Page 10 of Tangled Past
Chapter Four
The wind swept across the slope above the barn, rattling the warped siding like old bones and carrying with it the scent of damp earth and salt. The barn’s red paint had long since faded, and the slanted roof was buckled from the weight of too many Maine winters.
Asa stood at the edge of the gravel path, boots sinking into the frost-soft mud like some omen. He hadn’t set foot here in twenty-five years.
Behind him, Declan whistled under his breath. “Hard to believe it’s still standing.”
“Barely,” Eli muttered. He adjusted the strap of his tactical bag and swept the perimeter with the practiced eye of someone expecting trouble.
“You good?” JT asked in a low voice.
He wasn’t, but he nodded anyway and swallowed the knot in his throat. “I need to walk in first.”
The others held back, falling into formation behind Asa as he crossed the threshold into the worst memory of his life.
The interior was dark and bitterly cold. Rickety rafters sagged overhead. Shafts of sunlight bore through the holes in the roof and walls.
Asa’s world narrowed to the place where his father had fallen. A blackened scar marred the nearby beam, lingering proof of the fire that had been set to try to erase the truth. It hadn’t started naturally. Someone had lit a match here and had tried to destroy something specific.
He reached out and brushed his fingers over the charred wood. His voice was barely above a whisper. “I remember what happened, Dad. You died protecting her.”
A gunshot exploded in his mind. Rain. A little girl frozen in terror.
JT, Declan, and Eli entered behind him. Eli inspected the burned wood. “Look at the burn pattern. They only set fire to this section. They weren’t trying to torch the whole place—just whatever was there. To destroy any evidence. He left Maya behind, even though he knew she might identify him. Why?”
“Maybe they knew she would be too frightened to talk,” Declan said.
“Maybe.” Asa didn’t buy it. “Still, the killer had no way of knowing she’d be so traumatized by what happened that it would wipe away every single memory of her past.”
According to the file, the small fire was extinguished because holes in the roof allowed rain to douse it before it could fully take hold. They’d found Maya huddled outside by the front of the barn. She’d probably fled when the fire was set. She was shivering from the cold and unable to tell them what happened.
JT inched slightly closer, his voice steady. “The fire might have been put out, but I’m guessing it accomplished what the killer wanted and destroyed anything useful to the case.”
Asa stared at the scarred beam. The truth pressed against his ribs like a weight he’d carried too long. “Whoever killed my father believed they got away with it all these years.”
“They didn’t count on you coming back, though,” JT said.
The vow he’d made to his father settled over him. “I should have come back sooner. I told myself I was letting Jonas handle things for me, but in reality, I’ve always been a little uneasy about coming back to Hope Island. To here.” His hand swept the barn. “What if I found out something bad about my father?” The admission was hard to force out.
JT shook his head. “You won’t. Your father didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
That was the one truth Asa had never doubted.
They filed out of the barn together, then followed the overgrown path toward the Dutton house. The old structure emerged through the trees—the windows boarded over, porch warped, chimney leaning as if the house itself remembered the violence that took place nearby.
Asa voiced his fears aloud. “Do you think one of the detectives who worked for my father removed the information from his file?” That someone whom Raymond trusted was in on the cover-up was a hard pill to swallow.
“I don’t know,” JT told him. “But it stands to reason someone removed information that would have been useful to finding the killer.”
Declan pointed back to the barn. “We should set up cameras to cover both the barn and the house. If the killer is still watching, this will make him nervous.”
JT nodded. “We’ll sweep the house’s interior.”
Asa’s thoughts weighed him down as he climbed the steps to the house he still owned alone and pushed open the door. The hinges groaned, echoing through the hollow rooms. Dust hung thick in the air. The furniture had been scavenged or reduced to rot. Wallpaper peeled away like old scars.
A wooden rocking horse lay on its side in the corner, a faded ribbon still tied around its neck.
Asa bent and picked it up. “This was mine.”
