Cold Case Witness. Sarah Varland
always seemed sweet and fun, they’d been in very different circles. And that night had driven the wedge between them even deeper, separating them further.
She’d left town right after they graduated, before he could ever work up the nerve to see if she might ever consider being friends with someone like him.
And here she was, turning up again when crime was surfacing in Treasure Point, which was a huge rarity. Did the woman just bring trouble with her?
Matt wasn’t sure if she was leaving in such a hurry because she’d heard about the discovery of the body or if she was just anxious to get away from the place that must carry painful memories for her. Either made just as much sense. And either way, he’d put her on his list of people to talk to later. Something about the purposefulness of the way she ran... It seemed that Gemma Phillips had something to hide.
He just wondered whose life would be turned upside down by her latest revelation.
“I’m going to call the ME.” Shiloh pulled her phone out.
Matt nodded, then walked in Gemma’s direction. She was too fast for him; before he could do anything, even call out to her, she’d climbed into her car and driven away. He stood for a minute, watching her and trying to figure out how she played into this.
“You know her?” Shiloh’s voice beside him caught him off guard. Apparently she’d finished her phone call. He nodded.
“Who is she?”
“Gemma Phillips.”
“Phillips... Any relation to Claire at Kite Tails and Coffee?” Shiloh’s mention of Claire’s coffee shop made him wish he’d swung by there on the way to work this morning. He’d had a cup at home, but the way this day was going, he’d need more soon.
“Her sister.”
Shiloh’s eyes narrowed. “Is she the one who testified in that criminal smuggling case a decade or so ago? She looks younger than I would have thought.”
He nodded. “She was in high school at the time. How’d you know about that case?” Shiloh wasn’t from Treasure Point originally, and it was a taboo enough subject that officers didn’t even discuss it among themselves much.
“The smuggling ring was stealing historical artifacts. I found write-ups in old newspapers at the library when I was doing research for a history class I was teaching.”
Matt forgot sometimes that she’d had a different life before joining the police department. It was hard to imagine her as a timid history professor. In his mind, she was 100 percent law enforcement.
“Why do you think she ran?” Shiloh was full of questions today.
“I don’t know, but I’m planning to find out.”
“Don’t leave yet. I still need you here until after the ME comes. This is your case, right? Your first big one?”
He nodded. His chance to prove himself as something more than a criminal’s son, maybe the only chance he’d ever have.
Another police car pulled up. Lieutenant Rich Davies stepped out and strode in their direction, a determined look on his face. Next to him, it seemed like Shiloh stood up straighter. She’d had some unpleasant run-ins with Davies in the past. Matt felt his own shoulders tense. The way Davies was looking at him, he was afraid his time had probably come, too.
“You found a body?”
Matt jerked his head in the direction of the construction workers. “They did. I was patrolling.”
“You can go back to it. I’ll handle the investigation.”
“I don’t think so.”
Davies said nothing but his face registered shock. More than anybody else, Matt did what he was told, took the jobs he was assigned without complaining. But after years of working easy patrols, of dealing with nothing more interesting than one incident of vandalism that had been tied to an adolescent dare, this was his chance to show the guys on the force that he was capable of real investigations, of doing something that mattered.
“We’ll talk to the chief about this,” Davies warned.
Matt only nodded. “Fine with me.” The chief was a sensible man. There was no reason for this assignment to be taken from him—he hadn’t even had the chance to mess anything up yet.
The chief pulled up in his own car and joined them moments later, ending their silent standoff. “Officers, something wrong besides the body we should all be investigating?”
“I was just telling O’Dell that I was happy to take over the investigation from here.” Lieutenant Davies spoke up first.
The chief glanced between both of them, settled his gaze on Matt. “Any reason you can’t handle this case, O’Dell?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, it’s in your patrol area. I’d like you to see it through.”
Matt blinked. Although he’d been hoping and expecting that he’d be able to keep the case, the relief of knowing his boss thought he was up to the challenge was so strong that he almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He nodded anyway. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t let me down. Now come on, both of you, show me the scene.”
The three of them walked toward the remains together, Matt’s head still spinning at the fact that he’d actually been given the case. He’d wanted a chance to prove himself? Here it was. Now he just had to do it—failing at this wasn’t an option.
Gemma sat on her sister’s porch swing, trying to enjoy the warm night, hoping the back and forth of the swing would calm her mind down enough that she could sleep. She’d run from the Hamilton Estate and come straight back to Claire’s house, her home for now.
For a few hours, she’d debated her course of action—she could run and go back to Atlanta, find a job anywhere she could so she could at least live somewhere she loved...but she’d agreed to the trial period with the historical society, and she wasn’t a quitter. Her only other options were to ignore everything that was happening and continue with her normal life—or to jump into the investigation fully and end this for good.
So far, she’d decided nothing. So she sat. Swinging.
Darkness fell faster than she’d expected—it always seemed to catch her off guard. Soon it was too dark for her to feel comfortable out in the open. Surely by now word had gotten around town that a body had been discovered. If it was tied to the crime she had witnessed all those years ago like she was almost sure of...was she in danger again?
Still?
Katydids chirped a night song, just another sound that was familiar and yet foreign to Gemma. She’d forgotten how loud it was even out here in the middle of nowhere. The sirens, the traffic she’d grown used to in Atlanta were absent, but the night noises were just as loud.
She’d loved this town once. Before its lack of support for her had broken her heart.
Gemma couldn’t keep hoping this part of her life would go away with no action from her. She couldn’t keep sticking her head in the sand, and she certainly couldn’t run. Maybe going to Atlanta in the first place had been running, although of course her eighteen-year-old self hadn’t seen it that way. But now, all these years later, it was time to face this. Past time. Gemma walked down the porch steps, climbed into her car, backed out and took a deep breath. She needed to go back to the office at the historical society.
If they were half the society they claimed to be, they’d have records. Maybe even records that might tell her more about the crime she’d uncovered ten years ago when she’d walked up on a gang of thieves hiding stolen artifacts deep in the woods behind the Hamilton House. Gemma wasn’t sure