Chapter 30
The Kitchen — Morning
The only sound in the kitchen was the rhythmic, metallic shhh-shhh-shhh of the whetstone. Grant sat at the table, his shoulders hunched, dark stubble shadowing his jaw. He hadn’t slept.
He didn’t look up when Izzy walked in, dressed in her field gear and looking sharper than the blade in his hand.
“Good morning,” she said. Her voice was level, but it lacked any of the warmth from two nights ago.
Grant’s hand stilled. “Morning.”
Izzy poured a cup of coffee, the silence stretching until it felt like it might snap. “How did it go with your father?”
“He’s convinced it was a walkaway,” Grant said, his voice a rough rasp. “Told us we were out of line for even asking. Burke’s carrying on with the investigation anyway. He doesn’t have a choice now.”
Izzy leaned against the counter, watching him. “Who do you think was up there yesterday, Grant? Tossing the cabin?”
“One of Wade’s people. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” He finally looked up, his eyes dark. “You were with Wade and Cal, you told them about the paintings, and then an hour later someone is ripping up floorboards. Yeah. It’s Hollis.”
“But why?” she asked softly. “Why now, after twenty-seven years?”
“Because he’s involved in that girl’s disappearance,” Grant said, standing up. The knife went into his pocket with a definitive click. “He has to be. You said it yourself—when you told him Burke was reopening the case, he had a look.”
“He covered it quickly,” Izzy reminded him. “But it was there. A flicker of… something. Fear, maybe. Or guilt.”
She set her mug down and reached for her bag.
“Where are you going?” Grant asked, his voice tightening.
“I’m seeing Cal again today. He’s taking me up to the old family chapel near the ridge.”
Grant’s face went white. “Are you crazy? After what happened yesterday?”
Izzy met his gaze, her chin tilting up. “Yeah, maybe. But you don’t need to worry about what I do, Grant. You made that very clear yesterday, remember? Distance. Being realistic. I’m following your lead.”
Grant lunged, his hand slamming onto the counter beside her. He hauled her into that rough, desperate kiss, a collision of teeth and unspoken apologies. It was territorial and jagged, a man drowning.
Izzy shoved him back with a sharp, muffled cry.
“You bastard!” she hissed, her eyes bright with fury. “Don’t you dare. You don’t get to treat me like an inconvenience and then try to mark me like property. Cal is a gentleman. He treats me better than you do, Grant. At least he isn’t afraid to look me in the eye.”
She walked out, the screen door slamming behind her.
* * *
The Sheriff’s Office — Late Morning
Burke leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking in the silence. On the screen, the name Vance Varga vibrated with a cold, Florida energy that had no business being in Jackson County.
“What the hell?” he whispered.
He pulled up a local property map alongside the Varga logistics file. There was no direct link, but then he saw it—the date Vanguard Logistics filed for a temporary landing permit in ’99. It was signed off by the county as “Private Agricultural Transport.”
Burke’s stomach turned. His dad and Wade Hollis had always had a… relationship. It wasn’t the kind of friendship his dad had with the men he went fishing with. It was different. Wade would come by the office, close the door, and talk low enough Burke couldn’t hear through the walls.
But now? Looking at Varga’s mugshot? Burke felt a cold sweat prickle his neck.
What did you do, Pop? Did you look the other way for a friend? Did you let a shark into the pond because Wade asked you to?
He couldn’t sit there anymore. He picked up the desk phone and buzzed the front desk. “Scout, get in here. Bring your topo maps for the Hollis-Talley line. We’re going for a ride.”
* * *
The Ridge Overlook — Mid-Day
The wind was whipping up here, smelling of damp earth and old stone. Grant, Burke, and Deputy Scout Wilson moved through the brush with practiced silence. Scout was the best tracker in the department; he knew every deer trail and jagged outcropping on the mountain.
“We can set the long-range glass up right here,” Scout whispered, gesturing to a flat shelf of rock hidden by a thicket of mountain laurel. “Gives us a straight shot down to the strip. If a plane so much as circles that valley, we’ll see the tail number before it touches asphalt.”
Burke nodded, but Grant wasn’t looking at the landing strip. He was looking further down the ridge, toward the skeletal remains of the old stone chapel.
“Wait,” Grant breathed, his voice tight.
He reached for the binoculars hanging around Burke’s neck and leveled the glass.
Through the lenses, the gray stones of the chapel came into sharp focus. He saw the silver Escalade parked on the grass. And then he saw them.
Izzy was standing in the doorway of the ruins, the sun catching the highlights in her hair. She looked beautiful—and utterly out of place. Cal Hollis was standing beside her. Grant watched as Cal said something that made Izzy tilt her head, and then Cal reached out.
It wasn’t a tentative move. Cal stepped into her space, his hands finding her waist, and pulled her into a long, slow embrace.
Grant’s heart hit his ribs like a sledgehammer. He watched, fixed in place, as Cal leaned down and kissed her. It wasn’t the rough, desperate collision Grant had forced on her in the kitchen. This was smooth. This was the kiss of a man who thought he’d already won.
And Izzy didn’t pull away.
Grant let the binoculars drop against his chest with a heavy thud. The image of Cal’s hand on her waist was burned into his retinas, regret going sharp and cold in his gut. He’d pushed her away that morning. Now he was watching another man step into the space he’d left open.
He didn’t move. He didn’t roar. He went unnervingly still, his jaw working as he stared at the gray stones of the chapel.
“Grant?” Burke asked, his voice low with caution. “You see something?”
Grant took a slow, steadying breath. He didn’t hand the glasses back. He couldn’t risk Burke seeing what he’d seen—not yet.
“They’re at the ruins,” Grant said, his voice flat, drained of everything but a jagged professional edge. “Cal and Izzy. If we’re going to set these cameras, we need to do it now while they’re distracted. We stay low, we stay in the treeline.”
Scout glanced at Burke, then at the rigid line of Grant’s shoulders. “You okay, man? You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I’m fine,” Grant snapped, though his hands were trembling slightly as he reached for the first trail cam. “Let’s get this done. We’ve got maybe twenty minutes before they head back down to the Escalade. I want a clear shot of that strip and the access road.”
He worked with a grim, silent efficiency, his movements precise and mechanical.
He was a Scott, and the work came first. But every time he looked down toward that chapel, the knot in him tightened.
He had pushed her right where she needed to be to get the truth, but seeing her there—playing the part so well it looked real—was a price he hadn’t realized he’d have to pay.
“Check the angle on that one,” Grant told Scout, his voice sounding like it had been dragged over gravel. He didn’t look at his brother. He didn’t look at the sky. He kept his head down, trying to bury the sight of the kiss.