Page 136 of Love Me Fearless

“And I’m sorry.” Miranda touches Vivian’s arm.

The contact makes Vivian jump and her face tenses. “It’s okay,” she says, even though something is clearly very wrong.

Everett steps back into the donut shop just as Vivian gets to her feet, slinging Mateo to her hip. “I need to go,” she says, gathering the bag of donut holes and her coffee in her free hand.

“You sure about that?” Everett asks, concern filling his eyes.

“I made a mistake.”

Everett puts his hands on his hips. “So you don’t want to file a report?”

“No.” Vivian hurries past Everett and slips through the door. Weboth watch her help Mateo into the backseat of her Volvo, then get behind the wheel.

“Tell me I’m not the only one confused here?” he asks.

I remember Mateo’s quiet question. “Whatever she’s scared of, I hope it hasn’t found her.”

Vivian’s brake lights come on and she backs slowly out of the parking stall.

“But if it has,” Everett says, watching her drive off, then locking eyes with me, “why do I get the feeling I’ll be the last to know about it?”

We say goodbye and part ways. I drive to the sheriff’s department storage locker so I can pull gear for tomorrow’s technical rescue class at Tumwater Gorge, my thoughts shifting from worry for Vivian to excitement for my plans to take Ava dancing tonight.

I’m counting carabiners and stacking static lines when my phone rings. The ringtone isn’t Ava’s or either of my sisters, so I go to silence it, but the caller ID flashing on the screen makes that impossible.

“Hey, Luke!” I lean back on the tailgate of the truck and wipe my brow.

“Hutchins, got a sec?” I expect to hear the muffled conversations and keyboard strokes of his office in D.C. in the background, but instead there’s the rush of cars passing, and a distant but urgent beeping, like from a backhoe.

“Sure. Uh, where are you?”

A gust of wind buffets the speaker. “Big Pine.”

“Wyoming?” It’s in the northwest corner of the state, outside of Yellowstone National Park.

“You remember finding Michelle Swanson’s remains in that mine shaft?”

A chill walks down my spine. “Wish I didn’t.”

“Right.” The backhoe’s beeping fades, replaced by the sound of him walking over gravel. “Forget it. I can pull up the files later.”

“Luke, what’s going on?”

“There’s something about this case…” A gust of wind fills the silence “…and I thought…but if you don’t wanna go back to that search, I completely understand. That was a rough time for you and Ava, and I forget?—”

“It’s okay, Luke,” I interrupt. “It just caught me off guard. How can I help?”

He releases a heavy sigh. “All right. Did you notice any jewelry on or near her remains?”

I close my eyes and revisit that rock shelf down in that mine. “It was pretty dark down there. The only thing I remember besides her bones was part of a shoe.”

“Okay,” Luke says with a huff. “What about Marin Lambert?”

This memory is definitely in my no-fly zone, but I try to work it from the edges. “Earrings. Little hoops.”

“Anything else?”

I coax another slow breath into my lungs. The image of Marin’s damp hair matted with… I shake my head to clear what comes into focus, but a detail fires. “Wait. Yeah. A gold necklace. With a key charm.”

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