Chapter 37
The Sheriff’s Department
Sam Talley didn’t move when Burke reached into the folder. He looked like a man braced for a blow, his shoulders high and rigid.
“Wade’s version of the story is that she was unhappy, Sam,” Burke said quietly. “He wants me to believe she was using him to get out of the valley. That she didn’t care about the life you were building.”
“He’s a liar,” Sam rasped. “He’s always been a liar.”
“I know,” Burke said. He took the small, yellowed sheet of paper—the one Izzy had found under the pillow—and slid it across the desk toward Sam. “Isabella Moreno found this in the cabin. It was tucked under the pillow of the bed. It’s been sitting there for twenty-seven years.”
Sam’s hand trembled as he reached for it. He handled the paper like it was made of glass. As his eyes moved over the familiar, elegant script, the room went very still.
“Like I wasn’t just passing through… I felt like I might belong somewhere.”
A broken sound escaped Sam’s throat. It wasn’t a sob; it was the sound of a man having the last twenty-seven years of his life redefined in a single paragraph. He closed his eyes, his head bowing over the letter.
“She never gave it to me,” he whispered. “She was going to… but I never got to read it.”
“Sam,” Burke said, his voice steady but compassionate. “That letter doesn’t sound like a woman who was having an affair with Wade Hollis. It sounds like a woman who had finally found home. And if she felt that way, she wouldn’t have walked away from you. Not by choice.”
Sam looked up, and for the first time, the “Old Sam”—the man who had waited seventeen years before he could even bear to sell that land—was visible behind the wall of grief.
“He took her,” Sam said, his voice dropping. “Wade didn’t catch us in no cabin. He didn’t have no affair. He saw her looking at me like that, and he realized he couldn’t buy her. So he took her instead.”
He stood up, clutching the letter to his shirt.
“You wanted to know if I had a motive to kill them, Sheriff? No. I had a reason to love her. And Wade Hollis had a reason to be jealous. You stop looking at me and you start looking at the man who’s been living in that stone house while she’s been… wherever she is.”
Sam turned toward the door, his hand on the frame. He looked back at Burke, the paper crinkling in his grip.
“She loved me, Burke. After all this time… I finally know she loved me.”
Sam was halfway to the door when Burke spoke up. The voice wasn’t that of a Sheriff; it was the voice of a son starting to see the cracks in his own foundation.
“Sam. One more question.”
Sam stopped. He didn’t turn around, but he didn’t leave.
“When you took this to my father—back in ’99—what happened?” Burke asked, his voice low. “What did he do? What was the thought process back then? Was there anything… anything at all going on at the Hollis place that he looked into?”
Sam turned slowly. He looked at Burke, then at Luke, his expression softening into a pained sort of pity.
“Burke, listen. I don’t want to run your dad down, especially not to you,” Sam said, his voice rough. “But Burton… well, he wasn’t the Burton I knew at that time. It was like he couldn’t shut her disappearance down fast enough.”
Sam stepped back toward the desk, the memories clearly rising up.
“I told him, Burke. I told him she was always painting back on that ridge, and she’d told me more than once that there was all kinds of stuff going on back there.
People coming and going at all hours. Even a plane coming in and out.
” Sam let out a short, humorless laugh. “When I asked Wade about that once, he told me he was dusting crops. But there weren’t no crops on that ridge back then, and there aren’t any now. ”
Burke felt a coldness settle. “And my father? What did he say about the plane?”
“He told me I was seeing ghosts,” Sam rasped.
“He said there was never any love lost between me and Wade—which was true enough, since I wouldn’t sell him my land—and that I was just looking for someone to blame because my girl had realized she was too big for this valley.
Your dad wouldn’t hardly look me in the eye after that.
They told me she walked away, and when I said she wouldn’t leave her life behind, they treated me like a madman. ”
Sam leaned in, his eyes boring into Burke’s.
“I don’t know if Wade Hollis had something over your dad, or if Burton just didn’t care enough about a girl like Clara to ruffle the feathers of a man like Wade.
I don’t know the why of it. But I know it wasn’t handled right.
And that’s a fact I’ve had to live with every night for twenty-seven years. ”
Sam turned and walked out this time, his boots echoing down the hallway of the department.
Burke sat in the quiet of his office. He looked at the Clara Vale file, then at the empty chair where Sam had just been. He felt the weight of the five-pointed star on him, and for the first time in his life, it felt tarnished beyond repair.
* * *
Bridlepath Farm — Main Barn
The soft scritch-scritch of pitchforks against the mats and the rhythmic thud of fresh flakes hitting the floor created a steady pulse of morning chores.
Grant was leaning against a support beam, his arms crossed tight enough to tear the seams of his shirt.
He was brooding, his eyes fixed on the driveway, but his mind clearly miles away—or just a few feet away, stuck on the smeared red lipstick and the defiant look in Izzy’s eyes from the night before.
Naomi moved past him, hauling a grain cart with effortless precision. She didn’t say a word as she tossed a measured scoop into a waiting bucket, the grain hitting the plastic with a dry rattle. She’d been watching him for twenty minutes, and her patience was wearing thin.
The sound of an engine broke the morning hum. A small, pristine white van with “Petals & Peak Florals” scripted in gold leaf across the side rolled to a stop just outside the wide barn doors.
A young man hopped out, nearly obscured by an arrangement of peonies. They were the color of a mountain sunrise—corals, pinks, and whites, their heavy heads nodding in the breeze.
“I have a delivery for Isabella Moreno?” the kid asked, squinting over the blossoms.
Grant didn’t move from the beam. “She’s up at the house. I’ll take ’em up for you.”
The delivery guy hesitated, shifting the heavy crystal vase. “Oh, no sir. Mr. Hollis—Mr. Cal Hollis—asked me to personally hand her the card and make sure she was the one to receive them.”
Grant’s jaw worked, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “Oh yeah? I bet he did.”
The pause that followed was brittle. Naomi paused, a flake of hay in her hand, watching the fire dance in Grant’s eyes.
“Fine,” Grant said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous rumble. “Take them up to the house.”
The kid nodded, relieved, and turned back toward the van. He was halfway to the driver’s side door when Grant suddenly pushed off the beam.
“Wait,” Grant barked.
The kid froze. Naomi straightened up, her eyes narrowing. “Grant, what are you doing?”
Grant didn’t answer her. He stepped past the florist, his boots heavy on the gravel, and reached for the sliding side door of the van. He hauled it open with a metallic shriek.
The young man looked startled, dropping his clipboard.
Inside, there was nothing but the cool air of a florist’s van and three other arrangements—a basket of daisies and a small spray of carnations—waiting for their own stops in town.
No trackers, no bugs, no messages from the Varga cartel. Just flowers.
Grant stared at the empty space for a long second.
Naomi looked at him, her expression a mix of pity and pure exasperation. “Really, Grant? You’re searching the flower van now?”
Grant slammed the van door shut, the metallic bang echoing through the rafters and startling a yearling in the nearest stall. He stood there, his hands fisted, staring at the dust kicked up by the departing florist.
He turned back into the barn, his boots crunching over the fresh shavings.
Naomi didn’t look up from the grain cart. She just kept moving, her rhythm steady and unimpressed.
“You’re a mess, Scott,” she said, her voice flat.
“I’m being thorough,” Grant snapped, leaning his shoulder against a support beam. “Vance Varga is in this valley. We don’t know how they’re moving information. A flower delivery is the oldest trick in the book.”
Naomi stopped. She set the grain scoop down and finally looked at him, her eyes hard and knowing.
“It wasn’t a trick, Grant. It was two dozen peonies. And you didn’t open that van because you were looking for a wire. You opened it because you wanted to find a reason—any reason—to stop those flowers from getting to that porch.”
Grant’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve known you since you were ten years old,” Naomi shot back.
“I know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re acting like a stray dog whose bone got moved.
You spent all of yesterday pushing her away, telling her to be ‘realistic’ and treating her like a liability.
Well, congratulations. You got exactly what you asked for. ”
She stepped closer.
“Cal Hollis isn’t afraid to look her in the eye and tell her she’s the best thing he’s seen all year.
He isn’t afraid to send the flowers. And while you’re down here stomping around and playing ‘security guard,’ he’s up there winning.
Not because he’s a better man, but because he’s actually brave enough to want her. ”
Grant stared at her. The truth of it stung. He looked toward the house, imagining Izzy on the porch, her fingers tracing the petals of flowers he hadn’t thought to buy.
“She’s a target, Naomi,” he said quietly, the anger finally giving way to fear.
“She’s a woman, Grant,” Naomi corrected softly. “Try treating her like one before someone else makes the choice for you.”
* * *