Chapter Nineteen
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“MAY I join you?”
Gwynn blinked and squinted up at Cash, who stood several paces away, his forehead lined with concern. She hefted a shoulder and looked back at her parents’ graves. The snow had seeped into her pant legs, and her cheeks stung. “Did you finish your lunch date early, or have I been sitting here longer than I thought?”
Cash let out a half-laugh. “A little of both.” He gestured to the graves. “Were you thinking about your folks?”
“No, actually.” Pushing to her feet, she cleared her throat. “I was thinking about yours.” Guilt raked along her spine like claws, and she hunched in her peacoat. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Cash. Your parents were great people, and what you and Ainsley had to endure after their deaths …” She gripped her elbows. “God should have let them live and taken me instead—”
“Don’t talk like that.” Cash held up a gloved hand, his expression serious. “We can’t understand the ways of God or why He calls some of us Home early.”
“But it’s not fair. What you went through—”
“We went through hell-on-earth, yes, but it’s a comfort to remember my parents are in Heaven today. You, on the other hand—” He shook his head. “Hadley, you would have gone to Hell.”
She shuddered. Because he’d used her birth name … or because he’d spoken truth? She hadn’t believed in Jesus ten years ago. Had she died then, a different eternity would have awaited her than the one that awaited her now.
“I’m grateful God spared your life,” Cash murmured, his gaze roaming her face.
She clutched at her coat sleeves so she wouldn’t reach out to him. He’d been quick to give a supportive sidearm hug back in the day, later adding a kiss to her temple once they started dating. She craved a hug now, but too much emotional distance separated them.
He glanced at the line of headstones. After a prolonged silence, he asked, “Who’s in the casket, if it wasn’t you?”
She jabbed at the snow with her boot. “It’s empty.”
Cash frowned. “How is that possible? I was there at the funeral.”
“Closed casket. You didn’t see a body.”
He dragged a gloved hand over his face. “My goodness, you’re right.”
“Uncle Russell was both sheriff and coroner at the time. Not only did he convince people he had identified my body months after I disappeared, but he also faked a death certificate so that everyone would believe I had died.”
“Is that legal?”
“For the sheriff, it is, when done on behalf of a citizen’s safety.”
“I stood over there”—Cash pointed to a grand elm along the side fence—“watching the pallbearers lower your casket into the ground, thinking you didn’t deserve a proper burial. No murderer deserved a headstone memorial or to take up space in a church graveyard.”
Gwynn fisted the lapel to her coat. “You said I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I believe that now. I didn’t believe it then. I was reeling from grief and had convinced myself that when you claimed the events of that night were your fault, it meant you murdered my dad despite the evidence saying otherwise.”
“Evidence?” She scoffed. “Most of the evidence is up here”—she tapped her head—“locked away.” With her sleeve, she swept snow from a nearby stone bench and sat. “And maybe it’s locked because the reality is worse than I’d like to admit.”
“According to the police report, your mother and my dad died from gunshot wounds delivered by your father’s revolver, which bore his fingerprints—”
“Yeah, and he was shot in the stomach by a Glock that bore my fingerprints.” The cold bench seeped through her jeans, numbing her legs to match her numb mind. “I hated Alex. You know that better than anyone.” She had stopped calling him “Dad” the second time his fist had drawn blood. “There were plenty of times when I wished he’d die. When I begged God to take his life. How evil can a daughter get? But day after day, month after month, year after miserable year, God ignored my prayers.” She met Cash’s gaze as he crouched before her. “What if, on that wretched night, I finally set about doing what God would not?”
“Okay, but”—Cash took her mittened hand in his gloved one—“Alex also had a fatal knife wound in the back.”
“Still could’ve been me. There were no fingerprints to show otherwise.”
Cash’s gaze dropped to their hands. “My dad was … wearing his leather gloves,” he admitted.
“Mr. Cooper wouldn’t have knifed anyone.”
Cash sighed. “I still say you’re in the clear. The Davisons think so too.” He rose and took a seat beside her, his hand tightening about hers as his eyes grew thoughtful. “Gwynn?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did the Davisons get involved in this? Why fake your death and keep it a secret all these years? What did Russ have to gain by it?”
“They did it to protect me.” At his furrowed brow, she put up her free hand. “I’ll explain, but I’m relaying to you what Uncle Russ told me years ago, not what I remember. Got it?”
Cash nodded.
“According to him, I appeared at his back door in the middle of the night two days after the murders, dehydrated, incoherent, and hysterical at the thought of returning home or even staying with the Forresters. By then, Uncle Russ suspected there might have been another person involved in the crime since a second, untouched whiskey glass had sat on our dining table, as though Alex expected someone else to show up. Perhaps that person would’ve come after me, if they’d known I survived and could act as an eyewitness.”
Gwynn skimmed her boots back and forth in the fresh snow. “Because of that suspicion coupled with my hysteria, Uncle Russ squirreled me away to stay with his sister and brother-in-law—Edith and Jeb—on the East Coast. I don’t remember making the initial decision to live with the Sadlers, but I never once regretted it. It started out as a temporary arrangement, yet after several months we made it permanent.”
She traced a crack in the bench with her mitten. “I still had no memories about that night, and any leads the authorities had, had grown cold or brought the detectives to a dead end.” Her gaze returned to her headstone. “That’s when Uncle Russ faked Hadley’s death certificate and provided me with a new ID. And since he claimed my deceased body had been found on BLM land months after I’d gone missing—”
“No one questioned the idea of a closed casket.”
Resentment laced Cash’s tone, and Gwynn angled toward him, praying he’d understand. “I flourished under the Sadlers’ care. They loved me in a way I hadn’t experienced before, and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful. They and the Davisons could never fathom what a gift they gave me in plucking me from this place.”
“Maybe so, but”—the muscle popped in Cash’s jaw—“you left many hearts in tatters back here.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I see that now. Aside from the obvious people, though, I didn’t think anyone else cared about me. I had made sure you didn’t care.”
Gwynn pulled from his hold and stood to pace between the bench and headstones. “After the Davisons told me about your mom, I shut the door on anyone or anything having to do with Prospect and my former life. The Davisons honored that.” She toyed with the ends of her scarf. “But I didn’t consider what a burden this situation had become for them until the other day. Didn’t know it had become a burden to me .”
“So …” Cash squinted up at her. “Does that mean you’re ready to find out what happened that night?”