Deadly Christmas Secrets. Shirlee McCoy
to her brother-in-law—was a jealous younger sister who’d hated Lydia.
The press had had a field day with stories that implicated her. She’d lost a few clients because of it, and then she’d lost her job.
Worse, she’d had no alibi, no way of proving that her sister and niece had left her house alive. Until Norman Meyers had pawned Lydia’s engagement ring, Harper had been certain she was going to be tried and convicted.
Not good memories. Any of them.
She shuddered, taking a step away from Logan and the man he was still holding down.
“Harper?” Logan said sharply, and she thought he must have already tried to get her attention. “Can you head to your place and lead the police here?”
“Why?” the gunman spat. “Because you plan to murder me and don’t want any witnesses?”
Logan ignored him, pulling out his cell phone and glancing at the screen. “Tell the police that I’ve got Langley Simmons here. Looks as if he has a warrant out for his arrest.”
The gunman cursed, tried to twist out from under Logan.
“Harper?” Logan prodded.
“I’ll get them,” she responded, calling to Picasso and jogging away. She wanted to leave both men behind, leave the entire mess behind.
She knew she couldn’t, of course.
She’d spent her life trying to do the right thing, trying to live the way she’d thought she should—following the rules, being moral and just and kind. She’d wanted what her mother had never been able to achieve—stability, security, edifying relationships.
God had obviously had other plans.
Her life had taken a turn she hadn’t anticipated, and now all she wanted was to be at peace.
It didn’t look as if that was going to happen, either.
But God was in control.
He had a plan and a way.
She just wished He’d tell her what it was.
There was a lesson in trust there, she supposed, but she’d never been good at trusting. Even when it came to God. Maybe especially then. She’d prayed a lot when she was a kid, begging God to step in before the family was evicted or the lights were turned off or the police came to search for the drugs one of her mother’s boyfriends had left.
Most of the time, those prayers hadn’t been answered. At least not in any way that made sense to her. Lights were often turned off and evictions happened. As an adult, she knew those were natural consequences to her mother’s habitual sins, but those old feelings of distrust and anxiety were still there.
She pushed aside the memories as she raced up the steep hill that led to her cabin. Picasso bounded out of the woods in front of her, and she heard a masculine voice call his name. Sheriff Jeb Hunter or one of his deputies.
Seconds later, she hit the top of the path and ran out onto her driveway. Two police cars were parked close to the cabin, Jeb Hunter crouched next to one of them shooting pictures of a bullet casing. Picasso lay a few feet away, panting quietly.
Jeb looked up as Harper approached, his deep green eyes shaded by a uniform hat. “Heard there was trouble out here, Harper. From the look of things, that might be true.”
“It is.”
“Want to tell me what happened?”
“Someone was shooting at us.”
“Us?”
“A guy my brother-in-law sent. He showed up a few minutes before the guys with the guns.”
“There’s more than one gunman?”
“Yes. One drove away. One of them is in the woods, injured.”
“The guy your brother-in-law sent? Where’s he?”
“Keeping the injured guy from running.”
“Then, I guess we’d better go find them. Want to lead the way?”
Not really. What she wanted to do was go back to her clay. It wasn’t a possibility, so she whistled for Picasso and headed back into the woods.
* * *
Logan didn’t much like stepping aside and letting other people handle problems. Right now, he didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t a cop and hadn’t been hired to work with them, so he hung back, watching as Simmons was loaded onto a stretcher, his wrist handcuffed to a deputy sheriff.
Sheriff Jeb Hunter wasn’t taking any chances. That was good. Simmons was desperate. Given the opportunity, he’d run. If he did that, Logan doubted he’d ever be found. If he was, it would probably just be his body that turned up. The guy was scared of someone. Logan wanted to know who, but all Simmons was willing to admit to was a few too many beers and a case of mistaken identity.
Lies, but it didn’t matter.
The guy was guilty of nearly killing someone, and he’d be in jail for a while. Maybe when his buddy didn’t show up to bail him out, he’d be more willing to talk.
“So, Logan Fitzgerald,” Sheriff Hunter said as the ambulance pulled away. “You want to explain how you happened to be in the right place at the right time?”
“I was hired by Gabe Wilson.”
“My brother-in-law,” Harper interrupted as if those words would explain everything.
They explained nothing. Not to the sheriff and not to Logan. Finding Harper had been easy. She’d taken out a loan for property in Westminster, Maryland. No address was listed, but with only a little digging he’d found a house title with her name on it.
Easy.
So why hadn’t Gabe done it himself?
The guy had money. Plenty of it.
He could have hired anyone to find his sister-in-law. He’d hired HEART.
Had he known there was going to be trouble?
Or had he simply wanted to hedge his bets, make sure that Harper was found because...
Why?
It had been four years since Harper disappeared from Gabe’s life. If he’d wanted to kill her, wouldn’t he have made an attempt before?
Lots of questions.
Not many answers.
The sheriff must have felt the same way. He frowned, took off his uniform hat and ran his hand over his dark hair. “Now, why, I’m wondering, would your brother-in-law want to find you?”
Logan responded, “He said he received information about his daughter.”
“Amelia is dead,” Harper said, her face pale as paper.
“There was a funeral,” Logan corrected her, because he’d studied the case, read every article. That was the way he was. He liked to be prepared, to understand all the details before he began a mission. “Her body was never found.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “What information does he have?”
“A photograph. A piece of cloth that he says might be part of her blanket.”
He didn’t think it was possible, but she paled more, swaying slightly. Her dog nudged her side.
She touched his head and seemed to ground herself.
“I received something similar.”
“A photo?” Sheriff Hunter asked.
“No. A newspaper article and a piece of something that might have been Amelia’s favorite blanket.” The words rasped out, and Logan cupped her elbow, afraid she might pass out. She looked that shaken, that anxious.