“Roger wasn’t taking care of the place,” Tessa said.
Digging the key from his pocket, he walked up the wide front steps, remembering the time he had sailed down them on an old mattress destined for the dump. Kara had snickered. His mother looked horrified, as if someone had seen and would report back to Roger. She’d always lived in fear Roger would see beyond her beauty to the frightened young girl who’d moved out of her parents’ two-room house in search of love.
The steps creaked under their feet as they climbed to the porch. The old lock was rusted and stiff, but when he wiggled the key back and forth, the tumbler turned. The door begrudgingly swung open, letting in light that illuminated the dust dancing in the air.
He reached for the light switch, knowing from the attorney’s letter the electricity was paid until the end of the year. The dusty chandelier came to life, casting a weak light that couldn’t penetrate the dark, musty rooms. To his right was a large parlor, and to his left the formal dining room. Both sat bare now.
“Where’s the furniture?” Tessa asked.
“Roger told me when I saw him in June that he’d sold off most of it. Said he was simplifying his life.” Sharp hadn’t thought much of it. Hell, he’d always wondered how one man could use all this space. Now as his footsteps echoed in the emptiness, he realized how much Roger had lost.
Sharp had lost a sister. Roger a child. Both should have understood the other’s grief, but each was so wrapped up in misery, neither thought to reach out to the other.
Sharp climbed the center staircase, flipping on the upstairs lights as he moved. The carpet in the hallway had dulled, and the formerly colorful walls had faded.
With Tessa following silently, he paused at the first bedroom, which had been his. Turning the knob, he slowly opened the door to find it stripped bare.
He moved to the next room and hesitated.
“This was Kara’s room,” Tessa said. “I remember it.”
“Yes.” He turned the knob and switched on the light. The room remained furnished just as it had been the last time he’d seen her on the canopy bed, shooing him out so she could talk on the phone to one of her friends. Memories of that day flooded back.
“Dakota,” she’d growled at him as she sat up. “Would you butt out?”
He’d lingered, knowing it pissed her off more. Even at twenty-six he enjoyed riling her temper. “I thought you wanted to go running.”
“I do.”
He tapped his finger on his watch. “Daylight’s wasting.”
“I’m not a marine. Just go away. I’m talking to my friend Tessa.”
“You have five minutes.”
She’d tossed a pillow at him, but she would be downstairs in five minutes. They’d run for five miles, and though he’d slowed his pace for her sake, she did a fair job of keeping up with him.
Roger had not altered any detail in the room. Not a pillow, a picture, or the placement of her pens and papers on her desk. It was a memorial to the kid they’d both loved very much.
As Tessa hovered at the threshold, he moved to Kara’s desk and glanced at the notes she’d jotted over twelve years ago. He picked up a picture of the two of them taken on the dock at the local lake at sunset.
“Damn it.” He set the photo down.
Tessa approached and picked up the picture. “I’ve never seen this one before.”
“I never got a copy of the picture.”
Methodically he went through the drawers in the room as he would a crime scene.
“You should keep the picture.”
“It belongs here.”
“No, it belongs with you.”
He found a sketch pad in the drawer and thumbed through it. Most of the pictures were of landscapes. Sunsets. A bowl of fruit. No great artwork. And then toward the end he found the sketch of a doll. And next to the picture in Kara’s handwriting were the words Very funny.
“Have a look at this,” he said.
As she studied the image, a frown furrowed. “Someone she knew?”
“It had to be.” His gaze raked the room. “It never made sense to me that she would get in a car or leave the party with someone she didn’t know. She was too smart for that.”
“I agree.”
He searched the rest of the desk, but in the end, he found nothing that told him who would have killed his sister. His frustration growing, he saved the sketch pad for Andrews before slamming the drawer closed. “Let’s get out of here.”
He moved to take the picture from Tessa and place it back on the desk.
“You need to keep this,” she said.
“I can’t look at it every day, knowing I failed her.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t fail her. This will be a reminder that you’ll figure this out.”
“No.”
“If you don’t want it now, let me hold on to it until you’re ready.”
“Suit yourself.” He turned from the room, moving quickly, needing fresh air.
She followed and found him on the front porch, where the morning sun would warm him and the fresh air wasn’t tainted with musty scents that only reminded him of loss.
As they stood in silence, a dented old pickup truck pulled up in the circular driveway behind his car. A younger man dressed in jeans, a clean black T-shirt, and work boots got out of the truck.
Sharp moved down the porch steps. “Henry Jones, right? Terrance’s cousin.”
“That’s right.”
“What’re you doing here, Mr. Jones?”
“Here to check out the property. My dad and I work with Mr. Benson’s lawyer, Donna Conner. When a property is empty or needs tending, she calls us. The place yours now?”
Sharp glanced at the still, dark house. “I don’t know. Just found out it’s mine.”
Henry slid a hand in his pocket and rattled change. “Lots of good memories in this house. My sister used to play with Roger’s daughter.”
The smallness of this community never failed to shock him. Tessa came to his side, and he took comfort having her close. “You knew Kara?”
“I did. Nice kid. A little spoiled, but nice.” Henry shifted his stance. “You make any progress on Terrance’s case?”
He never made promises to a family when it came to finding a killer. He had always stuck to that rule. But not now. He’d find this son of a bitch. “I’ll find him.”
Henry nodded. “Thank you.”
Sharp and Tessa moved toward his car. He found himself irritated and pissed off for no other reason than this near stranger had been here when Kara had been laid to rest and he had not.
“You’ll figure it out,” Tessa said.
“You sound so sure.”
“Damn straight.”
He’d forgotten how she could steady him and pull him back from the darkness. He leaned over and kissed her. She responded immediately, grabbing his lapel and pulling him toward her. He wanted to find a quiet spot. Strip her. Be inside her. His phone buzzed with a text. At first, he ignored it, but the damn phone buzzed with a second text.
“I have to check this.” The words traveled past his lips on a sigh.
She moistened her lips. “It’s okay.”