by Rita Herron
He jammed his lock-picking tool into the lock, then twisted it until the door popped open.
The car door slammed behind him, and Honey got out. He motioned that it was okay for her to join him, and she ran up the steps. He pushed the door open and inched inside. “Anyone home?”
No answer.
Only the sound of a fan whirring.
He scanned the small living area with a frown. Elden’s mother cleaned at the local inn and for others in the town. Her own place was sparsely furnished, the furniture old, but the room looked tidy and the kitchen was clean.
One corner of the den held a bookcase full of toys—building blocks, crayons and paper, toy cars and plastic animals—a sign of Elden’s mental age.
“Look for anything that might belong to a little girl,” he murmured.
Honey searched the bookcase while he walked down the narrow hall and glanced in the first bedroom. Elden’s.
Blue-painted walls, a comforter with a farm animal theme, and posters of various rodeos and rodeo stars. He checked the desk and found art paper and crayons, then several drawings of little girls.
His gut tightened.
In each drawing, he’d sketched colored ribbons in the little girl’s hair.
Anger and sorrow engulfed him.
He opened the closet door and dug through the man’s clothes and shoes, his pulse jumping when he found a toy chest inside.
He lifted the lid and his heart stopped. All toys little girls would play with.
And other items—a pink backpack, a purple hair ribbon, a child’s pink purse...
Had the items belonged to the missing girls?
Then a little beaded bracelet. Tears flooded his eyes. It was Chrissy’s.
* * *
HONEY FOUND NOTHING in the kitchen or den and rushed to help Harrison in the bedroom. “Did you find anything?”
He was standing at the closet with his back to her, but he was so still she knew something was wrong. Then he slowly turned and she saw a child’s bracelet in his hand.
“It was Chrissy’s,” he said in a tortured voice. “There are other things in there, too, from other girls.”
Her breath caught at the implication. “Oh, Harrison. I’m sorry...”
His phone buzzed, and he whipped his head around as if physically jerking himself back to reality. “Sheriff Hawk.” A pause. “No, they’re not at the house, Lucas. But I found some things that belong to the little girls. Elden is our guy.” Another pause. “Okay, let me know if you find something.”
He hung up and wiped a hand over his eyes. “He’s going to put a trace on the Lynches’ phones.”
Honey’s skin prickled as she studied the drawings on Elden’s desk. The little girls, the ribbons...then a sketch of the bluff and the swimming hole and the caves...then a second entrance, one she’d never been in.
Inside the cave, though, was a clump of rocks. A flower was sticking up between them.
Her heart hammered. “Harrison, look at this. This could be the place where he left the girls.”
Harrison snatched the picture then took her hand. “Come on, we need to hurry. If he has Kitty, maybe we can save her.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Harrison’s pulse raced as he drove toward the bluff. He called Lucas and left him a message about the sketch.
Honey sat stone still in the seat beside him, except for her hands, which she kept twisting in her lap.
“I should have remembered about Elden and the pocket watch and his fascination with the ribbons earlier,” Honey said in a strained voice.
“That would have been helpful.”
Pain flashed in her eyes, and he regretted the bite to his voice, but he couldn’t retract the words.
Neither could he forgive himself for not staying home and watching Chrissy that night. If he had, she’d be alive.
Although traffic was minimal, the minutes dragged as he drove over the terrain. Dark clouds hovered above the sky. They rarely got rain this time of year, but today’s clouds looked dismal and threatening.
Honey stared out the window, her face ashen. He swung up the dirt road to the bluff, bypassing the scenic overhang, and barreled into the clearing where the teens usually parked.
A rusty black pickup sat sideways in front of a cluster of rocks. Elden’s mother’s truck.
“They’re here.”
Honey gripped the door handle as she scanned the area. “Look, Harrison, over there!”
He jerked his head to the left near the mouth of the cave and his blood ran cold. Elden was hunched low on the ground, his mother pacing beside him.
“Wait here!” he told Honey as he eased open his car door.
She shook her head and slid from the SUV. He motioned for her to stay by the car then laid his hand over his gun and stepped forward. Rocks crunched beneath his boots as he slowly walked toward them.
A low, wailing sound echoed from Elden, teeth jarring in its shrill intensity.
A coldness washed over Harrison. Elden was holding the little girl, Kitty, in his arms, rocking her back and forth, his body shaking with sobs.
Elden’s mother swung around, eyes wild with terror and desperation. She aimed a gun at them.
Harrison halted, and Honey froze beside him.
“Stop, Sheriff,” she growled. “Don’t come any closer.”
Harrison held up a warning hand. “Please, Mrs. Lynch. You don’t want to shoot me or anyone else. This has to stop.”
Her hand trembled as she waved the gun around. Somewhere in the distance a wild dog howled. Or maybe it was a coyote. “I have to protect my baby. That’s what mamas do.”
“That’s true,” Harrison said, his voice low, controlled. “But they don’t murder for them.”
“I haven’t murdered anyone,” she shouted.
“But Elden has, and if you’re covering for him and letting him continue, then you are as much to blame as he is.”
“He didn’t mean to hurt them!” she cried. “He wanted to play with them.”
Honey eased up beside him. “He likes the ribbons in their hair, doesn’t he?” Honey said softly.
Mrs. Lynch’s face crumbled. “He wanted to make friends. Kids laughed and teased him all his life, but he just wanted to play like they did.”
“Only he was bigger and got rough,” Harrison guessed.
Sorrow streaked her face as she glanced down at her son, who was wailing like an injured animal. “He tried to tell them how pretty they were, but they got scared and ran from him.”
Harrison envisioned the scene she described, and felt like his heart had been shredded with a sharp knife. “Is that what happened with my sister?”
Tears leaked from the older woman’s eyes and she nodded miserably. “I’m sorry. He didn’t mean to hurt her. But she ran and he chased her like it was a game.”
“It wasn’t a damn game,” Harrison bit out.
“No, but he thought it was. When he caught her, he tried to hug her, but...he hugged her too hard.”
The breath whooshed from his lungs in an excruciating rush. “He smothered her?”
Misery emanated from the woman as she laid a hand on her son’s back. The gun bobbed in her trembling hand.
“It was an accident.”
“Then you should have done the right thing and reported it.” Harrison forced his voice to remain calm as he inched closer to the woman.
“But the state would have taken him away from me,” she said on a sob. “Then he would have been stuck in some home and treated like an animal or a criminal. Poor Elden didn’t deserve that.”
“My sister didn’t deserve to have her life snuffed out when she was ten,” Harrison said bitterly. “Neither did the other little girls. And the
ir families didn’t deserve to lose their children.”
“I know, and Elden and I are both sorry,” Mrs. Lynch mumbled.
Harrison spoke through clenched teeth. “He was dangerous and should have been locked away so he couldn’t hurt anyone else.”
Honey eased toward Elden and spoke softly. “It’s okay, Elden, do you remember me? I’m Honey.”
“Stay back!” Elden’s mother warned.
But Honey crept closer. “I just want to comfort him. Elden and I were friends. Weren’t we, Elden?”
Mrs. Lynch looked rattled by Honey’s tone, and Harrison took advantage of her distraction and jumped her. She screamed and swung the gun toward him, but he knocked her arm upward and the gunshot blasted the air.
She lost the grip on the weapon and it sailed through the air toward the cave and landed in the dirt.
“Mama!” Elden cried.
The woman pummeled Harrison with her fists, but he overpowered her, grabbed her arms and yanked them behind her.
“I just wanted to protect him!” she screamed as tears rained down her cheeks.
“What about those little girls?” Harrison growled next to her ear. “What about protecting them from your son?”
“He didn’t mean to hurt them!” she cried again.
“But he did hurt them,” Harrison said as he snapped handcuffs around her wrists. “And you stood by and let him.”
* * *
HONEY’S HEART ACHED as she knelt beside Elden. He was hysterical, sobbing, rocking back and forth, his head buried against the little girl.
“It’s me, Honey,” she said softly. “I know you wanted to play with her, Elden.” In spite of her terror for Kitty, she rubbed his back to calm him. “But you can let her go now. She needs to rest.”
Tears blurred her eyes as she imagined him holding Chrissy this way, of his shock and frustration when he realized he’d hurt her.
He made a low, mewling sound, and she gently rubbed his arms. “Just lay her down gently,” she said in a low murmur.
She continued to whisper soft words of encouragement until he eased the child to the ground. He spread her hair around her face and kissed her cheek, sobs racking his body.
Honey pressed her hand to the little girl’s chest and suddenly realized she was still breathing. “Harrison, she’s alive. Call 911!”
Elden sank back on the ground, wrapped his arms around himself and continued crying and rocking. Harrison quickly phoned an ambulance.
Honey cradled the little girl in her lap and gently smoothed the hair from her cheek. Seconds later Harrison joined her and checked the child’s pulse. Relief filled his face when he realized she might make it.
Elden’s mother rushed to her son, her arms still cuffed behind her back, and sank down beside him.
Harrison ordered her to stay beside him. “Where is my sister?”
“In the cave near that back entrance,” the woman murmured. “Behind the rocks. I...put her there so she could rest.”
Honey’s chest heaved at the anguish in Harrison’s expression. “And the other little girls?”
“They’re all together,” Elden’s mother choked out. “I didn’t want them to be alone.”
“Except we found a child in the mountains.”
“I didn’t want to leave her, but I didn’t have time to bring her back here.”
“What about Honey’s father?” Harrison bellowed. “Did you kill him?”
Her body shook with her sobs. “He started coming up here drinking and snooping around,” she shouted. “I saw him in the cave. He found that damn ribbon.”
Honey swallowed hard. “So you were afraid he’d find Chrissy and you killed him?”
“I couldn’t let anyone take my baby away from me,” she cried again. “He’s just a kid...”
“You put the ribbon in my father’s house to frame him,” Honey said through clenched teeth.
Elden’s mother nodded miserably again. “Your daddy was worthless. I figured the Hawks would believe it.”
“And they did,” Honey said. “But you could have saved these other children if you’d gotten Elden help.”
“Did you threaten Honey and burn down the Grangers’ house?” Harrison asked.
“I couldn’t let her find the truth,” Elden’s mother cried. “Those houses needed to be torn down anyway.”
“Let me call my brothers.” Harrison stepped to the side and made a phone call. Honey heard him tell Lucas where they were and what had happened. “Bring shovels,” he said. “We have to dig those rocks away to get to Chrissy.”
A siren wailed, the shrill sound drowning out the woman and her son’s cries. Honey understood the need to protect a child, but not at the cost of other children’s lives.
Nothing justified that.
* * *
EMOTIONS PUMMELED HARRISON as the paramedics and his brothers arrived. Time seemed to stand still as they waited to see if the little girl was all right. The medics gave her oxygen and she immediately stirred. She looked frightened and confused, but she was going to be fine.
He called the parents and told them to meet her at the hospital.
He forced Elden and his mother into the back of his SUV, both cuffed and restrained so they couldn’t escape. Honey wanted to help, but he insisted it was dangerous and ordered her to remain outside while he and his brothers hurried into the cave with shovels and flashlights.
It took him no time to find the rocks as he’d noticed them earlier but had thought they’d fallen in a mining landslide. They eased away the rocks, stacking them to the side, and Harrison crawled through the opening.
A wave of sorrow and pain engulfed him when he saw the skeletal remains of his sister and three other girls lying side by side. Elden’s mother had covered each of them with a blanket. Chrissy’s rag doll was tucked beside her.
A strangled sound caught in his throat. His brothers’ faces were etched in grief and horror.
Finding Chrissy and learning the truth about what happened to her should have given him peace.
But anguish filled him. And now they had to break the news to their mother.
Chapter Twenty-Four
An hour later guilt still weighed on Honey as she watched Harrison and his brothers exit the cave with the ME. They had called in a team to remove the bodies and transport them to the morgue.
The identity of the girls had to be verified, families called, then the process of funeral arrangements made.
Harrison’s mother was going to be devastated. But at least now she could give her daughter a proper burial and Chrissy could rest in peace.
And now Honey knew who’d killed her father, she could return to Austin and leave Tumbleweed behind.
Sun slanted off Harrison’s strong jaw as he glanced up at her. The pain emanating from him made her want to go to him and soothe his anguish. But only time could do that.
The fact that she’d encouraged Chrissy to be nice to Elden meant she’d put Harrison’s sister in danger. Granted, she’d been trying to do the right thing, but in doing so, she was responsible for Chrissy’s death.
How could Harrison ever forgive her?
How could she forgive herself?
* * *
HARRISON COULD BARELY look at Honey. His family had blamed her and her father for his little sister’s disappearance when all along they weren’t responsible.
Elden was.
No one had ever thought to suspect him.
Honey had been nice to Elden, which might have contributed to the problem, but she’d been bullied and teased herself, and she’d simply been trying to be nice to a mentally challenged child.
How could he fault her for being a kindhearted, good person?
His deputy arrived, and H
arrison turned Elden and his mother over to him. Mitchell would take care of locking them up and booking them.
The transport team drove away with the girls’ remains, and grief and dread welled in his chest.
“We should talk to Mother,” Dexter said.
Harrison nodded. They’d wait to notify the other families until they’d verified the girls’ identities.
“I’ll drop Honey off and meet you at the ranch.”
His brothers agreed and they separated to go to their individual vehicles. Honey was waiting by the SUV, her sympathetic look mixed with other emotions he couldn’t define.
“We’re going to go see my mother and break the news,” he said, his voice dark. “I’ll drop you at my place. That is, unless you’re ready to go back to Austin.”
Honey’s phone buzzed and she gave it a quick glance, but didn’t answer. Instead she climbed in the passenger side in silence.
“I’m sorry, Harrison. If I hadn’t encouraged Chrissy to be friends with Elden, she’d be alive.”
The guilt in her voice triggered his own. It wasn’t her fault. He should have been watching his sister that night.
But he was too emotional to speak. All he could think of now was the expression on his mother’s face when he and his brothers delivered the news they’d found Chrissy and that she’d been dead all these years. That her body had been left to rot in a cold cave.
Honey turned to look out the window, and he sped toward his cabin, his body tight with anxiety.
He parked and turned to her, his heart hammering. “Now you know what happened to your father, what are you going to do?”
“I guess I’ll get Dad’s property cleaned up and put it on the market,” Honey said.
“Then you’re going back to Austin?”
“That’s where my life is,” she said quietly.
That was true.
The thought of her leaving made his throat thicken. But she had reason to hate Tumbleweed and as she said, she had a life in Austin. That guy she worked with was probably waiting on her.
She climbed out, and he started to ask her to stay, but that wouldn’t be fair.
He had a rough time ahead at his mother’s, too, and he needed to get going. Anything that had happened between him and Honey was due to the stress of the past few days.