Page 57 of The Keeper

“Welcome back, Sheriff,” Elayna said when she spotted him. “How was your trip?”

“Incredible,” Seth replied. “Springtime in Santa Fe is amazing.”

They’d driven to New Mexico to spend a week with Rueben’s family. Paloma, Rue’s abuela, celebrated her seventy-fifth birthday, and Rueben wanted to deliver her gift in person. The stunning rose and lily wall art Rueben had crafted from wrought iron brought tears to her eyes, and she’d clung to him for a long time, speaking rapid Spanish and caressing his face. Paloma was a tiny little spitfire with enough personality for a hundred people. Her influence on Rueben became immediately clear, and Seth adored her. She’d kept up a constant stream of chatter, telling him one story after another about Rueben. Seth didn’t think it was possible to love his man more than he already did, but he was so wrong.

“I can’t wait to go back for a visit,” he told Elayna. “What’s new around here?”

“I have something I want to tell you, but it can wait until you get settled in.” Her eyes widened, and she leaped to her feet. “One moment,” she said, then covered her mouth and hauled ass toward the bathroom.

Unmistakable sounds of retching carried down the hall, making him wince. Seth was pretty sure he knew what Elayna wanted to tell him but would let her do so at her own pace. He ducked into his office and spent the morning catching up on phone messages and emails. He stood up to get a cup of coffee when his intercom beeped. Seth picked up the extension without sitting back down.

“Shayne Abbott from the CBI is on the phone for you,” Elayna told him.

“Thank you.” Seth hadn’t talked with the agent for a few months and was curious if he had any updates on Natalie’s case. “Agent Abbott,” Seth said into the phone. “How are you?”

“I’m doing well, Sheriff Burke. I’m actually en route to Last Chance Creek right now.”

Seth’s hand tightened around the phone. Abbott wouldn’t make the trip unless something major had broken in the case. “Do you have a new lead in Natalie’s case?”

“I do,” Abbott said. “I finally found a person who was dishonest in their statements to the police.”

“Who?” Seth’s voice sounded like he’d been left in the desert for three years without water.

“I’d rather tell you this in person,” Abbott replied.

“Who?” Seth asked again.

Abbott didn’t answer right away, and Seth pictured the internal debate going on in the agent’s head.

“I won’t lose my shit and confront them,” Seth said. “Part of you must want to tell me if you called first. You must think the truth will land a blow.”

Abbott said two words that nearly drove Seth to his knees. He staggered to his chair and flopped onto it before he fell down.

“That can’t be. Are you sure?”

“Positive. I’ll explain everything when I get there. I’m forty-five minutes out, depending on traffic.”

Forty-five minutes felt like a lifetime as Seth’s brain tried to process what Abbott had told him. He wasn’t even sure he moved the entire time until his intercom went off again. Seth blinked and brought the room into focus, then picked up his phone. Elayna told him Abbott was there to see him, but her voice sounded tinny and distorted. The room felt off-kilter too. Seth asked Elayna to send Abbott back, and then he cycled through some deep breaths to clear his head and regain his equilibrium. Seth stood up and shook Abbott’s hand when he came through the door. Once they were alone again, Seth said, “Tell me.”

“I’ve spent the last several months tracking down the people who partied at the river with Ryan and Natalie and reinterviewed them. Nothing panned out at first, and I figured I’d have to rely on the DNA tests turning up something. But one of the witnesses, Sarah, came across a box of undeveloped film during a recent move to Denver. She had no idea when they were taken but decided to develop the pictures. She called me as soon as she got them back.” Abbott pulled out a series of photos from a file folder and passed them to Seth. Each picture featured the month, day, and year stamped on the corner.

Seth glanced up. “These are from the day Natalie was killed.” He returned his attention to the photos, and his heart squeezed painfully when he came across one of Natalie and Ryan smiling for the camera. He’d been a handsome kid with a rough edge that drew the girls in like moths to a flame.

“That’s a tight-knit group,” Abbott said. “Sarah could rattle off the names of everyone in the photos and the cars they drove, except for one person and one vehicle.”

Seth didn’t immediately understand the comment about the vehicles until he got to the photos at the back of the stack. Sarah had taken them in the pull-off area people used to access that part of the river. There was a broad, beach-like clearing on the other side of the woods that made it easy to swim, launch kayaks, and party. The dense trees along the perimeter provided lots of privacy for kids who wanted to sneak off and make out. Seth stopped at a picture of three smiling young women standing with their arms around each other. On the far right of the photo, partially out of frame, was a white VW Cabriolet. Seth dropped the photo like it burned him and met Abbott’s sympathetic gaze.

“Cynthia said she didn’t go to the river that day.” Seth’s voice sounded hollow and unrecognizable to his own ears. “She claimed she was babysitting her little brother while her parents worked.”

“Convertible cars aren’t common in a mountain town, so it was easy to locate the owner,” Abbott said.

“It was her sweet sixteen birthday gift from her parents,” Seth said.

Abbott shuffled the stack of pictures until he came to another one. “Is that Cynthia?”

Seth forced himself to look. Sure enough, another group photo captured the car in the background, with Cynthia walking toward it with a thunderous expression on her face. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“In twenty-five years, investigators had talked to Cynthia only twice. She’d been too distraught on their first interview to give much information and only wanted to point the blame toward Ryan Ulrich during the second. The investigators hadn’t viewed her as a viable suspect or a reliable witness, and they never circled back to her like they had with everyone else. You and I both know how consistent the interviewees have been over the years. We’ve had a few that could no longer remember things, but Cynthia is the only one we caught in a lie.”

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