Page 76 of Obsession

“We uncovered a...” She swallowed. “A ring ...”

Sam finished the sentence for her. “A man’s 2012 Mississippi State class ring.”

Color drained from her dad’s face. “You think it was Ryan’s.”

“It looks like it, but it hasn’t been confirmed officially yet,” Emma said, her voice breaking. “RTW was engraved on the inside. And I gave Sheriff Rawlings a DNA sample today to compare to the DNA in the bone we found.”

“I plan to check with the university and the ring company tomorrow,” Sam added.

“There won’t be two people with those initials graduating from State in 2012.” Her dad leaned back, his body sagging in the chair. “I’ve known all along this day would come.”

Emma rubbed her forehead. What if it wasn’t Ryan? Was it wrong to destroy her dad’s hope that his son was still alive? Would this be yet another regret she’d have to live with? “Maybe we shouldn’t have told you.”

“No. You did right,” he said.

“I feel so responsible,” Emma said.

“Why? Your brother made his own choices.” A frown creased his brow. “You haven’t been blaming yourself, have you?”

“No. Yes...” She slumped in the chair. If only she hadn’t told him ... “I don’t know. If I’d just stayed with him that night ...”

“You did nothing wrong. You had a migraine and had no way of knowing what was going to happen after you left.”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

“Emma, honey, don’t tell me you’ve lived with guilt all these years.”

She looked up at him, and something must have shown in her face.

He groaned. “I should have realized you felt that way. Honey, you have to put this behind you and move forward.”

“How?”

Her dad was quiet a minute. “The way I did.”

“You felt guilty?” she asked. “Why?”

“For the same reason—I kept thinking if I’d gone with you after we left the restaurant, he’d still be here.”

Ryan’s disappearance had affected each one of them. “How do you deal with it?”

“I’ve accepted that I can’t change history—just like you can’t unscramble eggs. And I’ve come to understand that the choice to not go with you two that night wasn’t the wrong choice. I had to work the next day. You and Ryan were twenty-one, old enough to fly on your own.” He stood and took his cup to the coffeepot. Once he filled his cup, he turned back to them. “And lastly, I took it to God and came to realize that he was big enough to carry it. But it didn’t happen overnight.”

How she envied the peace in her dad’s face and in his voice.

“I’ve tried to tell Emma that,” Sam said. He’d been quiet until now.

She turned to him. “How about you? You said you were still struggling with your decision to leave the Hideaway.”

“You felt responsible for my son?” her dad asked. “Why?”

“I’m afraid that’s my fault.” Heat flushed Emma’s face. Sam might not have felt that responsibility if she hadn’t pushed it on him. “I should never have asked you to stay with Ryan. And I shouldn’t have gotten angry when you made the choice to help your sister.”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he took a deep breath. “As long as we’re confessing—”

“Look, I think we’ve beaten this rug long enough,” her dad said. “We need to switch gears and start looking for whoever killed Ryan, if that was his body buried at Mount Locust. And if it’s not, then we need to track him down wherever he is, once and for all.”

Her dad was right, but first she wanted to make sure Sam understood none of this was his fault. She turned to face him, her heart hurting at the sadness his eyes bore. “You did nothing wrong that night. I was wrong to make you think you did.”

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