December 2, Monday

THE LATE morning sun did little to warm Detective Jack Terry's cup of coffee as we sat on the porch of the Whisper House. Dark circles under his eyes suggested he hadn't been sleeping well.

"The vandals are working out a deal," he said, staring into his cup. "Three hundred hours of community service."

"Seems fair." I pulled my sweater tighter against the chill. "And the Benson twins?"

"They've confessed to everything—Wayne's murder, the attempt on your life." He set his cup on the railing. "But they swear they know nothing about Rose's missing casket. And I believe them."

"Really? After everything they did?"

He nodded. "That's the thing about guilty people—once they start talking, they usually tell you everything. The twins are almost... proud of what they did. Say they were protecting their heritage."

Satan bleated from his pen, and Jack's eyes tracked over to him. "Funny thing about small towns. Secrets have a way of piling up, generation after generation, until no one remembers how they started."

"Like the feud between the families?"

"Exactly." He pulled out his ever-present notebook. "Serena used to talk about it in cryptic terms. Said her family dynamic was toxic—that's why she left."

My heart squeezed at the pain in his voice. "She was trying to protect herself."

"Yeah." He laughed bitterly. "Ironic, isn't it? She left Irving to escape the darkness in her family's past, only to..." He cleared his throat. "Maybe if she'd stayed, she'd still be alive."

I watched the big man struggle with his guilt, then he seemed to shake it off. "Birmingham PD is closing the vandalism case. They'll keep looking into Rose's disappearance, but..." He shrugged. "Cold cases have a way of staying cold."

He walked to his car, then turned back. "Take care, Ms. Vanguard."

I watched his sedan disappear down the rutted road, thinking about all the threads of love and loss that connected the people of Irving. And Rose... whatever had happened to her, wherever she was, her story seemed destined to remain unfinished.