donna sighed and took the sweet. “Okay. It wasn’t smart.”

      “Dad would have said you were shooting high and right,” Angela said.

      The old marine term struck at her. A reminder of the military life they shared with their father but she did not. “Don’t speak for Dad. He’s not here, remember?” She was shocked at her own outburst.

      Angela’s mouth tightened. “We both remember, just as well as you.”

      “I’m sorry,” Donna said, sinking onto the old cane-backed rocker across from Angela. “I don’t know where that came from.”

      Angela leaned forward. “You’re grieving. It’s okay. We are, too.”

      But she wanted to say, You didn’t break Dad’s heart, did you? Angela, the proud navy chaplain; Candace, married to a marine whom Bruce had adored and mother to Tracy, who’d lit up Bruce’s life like no one else. Sarah, the spunky, determined surgical nurse. And then there was Donna, who’d gone off the deep end two years ago and nearly thrown her life away for a manipulating jerk. Past history. Not important, she told herself, but her guilt whispered otherwise.

      She put the doughnut on the coffee table, appetite gone. “I’m not acting out of grief. Dad was murdered and I want to find out who is responsible.”

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