Chapter Three
The storm had long since passed during the night, but the island still smelled of salt and damp pine. Asa sat hunched in a kitchen chair, a half-empty mug of coffee cooling on the table beside him. The light above cast circles across the file spread open in front of him.
He should have been exhausted from lack of sleep.
His body begged for rest after the long drive to Hope Island, the emotional reaction to being back here.
The unexpected and searing encounter with Maya Callahan.
His mind refused to quiet down enough for sleep.
It hummed with too many voices from the past, each layered over the other until they tangled like seaweed caught in a tide.
Maya.
Her name alone carried a weight. He’d expected her to recoil. Instead, she’d only stared, guarded, like a stray animal cornered between fight and flight.
The image wouldn’t leave him. The tilt of her chin, the way her eyes had gone distant as if dragged backward through time. Asa pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and exhaled hard.
Through the years, the promise he made to his father continued to eat at Asa. He needed answers. Jonas had done his best to get them for his nephew, but he failed. Now, the timing felt right for Asa to come back personally and use his skills to get to the truth despite Jonas’s discouragement.
Asa told himself he’d see it through to the end no matter what he found. He’d thought he was prepared for this case. Thought he’d braced himself for every ugly corner it would force him into, but nothing had prepared him for her.
He’d imagined meeting her again. What he’d say to her. Looking into her eyes had sent him back to that moment in the barn. The frightened little girl, peeking out from a hay bale, was rocking back and forth while holding her stuffed rabbit.
After all these years, whatever memories she’d locked away that day remained hidden. What if his drive for answers into his father’s past brought a nightmare to life for her?
The sound of a vehicle moving down the gravel drive to his cabin pulled Asa from those thoughts.
He bolted to his feet and grabbed his handgun from the kitchen counter. This cabin was isolated by a long driveway from the road. No one would happen down this way without looking for him. Only a handful of people knew he was here. His uncle, JT Wyatt’s team, Maya.
He cracked the curtains in the living room and then relaxed. JT and Declan exited an SUV. The second vehicle, a police cruiser, stopped beside them, and a third man followed them up to the door.
Relief worked its way through his frame. Asa hadn’t realized he was so tense.
He placed the handgun on the nearby bookcase and yanked the door open before they had the chance to knock, hoping there was news on his father’s case.
“Asa,” JT managed once he’d recovered from his surprise. “This is Chief Will Kelly.” He turned to the red-haired man at his side.
Asa extended his hand, determined to give the law officer the benefit of the doubt. “Nice to meet you, Chief.”
“You, too, Asa. As a rookie officer, I read through your father’s file many times.
The former police chief I took over for investigated it as a cold case.
I believe others in the past had as well.
Unfortunately, none of us were able to solve it.
” He shook his head. “Yet, I remember hearing about it from my aunt, who was on the island at the time. Back then, my family lived in Bangor. Do you mind if we come inside?”
Asa snapped out of his shock. Others on the police force had looked into his father’s murder? This was news to him. “Sure. Of course. Come in.” He stepped back to let them inside. “Coffee?”
All three declined.
What the chief said clicked in his mind. “So you still have the original file?” Would there be more information in it? Notes from the later investigations?
Will moved to the table where the crime-scene photos took up most of the space.
He turned back to Asa. “Sadly, no. There was a fire at the records storage facility about ten years earlier. Your father’s information, as well as others, was destroyed.
” Will’s chin lifted. “One thing that always stood out to me was this: At the time of your father’s murder, the state offered assistance, but the case was classified as an isolated incident and never formally escalated by the detective investigating the murder.
That decision should’ve raised serious red flags. ”
Nothing about the classification added up. Why hadn’t someone questioned it?
“There’s very little information to go on in the file, and it’s obvious the case was mishandled,” Will told him.
“The detective listed as lead on the case resigned and left the island a few days into the investigation. Obviously, that created a lot of speculation, though it was believed he didn’t have anything to do with Raymond’s murder. ”
Alarm bells were going off like crazy. The person who worked under his father, who investigated the murder, had disappeared. “Still, it’s odd. Did he leave on his own accord, or was he made to disappear?”
Chief Kelly eyed him for a long moment. “I’ve wondered the same.
Detective Nathan Malone wasn’t married. We contacted his family on the mainland, but no one had heard from him.
The same is true today. I reached out to his sister, who told me she hasn’t had any contact with her brother in twenty-five years.
” He glanced down at one of the photos. “The detective who took over the investigation from Malone was green. He’d barely been on the force for a few years.
His name is Thomas Hale. He did his best, but nothing ever came from his investigation, and eventually the case went cold. ”
“Where is he now?” Asa asked with urgency. “Perhaps Hale would have more insight into the case.”
“Killed himself. He left the force about three years after your father’s murder and moved to the mainland. He didn’t have any family. Shot himself in his apartment.”
Things just kept getting stranger. “That’s an awful lot of people dying and disappearing,” he said to Will.
“It is. According to the police who found Hale, there was nothing in the apartment but a few beers in the fridge and a half-eaten pizza on the table where he shot himself. Nothing personal at all.” Will looked him in the eye.
“And yes, that is strange.” Will’s gaze shifted to the file once more.
“From all accounts, those who lived on the island at the time like my sister spoke highly of Raymond Dutton. Everyone respected him. Most of his cases were simple ones. He didn’t appear to have any known enemies. ”
“Someone wanted him dead, and it would appear they went to a lot of trouble to keep from being identified,” Asa asserted.
“I believe it has everything to do with Maya Callahan.” The fear in her eyes had confirmed she might not remember what happened, but whatever it was, it was bad enough to wipe away all conscious thoughts of it.
“I spoke to Maya yesterday,” Asa said and waited for a reaction. He half expected JT to be angry with him for not listening to his advice.
“What’d she say?” JT asked instead.
“Nothing. She was scared. Not of me, but of what I said. She doesn’t remember anything about that night.
” He told them about his uncle’s numerous discussions with her parents.
“Uncle Jonas never spoke to Maya about my father. He just spoke to her adoptive parents, who said she had no recollection of that night. For obvious reasons, they didn’t want him talking to her. ”
“I can understand,” JT told him. “My wife Rachel went through something similar years ago when she witnessed the murder of her father and cousin. She blocked out everything about what happened, and it almost destroyed her life after the killer continued to stalk her.”
Asa’s eyes whipped to meet JT’s. “How did she move forward with her life? Did she ever get those memories back?” He’d read Rachel’s dossier. She was one of the investigators at Hope Island Securities.
“Ultimately, yes, through hypnosis, but it didn’t come without a risk.
Recovering memories that have been buried because of trauma has a way of retraumatizing the victim.
And I have a feeling whatever Maya went through that ended up with her in the barn beside your father was so bad she’s buried it deep.
Forcing those memories out can be potentially dangerous if not handled carefully and ethically.
You risk the chance of false memories coming out, not to mention it can be emotionally overwhelming to revisit the traumatic experience.
We don’t even know if Maya has any understanding of her involvement that night, despite what you brought up to her.
” When Asa would have interrupted, JT added, “Above everything else, it has to be Maya’s choice. ”
All the fight went out of Asa. “There must be something we can do.”
“I have a suggestion. I’ll ask Rachel to go with you to speak to her again. Rachel can tell her story. Maybe it’ll make a difference.”
“Thanks. I hope so.” It was something.
“Until then, let’s start going back over the file,” Declan said and pointed to the table. He glanced up at JT. “Think we need more eyes on the case.”
“You’re right. Boone, Ellie, and Bryce are still abroad. Janine and Rachel are handling the missing wife case. I can pull Rachel off if we need her. First, let’s call in Eli.”
“I’m on it,” Declan retrieved his cell.
The chief’s phone sounded an incoming message.
“That’s work.” He scanned the message. “I’ll need to respond.
Let me see what I can find out about the case from my end.
I’m going to try to find the dispatcher.
” He glanced down at the crime-scene photo of Raymond Dutton’s body taken inside the barn before his piercing gaze found Asa’s.
“Something’s not right here, and I, for one, don’t like the way it smells. ”
Asa’s attention returned to the information on the table. It was all so clinical, its language stripped of emotion, his life reduced to bullet points:
Victim.
Wounds.
Unaccompanied child.
Asa didn’t need the pages to remember. He had been there—a child soaked through by rain, flashlight trembling in his hand, a little boy watching his world collapse in a single breath.
He remembered his father’s voice more than anything. Strong even when he whispered. Calm even when everything was falling apart.
He also remembered the sound of a frightened little girl trying not to cry. For years, he had convinced himself he’d imagined her, or that some part of him had invented her to make those final minutes less unbearable. But she had been real and someone his father had shielded with his own life.
Asa drew a slow breath and pressed his hand against the edge of the table. He should have fought harder to stay. Should have forced someone to listen. He should have found answers before now.
Guilt had followed him throughout his life. Now he was here, on the same island. Sitting in front of the same truth he had run from for over two decades. Chasing ghosts with nothing but an old case file and a stubborn promise made over his father’s grave.
“I’d like to go back to the crime scene,” Declan said unexpectedly, drawing Asa’s attention from that promise. “I know it’s been years, but I think it will give us a feel for what happened that night, and perhaps it might jog a memory of something you might have forgotten.”
“You want me to walk back into the place where I found my father dead?” Asa’s voice was controlled, but that control cracked around the edges at the thought. “There’s nothing left in that barn but ghosts.”
Declan’s gaze softened. “We can go alone. I know that would be hard for you. Why don’t I have Eli meet us over there?”
“No,” Asa said a little too forcefully. Despite his emotional recoil, his sense of duty went to war against his trauma. “If this leads us to the ones still hiding in the shadows, I’ll do it. Just don’t expect me to pretend like it won’t cost something.”